Dear Guy From Colombia

Dear Guy From Colombia,

I don’t know how they do things in Colombia. I’ve never been. But here in America we don’t chat while holding our peckers. It’s nothing personal. I’d happily chat with you if neither of us were holding our respective peckers. But we are. Both of us. Now is not the time for chatting. Now is the time for urinating, clearing our throats, maybe farting a bit, but most importantly looking straight ahead. Not for turning to face each other and asking strangely out of context questions like, “How do you like it on this half of the world?” I’m a multitasker so I understand the urge to get a few things done at once. However, and I’m sorry to belabor the point but it clearly bears repeating, when there are peckers out, multitasking stops and everything else waits. Lastly, when you’re done pissing and there’s an option, you turn away from the other guy still holding his pecker. It’s just how it’s done here. I’m sorry to be The Guy Who Tells The Foreigner How It’s Done In Am’rr’ca, but this isn’t offering drivers’ tests in multiple languages. It’s not being able to order McDonald’s in English. It’s not even deciding which parts of an animal should be eaten and which should be disposed of. This is pecker holding. And in the States we take that pretty seriously.

Sincerely,

Dekx

I Still Like Ska and You Should Be Glad #2

I still like ska and you should be glad. I know, I know...Ska's out like Roller Disco and Macrame Plant Hangers. But the up-tempo dohdyoh doh doh of the rhythm section and the sassy doodleedoo of the horns make The Rage go away. It doesn't matter how terrible or horrific my day has been as long as I can come home to a ska version of Come On, Eileen or a song about somebody that hates me. Honestly, there's nothing ska can't fix for me. And you should be glad....

For instance, without ska, standing in line with you assholes would send me over the edge. I'd go on a terrible, terrible rampage, hurling you all to and fro all the live long day. You'd be the Lex Luthor to my Superman, the Bluto to my Popeye.

Jeez, where to begin?

BACK THE FUCK OFF!!

Crowding me, lightly touching me, breathing on me, anything that sets off my Spider-sense is simply creating the illusion of getting your dumb ass through the line faster. I know you're loathe to admit it, I know it drives you insane, but when you're standing in line behind me I CONTROL YOUR DESTINY....DESTINY....destiny....

There's a slim possibility that I'll use cash. Fuck with me and I'll use my card or a check. If you really piss me off I'll bust out my coupons just when you think your passive aggressive crowding and throat clearing has finally paid off.

Are you ready for the Ultra Lightning Round Bazillion Dollar Fantasy Question? Guess who else has to stand in line at the grocery store, the DMV, the return counter at Target or the massive prison train your mom has every Friday night?

DING DING DING!! That' correct, EVERYONE! Don, tell 'im what he's won!

Well, Dekx, for winning the Ultra Lightning Round Bazillion Dollar Fantasy Question he gets your size 14 foot in his ass. That's right! It's time to kill him slowly with internal bleeding and a beating that would make the most hardened Crip to ever grace South Central really sit down and think about what he's done! Severe and malevolent beatings from DekxCo!!

By the way, you get no pity or special treatment from me just because you can't carry all of your groceries. There's no excuse for it. Just to get into the store you have to run a gauntlet of carts and baskets. If you're in such a fuckin' hurry, why don't you pick up a basket instead of dropping everything twice or having me jam a majority of said items up your ass?

You do that, and I'll listen to ska instead of flaming whatever you have that's flammable or raping whatever you have that's rapeable.

Now, where's that Reel Big Fish Cd?

Reflections in Red #2

There are some very few people in life that can always help you feel better about yourself. For some it comes as easily as breathing. There's just something about them that will always raise you above your problems. This is a rare breed indeed and I always feel lucky when I've found one.

In fact, what's most peculiar about them is that you never know where one will pop up. The old fellow working as the doorman at the El Dorado, a hooker with a heart of gold, or your grandma, god rest her soul. Me? I found mine in a shabby blue house two doors down the alley from my sister's place.

His name was Red and it was because of his hair. Red was never a cheerful man. He wasn't even pleasant. But he always had a way of making your day better....

"Hey, Red, how's it going?"

"Well, I ain't dead yet...."

And that was Red for ya'. So what if you didn't do your homework or your parents didn't understand you? You weren't cursing god and angrily awaiting death. And that's really something.

Ken

No, Ken, I'm gonna' call you "Ken" and you're gonna' like it. I'm getting you ready for the real world, Ken. You're gonna' finish high school, go to the local junior college, get a degree in accounting and get some subservient position at your bother-in-law's firm because you got your girlfriend from college knocked up and you had to find a stable job that would put food on the table. And you're going to walk into work in your poorly fitting polyester pants, your wrinkly-ass shirt and the tie you got for church when you were six and do you know what everyone's going to say to you?

"Ken, good to see you!"

"Ken, time for a new tie, buddy."

"Ken, you want dibs on the last jelly doughnut?"

"Hi, Ken, how's that little one of yours?"

And you'll smile and greet these dimwits with the same feigned enthusiasm and carry your little brown lunch sack containing a sandwich made of the leftover meat loaf from last night's dinner to your desk and sit your inordinately huge ass in your ergonomically designed char at a desk with a name plate that simply says, "Ken." And seconds after you hoist your giant ass into your tailor-made cradle, your boss will walk up and say,

"Hey, Ken! WHEW! I had a tie like that when I was 6. My mom made me wear it to church. Hahahahahaha.....Seriously, though, Ken, I need to talk to you about the Johnson account. It seems as though you forgot about the new filing system, Ken. If you need a little refresher on the training we had last week just let me know, Ken, because I got this great book about it. Ok, Ken, you have a good day!"

And after you settle into the mind-boggling monotony of your shitty job you're going to get a call from your nagging wife who has been ruined forever by crapping out your ill-begotten son and she's gonna' say,

"Ken, I need you to pick up some milk and eggs on your way home. Don't forget. Last time I asked you to stop by the store you didn't bring a single thing home. I'm tired of having to think for you, Ken."

You'll cow down to your wife and give just the right tone of remorse to shut her fat fucking mouth up. Then you're going to go to the local dive after your day in purgatory and tie on one righteous bender, Ken. Because youre life will be shit. It'll be shit and you'll know it. You'll sit there and get hammered with some people you don't really know and reminisce about the days when life was a walk in the park. When your friends took care of you and you liked the girl you were fucking and everybody called you, "Kenny." That's what I'm getting you ready for, Ken, and you're gonna' fucking like it.

You Remind Me of Michael

Y'know, you remind me of Michael. That's not a good thing, Michael was an asshole. Michael was the type of guy to abuse Nicorette. He'd drink four or five GIGANTIC gin and tonics each night. Sure, Michael was a pragmatist when it came to researching software or programming it, his finances and what kind of pasta was least likely to cause colon cancer, but when it came to his personal life Michael was little more than a meat sack filled with Flintstones Vitamins...One bottle of.

Michael will aggravate his dog (which you are already afraid of) so that she bares her teeth and growls and barks. Michael has two master's degrees but he can't set his watch alarm. He'll squirt you fifteen times with his new squirt gun before he realizes that there's no squirt gun fight and that you're fucking pissed. Michael's the kind of guy to give you the clap or herpes just after they're passe.

Michael's your best friend when you hate him the most and you're his worst enemy if you get pizza with meat on it. Michael will knock up your sister, drink your last beer and shit in your vacuum cleaner. He'll do your taxes wrong and tell your momma' about your experimental college years. Michael will speak intelligently on the next course of action we should take in the Graphical User Interface, yet he will ask you to explain an entire episode of Murder She Wrote and he won't understand why the fuck you didn't watch it.

...Yep, you definitely remind me of Michael...you fucking douche.

Reflections In Red #1

We sit by the bonfire, the ocean crashing down on the beach. The last remaining rays of sunlight nothing but the faintest of inverse shadows on the canopy of the night sky. The Northern California summer night far cooler than any kid from North Dakota would ever suspect hovers about the perimeter of our meeting of the minds and dreams, souls and assumptions, held at bay by the blazing heat of 30 pallets letting loose all the rage and potential gone unused lo these many years.

I sip my first beer of the night, delighting in the magnificence that only under-aged drinking can provide. I'm 15 and my first trip to the Pacific Northwest has been far more intoxicating than any libation. It is here at the beach that I realize how close the chaps that invented Manifest Destiny were to the truth of the whole matter. Three years later I will move here and begin manhood or a fair approximation. My mind wanders, no doubt fleeing towards some burlesque fantasy or pulp comic dream sequence.

As I sit there, gazing at the stars through the wispy clouds and smoke, Red speaks to me. Red lives down the alley from my sister. Their collective households often gather for revelry. Even though I'm 15 and he the average participant in tonight's festivities is 25, it's Red who really stands out from the crowd.

He's 5'4" or so and easily weighs 250 pounds. He has moderate acne, the effects enhanced by the sheer force of his rage. Red might have been a handsome man once, might have, or had the chance to evolve to the Swan Stage. But long ago he succumbed to the teasing and degrading nature of his peers. Atop his battered, angry face sits a pate resembling the decharicaturized image of Bozo T. Clown. Balding but not graying, one can see where Red has received his nickname (Lawrence, his given name, doesn't seem to fit this angry gnome).

Without introducing himself to me, without a, "Hello," nor a, "Nice night, huh?" Red turns to me and says, "What'cha' do is, you take a light bulb and you unscrew the metal from the glass, but you have be careful to keep the filament in tact. Then you fill the glass half with diesel fuel and half with laundry detergent. Then you screw the metal back to the glass and then you put the bulb back where ever you want it to go off. Then, when They come in and turn on the light, they get fucked up 'cause they just ignited and blew up the fuckin' napalm you mixed in the bulb."

I stared at Red and he looked back at me, beady, black eyes reflecting my own fear. There aren't many things you can say to a man like Red that will make him leave you alone. Even at 15 I know this. He's the same creepy, military- and death-obsessed kid we all knew in high school. But I know of one trick that always works on these types: because they have hidden their homosexuality so deep, guarded with such tenacity, they will do anything to avoid any comment, deed or action that could be construed as gay. Even at 15 I know it's true.

This all occurs to me in the span of half a second, the beat of a humming bird's wings. I know action must be taken. So I hop deftly to my feet, hook a thumb at the tall grass beyond the dunes and say, "I'm gonna' go take a piss, you wanna' watch?"

Oh No! Have I Been Buttfucked?!?!

Has this ever happened to you?

You go to a frat party on Saturday night and drink like Willy after landing on the other side of the reef. You get so drunk that you realize how terribly outdated and scientifically inaccurate your Free Willy reference is. When you wake up the next day you're not sure whether or not you've been buttfucked. It's all a jumbled amalgam of dreams and memories, the line between perception and reality is as blurry as your vision after your third bottle of Robitusin.

Well your troubles are over! With my patented system you'll be able to tell whether or not you've been buttfucked in just minutes! Here's how it works:

Use Common Sense: Sometimes it's easy to tell if you've been buttfucked. Make a bodily and mental check list.

• Make sure your butt isn't sore, torn, bleeding or otherwise damaged.
• Check to see if you feel utterly ashamed of yourself without knowing quite why.
• Check your bum for excess moisture. Unless you're running a marathon or living in an equatorial climate, it should be relatively dry.

Hallmark even makes a, "Sorry I buttfucked you while you were in a state that may or may not have resulted in your inability to remember whether or not you've been buttfucked," card! If you get one of these with a couple of twenties stuffed into it, the chances are good that you've been buttfucked!

Those were some of the more obvious signs that your poopshoot's been violated but there are literally THOUSANDS of indicators that you've been buttfucked.

Call now and you'll get your "So You May Have Been Buttfucked" investigatory kit and a smiley-face paper bag Shame Mask. Call in the next twenty minutes and you'll get a jumbo-sized tube of lidocaine absolutely free!!

What are you waiting for?!?! You may already have been buttfucked.

Why I Don't Vote

When I was a younger man I decided I would not vote. Chalk it up to youth or ignorance, but I had decided that the system was fucked and couldn't be fixed. Not only had I made my decision, I was proud. You couldn't shut me up on the subject, were it to arise.

In retrospect I see now what a buffoon I was. Conceptualizations of what a democratic republic should be aside, there is a far more legitimate reason not to vote. Registering to vote gets you on the list to become a juror in our court system. My job provides for paid time off so that I can better help my community. So jury duty in itself is not so terrible. In a lot of ways it would be more like a vacation than a civil obligation.

What worries me the most is ending up on the jury that convicts a super villain. I've seen it happen a jillion times in the comics, cartoons and the recent barrage of super-hero movies.

You start out with a Hero you need to introduce. Let's call him, "Hypothetacles." See, he's the new hero on the block and he's making a name for himself in a town we'll call, "Hypothetropolis." Hypothetacles will start off fucking up some gang-bangers and drug dealers just to get his name on the street. But eventually wading through an ocean of mooks without breaking a sweat will begin to bore Hypothetacles. Simultaneously, he will realize that while he's stopping crimes as they happen, he's not really getting ot the root cause of crime. This will lead him on a witch hunt through Hypothetropolis; killing them all and letting god sort 'em out.

As Hypothetacles moves up the Goon Ladder, his opponents will become fewer but far more powerful until he reaches the mastermind of all crime in Hypothetropolis:

Villain X

Nobody knows who Villain X is since he always wears a mask and kills anybody that has ever even been in the same room with him. Naturally, though, after an epic duel that nearly kills Hypothetacles, Villain X will be brought to the swift and fair justice of the Hypthetropolis Justice System.

That's where I come in. See, I help convict Villain X and save Hypothetropolis from certain disaster. It's a good day for everybody but Villain X and we all live happily ever after...UNTIL THE SEQUEL!!!

That'll open up with a rash of killings in which all of the victims were jury members who helped convict Villain X. Look, I'm not a very important man, so I have little doubt that I'll be one of the first people to be turned into yogurt or have my bones teleported out of my body as I'm kicked from an airplane at 17,000 feet while bing cut in half by the flechette rounds from the devastator cannon on the powered armor belonging to Cybermax, Villain X's right hand man.

My only real hope is that I'm funny enough to be the last remaining juror. After all, Hypothetacles is going to need me to be the bait for his cunning plan to catch both Cybermax and Villain X by turning their powers against themselves. And let's face it, Hypothetacles is no comedian. Where else are we going to get the comic relief we all know and love?

So if any of you are thinking about registering to vote, take a minute to really think about whether or not you're comfortable sending a super villain to the local Insane Asylum. You've seen the the kind of people that run these things; they're all stupid enough to be fooled by a hologram of Lex Luthor and Otis playing checkers coming from a homemade projector consisting of transistor radio parts and Kool Menthol cigarettes.

Is it really worth the risk?

A Stalker's Practical Guide to Suzy

First things first: Suzy's full name is Suzanne Matilda LeFleur. Her phone number is 555-0999. Her address is 3541 Rain Cloud Road. She lives in an old Victorian that's been converted into several apartments. Suzy's on the third floor, north corner.

Suzy is the Goddess above all others in my Pantheon of Obsession.

Hiding Places: Suzy's next door neighbor is a 75 year old widow named Mrs. O'Whighans. She lives alone. She doesn't have any family and she lives in the house Mr. O'Whigans built with his own hands. As such, her house is far too big for her to utilize, maintain or patrol. She is also going deaf and is addicted to Drain-O-dipped cigarettes. This is the perfect house for stalking at range. I have a key to all the doors in the house, including the attic. The attic window is just 35 feet away from Suzy's living room and bedroom windows.

Suzy's...Mind...OVERPOWERS

If you're going to enter Suzy's home, it's best to do it when she takes what I like to call her, "Power Dump". She does this as soon as she gets home each night around 5:30. She keeps a key to the apartment in the little potted plant just outside her front door. All of Suzy's closets are deep and have slats in the doors.

Suzy knows you're coming...but she won't know you're there...

Final Thoughts: Suzy's amazing, beautiful and far-reaching. I wouldn't leave her if I didn't have to go to this comic book convention. But I trust you. With that said, know this: if anything should happen to Suzy while I'm away there will be no end to the pain and misery I will bestow upon you. No limit to the delightful atrocities I will inflict to your earthly body. You will be living hamburger, bleating like a little lamb. Nobody will hear you, though, because Mrs. O'Hwighans is going deaf and is addicted to Drain-O-dipped cigarettes and I have the key to her basement....

Suzy....

I Still Like Ska and You Should Be Glad #1

I still like ska and you should be glad. I know, I know...Ska's out like legwarmers and shaving the Bat Signal into the back of your head. But the up-tempo dohdyoh doh doh of the rhythm section and the sassy doodleedoo of the horns make The Rage go away. It doesn't matter how terrible or horrific my day has been as long as I can come home to a ska version of Brown Eyed Girl or a song about Spam. Honestly, there's nothing ska can't fix for me. And you should be glad...

For instance, without ska, your incompetent boobery on the highways and city streets would drive me to kill each and every one of you in a decidedly Bolivian Drug Lord fashion. I'm not here to intimidate you, but there would definitely be a blowtorch and a rusty pair of left-handed safety scissors in the deal. So how 'bout this: Turn on your blinker when you're going to turn, turn off your blinker when you're not going to turn, put on your makeup when you get to the whorehouse, pay attention to the goddamn traffic lights, fuck off with your blue uber-bright, harnessing the power of the sun headlights, hang up your FUCKING CELL PHONE AND DRIVE!!! I'll let you keep listening to your Earth-shattering mega-booty bass thunder box in the hopes that it renders you permanently sterile.

But above all else, always remember and obey the one cardinal rule:

Right Lane Slow
Left Lane Fast

You do that and I"ll listen to ska instead of flaming whatever you have that's flammable or raping whatever you have that's rapable.

Now, where's that Save Ferris CD?

George Clooney Hair

Some day I'm gonna' get me some George Clooney hair. Not actual hair from his head, but a stylish haircut reminiscent of George Clooney. Dashing George Clooney, ruggedly handsome George Clooney, suave and debonair George Clooney. There's just something about George Clooney....he's a ladies' man and he's a man's man. He's tough and he's macho and take-charge when he has to be. He is powerful like the rhinoceros. Yet, when the time is right, he's loving and caring, tender. If I had George Clooney hair, I'd be one step closer to the man I want to be....

But more importantly, George Clooney is rich. Filthy, stinking rich! He wipes his ass with $100 bills. He eats California condor egg omelets for breakfast and he cleans his teeth with an ivory, gold inlaid, jewel-encrusted tooth brush. If I had George Clooney hair I could be rich, too.

Because George Clooney has all this money he can better fit into this dog-eat-dog, topsy turvy world. He can get a cell phone. People will know he's George Clooney when he answers his phone with, "George Clooney here..."Because people should know you're important. George Clooney's important. That's why he's on the cover of People Magazine talking about what it's like to be in his 40s. People would know I'm important if I had George Clooney hair.

Money, fame and rugged good looks also attract the ladies. Beautiful ladies with silicone titties, collagen lips and bulimic thighs that don't even touch. George Clooney meets these beautiful women. George Clooney gets more ass than a public toilet. I'd get laid too, if only I had George Clooney hair....

I Love Her

She has legs that go all the way to her buttocks.

And a smile that exposes her front teeth.

Her hair is extruded from tiny follicles in her scalp.

With eyes that provide binocular vision and opposable thumbs for gripping and grasping.

Her lips move as though they are attached to tendons and muscles on her face.

Even her nose protrudes from the front of her face, allowing her to collect microscopic particles for olfactorial analysis.

And her 32 teeth, all insider her mouth, pefectly designed for mastication.

I love her....

How I Got Here

Once, some wild, eight foot tall maniac grabbed my neck, slammed the back of my favorite head against a bar room wall and looked me crooked in the eye and he asked if I'd paid my dues. I looked right back into his eyes and said,

"When I was nine I wore aviator sunglasses and a headband with a fearsome Chinese dragon on it for a week straight. In the sixth grade I started wearing suspenders and a chain with a silver dollar on it like some prepubescent 70's wannabe. When I was thirteen I finally stopped sleeping with my blanky. In the eighth grade I nearly dislocated my right knee doing the half-splits at one of Mandan Junior Highs legendary dances. The summer before my freshman year of high school I started wearing a small, plush, stuffed puppy dog as a necklace. In the 9th grade I finally got a spike hairdo a year after they were popular. The summer before my junior year of high school I was Death in a medley of plays as performed by a traveling children's troop. It was in the 11th grade that I acquired the gift of being able to talk to girls I found attractive without crying nor making them cry. It was the eleventh grade when three different girls asked me to go to the winter formal and I declined. I received my first blow job in the twelfth grade. Which was almost cool except I shot it right away. As an adult I have vomited on myself on numerous occasions in drunken stupors, I still think Tr0n is a fucking RAD movie, I have a tattoo of Bert and Ernie on my flabby, pasty-white bicep and for some reason I feel the urge, nay, the compulsion to tell you about all of this."

"Have you paid yer dues, Dekx?"
"Yes, Sir. The check is in the mail."