areyoulistening

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Look familiar? That right there is last thing you will recall before you slip into a life questioning coma. It is from a Nyquil ad in this month’s Rolling Stone. I have spoken about the intense mystical powers that Nyquil has in the past but this ad really caught my eye. First of all, below this picture (I’ll get to the terrifying images that appear to be on the bottom of that little cap in a minute) in the ad appear the lines: “Sweet dreams. Sweeter tomorrow. Even with a cold.” I call bullshit on that right now. There have been many a night I attempted to chase the neon green dragon in hopes of getting some sleep while I couldn’t breath or had a fever; whatever cold symptom that was bringing me down and had no relief. Some nights I would wake up a bunch of times all night long in between mind bending altercations with giant candy corns or human being sized staplers. Other times it was the whispers of the dead that refuse to let me rest.

Take a second and look at the actual picture again. What the fuck are those two little faces supposed to be? I’ll tell you what they are: those are the two bastards that will be chasing you down in your sleep attempting to devour your soul. Go ahead. Take a stab at it and explain to me what that is supposed to be.  The best explanation will be entered into a drawing to win a case of Moxie cola…the cola with moxie.

Below the tagline is this little selling point: “That way you can enjoy a good night’s sleep, and wake up tomorrow ready for your vacation, staycation or whatever the day brings.” You better hope your broke ass is on “staycation” because your motorskills are going to be shot. As far as using Nyquil to get to sleep before you go on vacation, I have attempted this many times. Be careful; you could take some Nyquil the night before and by the time you wake up the next day, you’re on a boat in the middle of the Pirates of Caribbean or “Letting it Ride” with 2,6,Queen.

 If I were to open a greek diner in Queens, I would name it Apopalypse Now.  

I think the devil may be deaf because I have attempted to sell my soul a few times and he just refuses to show up.

I don’t mind being nice to the elderly but I do mind when they expect the world to be handed to them on a platter. Will I give you my seat on the bus? Yes, but don’t make old people faces at me beacuse I didn’t get up quick enough because I’m reading something because I have a job and can still contribute to society.

The other day I went into the bathrooms at Grand Central to pee before I got on the train. I went to go into the handicap stall because as everyone knows people love to go to the bathroom there so it was a mob scene in there.  I pushed open the door and there was a man sitting on the toilet doing the doo. He looked at me and I at him; he made a weird face and said, “I’m in here!”

I said “Lock the door.”

To which he replied, “I’m handicapped!”

I shot back, “So you can’t lock doors?”

He didn’t respond because he got burnt.

Moral of this blog: I’m onto you Nyquil, watch out greek diner owners with hilarious names, listen up “the devil” and the elderly and handicapped have to step it up.

The Starbuck’s Cafe at the Barnes and Noble in White Plains is set up like every other Starbuck’s you’ve seen in a Barnes and Noble. There are a few tables and chairs strewn about that suggest “Hey, dudes. Listen broseph, pump some Fall Out on your tricked out iPod, grab a Venti, double shot, soy vanilla machachinto and fucking get some of that Pysch. homework done.” There are also some more comfortable style chairs up against the backwall by the coffee bar that seem to whisper “Go ahead, close your eyes, take a little nap.” At least that is what I thought they were saying. Apparently they suggested to the old guy sitting next to me to go get the latest issue of Penthouse Forum at 1:45 on a Thursday afternoon and find out what is sexy. There really isn’t anything you can say to a man that thinks something like that is kosher.

Sneaker shopping with your parents when you’re a kid was really just awful. Most of the time you end of getting some weird pair of sneakers that kind of resemble what the other kids are wearing and not what you really wanted. It was a toasty 114 degrees in whatever store you ended up at on Central Ave. She always made you try them on; than your head gets hot and itchy and you end tearing off your winter jacket in a fit of rage. I did get those Jordan’s that had the 23 on the side one year for Christmas and I didn’t have to try them on or or sit through a car ride listening to Hall and Oates on PLJ. You know something, that was the greatest gift of all.

There is a Korova Milk Bar in White Plains now. I went to the one on Ave A a few times and it was always something at that place. One time we went and a crew of lesbians rolled into the bar and took took over the joint. They were in the Men’s room making out and doing what lesbians do to each other’s lady parts. At one point, they were hanging from the God damn ceiling and foaming at the mouth. I went to use the men’s room, you know to pee like your supposed to do and they pushed me out of the bathroom. They wouldn’t allow a man to pee in the men’s because they wanted to live out some cracked out fantasy that invloved making out while smelling urine and sweat. I think Pete Master went in and used it anyway…which reminds me, those same lesbians were outside the bar later playing catch with a football (fact: lesbian always have a football with them when they travel in a group) and one of them threw a perfect spiral right at Pete’s chest and he dropped it. He has yet to recover mentally.

Last night at Blue Moon in Bronxville, Darren ate a burrito the size of a skateboard…well half of it anyway.

At this point with the way things are in the world, so many uncertainties, so much social unrest and economical instability, I think it would be best if the creator of the Garfield comic strip killed off Garfield.

It felt like Christmas today in New York…hold on a second. Don’t start throwing chairs at me and shit because I mentioned Christmas before Thanksgiving even gets here. You are not funny or observant in anyway if you say things like, “As soon as Halloween is over, they roll out the Christmas stuff!” Just shut the fuck up, okay? You are not breaking new ground here. Dave Barry, who is just awful in everyway has already addressed this matter. He also made sure to talk about how traffic sucks, lollipops can be sticky and how teens think they know it all (check out his website http://www.davebarry.com/)

Back to the way New York felt like Christmas today, it was cold out and it was nice to know Christmas was coming. There were guys in overcoats doing the “cold New Yorker” thing that office types love to do, women had shopping bags and homeless people lied on the ground with an extra bit of ”I wish I were dead” look in there flithy, bloodshot eyes. It kind of made me wonder where the ducks go when the Central Park lake freezes over but that is just too gay…even for me. Or is it?

I watched the Royal Tenenbaums in one of my classes today and everyone seemed to like it quite a bit. However, you know the part where Richie is shaving his face after he has cut off all his hair and he whispers “I’m going to kill myself today”? It is a very dark scene and I guess the class had been used to laughing at some of the other scenes that made them uncomfortable so they laughed. The laughter came to a hault once the blood started to pour all over the place. We watched the movie because we read three stories from JD Salinger’s ‘Nine Stories’ and because it’s fun to watch movies in a classroom, isn’t it? Anyhow, the movie borrows a lot from different Salinger stories. In fact, one of the characters from ‘Down at the Dinghy’ last name is Tenenbaum. She is actually Seymour Glass’ sister who is in ’A Perfect Day for Bananafish.’ This is all great to read I’m sure but there is going to be a slew of students coming out area community colleges that will be forced to read Salinger because of me. So…go screw.

Anyone else willing to step on a puppy’s neck to never see that “Saved by zero” commerical?

Also, optimum online triple play? Take it down a notch. It’s like a Puerto Rican Sesame Street or something…not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Haley Joel Osment looks like his head got bigger but his eyes, nose and mouth stayed the same size.

I was never really hit as a kid. Once in awhile my mother would tell me to “Come here so I can pull your hair.” However, nowadays some kids need to shut the fuck up.

It’ll be years before they figure out another place to stick things in pornos.

Just thinking about how there are giant bugs in jungles and shit creeps me the f out. We got regular sized bugs over here and they can mean business but to have a God damn creepy crawly the size of a pizza pie walking around? I can’t go for that. Noooo. No can do.

I had to go up to the Westchester campus to fill out paper work for next semester and walked past a science lab. What di I see?15 cats on a lab table split in half like so many coconuts on a sandy beach. That’s right; Butterscotch and Professor Whiskers were cut open and being worked on like that weird older kid in your neighborhood used to do on old VWs. However, there is a happy ending to all of this. I walked past a pet shop and saw two little kittens sleeping on a little cushion together. So I felt better about things. It taught me a lesson about life:  even though we will all end up on a lab table split in half, we will get to snuggle up at some point.

The band “The Offspring” are offensive to all five senses.

I wish Frank Caleindo would do an imitation of the invisble man…being really, really, really, quiet.

What exactly is going on in the show Lost?

Give a child a camera and they will return with a wide variety of awful, awful pictures to show you.

Buses stop way too often in Manhattan. Every two blocks is absurd. Why do they stop so often you may ask yourself? Former Mayor Koch. In fact, you can blame Koch for upwards of 75% of New York City’s annoyances.

White chocolate tastes funny.

I just realized that it is almost that time of year when Home Alone and Home Alone 2 will be on maaaaaaaad times!

Richie Valens was a lot chubbier than Lou Diamond Phillips was when he played him. I fear I like Lou Diamond Philps more than Richie Valens,

One thing I learned by moving out is I love to chop vegatables…I do miss the cats though so it’s a trade off.

I am going to see the Misfits tonight at B.B King’s in Times Square. For the most part, I haven’t done that much as an adult on Halloween. I’ve either gone to bars downtown and made snide comments with my friends at people dressed in costumes or gone to parties at people’s house that usually aren’t all that fun. Tonight feels like it will be the first Halloween thing I’ve done in a very long time.

I had to convince Elaine to come with us because she “only likes their old stuff.” But that was my fault because I forgot she saw them a few times with Danzig when she was an infant. I have always been a little scared of the dark side of punk and metal. All that make-up and feeling of impending doom always made me feel uneasy. When I want make-up mixed in with some impending doom, I’ll go visit my Aunt Gloria! Ya know what I mean!?!?! Sure ya do, look at ya smiling there reading this on your computer or your jazzed up phone…hey, thanks for reading, by the way! Let’s get back on track on here.

I can recall looking in the music section of the Caldor on Central Ave at a very young age and being very scared by the cover of KISS albums or even the name Grateful Dead. I also really hated the inside art of the Appetite for Destruction album. That one scene where that poor woman has her panties down and looks she had been raped by that robot or something. Am I making this up? I’m pretty sure that was what is looked like. Here it is:

See? I mean, I was like 7 years old. The most I was willing to deal with was Michael Jackson as a zombie (even though at the end of the Thriller video he smiles at the camera and had cat eyes…I’m not sure what we were supposed to make of that.)

Part of me was always kind of disappointed to find out that KISS didn’t sing about zombies or hanuted houses. I mean they sing Rock and Roll All Night Long for God’s sake. They’re nothing more than Eddie Money with some shit on their faces. But the Misfits, they are scary. I am a little scared of them. I am going to be nervous when the fucking lights go down knowing those creepin’ Jesus motherfuckers are going to take the stage. And you know the crowd in that place is going to look a bunch of extras from a Tim Burton movie.

I’ll see how it goes. If you don’t hear from me again, it is because I was eaten by a zombie from outer space or by B.B King.

When I get a cold, I get usually get a lowdown, no good, yellowbellied kind of cold. I cough and hack up meatball sized chunks of phelgm that look like chicken fat, I can’t breathe and get caught picking me nose on the subway by strangers and I sweat. I should take it easy when I get like this but I never do. Case in point: last night.

I met Tracey, Dave and Bri at the Four-Faced Liar (the dumbest name for a bar I’ve heard in awhile) on 4th Street. We watched the fucking Red Sox come back and pull that shit they’re been pulling since 2004. We sat at the bar and had some beers. Nothing crazy but when you’re sick it only takes a little nibble of the creature to bring you down. So I woke up today with what they call ”the double dip.” I had the sinus headache from the snot that seems to be caught behind my very eyeballs and a pretty nice hangover headache to boot. That right there is “the double dip.” You get 2 for the price 1 and you buy one and you get one. 

I can’t take Nyquil really anymore because I can’t stop moving my legs whenever I take it. I lie in bed stuck in between a state of drug induced sleep and being 100% awake while my legs move to and fro. It is enough to drive you to drink….but then you’d wake up with”the double dip” and we’d be back at square one. So what do you do? I take 47 vitamins a day, I drink that Vita C shit, I eat 16 oranges for lunch and  I act like Green Tea is an elixir straight from God’s pharmacy in the sky.

I also get very irratible when I have a cold. I have trouble dealing with people who refuse to admit I’m right about something. In fact, if you ever want your ass kicked, call me when you know I’m sick and disagree with me. I’ll reach through the phone and scissor kick your neck. Fuck it, text me now, you fat idiot!

I didn’t think I’d like Facebook. I haven’t been on Myspace for awhile and I just kind of assumed Facebook was just like Myspace. Boy was I wrong! If you asked me a few weeks ago if I would care about a social network that allowed me to find out that a girl I went to grade school with is apple picking with her three kids or someone that I went to College with is upset about the economy, I’d smack your mouth. But I fucking love it!

People posting pictures of their friends babies or sending little treats to friends, you know? It all adds up to a good time. Not only do you get to see what other people are doing, they also allow you to view what people are saying on your friends pages! It’s like talking to people you don’t really talk to without all the awkward pauses!

It also reminds me of how you can be walking down the street and overhear someone say something like, “Look, there are reasons they sell KY Jelly…”and because it is socially unaccepted to stop and listen you’ll never the rest of that story. Facebook allows you to get all the facts. It should be called Factbook. Actually, I’ll start a social network called Factbook. Don’t steal it, dickheads.

There was a story in the Daily News a week or so ago about another classical musician leaving his or her (alot of these classical types have wacky names and you just never know) instrument behind in a cab. I feel like this happens way too often. Hey Mozart, get your head out of the clouds and cut the shit. These cab drivers always return the instrument because they don’t fucking know. What are they going to do, see if any of the fellas back at shop are in the market for a Giovellia? No, there is just no way to sell one of those things on the street. So the story always goes that the driver hangs on to the instrument until Wagner, Jr. gets someone to dial a phone for them and have a conversation with another human being without breaking out into hives. He or she gets the instrument back and the world keeps on spinning. Next time sI say the cab driver get to smash the instrument in the street. Teach these bastards the world does not stop and start at their convenience.

I can now say I’ve been to an Ikea. Ikea is kind of like if Stew Leonard’s had sex with Walt Disney World and the furniture section of Sears…with a handjob from a Sbarro. Something happens to people when they cross through the glass sliding doors of an Ikea. Something profound. They become little interior decorating monsters.

Seemingly normal people will pick up something like a miniature photo organizer for their  bathroom and decide, “I need this. We have to buy this. Oh look, they’re 3 for $20. Get six of them.” I found that I am not above this disorder. I did very similar things and once I got home I kind of wondrered, “What exactly just happend?”

I haven’t tried to put together the desk or the bookcases just yet but if that goes well, I will hurry back to Ikea for more inexpensive furniture and that weird shot of adrenaline you get from walking through the huge store. If those damn Swedes, or whatever Nordic region these people are from, make it hard for me to put these things together I could be yodeling a whole different tune. However, for now I’m as a happy as the little guy climbing the mountain on The Price Is Right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Hangers

Last night I drove down to the Walgreen’s near where I live in Yonkers to drop off some clothes in the bins for the homeless and lazy people of the world. I dumped my garbage bag filled with tee shirts that have run their course and socks that lost their partners long ago. As I was getting back into the car, I noticed there were a few empty soda cans and Starbuck’s coffee cups that needed to be thrown out. I gathered them up and walked over to the large garbage bin next to the clothing bins.

I walked to the back of the garbage bin and threw the cans in first. I dropped one of the coffee cups and when I stood back up to toss them in the bin I was face to face with a raccoon the size of a New York City taxi cab. He lunged at me and I fell completely over. I went into a tuck and roll type thingy and popped back up a few feet away from the bin. I stood there in some sort of a karate/”don’t shoot me that water gun” kind of stance.

I laughed at first and was thankful I was in a dark parking lot where no one could see me. I walked into the store to look at my hands and noticed I had to big cuts on my right hand with blood pouring out of them. I felt like a real dickhead so I walked right back out. The cou’de gra of this whole scenario is that I fell on my phone, I guess I did anyway because I woke up today and my leg felt like someone buried a steak knife in it.

The lesson here is do not donate clothes.