The Sex Panther: Survival of the Fittest

You know, I’m getting really excited over some of the comic bloggers that are coming on strong of late. I never really gave many shits about the whole comic blog thing because to me it always seemed like a forum for people to post other people’s opinions in the hopes of getting jerked off. No-one really listened because no-one was really saying much worth paying attention to. It was all the same yada-yada (with obvious notable exceptions - if you don't think you are one than you're probably not). Same reviews, same commentary, same features, same format. Incestuous, you can say. But between sites like Dave’s Long Box, Focused Totality and Quality Control you have people who are saying something honest and original and doing it well. With fucking passion. Fuck, Filing Cabinet of the Damned is comic book humor done right but also mixed in with the occasional personal touch that the average comic reader can relate to. These guys should be writers and editors and comic-book know-it-alls. They’re entertaining and thought provoking.

I don’t claim to be a comic blogger – I just use that excuse to get people to read stories about me pissing all over myself or misusing sex toys – but with this next-generation of comic bloggers coming out I feel like an asshole for even somewhat claiming a small portion of the comic blog-o-thing-a-ma-whatever-the-fuck. And while I’m at it Buzzscope is the best fucking comic site ever created. Original columns with substance and dedicated to doing more than lovingly stroking a fanboy’s prostate (or oogle-popping as we called it in college – and by “we” I mean “I”).

I don’t know, I tend to hate comics more often than like them but sometimes I just get excited – it’s the community, you know? These guys get me excited. Fucking kudos.

Story time…

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As a reminder, all stories this week are raunchy. It’s one of those weeks. I needed to cut loose. They’re not sexy. They will get you off. You will not be masturbating while reading the following words. They are often disgusting, will likely paint me as an asshole – but you will laugh if you have a sense of humor. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea than you can go read Family Circus.

In the wild, the panther is a killing machine. He carves out his domain in the jungle and thoroughly annihilates anyone who has the nerve to cross him. He takes what he wants and goes unchecked. He’s evolution personified.

The Sex Panther is the same way – when he’s getting down to business there is next to nothing that can stop him. The way he sees it – just sort of do what you have to now and see how it all plays out afterwards.

Early lady friend, high school years – back when you know nothing and do anything. Some girls are moaners, some are silent partners – some like to crack the occasional joke – this one was a talker. I don’t think she liked sex much – she likely saw it as something she had to do – but things like that don’t throw dudes off of their game in high school.

One evening we were at a typical high school party, had a few drinks, got a little inebriated and started getting it on in my friend’s parent’s bedroom. She started talking about some mundane thing – television or some shit – I swear to you it’s the most surreal experience a guy can go through. You’re huffing it, sweating, feeling good – you feel like your boy is going to shoot off at any moment – and she starts talking about Seinfeld or some shit.

It might have been the alcohol, it might have been the fact that I was some idiot kid – it might have been the fact that I really didn’t appreciate how fucked up the situation is when a girl talks during sex – but I told her, “Jesus CHRIST. Shut. The FUCK. Up.”

I was mad. I must have had the vein going and the eyes bulging and the spit flying. She does, indeed, shut the fuck up. For like two seconds. Then she starts crying.

Do you know that game you play when your friend asks you, “What would you do if you’re having sex and the girl has a heart-attack? Dead. Would you finish?” And you answer you’d stop whereas deep down you know you’d finish. I think I proved I would finish that day because not stopping while a girl is crying is a lot worse than not stopping when she dies.

I remember the thought process. I was like, “Shit. She’s crying. I’m almost done – I can pretend I don’t notice.”

I can pretend I don’t notice.

Along with that theory came the name to speed up. Along with the need to speed up came added pressure. I must have gone on for an additional three or four minutes while she laid there and cried. It certainly wasn’t my finest hour – thankfully I can chalk it up to being a stupid kid.

Now, that may sound bad – some of you may be saying that it doesn’t get much worse than that.

When I finished (and I did finish), I pulled out, got dressed and asked her if she wanted to be alone because SHE LOOKED UPSET. When she didn’t answer, I quietly left her crying and naked in my friend’s parent’s bedroom.

I’m pretty sure that was the last time we had sex – but I’m sure that’s not a surprise to anyone.

Sex Panther. Hear me roar.

The Sex Panther: Challenging the Mind

The Sex Panther: Challenging the Mind

I ask all my readers to please not insult the people who link to me. Thank you. (Courtesy of aspiring writer Hero Pierrot). Oh, yeah – Sean Maher thinks I’m ugly. Which is fine because I don’t want to fuck him anyway.

Elk’s Run #6 is in Previews. I know, I know…where’s number 4? Josh says:

Thanks to all of you guys sticking on Elk's Run. The printing delay is still being worked out, and hopefully issue 4 will be out very soon, with issue 5 directly on its heels. These issues have been done on our end for literally months, and it's just been a pain getting our new publisher and printer on the same page. Hopefully, it's all squared away and the books on its way soon.

Stick with it, it's worth it. Here's a b+w page or two from issue 6 as proof.

I’d like to add: No comment.

If you think the Colts look good this season you should have seen them last night on my new HDTV. Suckers.

Anyway, let’s just get to the fucking story, aye?

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As a reminder - this week's stories are raunchy. However, they are not sexy. You will not be turned on. You will be disgusted. You will laugh if you have a sense of humor. Proceed.

Every feline needs to play with toys in order to stay mentally sharp – to “Challenge the Mind”, as it were. For the Sex Panther this need for toys is no different – without the introduction of toys the Sex Panther grows bored, unchallenged – the Sex Panther feels like a major part of his felinity is being neglected.

I’ve told you all about the first vibrator I purchased and how I used it for prop comedy. The second vibrator, well…

A certain someone thought it would be fun to play with one but this someone didn’t want to go into the sex shop so she tasked me to do it since I have no shame. Now, not much thought was really put into this purchase. You see – this certain someone was a tiny girl and if I was smart I would have gotten a tiny dildo. My mind warped with porno, much like it always is, I buy this GARGANTUAN realistic dong – it made my dick look like a pencil. No amount of lubrication could get this unholy monstrosity in. I wasn’t tasked to go sex toy shopping by myself anymore.

Over the years and with several different girls I’ve experimented with a variety of toys and 90% of the time things didn’t quite work out the way I had planned. Part of the problem was because I was a poor college student – I remember the time I purchased French Ticklers which were essentially condoms with these rubber finger-puppet looking things on the end. They were neither French nor did they tickle but they cost me a buck each.

Another problem is the learning curve associated with distinguishing novelty items from actual sexy toys. You see, edible underwear is the kind of thing you give to someone as a joke for their 21st birthday. Do you know what it looks like when you actually try to use a pair of edible undies that are designed to look and taste like chocolate? It looks like she shat the bed. How’s that for hot?

Another problem is the learning curve associated with how things work. Like when she wants vaginal beads and you get anal beads because they’re cheaper – it’s not like they say exactly what they are on the package. So these things roughly look like grapes and get lost in the pussy while you do the finger/munch combo meal. There’s nothing sexier than spending ten minutes feeling around for a plastic tab to grab on to so you can yank the beads out.

And then there were the attempts at improvised toys. Like when you go to the shop to get some kind of ties only to discover that they’re ridiculously expensive. So instead of using a shirt to tie your lover down you decide to use bungee-cord since she’ll have some extra freedom of movement. Two minutes into it the cord is cutting into her wrists and giving her severe rope-burn.

What’s funny is, as I write this, I’m realizing that my mistakes cause discomfort and pain for my partner, not me. That’s awesome.

Like the time I got scented lube and thought it was flavored lube. Would you like to taste watermelon while you go down? Too bad – it tastes like Vaseline.

But the all time greatest fuck-up, the one that I wish I was making up and you might think I am because it’s too perfect, came at the expense of a simple blindfold.

My dorm room junior year was an RA single – bed on the end right next to my desk with a makeshift shelf above the desk, the kind that just rests on some supports. I got to the bathroom and come back to find my lady friend at the time lying on my bed, blindfolded and naked, with a devious smile on her face. I make my way towards the bed while taking off my clothes, excited to be able to take part in the “surprise” thing, get tripped up by my own pants while I take them off, start to fall and reach out to grab something to keep me upright.

And I grab my shelf.

And it falls off the wall.

And whereas most of the stuff falls on the floor my fucking stapler cracks my lady friend in the forehead while she’s blindfolded.

SURPRISE!

Sex Panther, hear me roar.

Sex Panther: The Young Cub

We have a fun week ahead – I sort of need to unwind a bit and write some really funny shit. This week is not for the prudish or the humorless. But first, a couple of things I’d like to talk about. For starters:


Crossed 50k words this weekend. Story isn’t done but at least I made the goal. Might have it finished by the end of the month, might not, but just hitting the 50k was something amazing. Especially when Friday my living room, well, I'll let the pictures talk:





A quick question. Every year Robin and I do this program where a poor family sends us their Christmas list and we buy all of their presents. It’s usually standard stuff – clothes, some video games, toys, sheets – stuff like that. We’d usually throw in some gift cards to the local supermarket as well and some stuff for the mother that she didn’t ask for, the mothers usually ask for clothes so we try to get them something special that they wouldn’t feel right asking for. Anyway, this year one of the girls on our list is fifteen years old and she wants a mixer for DJ equipment. I think that’s the coolest fucking thing imaginable but I know nothing about DJ equipment. She didn’t give me a model number or anything so I need to find a good mixer that’s not top of the line, she’s a fifteen year old girl and I can only imagine she’s just starting out, but also won’t break within a year. Does anyone know anything or anyone that can help me?

And finally – if you’re a dude and looking for a sweet-ass Christmas gift for your lady I highly suggest you check out Novica. If I may make further suggestions – go for one of their mirrors or jewelry items. They’re affordable and the ladies, so far, seem to love them. I get no referral bonus; I’m just trying to get you laid this holiday season.

All right – story time, this should be fun…

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My first time masturbating I had no idea what to expect. It was dark in my room – about one minute into it I freak out – I honestly thought I ripped my dick off and was bleeding profusely. I jump off my bed and turn on my lights to discover that the liquid wasn’t blood – it was pus. There was this girl on our block we all had a crush on, she was in nursing school. She was friendly, approachable – always sitting on her stoop. The kids in the neighborhood would always ask her questions about medical kind of shit – when you’re a kid and something happens to your body that you’re not sure is normal, you don’t’ go running to your parents or your doctor – you don’t go running to your friends. At least we didn’t. We went running to the cute girl in nursing school. We always did the, “my friend…” technique. I try to do the “my friend wants to know” the day after my little masturbation fright and asked her if he should see a doctor because there’s pus coming out of, you know, his private parts. She turns bright red, covers her mouth to hide her laughter and tells me my friend will be fine. I turn bright red and run away.

The first girl I made out with had braces. I remember having this uncontrollable urge to lick them this one time because I wondered if they tasted metallic. I never had braces, despite the fact that my dentist always suggested I get them. I didn’t think she would even notice. I remember stoking myself up – trying to get my mind in the right place – and then, when I pulled away, I dragged my tongue across her braces. She looks at me and asks me, “Did you just lick my teeth?”

Back to the nursing student. My friend Bobby got it in his head that the first girl I made out with, who I’ve talked about before (she was 16 and I was 11, remember?), was doing heroin. She had a Band-Aid on the underside of her elbow and he was convinced that was what heroin addicts did. From there, the logical conclusion was that she had AIDS and that was a real fucking fright for me. So here we are, eleven year old kids, asking our nursing student neighbor if you can get AIDS from making out with a heroin addict. I’m surprised that girl hasn’t released a book about us kids yet, the shit we must have asked her.

The first time I went down on a girl I spent about ten minutes licking her pussy hair all the while wondering why she wasn’t moving or making any noise – it was like licking a hairy rock. After a while I just stopped and pulled the hair out of my mouth - she didn’t say anything about it how it felt so I assumed I did it wrong. That night I put some of my porno on and realized the people where licking closer to the hole. It took me a couple of more tries to find the clit but it wasn’t with that first girl. Once I got the hang of it, I started going down on anybody who’d let me. I now feel like I’m to going down what ninjas are to assassinations.

My first time getting head – or my first attempt at getting head – was in Prospect Park on a cold-ass day. The weather combined with my nervousness over getting head combined with my nervousness of lying in the grass of a public park kept my dick nice and flaccid. What should have been my first blowjob turned into my first apology and lord knows there were plenty of those to follow.

My second attempt at getting head was from a girl that used way too much teeth. She’d go down on me and scrape my dick up – carve fucking totems into it. It took several attempts for me to finally get into it – one day I actually asked her if she could lay off the teeth and that day she actually got me off – my first time going to completion with a girl. It was in the hallway of the building I grew up in – on the floor right near the entrance of our backyard – while a bunch of my friends grilled hamburgers on the other side. High School – nothing like it.

My first time having sex I didn’t use a condom. She was on the pill and it was both of our first times, technically, and I didn’t really work too well with a condom, it turns out. After several failed attempts at using one I brought home a pack and tried to put them on without being under pressure – didn’t really work. So after many frustrating attempts we just said fuck it and went raw dog. I lasted about ten seconds. Second time having sex we did use a condom – I lasted about eight seconds. We decided to just leave the condom out of it. One day she says we should use a condom again. A month later she breaks up with me. A week later I find out she was cheating on me. I learned that the use of a condom is a good indicator of if you’re girlfriend is cheating on you. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn that lesson until the second time it happened.

For the next week you’re going to be hearing the true confessions of a Sex Panther. You’ll get it all – the injuries, the failed attempts at trying something new, excruciating tales of making women cry in bed, lessons learned the hard way. By the time next Friday rolls around you’re going to want to have sex with me just so you can experience first hand how bad a panther is at having sex.

I’m the Sex Panther – hear me roar.

And then hear me apologize.

The Peanut Gallery: Sam

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving. I had a mighty fine meal, myself.

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I almost feel bad making fun of Sam now because he turned out to be a cool kid. I saw him recently at a party and he wasn’t the same Sam from high school. He was working on a highly rated television show at the time, had some fun stories and just made for a good night. So, I almost feel bad making fun of Sam.

Almost.

Sam was one of the first dudes I met in high school. He lived in our neighborhood but I never really knew him before. G and the rest of the crew knew him, there was some weird connection between a gun club those guys belonged to – friend of a friend kind of stuff. But Sam went to a different elementary school and junior high so I never even knew he existed until G introduced me.

You see, Sam’s father picked him up after school everyday. It would normally take us an hour to get home from school by way of bus and train – this ride made Sam a precious commodity and we instantly became buddy-buddy with him. G’s pops would sometime take us to school in the mornings and we’d get an occasional ride home from Alex’s father but this shit was constant ride home.

I’m realizing now that I’m probably going to make fun of Sam’s father more than Sam. I think our negativity towards Sam stemmed from his father’s…eccentricities. We noticed them early, for instance he refused to take the highway home. Taking the highway was easily a twenty-minute trip. Taking the streets was closer to 45 minutes. But he liked the streets, they were calming, so he took the streets. While playing really boring talk radio. But we stuck it out.

He also dropped us all off in front of his house. Now, this was fine, I guess – but Sam’s house was about ¾ mile from our houses. So we had to walk a bit. You’d think after taking his sweet-ass time getting home taking the streets he would take the two minute detour and drop us off a little closer to our houses. But no, he dropped us off and then went off to park the car. Whatever.

There was this kid Andrew we started taking home as well. Andrew lived in a different neighborhood, it was about a ten minute detour. Andrew got dropped off at his door. We didn’t complain, it was still better than the bus and train, so we stuck it out.

Then one day we get to the pick-up spot and find not only Andrew in the car but two other kids who never rode home with us before and happened to live in Andrew’s neighborhood. Sam’s father tells us, “Oh, sorry, we don’t have room for you guys anymore.”

They didn’t have room for us anymore, obviously. Despite the fact that we were his son’s friends and we lived in the same fucking neighborhood as him there wasn’t room for us anymore. Homeboy peels out, leaving us standing around with our dicks in our hands and forced to hop on the bus home.

Needless to say we stopped hanging out with Sam after that. He became the butt of many a joke for quite some time. We started integrating him back into the crew senior year or so but I never really liked him.

After the whole carpool thing I’d always see his father on the streets and at first I’d wave to him or say “hi” but the father wouldn’t even look at me. I never really got it, was never really explained exactly what the fuck happened there.

The Peanut Gallery – Steph

There’s no-one in town and Robin and I wanted to get out for a bit so we went to a local bar that had this play for fun poker tournament. Robin got second place and a seat at the regional poker tournament. This Thanksgiving I’m thankful for the fact that my girlfriend rocks.

A little novel update that I found funny – one of my characters is going to switch race mid-story. I’ll go back and change it in the second draft but for the sake of doing the first draft in a month I just need to plough through. I realized he works better as a black man. There’s also a character I talked about in the first chapter that I never brought back in and I have to do it, I think. Not sure if I’m going to do it now or just put him in the second draft. It’s funny how much shit changes when you finally find your story.

Hope you’re all having a good Thanksgiving.
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Steph was my homegirl throughout junior and senior year. She was an RA with me, 9th floor west tower (I was 4th floor west tower, us “westies” kept it tight). She was Massachusetts personified. Cute looking girl, heavy-ass accent, addicted to shopping, catholic and grew up in some suburb that only people from Massachusetts can pronounce properly like Worchester (Whist-ah) or Peabody (Pea-biddy).

There was always a little physical-attraction there for me, a manageable one, mainly because she was a) hot and b) fun which is really all I need. But it never really surfaced, no awkward drunk moments where I told her I loved her or anything stupid like that (although I did let out a HUMONGOUS drunken fart in front of her once). She was just a cool chick.

We all kind of dug her like that, we would talk about it when she wasn’t around, about how she was the kind of girl you’re perfectly OK being friends with but given the chance you’d go Al Green on her.

She had some fun quirks. She was addicted to Fluff, for starters. This girl was wicked fit, always working out, always jogging. I love to jog and I went jogging one day with her and she dusted me as if I was crawling on my belly. She ate salads, drank her water – stayed away from the excessive junk food. Despite all of this, Steph would eat a jar of fluff in one sitting. No peanut butter, no bread, no banana – just a spoon and a jar of fluff – she’d put it down within a half-hour and not even feel guilty about it.

When I stole a tub of fluff from the dining hall it had to be the happiest moment of her life. She’d invite me up to her room to watch a movie just so I’d bring the fluff with me. She’d stuff her face with spoonfuls of fluff while we watched our movie; if I didn’t pull it away from her she’d likely eat the whole thing.

I was more of a fluffanutter kind of guy. So I’d spoon the fluff on some bread and occasionally redip the spoon. Because of this, an accumulation of stale breadcrumbs begin to gather in the tub of fluff. I remember one day, sitting with this tub of old, crumb filled tub of fluff and telling Steph that we should likely throw it out, it was kind of gross. She resisted like you wouldn’t believe, claiming we can just scrape off the top and it’ll be as good as new.

She was also a good RA, probably one of the better ones in Towers if not the best. And I mean good as in fair, responsible and rule-abiding, not good as in letting her residents get away with everything (like I did). As a result, she had residents who didn’t jive with her too much whereas mine built shrines to me. It made the job tough for her; she was stressed out about it from time to time (and obviously used her stress as an excuse to get her hands on my tub of fluff).

It didn’t help that her lifestyle didn’t jive with a lot of college kids. She wasn’t really a valley girl but she was basically a J. Crew commercial. In college we were all “seize the day, fuck Republicans” style and Steph was more…well…more me and my friends now. She thought it was adorable that her floor was 9-West, for instance, and made welcome signs for her residents that were shaped like shoes (for those whose girlfriends don’t take them shoe shopping, 9 West is a shoe store). She thought it was the coolest thing in the world, a good share of her residents likely thought she was a slave to capitalist pigs.

It’s actually amazing that we got along so well – she really was from a different world. She was the girl I made fun of in High School, no doubt. But her sweetness and energy shone through and it didn’t take long to realize she wasn’t your typical shopgirl (much like Robin who, when we recently moved, donated about three-quarters of her wardrobe to Goodwill and still can’t fit all of her shit into the walk-in-closet I let her have all to herself when we moved in – my closet’s in the fucking office).

Even Robin didn’t really get why I liked her so much. Robin liked her fine but Steph was definitely an anomaly when compared to the rest of my friends. Robin knows I had a wicked crush on her and she attributed my feelings towards Steph on the crush – truth was, though, she was just cool as shit. There was no-one else I would have rather hung with during junior year.

Except for Pat Sajak because that would have been awesome.

The Peanut Gallery – James

The Peanut Gallery – James

I grow tired. Seriously. I’m getting to the point where I need a break from writing. November is almost over, two months of the Moose left, eight days of NaNoWriMoing left. Then I’m not going to write anything for like a week. I’m just burning out. The novel’s falling apart, I expected that to happen. I deviated from the original course, inserted entire characters, changed around the ending – so many threads I tried to hold onto but lost – it’s becoming obvious that I’m doing a fair amount of explaining why I’m deviating from the planned course, my character’s voice got really big all of a sudden. In case you’re one of the poor bastards reading this and you have no idea what’s going on lately – he actually loves her, you see, but he can never fess up to it – that, in turn, is his own complex. He has his own way of keeping her close and that’s by introducing problems into his life that cause him to delay what her considers to be his grand plan which is, admittedly, also very weak right now. It’s buried there; it’ll come out more in the second draft. But I think it’s shaping up to be a pretty decent first draft, especially since I’ll have written it in a month. It’s missing a lot, though – a lot of things didn’t come across the way I wanted them to because I’m just writing it too damn fast. I look back at some of the language and I cringe, as well, much like when I look back at earlier MITC stories. It’s moving along, though – moving along. I just want it all to end.

On a different note I got invited to do a back-up story in someone’s soon to be released mini-series. I don’t want to talk about it yet because I still need to pitch some ideas, get the thing drawn and the book still needs to actually be printed. I’m just excited because this is the first time someone invited me to do something for their book without me soliciting them first or without them asking for money. And do you know why? Because I’m on course to right 240,000 words this year between this website and the NaNo, bitch! And, like, 130,000 of those words are good!

Plus I’m free advertising, just by being a loud-mouthed son-of-a-bitch. My buddy Jacob Warrenfeltz from the DC Conspiracy is drawing it as of now.
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I’m a pretty accepting guy. I’ve had friends from all walks of life – every religion, lifestyle, ethnicity and economic background. I even had some asshole friends although they’re special circumstances. But I never really discriminate – I give everyone a fair shake. Robin used to be amazed about how I would be able to walk from point A to point B on campus and not only say “hey” to more than 50% of the people we passed but how the demographic would vary from Goths to athletes to Muslims to Orthodox Jews. And the thing is, I just liked all of them – I never became friendly with someone because I felt like I had to, I became friendly with people because I liked them.

Except James. I became friendly with James because when he finally flipped out and shot up our school I wanted him to spare me.

Again – I don’t discriminate based on physical appearances. James was the guy that when you looked at his picture in the yearbook you instantly think Columbine. Long greasy black hair, oily skin, always wore dirty black clothes (a bit on the rank side) and a worn and tattered black trench-coat. Again, nothing wrong with that if that’s your thing. But when you couple it with the fact that he was fucking nuts – it was a bit scary.

He was probably a couple of fries short of the Happy Meal, that’s for sure. Stared into space a lot, didn’t comprehend much, occasionally decided to just downright ignore you and pretend you didn’t exist. He’d have this violent streak that would come out of left-field. Like when I went to a Depeche Mode concert junior year and decided to tell him I was going. He decided to tell me that he hopes their plane crashes because ever since they went mainstream all he can think about is their burning flesh.

Melodramatic, true. Fucking nuts, also true.

When I saw him in class the week after the concert he’d ask me “So. How was the fucking concert?” in such a way you would swear that me going to the concert was the equivalent (if not worse) of me anally raping his dog.

But I kept him close, I was always nice to him – invited him into our study groups despite the protests from everyone else (even though he never really showed up). When he did it was never fun, he’d hang over your shoulder and watch how you did the work, occasionally asking questions and melting your face off with his corrosive breath of death.

I didn’t like him, didn’t trust him and was honestly scared of him. But, I had to see him almost everyday (same major) and knew that when he flipped out and killed people there was a good chance it would be in one of my classes. I had this whole scenario in my head that consisted of him brandishing Uzis and a fucking katana, taking out my Fluid Dynamics class, turning to me and saying, “It’s finished” before blowing his fucking brains out. And as I stood there amidst the bullet-ridden bodies of my friends, I thank God for making me so tolerable of that greasy freak of nature, go home and get pity-sex from my lady.

The Peanut Gallery: Nando and Gieke

The Peanut Gallery: Nando and Gieke

My TV won’t be here until Friday – Best Buy fucked up as usual. YAY!

Comic World News is giving away free Elk’s Run Bumper Editions as is Mark Fossen. Just go to the sites, follow the instructions and you can get you some free Elk’s Run. Here’s a peek at issue 6 that doesn’t give away much of anything but gives you an idea of what Noel’s doing for this issue – it’s fucking sweet:


Also, there’s a review of the Counter Culture Festival up that made my day – it’s nice to see all the planning and preparation paid off.

Story time…

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Nando and Gieke guys were the neighborhood’s equivalent of “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. They were cousins that lived around the corner on Columbia Street – I don’t really remember them from the younger, younger years so I assume they weren’t there until later on. In the teenage years they sort of popped in and out of my life, sometimes as friends and sometimes as…not…friends.

Gieke was the one I never really liked – the kid just had such an evil streak to him. You never knew what to expect, he was either going to be cool hanging out with you or power-trip and get all tough. Sometimes we’d play some handball and everything will be fine. But when Nick confronted me about allegedly stealing his tag (he claimed that he was always Maze), Gieke was right there with Nick, ready to kick my ass when the signal was given.

It never got that far, however, because Nando calmed Nick down.

Nando was always a good kid, quite but funny – he was always the dude that held Gieke at bay. He wouldn’t hang around as much, I seem to remember him having a different set of friends from another neighborhood, but when he was around it was usually with Gieke. He was just a good dude, everyone liked to hang around with him. He didn’t get into trouble, didn’t like to fight – hung out with some of the wrongs cats (like Nick) – but for the most part he was chill.

Gieke always seemed to take issue with my reluctance to get into a bad situation. The gang fight, for starters. When Nick stole a car and invited me to go to the Red Hook Pool with them I declined – Gieke was the one that told me to “Stop being a pussy.” (In retrospect, I sort of feel like if I was to go with them something really shitty was going to happen to me – at the time Nick was growing cold towards me and Gieke was already a douche.) But Nando was with them and that made me feel comfortable, Nando wouldn’t let any bad shit happen to me.

One year we were hanging out for Halloween. It was David, Gieke, Nando and I. We had some eggs but I didn’t want to go out egging, this was when Halloween was bad and my ass was the definition of “target”. We just sort of hung out for a while, David eventually decided to go in and I wanted to go home as well and let Gieke and Nando do their thing.

When decided to walk me home I realized something was up. But Nando was there, everything was going to be all good.

We get to my apartment and I walk up the stoop, Nando and Gieke are standing at the bottom of the stoop, staring at me, hands behind their backs. I was anxious, obviously, but Nando was there – everything was going to be all good.

I open my front door and the eggs start to fly. I manage to get inside and close the door after only taking a few shots. I hear my mom yelling out the window as Nando and Gieke run off. I honestly crumpled down in my hallway and could do nothing but try not to cry (partly because I thought I had Nair in my fucking eye or some shit - nothing scarrier than getting egged in Brooklyn during that time) – that was tough, you know? These guys were supposedly friends, at least Nando was. That was some hard shit right there.

Explaining to my mom what happened was a bitch. “But I thought they were your friends?” Not fun.

Nando and I were downgraded to “acquaintances” after that, I have no idea what happened to him. Gieke was downgraded to “Big fucking douche” and I kept track of his life like I do all “big fucking douches” I ran into over the years.

He married knocked up his cousin-by-marriage and married her. This chick was easily 250-pounds and about as attractive as an asshole that was wiped with razor wire. Obviously, I smile every time I think of that.

The Best Weekend Ever? And The Peanut Gallery: Mormon Josh

The Best Weekend Ever? And The Peanut Gallery: Mormon Josh

Robin and I went out for some Fondue at this hoity-toity place she likes for dinner, followed it up with “Walk the Line” which was an enjoyable flick. I’ve been a fan of Cash since senior year in college, I was a bit of a late bloomer, and I’ve been excited about this flick for some time. It wasn’t perfect but was worth it for the music alone. Saturday I went out to get a new camera but instead got a 42” plasma HDTV, Philips – the one with that Ambient Light technology thing. So, yeah, Super Bowl at my place this year. Went to Silver Diner and spent about four hours there writing, put down about 5,000 words for the novel (up to 38,000 words - over the past six days I got back on track by writing around 18,000 words). We watched the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake which was horrible so I played online poker while it was on and won first place in a 45 man tournament. Slept in on Sunday, got brunch at Mango Mike’s, took the dog out to Roosevelt Island, watched some football while eating this fantastic Swiss cheese coupled with this amazing salami, got some more writing done and did a little reading (caught up on my comics by reading Jonah Hex and Loveless, started reading the first Losers trade as well).

Now, I talked to no-one but Robin all weekend. Regardless, I think this might be one of the best weekends ever. Do you know the ones when you just do whatever the fuck you want (including buying a TV that’s worth more then your car)? That was this weekend – whatever the fuck I wanted to do.

Now I just need to pay my bills.

___________________

I’ve talked about Mormon Josh several times, but I think we should do the definitive Josh post.

Josh was, obviously, Mormon. Freshman year he roomed with Max who was, obviously, a big friggin stoner. I think it’s safe to say Max supplied me with 95% of my dope in college – the dude just knew where to get it. Josh and Max got along for the most part, mainly because Josh wasn’t allowed to show anger or aggression and Max was nice enough not to fuck with Josh’s lifestyle too much.

There was this one fight, however, which came during Josh’s “destruction”.

Josh started dating this chick Emily. She was nice enough, pretty, Mormon so she didn’t put out (i.e. not my kind of girl but good for Josh). The two of them were obviously getting frustrated about the fact that this John Smith dude’s teachings weren’t really jiving with their raging hormones and college’s influence. They started drinking at some point and Josh was an angry drunk, mainly because he felt like he was going to hell every time he touched the sauce.

He got into a huge fight one night with Max. He was drunk, yelling – I don’t even know what it was about but he dude totally hulked. He ended up storming off; Max didn’t want to talk about it when we asked him what was up. Josh didn’t get drunk much after that, Emily ended up transferring to some school in Utah, I believe.

Josh was just – too nice, a bit gullible. Do you know those people that come up to you on the street and give you the song and dance about their car being broken down and their kids are in it and they have no cash? Josh gave one of those guys two-hundred bucks. When he told us that story, we tried to tell him he got scammed, but he didn’t really want to believe it. A couple of days later he tells me, “I’ve been thinking about it and I think I was scammed.” He was embarrassed about it and we didn’t really talk much about it. He sort of came to the conclusion that “Either way, I did the right thing.” And that was Josh.

When Emily left, he was pretty heartbroken. He got back into his religion more, went straight-edge again. Most of us were kind of cold towards Emily but they kept their long-distance thing going for all of sophomore year. On Valentine’s day he wanted to do something special for her so we took my video camera and made her a “Virtual Date” tape. Josh took the camera out to “dinner” (we set up the common room to look like a restaurant), took it for a walk on the Commons, took it dancing (we set up the common room to look like a dance floor, complete with disco lights) and, finally, had some private words with it that none of the “film crew” ever heard. It was honestly one of the sweetest things a Mormon could do. He claims she loved it but, who knows…

He would have problems with her, obviously. Long-distance relationships rarely work out. I would always tell him that there were plenty of other little Mormons out there, he would tell me that she was the one. It was like a high-school relationship but during sophomore year in college.

When he decided to go on his 2-year mission I was trying to convince him to change his mind. I didn’t want to lose my boy for two years, chances were he was going to end up in some third-world country and basically completely lose touch. By the time he was dude to come back to BU I would have already been gone. He was adamant, though, said he needed to find his way again.

I told you the first email I got from him, the one were he basically compared my morals to that of a heroin addict, albeit not really knowing how bad it sounded. I don’t remember many emails between that email and the last one I got from him. It came after R and I broke up, he wrote me to tell me that Emily broke up with him and she was either married or getting married to someone else. While the dude was on his Mission, doing his sacramental duty, she ditched him and wasted no time moving on.

He told me that I was right, that there really are more people out there and Emily wasn’t as perfect as he thought she was. It really was a nice email and a departure from the other one.

I saw Josh once since he left for his Mission. It was in a car, he was in the lane next to me. We exchanged words before the light turned green and that was that.

It’s funny how people who were so entrenched in your life can just drift away.

Taxed! – Condemnation

There’s a new Here’s the Thing… up. I have one more planned for early December and then no more until next year. If all goes according to plan next year might start a new direction for the Here’s the Thing… columns or may just see the launch of a new column all together, likely not on the DCC Blog if that’s the case.

Story time…

________________________
Accusations
Lies
Hand me my sentence
I’ll show no repentance
I’ll suffer with pride
-Depeche Mode

The only thing worse than being caught stealing is being falsely accused. Usually the people who accuse you are not top-notch investigators, their evidence is usually circumstantial at best, but they have it in your head that you are to blame and you’re the one left suffering the consequences.

Like this one time in Junior High, when I first met Lorraine, a girl who would later become my friend. This was early at the start of Junior High, had to be first or second week. I’ve gotten by without any big-time beatings, a few minor embarrassments here and there but for the most part I was getting lucky – no big punches, I wasn’t sporting any bruises or gashes.

We were sitting in the lunchroom when this kid Alfred jokingly jacked Lorraine’s biology text book, ran over to me and dropped it on my lap. She saw the whole thing unfold before her eyes, she knew the kid was just joking around – she had to know. She had to know I was in no way tied to this nefarious plot, I was an innocent victim.

She comes up to me; left hand on her hip, right arm outstretched and tells me to give me her book back. Now, I’m as confused as anyone would be in this situation and, as innocently as possible I pick the book up and ask her, “Is this your book?”

You know how, if you’re in prison, it’s supposedly a good move to jack up the first person who makes a move on you? At least that’s what Hollywood teaches you. But you know what I mean, right? Because Lorraine must have believed this as well.

The bitch SCRATCHES my FACE. I’m not talking about an “I had an itch” scratch. I’m talking about digging her nails into my cheek and pulling as hard as she can, taking my fucking flesh off. I was stunned, to say the least – I put my hand up to my cheek as she ran off with her book, pulled it away and there was blood all over it. My friends are looking at me in shock, Alfred comes over and apologizes and I get up, weak kneed, and walk to the school nurse looking like I got into fight with a fucking wolverine.

I walked around with those gashes for a couple of weeks before they healed.

I go home and my mom is upset, I had to tell them the story of what happened and my pops had to cope with the fact that I got fucked up by a girl. As mentioned, Lorraine ended up becoming my friend but she was always embarrassed to come over to my place because of the whole “scratching my face off” thing.

Taxed! – Good Eatin’

Taxed! – Good Eatin’

Tired. Pushed the novel over 28,000 words. It’s at the point where I’m writing more than thinking so it’s coming out sloppy. I like the structure but huge rewrites will be needed. I also want to go back and insert some chapters, there’s a few things missing, and I need to hit on some of the themes I let lapse too much. As I write I take notes on what needs to be changed and then I just post the chapter without even looking over it. I’m going to do some more before going to bed and hopefully push it to 30k.

On an administrative note - I had 18 people come to my site through Yahoo yesterday looking for “gang fights”. I investigated and, according to Yahoo, I’m the definitive authority on gang fights. Me.

Here’s this cat Joe Lalich’s site. There’s some good sketches and good sequentials there, stumbled across him tonight – haven’t looked around for potentially up-and-coming artists in some time. Worth a gander, I’d say.

_________________________

Food was a precious commodity in college – especially junk food. It was like cigarettes in jail – a form of currency oftentimes more valuable than cash, especially when it was late at night and the convenience stores were closed; “convenient” to the average working adult maybe but no the dope-smoking college kid. A well stocked dorm room contained twizzlers, pretzels, chewy Chips Ahoy, Mountain Dew and at least a half-gallon of milk.

Then there were the more precious commodities – the items that were usually specific to the room. Eric always had Mellowmars, Andy had Charleston Chews and Neil had Pocky Sticks. These were the specialty items, the ones that you normally wouldn’t spend your own money on but at times they were the perfect food and you occasionally found yourself hankering for a Swedish Fish or some Junior Mints. In order to obtain these specialty items you needed to trade up, swapping a miniature Hershey Special Dark for some Crispy M&Ms. You needed to have something worth trading for. I was always able to trade because when it came to specialty items I was fucking king.

I worked in the dining hall. Late Night Café, no less, which meant I was responsible for closing the place up. By the time sophomore year rolled around I was the weekend manager which means either Friday or Saturday night I shut down the dining hall, I had keys for the whole joint and was the last one to leave. And I made sure to steal stuff that everyone wanted but no-one would stock on their own.

I had a system, too, in case I had to sneak the food out, like my boss was around or something. I’d be the one that would take the trash out back; I’d put the food I wanted in a garbage bag and bring it up to the trash compactor with me (it was behind the dorm). I’d leave the garbage bag filled with food in a milk crate and then after my shift go around the back of the building and pick up my booty. In four years of working in the dining hall I never once got caught stealing food.

As I started stealing larger items my room fridge was not capable of holding them. That’s when I learned about the secret kitchen in my dorm. When I became an RA (halfway through sophomore year) I had access to this kitchen that hasn’t been used since 1973. It was hidden behind this wall and the key to open it was in the RA office and collecting dust. The fridge inside this kitchen became my personal storage room for all the food I stole – no-one ever knew that was where I stashed because no-one knew the kitchen even existed. It was luck that I found it.

As for what I stole, well…

Boxes of cookie dough, for starters. When you’re up late studying or coming down from a particularly good high, nothing beats cookie dough. My freezer was always well stacked with a box of cookie dough. Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies – I’d mix and match between the open boxes in the kitchen’s freezer and bring up about a hundred pieces of frozen cookie dough goodness.

Cakes where also a good call –especially chocolate cake (the pecan pie was a bit more difficult to move). Giant tubs of ice-cream to put on the cake was clutch, especially once we started getting Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream. Some stoner might have had a pint of Phish Food but I had five fucking quarts, guess where the party was at on a Saturday night in my dorm?

Plenty of cereal. Rice Crispy Treats. Jello. Fruit cups. Pudding.

I had this humungous tub of Fluff. People hardly buy little jugs of Fluff but I had a tub like you wouldn’t believe. And combined with my tub of peanut butter, bunch of bananas and loaf of bread I was the only fluffanutter source in all of Towers. Do you know what you can get in a college dorm for a fluffanutter at two in the morning? It goes beyond food, I’ll tell you that. Nobody made a fluffanutter in Towers without me knowing. Two towers, nine floors each and every fluffanutter went through me.

Drinks were easy to steal, too. I bought a bunch of Tupperware-like drink containers and filled them with various sodas, milks and juices. People would ask me for some milk and I’d ask them if they wanted whole, 2%, skim or chocolate.

I never sold my food, though. It just never occurred to me. I traded it, sure. Got some junk food the dining hall couldn’t supply me with – maybe got someone to lend me their N64 for the night so I can play some Mario Kart. But never sold it. Being the food guy just sort of became my thing and I liked having a thing. Some guys always have dope, some guys let you copy their homework – I was the guy that supplied you with a Banana Cream Pie at 3AM. Being able to supply food to people made you king shit, no-one would deny your requests for help when you asked – it was like everyone always owed you a favor.

Once I got to senior year I was a manager for the earlier shifts, it was a little harder to steal food but every shift needed to take the trash out so my plan carried over – I just needed to be more cautious of prying eyes. Senior year I had my own kitchen so in addition to junk food I was smuggling out hamburgers, chicken breast – keeping my kitchen well stocked and cutting my grocery bill down to practically nothing.

Towers Dining Hall was so out of whack with keeping track of their food that I never even heard of any suspicions. No-one ever came up to me and asked me if I know what happened to the tub of jelly or the industrial sized can of corn.

And yet despite all of the food items and the drinks, the craziest thing I stole over four years of working in the dining hall was a fucking Belgian waffle maker. A hot waffle with a scoop of ice-cream, some whipped cream and chocolate syrup at three in the morning? You could trade that for someone’s virginity in college.

Taxed! – My First Discman

Wrote a good chunk of the novel yesterday. Posted up to 25,000 words and have closer to 26,000 on my computer. Chapter 15 Part 3 broke my fucking heart while writing it – my favorite so far except you can tell I ended up at a different place where I started. This thing is going to be a mess to edit.

________________

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret. I put things off. There are the little things, like “Oh I’ll just email him back later” and then I never do it but there are also the big things like “Oh, I’ll just renew my registration later” and seven months later they tow my car. If it’s something that I’m getting paid for – if it’s a job of some sort – I tend to make a tight schedule and stick to it. If it’s something that requires more than five seconds and does nothing for me financially or professionally – I save it for later. Most of the time “later” means “never”.

The trait has come back to haunt me every once and while but, for the most part, it’s actually a great way to go through life. If shit needs to get done, it’ll get done eventually. Either I do it on my own free will at a later date or somebody forces my hand. But what I discovered is, there’s a lot of shit that doesn’t really need to get done. A lot of things get cancelled. A lot of plans change. A lot of people forget. By waiting until the last minute to do what I “should” be doing – I end up not having to do it all.

Which brings me to my first Discman.

R had this friend her sophomore year in college who was quite possibly the most annoying person I’ve ever met. For some reason she liked the girl which meant that I occasionally had to hang out with her. All of the annoying girl’s friends were obviously annoying as well except this one dude, Wes. He was a cool cat – just chill and laid back and always had some good dope on him and had no problem sharing it with me. Back in college, especially sophomore year, the way to my heart was with a dime bag of Northern Lights.

So whenever I was put in a situation where I’d have to hang out with these guys I’d always seek out Wes, roll a joint and get toh’-up.

One time, in fact, I was having such a good time that I didn’t want to leave when R announced she was heading back. Despite the fact that heading back to R’s place would mean booty for me, I was feeling the dope, having some good conversation about music, most likely, and just wanted to stay mellow. So I told R to go home, I’ll see her tomorrow.

I hung for a bit more but decided eventually it was time to head out as well. I was probably a mile from campus and was just going to walk it. Wes makes sure I’m cool to walk home, if I need anything, and I ask him if I can borrow his discman. I’d love some music on the way home and I’ll return it tomorrow. He reluctantly tells me ok. I look through his CD collection and grab some stoner album – probably Phish, I’d imagine – give him a pound and troop home.

The next day I get up, laze about – don’t return Wes’ Discman.

The next day I go to class, take the Discman with me and tune out the rest of the world as I stomp through campus – I’m liking this Discman thing.

A week passes and I still haven’t returned it. I avoid Wes that weekend.

No emails, no phone calls, no messages delivered through R.

A couple of weeks later I hang out with the dude. He doesn’t say anything. Halfway through our hanging out I say, “Oh yeah – I still have to give you back your Discman.” And he thinks about it for a moment like it wasn’t on his mind the entire night and agrees.

Next time I see him I don’t even bother mentioning it.

A couple of months later R finally realizes that I stole Wes’ Discman. She tells me to return it and I say it’s too late now – it hasn’t been working well anyway. She gets on my shit for breaking it, a fight breaks out and she goes home.

But I still didn’t return it.

It’s not until junior year, after R and I broke up, I haven’t seen Wes for months, that I hear through a chain of people that Wes is pissed at me because I stole his Discman. At this point I could care less, I had no plans to hang with the dude anymore and he never made any attempt to get it back. As far as I was concerned I got a free Discman out of the deal.

Plus, it didn’t matter if he wanted it back at this point or not. It skipped frequently so I bought a new one and threw his out over the summer.

Taxed.

Taxed! – Joe Tomo’s Treasure Chest

Elk’s Run super-fan Mike Storniolo set up a My Space account for Elk’s Run that already has a couple of handful of members (40ish) and will likely be the place where we’ll be giving previews, talking up the project, answering questions and dropping the occasional hint. Come on by, should be fun. I can’t post for the first seven days, apparently, but if I could I would say I finished the issue 5 letter page tonight and sent out my notes for the last couple of pages of issue 6. Seriously, every issue gets better than the last. The script for issue seven is the tightest fucking thing I’ve ever read (kudos to Josh), the art for issue 6 is the sickest shit I’ve ever seen (kudos to Noel) and the finished art for issue 5 is the most beautiful complete package yet (kudos to Scott). Elk’s Run is shaping up to be tits-ass-balls which, as you can imagine, is really good.

Posted some more of the novel yesterday. And over here it’s Moose time…

______________________

I’ve mentioned Joe Tomo’s cigar shop plenty of times already on this site. Joe Tomo was this old guy that ran a cigar shop on the corner of Hicks and President Street. He was a neighborhood guy through and through – been around for years, everybody knew him and loved him. He ended up selling his business to this cat Sonny and his wife Nancy who turned the place into a shithole. But when Joe ran the joint it was the Jesus.

It had everything a kid my age needed. Comic books, jelly rings, water guns, coloring books and crayons, Nestle Crunch bars, the occasional G.I.Joe figure, blue balls, softballs, jacks, chalk – I don’t even know if the dude sold cigars.

We’d go there with out allowances and blow it all, coming home with tootsie roll pops, Charleston Chews, a Superman comic and a packet of water balloons. Joe would always light up when he came in, big-ass smile across his face as he calls out or names and asks how parents are doing. He’d sneak an extra jelly ring in our bags and maybe even give us a free candy bar and send us on our way with instructions to give our mother’s his regards and remind them that lotto was at 20-million this week.

He was such a nice guy. I sometimes feel bad that we were always stealing from him.

Nothing big, really. Candy, super bouncy balls. While one of us was distracting him and talking to him about how school was going someone else would stuff his pockets with whatever the fuck he can get his hands on. Occasionally we’d get ballsy, go for a whole candy bar or a toy harmonica but for the most part we took the five cent candy.

We stole from him all the time and I guess you can say that we got cocky. One day our friend Brian decided to make with a couple of King Cones. I was distracting Joe when I saw him look up, his face completely changed, as he calmly says to Brian (who’s at the door), “That’ll be three dollars.”

Brian froze. We all did. Do we run? I was of the mind that I could sell Brian out; he’s the one with the King Cones in his hands. After a tense little silence Brian finally works out what he considers to be his best coarse of action.

“I didn’t pay for these?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Three bucks.”

All Brian had to do was pay Joe the three bucks and we were in the clear. It might not have been the best play but it was effective and effective was good enough if it got us the fuck out of there.

“I don’t have three bucks.”

Fuck. Fuck you, Brian. Joe just keeps his stare steady, this man is a pro at shaking people down, he knows how to play it.

“How much do you have?”

Brian didn’t see the trap. Joe wouldn’t have sold them to him for less than three bucks, he was just hoping that, well…

“I don’t have any money.”

Even at the age of eight I knew this dude was the biggest idiot imaginable. Joe didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink, He played this shit like Clint Eastwood – just cool.

“Put them back and go home.”

That’s it. Put them back and go home. Brian put them back and we slowly slinked out of the store. We stayed away for a while but next time we saw Joe he was back to normal, friendly and sneaking candy in our bags. We didn’t steal from him anymore, obviously, but he never seemed to suspect us of even trying.

I kind of think that Joe always knew we were stealing from him. He was a neighborhood guy, old-school, he was probably of the mind that kids were supposed to steal and as long it was the nickel candy he was fine with that – after all our moms more than made up for it in lotto tickets – but the King Cone went too far. He laid down the law with a stare and made his message clear – he was confident that it kept.

Culture Countered and Taxed! – Everyone Pays Their Taxes

The Counter Culture Festival was a success, I have a little miny report over here. Everyone had a good time, there was a good turn-out, we all seemed to sell some stuff, everyone got nice and toasty, the bands all rocked. Just a good time, it was what a comic show should be. And my ashcan was a success, I think, everyone seemed to dig it. Once I covered the printing cost I just gave the rest out for free, still have plenty to give out so if anyone’s interested in seeing one feel free to email me - it’s a good little book.

I need to get back on the novel – I’m excited to write it, just haven’t had the time but with the festival done I’ll have plenty of time this month.

___________________________


I’ve talked at length about NYC in the early 90s and how people used to steal EVERYTHING. I’ve even offered up theories – the materialism that seeped over from the 80s combined with the new recession left people wanting Nikes, Starter Hats and Jansport bags but with only enough money to pay for Sikes, Staffer Hats and Jamsport bags.

I’ve gotten taxed several times. I had a whole entry on Jansport strings and alluded to the Spurs hat and gunpoint mugging which I’ll be expanding on today. But what I want to get across first is, everyone paid their taxes at some point. I mean, yeah, I was a little on the dorkier side and had no sort of protection once I bitched out on 4DBC but that just made my tax schedule more frequent than other peoples.

You’d always overhear stories about people getting taxed. I was in the locker room in Junior High when I overheard one of the biggest, most feared thugs in school talking about how some people jumped him and took his bike the other night. Your influence only went so far and if you wandered outside of your domain with little to no back-up, you had to pay the taxes. Of course, the difference with the thug in question was that he was rallying his crew and they were going to go get his bike back (and if he didn’t get it he’d just tax somebody else’s) whereas I would have to ride my sister’s Little Mermaid bike until my parent’s got the money to get me a new one. My tax was more of a permanent thing; other people got to claim deductions on theirs.

We were playing handball when my Spurs hat got taxed. Starter hat, fitted – right when the Spurs got their new logo. The new logo made all Spurs products hot, everyone wanted some Spurs paraphernalia. I had the hat, the shirt and I even had this jersey with David Robinson on it. It didn’t matter what your team was, the Spurs were the new Lakers in the early 90s.

My hat got stolen the first day I wore it to school. I was in the 8th grade and tried to be as inconspicuous as possible but that hat was like blood in the fucking water. We were playing handball in the morning, before school even starts, I’m sitting over on the sideline when the bell rings. We all pick up our shit to go inside.

I shit you not; these two little kids roll up on me. Now, I’m in the 8th grade, these kids have to be at most 7th grade if not (so ashamed) elementary school. The slightly taller one gets right up to me and says, “Run that Spurs hat!”

I just kind of snort a laugh and say “no”, look to my boys…

My boys are going inside. It’s like in the movies when someone drops the soap in the prison shower and everyone gets the fuck out of the bathroom except the fish – that was me, I was the fucking fish and some goddamn 6th grader and his friend dropped the soap.

“What you mean ‘no’?”

Ditched or not I wasn’t going to hand over my hat to some punk kid. So I tell him, straight up, “I’m not giving you my hat,” and I turn to go into the school.

‘Lil Bow-Wow reaches for it (he practically had to jump, I was six-foot at this point) and I grab it. He yanks, I pull back. He keeps telling me to “run my hat” and I keep telling him to “fuck off”. Our little tug-of-war ended when his partner clocks me square in the face. I stumble back, stunned that the little midget packed a punch like that, and was going to chase after them except I noticed my nose was SPEWING blood.

I had to go to the nurse, she called my parents. They wanted to know who did this and I was too embarrassed to tell them I got taxed by elementary school kids that I told them it was a drive by snuffing. I had to go to the doctors to get it checked out – it wasn’t horrible – my nose looks perfectly normal now which is more than I can say for other people that got their shit fucked up like that.

So, I lost my Spurs hat and decided to stay away from fitted Starter Hats for a while. My mom had a one-shot philosophy. When my Jansport was stolen I got a Lucas. When the Nikes were taken out of the locker I got the Reebok. After the Starter Hat fiasco I was wearing Mets’ hats purchased at bodegas that fell apart when it rained.

The gunpoint mugging was obviously a lot scarier. One of the three times I’ve had a gun pulled on me (here and here for the other two) but this time I was all alone. It was B, Nick and a couple of their friends. I was coming back from a DATE, my Junior High girlfriend Jessie and I just got out of the theater after seeing Species. We walked separate ways (in JHS things like “walking the lady home” is an inconvenience, especially when there was handball to play) and I got accosted in broad day light by these cats.

First of all, this was in front of the Cobble Hill movie theater. This is way far from Red Hook. I live on the Red Hook/Carroll Gardens border – these cats all lived deep in Red Hook. What the fuck they were doing in Cobble Hills, the neighborhood beyond Carroll Gardens, is beyond me. They circle me tight, so no one can see inside, and tell me to give up my wallet.

Keep in mind I grew up with B and Nick was my boy up until JHS.

Anyway, I give the “I don’t have my wallet line” and this dude Andre lifts his shirt and flashes his steel. Granted, he didn’t actually pull it, but my heart still fucking stopped. I practically threw my wallet at him I was so eager to give it up. They walked off, laughing.

Despite that fact that I knew everyone of those kid names and where they lived, I couldn’t say shit.

The same crew taxed me one other time. Again I found myself walking home alone, this time closer to my neighborhood, when a smaller version of the crew saddled up behind me. B started telling me to give him my money, I was saying I didn’t have any. He keeps going and going saying that he doesn’t want to fuck me up. Finally I say, “All I got is forty-one cents.”

I remember that – I remember the exact number I pulled out of my ass because right after that B follows up with, “Then give me your forty-one cents.”

I reached in my pocket, grabbed a fist full of change, gave it to B and walked off. It’s funny, because I realized how hopeless all those kids were just then. They were practically celebrating over a fistful of change – like they won, you know?

Anyway, you pay your taxes and you move on. I’ve gotten basketballs, footballs and blue balls taxed. Money and clothes. And you move on and you move on. Now I pay over 40k a year in taxes but that’s only because I’m making fucking bank.

The Moose’s Closet: Halloweenie

I once again apologize if any of this is sloppy; there was no time to go over it. I’m going to get so shit-faced this Saturday. Which brings me to…

This mother fucking Saturday is the Counter Culture Festival. If you are in or around DC you need to come. Matt, Evan and I put a lot of time into this to make sure that it’s enjoyable for all. It’s free admission, it’s a celebration of art in our nation’s capitol – please come by.

Secondly, before the story, I need a good message board to hang out at when I want to escape from my day job. Any suggestions? Bendis Board is too incestuous, The Engine is too – I don’t know – it’s too late for me to get integrated there (plus I find the layout confusing), Digital Webbing is too “Here’s the Thing…” inspiring, Scryptic has this one guy who’s just an idiot and kills all conversation, Comicon is all-right, I guess, but it’s sometimes too Newsarama light and I don’t want to talk to 99% comic-fan, I want some more creators in there. I don’t want to talk comics all the time but when I do I don’t want a barrage of self-promotion from people who don’t even read what other people have to say. I want the occasional discussion on comic creation but at the same time I want to be able to talk about my annoying ass coworker. The ‘tope board had promise for a while but that faltered and now it’s gone. Is there a board out there for me that I can waste my time on?

Thirdly, there will be a new Here’s the Thing… next week. I was going to put one up today but I’ve just been slammed.

Fourthly, novel is still being written if you want to read it.

Storytime…

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Oh yes, that’s right, a Halloween posting two weeks too late. But it had to come this week because, you know, it makes sense. So let’s do it.

I wish this entry will end up being funny because of my ingenious and often hilarious Halloween costumes that I’ve donned throughout the years but sadly that won’t be the case. You may find my complete lack of imagination hilarious, I know I do, and if you don’t find that more subtextual humor to your liking, well, you can seriously eat my ass.

I’ve already told you about my mad gardener costume (there’s a picture on that link if you missed it). It was on the fly, last minute and meant to be a psycho killer of some sort except I was this idiot kid who thought psycho killers carried weed whackers and a wrench. As bad as that costume was, it was seriously the most imaginative I’ve ever been.

I go through phases, really. And you might interpret that as, “Oh, Jason goes through superhero phases followed by a monster phase followed by…” That would be incorrect, however. I go through phases as in…

I was a ninja for three years in a row. That was my ninja phase. One year I wore all white and made this white ninja mask out of a pillow-case that look exactly like a ku-klux-klan mask. You know that episode of South Park where Eric’s teacher makes him exchange his Hitler costume for a ghost costume that looks like a Klan costume? That was me except I went straight for the Klan. In my defense, I was about eight years old. In my mom’s defense, she never did well in her history classes.

So I was a white ninja/Klansman and my cousin Luis was…wait for it…the black ninja. We were a fucking kung-fu fighting, trick-or-treating team.

The following year we switched. I was the black ninja and he was the racist child in the Klan outfit. The third year I went back to white and Luis said, “Fuck that, I’m going to be Freddy.” He moved on before I did.

The next year, however, I was…Freddy.

No, I’m not proud.

And then I spent a couple of years as Jason Voorhees with the Mad Gardener positioned somewhere between that run.

Are you laughing? Are you getting the more sublime humor here?

I know I was a Mexican one year in high-school. Poncho, sombrero, cigar, gun. That’s right, I was the racist, stereotypical representation of a Mexican. Speedy Gonzalez said I was unfairly representing his people. Whatever.

Then I spent three years dressed as a woman. This was my “woman” phase, obviously. Yeah, I have a picture, check it:


Sexy. Mother. Fucker.

Or sexy fucking mother. Or sexy mother fucking mother. I like that.

Up until graduation, Halloween for me was just one ho-hum after the other. I think Robin sparked my creative juices in that regard – since college I’ve been a Software Pirate (where I dressed like a Pirate and distributed free copies of Adobe Photoshop), 80’s workout Guy, etc – just more creative shit. Except for last year. Last year I got drunk with Guam and we crashed some 19 year old chick’s party with the intention of break dancing except we chickened out because the girls there were really hot.

That was a good Halloween.

The Moose’s Closet: Mother Fucker Better Accessorize

If today’s story is sloppy I apologize, I didn’t get to look over it. I apologize in advance for tomorrow’s as well. Between work, my novel and putting the finishing touches on this weekend Counter Culture Festival I am beat to fuck. TO FUCK.

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Ah….accessories. I am a big fan of accessorizing and I have no shame in admitting that. There are several types of accessories that have been permanent fixtures in my wardrobe throughout the years and I’d like to take a look at each one of them.

The Bookbag

My bookbag is a part of me. I’ve worn one since Kindergarten and still wear them today. I go to important business meetings in a Turkish Wool suit from Banana Republic – bookbag on my back. Through the years I had some high quality bookbags, but luckily for you guys this week is all about making fun of the embarrassing stuff in my closet.

And when it comes to embarrassing items – nothing beats the Lucas bookbag I wore throughout Junior High School.

I wasn’t allowed to have a Jansport. Every Jansport got stolen; it was the only guarantee in JHS. Jansports cost fifty-bucks, were easy to spot and were easy to take off of someone, for what it was worth you were better off taping a fifty-dollar bill to your forehead - at least some people would think it was a fake.

So instead of a Jansport, my mom sent me to my Aunt Linda’s job where she sold bags from the up-and-coming (and never really made it) company called Lucas. This place was in some factory on Imlay Street in Red Hook – it was ghetto as hell. She let me pick out two bags and showed me their “hip line” of bookbags and I wanted to cry. These were humongous canvas bookbags with thick, padded black straps. They were perfectly square, it seemed, no crumple to them whatsoever. And they came in “hip” colors like olive green, dark purple and burgundy. And the coup-de-grace, “Lucas” was written in big fucking letters dead-smack in the middle of the bag.

I took the olive green and the purple because I knew I was going to get my ass beat either way.

I wear it to school and my own friends are making fun of me. We line-up and make our way into the building and the thugs around me are calling out, “Aye, yo, Lucas!” It had to be one of the most humiliating moments. Eventually I got over it, realizing full well these Lucas bags are in it for the long-run whether I liked them or not.

The Shades

Since I go through two or three pairs of sunglasses a year it’s safe to say I’ve taken part in every sunglasses trend over the past 20 years.

The flip-up sunglasses? Had those. At least two pairs. Thought I was a pro baseball player with those things on, flip the shades down when fielding a pop-up. I dropped the ball anyway, because I’m most likely the worst baseball player of all time, but at least I looked cool doing it.

I had those super-hip 80s glasses that look like the ones the guy from Reading Rainbow wore on Star Trek: the Next Generation. They were just a thin band of sunglasses that stretched across my face. They were so thin that they didn’t even cover my eyes, really – you can see the whites of my eyes above and below the shades.

I had those cheapo-plastic ones that had one neon-orange arm and one neon-pink arm. They looked like the Blue’s Brother’s glasses but a lot gayer.

Despite all of these horrible glasses the worst ones I ever owned weren’t even shades, they were glasses, sort of. You might say to yourself, “Oh, I didn’t know Jason used to wear glasses.” I didn’t – I had 20/10 vision back then and I still have it now. That’s right – non-prescription glasses.

NON-PRESCRIPTION GLASSES.

Most kids got beat-up in school for wearing glasses. Not me, I thought they were cool and I voluntarily walked around as a four-eyed freak.

Gloves

Despite being one stylish mother-fucker the one item I never got a handle on where gloves. I think when it comes to gloves, comfort trumps style. My gloves have to:

a) Keep the surface of my hands no colder than 80-degrees.
b) Keep all moisture off of my hands, no snow can seep through.
c) Keep snow off of my wrists. If I get snow on my wrists I flip the fuck out.
d) Have a convenient storage method so I don’t need to put wet gloves in my pockets.

Because of these criteria, every pair of gloves I have ever worn:
a) Look like hand-me-down astronaut gloves.
b) Are made out of canvas.
c) Are tapered so much that they cut off circulation to my hands.
d) Have hooks on them so I can attach them to my jacket.

I had gloves that were so bulky and padded that I couldn’t even pick up shit up when I wore them – but they kept me warm and dry.

And then I had this one pair of gloves that put the rest of my gloves to shame. They were the bulkiest gloves I ever bought – they looked like the novelty Hulk fists – but they were also unusually bulky up past the taper.

Because that’s where the battery pack was.

With the aid of a 9-V battery these gloves cooked my hands like a fucking oven. I would be FREEZING and my hands would be sweating profusely. To me, that’s comfortable – hands surrounded by sopping-wet and smelly pieces of cloth. These gloves would have made me sweat in Antarctica they were so ridiculously hot.

And people made fun of them, yes, until they were asking me if they could borrow them for a moment to warm up their own hands or holding hands with me to get some residual heat. In the land of hand warmers, my gloves were King.

Day 8 Retrospective and The Moose’s Closet: Got the Timbos on My Toes and This is How it Goes…

(I need Elk’s Run letters for issue 5 – any takers can email me.)

8 Days and over 19,000 words written for Complex (18k posted). It’s cool, I’ve tried to write a novel before but usually end up tweaking and editing and just give up because I don’t like the way it was coming out. It took a little getting used to but now I’m just writing and I’m honestly shocked with how good it’s coming out. Don’t get me wrong, it needs a really hard edit, I think it’s safe to say chapter 12, which I posted yesterday, might have went too far but as far as putting out a coherent novel in a month where I haven’t lost site of the ending and I’m happy with how I’m getting there – I think it’s coming along really well.

For those that are reading the book, you know how vile the main character is – he’s beyond douche. He’s every evil thought you’ve ever been ashamed about, every horrible story you’ve read about in the news or seen on the internet – he’s literally pure blackness and just when you think he’s heading towards retribution or at least considering it, he gets a lot worse. And what’s crazy is, it’s all first person, and in order to get in this guys head I need to just get myself super fucking angry, I look a things the way I would never consciously look at them and just channel him – I literally trance out and just type like a maniac and don’t hold back for anything. When I’m done writing a scene I feel so low, but I just detach myself from the character – maybe take Robin out for a drink or call up a friend – and post the chapter for the world to see. So far no-one has accused me of being an asshole, so that’s good – but I still feel like one when I write this guy, it’s like I have him in my head, you know? Anyway, it’s been an interesting experience and I love the prose probably more so than the comics because with the prose it’s my creation dependant on no-one, it’s not like my comic ideas which sit around and wait for the perfect artist to come along. No offense to the artists out there but man, prose is so liberating.

I was kind of doing projections on my output for this year. The average Moose story is 700+ words long and I’ll end up doing 260 stories, that’s 182,000 words. Add to that the 60,000+ words I’ll be putting into Complex, and over a years time I’d have written AT least 242,000 words. That’s about 4 industry-standard novels. And that’s not including Here’s the Thing… or the comics I’ve worked on. And this is all while working 8-10 hours a day at a pretty stressful job, going out pretty hard on weekends, traveling a lot and keeping the lady satisfied which I love to do, no complaints there. By March I’ll have enough material in hand to take a serious stab at this writing thing – that’s right, a serious stab, as if 240,000+ words isn’t a serious stab.

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There is no single piece of gear in a New Yorker’s closet that makes a greater statement than a pair of sneakers. In the late-80s, early-90s you would get jumped for having bootleg sneakers and mugged for wearing nice ones. Many of us New Yorkers took the walk of shame home, riding the F-train with your socks sticking to some unknown substance on the floor because your Jordan’s got yanked out in Canarsie.

Eventually a market seemed to open up for sneakers that only cost 40-bucks but still had a stylish “feel” to them. For instance, Reebok Pumps where a guaranteed mugging; something about being able to inflate tiny air pockets in your sneakers had people going ape-shit. Whereas I never owned a pair of Pumps, I had the Patrick Ewing sneakers which had a plastic basketball on the side that looked like the trademark “Pump” but was absolutely useless. Nobody wanted the Ewing sneakers, I was safe in that regard, and no-one would disrespect Patrick Ewing in the early-90s and call his sneakers ghetto. Win-win.

Another pair of sneakers in this category, which I also owned, where the L.A. Gear Catapults. The commercial for these were fresh – there was a catapult in the sole of the sneaker that will propel you through the air and allow you to dunk a basketball! Everyone in my neighborhood wanted these until they realized that they didn’t work. At all. (Was there ever a class-action suit against L.A. Gear for those pieces of crap?)

So it was safe to wear L.A. Gear Catapults. At one point they were the hottest shit and nobody wanted to go against their early hype so they were still “cool” – it was just that nobody actually wanted them. They were cool on paper.

The L.A. Lights, however – ass-beating. I learned that one. You can’t wear sneakers that light up when you walk. In my neighborhood, that was worse than skating with a helmet on…while sucking somebody’s dick. My L.A. Lights found their way into the back of my closet real fucking fast.

In college I didn’t care about the gimmick as much, I wanted sneakers that no-one else had. Unfortunately, that meant buying really ugly sneakers. I had these Nike’s that I bought for like 20-bucks at Model’s. They were bright yellow and had this plastic orange netting like material covering them. They were horrendous. But hey, no-one else had them.

No-one had my bright red suede Reeboks when I first got them, either.

At the time I thought my sneaker taste was me being an individual. Fact is, nobody wanted these ugly ass-things but me. I would try to donate them to the Salvation Army when I was done with them and get dirty looks, like I was mocking the homeless by making them wear these ridiculous sneakers.

I also had the “Jesus Kicks” throughout College. My mom got them for me – they were these rubber slippers that had this whicker-like pattern across the top and this weird pattern on the bottom of the soul that was made to look like the bottom of the foot. They looked like sandals circa 33 AD which is why we called them Jesus Kicks. They were quite ghetto but I wore those things everywhere. Bars, Red Sox games – they weren’t comfortable, weren’t stylish and weren’t attractive but I was the only dude wearing the Jesus Kicks.

I wore these things until they fell apart. Chunks of rubber hanging off and flapping as I walked. I strutted all over Boston with these damn slippers, they were black and crusty on the bottom, smelled like shit, but it’s all good, baby – they were Jesus Kicks. I was turning wine into water with them bitches.

The Moose’s Closet: Hat Buyer’s Remorse

During November I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month. All of the MITC stories appearing in November have been written in advance as has this generic little opening you’re reading right now. Instead of comic book plugging I’ll be linking comic sites, blogs, artists, publishers and writers I dig and I encourage you to go check them out, have some fun, try something new, whatever. Today’s link is:

Melody Nadia Shickley

Feel free to read my NaNoWriMo novel right here.

Story time…

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I have a love affair with hats. My closet is always well stocked with baseball hats, dressier caps, ski-hats, skull caps – hats are to me what shoes are to Robin. Every time I tell her she has too many shoes she reminds me that I own about twenty to thirty hats.

Due to this hat fetish I have bought many hats over the years that I ultimately (or instantly) regretted.

For instance, my big, novelty Cat in the Hat, um, hat that I bought at Lollapalooza 1993 (the same year I bought my retarded Flaming Lips’ shirt – what the hell was wrong with me that day?). The only people who should own a Cat in the Hat hat (and its Mad Hatter variant) are frat boys, hippies and white trash. I realized this after I bought it and decided I didn’t even want to wear it during the concert. So I stuffed as much of it as I can in my back-pocket, hoping someone would steal it – no-one did, obviously, because it was the ugliest hat ever made. I brought it home and never wore it again.

Unlike my ridiculous ski-hat. I don’t know where I bought this hat but if there was a store called “Waste Your Money While Looking Like an Idiot” I’m pretty sure that’s where I got it. This hat was literally about five feet long, felt and was purple/dark-purple striped. It looked like an elongated, floppy, multi-colored gnome hat. I would wear it in the winter and instead of letting it hang I would wrap it around my head like a scarf. It might sound efficient but I looked like a diseased version of that “Jaba no batha’” guy from Star Wars.

I also went to some pajama party in high school in which that hat became my “Sleeping Cap”. It’s like I was always making excuses for wearing that ridiculous hat.

Buying a bad hat is one thing. Buying a perfectly good hat and transforming it into a pleading to get my ass beat down is a completely different story. Take my perfectly normal looking Buffalo Sabers hat. Aside from being a Sabers hat there was nothing wrong with it.

The first thing I did to that hat was decorate it with a couple of humorous buttons. Do you remember in the 80s when everyone looked like a waiter at Friday’s? Buttons on their book bags, jackets, shirts – wherever they felt was a good place to fasten a piece of metal that says, “Be Nice to Me…I’ve Had a Bad Day” while sporting a picturing of a bloody knife. Anyway, I had buttons all over my Buffalo Sabers hat. Covered that damn thing.

Then I wrote my name in big fucking letters underneath the bill of the hat. “JAY” scrawled on it with a sharpie so that anyone standing up to 300 feet away would know that my name is “Jay”.

But, in case they couldn’t see it, I’d flip the bill up so you only saw the underside of the hat.

And occasionally wear it backwards or sideways.

I swear to God it was like the combination of every bad trend ever created all rolled into one and placed on top of my head. The hat must have weighed about twenty pounds from the buttons alone – the ink from the sharpie easily jacked that weight up to twenty-two pounds.

But even that hat has nothing on what commonly became known as my “Transexual Hat”.

I was at the J. Crew down at the South Street Seaport, doing a little winter shopping with my then home-girl Mary. I couldn’t afford J. Crew clothes back then so I was sort of there for moral support more than anything. I saw this hat on sale for like five bucks and said to my materialistic self, “Fuck man, I can have a J. Crew hat. That would be dope.” So I bought the hat.

At first glance it wasn’t that bad – not the greatest hat ever but it was passable. It was a black woolen ski-hat with gray designs on it and had a big gray pom-pom thing on top. The pom-pom as an adult male was pushing it but the masculinity of the black and gray seemed to counter it well – it was a manly hat.

I buy it, walk out of J. Crew with it, and Mary eventually looks at it and says, “Why are there hearts all over your hat?”

I take the hat off and look. The “gray designs” – they were hearts. There were other designs, though. There was a horse, for instance. A snow-flake. I honest-to-God don’t know how I missed this but the pom-pom combined with hearts, horses and snowflakes automatically trumped any masculinity that the LA Raider color-scheme tried to induce. We decided that the hat might have been born a man, but it went to great lengths and painful stitching to do away with its masculinity. It was a transsexual hat.

I held onto it over the years. I find that if a girl is ever over my place and didn’t come prepared for the cold letting her borrow the hat was always bonus points provided they didn’t ask for the story behind it. You’ll be surprised how many women would just accept the fact that you leave a woman’s hat lying around the apartment. None of them will believe you bought it for five bucks in the men’s department, though.