Apple-Obsessed Author Fella

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Funny Shit

Transmissions From Toddler-Town: The Devil’s Dictionary

He talks a lot, now, this kid. B-Dub’s got a whole contingent of words, some of them known, some of them guessed-at, some of then Lovecraftian gibbers that summon gray-skinned amphibious monstrosities from the deep. It all started with Mommy and Daddy, of course, but it always does and those don’t make particularly exciting first words — far more compelling to have a first word like “Pasketti.” Or “Bah-Bah.” Or “neo-anarchist regime.” Or, “Hey, lady, I got a diaper here that’s as heavy as a wet sweater and it’s killing all the plant life in a ten-yard radius. Can a little guy get a change or what?”

But for him, the first most persistent word was “truh,” for “truck,” which is his most beloved thing in the world. He will hold his toy trucks and he will hug them and kiss them on their windshields. He will try to feed them his food, making little pretendy-eating noises as he forces a green dump-truck to nosh on a couple green peas or a quadrant of sliced banana.

Now, of course, the trucks are waning in importance as the era of the “choo-choo” begins.

* * *

I should note that I fucking can’t stand Thomas the Tank Engine. I just can’t. I can’t do it. Especially the older versions where it’s all stop-motion? Something sinister going on there. Thomas has dead eyes. A blank face. I’m reminded of The Dark Tower whenever I see him. And he’s dumb as a bag of back hair, that Thomas. He’s like, the worst train ever. If he were a real train, by now someone would have decommissioned him and melted him down to slag. Not the least of all because he talks, and trains aren’t supposed to talk. THE EVIL BLUE BASTARD.

* * *

B-Dub knows most of his colors. Blue is blue. Purp is purple. Pink is pink. But then the next three are a bit… muddy. Oro for orange, roro for red, elro for yellow. At least all three of those colors are basically next to each other on the spectrum? I dunno.

The most confusing one is ebwee, which is — green?

That’s the thing. Sometimes he says things clear as a bell — “tractor,” for instance, or “camera.” But then some words are utter mysteries as to how they come about.

Elmo is Nen. Sleeve is Heebwee. Peanut is Pebble.

The real bite is that sometimes he’ll say a word perfectly clear — clear as like, a radio personality from the 1950s, all enunciated and everything.

Then he’ll never say it right ever again. Every time you get him to repeat it, the word dissolves further, like a sand castle eroded one splash of seawater after the next. Until the end he’s just squinting and noisily filling his diaper to mimic the word. Or perhaps just to shut us up.

* * *

That’s the other thing. He’s now aware of his diapers. And his bathroom habits.

He wants a potty. A proper potty. He’s a year-and-a-half and he wants to potty train?

Can’t we just keep him in diapers a little longer? Hell, can’t wear diapers? It sounds so easy!

* * *

He loves music. Particular favorites:

The entire “Join Us” album of They Might Be Giants.

The song, “Do It With A Rockstar,” by Amanda Palmer.

And, of course, “Gangnam Style.”

He rocks out to “Gangnam Style.” He even pauses his dance in the quiet space before Oppa Gangnam Style at which point he sometimes spaz-dances not like a well-mannered genteel Kentucky horse but rather like a bucking stallion who is also covered in fire ants.

A month or so ago, after listening to “Gangnam Style” for the 80,000th time, the song ends and he suddenly rips off his diaper and yells:

“Peepee!”

Which, I figure, is how that song should basically end anyway.

* * *

He has a handful of pre-established B-Dub dance moves.

He has, “The Traffic Cop.”

He has “The Invisible Teacup.”

He has “The Sassy Garden Hose.”

He has the “Horse-in-a-Mosh-Pit.”

He has the “Pocoyo Up-And-Down.”

* * *

Some things that B-Dub says aren’t words. They’re gestures. He knows “mustache” somehow, and lays his finger across his upper lip to let you know. “Beard” is him scratching his face. He has gestures for “more,” for “up,” for “down.” He makes sounds to indicate wanting to eat (he smacks his lips) or drink (he makes a sound like he’s slurping through a straw).

He also has words that have no apparent meaning. “Abuway.” Or “Dabooty.” Those two get a lot of play. I think they’re probably just him playing with sounds, having fun with language. But I also secretly hope they form his secret DJ name. Like, we take him to bed and then he quietly slips out and puts on his sequined DJ outfit and then he runs to the club as his secret identity, “DJ Abuway Da-Booty: Mixmaster Elite.”

* * *

Of course, “quietly slips out” is a joke. B-Dub doesn’t “quietly” do much. In fact, we’ve entered the tectonic tantrum portion of Toddlertown’s history, where sometimes he will throw an atomic shit-fit for no reason at all. Or sometimes there’s a reason so insane you just have to laugh. Like, yesterday, the new puppy had chewed up a dog toy and left remnants on the floor. B-Dub grabbed one. Just a little thumb-sized piece of black rubber. I quickly reached over and grabbed it away, and for like, ten seconds, he lost all semblance of sanity.

The toddler was a shrieking banshee, a rampaging ape, a tiny tornado in a truck shirt and sweat pants. And then I forget if he got distracted by something else or what, but he basically must’ve thought, “Oh, I don’t know if I really wanted that?” and then went to do something else.

* * *

He threw the first real scary tantrum the other night. A two-hour nuclear meltdown that had no cause and so we thought no solution. It was the point where we thought something was wrong. Like, if you’re a new parent, you sometimes see shadows on the wall where there are none, and if you’re a new parent who has ever read anything about “meningitis and children,” you have a brand new boogeyman. Because here’s the drill with meningitis for kids: you probably don’t know they have it and your doctor won’t know they have it and by the time you figure it out you’re probably too late and they’re probably going to die or be brain-damaged and so now — me, already a fucking hypochondriac — worries that every strange behavior by the boy is the first sign of meningitis. “Is he constipated? Is that a freckle? Hiccups? OH SHIT MENINGITIS.”

So: two-hour-long shit-fit felt worrying.

Thing is, there was a clue to the shit-fit buried in an earlier rage-fueled wail — B-Dub had called out for “Tar-uh,” which is to say, he wanted to go to Target. He loves Target. And he knows the name because, hey, I guess branding works on young minds. (Whee.)

We didn’t listen to him. We did not take him to Target.

And two hours later, I decided to ask him again: “Do you want to go to Target?” In part because we had to go. We had a list of things we needed. And suddenly, like that, the tantrum vanishes, whisked behind a curtain as his eyes light up. “Tar-uh?” “Yes, Target.”

Tantrum over.

We took him. He has never been happier. He ran around like that loose Ikea monkey.

And of course, we got totally fucking played. Because he wanted a train pillow and, normally stalwart against buying him everything the kid wants (“Sure, kid, you can have that machete and those cigarettes”), we crumpled like a tinfoil tent. He won that battle. But now we know.

We will stay frosty for the war to come.

* * *

For days he’s been saying, “Debuh.”

We thought it was one of his mystery words.

But then the other day he points to my bookshelf.

“Debuh,” he says.

On the shelf is a — well it’s an ornament, but I dunno that it’s a Christmas ornament, per se, and the reason I don’t know if it’s really appropriate to the season is because it’s…

…okay, it’s The Devil.

A red Devil in a nice suit with a pitchfork.

“Debuh,” he says. Devil.

I taught him that six months ago and I haven’t mentioned it since.

And suddenly, the Devil resurfaces. HIS TRUE FATHER. Or not.

Children are sponges. All they do is absorb.

* * *

We’ve finally — er, mostly — curbed our profanity. At this, the final hour, where he’s mimicking us and saying new words daily. We were once going to find new words to replace the vulgarities but instead settled on the surprisingly fun “letter replacement.” GD for goddamn, S for shit, F for — well, c’mon. So, if you’re really mad at someone, it’s all, “EFF THAT EMMEREFFING ESS-HEAD IN THE BEE-HOLE, GEE-DEE-IT.”

It’s fun because you can do that in public, too. And adults still know what you’re talking about.

It’s like stealth profanity.

* * *

It times out well because at the same time our profanity is reduced to letters, B-Dub is learning his letters. He’s got maybe half the alphabet down. Sometimes you ask him what a letter is and he gets real quiet and whispers it to you — “Beeeeeee” — like it’s a secret cipher he doesn’t want the rest of the world to crack.

Some letters are better said than others, of course. “H” is “Hay.” “F” is, perhaps appropriately, a fart noise. “Q” is B-Dub mimicking someone vacuuming, which took us a while to understand, but when you say that word, “vacuum,” you hear the non-existent “Q” in there.

It’s weird how kids see the world in pieces and sometimes bring strange pieces together.

* * *

He has an iPad.

I feel terribly privileged and terribly stupid for saying that — our 18-month-old has a goddamn iPad. Which is absurd, really. But we were looking into toddler-aged tablet computers and it’s like, a couple hundred bucks for some plastic Fisher Price “computer” and you pay $15 for the “apps” and — c’mon. So, I had my first-gen iPad and he really loved it and so I figured, why train him on some kiddie piece of plastic?

So, he has my old iPad.

(Which means, yes, I got a new one. Hey, whatever, work expense, DON’T JUDGE ME.)

He’s freakishly good at it. He’s so good he taught me multi-gestures I didn’t know existed. Because he has no rules. He has no sense of what you can and cannot do. The tablet’s all faux-tactile so he just touches the screen and fucking wiggles his fingers like they’re magic squid tentacles just to see what happens. And by now he knows how to open and close apps, how to pull up the tray or turn the screen off or whatever. He wants Grover, he gets Grover. He wants to draw on the drawing app, he closes Grover and pops that sumbitch open.

It’s already a sign that he’s going to know things I don’t when it comes to — well, technology, but really, everything else ever. At first that was terrifying but then it became really liberating, really wonderful. He should know things I don’t. That’s how we move forward, isn’t it? That’s how generations tumble one after the next, picking up things that the previous generation could not — or, even stranger, would not have even conceived of in the first damn place. It’s a beautiful thing watching him learn, watching him figure stuff out with his big blue eyes wide as moons, with his mouth slackened in some kind of puzzled bliss. Even through the tantrums, even through the misunderstood words, even through diapers that smell like a dump from a lion that ate a vulture that ate a hobo corpse, it’s a weird and beautiful thing watching a tiny human become not-so-tiny in both the body and the brain. As they grow, so do we.

In Which I Am Contacted By The “FBI”

The other day, I received this in my inbox:

Dear Sir/Madam

I am Ronald T. Hosko,the personal secretary to the FBI Director; Roberts Mueller III. After proper investigations, we discovered that your pending payment which has been withheld by imposters for a very long time and they have been claiming to be who they are not, But with the Help of FBI we have been able to trace them. Our Investigation revealed that you have spent a lot of money just to conclude the successful transfer of your funds by obtaining transfer documents as requested by the impostors, but to no avail.

With the help of some of the best Internet investigators attached to the FBI, we got your e-mail address from the Internet as the beneficiary of this Inheritance Funds. Series of meeting have been held over the past 7 months with the secretary general of the United Nations Organization. This ended 3 days ago. It is obvious that you have not received your fund which is to the tune of $9.5million due to past corrupt Governmental Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who have taken advantage of your fund all in an attempt to swindle your fund which has led to so many losses from your end and unnecessary delay in the receipt of your fund. Therefore you are advise to re-confirm your delivery information as stated below.

DELIVERY INFORMATION:

FULL NAME:

HOME ADDRESS/COUNTRY:

OCCUPATION:

AGE:

CELL PHONE NUMBER:

Note: You are to forward any email received from those Scammer to my email address ( mr.ronaldthosko2@yahoo.com ) so we can be able to trace them and eradicate them from cheating innocent people.

Mr.Ronald T.Hosko

Mr.Robert S. Mueller III

FBI DIRECTOR

So, y’know.

CLEARLY IT’S ALL REAL AND I’M GOING TO RECEIVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS.

I feel like this very important e-mail deserves dissection.

“I am Ronald T. Hosko,the personal secretary to the FBI Director…”

Wow, must’ve been quite a demotion, Ronnie-boy. Since the last time I checked, you were assistant director of CID at the FBI, not some go-fer who runs and fetches coffee and scrubs the calluses on Mueller’s gnarly feet. Sorry to hear about the downgrade. It’s tough out there for everyone, I guess.

“After proper investigations, we discovered that your pending payment which has been withheld by imposters for a very long time and they have been claiming to be who they are not, But with the Help of FBI we have been able to trace them.”

That is possibly the worst sentence I have ever read. My pending payment? What? Withheld by… imposters? Who are they, uhh, “imposting” as? Me? Why didn’t they just take the money and run?

Why are they “withholding” it? Those dummies.

And “But with the help of the FBI…” — dude, you are the FBI. You don’t need their help. YOU ARE THEM. You used to be assistant director of CID until you blew the wrong field agent or lost your iPhone in a Tuscon meth trailer and ended up getting dropped down to being a personal secretary.

Be proud of who you are, Doc Hosko!

“Our Investigation revealed that you have spent a lot of money just to conclude the successful transfer of your funds by obtaining transfer documents as requested by the impostors, but to no avail.”

No, I have not. I have not spent any money trying to transfer money. I spend a lot of money at Target. Is that what you mean? I love Target. Hell, my toddler loves Target. Any time we tell him we’re going somewhere in the car, he makes the car noise — b-r-r-r-r-r — and then says, “Tar-uh? Tar-uh!” and then we have to tell him we’re not going to Target today and he gives us a look like he’s going to fill his diaper with pure anger.

I don’t know who these imposters are, by the way, but they sound very ineffective.

“With the help of some of the best Internet investigators attached to the FBI…”

HOLY SHIT THE BEST INTERNET INVESTIGATORS? Like Earl “The Cyber-Hawk” Dingowhistle? Or Mary-Alice Krebs, the so-called “Mata Hari of Reddit?” Or what about that robot detective, 110100101 Jones? I feel so fucking lucky to have them on my case!

And apparently they’re attached to the FBI.

One assumes with zip-ties or Velcro.

“…we got your e-mail address from the Internet as the beneficiary of this Inheritance Funds.”

Yeah, I don’t know what that means.

I assume you got my email off the Internet. I mean, it’s not on billboards or cool enough to be some celebrity’s tattoo. Or wait, is the Internet a dude? Like, did you meet him somewhere and he gave you my address? I always thought the Internet might be a person.

“Series of meeting have been held over the past 7 months with the secretary general of the United Nations Organization.”

HOLY SHIT, THAT GUY IS INVOLVED NOW? Man, my case must rate like right up there to bring in the secretary general of the UNO. (I love their deep-dish pizza, by the way! It’s like cake! With cheese and sauce and meat! It’s cholesterol cake! I ate some last year and it’s still inside my heart! Literally!)

You know, you can tell me — are my impostors Al Qaeda agents?

I bet they are.

Oh, by the way, “meeting” should be pluralized there.  I guess I’m just happy you didn’t pluralize with a possessive. That kind of thing will cause a writer to fill his diaper with pure anger.

“It is obvious that you have not received your fund which is to the tune of $9.5million due to past corrupt Governmental Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who have taken advantage of your fund all in an attempt to swindle your fund which has led to so many losses from your end and unnecessary delay in the receipt of your fund.”

First, can we just be honest here? You need to learn the art of shorter sentences. I took a short nap in the middle of this one, hope that’s okay! Anyway, let’s see here —

I have not received my $9.5 million, that’s true.

And past Government Officials? Who almost held the fund to themselves for their one collective selfish reason? OH FUCK NO. I wonder what that selfish reason was? Maybe they were going to buy a speedboat. Like, I figure, if you have a shit-ton of money, a really flashy speedboat is a pretty good way to blow some illicit cash. Or like, the world’s biggest warehouse of styrofoam peanuts. It’d be like swimming in packing peanuts. You could have such adventures! You could recreate the hunt for the White Whale! “ARRR CALL ME ISHMAEL. THERE I SEE ME THE ALABASTER WHALE, AHAB.” Or whatever.

I never actually read Moby Dick.

Anyway.

Those selfish impostor assholes! Maybe they just wanted to buy everything inside Target. Lord knows I do!

I will say that them trying to “swindle” and “take advantage of” my fund makes it sound like the fund is also a person. Are the Internet and the Fund two dudes having crazy cyborg adventures in the American desert? Some sci-fi version of Fear and Loathing? *eyes go wide*

*begins taking notes*

I call dibs on that idea, by the way. Dibs! DIBS. Hands-off. *points gun*

In the meantime, let me just give you all my so-called “delivery information”…

There we go. I assume that such an epic amount of money will have to arrive via like, UPS? Or maybe you’ll back up a truck. OR A SPEEDBOAT OMG. Maybe you’ll air-drop it onto my lawn? That’d be pretty sweet. The last thing I had airdropped onto my lawn was a chunk of human waste frozen to the underside of a 747 like a frosty dingleberry. It crushed my treehouse. And my heart.

What will I do if the impostors keep, er, imposting?

“Note: You are to forward any email received from those Scammer to my email address ( mr.ronaldthosko2@yahoo.com ) so we can be able to trace them and eradicate them from cheating innocent people.”

THOSE DAMN SCAMMER.

I will email you, Ronaldo, old boy. That way we can — as you say — eradicate them.

Fuck yeah, we’ll trace the shit out of them.

And then eradicate even more shit out of them.

FUCK YEAH.

I appreciate it, Ronbo. Kick-ass.

I look forward to my air-drop of money.

Oh, and hey — thanks for helping out here. Tell Mueller and the sec-gen of PIZZERIA UNO that I appreciate them looking out for me like this. And I’m sorry to hear about your demotion.

*sits on lawn, waits for cash*

*dreams of speedboats and Target shopping*

In Which I Ponder The Lyrics To “The Rainbow Connection”

I am, of course a Muppets fan.

Who isn’t? Al Qaeda. The Manson Family. Rick Santorum.

But everybody else — Muppets fan.

Having a Tiny Human in the house (now ten months old!), I’m slowly steeping him in the warm waters of approved pop culture goodness, which means it is time for a slow but ever-increasing dose of things like The Muppets. Yes to Kermit! No to Barney the Dinosaur. Stuff like that.

In the process, I’ve got a few mix CDs I play in the car with kid-friendly tunes (They Might Be Giants is particularly delightful in this regard). One such track: “The Rainbow Connection.” As sung by The Muppets.

And, as sung by me. Singing along in the car.

Thing is, as you start to sing songs to your kids, you start listening to the lyrics. I mean — Rockabye Baby? In the tree-tops? Wind blows, cradle rocks, baby falls out of tree? Why was the baby in the tree in the first place? Who puts a cradle up there? Ben Franklin? Nikola Tesla? And why are we singing songs about babies falling out of trees as a means to get babies to sleep? Is there a subtle threat in there? “You don’t fall asleep, I’m going to stick your bediapered ass in a tree and you better hope the wind doesn’t knock your chubby cheeks to the forest floor, kid. Now shut up and slumber.”

Anyway. So. Rainbow Connection.

I sing along and now I’m forced to ask:

What the hell is going on in this song?

Let us examine.

Why are there so many

Songs about rainbows

And what’s on the other side?

Right up front I’m forced to ask: are there that many songs about rainbows? I can think of… mmm, one other one. “Over the Rainbow.” Do we possess a secret canon of rainbow songs? More specifically, how many songs about rainbows do we have where the song ponders what’s on the other side of said rainbow? (We know what’s on the other side, by the way: goddamn leprechauns. A whole bloody cabal of ’em. Wizard of Oz had Munchkins, a thinly-veiled metaphor for an unruly host of leprechauns hoarding gold in the form of a “yellow brick road.” Filthy little fair folk! Greedy little Rumpleforeskins.)

Rainbows are visions

Only illusions

And rainbows have nothing to hide

Except leprechauns. Rainbows are hiding the shit out of leprechauns.

So we’ve been told and some choose

To believe it

But I know they’re wrong wait and see

Wait. What? What’s happening? Rainbows aren’t just illusions? This is starting to sound like a crazy person’s conspiracy theory about rainbows. “Hey, man. HEY. BUDDY. Psst. All that shit you thought you know about rainbows? LIES TOLD BY BRAINWASHED SCIENTISTS. You think rainbows aren’t real but I’m here to tell you they’re real as you and me, man. It’s a ploy by Homeland Security. I’m stocking up on ammo and so should you. Because one day the rainbows are coming to come for us all. And then what happens, man? THEN WHAT HAPPENS.”

Ahem.

Okay, onto the chorus.

Someday we’ll find it

The Rainbow Connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me

Someday we’ll find “it.” Find what? What the fuck is a rainbow connection? What does it connect? Is it a bridge? A Delta flight? A drug connection? “Yo, you wanna get high, you gotta see my man Jimmy the Skeev down under the overpass. He’ll hook you up with the real rainbow connection, if you know what I mean. Right? Right? I mean drugs. He’s going to give you drugs for money. In case that wasn’t entirely clear.”

Also: saying, “The lovers, the dreamers, and me,” indicates that these are three distinct entities. Lovers cannot be dreamers and vice versa, and further, the singer identifies as neither of those things.

Now, given that the singer is generally a frog made of felt, I’m comfortable not imagining him as a lover. Because then he’s going to be (alert, incoming pun) porking Miss Piggy, and I don’t need to see that outside of an early Peter Jackson film. But Kermit isn’t a dreamer? Really? How sad for the gangly frog.

Who said that every wish

Would be heard and answered

When wished on the morning star

Okay, I don’t know that anybody ever said that. Is that a thing? “Sure. You want something, you gotta wish on the morning star. Someone will hear it. And that someone will answer it. No, I don’t know who the fuck it is. Could be a giant Space Manatee for all I know. Just shut up and get to wishing already.”

Though, now that I re-read it — “morning star?” Morningstar? Isn’t that a title of…

LUCIFER? Morningstar and Lightbringer? Is this song advocating Satanism? Or is it trying to teach us to turn away from the Devil’s wiles? “Oh, sure, Old Scratch will tell you that he’ll listen to and answer your every wish, but then he’ll stick a trident up your butt and remove your soul through your anus. That’s a true story. That’s in the Bible. It’s in… uhh, Mordecai 7:11. I dunno, shut up and just don’t worship the Devil.”

Somebody thought of that

And someone believed it

And look what it’s done so far

Who? Who thought of that? Who believed it? And what has it done?

I’m asking. Seriously, song. I’m asking. Because now it sounds like you’re just making shit up. Are we supposed to wish for things? Or not wish for things? Is this a war between the Morning Star and the Rainbow? Are we trying to get those two to connect? Come together, like the Beatles sang?

What’s so amazing

That keeps us stargazing

What do we think we might see

I’m getting a real mixed message here. Stargazing is cool? Stargazing is stupid? Wishing is for assholes? What’s so amazing that keeps us star-gazing…? Can’t it just be like, y’know, stars? Stars are cool.

Someday we’ll find it

That Rainbow Connection

The lovers the dreamers and me

Back to the chorus again. Still don’t know what we’re hoping to find. But, okay. I’m listening.

Have you been half-asleep?

And have you heard voices?

I’ve heard them calling my name

This sounds like a nightmare I had.

That’s some hypnagogic hallucination type of shit right there. “I was half asleep. Then… I heard voices. I heard them… calling my name.” That’s fucking creepy is what it is. Is it the rainbow? Is the rainbow calling you? Why? What does it want? Or maybe it’s the Devil? What’s happening? Am I high right now?

Are these the sweet sounds

That called the young sailors?

I think they’re one and the same

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are we talking about the sirens? The freaky shipwrecking seductresses calling to sailors? This is getting terrifying. You’re saying that the voice I’m hearing while half-asleep, the voice that’s calling my name, is actually the same song that calls to sailors? To crash them against rocks? There’s a whole Christian analog here to when sirens were used to represent not a literal song toward deadly rocks but as a metaphorical representation toward worldly sins. And given earlier lyrics talking about dreaming and wishing and what might be a reference to the Devil…

What the hell is going on in this song?

I’ve heard it too many

Times to ignore it

There’s something that I’m supposed to be

If you’re hearing this with some frequency — these name-calling siren song voices — I’m maybe thinking you need to get jacked up on a Thorazine drip. Like, ASAFP.

And are the voices telling him what he’s supposed to be? Which is… what, exactly? Lover, dreamer, rainbow hunter, Satanist, non-Satanist, leprechaun felcher, what? What’s happening? Why my pants undone? How did I get here? Why am I surrounded by monster puppets in a swamp? Why does my anus hurt?

Someday we’ll find it

The Rainbow Connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me

THE RAINBOWS

THEY HAVE ME

THEY WANT ME TO KILL

TO DESTROY

SWEET SONG SINGING

THE FROG KNOWS THE FROG KNOWS

IA IA RAINBOW FTHAGN

I AM THE LEPRECHAUN KING, DREAM LORD, LOVER OF LUCIFER

AAAAGHAGHAGHA

*sob*

Funny Books?

This weekend on Twitter, I said something about blah blah blah, religion isn’t funny enough, and if I had a critique of the Bible is that it needs more jokes. And then I went on to recommend a particularly funny book about religion — Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.

Moore is, of course, a funny motherfucker. I’ve seen him speak a few times at book signings. He took the people at one signing out for drinks. Another signing I went to as a component of my bachelor party (not kidding). He’s great. Very engaging. He will at times talk about animal penises. It’s just how he rolls.

And all his books are off-the-charts funny, at least to me. I still remember reading Practical Demonkeeping in high school and thinking that he was the horror equivalent of Douglas Adams.

I read him, Bradley Denton, Tim Sandlin, and I think — “This stuff is rolling in raw hilarity.”

Thing is, you don’t read many funny novels.

I hear the prevailing wisdom is, “It’s hard to sell a funny novel.”

Though, I suspect what that really means is, “It’s hard to write a funny novel.”

So, two questions:

First, what funny novels have you read? Why were they funny? Were they more than just funny? Did they have good characters, good story, all the things you should have in a proper tale?

Second, what’s funny? How do you write funny?

That second one’s an open-ended and perhaps unanswerable question.

But worth asking, just the same.

Take a crack it it.

See you in the comments.

Transmissions From Baby-Town: “Nine Months”

This week, the calendar pages come fluttering off the wall, and Baby B-Dub reaches nine months of age.

Which means he’s been out as long as he was in.

And it’s becoming increasingly clear that we’re screwed.

 

* * *

 

He never stops moving.

The boy was always a squirmy one. But he is rarely content to be held. Or to remain in one place for more than, ohhh, 34 seconds. This kid wants to go go go. He wants to crawl. He wants to stand. Give him half a chance, he’ll fling himself over the edge of the bed, the high-chair, the crib wall. He learned how to use the crib bumpers as ladders and climb up over the edge of the Baby Containment Unit. Just this morning I turned my head away from the high chair for two seconds to fetch a spoon and when I turned my head back, half his body was already out, his gooey food-slick face staring at the floor.

Gone are the days of the little lump baby.

Here are the days of Little Baby Daredevil.

 

* * *

 

We hear this saying a lot:

“Oh. He’s one of those babies.”

And then we get sympathetic head nods and shoulder pats.

 

* * *

 

Sweet Jesus, this kid can eat.

He’s like a wood-chipper.

It’s as if his stomach is a molten core, and any food poured into that fiery space is burned away to meager char and ash the moment it touches the walls of his gastrointestinal furnace. You know how some adult human beings can subsist on, say, a small yogurt and a banana for breakfast? Our nine-month son can eat more than that. Just yesterday we had to feed him four meals. You get through one container of pureed food and Baby Jabba over there is suddenly all BOSHUUDA NAY WANNA WONGA BLUEBERRY YOGURT which means it’s time to go seeking a new food source before he starts eating his high-chair.

And you think I’m kidding. He gnaws on his high-chair like a starving badger.

Sometimes I’m forced to wonder, did our son accidentally eat another baby? Is he somehow feasting for two? Ye gods, man, where the hell is all this food going?

OH THAT’S RIGHT.

It goes into the diapers. We went from one diaper every few days to one diaper every seventeen minutes. His diapers get so heavy, I just leave them outside in the wintry cold and let them freeze over. Then, should any of my neighbors grow uppity, I shall launch these frozen turd-bombs at their house with some jury-rigged trebuchet. If only they had the icy-chunk diaper-made cannonballs in the Middle Ages. Siege warfare would’ve been a whole different animal.

 

* * *

 

Diaper changes are different, now. He is not content to just lay there dreamily. He twists and turns and writhes and squirms. Trying to escape our clutches at the worst possible time — when we’re trying to wrestle a wet-nap from the box, when we’re trying to pop the stubborn tabs on the goddamn diaper, when we’ve got poop on our hands. Now diaper-changing time is a full-contact-sport.

And it frequently requires two people.

 

* * *

 

It’s like in all the war movies, eventually one side is forced to recognize: “We are overrun.”

 

* * *

 

Sometimes he stands up.

On his own. This just started happening — he gets his legs under him, reaches out as if he’s going to grab hold of something but then forgets that step and just — voooop — stands up.

He can make it for about three seconds.

Then he falls down. Whump, on his rump.

He’s learned how to fall so that he can learn how to stand.

There’s a lesson in there for all of us, I guess.

 

* * *

 

I pretend it’s a very early, very sluggish game of proto-catch between father and son. There B-Dub sits in his high-chair or in his crib and any toys he can find end up over the edge and onto the floor. Then I go and I pick up the toys and I put them back in and, within 30 seconds, they’re all back on the floor.

But I know the truth. It’s not a game of catch.

It’s a game of fetch.

And I am most assuredly the dog.

But I don’t admit that often. The illusion of reciprocity is key.

 

* * *

 

I know now, when you have a baby, it’s a game of buying your life back in five minute increments. Small things. “Oh, I’d like to go to the bathroom now. If I strap him in his high chair and give him a copy of the latest Field & Stream magazine, will that occupy him long enough for me to go and relieve myself? Will it? Will it?”

No, it won’t.

But you have to try.

 

* * *

 

He shouldn’t be faster than us.

That shouldn’t be possible. He’s tiny.

Oh, but he is. Plop him on the floor and play with him for a while, suddenly he’ll get it in his head to dart off to the farthest-flung and most dangerous corner of the room. Oh, and he’ll always go for the worst possible thing in the room, a thing that no matter how hard you baby-proofed still exists — “How did this Chinese throwing star end up under the couch?” Next thing you know you’re struggling to reach him before he wings the Chinese throwing star at the dog and you’re left dizzy with the notion that somehow this baby, this nine-month-old human who still poops his pants almost out-ran you.

And he can’t even walk yet.

 

* * *

 

He shouldn’t be stronger than us.

But if he gets hold of the spoon while feeding, I have to wrestle with him to get it back. And it’s hard. How is that possible? I’m a fully-grown man. I’ve got bulk. I’m not a weight-lifter or anything, but this kid has the muscle-tone of a bag of marshmallows. How is he beating me? How is this even a competition?

One day science will prove that babies somehow possess secret chimpanzee strength.

One day.

 

* * *

 

He’s very loud.

I’m sorry — maybe you couldn’t hear me —

HE’S VERY LOUD.

It’s not that he’s upset. He’s… talking. Except very, very loudly.

BAH BAH BAH BAH MAH MAH MAH DAD DAD DAD UGGY UGGY OOOOOOOO

 

* * *

 

Here’s one way he’s like his father:

Hates pants. Hates socks.

Gets rid of both at every opportunity.

Eat shit, pants. Go to hell, socks.

*fling*

 

* * *

 

He sleeps with us in our bed. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, you feel it. A presence. Staring you down. And, sure enough, there’s our little shadow-baby, sitting between us and just… watching.

Like a hawk watching a little bunny cross the road.

 

* * *

 

He’s trying to destroy us, physically. No matter how often you cut his nails he’s got talons like an owl. He’ll grab your lower lip and pull downward as if he’s trying to close a garage door. He’ll knock my glasses to the floor and then go for the soft melon-balls that are my eyes. He’ll headbutt. He’ll yank hair. He’ll bite — well, gum — your nose. He’s trying to wear us down. He’s trying to get control.

 

* * *

 

Who the hell am I kidding? He’s already got control.

He’s got it and he’s going to keep it not because he’s the tiny pink-cheeked dictator that rules this house but in spite of that — he is, instead, the pink-cheeked dictator that rules our hearts.

(Cue the audio: “Awwwww.”)

He’s learning how to give kisses. Kisses that don’t always come replete with a headbutt.

He’s learning how to high-five us.

He’s learning when to say Mama, or Daddy, or Doggy.

He’ll try to feed us.

He’s learning how to snuggle up and — almost — give hugs.

He smiles whenever we enter the room.

He laughs like they’re about to make laughing illegal so he better get it all in right now.

His feet are ticklish. He likes to rub noses with you. He’s still got the biggest bluest eyes and now, growing in upon his Charlie Brown head is a snowy white-blonde coat of wispy hair.

Sure, yeah, we’re overrun.

But that’s okay. We like it.

Happy nine months, kiddo.

Two Girls And One Search Term Bingo

It’s been a while since the last Search Term Bingo. I blame the slowly-growing evil found in the dread hearts of the LORDS OF GOOGLE. Since encrypting search terms for those logged into any Google service, I get like, minimal deliciousness in terms of freaky weird-ass search terms. They still come in — but now I have to wait longer to collect a good spread of ’em. So, here goes — another troubling round of those search terms people used to find this website. Behold the lunacy. And enjoy.

fucking with hadge cuck

Hey, whoa, no. You don’t fuck with Hadge Cuck. You go stomping on his hill barrow and that big ass motherfucker will come out and beat your shitcan to death with his club, a club he made from ox bones and dragon cocks. Hadge Cuck bested Gilgamesh in a game of mighty kickball. Hadge Cuck breathes the breath of a thousand cigar-smoking ravens. What’s the old rhyme? “Hadge Cuck come, Hadge Cuck crush, Hadge Cuck punch your bones to mush!” Repeat after me: DO NOT FUCK WITH HADGE CUCK.

what is the no 1 things all writers need

A helper monkey. A little capuchin monkey that sits in a wastebasket near your desk and whenever you need something, you just ring that little ding-a-ling bell. “Monkey! Get me a cappucino! Monkey! Get me whiskey for my cappucino! Monkey! Deliver unto me my naughty magazines!”

don’t worry my dad has a beard

Well, thank god for that. I was worried there for a minute. I was all like, “Oh my god, the economy is really wobbly and houses are being foreclosed upon and our freedoms are being stripped away from us a little bit every day and Israel might attack Iran and someone’s inventing a weaponized bird-flu right now and for some reason that new TV show with Rob Schneider is really popular and that means the Mayans were right,” but then you come along and remind me that your dad has a beard. We’re all good here. Whew.

my beard makes me fat

No, that wreath of Krispy Kreme donuts you inhaled made you fat. Your beard just makes you awesome.

enema beard

Officially my new pirate name. “Yarrr, olde Cap’n Enemabeard hid his treasure of Tampax Pearl reward points somewhere here on this dirty New Jersey beach, yarrrr! Get to searchin’ ye scurvy helper monkeys!”

i’m on google at best buy lolololol

First up, you’re an idiot. Second up, you’re an idiot. Third up, who gives a shit? Fourth up, multiple LOL’s strung together is fucking stupid. What does it mean? “I’m laughing out loud out loud out loud out loud?” For the record, I think we’re all done with “LOL.” It’s over. You’re not really laughing out loud. You’re laughing on the Internet and, frankly, probably not even smiling. This goes double to all you yahoos who choose to insert “LOL” after every sentence whether or not it’s worthy of humor. “I installed a new ceiling fan today lol. I need to express my chihuahua’s anal glands lol. My mom has face cancer lol.” Stop it. Just stop it. Someone pry the “L” and “O” keys from your keyboard. Dingbat.

wendig slept with my religion

I did no such thing. Unless you mean that fling with Zoroastrianism? Yeah, we hooked up. We did some handsy stuff, some mouth stuff, but I wouldn’t call it “sleeping with.” Dang, are you Zoroastrian? Sorry.

where does chuck wendig live?

Well, that’s not a terrifying search term at all. Here, I’ll answer this for you: I live on the moon. Me and Newt Gingrich. He’s on the dark side. Me on the light. Every thousand years we battle. Now stop looking.

chuck wemdog

First time I’ve heard that one. I’ve seen Chuck Wending Winding Wedding — I’ve even seen Wangdang. Seriously. But never “Wemdog.” If you see my at a convention or something, run toward me with a high-five at the ready and then stick out your tongue and go, “WASSUUUUP WEMDOOOOOG!” And then as you get within the proper distance I will kick you in the kneecap and push you into a potted plant using your own momentum. Because I’m actually a ninja. Please don’t tell anybody. This blog isn’t public, right?

frisky dimplebuns

Hey! This was my nickname back at Kilimanjaro base camp. Those wacky sherpas. Chasing each other around and playing a funny game of grab-ass, shoving snow down everybody’s pants! Ha ha ha! What fun.

5 words you should use in every story

Here goes. Ready?

“Breeches.”

“Titmouse.”

“Byzantine.”

“Chapstick.”

And, “Rosewater.”

how to congratulate a published author

A gift basket. This gift basket should feature:

a) seven tiny bottles of whiskey

b) seven other tiny bottles of whiskey

c) chocolate of some ilk

d) an index card that reads: YOU’RE #1 IN THE AMAZON RANKING OF MY HEART

e) a bookmark shaped like a chihuahua

f) a fancy pen

g) a six-pack of five-hour-energy drink

h) an orange

i) an index card that reads: GET BACK TO WORK YOU FUCKING MONKEY

dolly parton baboons

She does have huge “baboons,” yes. I will now refer to a lady’s chesty bounty as “blouse baboons.” Men, you are not exempt. Your dangle-rods will now be called, “pants-dwelling proboscis monkeys.”

Please update all records.

i want to put meth in my butthole

I guess that’s one way to do it. Is the normal meth high not strong enough for you that you need to go shoving it up your no-no tunnel? You’re pretty hardcore. “Hey, man, you got any crystal?” “I SHOVED IT ALL UP MY POOPER HA HA HA HA HA” *vacuums the entire state of Ohio, then dies*

elk semen macaroni and cheese

Oh, hey, thanks, now I’m going to be scraping vomit out of my keyboard for a month. (Is that corn? Why is there always corn?) Maybe this is coming up on a future episode of Fear Factor. I read an interview with the woman who drank donkey semen on that episode that mysteriously fled the NBC schedule, and it was about as obvious an interview as you could get. “Uhh, it was really gross and I kept throwing up and it tasted kind of grassy and semeny and it was hot and flies kept landing on it between sips.” Yeah, uhhh, you just drank donkey semen. On television. For an episode that might not even air. And now you’re telling us all about it. What did you think it was going to taste like? A caramel macchiato?

This should be our Darwin test. We should administer this test to everybody. “I will give you one hundred dollars if you drink this cup of hot, fly-specked donkey semen.”

Anybody who reaches for the glass receives a crisp hundred-dollar-bill and then is dropped through a trap-door into a pit filled with starving grizzly bears who have been trained to use machetes.

“lord of the rings” “he ejaculated”

I kind of wish those were reversed. “He ejaculated Lord of the Rings.”

“Nnnggh, nnngh, nnnnnnnggggh.”

*squee*

“Hey, look, Boromir!”

I made this for you, Internet:

shotguns + robotics

Two great tastes that taste great together. Also, this is what the Mayans were talking about. At the end of their prophecies, all the pictographs end in a picture of a robot holding a shotgun.

aliens and carbohydrates

Two great tastes that — eh, maybe not so much. If you wanna lose weight, you need to cut out carbohydrates, but eat more aliens. Oh, these Alpha Centaurians? Delicious! They’re filled with pudding!

we both know you’re not in outer fucking space

I like to imagine that this is the voicemail left on a husband’s phone by his betrayed wife. “We both know you’re not in outer fucking space, Dave. That’s right. I found out you’re not a secret astronaut with the Newt Gingrich Take Back The Moon program. Guess what? Your mother told me. You’re just a plumber from Secaucus. I know you’re not in space — you’re over that slut Debbie’s house again, aren’t you? She smells like a mall perfume counter, Dave. I’m just… I’m just disgusted by you. You know what? You can go to the moon, you sonofabitch.” Click. Divorce. Done. MARRIAGE LOST.

evolution is obsolete piss like a monkey

Is this the tactic that the Creationists are taking now? I don’t think that makes much sense at all.

ask a shotgun

Do not ask for advice from a shotgun. He has the same answer to every question.

“What stocks should I buy?” BOOM.

“What qualities make for a good mate?” BANG!

“I just found out my husband Dave isn’t really an astronaut. What do I do?” KACHOOM.

what do fish have to do with anything?

Nothing, probably. Fuck ’em. Just get rid of those assholes. Stinking up all our oceans with their fish poop.

piranha eats its own feces poops

See? Fish poop. Though I guess the piranha should be rewarded for eating his own mess. Maybe if we humans were so brave as the piranha we wouldn’t have to ruin the planet with our corrosive toilet industry. Did you know that for every toilet that we make, seven bald eagles explode? I read that.

good beginnings with dairy goats

MY FAVORITE PBS PROGRAM EVER.

i can see purple pulsating purple

I will take whatever toxic gourd juice you’re drinking, please. Two cups.

One for me, one for my imaginary pal, Mister Tinklepants.

rabbit stew gives me diarrhea

Where did you find this rabbit stew, exactly? “I was out walking around and I was just kicking up pieces of cardboard and knocking around a few old soup cans and next thing I know this hobo comes out of the sewer grate and hands me a bubbly frothy pot of rabbit stew! It was delicious, but gave me the trots something fierce.” You shouldn’t be wolfing down rabbit stew of dubious age and origin, dummy.

crotch crutch

Dang, if you need a crutch for your crotch, color me impressed. You must have a tremendous wang. Like, the size of a rifle case. And I can see how you’d break a dick that size. You probably get — no pun intended — cocky with a schwanz like that. You’re out there breaking boards to impress the ladies, or using it as a bat during slow-pitch softball. Eventually you’re going to bust that sucker in half and, sure enough, need a crutch. Good for you, huge-dicked dude. Way to swing for the fences.

does your ass feels offended

No, but my silky nipples do.

story boobs battle challenge crush milk

This is actually what they called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” in Malaysia.

save a hundred lives and you’re a nurse

I thought it was harder — or maybe easier? — than that.

old photo of a pterodactyl

Taken by what? A caveman Polaroid?

ugh whiskey always ruins my night

Then you’re doing it wrong.

people with fruit for heads in a circle

I guess I need another cup of that toxic gourd juice, because I’m not seeing that, yet.

things you do not say aloud

Pick any part of this blog post and that’s a good place to start.