(Intermittent Transmission of a Wandering Mind)
-Logue
This is where dispatches from my ongoing peculiarities will appear.
Updates, artwork, mild revelations, and the occasional useful scrap. A space for thoughts to stretch, stammer, or shimmer. Expect stories, sketches, reflections, and the occasional something that isn’t quite sure what it is yet. Frequency may vary. Clarity is not guaranteed. Proceed gently. Do not tap the glass. The specimens may be watching you too.
We Would like to call Johovah to the Stand.......
While sitting in front of my laptop this morning, actually while writing another blog....apart from this, there came a visitor to the front door. Two visitors to be more exact, dressed in suits and carrying stacks of pamphlets. I noticed this right before I opened the door, and what I thought was "fuck". I thought this for a number of reasons, the first being that I realized that I was about to have another encounter with the Jehovah Witnesses. Second, I realized that they had already seen me approaching the door and the only way I thought I could escape at this point was to set myself on fire. Third, the door was half way opened before I thought of setting myself on fire, and the gasoline was all the way in the garage.
So, they introduced themselves and started on thier rehearsed speal, all the while looking towards me in hopes that I would invite them in.....which I had no plans to do. After about two or three sentences I finally found it in me to put a stop to it, by telling them both that I was an atheist and didn't care to hear anymore.
"That's a shame." One of them said immediately afterwards, also in a rehearsed fashion. "Can I ask you why that is?" To which I responded, "I just can't put faith in a Lord that gets sexually aroused by it's own poo." after which I closed the door on two slack-jawed, dumbfounded faces. Not the best response I know, but I had been caught off gaurd and all I really wanted was to cut them off in such a way that they wouldn't want to speak to me either. In that regard, I believe myself to have been successful.
But, the whole event has made me reflect on Jehovah Witnesses past, and of one incident in paticular, which I will share with you now:
At one point in college I shared a house with some friends on Rosewood Avenue, right off of Bardstown Road, which means nothing to you non Louisville folk. In any case, one morning Alec, Todd and myself were together in the front room playing Nintendo's Double Dragons, when I spotted a van moving slowly down our street. I pointed this out to my roommates, and we walked out on the front porch to see what the deal was. The van eventually came to a stop at the end of the street, and well dressed yougn men started filing out. Jehovah Witnesses!! Immediately we came up with a plan! Alec and Todd were to hide in the basement and act out a horrific torture session for our soon to be guest. I was elected to answer the door due to my ability to keep a straight face and think fast on my feet. We patiently awaited our victim....who, as it turned out, was a guy I worked with during my shifts at Kinko's. "Fuck", I thought, for a variety of reasons....the main being that this plan was never going to work due to the fact that I somewhat knew this guy. My roommates, on the other hand, had no way of knowing any of this, given thier vantage point in the basement, and promtly began with thier act upon hearing the doorbell. I have to say, I didn't expect them to be so loud! Alec and Todd both were banging things and Todd was screaming for both mercy and help. The volume was such that I could hear nothing else until I made the quick decision to step out onto the porch and close the door behind me.
Well, it was still on, I decided. So I did my best to act distracted and suspicious. He tried to make small talk with me, much like we did together at work. I tried to be short in my answers...every now and again looking back into the house through the glass door. I have to tell you this....the timing couldn't have been more spot on. At one point finally, he asked me what the sound was to which I responded, "What sound?" and at that second a power drill started up followed by Todd's blood curdling "Nooooooooooooooo!!!"
The small talk continued, and he (I'm sorry I keep referring to him as "he", but I've honestly forgotten his name after all these years) started shifting to one side and then the other, trying to look past me into the house. I shifted with him trying to keep my eyes looking straight into his. The noises in the basement continued, with at one point Alec surfacing from the basement, drill in hand, pausing for a moment to look straight at our guest outside with me, then slowly walking into the kitchen at the back of the house. He return shortly with an axe instead of the drill. (where the axe came from, I still don't know.....I didn't even know we had one) and decended into the basement to the sounds of Todd's "No!! No!! Please don't do this!!!"
Soon, our guest blurted out, "Oh! Are you guys making a Haunted House?" seeing as it was mid October, not a bad assumption. "Hauted House? Yes! Sure....that's what we're doing. Why not?" I replied in my best trying to hide the truth voice.
Finally, our guest decided that he should go on. I retrieved Alec and Todd from the basement and we had a good laugh, even with the fact that our Witness turned out to be a coworker of mine, we had a little fun. Eventually, we returned to video gaming, with Alec leaving to make it to class. This is where we all expected the story to end. This is far from where it actually did ebd though, seeing as about a half an hour later, while Todd was playing the game and I was waiting for him to die so that I could take my turn, I spotted a slow moving Police Car on our street.
"There's a cop cruising our street." I said.
"Uh huh." Todd reponded.....more caught up in the game to care.
Soon, I saw two cops walking down the sidewalk together looking up at the addresses of the houses.
"There's cops walking a beat now!"
"Uh huh."
The cops stopped when they read our address and then turned to make thier way to our house.
"There's cops coming to our door!!"
"Fuck!", Todd said....to which I'm sure he had a variety of reasons. We both made a beeline to the front door to meet the cops. By the time that we opened it, they had already started making thier way to the side of the house and were looking into the basement window. Still, at this moment, it didn't really dawn on me why they were here or why they would be trying to look into the basement....that is, until after we greeted them and they followed with, "You boys have a basement here?"
Somehow, Todd and I made an unspoked mental connection that if were it to be put into words would come out to be something like, "TELL THEM NOTHING!!" We invited the cops in, showed them the basement, and denied any knowledge of any events as to the call they explained they received. It became clear that the cops figured out we had messed with some poor Witness, even with our poor lies, and eventually left.
Hell, NOW we had an even better story to tell everyone!! And this is where it really should have ended.....but it didn't.
That night I told the story to several of my friends, who I also worked with at Kinko's. Now, it was not known by many at work that I had already put my notice in and basically didn't work there anymore. So, Julie came up with the idea to spread the rumor around this Witness that I had been arrested for kidnapping and torture, and that's what happened to me. Eventually even going as far as to say that I went to prison, after I moved from Louisville to Iowa and there was no risk of him seeing me out and about. Of course, they never let on that they knew it was he who had made the call to the police, just that someone had called and the police had found someone beaten almost to death in our basement.
Great Fun!!! And this is where it should end, but it doesn't!
I spent a year in Iowa City before moving back to Louisville, and getting hired back to Kinko's shortly there-after. As I walked in on my first day back, there he was! He looked up and saw me, and I've never seen anyone turn so white. He couldn't even talk! He just starred at me in horror. Crissy, told me later that night that she told him that I was out of prison on probation and that Kinko's agreed to hire me back.
He never showed up for his next shift, or any others. He quit without saying a word.
Never, never could we have planned a better or longer lasting prank.
Which is why today I'm content with just telling the Witnesses the "Lord and poo" line.
So, they introduced themselves and started on thier rehearsed speal, all the while looking towards me in hopes that I would invite them in.....which I had no plans to do. After about two or three sentences I finally found it in me to put a stop to it, by telling them both that I was an atheist and didn't care to hear anymore.
"That's a shame." One of them said immediately afterwards, also in a rehearsed fashion. "Can I ask you why that is?" To which I responded, "I just can't put faith in a Lord that gets sexually aroused by it's own poo." after which I closed the door on two slack-jawed, dumbfounded faces. Not the best response I know, but I had been caught off gaurd and all I really wanted was to cut them off in such a way that they wouldn't want to speak to me either. In that regard, I believe myself to have been successful.
But, the whole event has made me reflect on Jehovah Witnesses past, and of one incident in paticular, which I will share with you now:
At one point in college I shared a house with some friends on Rosewood Avenue, right off of Bardstown Road, which means nothing to you non Louisville folk. In any case, one morning Alec, Todd and myself were together in the front room playing Nintendo's Double Dragons, when I spotted a van moving slowly down our street. I pointed this out to my roommates, and we walked out on the front porch to see what the deal was. The van eventually came to a stop at the end of the street, and well dressed yougn men started filing out. Jehovah Witnesses!! Immediately we came up with a plan! Alec and Todd were to hide in the basement and act out a horrific torture session for our soon to be guest. I was elected to answer the door due to my ability to keep a straight face and think fast on my feet. We patiently awaited our victim....who, as it turned out, was a guy I worked with during my shifts at Kinko's. "Fuck", I thought, for a variety of reasons....the main being that this plan was never going to work due to the fact that I somewhat knew this guy. My roommates, on the other hand, had no way of knowing any of this, given thier vantage point in the basement, and promtly began with thier act upon hearing the doorbell. I have to say, I didn't expect them to be so loud! Alec and Todd both were banging things and Todd was screaming for both mercy and help. The volume was such that I could hear nothing else until I made the quick decision to step out onto the porch and close the door behind me.
Well, it was still on, I decided. So I did my best to act distracted and suspicious. He tried to make small talk with me, much like we did together at work. I tried to be short in my answers...every now and again looking back into the house through the glass door. I have to tell you this....the timing couldn't have been more spot on. At one point finally, he asked me what the sound was to which I responded, "What sound?" and at that second a power drill started up followed by Todd's blood curdling "Nooooooooooooooo!!!"
The small talk continued, and he (I'm sorry I keep referring to him as "he", but I've honestly forgotten his name after all these years) started shifting to one side and then the other, trying to look past me into the house. I shifted with him trying to keep my eyes looking straight into his. The noises in the basement continued, with at one point Alec surfacing from the basement, drill in hand, pausing for a moment to look straight at our guest outside with me, then slowly walking into the kitchen at the back of the house. He return shortly with an axe instead of the drill. (where the axe came from, I still don't know.....I didn't even know we had one) and decended into the basement to the sounds of Todd's "No!! No!! Please don't do this!!!"
Soon, our guest blurted out, "Oh! Are you guys making a Haunted House?" seeing as it was mid October, not a bad assumption. "Hauted House? Yes! Sure....that's what we're doing. Why not?" I replied in my best trying to hide the truth voice.
Finally, our guest decided that he should go on. I retrieved Alec and Todd from the basement and we had a good laugh, even with the fact that our Witness turned out to be a coworker of mine, we had a little fun. Eventually, we returned to video gaming, with Alec leaving to make it to class. This is where we all expected the story to end. This is far from where it actually did ebd though, seeing as about a half an hour later, while Todd was playing the game and I was waiting for him to die so that I could take my turn, I spotted a slow moving Police Car on our street.
"There's a cop cruising our street." I said.
"Uh huh." Todd reponded.....more caught up in the game to care.
Soon, I saw two cops walking down the sidewalk together looking up at the addresses of the houses.
"There's cops walking a beat now!"
"Uh huh."
The cops stopped when they read our address and then turned to make thier way to our house.
"There's cops coming to our door!!"
"Fuck!", Todd said....to which I'm sure he had a variety of reasons. We both made a beeline to the front door to meet the cops. By the time that we opened it, they had already started making thier way to the side of the house and were looking into the basement window. Still, at this moment, it didn't really dawn on me why they were here or why they would be trying to look into the basement....that is, until after we greeted them and they followed with, "You boys have a basement here?"
Somehow, Todd and I made an unspoked mental connection that if were it to be put into words would come out to be something like, "TELL THEM NOTHING!!" We invited the cops in, showed them the basement, and denied any knowledge of any events as to the call they explained they received. It became clear that the cops figured out we had messed with some poor Witness, even with our poor lies, and eventually left.
Hell, NOW we had an even better story to tell everyone!! And this is where it really should have ended.....but it didn't.
That night I told the story to several of my friends, who I also worked with at Kinko's. Now, it was not known by many at work that I had already put my notice in and basically didn't work there anymore. So, Julie came up with the idea to spread the rumor around this Witness that I had been arrested for kidnapping and torture, and that's what happened to me. Eventually even going as far as to say that I went to prison, after I moved from Louisville to Iowa and there was no risk of him seeing me out and about. Of course, they never let on that they knew it was he who had made the call to the police, just that someone had called and the police had found someone beaten almost to death in our basement.
Great Fun!!! And this is where it should end, but it doesn't!
I spent a year in Iowa City before moving back to Louisville, and getting hired back to Kinko's shortly there-after. As I walked in on my first day back, there he was! He looked up and saw me, and I've never seen anyone turn so white. He couldn't even talk! He just starred at me in horror. Crissy, told me later that night that she told him that I was out of prison on probation and that Kinko's agreed to hire me back.
He never showed up for his next shift, or any others. He quit without saying a word.
Never, never could we have planned a better or longer lasting prank.
Which is why today I'm content with just telling the Witnesses the "Lord and poo" line.
Lockers Frozen for about Six Weeks......
The following is an actual conversation between two men I overheard while changing in the locker room of my gym:
Older man: Hey Joe! Haven't seen you for a while.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Where you been hiding?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: You get down to Florida yet?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Hear it's been nice there lately, but there's going to be some strong storms.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: How's Carol?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: She start back at the school yet?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Shame about what happened, but you both have the Lord looking after you.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Similar thing happened to a cousin of mine when he was about, oh I don't know, maybe in his twenties, and he didn't wear socks for near two years....or was he my nephew?
(Holy Shit! I swear I am NOT making that up!! He actually said that!! At this point I was sitting on the bench tieing my shoes and I had to bend down so that my face was almost touching them because I started laughing)
Younger man: About six weeks.
(The conversation paused here while the older gentleman seemed to have a strange wrestling match with his towel, that had somehow gotten extremely twisted, muttering things under his breath while doing so.......I was dressed at this point and put my ear buds in and exited to go work out)
Seriously, this really took place! I have no clue wether the Younger man was messing with the Older man by just answering "About Six Weeks" to everything, or if he had suffered some sort of mental stroke leaving that phrase as the only thing he could say. I don't know why the Older man never seemed to even take notice to that. And for the life of me, I can't even begin to figure out what sort of disaster would cause someone to miss work or school (depending on wether this woman was a student or school employee) as well as possibly lead to the hatred or fear of wearing socks for any length of time!! Now, I get accussed of living in my own skewed version of reality from time to time, so when reality takes it upon itself to do the skewing for me, I get unbelieveably happy! I've had a shit eating grin on my face ever since this incident, and it was even enough to counter the other conversation I was listening to before, where a man stated that Climate Change (ie: Global Warming) was definitely a myth for the reasons that Fox News said as much as well as there being snow on the ground........yeah, I so wanted to remind him that the fact that the Earth orbits the sun was a myth, until it wasn't. It just wouldn't have been as effective to say that while giggling.
Older man: Hey Joe! Haven't seen you for a while.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Where you been hiding?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: You get down to Florida yet?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Hear it's been nice there lately, but there's going to be some strong storms.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: How's Carol?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: She start back at the school yet?
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Shame about what happened, but you both have the Lord looking after you.
Younger man: About six weeks.
Older man: Similar thing happened to a cousin of mine when he was about, oh I don't know, maybe in his twenties, and he didn't wear socks for near two years....or was he my nephew?
(Holy Shit! I swear I am NOT making that up!! He actually said that!! At this point I was sitting on the bench tieing my shoes and I had to bend down so that my face was almost touching them because I started laughing)
Younger man: About six weeks.
(The conversation paused here while the older gentleman seemed to have a strange wrestling match with his towel, that had somehow gotten extremely twisted, muttering things under his breath while doing so.......I was dressed at this point and put my ear buds in and exited to go work out)
Seriously, this really took place! I have no clue wether the Younger man was messing with the Older man by just answering "About Six Weeks" to everything, or if he had suffered some sort of mental stroke leaving that phrase as the only thing he could say. I don't know why the Older man never seemed to even take notice to that. And for the life of me, I can't even begin to figure out what sort of disaster would cause someone to miss work or school (depending on wether this woman was a student or school employee) as well as possibly lead to the hatred or fear of wearing socks for any length of time!! Now, I get accussed of living in my own skewed version of reality from time to time, so when reality takes it upon itself to do the skewing for me, I get unbelieveably happy! I've had a shit eating grin on my face ever since this incident, and it was even enough to counter the other conversation I was listening to before, where a man stated that Climate Change (ie: Global Warming) was definitely a myth for the reasons that Fox News said as much as well as there being snow on the ground........yeah, I so wanted to remind him that the fact that the Earth orbits the sun was a myth, until it wasn't. It just wouldn't have been as effective to say that while giggling.
Scientists would have You Believe We Is Descendants of Monkies...
....I'm having a hard time with this, for some reason.......
Empty Baby Graves and Looted Archery Stores A'Plenty...
It is upon us again people, the day where hell opens the flood gates and let's loose it's army of undead babies for target practice.....or as hallmark would like you to call it, Valentine's Day.
I have written of this day before.....Love is a Three Way....the Truth about Valentine.....and I still stick by that blog, regardless of the fact that I lost friends from it.....Hell, my number of friends always seems to drop a few numbers with every blog I post.
I can't believe it's already been a year since then....a full year without romantic, sticky involvements....minus one, that I've been trying to wash away with beer and peroxide ever since.
In any case, may this day find you all well and full of store-bought chocolates. May you all survive the poison arrows of the undead as well as may the taste of envelope licking leave your mouths.
I leave you all with this, from my book Tales from a Broken String......
the Lonliness of an Empty Crawlspace...
Continuing the spirit of yesterday's blog, I thought that I'd take this opportunity to expand a bit on the whole idea of random facts, but this time by giving you five random and wholey made up facts about each of the five persons that I tagged. I do understand that this will more than likely lead to myself being subjected to attempts in pain and sufferring, both in the comments to follow as well as in the blogs of my intended subjects.....but seeing as I lack the basic human emotions of embarrassment as well as sapience, I don't really care. Thusly, without further adieu.......
Clint Allen
#1- Clint Allen was actually born with four arms....that is, he has arms in place of his legs, which makes him look funny while running, but makes him a dangerous competitor during a game of dodge-ball.
#2- He was once engaged to a bar of soap, until we (his friends) held the now infamous Intervention....it's the last fucking time we will ever use a game of dodge-ball as an Intervention vehicle!
#3- Clint started the whole "abolish the N word" fiasco as a means to piggy-back his desire to re-instate the word "thusly", which was declared unclean by the Pope in 1947.
#4- Clint is actually living backwards, having been born a grown man and getting younger every year....much like Merlin, but without the cool magic tricks.
#5- Clint has actually killed fourteen people with his mind now, once for everytime he was served iced-tea that tasted like dishwater.
Mungmopper
#1- Born Christopher Gabriel Williams, he prefers to be called Gabe due to his affinity with the show Welcome Back Cotter.
#2- Mungmopper started his own religion as a small child called Chacky (sha-kee) that today still boasts only one member....himself.
#3- He and I share the same mother, only not by blood, just proximity.
#4- Mungmopper's popular home-brewed beer is actually made by the blood of lambs and his own fermented urine.
#5- Mungmopper will actually murder me four years from now, as the Soothsayer has foreseen, and then end his own life by accidentally jumping through the nearest window, which is his custom, 13 floors above the street.
Bloomin'
#1- Bloomin' is known as "the Greek Paris Hilton"......that's hot!
#2- He was one of the original cast members of the classic Jason and the Argonauts, but was fired after getting his ass kicked by Ray Harryhausen in a drunken argument.
#3- He is the inventor of Nater, a new form of water that fails to get anything wet....which failed when introduced to the market in 1988.
#4- Bloomin' has an impressive collection of apples that are deformed in such a way that they all resemble Mickey Rourke.
#5- Bloomin' actually only consists of 4 facts, as long as you discount this one.
Lizzay
#1- Elizabeth can eat 51 eggs in and hour......fuck you Cool Hand Luke!!
#2- She has the ability to fly, but chooses not to ever since the doctors said it was really called falling, and responsible for all her multiple fractures.
#3- Elizabeth has a huge collection of Rock T-Shirts, which actually outnumbers the ammount of bands that have shirts available.
#4- She gave up her carreer as an assassin after receiving a contract to kill Clint Allen.....and I'm still waiting for my money back!
#5- Elizabeth has the ability to completely mask her Long Island accent, until she has had too much to drink, whereas she starts to speak with a Scottish accent.
Rachael
#1- Rachael's name is actually pronounced, Ra-chi-el, much like Raphael, the Mutant Ninja Turtle, not the artist.
#2- The photos in her profile are not stretched in Photoshop, she actually lives in an elongated plain.
#3- Rachael was one of the original dancers in the Riverdance ensemble, until they left without her after a performance in Bunslip, New Jersey.
#4- It is a scientific fact that she will suffer from a misspelling before the day is through.
#5- It is not true that there exists an underground tape of Rachael involving pancakes and Clint Allen's mustard....I'm holding out for more money.
....and there we have it folks. Twenty-five more facts to float around your brains, slowly devouring more uselful information that you had previously stored.
Clint Allen
#1- Clint Allen was actually born with four arms....that is, he has arms in place of his legs, which makes him look funny while running, but makes him a dangerous competitor during a game of dodge-ball.
#2- He was once engaged to a bar of soap, until we (his friends) held the now infamous Intervention....it's the last fucking time we will ever use a game of dodge-ball as an Intervention vehicle!
#3- Clint started the whole "abolish the N word" fiasco as a means to piggy-back his desire to re-instate the word "thusly", which was declared unclean by the Pope in 1947.
#4- Clint is actually living backwards, having been born a grown man and getting younger every year....much like Merlin, but without the cool magic tricks.
#5- Clint has actually killed fourteen people with his mind now, once for everytime he was served iced-tea that tasted like dishwater.
Mungmopper
#1- Born Christopher Gabriel Williams, he prefers to be called Gabe due to his affinity with the show Welcome Back Cotter.
#2- Mungmopper started his own religion as a small child called Chacky (sha-kee) that today still boasts only one member....himself.
#3- He and I share the same mother, only not by blood, just proximity.
#4- Mungmopper's popular home-brewed beer is actually made by the blood of lambs and his own fermented urine.
#5- Mungmopper will actually murder me four years from now, as the Soothsayer has foreseen, and then end his own life by accidentally jumping through the nearest window, which is his custom, 13 floors above the street.
Bloomin'
#1- Bloomin' is known as "the Greek Paris Hilton"......that's hot!
#2- He was one of the original cast members of the classic Jason and the Argonauts, but was fired after getting his ass kicked by Ray Harryhausen in a drunken argument.
#3- He is the inventor of Nater, a new form of water that fails to get anything wet....which failed when introduced to the market in 1988.
#4- Bloomin' has an impressive collection of apples that are deformed in such a way that they all resemble Mickey Rourke.
#5- Bloomin' actually only consists of 4 facts, as long as you discount this one.
Lizzay
#1- Elizabeth can eat 51 eggs in and hour......fuck you Cool Hand Luke!!
#2- She has the ability to fly, but chooses not to ever since the doctors said it was really called falling, and responsible for all her multiple fractures.
#3- Elizabeth has a huge collection of Rock T-Shirts, which actually outnumbers the ammount of bands that have shirts available.
#4- She gave up her carreer as an assassin after receiving a contract to kill Clint Allen.....and I'm still waiting for my money back!
#5- Elizabeth has the ability to completely mask her Long Island accent, until she has had too much to drink, whereas she starts to speak with a Scottish accent.
Rachael
#1- Rachael's name is actually pronounced, Ra-chi-el, much like Raphael, the Mutant Ninja Turtle, not the artist.
#2- The photos in her profile are not stretched in Photoshop, she actually lives in an elongated plain.
#3- Rachael was one of the original dancers in the Riverdance ensemble, until they left without her after a performance in Bunslip, New Jersey.
#4- It is a scientific fact that she will suffer from a misspelling before the day is through.
#5- It is not true that there exists an underground tape of Rachael involving pancakes and Clint Allen's mustard....I'm holding out for more money.
....and there we have it folks. Twenty-five more facts to float around your brains, slowly devouring more uselful information that you had previously stored.