J&C IV: Semi - Cougar Sodomy

Crowe saw Stephen. He was positive, but the little freak was so far away, by the time Crowe was able to negotiate the fifty-odd yards of staggering, Jeff's creepy kid’d had time to run away three times over. Now Crowe was seeing little Stephens everywhere, zipping and dodging, profaning him as they streaked past:

(Whoooosh…)

Fucker!

(Zooooom…)

Stupid dick!

(Foooom…)

Asshole!

(Shoooooaummmm)

Dummy! Crowe yoo Fuckin’ dummy!

Crowe gave what chase he could, but what he could wasn't shit. He eventually found himself standing in the middle of what he saw as an interminable lake of hot crimson and bright yellow, but what was -  in fact - a vast, day-glo expanse of rubberized concrete. Splotches of colored water were shooting and dancing all around him, making tiny little gasps before each launch. Before long he'd moved into a cross-fire, the water blasts all zeroed and engaged on his person. Soon the rythmic shots of water, and toxic Trout Lodge atmosphere was just way too much. Crowe felt himself dissolving. He looked down at his feet, and found two different colors of Croc disappearing at once. His knees gave way, then his bathing suit, his belly button, his back, neck, and - finally - his poor, acid-compromised head: all of it washed out in theomnipotent water until there was nothing left to wash. That’s when he remembered – once again – that he’d still not jumped into the water with the giant bag of coke in his pocket. He looked, saw a sign, and ran.

***

Guy has a window where guests shit. It's framed like a picture. He runs outside to jag in the woods and watch. Sporks usually, if not really big spoons. Shamrocks before cottage fries, any day any day.Spam. You know what they say. Hey well you never know. I wonder what the fuckthat means: a “stich” in time. My my my.

Crowe was nearly driven mad on the short walk to the bathroom, by an orchestra of simultaneous, vacation - flavored jibber jabber. Inside the john - however - was a different story. It was quiet, darker than the main room of Trout Lodge. There was about an inch of liquid on the floor, and the inside of the bathroom smelled more pissy and more chlorinated than the outside, but the silence. The quiet. Crowe saw four legs under almost every stall-door: two little ones, hanging in air attached by rumpled bathing suits, and two with hairy ankles, and flip flops. Encouraging, softly spoken sounds filled the air, along with the unmistakable crack of smelly farts from tiny asses:

Good goin champ. Great job. More? Poop more? Ok! Great! Nicepoopy buddy! Your brother pooped, now you poop. Oh yeah baby. Right there. Oh Fuck.FUCK FAHHHHHHHuuuuughhhhk….

Crowe cased the entire room and no fucking Stephen. Now, as he felt the paranoia and confusion  come raging up - yet again - from within his evil parts, Crowe began to growl like an angry mutt. Soft at first, a barley audible humming between his grinding teeth, but dark, aggravated, and violent within moments.

Rrrrrr. RRrrrr. AArrrrrr. RarrrRarrr…

More than one child began to cry, and words of encouragement turned sour. Somewhere Crowe left as soon as he could focus on the door. He made it out, and sat at the first free space he could find: a lifeguard chair manned by Excusemesir.

Crowe saw the guy, but did not recognize him. He was too busy being thankful, and appreciative of his new-found resting place. The tripping was easing off, turning away from the disengagement and anger of the first two hours, toward the self-confident wanderlust of the next six. Before long he felt the anxiety and craziness of the Trout lodge falling away, as he was borne aloft. He looked up, at an entire regiment of babies, naked and smiling, tethered to his lifeguard chair with velvet string. The babies were farting mellifluous farts, propelling them towards space and beyond in fantastic, fart-powered efficiency. The gas was blasting and flowing around him, it smelled like victory. Victory and really, really high quality weed. Crowe was inhaling to beat the band when everything backed up on him. The farts, the weed, the altitude, farting flying babies…Something was off, and now he began to cough. Big, loud, round-sounding hacks and evil, sharp little barks began flooding from his head. The flying fart babies were crying, and scared. Crowe looked down, and was terrified. He could see the earth far below him likea tiny light-blue pea in a field of black. His mother’s voice bellowed about him and when she spoke, fire filled everything up. Crowe was terrified. He was burning, coughing and falling. His mother was yelling:

You fuckin’ bum Crowe I told you not in the house not in the house but do you listen no you don’t listen you never listen you’re lazy and retarded Crowe you dumb fuck lazy fuck dumb lazy fuuck fuck fuck fuck…Sir? Sir? Sir? Youcan’t smoke that sir? You can’t smoke that in here sir? You can’t smoke that sir? Is he allright? Sir? Excusemesir?

Crowe awoke. He was holding a gigantic joint, which he immediately recognized having rolled just before they got out of the car. He was holding it in one hand, and he was thinking about babies. Jeff was shaking him, but he’s stopped now, and was beaming into Crowe with a big shitty grin, and glassy, .12 gauge pupils. His voice was both a scream AND a whisper:

Dude, I just fucked that old lady in the bathroom!!! In the Ass!!!

***

J&C III: Dixie Cup

***

J: Holy balls that was funny. I feel lightheaded.

C:That's the acid talking dude. Touch your hand to you nose and it will get better.

J: Ok.

C: Not like that. That's not the way.

J: Ok

C: Better...

J:Ok

C: Ya...no wait, no. Fuck no. Did you ever find Stephen?

J: Ok. Who?

C: That's it!

J: This is two fuckin’ hands...

C: Yes. Your son, Steven? Remember burnout? He's here with us? He's five? Seen that?

J: I have to walk around with both hands on my nose? Fuck!

C: Yeah. Nope. Hey give me the cocaine.

J: You HAVE it dickfuck. Give me the fucking acid!!

C: Ha! I fooled you fuckerface! You've been drinking it for the last three hours!! I fucking RAINED on your snapple when you weren't lookin...Put like a tablespoon into that fucking thing at least. Hope you didn't have plans for the weekend.

J: My Snapple?

C: Yep. Heh. Funny. No? Fucked up! Whooo?

J: Mmm hmmm. Funny. Where was "my snapple" again?

E: Excusemesir?!!! SIR?!

***

Jeff left Crowe with “Excusmesir” and crept back to the entrance. Crowe had gestured in this direction when queried about the Snapple. Jeff had a vague memory of putting his son's lifejacket on somewhere, but that was just after three hours of constant driving and cocaine inssuflation. There were no memories. Even so, he didn't have to look long for the lost beverage.

It was on a table, next to the similar-looking Snapples of a very large group of two adults, and hundreds of small children. Jeff recognized his Snapple immediately, mostly because Crowe had written “LSD HOMO” on the label with a Sharpie. Jeff could read the big block letters from ten feet away. The small girl who he watched pick up the bottle, however, didn't look old enough to read. The child opened the snapple, and before anyone could object, bolted down an enourmous gullet-full. Another child came running up, also pre-literate, yelling:

Mine…Mine…Mine…MYYYYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyne. Mine…Mine...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jeff remained stationary, dumfounded at the kid-chaos. He watched the second child grab the first’s Snapple mid-swig, spilling the acid-o-fied iced tea all over herself and the first child. A grown - up, 50-ish looking woman in a beige sarong came rushing in. She separated the children, threw out some stupid-sounding kid conflict platitudes, and then snatched up the tea. After this, she wheeled, and dumped the remaining half-Snapple in a pitcher - already in use for other, non-narcotic tea - at the group's plastic table.

Jeff watched, stunned into immobility, as the sarong-lady poured out ten tiny dixie cups of iced tea. A small Asian kid grabbed a cup and began sipping. Just then a pair of red-head twins of questionable gender grabbed a cup in each hand and started tossing them back. A fat kid wearing cords buried a cup in one go. A tiny baby girl crawled to the tables edge, helped herself up with a chair, and started clutching at the remaining Cups. She was able to score only one cup, before Jeff finally broke his stasis. He hopped over, grabbed the three cups, and drank one of them before the sarong lady peeped him and started getting up again. He rushed her, handed her one of the last two acid-cups and “clicked” his against hers in impromptu toast.

To us?

The woman took the cup, smiled back, blasted the tea down in one shot as Jeff did the same.

To us! Someone crying?

***

J&C #2: Big Cock Jesus

JM: He's what?

C: Whore. He sells himself sexually for money.

JM: No

C: No? Yes.

JM: ??

C: Yeah. Truth. How'd this get by you ? he's tellin' everybody for a while there...

JM: I dunno. That's...He always seemed so quiet.

C: Nope. All comers too, what I hear. Guy’s got power from both sides of the dish.

JM: What? What?

C: I know that parts true, cause Paquin and Latife's big sister rented him for her bachelorette. One man show. Spendy. Big cock.

JM: Jesus.

JM and C: Big cock Jesus. [Gales of hoffific, medically threatening laughter]

***

Luckily, the Excusemesir arrived just in the nick of time. Crowe and Jeff had been laughing, red faced, tear stained, choking guffaws and helpless, amazed, head shaking when the poor little guy moved in.

Excusemesir. Kept repeating the same fucking thing, was his first mistake. Crowe and JM kept laughing harder each time around. The guy was hilarious at first, then sort of creepy and emotionally manipulating, then just sad, and then eventually somehow ten times more funny than when he'd first showed up.

At one point Jeff thought his friend Crowe might finally be having a heart attack, then – scant seconds later - he became convinced he himself was having one. He suddenly felt it crucial, that he explain all this to JM, but then THAT train of thought suddenly seemed uproarious in ways that Crowe had never conceived before. This helped both JM and Crowe to discover yet another gear of stupid, paralysis-inducing laughter: eyes open, mouth in silent spasm, a single tear rolling slowly down each cheek. This presentation, or course, sparked a whole new tempest of guffaws, and on and on they went.

The guy – a Trout Lodge “security” person in a fluorescent t-shirt that read: “It's always TROUT SEASON!”, either wasn’t getting it, or just wasn’t nearly as addled as his problem-guests. He stood, stonefaced, and watched the two old men laugh. The vicious circle of mirth went on for what seemed to Crowe like weeks.

Sir, excuse me sir? Excuse me sir? Excusemesir? Excusemesir? Sir? Excuse me? Sir, excuse me sir? Excuse me sir? Excusemesir? Excusemesir? Sir? Excuse me? Sir, excuse me sir? Excuse me sir? Excusemesir? Excusemesir? Sir? Excuse me? Sir?

***

J&C # 1: Hallucinations and butt sex at Pee Park.

J: Don’t fuckin’ jump in the water with the coke in your pocket idiot. I know you’re going to, but don’t. Ok Crowe? Just fuckin’ don’t. OK? Fucker? And ditch that fucking Sharpie!



C: So it's a whole new filtration. Chemical free. It's an enzyme. A fucking enzyme! It immediately neutralizes anything with any toxicity at all. Including urine. No piss in this piece. Dude where's your kid?



J: I dunno. Whatever. It's not like he's outside. He can only go so far…



C: He can go outside. Trout Lodge is only the world’s biggest indoor waterpark in the winter months. Look. See? No wall.



J: Well whatever, he's fucking four. I can't molly-cuddle him for his whole life. He'll go fag. Seriously dude? No pee?



C: The fag ship's sailed dude. And no, there's no pee filtration. You can smell the piss under the burning chlorine. Did you just say Mollycuddle?



J: Yeah. Wait…Why?



C: That’s the Autocorrect version of Molly-CODDLE you penis! Just never mind. Gimme that thing...



J: You fucking have it. Gimme that other thing…



C: I don't have it. What about that other other thing?


D: I don't fu...oh yeah. I got it. Here.


***


4/20/2012. Jeff and Crowe, taking their time at Trout Lodge, the world’s biggest, east-coast, indoor waterpark, for six months of every year. The trip is dual-purpose, serving Jeff’s kid Stephen as the centerpiece of spring VK from kindergarten, and giving Jeff and his degenerate friend Crowe a place to do drugs.



The LSD was clean and stout, and launching it's inexorable strike up the spine. Crowe, was having trouble, seeing sounds. Jeff had remained dead silent most of the three hour drive from CT. The both of them, bobbing and weaving around the area like blind men, cut an amusing figure. Their body language told a long story of confusion and uncertainty, like two men walking, side by side, on a very high wire.



Crowe kept thinking about, and then forgetting, about the blow. He wanted it. He thought JM had it. He was mistaken. He felt like talking it out, but by the time he remembered, and actually mustered the mental acuity use his words properly, the moment - he felt - was no longer right. That's when "big cock Jesus " happened.



(part 2 at lunch)

King Harvest

"Corn in the fields, listen to the rice as the wind blows cross the water. King harvest has surely come. "


We aren't in the business of dead entertainer - praise. The fuckers stack like cordwood, and you run out of shit to say. But Levon Helm ain't dead as I write this, so let's call this a thank you note. That's appropriate too, cause if anybody deserves a thank you note from us, it's Levon Helm.

Our history makes our reality, and our history says Band's collaboration with Bob Dylan, from it's early years up until the time it was unofficially over, was the last new beginning for rock and roll. New lightning gifting new fire. Before it, things were one way, and after it, they were another way, and never quite the old way again.

Are there other ways to see this? Probably, but not credibly. Not for anybody born after 1945. '45 puts you age 20 when all this starts to move. Twenty would have been about perfect. Old enough to enjoy the front row seat for a very specific history.

The events!!

Dylan played electric music at Newport 1965, and by that time he'd made his intentions known: His folk thing was to become a rock thing. all these important words, he felt, might carry greater import spinning to a danceable backbeat. The Hawks - long sidemen to the great Ronnie Hawkins, and razor sharp from years and miles in the dirty rock joints of the great white north - were to become his band. The Band. They'd accrued a lifetime's worth of stories and gigs, ushering rock through an awkward, unpopular adolescence. They'd worn matching suits and string ties, playing the face of a nascent counter culture. Now, suits ditched, they'd be telling those stories to new worlds, on giant stages, with the brightest light of all leading them through nightly paces.

They lived, worked, wrote together. They reeled off a slew of records made of a high, fine music, one that would seal, for all time, the idea of rock transcending a sound, becoming a way to experience consciousness. The big questions, with all attendant cosmic implication, pressed into the shape of tits and ass moving in time.

The Band was composed of historically awesome players at all positions. I'm a drummer, so to me, Levon - singing leads while knocking out those beats - was pretty much the center of the storm. The singing seemed tuneful and effective, but the beats - all metronomic tone and soul with snare sounds like burning kindling pops - were some classy fucking beats.

"Rock of Ages" - the Band's essential live piece from NYE shows in 1971 - will always be the touchstone. If a surprise, and way looooong Dylan guest-sit just after midnight on New Year's is NOT the highlight of the show, than what the fuck happened at that goddamn show?! Grab it, hear it. Tonight. It's really, really awesome.

Thanks Levon Helm, for carrying the hottest fire the longest miles. We hope you do not die tonight, but if you do, we would not expect what comes after to be in any way unpleasant. At least, not for you.

Thanks, Levon Helm, for everything you've been so far.

DSL
April 2012

Shooting the Shit: Nate Bargatze

Nate Bargatze is a funny fucking guy. He's also the 46th person from Tennesee that we've met. What does this mean. Well, the "funny" part is - I think - self explanitory. The TN part? Fucked if I know. We don't know 46 people from Rhode Island and we're FROM there. People from TN are ambitious motherfuckers, and the Tennessee Diaspora rolls deep in the population centers. It's a shitty, simplistic theory but how many times a year do we get to use the word "diaspora"? Not many people, not fucking many.

Anywho, here's our little tete-a-tete with Nate. We will let you know about his comings and goings if the UFO's don't blow up the planet before he comes and goes.

***

DSL: Who was the first comic you ever laughed at?
Nate Bargatze: Sinbad. Or technically my father who is a magician and was a clown when I was growing up. He is very funny and always has been.

DSL: Who's the funniest comedian working?
NB: Bill Burr

DSL: What makes comedy important?
NB: To make people laugh. To say what everyone thinks but can't say. Comedy is a relief. It should be at least.

DSL: What does [stand-up comedy] do for the audience?
NB: Hopefully [it helps them] not think about the stresses they have

DSL: Is comedy art or craft?
NB: It's a craft in the fact that you do have to learn things. I don't call it art because that makes it sound gay and the most important thing ever.

DSL: Funniest movie ever?
NB: Pure Luck

DSL: what do you want?
NB: I don't know. Stuff.

DSL:Who's the funniest NEW comic?
NB:Mike Recine, Joe Machi

DSL:What bands are you into?
NB: Taylor Swift

DSL:Talk about Louis CK, cosby, prior, seinfeld...Dave chapelle, Chris rock.
NB: They are all the best. Seinfeld was my favorite comic. I have watched everything he has done.

DSL:What's the best joke you ever heard?
NB: It changes. Right now I am doing one but I will hate it soon enough. My first big joke was probably a joke I do about Wal-Mart.

DSL: How often do you write / update act.
NB:I try to think of stuff as much as possible. I'll go weeks with nothing new and then a week with 5 new jokes. I get up a lot in NYC so tend to write on stage. I'll write the bullet point in my note cards and run it through my head during the day. I got a few guys I call and run it by then if I am not sure of it.

DSL: Profanity: impotent?
NB:Why? I don't understand this question really. I think you are asking if profanity has power? If not, sorry. I think it does if you use it correctly. If you put curses sprinkled through your act they could be very powerful and if you curse every other word then they will not [be]

Nate will be touring and telling jokes for the forseable future. Check him out at www.natebargatze.com, and search "Nate Bargatze stand-up" on youtube. Also, check out the DSL FB page, we'll have Nate links up there all week. Now excuse us, we gotta go google "Pure Luck".

Monday Story #7: The Runner

Danes looked up discreetly, though he figured he’d be all right moving in the opaque darkness back there. His assailant was now either long gone, or at a severe disadvantage. He was less than 20 feet from the shattered glass slider on the deck, but the detective was clothed entirely in black: a black windbreaker, black jeans, black shirt. He’d be invisible standing still, and close enough moving. LD heard a commotion immediately following the shot, and now flashlight beams were playing over his head, weaving faint, restless patterns on the overgrown Summer brush. Danes watched as they advanced through the dark, moving quickly on the same dark yards he’d tracked through a few minutes earlier. At about 50 feet out the lights disappeared. The uniforms were cagey, thought Danes, and had remembered their Academy training with regards to flash-lighting through darkness towards an armed position. Seconds later, an agitated stage-whisper in Danes ear:

That’s you down there boss? Who shot?

Danes whispered:

Porch. be quiet.

Then the sound of a starter-motor, turning, and catching, from what sounded like the opposite side of the house. Danes and Dinnicola were up and sprinting toward the street-lit front yard with no further discussion. Danes – in the lead by a nose - was drawing his weapon, raking the slide as they went.

They hit the corner, veering right, driving on a running car now directly in front of them and the car was parked, lights off. Dent heard other footsteps coming up behind, the rest of anybody left over at the scene. Now in the tiny light of the lawn-lantern, more uni’s were advancing. There were five, including Dinnicola and himself. They cordoned off a circle around the car, Danes could see it was a four door Honda Civic, couldn’t make out the color, the front yards on Fairmount seemed only slightly better illuminated than the back. They closed slowly, each man drawing a two-handed bead on the car. There was silence around the car and misty fog on the windows as they moved in.

***

Minutes later Danes lead a quick tour of the crime scene for the shift-change just arriving. He found Dinnicola outside, getting ready to make a break for it:

This is weird. Tonight, I mean.

They’d sent the other uniforms back to the house the car had sped away from. Now both residence were secured. Dinnicolla, lying on his back outside the still-running meat-wagon, unburdened himself:

The bodies. No bodies in years, now we got three bodies. The shots. Now the fuckin empty car. It’s 12 midnight. What the fuck next?

Jeez, I hope nothing. Tired.

He glanced at his cell, looking for the time, then re-holstered with a disgusted look.

Midnight? Really? Fuck…

Yeah. I’m gonna hit the gym. No chance I’m sleepin.

Right. Gym. Me too.

Dinicolla played at astonishment:

Gym? Really?

No.

You cantankerous fuck.

Tired. I got nothin. I’m leavin’ before anything else happens.

The two of them glanced back at the Burke house, quiet now, bathed in the light of the only functioning streetlamp on all of Fairmount Drive. Danes headed for the rear entrance, and stopped short after a few steps. He’d been facing Officer Dinnicola in conversation, and now LD saw flames behind the rookie and across the street. Gerald Hightower’s house was on fire, as was the house directly across from his, and the house next to that. Danes mind was turning carwheels as he watched angry new flames bursting from homes both sides of the street. Officer Dinnicola chimed in, still on the ground next to the ambo:

Huh. They all left stoves on?

Detective Danes flipped his cell out and started calling first responders back to Fairmount. As he dialed and spoke, he and Officer Diniccola ran, scoping out the house, trying to gain entry, and looking for anybody asleep inside. There was nobody. As Danes heard the sirens ramping up a mile away downtown, he scanned the dark spaces between the burning houses, saw nothing.

He was in the middle of the street when first units arrived and then he was running, checking in with the ranking firemen, hurrying, telling them what he knew. Danes allowed himself at least some small hope the first response had been fast enough, but as he turned to face the rest of Fairmont Drive, the notion of getting lucky died burning: Five houses were burning on one side of the street, and even as his disbelieving eyes looked on, he saw blooms of flame inside windows on the other side as well.

Every single house on Fairmont was on fire.

The detective felt the heat quickly becoming too much on his skin. He looked around for a place to fall back. Somewhere in the back of his mind his instinct for self-preservation was instructing to get clear immediately, but at the last second he saw the runner.

Somebody booking toward the hedgerow separating the back yards of Fairmont from the grounds of Harbour Hill Nursing Home. Danes, for the second time that night, found himself sprinting up the back yards. This time there was no darkness. Everything was burning. It felt to Detective Danes like running through hell.

dogshitart

Thank you Easter Bunny!, 2010
Mixed Media on Canvas
8" x 10"