True Story

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Reflections on the Bhagavad Gita

I sat down to try and get some reading done, but it didn't happen. I had inadvertently picked a spot near two loud talkers on a date, which made it impossible to focus on the text. I found myself listening to these two grossly overweight turds; a guy and a girl. The girl had a gap in her teeth and a screechy, high pitched voice. The guy weighed maybe twice as much as the girl, which puts him in the 400-500 pound range, and his voice was of an even higher pitch than the girl. They both had the amazing ability of being able to speak entirely through their noses. I'm not being mean when I say this: they both really looked like Pearl, the archivist, from Blade. I'd get maybe halfway through a sentence, and then hear a statement of such utter mundanity as to make it impossible to focus on anything.

Upon acquiring a picture of Pearl, I realize this
may actually have been a slight exaggeration.

Apparently, they were talking about fortune cookies. "One time I got one that said 'You are not illiterate!'" screeched the girl-blob. This sent them both in to fits of outrageous laughter. The guy paused only to say, "I would totally keep that one! If I got it, I would totally keep that one!" He then resumed laughing, giving the girl time to repeat the phrase. "You are not illiterate!" Resume laughter.

Feeling the need to add something to the conversation, but really having as little to talk about as his female counterpart, the smelly-dude-blob came up with this: "I love it when I get a fortune cookie that says something like 'You are going to buy something at the mall.'" He said this without even the slightest hint of sarcasm. He really enjoys it when he gets a fortune that says nothing. This of course sent them further into hysterics, with the girl continuing to screech out "You are not illiterate!" every few seconds.

At this point, I had to interject. "You know how sometimes you can meet someone, and within the first few seconds, you just know the world would be much better off if they were dead?" They didn't seem to comprehend. Soon after, they were done eating, and left.

I was just about to attempt once more to start reading, when, from behind, I heard "I'm tall? You're tall? We're both tall!"

I Think I Handled That Pretty Well...

As I was walking back from class, she approached me.  I took off my headphones, and she said "I feel like I'm going to regret it if I don't say anything... Um... I have feelings for you..."

Wait a beat, I thought. Let the suspense build.  Don't be a dick, but make sure she knows how you feel.  And try to let her down easy.  "What are you, goin' to class?" I said. "You should watch out for ghosts!"  Well done, sir.  Well done.

Sanguine Torment

Looking at her perfect, red, curly hair caused a sudden depression. "You realize," I said, "that if we had children... they'd probably have red hair too. The freckles, the perfectly white skin, the constant ridicule... I don't know if I can bring a child into the world with that kind of curse. White-haired octogenarians begging for hair transplants... I can't do that to another human being."

"I know," she replied, with a small, comforting smile. "But there's always a chance."

Hahaha, Whoops!

Or, "Suprise, Everyone!"

So, it was Friday night, and, rather than go party with friends, I decided to go to the Campus Center, and get some philosophy reading done, or perhaps record a public service announcement at the radio station. On my way there, carrying my bookbag, I ran into a couple friends walking in the opposite direction. They were returning home from a test, chemistry or whatever, and invited me to hang out with them. Rather than continue on to a productive, but embarassing time away from other humans, I accepted the invitation.

They had just gotten an ice luge, and were excited about it, so it was put to great use. I don't really find much excitement from all the different ways people around me are finding to get drunk; I've never found throwing balls into cups or flipping coins at shit incredibly interesting. But this seemed neat, because it was almost guaranteed to cause a smelly, disgusting mess, with people pouring alcohol all over a block of ice and trying to catch it in their mouths.

Once the luge was set up, we all proceeded to drink, lots. I got pretty drunk, after having who knows how many shots. (1? 2? It's a mystery!) I was then invited to go smoke. I already had set a precedent of accepting invitations earlier in the night, so I went. On the walk over, I started not to be able to pay attention to things as well as I normally am, but, as one might expect, I didn't pay that any attention.

Once the smoking started, I was pretty out of it. Not being one to let a simple thing like blacking out affect my demeanor, I continued smoking while not even being aware of what was going on. I started leaning back, sometimes forgetting to breathe, then taking deep breaths upon remembering that I probably needed to do that to live.

Eventually, someone said something about breasts; I don't remember what, something about them being exposed right in front of me or something. Anyway, people were confused as to my lack of interest. It's not that I wasn't interested in nips, it's just that I wasn't really paying attention, as we've established. Anyway, everyone started paying attention to me now that they noticed my occasional gasps for oxygen. Knowing my history of asthma, it was assumed that I was having an asthma attack.

I must've started dry-heaving at this point, because I remember being led to a trash-bin. I don't remember dry-heaving, only disgustingly smacking my lips, due to massive sudden dehydration. I got water at some point, but it definitely wasn't enough.

Throughout all of this, people were talking to me, and I was taking a long time to respond, usually only with single words, probably sounding very distressed and childlike. That's how I felt. I couldn't retain or recall any information. I kept making incredible discoveries, like "I am in Amherst, Massachusetts." I was terrified about this; I don't normally forget things like where I am, how long I've been there, or who all these people are. The only thing I can remember solidly is that I was mortified that I had drunk myself retarded, and that I would remain so forever. I've never been as scared of anything as I was at that moment of losing my intellect.

Anyway, at this time, it was decided that I should be led back to my room. For some reason, the route chosen was one covered in ice. It was also uphill. Not much progress was made, because I fell down, and began trying to eat ice. (I was thirsty, you see.) At this point, I was not responding to my escorts, and, once I tried to eat the snow off my own shoe, and ambulance was called. I sat in the snow for a long time, and then it arrived, and I was on my way!

The paramedics were kind of dicks. I was still incredibly thirsty, and I asked for water. The guy taking my information said he couldn't give me any water until I saw a doctor (which turned out not to happen for another couple of hours). He asked me questions like "You been doin' any drinkin' tonight, son?" and "You been smokin' any pots? Eh? A little marijuana?" In my head, I was responding with "For the last time, yes!" but I imagine it came out more like a whimpering "mmhmm." After around 20-40 minutes in the ambulance, I remember getting impatient. "Seriously. You're not going to give me any water?"

I was wheeled into the emergency ward of the hospital. I wasn't really important enough to get a room, so they just left me in the hallway. A male-nurse introduced himself to me, and it turned out he had the same name as me. This bothered me, but I didn't show it, being too busy lolling my head around in circles. He started stabbing my fingertips with stuff, to get a blood-sugar sample. After his second attempt, he said something like "I can't get any, he's too cold!" which I guess meant that my time lying in the snow had numbed my fingers too much to allow for any blood flow. But that's bullshit, because I could feel him stabbing my fingers like a billion times.

I was left to wallow in my own intemperence for a while. I remember hearing some broad moaning from another room, and thinking about what a sissy she was being. Eventually, someone made a third attempt to get a blood-sugar reading, and succeeded sanguinely. I bled all over the blanket they gave me, which was fun. They soon capitulated to me endless requests for something to drink, and gave me some diet ginger ale, which I proceeded to spill on myself, and they also gave me some saltines, which I proceeded to smash to pieces. I did my best to increase my status from laying in my own crapulence, to laying in my own crapulence and my own filth.

Soon a doctor saw me, took some blood, and ask me what seemed to be the thousandth question about my drinking and smoking. She left, and I then layed around, and listened to the moaning of the other patient, occasionally turning to see the person laying in the stretcher behind me, all the while swaying my head around in a circle. Pretty soon, the person behind me woke up and tried to go to the bathroom, not realize he was connected to an IV. He started walking around in a circle, confined to the radius of his IV. Pretty soon, a nurse saw him, and ran over, handing him the IV, and telling him to "Hold this!" Once he got back, I asked if it would be "permissible to go to the bathroom." People don't seem to like it when you use big words, but here's where it pays off, when you're in the hospital for being too drunk, and then people realize you must not be that drunk, because you're throwing around words like "permissible" like it ain't no thang. Needless to say, I was granted access to their toilet.

Pretty soon, the doctor came back and told me she couldn't think of a reason to keep me. I was discharged, and allowed to wander out of the emergency ward, given no instructions as to where I should go, or what to do once I got there. I should probably say that I was still insanely drunk and high, but either no one noticed, or no one cared. Again, I think I owe this to my vocabulary.

After going to the bathroom maybe five or six more times in the next five minutes, peeing everywhere, I found the waiting room, and read some horribly boring literature on home purchasing and flower purchasing. I think I found some personal ads asking for some male on male slavery as well, but it's hard to say what I was reading, and what I was just making up.

The Problem of Virtue:

The Virtues Provide a Poor Excuse for God’s Tolerance of Evil

The problem of evil is the logical inconsistency that occurs when one posits both the existence of God, and the existence of evil. When speaking of evil, I of course do not mean evil in the sense of wickedness or sin, but simply terrible things, like pain and suffering. And God, or, at least the God I will be discussing here, is defined as an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being. It may be necessary to explain what I mean when I use these “divine traits” of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, so I will define them as follows: omnipotence is being completely powerful, within the bounds of logic; omniscience, while often supposed to be stronger than the definition I am going to use, is, for the purposes of this paper, simply knowing all true propositions; and omnibenevolence is being truly, perfectly, and completely good. We will also assume, as seems incredibly likely, that good will eliminate evil as far as it is able, unless, in eliminating some evil, it must also eliminate something of comparable goodness, or bring about some greater evil. The problem, now, with evil, is that God, as we see him, and as philosophers have described him (as an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent being), has the ability and inclination to prevent any and all evil from occurring, but, as we can plainly see, there is evil in this world, so either he is, for some reason, unable to prevent evil (e.g., because it is logically impossible to prevent certain kinds of evil), or he has some good reason for not doing so (e.g., because preventing one instance of evil might bring about an even worse evil). There are several responses theists have posited in order to reconcile this problem of God’s existence alongside evil, but the one I wish to address is what I shall call the “virtue response.” In his essay, “Evil and Omnipotence,” J.L. Mackie quickly describes the virtue response to the problem of evil in the following excerpt: “… [T]heists often seize the opportunity to accuse those who stress the problem of evil of taking a low, materialistic view of good and evil, equating these with pleasure and pain, and of ignoring the more spiritual goods which can arise in the struggle against evils” (309). In speaking of “spiritual goods,” Mackie is, as he makes clear later on in the essay, talking about moral virtues. As the virtue response says, it is to allow for the existence of moral virtues that God allows evil to occur, because evil is somehow necessary for virtue to exist, and a world with much evil and some virtue is better than a world with no evil and no virtue. But is this argument really sound?

First, it may be necessary to set down a definition of virtue with which I will work. The Aristotelian definition of virtue can be taken from the following passage in his Nicomachean Ethics:

“We may remark, then, that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing be done well … Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.” (II.6)

A virtue, therefore, is a character trait that makes a person good and inclines a person towards doing good things. Virtue ethics is a dicey area of philosophy, because nobody can ever know for sure what the virtues might be, but some examples of what Aristotle might mean when he talks about virtues are courage or generosity. The virtues referenced in the virtue response would also necessarily be ones that have something to do with evil, most likely the prevention thereof, but not necessarily. One might present dignity as a virtue, which might be described as keeping one’s demeanor in the face of great evil, which does not involve the prevention of evil, but still requires evil. This type of virtue, however, does not seem at all to be what is involved in the virtue response, as it seems absurd to say that we need evil so that people can not change the way they act. One might also present the virtue of temperance, the occasional denial of indulgences, and moderate acceptance of same. It seems strange to say that God allowed for the existence of intoxicating substances so that we might decide not to use them; why tempt us? After all, temptation is generally considered a bad thing. One can continue proposing virtues that do not involve the prevention of evil for a long period of time, but none of them really seem to be worth the existence of the evil that allows for them to be brought about. Of all the proposed virtues, the ones which seem the most important (or most virtuous), and which seem, at first, to give the virtue response the most weight, are those that prevent some sort of evil. Generosity, for instance, might be defined as the prevention of destitution by giving one’s economic resources away. The virtue responder would say that it is good that God allows evil to exist, so that the generous person may be allowed to be generous. Courage, as well, might be a good example of the type of virtue that is meant in this response, when we define it as risking one’s life to save others. The virtue responder would posit that it is good that God allows evil to exist, so that the courageous may be allowed to act courageously. It is virtues like this, and others that involve the prevention of evil, that I will take to be what the theist is referring to when he presents the virtue response.

At the current point, a virtue, as defined by the virtue response, is a character trait which inclines a person towards doing good things, specifically, preventing evil. But this is clearly not enough, because if God allows evil simply so that it would be prevented, it would obviously be better if he simply prevented it himself. This is where the last part of the definition comes in. A virtue is something that makes a person good. What the theist employing the virtue response seems then to be saying, is that evil is required for the existence of virtuous people. This may not seem immediately apparent, as even Aristotle has said that “possession of virtue seems actually compatible with being asleep, or with lifelong inactivity” (I.5). So it is possible that a person may be virtuous while never even committing a virtuous act. It is not necessary, then, that evil exist in order for there to be virtuous people, but for there to be virtuous acts committed. This is, presumably, what the virtue response is actually saying, that God allows evil to exist in order to allow for the committing of virtuous acts.

So, as stated previously, it is not simply that they prevent evil that makes virtuous acts worthwhile; if the prevention of evil was all that mattered, God would presumably prevent all evil on his own to begin with. To the theist employing the virtue response, there must then be something intrinsically good about committing virtuous acts. It’s difficult to see what this might be. It seems to me that the only reason we see a virtuous act as being good is because it prevents evil. Take away the problem of poverty, for existence, and it no longer seems incredibly necessary for there to be generous people. It is simply that we are currently in need of those willing to give freely to the poor that we see them as good. If we existed in a world without evil, we would all see no need for virtuous acts to be performed. It seems difficult, however, to come up with an argument that will convince the person that finds there to be something intrinsically good about performing virtuous actions. Though I don’t agree that there is such an intrinsic goodness to performing virtuous acts, for the sake of argument, I am willing to grant that it may be the case. Even after allowing such a proposition, the virtue response still seems unsatisfactory.

First, there are still several imaginable instances of evil in which there isn’t even the opportunity to be virtuous in response. For example, lighting strikes can happen almost instantaneously and with very little warning, so there is sometimes no possible way to be virtuous with respect to being struck by lightning. If the virtue response was all that was needed to explain the problem of evil, would not God prevent the few deaths that occur each year by lightning strikes? Still, they occur, and so the virtue response does not hold as a perfect answer to the problem of evil.

My second objection to the virtue response, the one that I find to be perhaps more striking due to what it seems to imply for ethics, I will now put forth. I take the definition of God as an omnibenevolent being to mean that God is supremely virtuous, and without vice (the opposite of virtue); I don’t believe that I will find much argument from theists against this claim. To put it more clearly, a supremely virtuous being will always act virtuously, whenever possible. The question I now ask is, “is it virtuous to create evil?” It seems obvious that it is not. If one entertains the possibility that it is virtuous to create evil in order to allow for other virtuous acts to be performed, one can imagine a world in which it is impossible not to be virtuous, because any action that has any effect will create either prevent an evil, or allow one, committing a virtuous act, or creating possibilities for others to commit virtuous acts. It seems obvious that a human being’s act of creating evil, even using the excuse of this evil allowing for virtuous acts to be committed, could not possibly be seen as virtuous. But, according to the virtue response, God is apparently doing this all the time.

One may, in response, say that God does not cause evil, but merely allows it to happen, and the evil occurs through no fault of God’s own. The result of this response is no better. Imagine that allowing evil to occur is virtuous, because it allows others to act virtuously. Now imagine a scenario in which a man is the leader of a country. His country is about to go to war with another, unless he decides not to. The previous leader had ordered the invasion just before being replaced. The current leader can easily cancel the invasion by giving new orders to the military just before they commence the attack. If the invasion occurs, it will not have been started as the result of any of his actions, since he did not order the assault. He’ll lose nothing from preventing the war; it requires very little effort on his part, and he will be in the exact same situation either way. Despite the ease of preventing the war from occurring, he decides to allow it to go on, in order to allow those involved the chance to act virtuously. Is he acting virtuously? I think it’s clear that he is not.

But this is the same case God is in; God is not causing the evil, just as the leader of the nation in the story mentioned previously is not causing the war. But God has the power to stop the war from occurring at any time; he simply refrains from doing so, according to the virtue response, in order to allow for virtuous acts to be performed. It seems clear in the war story that it is not a virtuous act to allow evil to occur. Are we then, when God allows even greater evils than simply one war to occur, still expected to continue to see him as supremely virtuous? This seems absurd. It seems even more so, when one thinks about this situation even further. If it truly is a virtue to fail to prevent evil, in order to allow for virtuous acts to be performed, then imagine a world where everyone acts virtuously, in this respect. It would be a terror. Children would be drowning all over the place, while people easily able to save them simply looked on and allowed them to die; minorities would be constantly oppressed, with no one taking the right actions to help them out of their dire situations. Failing to prevent evil, even when doing so to allow for others to commit virtuous acts, is not only not virtuous, it seems outright vicious.

A theist response to this claim of God’s viciousness might be that different moral rules apply to God. Something to the effect of “it’s different morally for God to fail to prevent evil than it is for a human.” Why should this be so? Proponents of this response seem to be giving God a less restricted set of moral rules to follow, in saying it is morally permissible for him to fail to prevent evil. Doesn’t it make more sense that God would (or, at least, should), have a stricter set of moral guidelines? He is, after all, in the position of the most powerful being in the universe; some restraint would be much appreciated.

A theist still might not be convinced that God is acting viciously in failing to prevent evil; there is very little I can think of to convince someone who is not inclined to agree that failing to prevent evil is a vicious act. But it still seems to work for my argument. The theist that does not agree that God is acting viciously might say that God is simply not acting virtuously. But this is still a failure, for the theist, because it is an admission of an imperfection. God is not acting virtuously, when there is a virtuous choice: the prevention of evil. But God, as a completely virtuous being, must always act virtuously, whenever a virtuous action is possible.

Third, it is also important to take into account the fact that this evil, which has been supposed to have been brought about for the allowance of virtuous deeds, also allows for many vicious deeds to be committed. It is not difficult to think of ways in which a bad situation, an evil, can be made worse through no (immediate) fault of God. For example, two countries are at war. This is an obviously evil situation. But, seeing the two countries at war, in a distracted and weakened state, a third nation takes advantage of the opportunity, and invades and conquers both, causing much death and suffering, more than would have occurred without this third countries invasion, and much more than would have occurred had the first war never occurred to begin with. So, the existence of evil which God allows may be made worse by the fact that it allows for great vicious acts to be committed, which, one may argue, occurs more often, or at least to greater magnitude than virtuous acts.

These aforementioned reasons make it the virtue response seem incredibly unsatisfactory. As it has been presented, the argument fails to explain many instances of evil which present no opportunity for the heroics of virtue to arise, due, for example, to the quickness and finality of the evil. Additionally, virtue response seems to imply a system of ethics, which, if applied uniformly, would obviously be absurdly amoral, with God leading the way in such clearly morally impermissible actions as the creation of widespread suffering and pain, or at least the failure to prevent it. Finally, the virtue response says nothing to address the widespread acts of vice which capitalize on the existence of evil, as allowed by God. The virtue response seems impotent, and, though I do not believe this to be a knockout punch against God in the problem of evil, as I think the theist does have some other, better responses, I do believe that the dismantling of the virtue response leaves theists in a much trickier position.

Works Cited

Aristotle. ">Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. W. D. Ross. The Internet Classics Archive. 4 Dec. 2007.

Mackie, J. L. "Evil and Omnipotence." Philosophy of Religion. Ed. Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. 304-314.

Blargh

Really, they should have asked me for a better headline.  Feet? GROSS!  Does that really sound like me?

Coral

I used to envy the imbecilic. I'd see my baby cousin laughing hysterically at a word he just made up ("kookoomaracha"), or hear my English teacher explain the "theory" that her other class created, that the main characters in the novel A Separate Peace are homosexuals ("This book is fuckin' gay!"), and I would get jealous. Life is so easy when you're stupid. You just float on, being amazed at how things turn out, and you never worry about anything, because you have no idea how it works anyway. Things are so simple when you're dumb.

I used to envy the imbecilic. Then, I convinced one of them that I was a fifty-seven year old black man named Chang, that I used to play drums for Nirvana, and that I was also the illegitimate son of Real World star Mike "The Miz" Mizanin, despite my alleged aged being at least thirty years greater than his. I did this for no reason, and they believed me, unable to detect my sarcasm, or the logical impossibilities of my story. Then I sold them my autograph for ten dollars. I'm so glad I'm not stupid.

Blue Flush

I always have fantastic ideas right before I go to sleep.  The problem with this is that I can't find a good way to record them.  I'll think of an amazing idea for a story to write, and I'll try to write down key phrases in my phone, but this never works.  I think that the few words I record will be enough to jog my memory on this brilliant plan, but the next morning, I check my phone for the idea, and I'm left with a cryptic phrase like, "Little bacon train."  What the hell did I mean by that?

What Is and What Should Never Be

Everyone has kickass dreams. All the time I'm hearing things like "I dreamt about fighting off puppet zombies. They won." That person is always freaked out. People who have awesome dreams hate them. And I hate those people.

My dreams always revolve around conflicts like "looking for a book in the library," or "I'm really hungry so I need to somehow steal all of my friend's candy bars." My best dream of recent memory involved getting a Nintendo Gamecube. I already had one when I dreamed this. My scariest nightmare of the past few years was when I dreamt during the summer that school had started already, and I was a week behind everyone else! Oh no, how will I ever catch up in Mock Trial? OH WAIT.

It didn't used to be like this. I can remember being pursued by the librarian from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood when she was turned into a demon, and having knock-down, drag-out fights with our wheel-chair-bound, mentally retarded family friend. (My record? 2 and 1, thank you very much.) Yes, things used to be great for me, but now the best celebrity my dreams can come up with for me to hang with is that Canadian rapper Snow. And I had to push him around in a shopping cart while he looked for adult diapers. That is unacceptable!

I think I've figured out a solution. My real life has to get fuckin' weird as hell in order to compensate. Next time you ask me what I did last night, I'm not going to tell you I sat in an airport for three hours waiting for my parents flight to land so I could spend another hour driving them home. I'm going to tell you I spent last night swordfighting with Dracula and Parker Posey. I killed Dracula but Parker Posey managed to escape. We're arch nemeses, and one day I will feast on her blood. When you ask me to see the next Bruce Willis vehicle, my reason for not going won't be "I hate Bruce Willis." It will be "I can't, I'm going ghost hunting with Steve Buscemi and Madeleine Albright and they can't do it without me. Steve's the bagman, Maddy's the diplomat, and I'm the muscle. We're really going to show those motherfuckers you don't mess with the living! Also, I fucking hate Bruce Willis!"

Anyway, I'm gonna wrap this up. A crocodile is waiting for me out front in a Volkswagon Bus. We're going to make a meat lover's pizza and throw it at some vegitarians down at the zoo, and then we've got to pick up my old babysitter so our band can play down at the old abandoned doll factory. We play jazz fusion.

The Rockland Cop Chronicles, Part II

At this point, I was pretty excited. I mean, I'm sure if I really thought about it, I would have been freaked out. My partner really shouldn't have been in possession of a rocket launcher. Well, I didn't think about it, at least not past the "Hell yeah, my partner is about to fuck you guys up" part. "Smoke 'em!" I yelled. He fired the rocket launcher.

The rocket didn't get more than five feet from the squad car before a bright wall of purple light appeared in its path, causing it to detonate. The car was knocked off the road, and slammed into a rail. I crawled out of the wreckage (of course I was fine), picking pieces of my partner off of my clothes. As soon as I made it out from under my now totaled car, I was surrounded by Hasidim. One of them, I guess a rabbi, came forward from the crowd.

"You have violated the agreement made between our people," he said. "By entering our territory, you cops have declared war on the Hasidim! We have been oppressed for too long. This is the last straw; we will not stop with obliterating your petty and juvenile police force. This is a war on all the gentiles of the world!"

"Uh... I was not aware of such a treaty..." I said.

"Silence!" he thundered. "We do not care about your ignorance; this is a sacred contract made before God. However, your ignorance seems sincere... it is only for this reason that we will not kill you. You are hereby banished to the Realm of the Night!" I was going to try to bargain further, but he then spat out a few lines in Hebrew. I don't understand that stuff, and he spit all over me, but soon, things started getting real wavy. Like it was really hot out, or I was having a flashback or something. The last thing I heard from the shaman-rabbi was maniacal laughter. Real cliche stuff. I was embarrassed for us both.

When the waves cleared, I was somewhere else. It wasn't too shocking though, it looked basically like Rockland county, but with a few more trees. And it was night. Which made sense, since it was called "The Realm of the Night." It didn't really seem like a realm though... more like a hamlet.

Not knowing what else to do, I started walking. Pretty soon, a dog started following me. It was a big German Shepherd, wearing a K-9 vest. I looked at it, and it wagged its tail, so I let it follow.

A man wearing a New City policeman's uniform walked up to me. "Follow me, I'll show you the way out!" he said. I shot him in the head.

"How did you know he was a phony?" the dog asked me. "The New City Sheriff's Department doesn't hire Indian people. Have you not noticed that?"

"I suppose you're wondering why I'm talking," the dog said. I wasn't. "I'm the spirit of your first partner. I died with unfinished business, so I was sent here. I guess I'm your guardian spirit. Come this way! I know how to get out of here!" He took off, leaving different trails of light coming off of his tail.

I sighed. "This is so fuckin' stupid."

To be continued...

The Rockland Cop Chronicles, Part I

I just recently decided to get a part time job, if "decided" means "was ordered to under threat of ejection from my parents' house." I got hired by the New City Sheriff''s department, which was odd, because I didn't even think cops worked part-time.

Seriously, it's like an even more hilariously incompetent version of Reno 911! over there. My first day I was driving a squad car. I didn't even have a badge or uniform. My partner spent the whole shift drunk, and he gave me his gun because he "can't shoot for shit anyway." He had me spend the day just tailing random cars ("Blackie's up to no good, follow him!"), looking to trick them into speeding up or making them too nervous to drive straight. We had to stop one guy because my partner had me driving so close I accidentally bumped him, resulting in the following exchange: "The fuck you stoppin' at that light for? You playin' with me?" When the guy responded with "Red means stop," my partner accused him of trying to outrun us. "By stopping?" he said. Then he got a ticket.

We went back to following random innocent people ("A hybrid? Smoke that fuckin' hippie!" and "This one's yellow!" were his best reasons for singling people out.) and caught a few going a couple miles over the speed limit. Whenever they kept their shit for more than five minutes, we'd pass them and my partner would give them the finger or throw a beer can at them. I almost stopped at a red light when he flipped the siren on and told me "Floor it! It's the fuzz!" I was starting to get suspicious of this guy actually being a cop, but a few more days working for the force would show this to be the standard behavior for most of them.

After he wrote several more tickets for "disrespecting the badge" and "tryin' to shake us," we went to a diner for a coffee break. This was after maybe forty-five minutes of work. (I'm serious, he averaged a ticket every three minutes.) Over coffee, he started crying, and told me he used to be big, a star football player for the high school. I began asking him if the Rams really ever had any "star players," having never had a winning season since the school was formed in 1923, when he just grabbed his gun from my lap (I didn't have a holster, so I'd just been resting it there the whole time.) and fired it into his mouth. I just left him there. I mean, come on, it was ten fifteen, I hadn't even been trained yet!

When I got back to the station, I heard the chief say, "Damn shame. Finn was a fine officer. I was just going to recommend him for State! We'll never see another one like him." That's it. That's what happened. There wasn't even any paperwork to fill out. I got the rest of the day off, not because my partner just killed himself, but "just 'cause... what the hell, eh?" Oh, and they gave me his gun. They didn't even put a new clip in it, so it's still got 5 of a dead man's bullets in it.

The next day, I had a new partner, also an alcoholic. We were driving around an area I'd never been before, and I think my partner was lost too, because soon we started seeing Hasidic people everywhere, and that started freaking him out. "Shit, we're in Monsey! Turn around!" he said. I asked him what the problem was, and he said "We're not the law here, the Hasidim run this place! If they catch us here, they'll take it as a declaration of war! Quick, go back!"

This seemed sort of strange to me, but when I started thinking about it, it seemed to make sense. Hasidim always did seem to play by their own rules. Reckless driving, domestic abuse, lynchings, it was all normal around here. I always wondered how they got away with it, and I was about to find out. I tried to make a U-turn, but as soon as I had an opening, a gray minivan came out of nowhere and blocked me. I threw the squad car in reverse, but another one boxed me in. They opened up, and men wearing long black coats, black hats, with twin curls in their hair, and women wearing long skirts, conservative blouses, with their hair in kerchiefs poured out. Children dressed the same way came running from all directions.

"Play this CD, it might scare them off!" my partner suggested. I put it in the player, and turned on the megaphone. Christmas music blasted outside of the car, but it only made them mad. They started beating on the car, jumping on it, and a few of the men pulled shotguns out of their coats. At that point, I just decided, "fuck it," and floored it. I plowed through several children, onto the sidewalk, and around the vans. They started firing at us, and chased us for several blocks in their minivans. I got on the nearest highway, hoping to get away from more child casualties, but they'd beat me there. In the fast lane was another gray minivan, going five miles below the speed limit. I was fucked.

To be continued...

Central City’s Most Adorable P.I.

The name’s Morales, but everyone calls me Cha Cha. I hate that name. I think it’s supposed to be a “cute” name because I’m three feet tall, legally a dwarf, but for a private investigator, a nickname like Cha Cha can be a real career killer. Just devastating. If I worked at a circus, or in vaudeville, it’s be a different story, but things are already tough when you’re known as “Central City’s Most Adorable P.I.”

Anyway, this story begins the way most of mine do, with me rolling down the street in a trashcan. Well, that’s not exactly true… this time, it was a wastebasket, but let’s not split hairs. This kind of thing happens to me a lot, as a private eye. I see something I’m not supposed to, usually while standing on a crate or something, and, before long, someone decides I know too much, and sends in his kid brother to rough me up. Let me tell you, it doesn’t help your reputation to get into fights with children, especially when you lose. Word gets around on the playground, you know, one kid tells another kid, who tells his father, who no longer wants to hire you to find his missing daughter. That’s a little tip nobody told me in P.I. school: schoolyard gossip can make or break your career.

Prior to getting shoved in a wicker basket and thrown into traffic, I had been drinking at a local saloon. I had had to ask the bartender to pick me up and put me on the stool, and I needed a couple of phone books to reach the bar, and this had attracted the notice of some of the more inebriated customers of this establishment. They started calling me names like “short-stack” and “sprinkles,” real cutesy stuff like that. It was embarrassing. I told them to knock it off, but I have kind of a high-pitched voice, which only made it worse, and they started adding “princess” and “castrati” to the mix. Apparently these were some well educated drunks. A couple of them even started picking me up and playing a game of catch with me, and I guess I didn’t help things by giggling and shouting “higher.” Eventually, I decided they’d had enough fun at my expense, and I kicked one of them in the shin. “Stop stealing my dignity,” I yelled. “It’s really hurting my self-esteem.” This is when he threw me in the trash bin.

After I’d rolled for about a mile and caused several accidents, the basket finally came to a stop, and I crawled out, covered in used tissues and spent staples. This was when my client showed up, carrying a newspaper. “Cha Cha,” she yelled, “What are you doing? I’m not paying you five hundred dollars a week to get thrown into traffic!” I started to say something about it not being any of her business what I did in my spare time, when she shoved the newspaper into my hands, and interrupted me.

“Read this,” she said. I started to read the headline, something about me being sued by the Little People of America for advancing negative stereotypes about dwarves, but kind of dozed off halfway through. I’m not that into reading, never have been.

After snapping her fingers and slapping me around a bit, I finally woke up, and she told me she was firing me. Something about me being a national laughing stock, a disgrace to my people, and “an awful detective.” She started demanding her last check back, but I told her I’d spent it all on booze and, even if I hadn’t, I didn’t want to give it to her anyway.

So, after crawling out of another wastepaper basket, once more covered in snot and staple-wounds, I was again approached, this time by a stranger. He was about my height, so I immediately felt at ease. I can take this guy, I thought. He was wearing a business suit and carrying a magazine under his shoulder (his sleeves were too long for him to be able to hold it in his hands). I recognized the magazine immediately.

“Hey, that’s a dirty-mag!” I shouted. Sometimes I can’t control the volume of my voice. It’s really upsetting when you’re trying to have an intimate moment with someone and they have to sit in the next room, so as not to be deafened. The guy looked flustered. “Quiet down about that,” he hissed. “I represent the Little People of America. As the city’s foremost dwarf private investigator, you carry quite a bit of celebrity. We’re filing a class-action, civil suit against you for damaging the reputation of little people all across the nation. This was the last straw.” He handed me the magazine, opened to a full-page spread. It was me! I’d forgotten about that. There I was, sitting on my bed, wearing nothing but a towel and my trusty fedora, a bottle of whiskey resting on the nightstand. I’d been short on cash one month, and, in order to pay the rent, I posed for a few photos for a magazine. “Real classy,” the photographer had said. “Only male nudes, very tastefully done.” I thought it would be for one of those real artsy magazines like The New Yorker. Imagine how I felt when I found myself on page 69 of the latest issue of “Half-Pint Hunks.”

Well, after we argued for a while, and agreed to disagree (which would result in him suing me), I realized I was nowhere near my ride. I climbed into the wastepaper basket, and asked him to kick me in the direction I figured I wanted to go. He was happy to oblige, after first spitting his gum in the bin with me.

I got to my parking space, and climbed on my tricycle. As I sped away from the mob of fun-sized circus clowns, sideshow acts, and professional wrestlers out for my blood, picking gum out of my shirt and toenail clippings out of my hair, I realized that this city really needs a more reliable form of public transportation. This trashcan thing just isn’t working out, and my tricycle can only take me so far.

I turned a corner and cycled right into another mob, this one full of people wearing pea-coats, thick-framed Buddy Holly glasses, and Converse Chuck Taylors. Once I saw their messenger bags, I knew what I was dealing with: hipsters. Before I could get away, they lifted me off my ride, onto their shoulders, and placed me onto a stage, right next to a podium. At the podium, one of them, I guess you could call him the king hipster, started talking.

“Here he is, the symbol of our people.” I didn’t understand what was going on. I guess he could tell. “That’s right. We’ve heard your story, Cha Cha. We know you’ve been stepped on your whole life. No one takes you seriously, because of your dwarfism, yet your fellow little people have made you a pariah. Well, this is never going to change. But we can relate. We’re hipsters. Nobody likes us, either, and we’re always calling each other sell-outs.”

“That sounds kind of stupid,” I said.

"Yeah, well, like it or not, you’re one of us now. Here, have an iPod.”

I was still getting sued, and it didn’t solve any of my transit issues, but at least I got an iPod out of it. And I hear the false sense of superiority that comes with being a hipster is nice. And, in some way, I think I’ll finally have my dignity. Well… at least I kept that lady’s five-hundred bucks.

Love Letter

Today, in my English Writing class, we were instructed to write a love letter to someone special to us. This is what I wrote.

Dearest Samwell,

Of all the Youtube celebrities I've had the pleasure of encountering on my computer, you are by far the gayest. Your music video "What What (In the Butt)" has mesmerized me time and time again, as your isosceles figure symbolically erupts from a hole in the ground, your shoulderless avatar prancing about my screen.

Others may prefer the naked gansta rapper in the shower, or the combination dance class/English instruction/rape defense video, imported from Japan, but it is only you, my fabulous Village Person, that can really make me laugh uproariously at the absurdity of man, every time.

I know we can never meet; society would never accept the union of a homosexual black man and a heterosexual white man, for the purposes of the latter's ironic sense of humor. But just know, you will always have a place in my heart.

Yours forever,
David Normal

Vocal Carcinoma

Stan Tamborine sat in his dorm room, trying in vain to come up with a good name for the protagonist of the piece he was writing. It was a Friday night, and everyone on the floor was getting drunk. Everyone but Stan. "Stan's aren't big drinkers," Stan had always said. "They're big geologists." But all Stan's geology major friends were out getting drunk, so Stan sat in his dorm room, and decided to name the protagonist Tad Thalamus. He then dropped his neurology textbook in the trash.

It was going to be a science fiction piece. Stan knew it wasn't really the most noble of pursuits. He could be off discovering some sort of new igneous rock formation, after all. But, though he loved rocks, he spent his nights alone, writing. Or at least, he wanted to. He told people he did, but he mostly just wandered around the floor, looking for anything to do. He didn't even like any of the people he would meet, but he couldn't bring himself to write something he didn't like. Tonight, however, he had become fed up with his failure to create, and forced himself to do some writing.

For a good while, he just spoke to the reader, delivering no actual plot, no real solid information. Science fiction is about prognostication. Stan's introductory literature course on science fiction had stressed this fact. But so far, nothing he had written related even slightly to the future. Nothing even remotely speculative had been written down. It was all just autobiographical ramblings: complaints about his social life, worries about his motivations as a geologist, anxiety occuring due to his tremendously small penis. All of this he disguised as Tad Thalamus' problems. It was cathartic, but it was getting Stan nowhere. Nobody reads science fiction to hear about the author's small penis. Nobody reads science fiction.

He started throwing some things in about humanity regressing to a more ape-like intelligence, and being conquered by a newly discovered disease that possessed a hive-mind, but he couldn't think of anywhere to take the subject. He started listening to some jazz. He considered the possibility that his social failures may have something to do with his taste for banjo-based jazz experimentation, but refused to accept it.

Hearing some noise coming from the lounge, he walked over to find it filled with drunks. People he had enjoyed philosophical discussions with just hours before were eating corn chips and jumping on tables, shrieking like apes. Stan really felt this simian behavior cheapened their dialogues on string theory. He struck up a conversation with the one other sober person in the room: a little girl. She was 18, but five feet tall, and skipped everywhere. Their talk revolved around how crazy everyone was, and how hilarious she thought it to be. In a room full of inebriated, everyone was brought to her level. It was unfortunate for all involved. Stan left.

Times like these, Stan thought he needed solitude. But then he was left to brood. Seeing the depths of human stupidity infuriated him, but he longed for their company. The novels he read were full of things like this. A common theme of science fiction authors is alienation, surely due in no small part to their failure to connect to humanity. He enjoyed the books, but they didn't fix anything. He turned on the TV, hoping to be distracted from his frustration. The news said something about a new breed of cancer that could communicate to other instances of the disease, researchers said, coordinating metastasis with military-precision. No cure was in sight.

Stan's cell phone rang. He looked at the number, and recognized the area code. His mood momentarily rose; it was the same area code as back home. Imagining it to be a friend he had lost touch with, or perhaps a girl he had used to know, he answered. It turned out to be a drunk stranger. Their conversation involved only one word: hello. It was repeated by both parties several times until Stan hung up, realizing that it was the most intelligent conversation he had participated in all night.

Stan had downloaded Edward Penishands the day before. The scenes were hilariously awkward, even for a pornographic film. Edward licked nipples with such precise ineptitude, and his dual penes sprayed urine with such force. Stan had downloaded the movie as a joke, upon recommendation from a friend. He now watched the movie for its original purpose, without any ironic motive. He felt a lump. It started talking to him. "Did you see me? I was on TV," it said.

He zipped up his pants, and began writing again. Finishing the piece, he felt an epiphany. He left his room, and walked into the lounge, with a piece of paper in his hands.

Poetry & Phrases That Need To Go: The Becausening

I hate poetry. I hate it. Stop telling me that the poet's use of the same word three times gives it extra meaning. The only thing that means is the author needs to buy a thesaurus. Also, enough with alliteration. I'm serious, it needs to stop. It's unnatural, and it doesn't even sound pretty, so why are people still doing it? Also, be a little less vague. Anyone can write something nobody understands; people do it every day in English Writing 112. What is the true mark of skill in a writer is clarity.

Phrases That Need To Go

On a side note, can people please, please, stop saying "hence why." I hate that. If you people would just think for a second, you would realize why this sounds horrible. Hence means "for this reason." Now, say that instead of "hence."

"I am an idiot, hence why I construct my sentences in this manner." - ASSHOLE
"I am an idiot, for this reason why I construct my sentences in this manner." - SEE?
"I have a basic understanding of the English language, hence I construct my sentences in this manner." - BEARABLE

Ode to Clarissa

The air was different that day. It smelled like the the monkey house at the Bronx Zoo, the room where they kept the white-faced saki. The room was full of enormous trees, and the air was moist and cool. You wouldn't think a room full of monkeys would smell so pleasing, but to me, it did. Maybe it was due to some fond childhood memories, or maybe it was just because I like to have sex with monkeys. Who knows?

The Tremor of '07

Or "The Fart Heard 'Round the World"

I think I can safely say this is the proudest I've ever been in my life. First of all, I've never even had one come out as a visible bubble before, so that was a pleasant surprise. Second, I can't believe I was able to jump inside of it without it breaking.

It started to lift off the ground. I guess sulfur is lighter than air. I don't know if that's true or not, but I'll buy it. Maybe the atmosphere in New York City is different from normal air, because of all the gases coming from the decomposing corpses of the hobos Giuliani had "taken care of." Who knows? I'm no scientist.

The bubble was a watery-brown color, but it was also pretty transparent, so people could see that I was naked inside of it. It started floating down the street, right through Times Square. (My dad works at the New York Times, I was visiting him at work when it happened. Did I mention that it started in the newsroom? It was pretty loud and blew papers off tables all over the room, and somebody yelled "Stop the presses!" It started to fly out the window so I ran and dove into it. It turns out the presses did stop, but not because of the seriousness of the news, but because the shockwaves from the emission destroyed them.)

By the way, did I mention the smell? It was tremendous! It was like the Sasquatch had feast upon the Loch Ness monster's maggot infested corpse, and then barfed it all over Godzilla's dick. I couldn't stop vomiting, and it kept falling through the bubble. I think that's called a "semi-permeable membrane." Hey, maybe there's hope for that science degree yet.

Anyway, people were screaming and pointing up at me, and I was waving and vomiting at them. It was the most happy I had ever been. I flew over all of the landmarks: the Statue of Liberty (My vomit melted off her robes. It turns out she's just a glowing green, metal skeleton underneath it all, not a naked woman.), Ground Zero (I tried to salute but I was still having a hard time with all the vomiting.), the building where they filmed Ghostbusters, all the important stuff.

When I made it to the Empire State Building, of course it popped, and my vomit rampage was over. The crowds cheered for a few seconds, but they didn't realize the smell had been released. Then they did.

And that's how I killed New York City.

Writing prompt courtesy of Jaleel White's Blog.

mbaa

You would think that someone that smells like poo would get it worked out pretty quickly. I mean, I know when I start smelling like I just crapped my pants, showering becomes a high priority item on my to-do list. Now, I know it can be difficult to tell if you smell, because you get used to it, I guess, but you should realize that something is up when people start burying their heads in their own asses as soon as you come around. I guess what I'm saying is, it's comfortable, but it's not that comfortable.

He's a Criminal Mastermind!

I have this irrational fear of my father having beaten off into the shampoo. I don't know where this comes from; it doesn't even sound like something he would do, but that makes it even more terrifying. I would never know! Every time I take a shower at home, I think about this, and really creeps me out, to think I could have dad-jizz all over my head. It truly is the perfect crime.