oom-pa-pa

I have work again!
Yes, my mood is beginning to improve, because many interesting things are happening. I've got a gig next week, and I'm also working on remodeling my friend Yuri Lane's bathroom. (yes, I know it's not glamorous, but it pays well and he's the shit) I actually enjoy doing manual labor. It's fun, plus I can make gorilla faces while lifting heavy objects such as a clawfoot bathtub forged from wrought Iron! (Ungaya!)
Oh, and I'm finally buying that tuba I've been pining for. It's a great little half-size BBb I found out in elmhurst and it's totally affordable. It sounds like heaven and i do believe it's the new love of my life. I'll be playing with Mucca-Pazza (just sub and backup at first), which will be dandy, but I've decided on something else as well.
I'm going to start my own marching band. I need collaborative musicians. So my next quest is the search for them. I shall seek creators.
Holy fuck, I just realized the time. Fucktard.

You wake up with no arms

So I finally created a MySpace account for my music. It's under my DJ name (Aaroneous Truths).
Thus far the only song posted is "You wake up with no arms"

So I was jamming a couple of years ago with a guy named Noam Katz, when this melody began to wheedle it's way into my brain.
You know when you wake up and your ams have been under your pillow, and the pressure from your head has slowed the blood flow and removed all feeling from them?
That's this song.

Noam-- No-Arms... yeah... you get it.
The song can be found here:
You wake up with no arms

Please enjoy. More to come soon.
-A

The Shoe Tree

My dearest Yossarian,

I haven’t written in weeks and for that I am sorry, but I figured, why write if you don’t have anything to say? Hence my silence. But now I’m writing you.

Last week Purple and I decided that to celebrate the end of finals, we’d finally break open the Fifty Sack he’d brought up from Texas last month. So, being us, we had to search for a suitable spot to hit this dubage.

There was a dirt road about a mile down from Pisarik’s stables. We decided to check it out.

It’s about 7:30 and the sun is beginning to set as we venture onto the road and into the cornfields. No end in sight.

We walked for maybe half an hour, forty five minutes, when suddenly the road turns and just stops. There’s nothing left but corn.

“uh… what now?”

Purp (being Purp) says “dude, get on my shoulders”.

So I climb up there and as I poke my head up above the cornstalks, I see this tree in the distance. It’s gigantic. It looks like an apple tree, or maybe pear, either way it definitely has fruit.

“Dude, we totally have to get high there”

“Man, it’s like instant munchies!”

“I know man”

We run and after several minutes, the corn parts and there it is. It must be a hundred and fifty feet tall! In the setting sun I can just barely make out what kind of fruit it is…

“man, it looks like bananas or something…”

“Dude, they’re shoes! There are like a hundred pairs of shoes in this tree!”

“Fuckin A man.”

I start to climb up and grab one.

“Man, hold it.”

And he hands me one of two 8-inch joints he’s prepared for the evening. He pulls out his football shaped lighter.

“L’Chaim, man”

“L’Chaim. To life”

Our joints crinkle as we toast, I take a hit and pull down a pair of bright white ice skates.

I cough “dude, there’s a note in here!”

He’s pulling from the joint, the end cherry red. “Well what’s it say?”

I pull a tightly rolled piece of paper from a skate.

Lydia,

So it’s come to this, has it? As I look around myself I can see there’s no turning back. This decision’s been quite a long time in the contemplating. Why the hell are you so stubborn? It’s really a moot point, but I can ask it again, can’t I?

By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone from here. Say goodbye to Caleb for me. And tell him something, make something up. I don’t want him thinking his father was a coward.

“The ink’s run after that”

“That’s all it is?”

I take a hit. This is heavy shit. “Why would someone put a suicide note in a pair of ice skates?”

“Dude, it’s not a suicide note. The guy’s just leaving.”

“Man, it’s totally a suicide note.”

“Don’t buy it for a second”

I unroll the note in front of him as he pulls from the joint.

“It says ‘I don’t want him thinking his father was a coward.’ Dude, this guy’s not coming back. He hung himself from this tree!”

Purp turns to me like I’m full of shit. “No he did not!”

“Yes he did man. Listen, it’s this dad whose gotten in trouble with the mob or something, he decides that rather than wait for them to come gully him or something-

“Gullying is what pirates do, not the mob”

“-fine, then concrete shoes or something. Anyways, he kills himself to save his wife and kid.”

“You’re full of shit”

“Listen man, maybe it’s the ‘baked goods’ talking, but I think that’s the story.”

“Dude… we’re the baked goods.”

“I’ll toast to that” We crinkle. “Pull another one down, see if any more have notes”

He jumps and misses the branch. He grunts as he hits the ground.

“I can’t reach it man”

“Well that’s cuz you’re a goddamn pussy”

“Fuck you, Pussy McPusserface”

“It take one to know one”

He jumps again, he grabs hold, but only with one hand, and you know Purp, he’s a big guy. The bark rips off and he falls back down.

“Shit man, I think I messed up a joint.”

“Looks alright to me, still lit.”

“No man, I mean my shoulder or something…”

“…oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine.” I take a hit.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” He takes a hit

In shaking the branch he managed to knock down pair of old Adidas. He picks them up.

“Nother note”

“read it”

Dear Miguel,

Fuck off, you lying sack of shit. I hate you so much I’m going to shoot myself.

BLAM!

Lisa

“What the hell?”

He takes a hit. “What the fuck kind of a suicide note is that?” I say. He sucks the smoke back in after exhaling. I’m starting to feel a little baked by now. He’s making smoke rings like a goddamn expert.

“I’m telling you man, these aren’t suicide notes. That one was a vent.”

“a what?”

“A vent. People vent when they’re angry but they don’t actually do anything. That’s that.”

“Whatever. I’m getting another” I start to get up.

“Wait man, we have to toast first.”

“To what?”

“Um… To Miguel, the lying sack of shit”

“Cheers” We crinkle and pull. I cough a bit. My throat feels hot, like it’s getting smaller. I take a drink from my Nalgene. It’s apple juice. We always drink apple juice when we get high. It’s like ambrosia.

I start climbing.

“get one from up high, man”

“Why?” I shout down.

“They’ve been there longer”

“What makes you say that?

“String Theory”

“Bullshit”

“Yeah, whatever, just get one from up high”

“Purple! We’re both high!”

“Very true my Jewish amigo! Very defi-totally true.”

“Like… I’m in the tree… and you’re on the ground, but we’re both fucking high!”

“I am the monarch of the sea!”

“You and your goddamn HMS Pinafore”

“I’ll cover you with British Tar!”

I’m about halfway up by now. Climbing a tree while high is surprisingly difficult. I’m reaching out but these branches are so interesting. I spot a speckled moth, which is like the coolest thing on the planet, by the way, because it is a living thing that blends in with another living thing just to keep other living things from seeing it and eating it. It like totally trusts the tree with it’s life…

But I make it to the top as Purple’s singing “Hardly EVER!!! I’m hardly ever sick at SEEEEAA!”

“Man! Sketchers! Taste the rainbow!” I grasp my pair of shoes that I have climbed so high to find.

“That’s skittles, pooper!” He shouts up. He’s laying on the ground now, looking at his hands.

“My bad!” and as I am holding on to the shoes, the branch beneath me suddenly gives out and the only thing holding me up are the shoes. “Shit! I think I’m hanging here!”

“don’t hang yourself man, you have too much to live for!”

“No, I’m hanging by the shoes, I’m hanging by a thread. My branch broke!”

“Dude, Jump into my arms! I’ll catch you!” He’s on his back with his arms stretched out.

“I don’t think so, Purpetraitor. I think I might die.”

“You will not die.”

I swing. It’s my only hope I go back and forth and back and forth until I’m finally on a branch that I think may have been there all along, but was just feeling sneaky and crept up to save me at the last minute. I grab the shoes and swing down like the monkeys I’m descended from.

“got a note”

“read read read read read read read”

First I must make funny faces. So I do. For several minutes. Then I unfold the note and read loudly and clearly.

First of all, I want to say I’m sorry for showing up yesterday and I’m sorry for trusting your father for so many years. I thought he could help, but now I realize that the only one who can help me is me. Sharon, I know you will go on to bigger and better things. You are the one true love of my life and for that I have been ever grateful. You are a remarkable human being and you will create wonderful things in your lifetime. I want you to learn and to not make the same mistakes I did. I have plenty of life insurance (that’s your father’s doing), which will help you get on your way. Plus, with me gone you won’t have to pay my health insurance anymore. You should take a nice vacation. Go somewhere with palm trees. Get the hell out of Iowa, Sharon. Just get the hell out. I want you to take Mickey and find him a good home. Some place with a lot of space. He’s still young. He needs places to run. He’s in the den in his Kennel. Don’t worry, he has plenty of food.

I know you want to know why, and I can’t really find the words to say. It just feels right. I’ve been living in a world of wrong and finally something feels right, so I’m gonna take that path and see where it takes me. I’m sorry I won’t get to see you again. I want you to know that I love you with all my heart. Don’t show this to your father, and don’t let him see me, please.

With all the love in the world,

-Mom

“Fuck.”

“Fuck is right. What a buzz killer.” He’s sitting up now.

“I mean… fuck.”

“I wonder if these all have notes in them”

“I think we should come back and investigate this further once we are in a state of mind that is less high and more sobriety”

“You mean when we’re sober”

“Yeahhhhh…”

He points his finger up. “I have an idea”

“What’s your idea?”

“We should come back with Yosie”

So, Yos, I’m formally inviting you to come back with us when you visit in two weeks to figure out the deal with this shoe tree. We’ve decided not to come to any conclusions until you have come to the scene and discussed it with us. I mean, honestly I know you’d totally want in on this. So write me back and we’ll check this out.

Hope all is well with you.

Word up, Dawg,

-Aaroneous

Move-in day

My new apartment is dank. It is sordid. Morbid. Disgusting. The walls are white and dirty. It smells like paint. Sick.

Today was supposed to be our get together day. Our move in day. Our finish up day. Our get the fuck organized day.

I arrive at eleven o’clock in the evening and I am pissed. It’s still dirty, paint on the floors, dirt on the walls, roaches crawling everywhere. We’re still lacking a stove and a refrigerator. Fuck this. Honestly.

Today I have flown 600 miles from Kansas city AND opened a show. Yesterday was Yom Kippur, for Pete’s sake! Come on God! Cut me some fuckin’ slack! I atoned!

I’ve decided that god is an asshole.

WHY IS MY PLACE OF HABITATION A SHITHOLE?!!?

I am sick and tired of not having a home. I haven’t had a home since my parents were divorced, and that’s when I was 15. And now my new home is trash. It’s a bunch of pus in rotting vomit. Fuck.

Now the reason I say all of this is because I want you to understand my motivations for my actions following. I’m not crazy, I was just under a lot of stress at the time, and sometimes completely clear-minded people just snap. So sue me.

After my agony has overtaken me, I’ve collapsed in a heap in the center of the floor. My head sprawls out and I look at my boxes. Sticking out of the top of one of them is my black machete. The one I bought for camping and picking cacti. It’s a good machete.

My eyes also wander over to the 2-inch-long cockroach crawling across my floor. My Goddamn floor! So I do what any sane person would do. I grab the machete and cleave la cucaracha in two.

It’s still moving. La Cucaracha won’t sit still. I slice again. The head. I slice again, the thorax, I slice again, the antennae.

Why won’t you fucking die?!!?

Before I know it there are hundreds of ridges in the floor from all my thwacking and la cucaracha is now pureed.

My upstairs neighbor begins playing Ozzie Osborne with his bass turned all the way up and I realize that la cucaracha has a few brothers and sisters.

Thousands of roaches pour out from the ceiling tiles, escaping the bass from Ozzie’s double-necked 12-string.

And I snap. I’m not proud of my actions, but they were justifiable. I cannot have vermin in my house. And they always say “fix the problem- fix the source”.

So I went to fix the source.

I grab El Machete and blade gleaming, I walk upstairs and knock three times.

Knock Knock Knock.

“And we’re flying off the rails on our crazy traaa-aaaiinnnn!”

He can’t even get the lyrics right.

I knock again, this time louder.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

And as he opens the door, I slit his jugular. He falls and I smite his ribcage and cleave is heart in two.

I turn off Ozzie.

But the roaches are still there when I return.

I can’t have vermin in my house.

I turn on all the lights and they try to scatter, but there’s too many of them. They can’t scatter. The crawl on each other as a massive ball of roaches rolls across my floor.

My floor.

We have no stove, but we do have a gas line. So I light that instead, and burn La Cucaracha’s brothers and sisters into the Mesozoic era.

I exit the building just as the windows in my new apartment are cracking from the heat.

My next door neighbor whom I have not yet met is on fire and he flings himself from the second story window. He dies as he hits the ground beside me with a thud. His muscles spasm with the heat.

I guess I’ll stay at my girlfriend’s tonight.

The Shareholders

And the shareholders screamed

"We want Ice cream!"

With their eyes that gleamed

And their bellies that teemed

But no one listens to the shareholders these days

Well, not when they act like that, anyways.

The Washroom King

Gerald entered the washroom…

The scruff and grime of three and a half weeks on the street covered his face and body. He looked around, disgusted. There were no towels. How could it be a mansion if the washrooms had no towels?

Fuck it. He’d use their quilt. Yeah, that’s right. These fuckers who pretend to make the world a better place by taking in the local homeless for the night. Who the hell did they think they were, anyway?

The shower was bigger than any he’d ever seen. Made of stone and glass, it gleamed like an iceberg in the Caribbean.

He twisted the knob and the hot spray gushed out onto the polished granite basin, filling the air with steam and damp wishes.

He glanced at the soap, and out of habit reached to pocket it, but then realized he had no pockets cause he was nude.

He admired himself in the mirror. Glancing at his manhood, he flexed. Once, twice, cracking a smile at the handsome chap in the mirror looking back at him.

And he stood there for a moment, waiting for the water to get warm, feeling the spray every few seconds. Then in he stepped and the water burst onto his body and blessed him with a robe of steam.

The mirrors fogged up, and he was lost in thought for a while. He washed and lathered and rinsed and then repeated (for good measure).

He tightened the knob and the royal stream ceased.

Then he grabbed the quilt-turned-towel and mopped the lasting wetness from his body.

It took a while, cause he was pretty wet, and the quilt was pretty old.

Patches began sticking to his skin, peeling off the quilt like damp wallpaper, or pieces of American cheese that weren’t individually wrapped.

It disgusted him, so he threw it out the window where it spread it’s great billowing arms casting a morning shadow over the front lawn before finally landing in the briar patch below.

It caught. It’s gray patches pierced by thorns.

Then, still slightly moist, Gerald pilfered the soap and defiantly walked nude through the hallway to the room he’d slept in. A lone patch with pictures of dancing bears clinging to his left buttock, then rolling off, dejectedly. He entered the room.

His clothes were gone.

They’d decided to wash them, the fuckers.

Gerald grabbed his bag, which he could have easily used as a makeshift loincloth, but chose not to. Instead, he slung it over his shoulder like a continental soldier, and padded through the house hanging low.

Everyone was gone, or so it seemed. There was the dull rumble of the washing machines and dryers billowing away down in the basement. He walked past the maid, engrossed in her copy of “The Weekly World News”, the headline reading “Jesus returns and wins big at Vegas casino!”

He walked into the grand hall, the twinkling sparkles of the great chandelier casting little dots over his just-rinsed chest hair, changing him into a bipedal Dalmatian of light.

He grasped the brass handles of the front doors and threw them open, the morning sun crashing into the crystal walls screaming “GOOD MORNING GERALD!!! For you I will vanquish any demon!”

The maid shielded her eyes and turned away from the blinding light as Gerald ventured onto the front lawn, still wet with dew. He pushed into the briar bushes, cupping a hand over his genitalia, grabbed the quilt, and draped it over his body toga-style.

The Emperor had returned, and he was hungry. Very hungry.

And with the sun crowning him with it’s halos, he strode away from the house, in search of a royal breakfast.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite was in ruin.

…To her original inhabitants, anyways.

But to everything else, she was a world just like any other. A place to live.

Aphrodite was a planet just like all the others. She’d had her fair share of play, to be sure. Mass extinctions, explosions of life, ice ages, Pollution, global warming, more mass extinctions, more explosions of life…
Lots and lots of time was what she had. Aphrodite was all about time, and boy did she have it on her side. Her sun wasn’t even five billion years old, and her dominant species had already vanished…

Aphrodite was a planet to be jealous of, of that you could be sure. She had everything. Rolling deserts filled with honey amber sands flowing into dunes that were miles high. She had great rainforests where the emerald trees reached into the stratosphere, their topmost leaves dull and papery, existing out of sheer will. Rivers teeming with freshwater fishes and mammals with fur and skin that slipped through the leafy aquas searching for a meal or a mate. Grandiose mountains reaching high and wide, with snowcapped peaks and deep crevasses. Caves and caverns, but that was just the part of her that was above the water!
Her seas… Her seas were mentioned in tails throughout the entire galaxy, for they were undoubtedly her most impressive feature. They were relatively small in comparison to those of others, covering a mere 64.82% of her surface, but it wasn’t their size that was impressive, it was their saturation.
For you see, her seas were not regular seas, sure they were saltwater, and had many great currents and tides that ebbed and flowed all over, but her waters were something different… light and life penetrated them differently… That was what made her different from all the others, but it was not what the others saw. They saw the beaches. Aphrodite’s land and water seemed to be mixed together if viewed from on high (which they rarely were these days), and that was because her oceans ran through the continents just as her rivers did, giving an inland beach some thousands of miles away from her main bodies of water. Prime real estate some would say, and perhaps they would be right, but none of it mattered to Aphrodite, for her treasures lied deep beneath the seas, far away from prying eyes. But that was all about to change…



“Sir, there’s something here I think you should see…”

“Shit! What now Johnston?”

“Um, I’m sorry sir…”

The First official Lieutenant padded onto the main bridge in his tidy whiteys.
“I said, what is it Johnston?”

“I’m sorry sir, it’s just… a planet”

“Bullshit!”

“No sir”

“You’re fucking kidding me”

“What’s a planet?” Cheryl, the lunch lady twaddled in on her heels, looking surprised. “Breakfast on the bridge today? Is that the consensus?”

“Look in the viewfinder for yourself sir…”

Somewhat skeptical, he padded over to the tiny screen.
“it’s corned beef hash today, sirs” Cheryl chimed in, “Fix those rumblys in your tumblys nice and good!”
He looked.

It was blue.

He looked again. Still blue. Once more…
“I think our viewfinder is sad, Johnston, that’s the problem”
“No sir”
And that’s when he noticed it. The small lines of white, flashing in and out in the background… well maybe not flashing, more like bobbing…

“Can you put this up on the wall for me, Johnston?”
“Of course, Sir”
He pressed a button and a great white bed sheet flapped down from the ceiling and hung there, like a big wet sail.
An oval of blue, with the same white lines covered the wall and the sheet, filling the room with its hue.
“Hmm…” The First Official Lieutenant rubbed his earlobes, as he was known to do on occasion. “I can’t make it out, I still think it may be upset, maybe give it some rose colored glasses…”
“I don’t think that’s the problem, sir”

And then suddenly, without any warning, a gigantic creature, as tall as the bridge, began attacking the bed sheet!
“AAA!”
The Lieutenant screamed and fell backwards, bumping his bum on the polished acrylic composite.
The enormous creature had six legs, was a bluish grey, and had two humongous claws.
“Johnston, how did that get in here?!!?”
Then the enormous creature jumped, right at the Lieutenant.
“AAA!”
…and splashed into the ocean.

As a great wave came and splashed over the viewfinder, the ship tilted upwards, and there was the sun, shining above them.

“Sweet Jesus, there’s a hole in the viewfinder!”
“No sir, I think that a star”
“A star? You mean like Jesse Von Heiseing?”
“no sir, like a big ball of gas that a planet revolves around”
“Oh… Does that mean the viewfinder is happy again?”
“I think you better put some clothes on, sir”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, Johnston!” And with that, the First Official Lieutenant stomped off to his quarters to change.

“Corned beef hash today, Johnston?”
“Go away Cheryl.”

And there, in the middle of the middle of Aphrodite’s middle ocean, floated the spaceship CS1234. It bobbed up and down gingerly, as if waiting for permission, but for what, it did not know.
And the Harlequin Shrimp that had climbed over the viewfinder was now drifting back down in search of the coral it lived on before the great splash had kicked it into the air. It was frazzled, and quickly eaten by a passing octopus.
Sorry Harley.