The Ghost of the Greyhound- INTERMISSION

OK.  Well, youŕe probably getting tired of all the wild shit that's been going on in that Greyhound story so maybe we oughtta take a break.  Plus, I don't feel like telling that story right now, not to mention that nothing actually even happened.  I mean the bus sucks and I was just gonna illustrate that by telling you about me being on it.  Don't worry, Iĺl get around to it but I'm just telling you that you might as well not shit your pants in anticipation.

Without googling it, I'm gonna sit here and wonder if anticipation and constipation are two words that are even remotely related to one another.

Probably not, but we can't be too sure.  Let's play it safe, folks.

So yeah, I napped intermittently throughout the night in between movies I never even thought about before on netflix and a 6 pack of ice beer.  And some giant can of some stupid margarita thing that they looked at me funny at the store for buying.  I finally watched Brokeback Mountain.  Not like I've necessarily been holding out for that one, but I have to admit I was curious as to what all the hype was about.  I'm still kinda in the dark about that one.  It was okay though.  God I'm weaning myself off of my stupid psyche medication and now I'm having dreams about talking basketballs and weird llama monster things whenever I manage to doze off for a few minutes.  

So that's where I am with the Greyhound story.

Aw, fuck it.  It's like 7 in the morning so I might as well wrap er up since I'm not gonna say anything about anything anyway.  Then I can advance to a whole new line of stupid crap that nobody oughtta be wasting their time with.

So I forget where I last left you hanging in this serial drama, but I think I was at the bus station being a drunk schmuck.  Just for the sake of keeping things rolling, Iĺl start there.

I was at the bus station being a drunk schmuck.  I wasn't really doing anything, but I was drunk and I was a schmuck so there you go.  Anyway, I put some vodka-enhanced charm on the lady who was selling tickets so that by the time she finally gave me my ticket she no longer totally hated my fuckin guts.  Or so it seemed.  I chalked it up as a victory.  Before I left the ticket lady I ever-so-suavely slurred that I was starvin my ass off and did she know where I could get a cheeseburger.  She smiled and told me all about this cheeseburger place that was about 25 feet away from me.  I wrote down the directions to the place and set out on an adventure to locate it..

The cheeseburger lady was a fuckin jerk.  Everybody who works for Greyhound is a fuckin jerk.  The employee policy seems to be ; "Ïf you don't fuckin like it then get the hell outta here with no refunds or weĺl call the cops and weĺl bet that they hate you worse than we do."  And that motto seems to work for them.  Greyhound is the armpit of America.  The dried up gum under the picnic table that you forgot probably existed but it does and somebody should've thrown it out years ago.  Not a good analogy but it's 7 in the morning and whatever.  

OK, so the burger chef sucked but the burger rocked.  You wouldn't think it would've, but it did.  It might've had something to do with my combined levels of intoxication and starvation.  Who knows?  Does old Kool and the Gang sound good or are you just drunk and nostalgic?  It's a timeless philosophical question that remains unanswered.  Either way, the only good memory I have of my recent bus experience was the one I have of that goddam cheeseburger.  It was delicious.

Uh oh.  Guess what, folks?  Weŕe all outta time.  I gotta make coffee or eat something or go get another 6-pack or something.  That's okay though, right?  I mean really, who gives a fuck?  If you do then you need to calm down.

The Ghost of the Greyhound: The Nightmare Begins

Well, I lost my pants.  They weren't the ones I was wearing the last time that I put on pants, so at least there's that.  Still, it's breaking news to me and I still can't quite get it off my mind.  I guess this is what happens when one staggers down the highway with a Gatorade bottle full of vodka in one's pocket.  Well, one has to drink the fuckin vodka too.  You don't just lose your pants by sticking booze in your coat.  Reminds me of a couple I read about in News of the Weird once who went to the doctor cos they couldn't get knocked up and it turns out they just thought they had to sleep in the same bed together.  

Anyway, I was startled to realize that I was pantlsless.  Except for the 2 filthy pairs that I already knew I had.  Back in the day I only had one pair of pants, so in comparison 2 pairs makes me one pantsful motherfucker.  But I've grown.  Times have changed.  It's no longer 1995.  I should have more than 2 pairs of jeans.

And now I do!  I also have a Chromebook, which I never knew existed until now.  It's like a laptop only it sucks worse than one.  But it's a thousand times better than having no computer.  I'm typing on it now and my ass hurts cos I'm sitting on the floor that I refinished in exchange for the computer and some pants.  And I'm drinking Hurricane malt liquor in a goofy skull glass.  I'm kinda hungry and I don't care.  Life couldn't be finer.  Well, it could certainly be worse.

And it was!  In fact, right around this time last week it was totally worse.  I was in a Greyhound station.  I'm not gonna say where cos it's none of your goddam business, but I had hitchiked there through single digit temperatures over the course of a few days.  It was the first time I had ever hitched with enough money to get motel rooms, which I did cos it was fuckin freezing out.  But I was drunk the whole time so I kept saying ¨fuck it¨ and getting drunk in a motel room at like 3 in the afternoon and then staying til 11 the next morning just to get the most bang for my buck.

And I don't remember taking my psyche meds very often.  The combination of drinking excess amounts of straight vodka and rum and not taking the prozac that I'm now hooked on took its' toll, and when I finally stumbled into the bus station last Saturday evening I fit right in with the other Greyhound patrons.  Or at least I filled out one of the roles that every bus needs.  I was the smelly drunk bum who you should probably get the fuck away from but you can't cos youŕe stuck  on a goddam bus with him. Screw it. At least I was that character. Better than being a fat moron or a young woman that everybody wants a blowjob from. Or not even young woman. Just female individual. That's good enough for most of the assholes on the bus.

Ok, well I still haven't said anything about this goddam bus experience but we have all the time in the world. Just keeping you folks posted on the status of the level of discomfort in my buttocks and the fact that they are now covered with pants. And now that I have this stupid little computing machine Iĺl be certain to follow up on what I'm sure will be a joy and a pleasure for all of you to ignore. If for some reason I die before I can finish this epic tale, I'll give you a spoiler and tell you that the bus totally fuckin sucks.

The Ghost of the Greyhound: An Introduction

Well, I'm typing this on a laptop that isn't mine.  Don't worry, I didn't steal the goddam thing.  It's somebody else's.  Now, you may be thinking,"No shit it's somebody else's.  You just said it wasn't yours.  Whose is it?"  To that I shall say that it's none of your business.  I will say that I'm not used to typing on this thing and that if there are any minor typos then you can kiss my ass.  Well, you don't have to kiss my ass just over a typo but if you wanna get all picky and give me a fuckin B- just cos there's a few typos, well you can kiss my ass.

Then again, this is likely to not be a blog worthy of a B-.  But whatever.  If you can't handle a typo then I'll gladly trade problems with you.

OK, so so far I haven't said a goddam thing.  I've just been making idle threats to you nice people.  Or not threats, but vulgar proposals.  I mean, kissing my ass probably isn't that incredibly awful.  It's been done before under happier circumstances.  It's not like I told you I'd break your fuckin legs.

Geez. This band Solstafir goes really well with beer, fatigue, confusion and typing.

Anyhoo, what I jumped on here to explain is that Greyhound still exists.  I mean, you see them.  You see their stations.  You hear about them wrecking into medians and killing all their passengers.  But does it really exist?  Or is it like the moon landing and the holocaust?  Yep.  Greyhound is like the holocaust.  It exists and it fuckin sucks.  I recently survived a trip on the bus and I will tell you that it was a goddam nightmare.  Of course, you can't believe everything you read....

Aw christ.  I gotta get off this damn computer mostly cos my back's sore and I'm sick of typing.  Well, not really but it'll take too long to finish the goddam Greyhound story right now so I'll tell it later.  In the meantime, I kinda like this piece of drivel cos I'm the kinda guy who likes drivel such as this.  So let this be the prologue to a blog and I'll go ahead and post the damn thing.  I'm sure you'll be on the edges of your seats awaiting the story that is certain to come whenever it does.  If you're not, well then I'm not sure what to tell you.  I already told you to kiss my ass.  Use your imagination.

Faith

Well, this is thing that I'm not sure what I'm gonna say is certain to sound fucked up. It has plenty of the qualities of a soap opera. Then again, what doesn't? If you don't have a story that I can relate to a soap opera, then it's fuckin boring and shut up. Unless I can compare it to the Three Stooges, in which case you might as well tell me what the fuck happened. I don't like the Three Stooges, never have. But if you ran into a fuckin telephone pole on your bike and you saw the humor in it, by all means tell me the story. I'm all ears.

I had a friend (I say “had” mostly cos I haven't talked to the motherfucker in awhile) who seemed to have made the decision that it would be funny if he became a redneck asshole. I mean, he was just kidding. But he seemed to have taken his joke too far, seemed to have forgotten who he was, or at least seemed to have forgotten what fundamental ideals that we shared that made me feel a connection with him in the first place. I mean, beyond those basic agreements we had had about how the world is and how it oughtta be, we weren't all that similar. But I admired him for his strengths and for his abilities that I lacked, and he admired me for mine. We complimented one another.

This particular friend of mine didn't drink very much. Most of my close friends were as drunk as I was, which was pretty motherfuckin drunk. This dude wasn't like most of my close friends, another reason why I loved and respected him. But we had always seen eye to eye on the basics, the fundamentals, the elementary: WAR IS EVIL. RACISM (especially racism in the face of information and logic, not what's been passed down by one's bigoted parents or society) IS EVIL. WE LUST FOR FAIRNESS FOR EVERYBODY and for EVERYTHING. Something like that. If you don't know what I'm talkin about then you never will. But yeah, the guy was kidding about being a racist, god-fearing American until he almost became one.

I finally told him to shut the fuck up. And I was an alcoholic bum, living on his property and enjoying the profits of his hard work, dedication and endurance (all qualities of his that I sincerely admired). It could've gotten ugly. It almost did. That guy could've totally fucked me up. But he wouldn't. He was my friend. I think he forgot who he was for a minute there. We talked about it and that's more or less the last time I really talked to him. From what I hear, he kinda grew up and a little to the right, but that's alright. I haven't grown up (if I have then I have nothing to show for it) but I still respect him and hope all the best for him.

Yesterday I found myself in the unlikely situation to be arguing on the side of the Holocaust's existence. My friend with whom I was debating was playing devil's advocate, but he was losing. And he was pissed that he was losing. I think I know him well enough to know that he wasn't serious.  He probably just doesn't like losing an argument.  Who does?  Anyway, I may be a fuckin idiot, but I'm a fuckin genius too so don't tell me that the Holocaust was any kind of a hoax. I dunno. I used to be paranoid and I'd shrug at any conspiracy theory that somebody came up with. After all, how the fuck do I know anything? Do I actually know that the Holocaust happened?  Do I really know that the Earth revolves around the Sun?  Well, I don't. But I have faith in humanity. I have faith that nothing like Soviet Russia can last forever before it's violently overthrown by humans who just can't fuckin take it anymore. And I have faith that humans are capable of torture, genocide and burning the bodies of innocents in mass graves.

Some folks have faith in Jesus but his track record is mythological, at best.

I have faith in humanity and it makes me wanna fuckin puke.

Fuck You and Your Stupid Snake or Spider or Whatever.

    Wow.  I’m a fuckin mess.  Not like that’s some kinda revelation, but it’s almost alarming.  I’m staying with a friend who has a pet snake.  “Pet” seems like too friendly of a word for it, but she seems to like the goddam thing.  Me?  I don’t really care for the things myself.  I don’t hate them, but I like it better when there’s not a fuckin snake in the house.  I let him (or her) slither on me for a minute before I gladly handed it back to it’s person.  Turns out it’s not that easy to identify a snake’s gender.  That’s the kinda thing I’ve thought about before but never while I was near Google.  Same with pc keyboards in Chinese.  How the hell do they do it?  There are so many unique characters!  It boggles the mind.  Reminds me of when I was a little kid and I'd swallow something that went down the wrong pipe.  I thought there was a fuckin pipe for everything.  Like my eggs went down the spinach pipe, etc.  I'd wonder how I had so many pipes in one little neck.  Anyway, when I googled the snake sex thing it basically said “DON’T FUCKIN WORRY ABOUT IT UNLESS YOU’RE AN EXPERT”.  So I quit fuckin worrying about it.  Evidently it involves sticking weird probes up the thing’s ass or something and I don’t even like letting it sniff my finger very much, much less trying to find it's asshole with a roto-rooter and hoping I don't get fuckin bit.

    But this led me to wonder who the fuck raises venomous snakes?  I’ve wondered that before too, but I’m wondering about it again now.  You can totally quit reading this and I won’t fuckin blame you.  If you’re still reading this, that is...  Anyway, yeah I just can’t see getting all that friendly with a snake.  They don’t seem very bright, nor do they seem very social.  I mean, a dog can and might bite you but they’re wired to hang out with other dogs and with people.  So you shouldn’t worry about your dog biting you.  If you do, get rid of the fuckin dog.  But I’m pretty sure that we humans are wired to mistrust snakes.  It’s primal.  Those fuckers are something you should just leave alone, at best.  As a matter of fact, you  should probably kill em with a shovel or something.  That’s because there are rattlers and cobras and coral snakes and all kinds of other terrible serpents that’ll fuckin kill you just cos you’re walking around.

    So, venomous snake-raisers:  Stupid?  Crazy?  Or did they just not get the memo?  Just how the hell are you supposed to clean the King Cobra tank?  And then why the fuck did you put it in a tank just so you’d have to find out?  My buddy had some kinda python that pooped turds about the same gauge as a house cat's.  The thing wasn’t even poisonous but it got pissed off and bit my friend when he was trying to give it some water or something.  So there you got a couple of 8 penny nails jammed in your forearm just for trying to be a nice guy.  Nevermind if the goddam thing woulda been some awful snake that you’re done if you get bit by it.  Yeah, I’ll take my chances with a Rottweiler.  Plus, the dog’s obviously glad I got home.  Snakes just aren’t all that affectionate.  And you can tell me that they’re friendly and loving and then I shall refer you to the first couple of sentences of this paragraph.

    Well, this isn’t going anywhere.  Not like it needs to, I guess.  Fuck it.  It’s just  brain diarrhea.  Gotta do something with it.  Might as well flush it into the ethernet with all the other worthlessness.  I would like to say before I go, though, that anybody who has a pet spider is a goddam whacko.  I’d say they’re fuckin morons but I’m not here to offend anybody.  And if you’re seriously insulted by being called a goddam whacko then I’ll trade my problems for yours any day of the week.  That means you’re also a pussy.  But yeah, fuck spiders.  I mean, it makes more sense to be scared of dogs but I don’t care.  I can’t stand the whole idea of spiders.  If there was a hell and I went to it, I’d be getting eaten by spiders.  I used to hold a sign up asking for money and people’d drive by and slap you a dollar.  I used to think it’d be fucked up if somebody drove by and handed me a live tarantula.  JESUS!!!  It’d make me laugh and cringe a little to imagine it while I was standing there on the median.  I’m sure then I just looked like a goddam wingnut.  And I probably was. 

    Okay.  That’s enough of that.

Northern Pride

                Well, here’s my big chance to write something and I don’t know what the hell to write about.  I could write about how stupid Christmas is, but who the fuck cares about that?  As with pretty much everything, you either like Christmas, you don’t like Christmas, or you don’t give a fuck about Christmas.  I fall into the latter 2 categories.  I do, however, have a theory that I might as well lay on you.  Christmas falls a few days after the Winter Solstice.  At least it does here.  My friends in Australia had never seen snow and Christmas shows up right when the weather’s getting good and fuckin hot.  They’re still singing about White Christmas and Frosty the Snowman and all that shit though.  But fuck them.  I’ve got Northern Hemisphere pride.  We’re on TOP!  Is that our slogan?  If it is, we should change it cos that kinda sucks.

                Anyway, my goddam theory is that winter is cold, dark and miserable.  That’s actually not a theory.  It's just the way it is.  Winter is indeed cold, dark and miserable.  Unless you live somewhere where it isn’t, but if you do then I’m sure you have other problems.  But yeah, winter sucks and just as it kicks in a lot of folks get depressed, begin thinking about killing themselves and/or their families.  So, just as a reminder to everybody to not get all freaked out and do something terrible, we have a holiday that just about everybody seems to celebrate even if they think that Christianity is a crock of shit.  They give each other things, they receive gifts from others.  They eat a bunch of food with people they love.  They’re prompted to keep in mind that they love people, that people love them, that just cos it’s dark at 4 in the afternoon and it’s 5 degrees out that they shouldn’t do anything rash, shouldn’t turn to permanent solutions to temporary problems.

                This can easily backfire, and I’m certain that it does.  Fuckers realize that nobody cares about them.  Then they blow the rent money trying to buy crap for people that they decide that they don’t even really know.  A box shows up from some schmuck you haven’t seen in 5 years, containing a V-neck sweater that you’ll never wear.  And a goddam fruitcake, which is the lamest joke of the holiday season.  Everybody knows that fruitcake sucks, nobody wants to fuckin eat it, yet there it is anyway.  It’s like mailing somebody a dog turd and snickering about it when they thank you for it.  I think.  I’ve never actually mailed anybody a dog turd nor have I been present when somebody unwrapped one under the mistletoe, but I can imagine.  That’s actually a good cheap gift idea for anybody who was thinking about buying a fruitcake and standing in line with it at the post office for an hour.  Be festive.  Spray paint it red and green. 

                That’s another thing, Christmas ruined red and green.  Those are the only two complimentary colors on the color wheel that actually compliment one another.  Blue and orange look pretty awful together.  Purple and yellow are even worse.  I’m a Minnesota Vikings fan but purple and yellow look like shit together.  But green and red look okay.  Only now if I wear green jeans and a red t-shirt I look like Santa’s little helper or something so I don’t wear that combo if I’m paying attention.  If looking like an elf at the North Pole is the worst thing that happens to me in a day though, I’m doing pretty good.  OK.  I think that this is about enough of this.  Or if you’re still reading this bullshit then you can think to yourself:   That’s about enough of that.

A Caffeinated Excercise in Pointlessness

                So I’ve spent a little time lately reflecting.  That’s because I’m a shiny piece of plastic.  Just kidding.  I’m actually a fuckin mirror.  Ok, but seriously.  I’ve been thinking about some stuff.  I know, I know, who the fuck hasn’t been thinking about some stuff?  That’s pretty much what you do, aside from doing stuff.  It’s the essence of reality, and each of us has our own reality.  Right now, my reality is a buncha fuckin bullshit, but what’re ya gonna do?  They give me pills that persuade me to keep dwelling in it, so I guess I’m staying on the ride.

                I recently spent a wek in jail and it looks like I’ll be spending a bunch more weeks in jail over the next months to come.  As I sat in Ramsey County jail in St. Paul, awaiting judgement on my fate for driving drunk in 19 ninety fucking six, I watched the deputies playing grab-ass with each other at their little station in the hallway from between 2 sets of iron and plexiglass.  They were all fat.  I’m a skinny little dude, so just about everybody looks a little fat to me, but these fuckers were fat.  Actually, one of them was a kinda cute petite lady, but she looked fat, too.  Maybe it’s the uniform.  I’ve noticed that no matter how pretty the female cop is, she always winds up with a severe case of deputy butt that kinda diminishes the other aspects of her physical beauty.  It’s gotta be the pants.  Either that or cops have defied the law of averages by never producing one female officer who has a nice ass.

                Where the fuck was I going with this?  I got all sidetracked with my deputy butt theory.  It’s a theory that a university will no doubt research now that I’ve brought it to light, but it wasn’t why I sat down to write.  Honestly, I’m not sure why the hell I’m writing right now but I know that that wasn’t the reason.  Anyway, most of the cops were a bunch of lard asses.  And not very bright, either.  Or friendly.  Yep.  A bunch of fat, cranky jerkoffs, those cops were.  They all seemed to like one another though, so that’s nice.  At least somebody likes these assholes besides their mothers.  One of them was this Amazonian behemoth who looked like she supplemented her make-up drawer with gallons of pastel house paint.  She already probably went about 200, then we’re talkin about 215 after she gussied herself up for work.  The fat male cops looked like they were using every charm technique that they had picked up over their long, miserable lives in a vain effort to court this monster.  One good reason to not be a deputy at the Ramsey County jail is that you’ll run nearly zero risk of getting sucked into that particular soap opera.

                Still not sure what the fuck I’m talkin about here.  I guess it just occurred to me as I watched these poor jerks earn a buck that that’s exactly what they were doing.  Earning a buck.  And any one of them could easily be sitting in the tank with us, decked out in orange, waiting to see how hard the hammer  was gonna fall.  All it takes is one too many beers before you drive home from the Superbowl party or one drag out argument with your wife and WHAMMO!  You’re stuck in the soul grinder that is the American justice system.  Once in a while there are deputies that seem to realize this, that everybody in county jail isn’t some kinda child-molesting, bank robbing terrorist.  Especially since most of the fuckers waiting to go to court in county haven’t pled or been sentenced, shouldn’t they be treated with the respect afforded the innocent?  After all, they haven’t been proven guilty.  I dunno.  It just makes me think that we’re the only animal that behaves like this.  Not saying that we should all act like hyenas or anything.  Those things are pretty fucked up, too.  But the idea that there are fat-assed lower class putzes who can afford to pay the cable bill because somebody pays them to look down their noses at other lower class putzes who aren’t allowed to choose which channel they watch before bedtime is just sorta absurd and despicable.

                With that, I’m gonna shut up cos I’m not really sure what my point was necessarily but I don’t really care.  I probably won’t be making any points to anybody for the next few months, so this is my last stand.