BEHIND YOU!

Now, I’ve never been known to defend the elderly or infirm, but Grandpa White had a pretty good excuse for his outspoken hatred of science fiction and “the old talkin’ box”—what Grandpa calls the radio.

The year was 1938 and Grandpa was eight. His Dad turned on the talkin’ box one chilly October night and heard what he thought was a news bulletin announcing an alien invasion, but was actually just a young Orson Welles reading the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds. At the time, it was considered one the most infamous readings of the War of the Worlds in radio history.

So Grandpa’s Dad got really frightened. Which wasn’t surprising because everyone was frightened and because, as he told Grandpa when he was a kid, “Always remember, son: I am scared shitless of aliens.”

The droning of the voice on the radio was drowned out when Grandpa’s Dad began sobbing uncontrollably and wailing “Oh god, we’re all doomed” a lot. He collected himself enough to grab the old shotgun the family kept in the closet, pulled the hammer back and handed it to Grandpa.

“Good luck with the alien invasion and in any future endeavors, son,” Grandpa’s Dad said, still crying in terror.

Grandpa’s Dad shook his son’s hand, walked out the door and hanged himself in the barn, convinced he’d suffer a far more ignominious death at the hands (or claws, or pincers or whatever they have) of the aliens. It was an ugly scene in that barn. A foul-smelling scene too, because as it turned out, Grandpa’s Dad was being literal when he said that “scared shitless of aliens” thing.
                                      
Grandpa became the man of the house that day, which must’ve been tough since he was eight and had polio. And, as Grandpa tells me, “The Depression weren’t helpin’.” Sad story, but when Orson Welles heard about it, he immediately picked up the phone and ordered two large hams—one for himself and one a condolence ham, for the bereaved family. That made them feel a little better, even though Depression Era hams were actually just ham-shaped chunks of golden retriever meat.

“Nobody ever eats golden retriever meat anymore, and that’s why your generation is soft as minced golden retriever meat!” Grandpa told me the other day, waving a ham sandwich (we had told him it was made with golden retriever meat) at me. Then Grandpa looked at me lovingly and said, “Who are you, anyway?”

1 Henceforth, no mention is to be made of my surrender, particularly when ladies are present. If the subject of my surrender, or the cowering I did in the moments leading up to it, is broached, the party is to trail off and immediately change the subject, or do that old trick where you yell, “Hey, look over there!” and run away.

1.1 If article 1 should be violated, the party responsible must make a public retraction on Facebook, so as to preserve my hitherto flawless reputation as a warrior and a man of honor. Eg. “Hey you guys, remember when I was talking about how Scott surrendered? JUST JOSHIN’!” You know, something like that.

1.2 As any mention of my surrender (see articles 1-1.1) will surely be injurious to my admittedly sensitive ego, reparations will be made in the form of tacos, not to exceed eight (8) but no less than three (3), dependent on the quality of tacos in question.

2 As the victors in this skirmish, it is understandable that you will reminisce on your victory publicly, in bar rooms, banquet halls and so forth. However, tales of this particular conflict must always be framed so as to make me sound cool. Eg. “God must have been on our side, because that one guy was totally badass and handsome. We definitely would have lost if it weren’t for the existence of an omnipotent God.” Just an example.

3 As we discussed shortly after you apprehended me, I was not crying, but rather, had some dust in my eye. Anyone found suggesting otherwise is to be executed by way of claw hammer without trial, their bodies dragged through the streets behind a team of oxen. Harsh? Maybe. Effective? I don’t know, I guess we’ll see.

3.1 If oxen are unavailable (to be completely honest, I wouldn’t know where to find a single ox, let alone a team of them), horses or large dogs may be used in their stead.

3.2 Seriously, I wasn’t crying, guys.

4 After I had fallen prey to your trap—a plate of hot spare ribs resting, unbeknownst to me, under a large net—this one guy kept poking me with a sharp stick and calling me names. I get to punch that guy in the stomach while two of your strongest men hold his arms.

4.1 Call me a stickler for decorum, but I think it only fair that I get to eat those ribs that led to my capture.

5 From my hopefully temporary home in this large pet carrier you’ve locked me in, I’ve overheard some talk about executing me. From what I can gather, one group wants to have me hanged while another wants to simply shove me off a cliff a la the evil robots in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey. I submit that neither option is all that great, and believe we could all be good pals if you’d just get to know me.

6 As a show of mutual trust, I would like to be presented with one of those guns you guys kept shooting at me, in an elaborate ceremony in the heart of your capitol city. Additionally—and this is important—I would like your Prime Minister to present me with the gun, which is to be loaded.

6.1 After your Prime Minister has handed me the gun (loaded, remember), you are to provide a helicopter, piloted by an airman who is both adept at swift getaways and sympathetic to my cause. The pilot should also have a gun, and maybe some grenades, too.

6.2 At this point, you might be getting a mite suspicious. “Is this just a ruse that’ll end with this handsome devil shooting our Prime Minister and fleeing our custody?” you might be wondering. And I’ll be honest, here: Absolutely not. This ceremony—which should probably be catered by P.F. Chang’s or someplace like that—isn’t about assassinating heads of state or me escaping a hostile nation, guys; it’s about trust.

    The ever-curious Bernard Jones was traipsing through the Middlefield Zoo, beginning to sweat a bit under the lazy sun while his tour guide, a petite thirty-something with sandy blond hair tied up under a plastic pithy helmet, grew impatient.
    “Correct me if I’m wrong,” he had said a moment ago, staring quizzically, suspiciously at the tasmanian devil exhibit, “But aren’t these the ones that turn into tornadoes when they get angry?”
    Earlier, he had had similar questions about the pig they had seen (“Where is his bow tie?”) and the coyotes (“They often use dynamite to catch their prey, no?”), and yeah, the tour guide was thinking he was some kind of idiot, now.
    Bernard could tell by the way she furrowed her brow at the sight of his raised hand, the way she seemed to condescend when speaking to him, and how she kept looking at the other tour goers and, gesturing in his direction, sneering, “ Get a load of this idiot.”
    The group was on their way to the house cat exhibit—this was a pretty low budget zoo, mind you—and the woman’s professionalism was beginning to crack. She wasn’t thinking about providing “the unFURgettable experience” the Middleton Zoo’s pamphlet promised of the guided tour. Rather, a stream of questions was sloshing through her head, and she winced in anticipation of each one.
    “Is it true that mice often hire dogs for protection against the common house cat?” he’d say; “Can you really play their whiskers like the strings on a violin?”; and, because the cat featured in the exhibit was a black one with a pronounced white stripe down its back, “Has this cat ever been sexually assaulted by a skunk?”
    Her mind occupied by these potential annoyances, the woman failed to notice the artificial vine that ran dangerously across the walking path at ankle-level, and which had been there since she was hired. The woman had told the zoo caretaker, “Lazy” Bob, to take care of that a million times, but what with him being really lazy and all, he’d never gotten around to dealing with the vine and she’d learned to live with it. In fact by this point, stepping over the obstacle gingerly and warning her groups to do the same had become second nature.
    But on this steamy summer day, her mind was on other things—cats being used as musical instruments, skunk rapists and so forth—and she fell. Hard. Without the benefit of the standard warning, the tour group followed suit, toppling over atop their guide like a set of camera-toting, flamingo-hat-wearing bowling pins.
    All of them except for Bernard, who had wandered off from the group back at the aviary and remained there, peering into the enclosure and waiting for that chubby-cheeked canary to say something, anything.

Any idiot could tell you that Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird is universally revered. It is perhaps the most accurate and lasting representation we have of the racially charged climate of the American South in the early 20th century. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

But to the Blue Jay Community, it is considered the most vile piece of hate-speech since Benoit Gramzinger’s 1921 offering, “The Chirping Menace: How Blue Jays Cause All The World’s Wars,” or the anonymously penned 1843 pseudo-biological tome, “A Study On The Aggravation and Peril Caused By The Common Blue Jay In The Midwestern United States.”

“Clarence,” you’re probably saying. “‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ doesn’t have anything to do with blue jays, or even mockingbirds, really.” To that I say, chew on this, stupid:

“Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

OH YEAH, THAT’S COOL, NOBODY CARES IF YOU KILL A BLUE JAY. HELL, KILL ALL OF ‘EM. THEY DON’T HAVE FAMILIES OR NOTHIN.’ Really raises the crown of feathers on my head, if you know what I mean.

By the way, great parenting, Atticus. “I wish you wouldn’t kill birds, but I can’t stop you, so just shoot the blue ones;” “I wish you wouldn’t do cocaine, but you probably will, so just try not to freebase.” I’m probably exaggerating a little, but still, what a dick.

I’m not saying we blue jays are perfect, oh no. We get a little loud, a little brash as far as birds go, and yeah, as we all know, a lot of us are somewhat lagging in our views on civil rights for the LGBT community (It’s Adam & Eve, not Adam & STEVE, but that’s a different essay for a different time). I, myself, have been guilty of digging up gardens and, like most of you I’m sure, yeah, I’ve gotten cozy in a corn crib or two. But only to the most draconian sadist would that seem like a B.B.-gun-able offense.

In fact, it makes one glad that TKAM was Ms. Lee’s only offering, and leads one to believe that somewhere in her surely cold and cavernous home, she has a dusty, sallow manuscript titled, “Mein Kampf (Against Blue Jays).” Alright, maybe not.

Anyway, if I come off as aggressive, it is only in hopes that my stern tone will shock the non-bird masses into a shift in mindset—that it will re-initiate the all-too-often whispered-about dialogue between blue jays and non-blue jays, both human and not. After all, do I not bleed, just like you? Do I not feel pain and hunger, just like you? Do we not both enjoy the small things in life, like a sunny day or a summer rainstorm that pushes the worms to the surface, so we may grasp them in our beaks, take them home and regurgitate them into the mouths of our loved ones?

“Oh man, it’s a good thing we’re all white guys, or we couldn’t tell jokes like that.”

“Yeah Jasper, of course you should try to grab some expensive stuff after you break in, but the most important thing is peace of mind. Make sure you take that first, then feel free to move on to lamps and jewelry and stuff.”

“Sorry, Otis, but I’ve told you a thousand times: We don’t go out intrudin’ & terrorizin’ without (1) a knit cap and (2) a goatee. You’ll have to sit this one out.”

“Remember to smash any endearing family pictures you see, guys, I can’t stress this enough.”

“But seriously, do any of you guys know any black burglars? The ACLU’s all over my ass about our gang’s hiring policies.”

“If you break into a house with a security system, don’t try to be a hero. Sure, you’d probably still have time to club whoever’s in your way and make off with some loot, but it’s better to play it safe, give the startled inhabitants a look as if to say, ‘Aw man, just my luck! I really wanted to burgle this place!’ and run off into the woods or something.”

“Dave, last week you tried to attack a woman after you went on a date with her. What the hell is that? We’re in the game of burgling the homes of unsuspecting families, not date-rape. You do that on your own time.”

“Sorry.”

“Where’d you even meet that girl?”

“Match.”

“Match.com? Let me see this. … You list your job as ‘marauding criminal of the night?’ What the hell? I mean, now I understand that it’s kind of her own fault for dating you after reading that, but still, jeez, you can’t put our business out there like that.

“And another thing, Dave: You don’t snowboard.”

[SCENE: Three twenty-something guys are sitting around their apartment in relaxed poses. One holds a football. A baseball comes crashing through the window, startling all three.]

GUY 1: Oh shit!

Guy 2: It’s alright guys, watch this: (Singing) Like a good neighbor, State Pharm is there!

Guy 3: Is that your agent?

Guy 2: Yeah dude. Give it a try.

Guy 1 (singing): Like a good neighbor, State Pharm is there… With a burrito!

[A burrito appears on a plate in GUY 1’s hands.]

Guy 2: … And the girl from 4C!

[Girl appears on the couch. She looks confused and terrified.]

Girl: Whoa, what the fuck just happened?!

Guy 2: We wished for you and sang the insurance song and, bam, you were here. Hey, do you like whippets?

Girl (To Agent): Is that true?

Agent: Of course. No one values their customers more than State Pharm.

Girl: So you’re like a pimp?

Agent: Uh… A magical pimp maybe. Who gives out free burritos.

Girl: There’s no way this is legal.

Agent: Well, if you’re going to get all pissy, you could always just wish your way out of here.

Girl: But I don’t have State Pharm.

Agent: Ooh… Then I’m afraid I can’t help you…

[Agent pauses, mouths the word sorry]

Agent: Well, if you guys are good, I’m gonna skedaddle.

Girl: What?!

Guys (In unison): Thanks insurance lady.

[Insurance Agent goes out.]

Guy 2 (Looking at the Girl): What’s up?

[Cut to black: “Two hours later.” SCENE reopens. The three guys are looking at the ground with fearful, distant expressions on their faces.]

Guy 2 (With a shaky voice): Like a good neighbor, State Pharm is there… With a good defense attorney.

[SCENE: Dude-bro in “FBI: Female Body Inspector” shirt (sleeves cut off) strolls through  a post-apocalyptic wasteland, alternately shooting and bayonetting anyone who crosses his path, and casually sipping a Dr. Pepper 10.]

Dude-bro (Looks at camera): Hey women; you think you can handle the high intensity, low-cal kick in the testicles that is Dr. Pepper 10?!

Yeah, we didn’t think so, because you don’t have any testicles! (Cut to diagram of female reproductive system.) See?! No testicles!

You see women, you might have won the right to vote and to drive—but this is Dr. Pepper 10! This ain’t no pussy-ass Congress! (Cut to photo of pussy-ass Congress.) And it’ll be a cold day in hell before we allow women to horn in on the veiny, boner-fest of a man-jam that is the low calorie soft drink game! Go bake us a fucking pie!

Speaking of pie, Dr. Pepper 10 is sweet! But not too sweet! That’d be gay!

One time, I fed my girlfriend’s dog a bunch of whiskey and it was totally funny. But she didn’t think it was funny, and then she got all upset when it died—because she’s a sensitive lady! And that’s exactly why she could never handle the bold waterboarding of taste buds that goes down every time you take a sip of Dr. Pepper 10!

Don’t like monster trucks?! Fuck you!

Never seen First Blood?! Die of bird flu, nancy!

Occasionally menstruate?! No dice!

Joan of Arc led the French to several major victories in the Hundred Years War—but even if she hadn’t been burned at the stake like a thousand years ago, she couldn’t have led herself to the outrageous elbow drop of flavor contained in each drop of Dr. Pepper 10—because Dr. Pepper 10 is for men only!

A therapist once told me that my unhealthy views of women might stem from my strained relationship with my mother. Mom wasn’t around much when I was growing up, and I think ever since then, I’ve struggled with intimacy. Sometimes when I was a kid, I just wished she was there to say “Goodnight,” or read me a story. I wonder if only she knew how much I needed her back then, if she would’ve left Uncle Tyrone and come home for good. (Pauses, looks wistfully off into the distance, then back at the camera.)

Oh, sorry. Got off on a bit of a tangent there.

Anyway, drink Dr. Pepper 10! Unless you’re a broad!

(Voiceover): Dr. Pepper 10 is not intended for women, including but not limited to:

*Your sister
*Fergie
*Pat Summit
*That nice lady who cleans the house
*Your mother
*That one girl who played the pregnant girl in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”
*Ruth Bader Ginsburg
*Any of the Baseball/Basketball/Football Wives from VH1
*Gloria Steinem
*Queen Elizabeth II
*Gisele Bundchen
*April O’Neil
*Uma Thurman
*The Pussycat Dolls
*Molly Ringwald

Dr. Pepper 10: Don’t be a pussy! Go low-cal!

When it comes down to it, friends, there’s nothing better than greeting the rising sun with a hearty breakfast. Yes sir, the kind of breakfast my Grandpap ate before trudging off the the mines each day. Eggs? You best believe it. Bacon and sausage? Sure. And don’t forget the hash browns, the grapefruit and the cocaine. Did I say cocaine? Because I meant coffee. Yeah, coffee. Black as a bellhop in Selma. Did I say ‘black as a bellhop in Selma?’ Because I meant black as the night. Nothing offensive about that. A cool, clear night, still and quiet as the little nothings a fella whispers in his cousin’s ear after the Taffy Pull. Did I say ‘his cousin’s ear?’ Because I meant his sweetheart’s ear. Yes sirree, a legally viable sweetheart, that special kinda lady that a fella curls up with on a cold night. Just a fella and a lady, reveling in the warm, glowing refuge of his cabin, watching the snow fall lazily, dancing with the cool West Virginia air as it descends from on high, pure and white as that first rail in the morning. Yes sirree, Bob.

    Here in Scumbag, Texas, the story of our city’s founders, the Scumbag brothers, is as well known as the area code (555), or the shape of Elena Thompson’s nipples (starfish). Strolling down the city square, one can see tourists taking in the story of our town’s founding with wonder, as if to say, “Who is this person?” and “Why is he shouting about scumbags?” and, other than the time Mike Thompson beat up one of our citizens (me) for talking about his sister’s starfish-shaped nipples, it’s about the only interesting story we have. And here it is:
     There were three Scumbags in the bunch. The oldest was Jedediah, a crusty man, both in texture and temperament. Next was Jonah, who wasn’t as crusty as his brother. More dusty. It was well known in those days that if you slapped Jonah on the back, a great cloud of dust would explode in the air, then inexplicably settle back on his shoulders. “Why are you doing this to me?” he would plead, as the townspeople gathered to slap his back. The youngest was named Bartholomew, who was always wet and sticky for some reason. Bartholomew could be seen, in those days, walking through the streets with lint and spare change sticking to his person. Whenever someone would see him, they’d point and yell, and everyone would stop hitting Jonah on the back and start throwing coins and rocks at Bartholomew, seeing if they’d stick.
    The Scumbags had been known in the Civil War for their utter lack of mercy, the brutal way they went about their duty, their penchant for inflicting pain. Some have since called them the worst medics of the Civil War. The Scumbags themselves were actually told this by a great many of their patients, but they’d just say, “meh,” and dismiss the notion with a wave of the blood-soaked hatchet, and go on hack-hack-hacking away.
    There’s no evidence to suggest that the Scumbags intended to be particularly cruel, but rather, their ineptitude stemmed from the fact that they weren’t actually doctors, but lied so they didn’t have to do any fighting.
    After the war, the Scumbag brothers returned to their hometown of Rake, Georgia to find that all their favorite brothels had been sacked in the conflict, as well as all of their preferred houses, of grog, burlesque and ill-repute—all of them torn asunder. Dismayed, the Scumbag brothers left Rake for good and headed southwest, to Texas. The Scumbags didn’t so much settle on the plot of land that now bears their name, but rather, decided to stop traveling when Bartholomew got stuck to a mesquite tree.
    Some have compared this scene to the Aztecs’ vision of the eagle clinching a serpent in its talons, atop a prickly pear cactus. Others say that the Scumbags were just lazy, but hey, I don’t see them discovering any towns.
    The Scumbags’ dream was to found, not so much a city, but the seedy underbelly of a city. The only problem, of course, was that there were no hookers, a prerequisite of any underbelly, let alone a seedy one. Not the most ambitious trio of Scumbags ever, the brothers just kind of hung out for a couple years, sticking to things, gathering dust and wishing they had some booze and hookers. “Ugh,” Jedediah once wrote in his diary. “I want some hookers! Now!”
    It was in May of 1870 that the brothers shanghaied a wagon train hauling 500 head of prostitutes from Santa Fe to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The founders put the hookers to work immediately, taxing them as the proprietors of the city. Several of the men in the wagon train remained, as they got stuck to Bartholomew, and the town that would become known as Scumbag was born.
    The brothers served as the town’s proprietors, as well as the town’s only doctors. However, all the money the brothers made from taxes and operating unnecessarily on the townspeople went back into the brothels, so the town remained stagnant, yielding only a few bastard children and several cases of syphilis (which were treated, poorly, sometimes fatally, by the Scumbag brothers).
    The town may never have survived, had Andrew Carnegie not come to what is now Scumbag in 1879. Officially, Carnegie is said to have remarked on the natural beauty of the area and the comely, affable hookers it offered, and immediately signed a check, so as the town might flourish. However, it’s well known that Carnegie actually just got stuck on Bartholomew, and was pick-pocketed by the other Scumbags before he could pry himself loose. “You dastards,” the townspeople heard Carnegie growl, as he used a broomstick to free himself from the youngest Scumbag’s preternatural stickiness. “Dastards!”
    “We’re not dastards,” Jedediah said, crustily. “We’re Scumbags.”

From the unauthorized biography, “The Biggest Butt: The Cheeky Tale of General Tobias “Big Butt” Whitaker:

“… In 1816, Whitaker led a platoon of 30 men deep into Seminole Territory. Of course, this was a mistake; Whitaker’s orders had been to secure Candy Mountain which, at the time, was occupied by a small group of vigilante yokels armed only with pitchforks and what President James Madison would describe in his memoirs as ‘A fucking killer ass sweet tooth.’
    Whitaker’s men were said to have corrected Whitaker on this blunder several times, some of them doing so as they were being hatcheted to death by angry Seminoles. “General,” they’d say, bleeding to death. “I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be at candy mountain, fighting yokels. Not in Florida, fighting these stabby fellows here.”
    But Whitaker, always a stalwart man—and, it should be noted, in the depths of a four-year ether binge—would just wander off, whistling Dixie, huffing on “Tanya,” his favorite ether rag, and yelling, “Man, I loooove ether!”
    When Whitaker finally came down for a few hours, he realized his mistake and in a panic, hid behind a tree.
    ‘To properly understand Whitaker’s life—and certainly his death—one must consider the sheer immensity of his buttocks,’ says Buckly C. Jackson, a professor of history at Cambridge Community College in Hoboken. ‘That ass was what Black Rob might describe as ‘like whoa.’ Like two Christmas hams, and this is a conservative image I’m painting, shoved into a pair of standard issue union trousers. It must’ve been quite a sight indeed.’
    As it turned out, it would also be Whitaker’s undoing.
    With around half of his platoon dead, and half hiding in trees, covering their eyes with their hands, the Indians noticed Whitaker’s buttocks jutting out from behind a tree. They captured the general, and demanded that he either surrender his men, or be pelted with pebbles until he was dead. Naturally, he chose to surrender his men.
    ‘There’s one,’ he’d say. ‘There’s another.’ ‘See that bush there. It’s not really a bush. Shoot it. See?’
    Whitaker had escaped death, and was invited into the Seminoles’ casino to take in some drinking, gambling and a variety show hosted by Robert Goulet.
    However, back on the ether, Whitaker made his final mistake when he bet his car on a hand of No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em.
    He lost the hand, and when payment was demanded, told the Indians, ‘It’s 1816, dumbass. I don’t have a car.’
    Incensed by Whitaker’s ruse, the Seminoles hanged him, changed their minds, hatcheted at him for a while, and hanged him again. Over lunch, they decided that hatcheting was the way to go, went back out to the makeshift gallows and cut him down. Then he was hatcheted to death and, though already dead, hanged again.
    On his tombstone, Whitaker’s last words are immortalized: ‘Geez, make up your mind you filthy redskins.’”