My Informative Night

Last night I stood over a toilet bowl, lifting the skirt of my toga, peeing. The only difference between this pee and other pees I’ve conducted in the past is that this one was not a solo job. My good friend Nacho also peed next to me as our crossing streams babbled harmoniously like a Chopin waltz in C# (in ¾ time). Our joint joust of jaundice can also be compared to a light saber dual as we battled to the end of our bladders.

Having finished first, Nacho sheathed his guy and headed for the door. Upon opening the door a huge black dude (who looked like Ruben Studdard) looked at Nacho then looked at me and exclaimed, “What were you two doing in there? Rubbin’ dicks?”

Being a question that has no acceptable answer, Nacho cavalierly replied, “Whateva.” At this point, I turned around to see for myself the look of utter disgust on Ruben Homophobe's face. After several seconds of awkward staring silence, Ruben dismissed the situation by informing us, “That shit ain’t whateva.”

I want to ponder for a minute why that shit, in fact, ain’t “whateva.” This presupposes that there are a set standard of things that can be considered “whateva.” Ruben, being the self-appointed judge of all things whateva, decided that the situation at hand, the “dick rubbing” escapades conducted in that bathroom, were not on that list. In fact, I think it’s safe to speculate that the list also contains instructions on how to make keen observations that follow a sequence of Aristotelian logic. For example, in the cast at hand, Ruben was able to deduce that:

Dude + Dude in bathroom = Dick rubbing = NOT whateva

In any case, knowing is half the battle. Thanks, Ruben!

Subject: Tanner, I have some concerns

So after sending 2 letters that still remained unanswered to Uncle Joey and Steve Urkel, I’ve decided to try a new approach, hoping to get a response. I’ve decided to e-mail Danny Tanner of Full House fame. However, rather than e-mailing the neat-freak pansy from the show, I found this Danny Tanner(Find him on the list)(Spoiler: He's actually Daniel Tanner, PhD and professor of History) and dropped him this e-mail from a “concerned” neighbor. Lets hope I get a juicy response!

Mr. Tanner,

This letter is from a concerned neighbor who is fed up with you and your family’s antics. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty patient person. I bit my tongue when one of your Greek relatives came wandering over to my side of the fence and claimed he “married” my youngest daughter after walking her around a kitchen table; I grinned and bared the strange relationship between you and those two other men you keep in your house; I even overlooked the time your daughter crashed a red “sports car” into your house and the debris floated over on my property. But, lately, I’ve just had it up to HERE with you and your damn shenanigans.

Lets get one thing straight, too. The only reason I’m contacting you via the e-mail is because it seems this is the only way to contact you! Normally, I’m the type of guy, when, if I’m having a problem, will get on the horn and holler my complaints and be on my merry way. But, with the racket from that band that keeps rehearsing (led by the black haired, motorcycle rider (Eddie?); I believe the band is called “The Strippers”) I can’t get through to you!

I understand things have probably been hard for you since your wife died. But, keep in mind I’ve been doing all I can for you and your family. Who was the first one over the time DJ had an eating disorder? Was the lasagna I brought over not the best she ever tasted? Did that chubby hussy not fill her fat face with food? (The food I brought, mind you!)

Speaking of which, DJ is another problem I want to address. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll come right out and say it bluntly: She’s having wild sex with her boyfriend, Steve. There it is. Out in the open. While this is fine under your roof (pending your consent), I don’t believe it’s a spectacle fit for broadcast across the neighborhood! When I heard her screaming “Oh, fuck me Mr. Woodchuck” I was downright offended and embarrassed.

Lets work together on this, okay, Danny?

Thanks,

Bill Gibbler

My Assault on Screech

So my junior year Screech came to my college, except it wasn’t Screech. It was “Dustin Diamond”. Outraged, I wrote an article for my school paper about it and got a plethora of hate because of it. I’ve posted that article below. Enjoy my anachronisms from 2002!

Screech’s Visit to My College = Garbage

To preface this harangue I acknowledge this article, like my dreams of spending a weekend at the Neverland Ranch, are belated. However, pertinent to the arrest of the crotch clutching pedophile who advised a young me to “Beat It”, the recent soiree on my campus with Samuel “Screech” Powers again served as a sacrilegious slap to us children of the 80s. While the speaker who appeared before a devout collegiate audience shared a semblance with the famed Screech, his demeanor and pontifications were a flagrant breach of character. So much so it led me to believe either the Screech that came to my college was actually a Screech robot or Screech has reached a despicable low.

First, for aficionados like me, Saved by the Bell was not a mere show but rather a set of adolescent dogmas quintessential for teenage survival. When I got word that luminary hobbledehoy Screech was to “holler” at MY college I found myself imbued with rapture.

The signs advertising Screech’s visit were the first foreboding shadows of impending ignominy. Signs proclaiming Screech under a false moniker of “Dustin Diamond”. The only other names I know Screech as are Samuel Powers (birth name) and Ant-Man (pseudonym used during Zack’s Teenline scam).

I remained optimistic though, remembering that old codger Mr. Richard Belding would be there to keep Screech in line. So I waited ardently, envisioning the superfluous College Hall lockers (sidenote: there was a hall in my college that still had lockers!) being put to use for shoving/stuffing Screech into to them as if I were a roid raged AC Slater. At the very least, I expected to give Screech a butt wrenching wedgie. When that Wednesday night rolled around I packed a bottle of caffeine pills and a “GOOOOOO BAYSIDE” cheer (complete with six way high five) and headed to the student union.

That’s when my life changed forever.

A goatee adorned Screech opened with an odious salutation which would have had his heiny thrown out of The Max in a nanosecond. The monologue that followed further dropped my jaw in disgust and disbelief Screech went as far as to propose the legalization of marijuana cigarettes! Now I know for a FACT after watching every episode of Saved by the Bell (including the crap-tastic College Years) that Screech NEVER did/would use an illegal drug.

At this point I was irate and ready to smash Screech’s skull in, similar to sentiments felt by Valley’s star wrestler Marvin Needick when Screech cited Needick as a “butt head” and referred to his mother, father, and dog as “ugly”. The finale though, which instilled me with an uncontrollable apoplectic rage, was when an audacious Screech charged five dollars for a picture of himself and his curly dumb afro. A voracious Screech DOES NOT need the money after the boat load of cash he made marketing such products as “Screech’s Spaghetti Sauce”, a 1-900 Date Line and the stylishly evanescent Friendship bands.

Flabbergasted, I reminisced to Bayside’s career day. On that day, for an ephemeral moment, Screech strived to become an astronaut rather than a sordid comedian. If I wanted appalling comedy, I would tune into my college radio station and wait for (fill in the name of your favorite college radio station DJ here)’s awful commentary between horrific pop songs. Rereading that last sentence, I suppose I’d still rather sit though Screech than set my radio to Satan’s number: 88 [point] 3 (Sidenote: the call numbers for my college’s radio station).

Regardless, I lament for the students who packed the student union room tighter than a pair of AC Slater’s plastic jeans expecting Screech only to get Dustin Diamond. The charade was a meretricious absurdity. I’m sure sometimes George W. doesn’t feel like being president, or Ruben Studdard doesn’t feel like being a fat mess, or Britney Spears doesn’t feel like being an embarrassment. But that’s what they’re paid for, that’s their job, so they suck it up (In Ruben Studdard’s case, also suck up a few Big Macs with a shake). Why should Dustin Diamond collect a paycheck as Screech when all he gave us was Dustin Diamond and a cacophony of humorless babble?

It was almost as if a rancorous Screech was belligerent with Siena, like we were somehow responsible for Zack tonguing down Lisa Turtle. Because of this, in my eyes, Screech has joined the ranks of washed up 80s legends like the great adventurer Pee Wee Herman who turned a movie theatre into his personal play house and Alf, a despicable alien doing television commercials to support a filthy coke addiction. Next time SEB should put together some loose change and book a pack of clowns like the Spin Doctors or some intoxicated bums off the street to head butt walls and/or play Twister(if there’s even a difference between the Spin Doctors and intoxicated bums off the street head butting walls and/or playing Twister).

Possibly I’m being a bit presumptuous. Maybe my aforementioned theory of Screech being a robot isn’t too far off the mark. He did build a Johnny-5 A.I. replica named Kevin who helped tutor Kelly in science and assisted Screech in winning the “Ms. Bayside pageant”. In all honestly though, if you believe that theory you obviously go to community college.

I’ve been writing my thesis (which is a novel) and a short story. Here are rough “notebook” excerpts from both. Let me know what you think. First, the opening paragraph of my thesis (which is a novel):

The kids, they come out at night, in groups that dot street corners and collect outside the pizzerias. By midnight, they’ll amass in The Square, where too many of them will squeeze on wooden benches, where they’ll lie sprawled on lawns of yellowing grass. It’s always the same ones. The same ones, but they have new faces. There’ll be the ones strumming guitars, their friends popping bubble gum, others will be telling stories with excited hand gyrations, there will be overt laughter and hormone driven outbursts. And there’s so many of them. That’s why I hate them, the kids.

It’s early: for both the evening and the season. Somewhere, the sun is setting and the feeling is unmistakably late April. I ease my foot from the gas, leaving it to hover, to pounce when ready.

“Slow down,” says Eddie through a smirk, “Slow down so I can savor it.”

To my right, cars pass like pages of a flipbook; they’re splurges of color as we approach The Square. Horns behind me honk. The brake is tapped with relish. Mom’s borrowed minivan jerks hysterically as if its laughing fit has already begun.

Next, the opening of the short story (which has already changed drastically, but may change back):

It was the night before summer ended. We were sitting with backs pressed against a headstone as we passed a joint between us and listened to the crickets. Sporadically she went on about The Talking Heads’ new album, something about its significance to our generation. I was more interested in trying to hold her hand. My fingers squirmed nervously. Eventually, when the pot kicked in, she let me rest my palm over her bony knuckles, but she wasn’t passionate about it. I felt like I was pressing on an empty promise.

“You know I still love you,” I said, balancing the joint on my lower lip as if she could see. Traffic whooshed somewhere below making suburban life seem distant. Down the hill, tombstones rose in black silhouettes – clumsy and vague – but nothing more. She’d been my girlfriend once, but now I didn’t know what to think. So I tried not to think at all. I felt her blink and look away.

“You’re smarter than that,” she said finally and removed the joint from my mouth.

"What?" I asked, staring up at the moonless blackness. She shuffled with a sigh that ended on a sad note. Leaves rustled, giving voice to a breeze that felt distinctly autumn. A strand of her inky hair wisped over my face just long enough for me to remember things about her.

Julia’s hair was long and straight and fell over her eyes in a way that could look either very sexy or very dumb. Tonight she wore black rimmed glasses, which gave the impression that she was a girl who thought too much. Her mouth was thin, often dark with lipstick, and even more often pursed in suspicion.