Westbrook, ME
Local drooler Darrel Wadsworth briefly saw that someone was talking about Tim McGraw's new song "Portland, Maine"on facebook on Wednesday and had some choice words for the musician.
"It's just dumb as all shit." said Wadsworth to anyone willing to listen. "I mean, I don't understand what he doesn't get. It's in Maine, so it's in the Northeast, and then it has the word port in it's name, so it's coastal. Northeast and coastal. It's not fucking hard."
"Look," added Wadsworth, "I barely graduated from high school. The last book I read was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry in sixth grade. I occasionally install car stereos, but mostly get by selling plasma and shitty skunk weed. I'm not allowed to come within two hundred feet of Payless Shoes and Jokers Pizza. I think Gettysburg is in the South. I use the terms homo and philanthropist interchangeably. My mother had to talk me down from devoting all my time and energy to a hip hop career after she pointed out that I was oblivious to the fact that un-ironically calling myself D-Wad wasn't exactly winning the people over. But Jesus Christ, even I can find Portland on a fucking map."
Friday, September 19, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
TEN HONEST STATEMENTS ABOUT ROBIN WILLIAMS
Robin Williams' career existed almost entirely in the span of my lifetime. For a long time, he was a significant, but awkward figure for me, because he did a lot of stuff that just wasn't funny. However, I think he merits a eulogy of sorts. So here goes:
1. I watched a lot of "Mork & Mindy" when I was a child. I'm not lying when I say that the episode where their geriatric child played by Jonathan Winters hatched from an egg helped shape my understanding of actual human childbirth, because it forced me to ask my parents a lot of weird questions.
2. I saw Mrs. Doubtfire too many times in 1994. At the time, I quickly came to resent the non-threatening bowl haircuts and overabundance of Aerosmith, but in hindsight, it's a pretty good depiction of the time. Also, any movie that includes a cameo by Buster the Ape is fine by me.
3. Robin Williams made some awesome movies, including "The Fischer King", "The World According to Garp", "Good Morning Vietnam", "The Birdcage" and "Good Will Hunting". He also made "Bicentennial Man, "Jack", "RV" and "Robots". I never saw any of those latter movies, but I judged his career for them.
4. The first time I saw Aladdin, I thought it was hilarious. The hilarity tapered off after subsequent viewings. There were a lot of subsequent viewings. Now, the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Aladdin is I hate that fucking movie, even though I haven't seen it in nearly 20 years.
5. I have often said that I found Robin Williams funniest when he was on cocaine. That really is a horrible thing to say. I think a better way to put it would be, I thought he was funnier when I was a kid. Which, coincidentally was at the peak of his cocaine use. BUT it's not like I was watching a shit ton of his stand up material at that time.
6. Robin Williams had black guy and gay guy voices. He did. You know he did and I know he did. We all know it. You could argue, okay, maybe they weren't really racially charged or homophobic. In an ideal world, maybe that could be just, like, a deep voiced guy and an effeminate guy. But, ultimately, they still were black guy and gay guy voices, and anything I say to defend them is an excuse. However, I also think it also says something about my own awkward relationship with race as a white dude that it makes me uncomfortable, because in a truly colorblind world, it wouldn't matter at all.
7. I like the idea of liking "Dead Poets Society", but the last time I saw it, I was nineteen and actually found it kind of cheesy, ham-fisted and unforgivably affluent.
8. Robin Williams is also partially responsible for my well-documented hatred of Sting. You see, "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the first film where I remember being keenly aware of just how amazingly shot it was. Sting is in the film for approximately half a second. Robin Williams has a substantially larger role. Sting appears pretty early on in the closing credits. Robim Williams seemingly doesn't appear at all. For a long time, I thought that was a complete crock of shit. It has since come to my attention that Robin Williams is credited instead as Ray D. Tutto. But still, fuck Sting, man.
9. The episode of Happy Days where Robin Williams first donned the Mork from Ork persona still kind of scares the shit of me. Specifically, it's his slow motion finger gun. Even as an adult, the idea of a Robin Williams alien being able to exert that much control over other people by pointing and making a simple, obnoxious noise makes me very uncomfortable. Like, the ability clearly is not temporal in nature, so he's just fucking up Fonzie's neurological functions, and seriously, nobody should be able to fuck with Arthur Fonzerelli. Ever.
10. Robin Williams was one of those people whose face alone could make me deeply uncomfortable. It could convey a lot of emotion, but it also always seemed like a mask mugging for the camera, like it somehow existed in the Uncanny Valley despite being attached to a human being.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
RANGER GROOVY
It was a sunny morning in Santa Rosa, California in the Spring of 1985. I was six years old and had rosy cheeks. I had the requisite bad haircut, my mother still dressed me for the most part and I still thought that scientists built Frankensteins and giant robots. My world was still very small, happy and relatively care free.
My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Lewis was a seven-foot-tall puppet monster made of scouring pads, a green Captain Cody Elementary School soccer jacket and dry, dead skin who hated children with every fiber of her being (1). That morning, she announced that she had a surprise field trip for us. You'll notice that I did not call it a fun surprise field trip. Ms. Lewis did not do fun.
At 11am, this husk of a formerly passionate teacher ushered the class out of the olive drab double-wide that served as our classroom, along the metal staging that ran in front of building, down the steps and out to the grass in front of the school. A painted, decommissioned short bus was parked on the lawn, and folding tables had been set up all around it. As we approached the bus, Ms. Lewis introduced us to an individual that I'm going to call "Ranger Groovy".
Ranger Groovy was tall and skinny. The combination of his high-cut, brown, official-looking shorts and grimy Birkenstock sandals made his hairy legs look impossibly long, and an unwashed ponytail dangled out from under the ranger hat he wore on his head to the small of his back. I'm pretty sure that he was wearing a tie-dye shirt under a poorly buttoned boy scout shirt. He had come to teach us all about pollution using his menagerie of taxidermied animals who were killed by litter.
Ranger Groovy first walked us past a dead raccoon propped up on a log in a surprisingly lifelike pose. The poor little critter had a six pack ring draped around it's neck. Nearby, there was a rattlesnake on a square of astroturf with a bag of nacho cheese Doritos jammed in it's gaping maw. There was a trout with a six pack ring around it's neck and a family of chipmunks that had apparently become so distraught by the election that they also decided to commit mass suicide by six pack ring. An incredibly stupid beaver who had decided to chew on a can of Old Milwaukee instead of a log, and then died when he attempted to floss it out with a six pack ring sat in a kiddy pool full of crisp, white foam cups.
Lesson learned, Ranger Groovy. Six pack rings are the most efficient killing machines ever devised by man.
After we completed our stroll through his museum of crappy natural history, Ranger Groovy gave a speech about the responsibility each and every one of us has to make the world a better place. While his entire message genuinely had a profound impact on me, there was one phrase he used that has stuck with me for twenty nine years for all the wrong reasons. At the very end of the speech, he pointed at me and said "Remember, we're all captains here on Starship Earth."
Upon hearing the term "Starship Earth", I became skeptical of the horrors that Ranger Groovy had on display. It was possibly the dumbest combination of words that I had ever heard.
Don't get me wrong. People who litter are fucking douche bags and litter definitely harms and kills animals. I'm not in any way disputing this fact.
All that I am saying is that, given some of the other characters (2) that lurked around my school, I am not convinced that Ranger Groovy wasn't just some dude who lived in a bus behind Ms. Lewis's decrepit swamp shack (3) and did the poor old broad a favor by mildly traumatizing her students once a year by flinging the contents of an old Alpha Beta (4) bag from the back of his bus on a bunch of stolen taxidermy that he couldn't pawn for drug money.
(1) Okay, yes, that is probably a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the woman, but she did tell me and my classmates that we were the worst students that she had ever had (a statement she had notoriously repeated to at least the last five classes she had taught).
(2) My music teacher, Mr. Hadlock for example, was clearly just a creepy drifter with an acoustic guitar. I say this because he had a photo of a topless hula dancer inside his guitar case and the only time I saw him outside of school, he was buying a rack of beer and snarled "Scram, kid." at me. Ere go, scary drifter.
(3) There's no way that she didn't live in a swamp shack.
(4) Alpha Beta was a California-based chain of liquor stores. I don't know if they are still a thing. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere near the Alpha Beta up the road from my house as a kid.
My kindergarten teacher, Ms. Lewis was a seven-foot-tall puppet monster made of scouring pads, a green Captain Cody Elementary School soccer jacket and dry, dead skin who hated children with every fiber of her being (1). That morning, she announced that she had a surprise field trip for us. You'll notice that I did not call it a fun surprise field trip. Ms. Lewis did not do fun.
At 11am, this husk of a formerly passionate teacher ushered the class out of the olive drab double-wide that served as our classroom, along the metal staging that ran in front of building, down the steps and out to the grass in front of the school. A painted, decommissioned short bus was parked on the lawn, and folding tables had been set up all around it. As we approached the bus, Ms. Lewis introduced us to an individual that I'm going to call "Ranger Groovy".
Ranger Groovy was tall and skinny. The combination of his high-cut, brown, official-looking shorts and grimy Birkenstock sandals made his hairy legs look impossibly long, and an unwashed ponytail dangled out from under the ranger hat he wore on his head to the small of his back. I'm pretty sure that he was wearing a tie-dye shirt under a poorly buttoned boy scout shirt. He had come to teach us all about pollution using his menagerie of taxidermied animals who were killed by litter.
Ranger Groovy first walked us past a dead raccoon propped up on a log in a surprisingly lifelike pose. The poor little critter had a six pack ring draped around it's neck. Nearby, there was a rattlesnake on a square of astroturf with a bag of nacho cheese Doritos jammed in it's gaping maw. There was a trout with a six pack ring around it's neck and a family of chipmunks that had apparently become so distraught by the election that they also decided to commit mass suicide by six pack ring. An incredibly stupid beaver who had decided to chew on a can of Old Milwaukee instead of a log, and then died when he attempted to floss it out with a six pack ring sat in a kiddy pool full of crisp, white foam cups.
Lesson learned, Ranger Groovy. Six pack rings are the most efficient killing machines ever devised by man.
After we completed our stroll through his museum of crappy natural history, Ranger Groovy gave a speech about the responsibility each and every one of us has to make the world a better place. While his entire message genuinely had a profound impact on me, there was one phrase he used that has stuck with me for twenty nine years for all the wrong reasons. At the very end of the speech, he pointed at me and said "Remember, we're all captains here on Starship Earth."
Upon hearing the term "Starship Earth", I became skeptical of the horrors that Ranger Groovy had on display. It was possibly the dumbest combination of words that I had ever heard.
Don't get me wrong. People who litter are fucking douche bags and litter definitely harms and kills animals. I'm not in any way disputing this fact.
All that I am saying is that, given some of the other characters (2) that lurked around my school, I am not convinced that Ranger Groovy wasn't just some dude who lived in a bus behind Ms. Lewis's decrepit swamp shack (3) and did the poor old broad a favor by mildly traumatizing her students once a year by flinging the contents of an old Alpha Beta (4) bag from the back of his bus on a bunch of stolen taxidermy that he couldn't pawn for drug money.
(1) Okay, yes, that is probably a grossly inaccurate portrayal of the woman, but she did tell me and my classmates that we were the worst students that she had ever had (a statement she had notoriously repeated to at least the last five classes she had taught).
(2) My music teacher, Mr. Hadlock for example, was clearly just a creepy drifter with an acoustic guitar. I say this because he had a photo of a topless hula dancer inside his guitar case and the only time I saw him outside of school, he was buying a rack of beer and snarled "Scram, kid." at me. Ere go, scary drifter.
(3) There's no way that she didn't live in a swamp shack.
(4) Alpha Beta was a California-based chain of liquor stores. I don't know if they are still a thing. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere near the Alpha Beta up the road from my house as a kid.
CHAPTER 183: UNTITLED DIALOGUE #12
AUTHOR'S NOTE: What follows is the result of a writing exercise where I attempted to create an original, funny idea for a superhero movie parody. It went horribly, horribly wrong, and in the end, I had to turn it into a conversation between two screenwriters.
...........
"How's the new Hulk project coming along, Steve?"
"Ugh. Why is it so hard to make a movie about a guy who gets mad, turns green and throws cars at an old man in a tank and maybe a monster or something?"
"Did you read my script?"
"Banner: Rise of the Incredible Hulk?"
"That's the one!"
"Yes. I did."
"Aaaaaand?"
"It... well it's... just... horrible."
"It forces you to confront your prejudice against people exposed to gamma rays. Is the metaphor lost on you?"
"No."
"But it affected you?"
"Yes, it profoundly affected me. It made me want to travel back in time and abort you with a coat hanger."
"Look, someone needs to change the dynamic of the summer blockbuster. Turn it on its head before everything goes stale and we're left with Paranormal Activity clones and Melissa McCarthy road movies as the tent poles. I'm juxtaposing heroism with the stark reality of life. This could be the Citizen Kane of superhero movies."
"Yeah, no. Not so much."
"Why not?"
"Because it's wrong."
"No. You're just closed minded. The Hulk can be a vehicle for drama. There was an episode of the old TV show where Banner was on a plane that was about to crash and he had to change into the Hulk to pull it out of a nose dive. It was amazing!"
"INTERIOR. DAYTIME. BRUCE BANNER OPENS THE FIRE DOOR OF HIS FLOOR OF STARK TOWER, pulling off his baseball cap, revealing green splotches. He hurries down the hall, passing HAWKEYE, pretending to scratch an itch in order to hide his condition from his teammate.
This is literally a script for Philadelphia that you pulled off of newsgroups. You just replaced the Tom Hanks character with Bruce Banner! Your climax has Bruce Banner losing a court battle against Tony Stark and Captain America, then Hulking out and brutally assaulting an already hospitalized MODOC. Having read that out loud, I am going to throw up on behalf of all humanity!"
"What if it were Wolverine, instead?"
"Now you're talking!"
...........
"How's the new Hulk project coming along, Steve?"
"Ugh. Why is it so hard to make a movie about a guy who gets mad, turns green and throws cars at an old man in a tank and maybe a monster or something?"
"Did you read my script?"
"Banner: Rise of the Incredible Hulk?"
"That's the one!"
"Yes. I did."
"Aaaaaand?"
"It... well it's... just... horrible."
"It forces you to confront your prejudice against people exposed to gamma rays. Is the metaphor lost on you?"
"No."
"But it affected you?"
"Yes, it profoundly affected me. It made me want to travel back in time and abort you with a coat hanger."
"Look, someone needs to change the dynamic of the summer blockbuster. Turn it on its head before everything goes stale and we're left with Paranormal Activity clones and Melissa McCarthy road movies as the tent poles. I'm juxtaposing heroism with the stark reality of life. This could be the Citizen Kane of superhero movies."
"Yeah, no. Not so much."
"Why not?"
"Because it's wrong."
"No. You're just closed minded. The Hulk can be a vehicle for drama. There was an episode of the old TV show where Banner was on a plane that was about to crash and he had to change into the Hulk to pull it out of a nose dive. It was amazing!"
"INTERIOR. DAYTIME. BRUCE BANNER OPENS THE FIRE DOOR OF HIS FLOOR OF STARK TOWER, pulling off his baseball cap, revealing green splotches. He hurries down the hall, passing HAWKEYE, pretending to scratch an itch in order to hide his condition from his teammate.
This is literally a script for Philadelphia that you pulled off of newsgroups. You just replaced the Tom Hanks character with Bruce Banner! Your climax has Bruce Banner losing a court battle against Tony Stark and Captain America, then Hulking out and brutally assaulting an already hospitalized MODOC. Having read that out loud, I am going to throw up on behalf of all humanity!"
"What if it were Wolverine, instead?"
"Now you're talking!"
Saturday, April 26, 2014
That's Edutainment?
As a person born in California in the late '70s, every form of media that I was exposed to for the first few years of my life was at least moderately psychedelic. Regardless of whether it was a McDonald's ad or a Disney movie, The Electric Company or a Public Service Announcement, everything was just slightly groovy. Even the filmstrips about the pilgrims we were forced to watch had weird Moog soundtracks and Yellow Submarine character designs.
Things took a drastic change around 1984, when Nancy Reagan decided that she wanted to keep me off drugs. The conflicting environmental messages and survival tips (don't litter, but if you get lost in the woods, use one of the many discarded trash bags you find as a poncho) edutainment and public service messages suddenly shifted to very special episodes. Secondary characters on Webster became addicted to nonspecific drugs and wound up working as unpaid, one-handed meat packers. Margot on Punky Brewster was so wracked with guilt after the refrigerator incident that she cut off all her hair, crashed her mother's car and started her own infanticide club. Skippy never recovered from his experiences in El Salvador, and Screech became a nun. Mostly, it was about drugs though. And once people started warning me about the effects of drugs on the human brain, I put two and two together and it became obvious to me that anyone who had ever tried to simultaneously entertain and teach me anything had probably done a shit ton of acid.
Suppressed by the cold, hard reality of the '80s, my memories of "Free To Be... You And Me", "The Point" and "H.R. Puffinstuff" were crammed into the dark recesses of my brain, where they have festered for thirty years, occasionally bubbling to the surface and leaving me wondering if they were real or imagined. They are stored in a nether region of my subconscious, even more distant than that well-guarded utopian playground where I suspect "Shamelessly Happy Matt" skips and dances about. Here, in an abandoned, day-glo rock-n-roll church in a field of swirling sunflowers beneath a purple paisley sky, a faceless projectionist in massive, flower-print bell bottoms and a brown, fringed leather vest is playing a perpetual loop of rambling, senseless edutainment shorts, cobbled together from half-memories and engrams scarred into my psyche by well-meaning adults.
These shorts depict a rainbow colored Brooklyn and a technicolor alphabet hyphenation forest where Doctor John mercilessly torments and mocks your inability to find your way out. Crude proto-muppets representing babies tell me about the differences between their respective genitalia as Michael Jackson sings about self-acceptance. Six-Million Dollar Man Big Foot and Leonard Nimoy encourage me to go for nature walks and to seek out new age powers, but not to venture into construction sites. Papa John and Mackenzie Phillips sing songs about the importance of family, accompanied by sexually aggressive mimes and then Witchy-Poo suddenly segues in and tells a knock-knock joke.
Only it's never a funny joke.
Wendy Carlos music starts up and two teenagers in earth tone pants and blood red turtlenecks head into a locker room to have an awkward discussion about the changes their bodies have been going through. Next up, Wayland Flowers and Madame explain that your parents probably still love you, even if they are getting divorced while a lifeless Charlie McCarthy puppet sits in a corner collecting cobwebs. The Solid Gold dancers spill in, and Bootsy Collins tells a kid who can't play the sitar to never give up before a star wipe brings us more Witchy-Poo.
Oh, look! It's Alan Alda and a group of kids sitting inside a geodesic dome! And they're discussing aspirations. And they all want to be astronauts. Luckily, according to all the latest data, we'll all be living on the moon by 1991! Mamma Cass wants a pet alligator, but Meadowlark Lemon shows up on his flying phantom fire hydrant to tell her that it's a lot of responsibility. John Lennon dishes some parenting advice to Eric Clapton in an over sized nursery, then Robert Blake talks about resolving conflict with a parrot. Orson Welles stares at the camera for several minutes without blinking, breathing heavily while the Mummenschanz perform their infamous clay face genital routine. Finally, the camera fades to black, with only the continuing sound of Orson's breathing for another two minutes.
Now let us never speak of this part of my brain again.
Things took a drastic change around 1984, when Nancy Reagan decided that she wanted to keep me off drugs. The conflicting environmental messages and survival tips (don't litter, but if you get lost in the woods, use one of the many discarded trash bags you find as a poncho) edutainment and public service messages suddenly shifted to very special episodes. Secondary characters on Webster became addicted to nonspecific drugs and wound up working as unpaid, one-handed meat packers. Margot on Punky Brewster was so wracked with guilt after the refrigerator incident that she cut off all her hair, crashed her mother's car and started her own infanticide club. Skippy never recovered from his experiences in El Salvador, and Screech became a nun. Mostly, it was about drugs though. And once people started warning me about the effects of drugs on the human brain, I put two and two together and it became obvious to me that anyone who had ever tried to simultaneously entertain and teach me anything had probably done a shit ton of acid.
Suppressed by the cold, hard reality of the '80s, my memories of "Free To Be... You And Me", "The Point" and "H.R. Puffinstuff" were crammed into the dark recesses of my brain, where they have festered for thirty years, occasionally bubbling to the surface and leaving me wondering if they were real or imagined. They are stored in a nether region of my subconscious, even more distant than that well-guarded utopian playground where I suspect "Shamelessly Happy Matt" skips and dances about. Here, in an abandoned, day-glo rock-n-roll church in a field of swirling sunflowers beneath a purple paisley sky, a faceless projectionist in massive, flower-print bell bottoms and a brown, fringed leather vest is playing a perpetual loop of rambling, senseless edutainment shorts, cobbled together from half-memories and engrams scarred into my psyche by well-meaning adults.
These shorts depict a rainbow colored Brooklyn and a technicolor alphabet hyphenation forest where Doctor John mercilessly torments and mocks your inability to find your way out. Crude proto-muppets representing babies tell me about the differences between their respective genitalia as Michael Jackson sings about self-acceptance. Six-Million Dollar Man Big Foot and Leonard Nimoy encourage me to go for nature walks and to seek out new age powers, but not to venture into construction sites. Papa John and Mackenzie Phillips sing songs about the importance of family, accompanied by sexually aggressive mimes and then Witchy-Poo suddenly segues in and tells a knock-knock joke.
Only it's never a funny joke.
WITCHY-POO
Hey Kids! Knock-knock!
KIDS CHORUS
Who's there, Witchy-Poo?
WITCHY-POO
Butter!
KID'S CHORUS
Butter who?
WITCHY-POO
Butter not get in a car with a stranger or they'll find your waterlogged, severed head floating in a canal!
Wendy Carlos music starts up and two teenagers in earth tone pants and blood red turtlenecks head into a locker room to have an awkward discussion about the changes their bodies have been going through. Next up, Wayland Flowers and Madame explain that your parents probably still love you, even if they are getting divorced while a lifeless Charlie McCarthy puppet sits in a corner collecting cobwebs. The Solid Gold dancers spill in, and Bootsy Collins tells a kid who can't play the sitar to never give up before a star wipe brings us more Witchy-Poo.
WITCHY-POO
Hey Kids! Knock-knock!
KIDS CHORUS
Who's there, Witchy-Poo?
WITCHY-POO
Cha-cha!
KIDS CHORUS
Cha-cha who?
WITCHY-POO
Cha-ch-cha-challenger explosion!! Deal with it.
Oh, look! It's Alan Alda and a group of kids sitting inside a geodesic dome! And they're discussing aspirations. And they all want to be astronauts. Luckily, according to all the latest data, we'll all be living on the moon by 1991! Mamma Cass wants a pet alligator, but Meadowlark Lemon shows up on his flying phantom fire hydrant to tell her that it's a lot of responsibility. John Lennon dishes some parenting advice to Eric Clapton in an over sized nursery, then Robert Blake talks about resolving conflict with a parrot. Orson Welles stares at the camera for several minutes without blinking, breathing heavily while the Mummenschanz perform their infamous clay face genital routine. Finally, the camera fades to black, with only the continuing sound of Orson's breathing for another two minutes.
Now let us never speak of this part of my brain again.
THE BROWN PAPER BAG
The following story is complete bullshit.
There were differing stories regarding the origins of the brown paper bag. My friend Jackson and my next door neighbor Randy both laid claim to it's contents - a half-full bottle of Mad Dog and an issue of Lesbian Fire.
It was June 1990 - the first week of Summer Vacation. Jackson and I had just completed fifth grade and Randy was going on to middle school. All three of us were at various stages of being eleven years old. As you can imagine, a half full bottle of fortified wine and a spank mag made for an epic discovery.
"I bought them at the Big Apple yesterday!" exclaimed Randy. "They must have fallen out of my backpack while I was riding home."
"Why would they sell you porn and wine?" asked Jackson.
"Because I'm cool."
That was a good argument. Randy was pretty cool. He was a year ahead of us, after all, and he had his own table saw. One thing bothered me though.
"So let me get this straight." I said. "They'll sell you anything you want, so you went with Lesbian Fire?"
Randy paused and looked at the two harsh looking women on the cover. They looked angry at each other and even angrier at us. This was some seriously gonzo shit, mind you, more of a Tijuana bible than a magazine. I distinctly remember thinking the two women resembled Markie Post and Amanda Bearce (Marcy from Married With Children) after nervous breakdowns and several years of hard drug use. It depicted what heterosexual idiots in 1990 assumed big-haired lesbians did with cool whip, sailor hats and riding crops.
"Lesbians are cool."
Atticus Finch couldn't have argued with that one, either.
Jackson's version of events was a little more down to Earth.
"Remember when I told you I had to mow the lawn before I came over this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, as I was mowing, a Trans Am pulled up next to me."
"What color was it?" Randy snarled, skeptically.
"Yellow. The guy rolled down his window, and spat. When I looked over at him, he yelled 'Eat Pussy!' and threw the bag at me. He then peeled out and sped off."
Randy proceeded to tear Jackson's case to shreds. "No one who is smart enough to drive a Trans Am would just throw away a bag full of porn and booze. That's insane."
"That's what happened!"
"Pfft. Bullshit."
The argument over the hobo wine and porn quickly escalated into a small scale civil war that engulfed the preteen male population of Vallejo Drive, Franklin and Pierce Street and several outlying neighborhoods.
Kyle Logan and Dewey LaChance, eighth graders we all normally regarded as bottom-feeding scumfucks, allied themselves with Randy and spent the next few days menacing Jackson. They eventually got bored with it and decided to huff gas, instead. Randy just spent a lot of time by himself building dead falls and Punji sticks in the woods like Rambo. He'd occasionally emerge from the woods, daring us to chase after him.
Jackson, Spencer Garnier from Pierce Street and Sasha Doak from up on Burton Ridge began making regular BMX patrols of the neighborhood. My younger brother and his friends Frank and Dwight Osajima and Scott Seltzer formed their own little clique that switched sides like Afghan warlords. I mostly tried to remain neutral, though at one point I nearly got into a bat fight with Kyle and Dewey because they wouldn't get off my lawn.
In the end, Jackson and Randy reached a truce when a new kid moved into the neighborhood and started stealing stupid shit like bike pumps, dodge balls and old hammers from people's garages. After we all threatened to beat the fuck out of the new kid if he stepped off his lawn, it was time to divvy up the spoils or war. Jackson got the booze, and Randy got the porn. Both precious relics had sat in a tree house in the woods behind my house for nearly two weeks.
The Mad Dog had spilled in the bag, and what was left had bugs floating in it. Jackson proudly downed the remaining swig, describing the taste as a mix of victory, cold medicine and orange crush vomit. We smashed the bottle on the train tracks running alongside Main Street later that afternoon.
Lesbian Fire had gotten wet from what I really hope was condensation. The last time I saw it, Randy had cut the magazine up and placed choice pages in a 3 ring binder with other bits of porn, which he referred to it as "The Dossier". I have no idea why he felt the need to show "The Dossier" to me, but he seemed genuinely proud of it.
Eleven year old boys are fucking weird, man.
There were differing stories regarding the origins of the brown paper bag. My friend Jackson and my next door neighbor Randy both laid claim to it's contents - a half-full bottle of Mad Dog and an issue of Lesbian Fire.
It was June 1990 - the first week of Summer Vacation. Jackson and I had just completed fifth grade and Randy was going on to middle school. All three of us were at various stages of being eleven years old. As you can imagine, a half full bottle of fortified wine and a spank mag made for an epic discovery.
"I bought them at the Big Apple yesterday!" exclaimed Randy. "They must have fallen out of my backpack while I was riding home."
"Why would they sell you porn and wine?" asked Jackson.
"Because I'm cool."
That was a good argument. Randy was pretty cool. He was a year ahead of us, after all, and he had his own table saw. One thing bothered me though.
"So let me get this straight." I said. "They'll sell you anything you want, so you went with Lesbian Fire?"
Randy paused and looked at the two harsh looking women on the cover. They looked angry at each other and even angrier at us. This was some seriously gonzo shit, mind you, more of a Tijuana bible than a magazine. I distinctly remember thinking the two women resembled Markie Post and Amanda Bearce (Marcy from Married With Children) after nervous breakdowns and several years of hard drug use. It depicted what heterosexual idiots in 1990 assumed big-haired lesbians did with cool whip, sailor hats and riding crops.
"Lesbians are cool."
Atticus Finch couldn't have argued with that one, either.
Jackson's version of events was a little more down to Earth.
"Remember when I told you I had to mow the lawn before I came over this morning?"
"Yeah."
"Well, as I was mowing, a Trans Am pulled up next to me."
"What color was it?" Randy snarled, skeptically.
"Yellow. The guy rolled down his window, and spat. When I looked over at him, he yelled 'Eat Pussy!' and threw the bag at me. He then peeled out and sped off."
Randy proceeded to tear Jackson's case to shreds. "No one who is smart enough to drive a Trans Am would just throw away a bag full of porn and booze. That's insane."
"That's what happened!"
"Pfft. Bullshit."
The argument over the hobo wine and porn quickly escalated into a small scale civil war that engulfed the preteen male population of Vallejo Drive, Franklin and Pierce Street and several outlying neighborhoods.
Kyle Logan and Dewey LaChance, eighth graders we all normally regarded as bottom-feeding scumfucks, allied themselves with Randy and spent the next few days menacing Jackson. They eventually got bored with it and decided to huff gas, instead. Randy just spent a lot of time by himself building dead falls and Punji sticks in the woods like Rambo. He'd occasionally emerge from the woods, daring us to chase after him.
Jackson, Spencer Garnier from Pierce Street and Sasha Doak from up on Burton Ridge began making regular BMX patrols of the neighborhood. My younger brother and his friends Frank and Dwight Osajima and Scott Seltzer formed their own little clique that switched sides like Afghan warlords. I mostly tried to remain neutral, though at one point I nearly got into a bat fight with Kyle and Dewey because they wouldn't get off my lawn.
In the end, Jackson and Randy reached a truce when a new kid moved into the neighborhood and started stealing stupid shit like bike pumps, dodge balls and old hammers from people's garages. After we all threatened to beat the fuck out of the new kid if he stepped off his lawn, it was time to divvy up the spoils or war. Jackson got the booze, and Randy got the porn. Both precious relics had sat in a tree house in the woods behind my house for nearly two weeks.
The Mad Dog had spilled in the bag, and what was left had bugs floating in it. Jackson proudly downed the remaining swig, describing the taste as a mix of victory, cold medicine and orange crush vomit. We smashed the bottle on the train tracks running alongside Main Street later that afternoon.
Lesbian Fire had gotten wet from what I really hope was condensation. The last time I saw it, Randy had cut the magazine up and placed choice pages in a 3 ring binder with other bits of porn, which he referred to it as "The Dossier". I have no idea why he felt the need to show "The Dossier" to me, but he seemed genuinely proud of it.
Eleven year old boys are fucking weird, man.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
CHAPTER 388: THE HATEFUL MAN'S GUIDE TO PUBLIC RESTROOM ETIQUETTE
While working out ideas for the "Waxy Nostalgia" post the other day, I recalled a number of incidents over the years where I encountered other guys engaging in what I can only describe as "just doing it wrong" in public bathrooms. I'm not talking about glory holes or "Frisco circles" or any other homoerotic activity that may go on. I honestly don't care about that stuff. What I am referring to are cases where men are showing a basic ignorance of how to properly behave in in a public restroom in the presence of others. For example, I've been in airports a couple of times, walked into the restroom and found business men standing at urinals with their pants completely removed. For reasons I cannot fully comprehend, I found these encounters baffling and terrifying. Did they not understand the unspoken laws of the public restroom? There are certain behaviors that men should be taught from the moment they master the art of toiletry. Here I attempted to jot down the important ones in a relatively mature, yet hateful manner so that today's young, hateful man does not end up tomorrows "that guy".
Ah, the public restroom! As much as you may try avoiding it, at some point in your life, you will have to use a public restroom. Before setting foot in a public restroom, you should probably know the Unspoken Man Laws of the Restroom. Yes, Virginia, there are unspoken rules about public restrooms. Not following these rules can reduce your social standing to zero, ruin your chances of getting a loan and stigmatize your offspring.
Because we live in a gentle age of standardized testing, lowered social expectations and greater acceptance of dudes walking around, touching their balls, these critical rules may not have been passed on to you. As such, I am presenting them here as a service to you, my dear readers.
I. ACCEPTABLE ATTIRE
Regardless of whether you are a wearing your finest Calvin peeing on the No Fear logo shirt or an Armani suit, the public restroom is an unnatural environment for your clothing. Doubtless, every inch of every surface is slick with a mix of urine, feces, semen, Axe body spray, semen, snot, semen, blood, used shaving cream and semen. You do not want to get any of that shit on the over-sized, wrap-around eagle print t-shirt you got from the discount bin at Kohls last week. Your natural reaction may be to be to remove all of your clothing.
DO REMOVE YOUR CLOTHING. Remember, your clothes are there primarily to protect your flesh from the elements - especially the filthy ones. Nobody wants to walk into a bathroom and find a fully disrobed man standing at a urinal. It's terrifying. It forces other people to ask questions that they don't want to be asking when they are attempting to defecate in a public restroom. Defecating in a public restroom is already difficult. Even if the naked man is wearing shoes, that man was at least briefly barefoot in a public restroom while removing their pants, and that thought pattern is not conducive to defecation.
Instead of removing your clothing, take a look down the crotch of your pants, fella.
Notice that you have several apparatuses down there. You may have a belt. Even if you don't have a belt, you should have a button and a fly. These items allow you to pull your pants down without removing them completely, thus preserving the dignity of the restroom, as well as your own.
(On a side note, if you see an elastic band, determine if you are wearing sweat pants or pajamas. If you are wearing either of these items, please exit the restroom and do your business in the gutter, because this is a Mensroom, not a Man-Child's Room)
Do not pull your pants down until you are within striking range of the urinal or before you actually have entered the stall and shut the door. Pull your pants back up before stepping away from the urinal or exiting the stall.
Once you have lowered your pants to ankle length while preparing to urinate, you will need to free your genitals from from the confines of your underwear. In this case, you have two options - you can either pull your penis through the fly of your underpants or lower the waistband until your genitals are accessible. If you choose the first option of pulling your penis through the fly of your underwear, do not pull your testicles through the opening. Pulling your testicles through your fly is weird and creepy and discourages others from wanting to be your special bathroom times friend.
Your undershirt MUST remain on at all times. If you are wondering why your shirt must remain on at all times in the public restroom, consider the following: WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM. Do you pee through your nipples? If you do, you may want to consult your podiatrist. If you are wondering why you should consult a foot doctor about peeing from your nipples, bare in mind that you already remove your shirt in public restrooms which DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE TO BEGIN WITH!
II. ACCEPTABLE COMMUNICATION
Communication, with the exception of a satisfied groan or frustrated grunt, is absolutely forbidden within five feet of the urinal or within the confines of the stall. Any and all who violate the sacred vow of silence are to no longer be considered men, and will be from now on considered Un-Men.
The sole exception to this rule is in the case of assassination attempts in which the assailant yells "Wah" or some variation on "Wah", or makes a terrible pun regarding the manner in which they dispatched their target, a "knife to meet you" or "that's all she garrote", for example. Chances are, however, that you are not an assassin, so keep your mouth shut.
If your cellphone rings while you are engaged at the urinal or on the commode, do not answer it. The person on the other end does not want to know that they are intruding upon your defecation or urination. They probably don't even consider you a human being, and therefore don't want to know that you have biological functions.
If an Un-Man attempts initiate conversation with you while you are in the confines of the stall, do not respond. If the Un-Man persists, you may clear your throat. If the Un-Man still does not grasp the situation, you are allowed to do one of the following:
a. Continue coughing, but subtly sneak in a few insults.
b. Kick in the stall door, point at them, bug out your eyes, pull down your pants and evacuate your bowels. Once your bowels have been evacuated, continue to stand in your filth, go cock-eyed and release a pleasurable moan followed by a prolonged fart. Without attempting to clean yourself up or pulling your pants, extend your arms and move in for a hug.
c. Pull your legs up so that they can no longer be seen.
I recommend option a.
If an Un-Man attempts to initiate conversation with you at the urinal, you are within your rights to turn your entire body to the side and continue urinating, regardless of whether you are hitting a partition or the Un-Man's leg. This is the only acceptable thing you can do. Upon completion of your urination, you may attempt to get a high-five.
Once you have finished your sissies and boom-booms (those are scientific etiquette terms, not my own), resist any urges you may have to speak until you have taken six full strides away from the stall or urinal.
You may converse at the sink while washing your hands, however, you should keep the subject matter of your conversations impersonal and brief. A simple, old fashioned "How's your father" or "Your stubble looks scratchy, Gene" will suffice.
Any conversations that you may have been having prior to entering the restroom absolutely must resume at an awkward clip immediately upon stepping out through the threshold of the doorway into the hallway.
III. DON'T BE A URINATION ABOMINATION
There are multiple ways to go about relieving your bladder: the right way, the wrong way and the all kinds of wrong way.
Once you have lowered your pants and exposed your genitals, you are presented with the age old question of whether to aim or not. The correct answer, of course, is yes, you absolutely must hold your penis and aim the stream of urine. Even if you posses the freakish ability to aim your urine stream solely with the muscles in your penis, you are doing your fellow bathroom patrons a courtesy by holding your penis, as it reassures them that you are not going to urinate on them. Choosing the wrong answer of not aiming at all will effectively castrate you, should word of your carelessness get out. Women hate men who pee all willy-nilly all over toilets.
Aim the stream of urine at the center of the urinal's basin. The proprietor of the restroom may have provided you with a urinal cake, which, as you probably long surmised, exists for the sole purpose of providing urinal neophytes with a convenient target.
While standing at the urinal and urinating, resist the urge to look around. Always try to look straight ahead or lean your head back. Even if you suspect that someone is about to ambush you, do not look around. It is better to suffer a physical assault or the loss of your wallet, watch, wedding ring, grill, cell phone, roller blades, and wristbands than to lose face in front of your special bathroom time friends.
IV. THE SUPER GROWN UP PORTION IN WHICH WE DISCUSS DEFECATION
Its an absolutely untrue fact that in January, 1975, Marlo Thomas attempted to follow up her popular "Free to Be You and Me" material with the instructional "Free to Feces You and Meesies", in which she and an extremely intoxicated Ertha Kitt encouraged children to be themselves and defecate however they wanted. While the album directly led to the Khmer Rouge surrendering, and thus ended the Cambodian Civil War, it also became a rallying call for The Standers Movement - a group of home school parents who encouraged their children to stand while relieving their bowels because they felt that sitting on the toilet inspired shame.
History, of course, has shown that The Standers Movement were horribly wrong. Even gentle Jimmy Carter singled them out as "reprehensible, bathroom destroying hippie scum" during his 1979 State of the Union Address. "Clearly," he unequivocally opined during that otherwise forgettable speech, "there is only one way to produce a stool, and that is sitting down on a toilet, and anyone who disagrees with me should be forcefully reeducated."
Upon fully stepping into a stall, turn and face the door. Pull your pants and underwear down around your ankles. Sit down on the toilet in such a way that your bottom is over the water. Defecation is not even remotely like sex. This is the only way to do it. There is no defecation equivalent of reverse cowgirl. If there is, I do not want to know about it.
When you step into a bathroom stall, you are effectively stepping onto hallowed ground- a cream, mint or obsidian sanctuary from the interferences of the outside world. Remember to do your part to keep this sanctuary clean. Do not leave wads of toilet paper on the floor.
One should clear their mind of stressful thoughts when sitting on the toilet. Likewise, one should not think directly about the act of defecation while defecating. Instead, one should envision metaphors for the biological process unfolding below their belly button. Picture trains coming out of a long dark tunnel, a B52 dropping bombs over the enemy fleet, or Boris Yeltsin breastfeeding a foot long hot dog. Do not think of sexy women, your sixth grade D.A.R.E. officer or the candiru of the Amazon Basin, as these concepts can leading to clenching.
If, for some reason, you should have reading materials handy, you may, by all means, peruse them.
Do not eat while inside the stall. While the safety you feel sealed within its confines may give you the notion that this is an opportune moment for snacking, it most certainly is not. Beyond sanitary considerations, the rustling of plastic and foil wrappers may cause others in the bathroom to clench up or completely withdraw their still-active genitals, creating a mess and upsetting the psychological balance of the environment.
Flush the toilet when you have finished. If particles remain after your initial flush (a common occurrence in this age of low pressure toilets), give the toilet a second, third or even fourth flush to ensure that the next person to occupy this stall does not have to contemplate the dark details of your dietary regimen. If your recent efforts have left the stall haunted by a particularly pungent vapor, consider lighting a match.
If, by some freak occurrence, you manage to clog the toilet of a public restroom with your feces, you are required to kick open the stall and run away. Your arms should be flailing over your head like Kermit the Frog and you must yell "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" until you cross paths with a custodian. This unspoken language of the American Men's Room signals to all other men that the toilet is out of order.
V. THE GRAND FINALE
Upon conclusion of your bowel movement, pull your pants back up and step out of the stall or away from the urinal. Be sure to yell "Hey fellows! I have finished!" and hold up one or two fingers to indicate which bodily function you have just completed in order to give the next man in line an understanding of what to expect once they step up to the plate. Try to give him a sportsmanlike high-five as you pass each other.
Once you have informed your new special bathroom times friends that the stall or urinal is free, make your way to the sink. At this juncture, you may wash your hands with soap and water or pantomime the act, should the fancy strike you. Dry your hands with a paper towel or using an electric hand dryer. If the bathroom is out of paper towels and no hand dryer is available, it is perfectly acceptable to wipe your hands on the back of someone waiting in line.
Make your way out of the bathroom, making sure to tip your hat to your special bathroom times friends and wish them a pleasant experience.
VI. CONCLUSION
Well, there you have it, friends. While I may have left out a few important details (like wiping), most of these concepts are things you should know instinctively. And, if you lack these instincts, you will naturally be removed from the gene pool, so I feel no need to pass them on.
Ah, the public restroom! As much as you may try avoiding it, at some point in your life, you will have to use a public restroom. Before setting foot in a public restroom, you should probably know the Unspoken Man Laws of the Restroom. Yes, Virginia, there are unspoken rules about public restrooms. Not following these rules can reduce your social standing to zero, ruin your chances of getting a loan and stigmatize your offspring.
Because we live in a gentle age of standardized testing, lowered social expectations and greater acceptance of dudes walking around, touching their balls, these critical rules may not have been passed on to you. As such, I am presenting them here as a service to you, my dear readers.
I. ACCEPTABLE ATTIRE
Regardless of whether you are a wearing your finest Calvin peeing on the No Fear logo shirt or an Armani suit, the public restroom is an unnatural environment for your clothing. Doubtless, every inch of every surface is slick with a mix of urine, feces, semen, Axe body spray, semen, snot, semen, blood, used shaving cream and semen. You do not want to get any of that shit on the over-sized, wrap-around eagle print t-shirt you got from the discount bin at Kohls last week. Your natural reaction may be to be to remove all of your clothing.
DO REMOVE YOUR CLOTHING. Remember, your clothes are there primarily to protect your flesh from the elements - especially the filthy ones. Nobody wants to walk into a bathroom and find a fully disrobed man standing at a urinal. It's terrifying. It forces other people to ask questions that they don't want to be asking when they are attempting to defecate in a public restroom. Defecating in a public restroom is already difficult. Even if the naked man is wearing shoes, that man was at least briefly barefoot in a public restroom while removing their pants, and that thought pattern is not conducive to defecation.
Instead of removing your clothing, take a look down the crotch of your pants, fella.
Notice that you have several apparatuses down there. You may have a belt. Even if you don't have a belt, you should have a button and a fly. These items allow you to pull your pants down without removing them completely, thus preserving the dignity of the restroom, as well as your own.
(On a side note, if you see an elastic band, determine if you are wearing sweat pants or pajamas. If you are wearing either of these items, please exit the restroom and do your business in the gutter, because this is a Mensroom, not a Man-Child's Room)
Do not pull your pants down until you are within striking range of the urinal or before you actually have entered the stall and shut the door. Pull your pants back up before stepping away from the urinal or exiting the stall.
Once you have lowered your pants to ankle length while preparing to urinate, you will need to free your genitals from from the confines of your underwear. In this case, you have two options - you can either pull your penis through the fly of your underpants or lower the waistband until your genitals are accessible. If you choose the first option of pulling your penis through the fly of your underwear, do not pull your testicles through the opening. Pulling your testicles through your fly is weird and creepy and discourages others from wanting to be your special bathroom times friend.
Your undershirt MUST remain on at all times. If you are wondering why your shirt must remain on at all times in the public restroom, consider the following: WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU TAKE YOUR SHIRT OFF IN A PUBLIC RESTROOM. Do you pee through your nipples? If you do, you may want to consult your podiatrist. If you are wondering why you should consult a foot doctor about peeing from your nipples, bare in mind that you already remove your shirt in public restrooms which DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE TO BEGIN WITH!
II. ACCEPTABLE COMMUNICATION
Communication, with the exception of a satisfied groan or frustrated grunt, is absolutely forbidden within five feet of the urinal or within the confines of the stall. Any and all who violate the sacred vow of silence are to no longer be considered men, and will be from now on considered Un-Men.
The sole exception to this rule is in the case of assassination attempts in which the assailant yells "Wah" or some variation on "Wah", or makes a terrible pun regarding the manner in which they dispatched their target, a "knife to meet you" or "that's all she garrote", for example. Chances are, however, that you are not an assassin, so keep your mouth shut.
If your cellphone rings while you are engaged at the urinal or on the commode, do not answer it. The person on the other end does not want to know that they are intruding upon your defecation or urination. They probably don't even consider you a human being, and therefore don't want to know that you have biological functions.
If an Un-Man attempts initiate conversation with you while you are in the confines of the stall, do not respond. If the Un-Man persists, you may clear your throat. If the Un-Man still does not grasp the situation, you are allowed to do one of the following:
a. Continue coughing, but subtly sneak in a few insults.
b. Kick in the stall door, point at them, bug out your eyes, pull down your pants and evacuate your bowels. Once your bowels have been evacuated, continue to stand in your filth, go cock-eyed and release a pleasurable moan followed by a prolonged fart. Without attempting to clean yourself up or pulling your pants, extend your arms and move in for a hug.
c. Pull your legs up so that they can no longer be seen.
I recommend option a.
If an Un-Man attempts to initiate conversation with you at the urinal, you are within your rights to turn your entire body to the side and continue urinating, regardless of whether you are hitting a partition or the Un-Man's leg. This is the only acceptable thing you can do. Upon completion of your urination, you may attempt to get a high-five.
Once you have finished your sissies and boom-booms (those are scientific etiquette terms, not my own), resist any urges you may have to speak until you have taken six full strides away from the stall or urinal.
You may converse at the sink while washing your hands, however, you should keep the subject matter of your conversations impersonal and brief. A simple, old fashioned "How's your father" or "Your stubble looks scratchy, Gene" will suffice.
Any conversations that you may have been having prior to entering the restroom absolutely must resume at an awkward clip immediately upon stepping out through the threshold of the doorway into the hallway.
III. DON'T BE A URINATION ABOMINATION
There are multiple ways to go about relieving your bladder: the right way, the wrong way and the all kinds of wrong way.
Once you have lowered your pants and exposed your genitals, you are presented with the age old question of whether to aim or not. The correct answer, of course, is yes, you absolutely must hold your penis and aim the stream of urine. Even if you posses the freakish ability to aim your urine stream solely with the muscles in your penis, you are doing your fellow bathroom patrons a courtesy by holding your penis, as it reassures them that you are not going to urinate on them. Choosing the wrong answer of not aiming at all will effectively castrate you, should word of your carelessness get out. Women hate men who pee all willy-nilly all over toilets.
Aim the stream of urine at the center of the urinal's basin. The proprietor of the restroom may have provided you with a urinal cake, which, as you probably long surmised, exists for the sole purpose of providing urinal neophytes with a convenient target.
While standing at the urinal and urinating, resist the urge to look around. Always try to look straight ahead or lean your head back. Even if you suspect that someone is about to ambush you, do not look around. It is better to suffer a physical assault or the loss of your wallet, watch, wedding ring, grill, cell phone, roller blades, and wristbands than to lose face in front of your special bathroom time friends.
IV. THE SUPER GROWN UP PORTION IN WHICH WE DISCUSS DEFECATION
Its an absolutely untrue fact that in January, 1975, Marlo Thomas attempted to follow up her popular "Free to Be You and Me" material with the instructional "Free to Feces You and Meesies", in which she and an extremely intoxicated Ertha Kitt encouraged children to be themselves and defecate however they wanted. While the album directly led to the Khmer Rouge surrendering, and thus ended the Cambodian Civil War, it also became a rallying call for The Standers Movement - a group of home school parents who encouraged their children to stand while relieving their bowels because they felt that sitting on the toilet inspired shame.
History, of course, has shown that The Standers Movement were horribly wrong. Even gentle Jimmy Carter singled them out as "reprehensible, bathroom destroying hippie scum" during his 1979 State of the Union Address. "Clearly," he unequivocally opined during that otherwise forgettable speech, "there is only one way to produce a stool, and that is sitting down on a toilet, and anyone who disagrees with me should be forcefully reeducated."
Upon fully stepping into a stall, turn and face the door. Pull your pants and underwear down around your ankles. Sit down on the toilet in such a way that your bottom is over the water. Defecation is not even remotely like sex. This is the only way to do it. There is no defecation equivalent of reverse cowgirl. If there is, I do not want to know about it.
When you step into a bathroom stall, you are effectively stepping onto hallowed ground- a cream, mint or obsidian sanctuary from the interferences of the outside world. Remember to do your part to keep this sanctuary clean. Do not leave wads of toilet paper on the floor.
One should clear their mind of stressful thoughts when sitting on the toilet. Likewise, one should not think directly about the act of defecation while defecating. Instead, one should envision metaphors for the biological process unfolding below their belly button. Picture trains coming out of a long dark tunnel, a B52 dropping bombs over the enemy fleet, or Boris Yeltsin breastfeeding a foot long hot dog. Do not think of sexy women, your sixth grade D.A.R.E. officer or the candiru of the Amazon Basin, as these concepts can leading to clenching.
If, for some reason, you should have reading materials handy, you may, by all means, peruse them.
Do not eat while inside the stall. While the safety you feel sealed within its confines may give you the notion that this is an opportune moment for snacking, it most certainly is not. Beyond sanitary considerations, the rustling of plastic and foil wrappers may cause others in the bathroom to clench up or completely withdraw their still-active genitals, creating a mess and upsetting the psychological balance of the environment.
Flush the toilet when you have finished. If particles remain after your initial flush (a common occurrence in this age of low pressure toilets), give the toilet a second, third or even fourth flush to ensure that the next person to occupy this stall does not have to contemplate the dark details of your dietary regimen. If your recent efforts have left the stall haunted by a particularly pungent vapor, consider lighting a match.
If, by some freak occurrence, you manage to clog the toilet of a public restroom with your feces, you are required to kick open the stall and run away. Your arms should be flailing over your head like Kermit the Frog and you must yell "Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" until you cross paths with a custodian. This unspoken language of the American Men's Room signals to all other men that the toilet is out of order.
V. THE GRAND FINALE
Upon conclusion of your bowel movement, pull your pants back up and step out of the stall or away from the urinal. Be sure to yell "Hey fellows! I have finished!" and hold up one or two fingers to indicate which bodily function you have just completed in order to give the next man in line an understanding of what to expect once they step up to the plate. Try to give him a sportsmanlike high-five as you pass each other.
Once you have informed your new special bathroom times friends that the stall or urinal is free, make your way to the sink. At this juncture, you may wash your hands with soap and water or pantomime the act, should the fancy strike you. Dry your hands with a paper towel or using an electric hand dryer. If the bathroom is out of paper towels and no hand dryer is available, it is perfectly acceptable to wipe your hands on the back of someone waiting in line.
Make your way out of the bathroom, making sure to tip your hat to your special bathroom times friends and wish them a pleasant experience.
VI. CONCLUSION
Well, there you have it, friends. While I may have left out a few important details (like wiping), most of these concepts are things you should know instinctively. And, if you lack these instincts, you will naturally be removed from the gene pool, so I feel no need to pass them on.
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