Enlightening Nonsense

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“Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.”

—Brendan Gill

It was in Mr. Kronquist’s high school math class where my life was forever changed.  As usual, I was not paying attention to what Flattop Kronquist was teaching. The extent of my “calculating” was figuring out how many more minutes before class would end so I could get the hell out of there.  When the bell finally rang, I lifted my head and made a note to myself to fix the doodle I had been working on during class before I fell asleep that was half-destroyed due to a big drool stain.

And then I saw them: two Japanese girls, transfers from the homeland, and by that I don’t mean Israel. Oh wait, that’s the Promised Land. Well, let’s call it the “Irradiated Land” in reference to America, tired of torturing animals in the lab and funding the government of Israel to do the same on Sephardic Jewish “Ringworm Children,” deciding to finally test out her new nuclear toys on humans. There they were—two yellow, slanty-eyed, uranium vapor coming from their mouths with each exhale, glowing girls…smiling and laughing. Smiling and laughing! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own two eyes.

The most I ever interacted with those nerdy Japs from America’s nuclear wasteland was to either steal their lunch money or amuse myself with them. There was one girl who I would point to a pencil and say, “Pe-nis. Pe-nis. Penis.” I thought it would be hilarious if she asked the teacher to borrow his penis. It was me who fell on the sword of that joke when I heard her say to her friends, “That jackass over there has a dick as small as that pencil he’s holding!”

What changed in me by seeing the laughing sushi chefs was that I realized that all people—even the most boring, bookworm, mathletes—laughed about something. While I would laugh about something banal like if dick cheese was a log of cheese shaped like a dick or cheese that gets on one’s dick after fucking a milk cow, these little glowworms also laughed, although probably about fractions and integers and acute angles. But we all have a sense of humor. I mean, if these dull Japs could laugh, that meant everyone all over the world—even the Bushmen of the Kalahari—had a sense of humor. Well, of course they do; they were hilarious in that movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy”!

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GorHLQ-jLRQ]

And so I lived the rest of my days until the recent present, basking in the oneness of how…from the spearchuckers in Africa…to the towel heads in Syria…to the rice dicks in China…to the fatties in America—everyone had a sense of humor. That was until Roach came along and proved an exception to the rule.

I first became aware that Roach was humorless when I asked about seeing her on a particular day and she text messaged me that she had a meeting at this hour and a conference call at that hour and a client after that and so on, and so on, and so on…

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgDxWNV4wWY]

I wrote her back an innocent text message that resulted in Roach acting like a woman on PMS steroids:

Your schedule is as tight as your pussy.

Now obviously it was a joke. First of all, her pussy was not tight. In fact, it was so loose that she could slide down a telephone pole and not get any splinters. I once asked her how many cocks have been inside of her and she answered me, “Six—at the same time.” I cursed myself for sleeping through Physics class so that I could have learned some type of formula to be able to conceive how that was even possible. It was only recently that I saw for the first time in my life a clip on Redtube of two dicks going into the same woman’s snatch and then doing the same parlor trick in her ass. While I sat there with my mouth gaping wide, I couldn’t help but think, “That’s some serious sword crossing going on!” But that was two…Six?

I finally asked, “How could all of the guys stick their schlongs in there without having their bodies get in the way, not to mention a major sword duel breaking out?” She told me that she was talking about rooster cocks, that while working with the Peace Corps in India helping a small farming family relocate, her hands were so full that she transferred the six cocks via “The Pussy Express.” This explained for me the occasional feathers that would fly out of her vag when she would let out a queef.

But forgetting that Roach’s taco would put porn legend Fiona Flaps dumbo-lipped pussy to shame, how was what I said even offensive? I mean, let’s suppose that on a given day I was feeling like supporting the exploitation of sentient beings for my own personal entertainment and went to the zoo with Roach. And let’s say we were at the giraffe exhibit and Roach turned to me and said, “That giraffe’s neck is as big as your cock.” Forgetting that her statement would be factually correct—why would I find this offensive? If I were trying to keep up with her dirty talk and this was in the pre-tight pussy comment Era, I might say, “Let’s just hope that it doesn’t stretch out that tight pussy of yours” to which she would probably fling her shit at me like a pissed-off gorilla. I would probably get more mileage from, “Yeah, and if I were Michael Jackson, it would be just as spotty as well.” Keeping up with a woman’s dirty talk can be quite a challenge for a guy.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LafoDMH6Tw]

Another time Roach and I were talking online and were planning to meet in Central Park where we would do some yoga and picnic. She told me she was going to bring food. When we got to the park, she wasn’t feeling so gymnasticsy and so I guided her in a very relaxing yoga session and energy healing session. She totally dug it.

After that, she pulled out all this raw food she had bought. She had seaweed sheets and avocado and cucumber to make our own raw vegan sushi rolls. She had a variety of different sweet raw desserts she had bought. It was amazing! I told her, “You know, when you told me online that you would bring food, I started to type that ‘the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’ but then erased it.”

Roach became suddenly serious, “Yeah, that wouldn’t have been good.” This left me a little confused and while I should have probably just let it lay to be buried and forgotten like Jimmy Hoffa’s body, I had to pursue it.

“It’s just an old phrase that people used to say. My decision not to send it was not because I thought it could be in the least bit offensive but because I just didn’t find it funny. Why, exactly, would that not have been good? ”

“Because then I would have felt like I had pressure to buy you the food, versus that it came from the sheer joy of me wanting to get it for you.”

I think at this point I dropped the subject and just resigned myself that she was a complete nutcase but this started my tiptoeing through the field of eggshells whenever I was around her.

We were in The Westerly Market health food store picking up some stuff when we bumped into a girl she knew. The girl said she was from Brooklyn. I asked, “So what are you doing here?” meaning Manhattan. She told me that she thought she’d go to the Westerly. I said, “Don’t they have health food stores in Brooklyn?” and she explained something or other.

When we left the store, Roach’s mood had changed from a crystal clear sunny day where everyone was smiling and playing Frisbee while listening to the birds sing to one where fire rained from the sky and body parts were scattered everywhere as children cried incessantly. I said, “What’s up? You seem to be in a bad mood suddenly.”

She proceeded to rip me a new one. “Why would you say that to her?”

“Say what?” I said like a black woman who was just told that the government just cut her off Welfare.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeub8hEZaM&feature=rec-fresh+div-r-2-HM]

“Why did you say, ‘You came all the way from Brooklyn to go to a health food store?’  I mean, how do you think that made her feel?”

“While that was not my most brilliant comic moment, I don’t think she really gave a crap. I would actually encourage you to call her up and ask her and I would be surprised if she even remembered the line let alone gave a shit about it.” Needless to say, I didn’t get any that night, not that I would have even noticed with that vag so stretched out that an 18-wheeler could pass through without topping out.

Roach is always traveling around the country and the world proselytizing her “mission” like a Jesus freak does Jesus. Since she told me that when she’s in New York she doesn’t usually take the time to explore the park, I took her that night for a walk in Central Park to the Rambles, a beautiful nature preserve area where the bird watchers with binoculars around their necks get angry when I let Abandon loose to kill their beloved winged friends. I thought I would give her a taste of something she hadn’t really experienced in New York.

We were sitting on the wooden bench in a peaceful area by this little stream I like to visit. I had Roach sit facing the stream while I straddled my legs and arms around her. She commented again how she doesn’t usually take the time to explore an area like this. I said jokingly, “Well, if your friend can travel all the way from Brooklyn to Midtown to come to a health food store, I suppose you can make it here the next time you come to New York City.”

“That doesn’t feel good,” she said, using safe New-Age passive-aggressive terminology to say, “You’re a friggin’ idiot!”

For me, the sign of truly getting past a difficult situation is to be able to discuss it again without bursting into tears or bitchiness. An alcoholic has beaten his addiction when he can sit in a bar and not feel like having a drink, or have a single drink and not need any more. He has not beaten his addiction if he runs like a banshee into a corner and starts rocking and sucking his thumb every time he smells someone’s alcohol-containing mouthwash.

Things continued to get extremely challenging for Roach and me. I would say, “How was your day?” and she would snap angrily, “Why would you ask that?” To which I would say, “Because I thought just for a moment you wouldn’t react like a complete psycho!” But the real pinnacle moment of disaster—or would that be the real nadir moment—was when I posted a piece on my un-blog that I thought was just downright silly and she found akin to me nuking female whales while reciting the Anarchist’s Anthem: “FUCK WHALES! FUCK WOMEN! FUCK PEACE! FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT! FUCK YOU!”

Both Roach and I were interviewed on RawPeople radio at the Raw Spirit Festival in D.C. Her interview was posted on RawPeople’s webpage before mine was and I wrote a piece that was my, albeit demented, way of supporting her. Needless to say, I would have had more of a chance of being shown any appreciation from her if I had shouted, “FUCK WHALES! FUCK WOMEN! FUCK PEACE! FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT! FUCK YOU!”

The comic element of the piece had me looking for a video of a beautiful, sexy woman online in order to pleasure myself. Finding her picture on this site, I clicked the video and was ready to flog the hen when she started talking. Because she was so intelligent and had something of value to offer, I found my poultry losing its rigor mortis. I was making myself the shallow, perverted idiot. And was saying that she was beautiful and sexy—why a shallow guy like me first tuned in—and that she was intelligent and had something to offer—why a shallow guy like me tuned out. The original title of the piece, which is now called “My Limp Biscuit,” contained Roach’s name and had a photo of her that I pulled from Google Images. [http://rebelyogi.com/amy-rachelle-and-my-limp-biscuit.html]

Roach friggin’ flipped out! I learned that it was degrading to her and I should have asked her opinion because apparently I was the child and she was the adult in our relationship and, “What were you thinking posting a picture of me??”

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-fQ32qz4d0]

She told me I had to take it down and finally I gave up the pipedream that I was going to get any cavernous vagina and told her to shut her pie-hole. I said that her picture came from Google Images and not from a private, “And here’s you sticking the feather duster in your ass” collection. I tried to explain to her the humor of the piece but because she is humorless, it fell on deaf ears.

And then she did the unspeakable: she gave me an ultimatum. Now I don’t take too kindly to threats. I have had an issue with authority for as long as I remember and anyone telling me what I have to do just makes me want to do whatever I was doing even more.

There was the time I was in a play at The Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. It was before I even signed my contract and I knew I had to get out of the run for one day to attend one of my best friends since 5^th grade, Nussy’s, wedding. They said I couldn’t. But Nussy and I had a trump card: his uncle had given about $50,000 to the theater and, needless to say, money talks and bullshit walks without any of the money. His uncle was going to get in touch with management and put some green pressure on them.

When I later talked to management, they told me that they had already talked to Uncle Nussy and that the answer was still no. I had played my trump card and all it did was show up with a bad comb over. I had to make a decision. I was pursuing a career as an actor. This was a good gig in a theater that was considered “Broadway in Jersey.” I took the gig. It was only after I signed the contract that I found out that they lied to me about talking to Uncle Nussy. And I was pissed.

My revenge was my bio for the program. For the 20 words I had, I collected a list of words selected by randomly opening a dictionary and blindly pointing. I knew this would be a tremendous eyesore in the program.

The management told me, “You can’t do that!” I said, “Fuck you, it’s my bio.” Finally a sweet guy in management came up to me and said, “I know it’s ridiculous to ask, but is there any way you can change your bio.” And that was all I needed and I did change it. I think the final version was, “The management of this theater is a bunch of lying sacks of shit! Screw them. Screw you. Enjoy the show.”

The point of my little sidetrack down theater lane was to illustrate a principle that is common for most except the extremely weak. If you tell someone what he or she has to do, if they have any gonads, they will take offense and fight back. It is only the most pussiated weakling who will respond, “Okay, just don’t be mad at me!” If Roach didn’t already try to cut my balls off constantly with a rusty knife, I might have been okay with her rubbing the flat edge of her blade against my scrotum. But because she is so masculine in energy, all of her “corrections” involved a bitch slap across the face and a pat on the ass and I had reached my breaking point.

Now she was telling me what I could and couldn’t write on MY un-blog. She was trying to control my creative expression. Maybe if she had a tight pussy I would put up with that bullshit but enough was enough.

Another thing about an ultimatum that makes it effective is when the other party gives a shit. “If you do that again, I will punch you in the nose,” comes along with the assumption that the person receiving the ultimatum values his nose staying in the shape it currently is. If the recipient of the threat is a masochist, he may blow a load at such a suggestion. I had known for a long time that Roach and I were just a passing breeze and I didn’t really care either way if she blew cock or blew away.

After a long deliberation, I finally did modify the piece. She sent me some email with more New-Age nonsense about how, “I feel a release of anger and now have to just sit with your inconsideration.” I told her that I removed her picture and changed the name not because of her ultimatum and not because I wanted us to be anything other than one more notch on each other’s belts. I did it for her. Really, the fact that I didn’t want anything was more of a testament to the fact that my act was selfless.

Roach came back to New York City for a gig. That was the only reason she would ever go anywhere, as her life had been suppressed behind her “mission.” I found out through email from a couple of raw food e-nouncements that she was in town and dropped off a story that I copied from an Osho discourse that I thought was apropos.  Eventually we met up and it seemed like we were going to give it the old college try, which I think means getting drunk out of your mind and sleeping through your classes. We had some nice sharing but it didn’t work.

After the first “Enlightening Nonsense” piece she read of mine where she discovered her “name,” she had voiced to me that she didn’t like it. She said that a roach was a disgusting creature and that she felt degraded by the name and brought up her overused and at this point over-the-top, “That doesn’t feel good.” I told her that a “cup half-full” person might see a cockroach as a survivor, as they are supposedly the only species that will survive a nuclear holocaust.

But that is not why I gave her that name. I chose it because it sounded a little like her “in person” name and I like to create character names that are a variation of the person’s real name and see if I can morph it into an animal, insect, food or flower. After she started giving me gay alternative names that she would prefer me call her in my un-blog, I put my foot down; I might I stepped on a roach when I did.

After her first NYC stopover, Roach went away to California to close out some of her personal business, as everything with Roach is “business.” I had made some attempts to stay in touch with her, from emails, to signing up and sending her a few messages on Skype, an online phone thing that she used to stay in touch with people. I even sent a joke gift to her mother’s address, which she told me she would be passing by to drop off the car she was picking up in Cali. I didn’t hear much of anything back from her.

The gag gift was a bracelet of a beetle sealed in plastic, the closest of what the vendor had to a cockroach. The idea was to remind her to not take herself to seriously, a message that is important for all of us, but especially for the missionary fanatics like Roach who are so caught up in helping to save the world that they forget to, in the words of Freddie Kruger from “Nightmare On Elmstreet 2” in response to the lame who said to him, “We don’t want to hurt you, we want to help you,” “HELP YOURSELF, FUCKER!” Of course, I made the mistake of crediting her with having a sense of humor.

The gift was returned to me, written on the envelope that it could not be forwarded to her. When later I told Roach I had sent something to her mother’s for her, she said that she did hear that something was sent for her.

On her second NYC stopover, I sent the same thing repackaged the friend’s place at which she was staying. It came back to me “Undeliverable.” This time I knew that she had opened it, seen it, and then sent it back. Why didn’t she just throw it in the garbage? This is a psych game, people. What she was trying to convey to me was that she never even saw it. Now tell me, these permanent residents who were friends of hers wouldn’t know how to forward something to her? Sister, please! It was Roach’s typical of way of dealing with anything she found uncomfortable—by not dealing with it.

There was many times during our short rocky ride together that I thought about drowning her at the raw buffet in the bucket of finely diced cauliflower. This was not because she was driving me crazy, although she was. And it was also not because I am a sociopath, which I am. It was in the hope of bringing me back to that innocent time when I believed that every human being on the planet Earth had a sense of humor. Now I knew differently. And as long as someone with a senseless of humor wanders the Earth, the stress fracture in my funny bone will never fully heal.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrllCZw8jiM]

“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

—C.K. Chesterton