You May Or May Not Read This

People need to stop using the term "may or may not".

It is one of those pathetic, meaningless phrases that people use when they obviously have no idea what they are talking about and must protect their own insecure ego with this safety-net terminology.

As in:

"Now this may or may not be a stupid question but, if I chopped one of my testicles off with an old rusty fishing knife, do you think it would hurt?"

Or:

"Pardon me Estaban, but that disgusting growth on your neck may or may not in fact be a third appendage growing out of your head."

It may. But may be not.

The truth is, there is no need to say ‘may not’ at all. Isn’t that pretty much implied when you say ‘may’ in the first place? It may be. It may not be. Either way... it may.

If you're sure about what you're talking about, be proud - say it with feeling. "Estaban, that goddamn thing on your neck needs to be lanced, discarded in a hermetically-sealed container and launched into the deep recesses of space".

If you're not sure what you are talking about, then don't say anything. There's too much ambivalence in this world, and if you can't make up your mind, you may or may not just be a fucking idiot.

When Dinner Bites Back...

Ya ever get the feeling we’re slipping a notch or two down the food chain?

Birds are giving us a killer flu. Cows are turning our minds into liquid shit. Fish are just plain toxic.

No doubt about it, it’s tough being a carnivore in 2005. Even when I eat a hamburger nowadays, I inspect each bite like I just might find the corner of a redeemable coupon for “One Free Poke with Keira Knightley”.

So what am I searching for? No idea. But if I see anything at all odd or unfamiliar, I immediately put down the burger, gag myself and then call the World Health Organization to declare a Mad Cow outbreak. You can’t be too cautious these days.

Well, I guess it’s our own fault. We poisoned the lakes with chemicals. We fed cows to themselves. We genetically-engineer our foods. Bon appetit!

Ever ordered chicken wings in a restaurant and then get these freakishly monstrous wing-like appendages? That ain’t natural. When was the last time you saw a rooster with the pipes of a 3-year old toddler? Farm-raised chickens? Ya, maybe if the farm was next door to Chernobyl. Make a note: if a chicken whinnies like a horse, that’s no longer a chicken.

What’s scary is we have the capability of clone animals now. Great. I guess we must have overworked these animals so much that we now have to mass produce them by test-tube.

Why not just give the damn chicken five minutes off from trying to force eggs out its ass to give it a break to fuck? Even a chicken deserves to get laid once in awhile. If my C+ in biology is correct, I do believe that’s how you get…more chickens

All I know for sure is that the chickens got to be getting pissed. And the cows. And the fish too. Pretty soon they’re going to have the same amount of spite as your average Burger King employee. Then watch out.

So what if cows can’t spit on the burger. Or fish can’t slip boogers into your Filet o’ Fish. If you think these Frankenstein animals aren’t up to some serious shit, you are sadly mistaken.

A Friendly Crime?

I read about some some guy that was charged with with second degree murder but not a "hate crime".

Isn't any murder pretty much a hate crime?

Can you even have a murder be anything but a hate crime? I mean murder can't be a "love crime", can it? I guess maybe if you fucked somebody to death. Now that I'd consider murder but not a hate crime.

But then, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a "love crime" either. That might just be a murder and a "lust crime". Or murder and a "one-night-of-too-many-sangrias crime". Or murder and "I'm-too-young-to-be-taking-Viagra crime".

Boy, this justice stuff is really complicated.

Conversation Non-Starters For A First Date

Have you ever been in the shower and the soap slips out of your hand but you quickly catch it before it falls? Don't you just for a second feel really proud of yourself?

Sometimes I go one step further and present myself with the 'Vidal Sassoon Loofah-Sponge Award' for Most Valuable Player.

But only sometimes.

So...do you want dessert?

Today's Specials...Bullshit.

Ya ever been in an eating establishment where there’s a big sign featuring the “Special”, only to discover you can’t quite figure out where the “Special” part comes in?

For example, let’s say you’re in Big Vinny’s Ballbuster Café. Now, Big Vinny’s got a sign that says “Today’s Pasta Special – Lasagna with side salad – only $9.99”. You think to yerself, “brother, that sounds like a deal”, only to find in the menu that you can normally order the Lasagna and side salad for $9.99.

So, where’s the “Special” part come in?

Is there something we don’t know? Is Big Vinny gonna come out to the table himself and grind pepper on it by crushing individual peppercorns between his naked thighs? And if so, that’s not a “special”, that’s a “surprise” – and a rather unpleasant one I might add.

Enough with the false advertising. Give me a ‘special’ when you say you are – not some over-hyped, under-delivered mediocre menu item that doesn’t sell.

It reminds me of that over-used grocery store marketing term, “Everyday Low Price!”. Ok, I get it. You’re prices are low. Atleast lose the exclamation. You can’t be that excited about something that never changes.

Besides, that’s not the “Everyday Low Price”. That’s the price! Period.

I’m not walking into the pharmacy to ask “excuse me but what’s the ‘everyday low price’ of the Anusol?”. I’m just going to ask for ‘the price’. I’m going to assume it’s the everyday low price. What I’m not going to expect is the pharmacist to arbitrarily change his mind, “hmm, well…since I can tell by the frantic scratching at the back of your pants you’re in a seriously discomforting situation, today it’s 43 dollars. But just today. That’s not the ‘everyday low price’”.

Fine. Just gimme my Anusol and get me the hell outta here.

New & Improved Rules of the Road

Arizona has actually passed a law called “The Stupid Motorists Law”, whereby drivers are fined for getting their vehicles stuck in flooded roadways.

I think we need more laws like this. Accurate, realistically-portrayed laws. I'm doing my part by suggesting some other driving laws that should be implemented:


“The Pointless Dumbfuck Law” – a $50 fine to drivers who lay on their horns in traffic that’s not moving, for apparently no other reason than self-amusement.

“The Absent-Minded Arsehole Law” – a $100 fine to people who have been driving around with their turn signal continually blinking since the Korean War.

"The Compensating-For-A-Small-Penis Law" - a $100 fine to anyone who drives a Hummer in downtown traffic. You dickheads.

“The Kyoto-Krippling Cocksucker Law” – a $200 fine to drivers who navigate vehicles that look as if they're driving through a grass fire based on the cloud and stench of shit pumping out of their mufflers.

“The Lame Taste In Beats Y'all Law” - a $300 fine to these apparently deaf pricks who drive around with their bogus dance beats pumping so loud it calibrates your heartbeat and scares off small animals. Also known as “The Shamelessly Arrogant Half-Wit Law”

“The Pick It Up A Notch, Scooter Law” – a $50 fine for people driving slower than a constipated turtle in a shitting contest.

“The Back Off Bumwad Law” – a $100 fine for drivers who ride so close on your tail they can tell you what you ate for dinner the night before.

“The That Windshield’s See Through Snotlicker Law” – a $200 fine to any driver who makes everyone nauseous because his finger is so far up his nostril you can see it protruding under the skin of his forehead. Also kown as “The Atleast It’s Not In A Different Hole Law”.

Let The Jocks Disappear...

Hockey is dead.
But who cares?
I don't have much sympathy for any pro athlete that goes on strike.

“I don’t want to play!”
Fine. Don't play, skater boy.

Maybe it would be different if these guys weren’t driving giant SUVs in from their 20-acre ranch to go to the bank, get a private room for them and a hooker to roll around naked in their millions of dollars. Maybe.

And I know there’s a lot of details there, but the bottom line is The Cash. Presumably, the argument is that with such short careers, athletes need higher wages in order to support them and their family for the rest of their lives.

I don’t have a problem with that.

But if so, then I say once these 38-year old meatheads decide to retire, then lets make these spoiled rich children stop working. Forced retirement. BAN ALL EX-ATHLETES FROM THE WORKFORCE.

“I see by your application you made 12 million dollars on your last job as point guard for the Milwaukee Bucks…”
“Yep.”
”Um...well, we’ll let you know if something opens up here at Cinnabon.”

No more endorsements.
No more sports anchoring.
No more color-commentating.
No more sports pubs.
No more restaurants.
No more car dealerships.
And no more donut chains.
I’m sorry Joe Slapshot, you’ve simply reached your financial quota.

No longer shall former sports stars put others earning a fraction of their salary out of work simply because they're celebrities.

Up here in Canada, a former hockey goalie even sits in Parliament as the Minister of Social Programs. Should we really be giving a government position to a dude who’s last job was taking pucks to the head?

So that’s it. If you no longer feel inclined to entertain me like the masturbating orangutan at the zoo, then retire and spend the rest of your days swapping bean casserole recipes, playing parcheesi and helping Aunt Hilda change her colostomy bag at the “Shady Days-Are-Numbered Seniors Complex”.

If these dull-headed jocks don’t wanna skate around and beat the shit out of each other, then fuck ‘em. Let these useless, brain dead hicks disappear.

I May Be Jittery...But I'm Alive

A study has found that people who drank 2 cups of coffee every day have half the risk of liver cancer as those who never drank coffee.

But I’m not worried. I drink 4 cups a day.

I'm fully covered.

Handjobs! Coming Soon To A Theatre Near You!

* * *

The other night I went to the movies and counted no less than 7 commercials prior to the film. And I’m not even counting the previews. Toss in 4 or 5 of those babies at 2 minutes a piece and I was about fifteen minutes earlier than I needed to be at the theatre.

I dunno about you, but I’m pretty skeptical about the ever-growing number of ads airing before my flick.

The lamest has to be this movietickets.com spot. You know, where the sexless couple are at the theatre professing into the camera how easy it was for them to get tickets because they ordered them online and then picked them up at the theatre.

Well, guess what Professor Expediency von Dot-com, if you are going to pick up your tickets at the theatre, why not just BUY ‘em when you get to the theatre, you dumb fuck! There doesn’t seem to be any need to order them online. Who is this service for?

I’ll tell ya who it’s for – the gullible, neutered jerkoff who goes to the movies only to find his girlfriend has ditched him to see a different film, just like the emasculated anal wart in the commercial – that’s who.

And while I’m at it, I’m not real hot about filling movie houses with Burger Kings and Pizza Huts either. I’m not sure if American theatres are the same but was it really not enough to be able to snack on popcorn and candy – now you gotta have a Double Whopper with cheese and some onion rings to heighten your appreciation of Hotel Rwanda?

And have some courtesy. If you really need that Whopper, hold the onions okay? Christ, the theatre smells like Shaq’s armpit in the 4th quarter.

Now I hear Krispy Kreme Donuts are trying to move in. Great. If I really wanted to sit on sticky seats, I’d go to the other kind of theatre – y’know, the ones with the private booths and the complimentary box of Kleenex.

Maybe I’m too conservative when it comes to the movies. I miss the universality and simplicity of old, velvet curtains, the anticipated hum of a crowd before the film – a time when the biggest food decision was choosing between butter or that mysterious wet spunk they called “golden topping” on your popcorn.

Now they’re obliged to ask “would you like Becel on your popcorn?” and “I’m sorry we only have Pepsi” when you habitually ask for a cola of any other name. Gosh, do you think it’s become corporate? I just feel bad for the generation that’s growing up asking their mom, “can I please have brand-name non-hydrogenated vegetable-oil-based margarine topping on my popcorn?”. See, weren’t things easier when it still came from the cow?

But ofcourse it’s futile to wallow in the past, so in order to show my forward-thinking attitudes and in an effort to embrace modernity, here’s a few ideas I have for advancing and promoting the corporate enjoyment of the movies:

- Budweiser beer tub girls

- discount bikini waxing in the projection room

- Radio Shack (obviously!)

- bring back intermissions…featuring Bible-themed sing-a-longs

- rub and tugs in the back row:
“are you enjoying the movie, sir?”
“yes”
“would you like to roll over and let me finish the job?”

- All-You-Can-Eat Indian buffets in the lobby

- a new store: The Gap for People Who Really Aren’t That Into The Movie

- Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Parlour and Petting Zoo

- one night a week scatter people suffering from Teret’s Syndrome throughout the theatre. Call it “Teret’s Tuesdays”

- Wetzel’s Pretzels and Do-It Yourself Wills

- no time for the doctor? Free testicular examinations during end credits

To Do List For Valentine's Day

My 'to do' list for February 14th:

1) Wake up. Cook hearty breakfast in promising hope of a successful, positive day. Burn toast in deflating display of foreshadow.

2) Drink too much coffee. Feel jittery, let spirit slip away into cooling melancholy and loss of ambition. Cut self shaving. Don't finish shaving.

3) Check answering machine repeatedly throughout day, each time becoming more aware and dispirited by lack of messages. Check to ensure machine is plugged in properly.

4) Turn on TV or radio. Be inundated with Valentine’s Day messages and examples of characters and people who are in love and ultimately, in better place than you.

5) Have first glass of rye.

6) Talk to mother on telephone, making effort to sound indifferent to significance of day, despite sensing concern and sympathy in her voice. Get off phone quickly and sigh in relief.

7) Cook dinner for self. Prepare such meek and lazy bachelor-typical items as mushroom soup, Kraft dinner or instant noodles. Eat meal directly out of cooking pots, sitting on sofa dressed only in boxer shorts and robe.

8) Resume drinking rye.

9) Drink more rye in greater quantities.

10) Dig out boxes containing photos and memorabilia of last girlfriend. Drink another rye. Rifle through with an unsettling mix of nostalgia and dejection.

11) Empty rye. Call Dial-A-Bottle and order more rye. Watch re-run of The Crocodile Hunter while waiting (note: this will be the highlight of the day). Upon arrival of rye...yep, you guessed it…another drink.

12) Quickly lose clarity of vision, sense of reason and control of emotions. Vengefully, tear up photos of ex-girlfriend, screaming ‘fucking whore!’, immediately followed by regret, sorrow, crying and attempts to repair photos with Scotch tape.

13) Another rye. Dry heave.

14) Call ex-girlfriend. Desperately and incoherently plea that you “loff yoo sooo mush – yoo awr my soul maid!!”. After many attempts to reason with you, she hangs up.

15) You call back crying. She refuses to talk.

16) You call back again and scream that you hate her “more than inoperable cancer” and that you hope she “dies slowly and painfully alone, choking on a chicken bone, you fat, skanky, disgusting, untrustworthy cumguzzling cockjockey!!!”.

17) Hang up. Throw up. Pass out.

My 'to do' list for February 15:

1) Wake up.

2) Resume life as usual.

Mental Gems from the Subway Ride To Work

* * *


No matter how hard I sit here and try, I can't think of a euphemism for euphemism.


* * *

The 5 People I'll Meet In Heaven

Mitch Albom has a big bestseller on his hands with 'The Five People You Meet In Heaven'.

While, having not read the spiritual spinetingler, it has nonetheless inspired me in my own way.

If you’ve kept up with the Quill of the Saucy Monk, you’re already well aware that the likelihood of me ending up in Heaven is about as likely as Michael Jackson jumping up in the middle of his molestation trial, ripping off a mask to reveal it’s been Jamie Kennedy this whole time. “America, you’ve been X’d!!!”

Still, this morning I thought I’d reflect on who I would possibly like to meet me in heaven, should there be such a fateful, magical carnival ride. So in no particular order, here are...


The 5 People I’ll Meet In Heaven:

McLean Stevenson – wearing his Colonel Blake hat from M*A*S*H*, he would be there to meet me at the Pearly Gates. As I walked up, he would salute me, naturally sticking his hand on one of the fishing hooks.

Howard Hughes – so I can ask him what was the deal with the fingernails.

Lenny Bruce – just so I can see his face when I tell him it's not shocking to hear swearing on the network news now.

John F. Kennedy – “so Joe….Marilyn? She a go-er? Knowwhaddimean, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say no more?!?”

W.C. Fields – well, everyone needs a cantankerous drinking chum in Heaven, I figure. Might as well go with one who hates children too.

So...did I miss anyone?

Fuck Fanny...And Her Belated Birthday Card

Ya ever lived in an apartment for say, 2 years, but still received mail for a tenant who used to reside there? Doesn't that frustrate you just a little bit?

It's tolerable for a year or so. People have to change addresses. That's a lot of work. But anything over two years it's like they're just pissing in your sandbox, isn't it?

I received mail directed to a guy named "Roland" sent from "Fanny" (names have been changed to protect the fictional). For a while, I would give the mail back to the post office marked "return to sender-addressee has moved". Clear. Concise. Straight forward. Still it came.

I don't do that no more.

Hey, I say if Fanny can't be bothered knowing where her friends live, then I can't be bothered with Fanny. Fuck Fanny, and fuck Fanny's belated birthday card.

Now I write these pinheads back myself:

Dear Fanny,

I am writing this letter on behalf of your good friend Roland.

He apologizes for his tardiness in not reciprocating your correspondence over the past 3 years, however I feel I can share some of the responsibility for Roland's infrequent punctuality.

See, for the past few years, I have kept Roland chained to a wall in the basement. I have Roland wear leather chaps, a gimp mask and I keep a rubber ball in his mouth. I didn't always keep a rubber ball in his mouth, but the screaming is much quieter now.

Every so often, after the wounds from the whippings heal, I let Roland down and explore each of his orifices with various large gourds and cold, steel piping -- you know, to give him a rest. But Roland always ends up back on the wall. It's probably for the best however, since there are many rats rampant in the basement, many of which I'm sure are disease-ridden. And I wouldn't want Roland to get sick.

I'm afraid I must cut this letter short, Fanny. It appears Roland has defecated on the floor again. My oh my, that boy! Or should I say dog? No matter how much I push his face into it, he just won't seem to take to the toilet training.

Well, Godspeed dear Fanny. Roland sends his regards. Or atleast I think he does. It's been difficult to understand him since I extracted his teeth with an Allen wrench.

Sincerely,
the Monk

By the way......I don't get mail for "Roland" anymore.

Counting Skeletons In My Sleep

I woke up out of a dead sleep and wrote this down. I then went back to sleep.

I’m not sure if I thought it was funny, but I wish I knew what the hell I was dreaming about?

I have re-written it verbatim as I had written it in my half slumber:

* * *

Worst part of death:

I’m never gonna see what my own skull is gonna look like.

Good thing they all look the same, eh?

(skull or skeleton?)

Oh sure we see parts of our skeleton @ various points in our life. A femur breaking the skin after a fall off the roof, but that’s not good enuff for me. I wanna see the whole rack of bones.

I think that’s why we’re scared of skeletons. We don’t know who it was….shit, we don’t know what sex they were even.

Plus, skeletons are always after us for our gold. What’s the skeleton’s obsession w/ gold? Shit, if I was a skeleton I’d think I’d like a duvet - - it looks like it’d be kinda drafty.

Man, I gotta stop sweetening my Sleepytime tea with Nyquil.

Blow Out Sale!!!

* * *

Last night I walked by an oxygen spa.

While that’s sad enough as it is, this one displayed a sign in the window advertising an “Oxy-Wednesdays” special.

Half price oxygen.

Have we completely given up?

Don't Talk To Strangers

In order to get a little more acquainted with my fellow bloggers, I thought I'd open up with a few details about myself:

I'm 5'9" tall.

I have blue eyes.

I look nothing like Yo-Yo Ma.

My favorite color is shaded.

I sleep in the nude. But I wake-up fully dressed.

My hobbies include trying to find things to do to pass the time.

I walk on escalators, I don’t stand on them. I won’t wait for anyone – including electronic transitory devices.

I’m a tolerant intolerant.

I value mercy higher than justice. But then, mercy is pretty far down the list.

I once entered a contest on the radio and won Foreigner’s “Inside Information” on cassette. It's not something I'm particularly proud of.

I’m not a vegetarian, but as a rule, I never eat anything with a clown face.

I went to Subway for lunch and had the Cold Cut Combo and I bit into something extraordinarily hard. Eat fresh. Ya, fresh toe nails.

My favorite word of the moment: “nakedness”.

There. I feel better. Any questions?

Ode To A Dumb Fucking Rodent

How do we know the groundhog sees his shadow?

Sure, we might see his shadow, but that doesn’t mean it sees it. And isn't that what counts? How do we know the groundhog isn’t myopic? Maybe it’s got a bad case of glaucoma. Or maybe it’s just a dumb fucking rodent.

If we’re going to stake our faith in future weather patterns based on whether vermin see their shadow or not, then I think we need to test this experiment thoroughly.

I say we place a big rat trap loaded with Groundhog Chow outside of the hole.

If the groundhog comes out, sees his shadow and runs off, fine, six more weeks of winter.

If the groundhog comes out, goes straight for the chow and gets his head snapped off at the neck, then screw it – I say that groundhog’s not smart enough to tell us what’s goin’ down in the weather department.

It’s the only way to tell if these groundhogs aren’t full of shit.

News Flash!

This just in....

Hundreds of Michael Jackson fans descended upon Santa Maria, California yesterday to support the King of Pop on day one of his child molestation trial.

Many had signs proclaiming Jackson’s innocence, reading such slogans as, “Stop the Money Hunt”, “We Support the Survivor”, “Child Molestation is NOT a Crime – Oh wait….um, apparently it is” and “Fuck the Children”.

Fans from around the globe defended Jackson. A fat dude from Las Vegas says he came to support Jacko because he’s “good luck for him”. Other comments included, “If you can’t believe a guy who has turned himself into one of the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, who can you trust?” and “Jesus, he’s even more scary-looking in person!”.
But not all in attendance were in support of the pop star. One of the parents of the alleged victims stated, “Goddammit, I looooove money!!”.

In a related news item, scientists from Duke University have discovered that monkeys will give up their daily ration of juice to watch computer pictures of other simians in pornographic situations.

So much for evolution.