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Monday, Feb 8 2010 4:15 AM
If you will, let me introduce Cigarettes scalar theory of grossness. An example: This is a regular hamburger from a fast food joint. The odds are simply overwhelming that if you are on the internet you have eaten this kind of food before. It’s not super delicious looking unless you’re hungry. But as long as you don’t think to hard about it then it should go down fine. This is a seven stack burger. Same basic ingredients just a couple more of them. Now there are super meat eating people out there and this still might have some appeal. Maybe you work construction or something and can afford 4000 calories a day? But to most people this is no longer something they want to eat, regardless of whether you think about it very long, and especially if you start to pick it apart and really look at the thing up close. Behold! A 100 stack burger! Again, the same basic constituents. Only by vastly increasing the scale we can now sense the grossness particles with the naked eye. That is to say what was once only a buttery sheen is now clearly a trench full of grease the likes of which could hold off an advancing army. From this experiment we can demonstrate that the gross wave emissions from the ingredients must be acting in a sympathetically harmonic manner which increases the disgustingness of the product in an exponential fashion. At least to a point. I haven’t tested this with all substances but having worked in the catering industry I’ve vetted the idea with nearly every conceivable type of food. Chicken salad for example becomes gross at any level over two pounds, but a standard soup would require that no less than 5 square feet in view, less if it’s sloshing. During certain states even non organic matter can produce this effect. For example there’s just something off putting about seven or eight wet garbage bags. My projection however is that as long as the amounts involved in reaching the grossness jumping off point don’t exceed human comprehension then the theory will hold. -Cigarettes Friday, Feb 5 2010 6:30 PM
Today a man with what we could call an “attitude” deigned to grace me with his presence. I won’t bore you with details but it started with his caustic self entitled attitude and ended a little like this: “I’m sorry sir we don’t take checks.” “You don’t take checks from black people? Why didn’t you say so?” He pulled an American express card out of his wallet (the silver kind that they send pre-approved to your dog if you paid one vet bill on time) and threw it on the counter. The first rule of hurting people is to plan ahead and make sure they can’t get away so I picked it up. “No that’s not it sir, we don’t take checks from ugly men. You see I’d have to check your ID and looking at one of your face enough to make me feel ill I don’t think I could bare to see two of them at once…” the second rule of hurting people is deceptively difficult, HURT them, the way they were hurt by big Willy Tanner the school yard bully. “I don’t…” “EXCUSE ME! I DO!” I shouted, just to be contradictory. “You don’t interrupt me.” I was still holding his precious AMEX, which we also don’t take, “I wasn’t done telling you about your gut and your terrible choice of khaki and black with a white undershirt. But I don’t think I’ve got time because It’s going to take me a while to take in all those acne scars. You’re what 49? Did you go through puberty after your second failed marriage?” He was 40 at a stretch but like I said, where it hurts. He was trying to talk back to me but it wasn’t working, no one could hear him, least of all me. Most people have a mental block that keeps them from lifting cars or shouting in public. I do not, this is what lets me follow the third rule of hurting people, do not give them the opportunity to do anything that would make them feel better about themselves. At this point I flashed his card at him and was walking around the cash register to the front door. “You realize that you have to get other people drunk for you to look good right? It doesn’t help if you drink it all yourself. It’s just a shame that you’ll always be ugly on the inside.” So I was standing by the door at this point holding it open with one hand and he’s coming at me “Oh did you drop something on my counter? Normally people hand these to me. Come here and get it.” Once he was within about three feet I flipped it out the door and in a stroke of luck it sailed through the air and landed well underneath a parked car. That is the last rule of hurting people (that I just made up) make them do something that they don’t want to do. Remember when Willy Tanner made you eat dirt? Yeah something like that. At this point this guy was ON FIRE with rage. Like steam pouring out the ears teeth shatteringly cheesed off. I could tell he wanted to hit me. “You wanna punch me? You got something to back up that smart mouth of yours.” I think the concept of actually going to blows with me snapped him out of it as he hurried out the door, which I was no longer holding open. But just as he was beyond the swing of the door I stepped back out because the real last rule of hurting people is to kick them when they're down (would little Willy Tanner really have been satisfied just making you eat dirt?) “Make sure to tell all your friends not to come here. Oh nobody wants to be friends with you!” he turned to shout some vauge threat about suing me but the door had already begun to shut. -Cigarettes Thursday, Feb 4 2010 2:00 AM
THE BEST DAY EVER By Sideburns So I woke up this morning having drunk myself into a stupor because my mom had said I was adopted and she never really loved me, but I wasn't even hung over! So I said to myself, "Sideburns, you're going to make today the best day ever!" As anyone with half a brain can tell you, anyone who starts their day off with a nice cup of coffee is disgusting and likes drinking dishwater. So I went to the convenience store to buy myself a Coke because Coke is good and has caffeine and sugar already in it and I don't have to put a bunch of crap in it to make it taste halfway decent. Anyway, I walked back outside after I got my Coke and decided to set out for adventure. I decided to head West because only an idiot starts out on an adventure driving with the sun in his eyes. I was so excited to get to adventure that I didn't realize I was going 100 mph and I slightly lost control and hit a guy walking on the shoulder, knocking him about 100 feet and out of sight in a ditch on the side of the road. So of course I slammed on the brakes and came to a stop, but not before a cop had noticed me and pulled up beside me. I was sure he was going to bust me for reckless driving and failure to maintain control and maybe you know like murder or something but instead he just asked "Do you have any idea how fast you were going?" So overcome with relief was I that I forgot where I was for a moment, look the cop dead in the face, put a stupid-ass cheek-to-cheek grin on my face and yelled out "That's what she said!" I was slightly horrified and what I had done but the cop burst out laughing and didn't stop, he just walked back towards his car hunched over with laughter and sped off. Still slightly incredulous at what had happened, I was somewhat slow to remember the man in the ditch, but as soon as I did I ran over to him to make sure he was dead... I mean okay. "Hey man! You dead? I mean you okay?" I said. "Hnnnghgaaaa!" "Oh, good. You're a zombie." But he wasn't just any zombie, he was the zombie of late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. "Hurrrmmmnnng." "What's that, zombie Hunter S. Thompson? You want to thank me for finally ending your drug-induced cursed soulless existence?" "Mrrrrm," he said, handing me a crumpled piece of ancient parchment. "You know of an artifact of great power, and this will show me the way? Thanks zombie Hunter S. Thompson!" "Thppt." ...and then he was gone. So, after checking the map, I continued West, to find the artifact of great power that had been placed in my path. TO BE CONTINUED -Sideburns Tuesday, February 2 2010 1:00 AM
What are your thoughts on gay marriage and adoption? Civil unions for insurance purposes more your style? Full extension (hehe) of human rights to our fellow humans? Me? I’m on the side of full on marriage for homosexuals. But I’ll be upfront, there are two legitimate complaints against it. The first is that there’s going to be a whole lot more people doing this as a tax dodge. I am proud to admit that my disdain for taxes means I will be among the first to get gay married. People already get straight married as a tax dodge but, trust me on this, it is SOOO much harder to convince girls to marry you as a cost cutting measure than a dude. It’s almost like girls have some sort of sentimental attachment to idea of a loving romantic wedding ceremony and cannot bring themselves to get over those ideals. Let’s be honest, fantasies are not only unlikely to ever be fulfilled but also have no cash value and a high opportunity cost. The other problem is a little more trivial but like gay people are going to have to start being more upfront about it because I mean you could just be two girls who like hemp and have a cute niece you’re babysitting. So either like kiss in public every five minutes (with tongue) or don’t get upset when I fail to catch on. But hey it’s me. So you know there’s a catch. I want to be able to say sodomite, or any other word I want without it being called hate speech. Basically what I’m saying is that people should be able to do what they want so long as they can. People gay marrying each other is going to offend some people and me saying certain words is bound to offend other people. But trying to say that one is a human right and calling the other one hate speech is hypocritical. I’m not saying that I’d hang around the gay wedding chapel arms flailing, wearing a sandwich board about hell while screaming about buggery and carpet munching. That wouldn’t express my views accurately and I’ve frankly got many better uses for my time. If those are your views, and that is the best use of your time then I pray all your children are gay and your genes perish from this earth without a trace. The closing thought for the day is that it’s foolish and (without crazy corpse stacking levels of mechanized murder) impossible to change a people’s world view and opinions. It’s hard enough to regulate what people do, much less think and say. So why not just let people say what they want. -Cigarettes 1:05 AM
So yeah. Happy Groundhog Day, everybody. Okay, serious reply time, though. You've fallen into a huge gap here, Cigs. You say you want people to be able to do whatever they want so long as they can. Guess what? You can. There's no law against "hate speech" so far as I know, except as a sentencing consideration. Nobody can lock you up or fine you for saying that word. You're saying you want to say a word without somebody calling you hateful for saying it, and then you're saying you want people to do whatever they want so long as they accept the consequences. Guess what? The consequence of saying "sodomite" is that some people are going to accuse you of hate speech. If you're unwilling to accept the consequences of your own actions, how can you expect others to accept the consequences of theirs? -Sideburns 11:50 PM
What I'm really getting at are things like FCC regulations on words you can and can't say in print, radio or television and statues that purport to divine the intentions of the accused and punish them more if their intentions are "hate" based. These of course are simply society acting out the hypocritical notion that it's your right to offend some communities in both word and deed but not others. If I wanted to hang a picture like this I'm going to quote someone who had an offensive opinion in her day. Rosa Luxemburg once said "Freedom is the opinion of the dissenters." That means that progress for gay people isn't really freedom unless people retain the right to oppose that progress. Society has a strong tendency to brow beat certain minorities for being ignorant and old fashioned. I'm not saying that people aren't being ignorant and counter productive by opposing gay marriage or supporting don't ask don't tell because in my view they are making things worse. I just want to stand up for people peoples rights to be offensive, ignorant, hateful and god forfuckingbid discriminatory. There isn't any legal benefit to regulating the marriage of gay people or the opinions of ignorant people. So why do we attempt to silence one group and not the other? Because people on both sides are being stupid! One side clings to the past and misunderstands scripture. The other side is just being hypocritical. -Cigarettes |
It wasn't the creepy late night phone calls, you saying "Hi" and then breathing really hard until I couldn't take it anymore and hung up. It wasn't the way you stared at me through the bathroom window from behind the fence at the back of my yard. It wasn't the way that every other Thursday morning, without fail, I'd go out to my driveway to get the paper only to find my trash can emptied, the bag slit open, each used Q-tip carefully removed and placed on the ground with its peers to spell out "I LOVE YOU." It wasn't even the cryptic letters you sent, well, they weren't really letters at all, were they? They were hair. Your hair. In an envelope. And you asked for mine in return. But you didn't leave a return address, stalker, so I couldn't very well send it to you. No, it was when you finally worked up the courage to come up to me in the parking lot, you didn't even have the social grace to pull your hand out of your pants. Devotion is a virtue, but rudeness I cannot abide. |
(C) 2010 Sideburns and Cigarettes
You know what’s gross? Anything if you have enough of it.
I felt like the last article might have been a little heavy, so I thought I'd lighten the mood with a bit of trashy literature. So, dear readers, I present to you: