Monday, December 31, 2007

Diary of a Bushwick Bedbug, 3

What’s up, folks? I had a pretty wild adventure a week or so back. I went for another ride on that Minnesota girl. She went to a gig at some bar in Brooklyn called Barbes. I don’t know what she’s doing, because this seemed more like a hippy joint than a hipster thing. But, hey, it’s nice to get out anyhow! Or so I thought. As it turned out, I was lucky to make it out of there alive!

When she walked in the gig hadn’t started, but it was crowded with funky hippies and global village yuppies. The hippies were milling around and telling stories about the gigs they’d been to and pictures they saw on passedoutwookies.com when one of them tripped over a bag of hoola-hoops and spilled her free range, vegan coffee all over Minnesota’s shoulder and damn near boiled me alive! It was so fucking hot, I thought I was going to melt, but somehow, I survived. I guess I’m tougher than I thought. Or maybe the free range, cruelty free coffee had mercy on me. Minnesota wasn’t hurt, but she sure got passive-aggressive on the spiller, saying "don’t worry, I’m okay," and then grumbling evil things about her make-up all night.

I thought the night had started badly, but seconds later, one of those global village yuppies spilled her chocolate martini all over Minnesota’s shoulder! It was cooler than the coffee, which came as a relief, but I got a big mouthful of that chocolate-tasting vermouth, or whatever they make martinis with, and man, was I hammered. I don’t know if six legged creatures can stagger, but if we can, I definitely was.

So there’s me, staggering around on Minnesota’s shoulder when the music starts and she starts "dancing". I think this girl’s having an identity crisis. Is she Bushwick or Vermont?

The band was some kind of east African music with Arabic and Indian influences and I have to admit, I was kind of digging it. Maybe it was the chocolate martini. Anyway, there’s me on Minnesota’s shoulder and I’m kind of dancing and staggering and really feeling that martini and the next thing I know I fell off Minnesota onto some chick’s dashiki!

Friends, being stuck in Park Slope is a fucking death sentence for a bedbug. These people can afford exterminators, for one thing. It’s like Darfur over there with yuppie janjaweed wiping out whole bedbug civilizations. Not to mention the soundtrack. Emmylou fucking Harris and NPR all fucking Sunday while they carp about their mortgages and how the bagels at the coop are just not that good anymore. It’s enough to drive a bedbug mad. You’re almost happy when the exterminator comes. But I digress. I had to get back to Minnesota or face destruction in Park Slope amongst the yuppies.

So the dashiki woman, it turns out, is part of the band. She kinda dances over next to the drummer on the other side of the kit, separating me from Minnesota. Dashiki woman is jiving around and shaking her gourd-o-beans or whatever when she brushes up against the drummer. Minnesota’s on the other side of him now, so I seized my chance and leapt onto his arm and crawled across his back. Well, on the way, I’m feeling a little hungry, so I have a little bite to hold me over till later. Mmm… blood.

All of a sudden, my head is spinning even more. This fucking guy is so high that I can barely crawl! It’s almost like his blood is all THC! So I get all disoriented and start crawling out of his sleeve and along his arm, out toward his drumsticks. I don’t know where the fuck I’m going, mind you, but I’m going. I can see Minnesota in the distance like Mount Rushmore during an earthquake, bouncing up and down on the drummer’s hand as he rides the high-hat.

Suddenly, he hits the snare for a rim shot and I go fucking flying like I was launched out of a catapult. I’m tumbling ass over elbow through the air, the hippies spinning below me like a kaleidoscope of unwashed hair, their patchouli funk and pot-smoke stank rising like swamp gas and I’m thinking "This is it, Curtis, you’re done for."

Well, I don’t know how the hell it happened, but somehow I landed on Minnesota’s hand bag. I crawled back up her sleeve and parked myself right there in her armpit and held on for dear life.
I tell you, I felt like fucking Indiana Jones after that night. The funny thing is, rather than be scared, I actually felt kind of high. Not because of the stoner drummer and the chocolate martini, but because of the action. I think I liked it! I used to be a stay at home kind of bedbug. But now? I don’t know. Maybe I’m getting a taste for adventure. I’ll keep you posted.

Cheers and Happy New Year,

Curtis

Friday, December 21, 2007

Haikus about Incest #4: Winter Solstice Edition

#1:

It is so damn dark


And it is cold too, but mom


Still wants to boink me



#2:


Solstice, earth mother!


Druid sister, let’s knock boots


To bring back the sun!




Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Medications For The Holiday Blues

It’s a dirty little secret of the Festive season: The holidays can be terribly depressing. Luckily, those beneficent drug manufacturers have been churning out new medications by the dozens of late, complete with marvelous, soothing ad campaigns. Don’t worry about those pesky side effects. If you’ve got the holiday blues, look no further. Blogbovine has all the latest, greatest mood alteration meds at your fingertips.

Guilt-o-cil: Assuages that terrible feeling that someone has bought a better present for you than you got for them. Possible Side effects: Frugality Freak Out Syndrome—You never spend another dime and become a shut-in with piles of garbage around your apartment, which one day collapse and kill you.

Consum-a-tussin: Spent too much, but still want to spend more? Consum-a-tussin helps you stop that spending by causing you to cut up your credit cards in a somnambulistic fit! Counter indications: If Consum-a-tussin causes you to cut up your family, please discontinue use and consult your physician and lawyer.

Vince Vaughn-adril: This pharmaceutical concoction deadens the agony of observing the sardonic, smug prick that is Vince Vaughn, removing any effects of his frat-boy douchebaggery and cynicism from the festive season.

Regretobrex: Haunted by that one girl/guy who could have been the one? You know, the one you saw during the Christmas break in your junior year of college, went out with on that one magical date, but didn’t ravish him/her because you were seeing someone back at school and your mistaken notions of monogamy held your loins in check? Regretobrex will crush those feelings of regret and lust of bygone days, speeding you on to complacence in your current, drab marriage.

Grinch-edrin and Grinch-actin: These competing meds from Merck and Pfizer will suck the Grinch right out of those hard boiled cynics quicker than a herd of Cindy Lou Whos. Side effects: Who-philia, pederasty.

Un-lust-o-gen: Used to treat the side effects of Grinch-edrin, Grinch-actin and Reindeerphilia, this drug will kill your hardons till you reach your mid 70s.

Cockboostin: Used to treat Un-Lust-o-gen, above.

Suici-denol: Irrepressible urges to off yourself on Christmas Eve? Join the club! But you don’t have to pull that trigger, step off that window ledge or slice your wrists open and bleed yourself out like a pig! Instead, just take one whack of Suici-denol and spare your loved ones/custodial staff/fire department the trouble of cleaning up after your corpse. Active Ingredients: Cyanide

Yule-quil PM: Having trouble getting your litter of grasping, greedy little shits to bed for St. Nick’s visit? Dose those clutching, toy-whores with Yule-qui PM! Active Ingredient: Cumberland Farms brand generic gin.

Seinfeld-o-fen: A single dose stops your friends from quoting the Festivus episode and sending e-cards featuring "feats of strength" and "airing of grievances." It truly is a Festivus miracle!

Kwanzaatap: makes Kwanzaa feel only as made-up and fictional as Christmas, Hannukah and Festivus. Side effects: Users of this medication may turn in to Don Imus.

Eggnogra: Restores your penis to its full pre-eggnog bender hardness!

Solsti-cil: For the aloof, superior atheist who just cant get into the giving, joyous Holiday spirit and continually moans about "how commercial it all is," and how all the traditional symbols were "co-opted by the church," and the "real Christmas was probably in March," and all that other shit he keeps harping on.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Where The Fecking Hell Are Shane Macgowan’s Teeth? Part 3

"Stately, plump Shane MacGowan came from the stairhead, bearing a shot of Listerine on which an interdental gum stimulator and a pack of dental floss lay crossed."

Had Shane MacGowan been born 75 years earlier (and actually taken care of his teeth) he could have been the model for Buck Mulligan instead of Oliver St. John Gogarty in Joyce’s "Ulysses." But since he wasn’t and didn’t, you’ll just have to go with the Shane you know—once brilliant, but now toothless and ragged. Would that he could awake from his slumber. But that day will not come till his teeth are reassembled and reinserted in his jaw. And until that day, we clutch at the absurd straws of MacGowaninan dental theory.

Theory #6: Seeking the Bigfoot, the Sasquatch and the Yeti
Discounted by scientists though they may be, romantics like Shane MacGowan and his teeth have not given up on the possibility of giant ape-like cousins of humanity living in the mountains. Gigantopithecus may seem like a long shot to you and I, but one of Shane’s teeth could be, at this moment, teaching a Yeti the secrets of fermenting its own saliva to make Himalayan chicha and getting the party started right up on Everest’s foothills.


Theory #7: Looking for Amelia Earhart’s Crash Site
"Bury me at sea, where no murdered ghost can haunt me…"

Deep in the North Pacific, near the Howland Islands, one of Shane’s teeth can be found, communing with the fish and sea creatures, trying to determine the final resting place of Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan. Utilizing that preternatural sensitivity which allowed Shane to feel his world so acutely and reflect it so poetically, this tooth is engaged in an obscure search through the genetic memories of eels, sharks and coral to reveal the legendary aviator’s final resting place.

Theory #8: Working to nail the CIA for the Crack Epidemic Since Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News revealed the CIA and Contra connection to crack in America, one of the teeth is purported to have gone undercover to nail the spy agency once and for all. Shane MacGowan himself may have an insatiable appetite for drugs of all kinds, but not this tooth! While Shane slowly comes apart, this tooth is fighting to stick it to the man.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Diary of a Bushwick Bedbug, 2

Hey, how’s it going? I woke up and was feeling kind of hungry, so I went for a bite and I guess I got lost because I wound up in that Minnesota girl’s jacket! Man, it was chilly when she went out, but I got inside the lining and made out okay on the subway.

We get off the train way uptown and she met her boyfriend on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum! Cool! I never been before! But I almost got crushed when she hugged her sweaty, bearded boy with his tight pants and Dr. Who-looking scarf.

When we walked in, they were laughing about the "conservative stuff" in the collection. They stiffed the suggested donation all together and went in to the Modern Art section. I guess I figured there was going to be a lot of portraits and shit, but boy was I in for a surprise. I mean, I'm no art critic--I'm just a bedbug--but there's some real shit passing for art out there!


First up we saw some hamburger paintings by a guy named Rothko. I call ‘em hamburger paintings cuz they have three layers (bun, meat, bun) and take about as much talent to assemble. These fucking things made me want to spit blood on them! If only this chubby, organic Minnesotan chick would get me closer. Then again, spitting blood from her lapel might blow my cover…

Next was a piece of sculpture. I couldn’t make out the title, so I’ll just call it "Huge Hunk of Junk". It was next to a work I’ll call "Towering Pile of Crap #63" and its companion piece "Garbage." I didn’t care very much for these pieces. Because they sucked. And because I could have made them, if I’d been born a human instead of a bed bug Then we came to an interesting piece I’ll call "The Emporer’s New Clothes (milk cartons and eggshells on canvas)."

I’d like to tell you more about why I hated the next piece, but there was some visual interference, so I think of that work as "Total Sham Obscured by Art Student’s Jewfro" which may have been an installation, come to think of it.

After sneering at the Met’s collection, the hipsters went to some galleries downtown. But they were pretty cramped, so I couldn’t see the titles. I guess "Fat Waddling Prick with i-phone," was a standout. Maybe he was part of a series with Jewfro, disrupting art experiences all over town.

Also notable was a series that may have been called "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #1 (Downpayment)." This work was a preposterous hoax, done in tin cans and newspaper. Following hot its heels were "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #2 (First Third of Principal)" and "Preposterous Hoax in Tin Cans and Newspaper #3 (Mortgage Paid)." There was also the perhaps more directly titled "Ripping Off My Dealer (1997)" and "Milking My Dealer for another $80,000."

All the while, the cutie from Minnesota and her boyfriend were sort of smooching and snarking at how passe the work was and talking about going to see the Kaiju Big Battel later. I have no idea what that was, but while they talked about it, I took a look at a piece called "The Flatulence of Time," or something.

Anyway I got sleepy and before I knew it we were back in the loft in Williamsburg! So, I settled in to the bed with not one, but two servings of Bushwick hipsters to choose from! I must confess, I opted for the buffet.

I can’t say I really enjoyed most of the art, but I will say wandering around those galleries and museums sure worked up an appetite. It also gave me a bit of a headache. But I’d do it again! I love seeing the world. I’m so glad these hipsters are coming to Bushwick. Maybe I’ll hitch a ride to the Kaiju Big Battel some time and find out what that is.

Well, until next time…

Curtis