The Trials of Max Rampage

How Did It Happen to Me?

2010-06-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

I know I'm young. I know I'm young and getting older. The lines around my eyes are increasing and deepening. I can dig it-- I'm looking wizened, like I've done a lot of really great partying. My stomach grows more sensitive, snarling, grinding, and gassing away-- I expected it. My zits have by and large disappeared. As much as I enjoyed looking like I was reaching higher karmic forms with sporadic third eyes and the thrills of popping bloody whiteheads onto the shared mirror in the bathroom, I'm OK with their departure.

But that hair on my back. . This has gone too far.

Really body? Really?

I know it comes with the territory, and by territory I mean Gaza and the West Bank.

Rocks are to tanks what tweezers are to. . .

Why a desert people ever had to develop swarths of hair is beyond me, and conversely how my skin became as white and lustrous a full moon also defies my imagination, because who could believe anyone would ever convert? Jews have a good sense of humor; it's not that good.

And it's not exactly that I have back hair: it's that it;'s shoulder hair, a fine quilty of blond hair that fluffs off my blades like the hair tufting from a babies scalp. So smooth, yet so unattractive. Fucken babies.

Look, I'm no girly man. If the Taliban can wear thick kohl around their eyes, so can I. And if one of the Pet Shop Boys isn't out of the closet, then I can certainly go on loving disco. I am a man's man, but why a monkey man?

I recall the first time I encountered shoulder hair. Mother Dear and I were spending a quality family moment watch 'Keenan and Kel' in the early part of the mid 90s. In the sketch, Kel, a coach modeled after a drill sergeant, screamed at Keenan to lose weight. Mother Dear found particular lulz in the shoulder hair glued on to Keenan's shoulders.

Disco! Eyeliner! Glamour Shots!

Would you laugh now, ma? Would you laugh at your only boy? Your only monkey child?

When I had my mullet, it tickled me so playfully, it blew in the air. I felt like a playful Pekingese running about with my mully kite flying in the wind. Like a majestic chinese dragon.

My shoulder hair does not play. It does not flirt with my neck. Not a caress.

They say the best best about having sex with a sixteen year old in the shower is that she looks like she's twelve. When I come out of the shower, I look like a muskrat. No younger, no older. Just a muskrat.

Soon the hairs will become ingrown, then I'll be popping' em off my shoulders onto our shared mirror. Fuck you roommates! This life is COLD. A man with shoulder hair has no time to wear eyeliner. No time to dance to disco.

Or will I? Will I be like that hairy Iranian in the club? Hirsute and potbellied, my shirt with far too many buttons undone, shaking orientally to euro-house beats? My thick aromas wooing women across the dance floor. Will they tug on my tufts as they hate fuck me, finding I have no money after all? Not a cent? Not a centime of oil wealth? If I'm lucky?

Like a very hair Jake Gylenhaal to me/ Iranians and Armenians look the same to me

No.

All I'll have left is Klingon opera and effete children, horrified by their shaggy sperm donor in a society that praises the svelte, and never men who love disco.

This life is too cruel!

I have examined my friends, given massages to them at the beach, working sun cream into their hard male flesh. As I looked, carefully, only to find that I am alone this life. The indignity!

What fresh humiliations will I have to face in a world that made a handsome man so hairy?

Will I have to pop zits off my ass tomorrow?

How can I face these realities. Will I have to retain a Korean aesthetician who mocks me, calls me a neanderthar as she waxes away? Showing me the clumps of pelage, as she snickers, but inwardly crying wishing she were with men like Asashōryū. Will she shear strands from an otherwise fine specimen, despite the acne scars on my ass, despite the athletes foot, despite the moles that must be photographed and checked for melanoma, despite a Roman nose that looks not quite Roman?

Asashōryū, yokozuna, described as a Sex God by Mother Dear

When we all know I'd be better off getting my ass waxed.

Where The Fuck Do You Get Off?

2010-04-06T10:30:00.001-07:00

I'm a nice guy. Maybe I'm too nice. Certainly I've weirded a few people out. Perhaps made a few people think I had less than pure intentions. Perhaps gone over the top. I understand that coming over cooing, clucking, and doing baby talk weirds some people out, but fuck you, and fuck your dog.

If your dog does not so much as return a bit of my attention, you have made a sorry mistake in raising him. Really. A golden retriever who will not so much as turn his head to me and smile after I follow you two with my eyes for a quarter block grinning, beckoning, calling him over with my eyes, to say hello so I can give his haunches a good, solid petting, is fucked. That's like a retard who isn't interested in public masturbation. It's unnatural. It's ungodly.

I get it if your schnauzer has his head too far up his own fucking ass, so high on grass induced rosy turds to give me the time of day, the satisfaction of running my abnormally large hands against his firm yet curly pelage, to give me the RESPECT I DESERVE, but a golden retriever, no sir–– that animal needs to be taken away from you.

And you act like you don't see me laying eagerly in wait for you and yours. I fucking love a Pekingese. I'll love that bitch to death, and for your dog, the Emperor's own! to treat me like I'm some Chinese rice farming peasant who should be averting his eyes as you and Mindy pass by me on the sidewalk after I have been standing there warbling 'Oooooh, I love him! I love hiiiiim! I looooooooove hiiiiiim!' for thirty seconds and to not even get a sidelong glance my direction, let alone the petting time I deserve, leaves me sorely insulted.

I will not abide.

You wanna go Chinese feudal state on me? you reactionary dog rearing fuck, won't give the commoner the time of day to shake Mindy around, loving on her long floppy ears, playing games with her flat face, fawning over her, I feel like I should go straight up, balls to the wall, Mao Zedong doggy cultural reeducation on your ass. Oh yeah. I'm gonna give a fucker so many Milkbones Biscuits it's gonna be shitting Cheesebone Biscuits until I have operationally conditioned glee at the very sight of my ass. I mean, not my ass, but generally. I mean I don't want your dog looking at my ass. I've had tapeworms. I needn't be reminded of what dogs can do to the old system, but,

And don't you pull your lead away from me when I'm playing with your Cocker Spaniel! No stranger has loved your dog like I have for the last 15 seconds. Not one. None. Not ever. Your dog loves me back. I am the fucking Mike Tyson of getting dogs to love me back. I am. I swear it. We're speaking to each other in Wookie. We are conversing. Hulloooo, we're talking here!

Tonight. . . you. . .

Sure I've done some things to pooches I'm not proud of. Yes, I've tried to kidnap two dogs in my day. Understand, the first one, that was a case of ransom and revenge. The second, that was the coolest fucking dog I'd ever seen! So smart! So smart it wouldn't get in the trunk. Little smug smart ass. And there was that accident that one time with the not swerving or braking, but c'mon, my passengers know: I took my foot of the gas. I also made sure it was dead. And it was old! I could tell. If you don't want your dog getting runned over, don't let her out of the house!

And that time my family's Jack Russell fell off my bunk bed. If it hadn't voluntarily gone up there in the first place, it never would have jumped down like that. You can't blame me. Those are animal instincts!

Is Max Spaghetti funnier than Rampage? Call me Spaghetti!

Despite these less then shining moments, never doubt for one second that I did not have a sincere and deep appreciation for little darlings. I love all the time I spend with them. I love animals so much, I don't even eat them! I won't even own them. That's imperialism. Matter a fact, you leave me alone with 'em, I might even free a few of them. You're trying to tell me your pug doesn't want to wander around Brooklyn? Haven't you seen Milo & Otis? Dogs love to adventure. And freedom is the very heart of adventure. Sure is.

So the next time you think you and your gorgeous white German shepherd, looking so much like Alf, can just waltz right on by me after I've told you to stop, slow down mister, blocking your way on the sidewalk, without so much as letting me shake his hand, smell his breath, and rub him down like some big fat Chinese Buddha, both of you are going to the country for some serious reeducating.

Gow raow.

To Pee Or Not To Pee: That's Not The Only Question

2010-03-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

The old adage says a boy's should be like his father's. With homogeneity questions about difference should be less frequent.

Daddy, why does mine have a little turtle neck and yours doesn't?

Because your mother is a godless bitch who's hung up on her first goy boyfriend, that's why!

No one wants to have that discussion. Rather, I want to have that conversation, but maybe some people don't. Perhaps some should.

In high school one of my friend's didn't know if he'd been cut, saying yes, his tentacle had been chopped off. Another brave friend to stepped forward to inform the questioner that he was indeed circumcised. This was actually common knowledge, as So-and-so was well-endowed and had a proclivity for popping out of his fly while we were hanging out in our knickers.

Which leads to today's topic of conversation.

My father goes over the fence, as a result for more than twenty years, más o ménos, I went over the fence too. I don't recall when he showed me how to urinate standing up without exposing myself to the neighbor, your mother, the school janitor, that dude in the bathroom who wants to talk to you, a peg legged pirate and his puritanical parrot, like some men in airports do, and only in airports, but I'm sure he did, because it's easier for my peace of mind to imagine that my father demonstrated and my mother did not, Dearest Darling Mother that she is.

OK, now spread your legs, You're doing great!

Conjecturedly, this decision may stem from the universal childhood experience of wearing tighty whities, a garment designed for containment, not easy access, and for revealing speed stains. In this confining clothing, going over the fence is easier than unpacking through the fly.

I got a ton of the other kind if you'd rather.

By the time male adolescents have transitioned to boxer's it may be too late to have this conversation with pops.

Boy, I wanna tell you. It's time to pee outta yer fly. And we need to put Yeller down.

Yeller, is he playing with it or shaking? Yeller? Yeller, NOOOOOO!

A certain bipolarity arises though. Cut or uncut? Republican or Democrat? Over the fence or through the gate? Chunky or smooth?

If you eat chunky, you're an idiot. It's called peanut BUTTER. You wanna eat chunky milk butter? NO! It'll kill you! It'll kill you anyway! You're lactose intolerant! Don't eat chunky peanut butter!

Excuse me, and this ritual practice takes on other dimensions.

I'd watch my friends make use of their flies at the pissoir and would think 'How gay!' Not as in lighthearted and carefree, but more literally Gay.

The act of going over the fence seems to connote domination. An item is hefted over a barrier. Bulk must be felt, it's a masculine weight. It drops down, as if to say 'Here, I am." It's brutal, evident, never coy.

And conversely going through the gate marks a sly act. It does not call any attention to itself. Only a bit of the apparatus is exposed, compared to going over the gate, an act that openly demonstrate the masculinity in its entirety. This abashed male act takes on a resulting feminine or emasculating qualities, as the nature of the penis as a protrusion is not subtle, and nuanced, unlike it's female counterpart, the armpit. Thus the fly is like a widdle penis hijab, mostly concealing it away. The condom, a chadoor, that belongs to your roommate that you've poked a hole through, for the lulz.

Isn't Islam easy?

That's what I used to think of the little girly men going through the boxers.

But as I've discussed before, the machinery of my body has slowed. I used to be able to just rely on the power of my prostate to expel the urine and a shakey shakey to do the job.

Another proverb says if you shake it more than twice you're playing with it.

Clearly, someone's girlfriend made that bullshit up. Twice? Twice? C'mon two strokes, you're hardly even getting to know the prick. 53r10u51y! You're only playing with it if it's tumescent or that's the intent; otherwise, you may be fiddling, adjusting, tinkering, examining, or comforting yourself. There, there, my sweet meats, I feel your pain too. You're certainly not playing with it because you can't play when you're crying.

However, there comes a point when you can only shake it so many times before people interpret such thrash/thrash/thrash as having more than a utilitarian in function. I could try to rationalize such thrashing, but after 15 times, I no longer felt comfortable using public bathrooms.

In lieu of the violent panning of the river of its old gold, I allowed physics and experimentation to open new opportunities for me.

I've created some handy though crude diagrams (no double entendre intended) to illustrate my point.

As shown here, the boxers are holding the ol' menitalia up against gravity. (the boxers are not rendered in this diagram: just use your imagination.) Truly, what could be more manly than going against gravity? Conversely, what could be less manly then peeing in your dress slacks at your sister's bat miztvah in a borrowed suit because you were thinking about your hair and not meticulousness? Hmm? Childbirth? Menstruation? Poor control of emotion? C-section scars?

Perhaps.

It's called a trouser snake for a reason. Probably for several reasons, including for letting it slip out of the old snake hole. The latter diagram using the fly allows for a more natural albeit furtive maneuver, that allows for greater efficacy and less spillage.

Until I was tall enough to see over the urinal divider, I didn't think the fly was for peeing at all but instead strictly for better access to play with the old pocket tiger, leaving me without an alibi when Mummy Dear asked me why I had cut a slit into my pajamas, and all I could say was that it hadn't been the one to make it, but my babysitter.

I liked that baby sitter.

Until the next,

M. Rampage.

Hannukah Bites

2009-12-18T18:19:00.000-08:00

Waiting inside the mall at Columbus circle for a friend whose last name used to be something along the lines of Schtupnicker, or Rabinowitz, I couldn't help but feel like I was missing out. Grand Christmas compositions filled the chamber, songs synchronized to a light show of dazzling white, blue and golden. The building shook with Christmas glory. in excelsis Deo.

This makes it very clear to me why there are more Mormons on the planet than Jews.

vs.

The solstice holiday during the darkest days of the year functions to warm and enliven the masses. Christmas celebrates the birthday of the Christ child, the embodiment of God on earth, who died for the sins of humanity, lifting the affliction of original sin. Hanukkah celebrates some antagonistic Jews having enough oil to last eight days, so they didn’t have to go out and buy more.

Christmas marks the miracle of the birth of messiah conceived immaculately.* For Jews, the eight days of oil for a one day's worth is the miracle. And, c'mon on, that really does count as a miraculous savings-- I mean eight days for one! The savings!

The songs that celebrate the birth of Christ are moving, uplifting, and haunting. Carols such as 'Silent Night,' 'Do You Hear What I Here' ‘Angels We Have Heard On High.' Truly beautiful, inspired works of music requiring a technicality of the voice only a gentile could produce.

What do Jews have? /Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel/ I made you out of clay/ When you're dry and ready, dreidels we will play/ There's not even a second verse. Maybe you could make a dreidel out of schmaltz instead. But schmaltz doesn't even rhyme with anything! That's it. Three lyrics to the most popular song. The only other big hit harps back ‘on the miracle of the oil,’ touting the deliciousness of latkes, which aren’t even as good as hash browns, and are sure to inspire indigestion, setting off a truly invigorating bout of kvetching. At least with the complaining, there will be something to talk besides the savings.

Christians eat and drink marvelous things for Christmas: mulled wine, apple cider, fruit cake, chocolate logs! On Hannukah, breaking out a traditional Jewish drink, Manishewitz, actually qualifies as a punishment.

On Christmas you can make out with people under mistletoe, wait for Santa Claus to come down your chimney-- truly a greater miracle than the oil savings-- watch It's A Wonder Life or Alfie shoot his eye out. On Hannukah, you’re back to your driedel, where the point of the game is winning gelt symbolic Jew gold) by shiesting your friends and family. The quality of chocolate in the gelt is akin to eating Hershey’s syrup on cardboard cutouts so heavily wrapped in foil, you'd imagine someone is trying to save a little money.

And what could be more Christmas than the centerpiece tree itself: the vestigial pagan phallus, celebrating fertility and life near the winter solstice, perfect for placing gifts around, bejeweling it in splendid adornments, angels, and fake snow to match the piney refreshment. On Hannukah, Jews break the menorah out, crusted in decades of wax and the accumulated dirt, so that we can relive the savings our ancestors enjoyed two thousand years ago. And where Jews take solace and warmth in the final light of their eight candles, Christians stream their homes in decorative luminescence, outlining their abodes in color and festivity! The institution of Christmas lights has been boon for college kids for centuries, though Jews probably innovated the blue ones.

Ah, Christmas, what a wonderful holiday.

You'd have to nail me to a cross to get me to convert, but until the mob carries me away, I'll be singing 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reinder', a song all Semites can relate to.

*Immaculate conception: When Mary got knocked up by God, it was so clean she didn’t have to waddle off to the bathroom for a jizz rag to clean herself up. Amirite guys?

Boogers: I Totally Saw You Do That! (Re-proofed while high Edit)

2009-02-26T08:51:00.000-08:00

There are sensations that demand response. Itches that call for a scratch. Tightness that require a quick adjustment. The body fills the day with these impulses.

However, circumstance requires control of such pressures.

When my testicles feel like they should be shifted a bit over to the left in those tight jeans in my creative writing seminar with five other students and one very bitchy grad student instructor who hates typos, I can't very well put my hands down my denims to deftly readjust the family jewels: the girl sitting across from me is going to see me grabbing my junk.

That girl is cute and she can see me. She can see me doing that.

By the very same virtue, when homie in my econ class reaches into his right nostril with his index finger, grubs up a big green booger, and sticks it into his mouth and chews on it, I can see that. I can see you doing that, dude! I totally saw that!

After about the age of five (nine if you went to a Montesorri school) you figure out that other people have the ability to observe what you're doing. Just because you're hiding under a table and you can't see your kindergarten teacher, doesn't mean she can't see you masturbating. She sees you and she is going to have to have a very awkward conversation with mommy when she comes to pick you (me) up.

I don't care how craftily you do it. Maybe you try to play it off like you're scratching your nose. . .

BUSTED.

I understand: you wanted to reposition your nostril. You weren't going to get a big brown nugget of dried up mucus.

Dude, BUSTED. You are so BUSTED.

Don't even try to play it off all stealth and shit like you had an a little something on your filtrum you had to get, then proceed to roll it all around in your fingers and THEN throw it in your mouth.

Man, c'mon, you are not only double busted, you have insulted my intelligence. And that is something I have writ-fuckin-large.

Very intelligent.

Have you noticed it's really only guys who do this sort of thing?

I mean chicks never stoop to that and they are fucking having menstrual rot fall out their vages for days on end. I mean, really rude behavior, but you so rarely see them getting in their noses.

Listen. I understand the necessity to grab a lil' boogie. That need is medical. Dried nasal mucus and negatively affects your health. It can block the natural flow of air, leading to breathing problems, like sleep apnea, and collect disease causing bacteria within your sinus. I don't know if that's true. But it does make you feel better.

However, there is NO medical rational to put that little snot snack on your mouth. None. Do you think that one is going to taste any different from the last eight thousands you've yummied down on? Or is it going to be like the very first one you ever chomped on at the age of three? Yeah, it's going to be just like that one.

I understand that drive to pick something off your body and then stick it back in. I get that; your body has produced protein, chains of amino acids, fats, juices, that will go otherwise go to waste unless you re-ingest it. That big brown scab: if it falls off in the swimming pool, you are not going to be able to recoup the loss of the work your body did. That's a shame. You had better scrape that sucker off before it gets lost and chew it up, maintaining bodily homeostatis.

I CANNOT advocate the ingestion of every bodily product and byproduct. That morsel you just plucked from your nose? It died fighting infection in your body. White blood cells died on top of that bacterial infection and now you are sitting six feet away from me licking it down at 9:45 in the morning. I mean, do you think I'm blind? Do you think I'm a damn chimpanzee that would condone chomping on God knows what? No, I am a man. I may not be real man yet, but I am not a damn dirty ape like you.

I don't even particularly mind if the compulsion to just get in there and get it overtakes you. It has to be done. I don't even mind if you want to roll it around in your fingers and go "Jeez, look at the size of that one. . " and then wipe it under your desk for the next asshole who sits there. I take that back. I do mind. But sir, you cross that line when you go "Ahh, I am breathing so much better with that out of the way. Oh, what we have here? Hehehe! Lunch time!"

Because if you do that again, I'm going to violate my probation.

I'm not on probation.

The Way Nature Meant it: Why The Shower Is Truly Golden

2009-01-21T22:37:00.000-08:00

If I had a Twitter my posts would be something like this:

The sink in my apartment is so low and so close to my toilet, that when I take a leak, I splash the hotness all over it.

But I do not have a Twitter; I have a literary blog and instead I am going to discuss pissing in my shower.

Civilization and the technology that it furnishes has led to many great advances: decreased infant mortality, longer and healthier lives, really fucking fast cars, houses that hypothetically warm at the flick of a switch, and bicycles.

The same tools that enable us to lead modern lives also constrain us. The cinderblock walls of my home disconnects me from the nature that existed outside. The rug in my room necessitates that I do not take a piss on it. Man can no longer relieve himself in the midst of the wild grass, for his neighbor would call to him, "Hey buddy, the fuck are you doing, stop shitting on my grass! I am calling the cops on you, you pervy fuck!"

This dissonance between the lives we led, harmonizing with the cycles of the year and the softness of the Indian Toilet Paper plant have ceased, breeding discontent, ennui and frustration.

Luckily, the modern home brings modern humanity a facsimile of the freedom we had without the restrictions of our softwood floors that would suck up a tinkle like a tampon in an elephant. And down comforters can never really be cleaned; don't piss on that. I mean, I fucking tried to clean that thing, and all that happened was that it became aromatic of mildew.

The shower-bathtub combination provides us with the amenity that returns us to our natural state. A perfectly unfettered, unleashing of body water.

One needn't even wear clothes, truly reconciled to the time before Original Sin. Indeed one would be a fool to wear clothes in the shower, unless of course Blue Moon occurrence you have puked all over yourself.

In the shower, you need not worry where the stream goes at all. Sure your arc may goatop your roommates bottle of St. Ives Apricot Facial Scrub or dear mother's loofa, but that's what the shower is for. The water will clean it off. No need to get mad at me, ma.

In there, it's just the open air, without any hands, letting it all go, without even the need for a shake off.

The technology of the tub enables the return to a purer time.

Oh, yeeeah.

I wish things were always so simple.

But the truth is the bathtub may backfire. The water does not always drain. The uncareful urinator may find himself ankle-deep in his own dross and dreck. When the landlord comes to snake the tub, he may complain. "Who the fuck has been pissing in the shower!"

At wish point, I will remind him of the inherent human right, stipulated in the lease, that his must facilitate such behaviors.

I have never had a full security deposit returned to me.

In such instances of clogging, one must act ever so quickly, making sure to get to it before it gets to you, and in the case the bather forgets that his roommates have neglected once again to remove their hairs from drain for the third time this week, he will stand amid his own stagnation.

And your roommates will come to you and say, "Max, how did our toothbrushes fall into the shower?"

And you will say, "Flossing is better for your teeth anyway."

Let no man deprive you of the euphoria of the unbounded water making the way nature meant it to be . .

An Examination of Google Analytics: A Look at the Underbelly of the Internet

2008-12-04T11:39:00.001-08:00

Google is an amazing tool. Not only does it direct some people to my blog, it also its serves its purpose to let me see why visitors came.

Upon a thorough examination, the reasons for the stumbles are not purely wholesome nor intentional. Many people are not looking for a good laugh, but practical help. While the number one hit for my blog i thankfully "max rampage" the number two is a distressed advice inquiry: "popping pimples." Yes, a lot of middle-schoolers are desperate for advice to the point that they scroll through streams of pages to find mine hopping that I hold the key. Other practical advice inquiries include 'how to clean a butt plug' and 'how to clean human shit off your body.'

Sorry, kids, take my advice and you're fucked up 'shit' creek, which incidentally happens to be a word that sends half as many people to Max Rampage as the word 'pimple.'

The term "Phantom shit" makes my blog appear as number four on Google. 'Drunk anal ass fuck" does not summon my tales on page one, but someone with a gourmand's certainly craving for it dug deep and found my site. Google this and notice on the bottom of the search page that Google writes a note saying that they removed a listing because of a child pornography complaint.

Too bad for those middle-schoolers on all counts.

But lucky for several more people is "clean house with butt plug." I'm number one for that term, but just what is the poor soul thinking? A butt plug is not a suitable implement to sterilize the kitchen.

Perhaps this poor retentive chap fantasizes about living in an immaculate house and the joys of little anal simulation in his freetime? Actually,I think this guy wants a butt plug that will allow him to clean the house with the anal animator in place. I'm in good company when I show up on pages like this with advertisements about 'butt plug mariners' and 'an extra long butt plug."

Two hits down from Max Rampage for this topic is a site selling 'the world's most comfortable butt plug' full of testimonials swearing just how ergonomic the product is with several satisfied customers explaining they can wear it for hours on end, free to walk around with it and even "use it at the office." One would-be customer asks "Can it be worn when you're going through security at an airport?"

And I thought I was depraved just passing some gas next to my seat companion.

More interesting and less perverted inquiries include "living a private life" where my experience with unfortunate handshakes is listing number two on Google.

While "readporn," probably the result of typographical (and thinking error as the genre is called erotica; for it is never possible to read porn. The act of textual interpretation makes the reading of pornography impossible for pornography categorically leaves nothing to the imagination) makes my blog hit number five. While number one hit for this inquiry is readporn.com.

One of my personal fav's is "hellen keller's trail and errors." The trails blazed by my deaf and blind eponym would indeed lead to some mistakes. "Bluuh turhn lef' theeeare." Which is essentially what Google does to the unwitting individual who asks "what is the white clump that came out of my pimple?" and spends three minutes on my page.

I am glad I have been to serve humanity although I let down many early teens, anal enthusiasts, and perverted pornography petitioners, because for the sole gentlemen who searched for 'how to fit morning wood in toilet' I was of great service.

Though I am happy to help my fellow man, the company I feel sorriest for is my own, curious to see if I would be on page one for 'body shitting I stumbled upon upon theshithole.com, where the byline is "our shit just keeps flowing" and makes Two Girls One Cup, Two Girls One Finger, and Four Girls One Finger Painting, look like child's play. For the love of all that is holy, I am thankfully not on this page. God bless you Google, without you, how would that acne encrusted 15-year old ever find Max Rampage and how could I have ever found Esmerald the Scat Cook? Don't go to the the theshithole.com, Mom.

My First Experience in a post-Obama America (in Denmark)

2008-11-27T13:05:00.000-08:00

After leaving the Moose just short of 5 a.m. I thought my number was finally up.

I was already a bit on edge as the hour approached. At the dive bar, a Danish twat avoided a round of good ol' drunk as fuck fisticuffs. I had asked this impertinent fucker to step outside with me a few times. He declined to test his mettle on the street. I believe that my appearance has unnerved him. It was not due to my lavish hair and glowing moon skin, but the dark bandana I wore across my lower face, concealing my identity.

"Why are you wearing that? Take that off," he said.

"No, I'm not taking it off," I said.

"Yes, take it off!"

"It's smoky in here," I said. "I wear it to filter the smoke-- "

"It's a bar; get over it!"

"Hey! You and me, we're going outside," I said.

"I don't want to go outside."

I glared at him through my favorite veiled visage. The synergetic bandana, brining together two very important influences: my support of communitarian anarchy and my virulent hatred of secondhand smoke, the kind of hatred only a pot-smoking asthmatic who has successfully quit smoking cigarettes upwards of thirteen times can feel.

After thirty minutes of this, my beddy-bye called to me. "Rampage, have you seen my car keys? Can you help me find them? and also "Come sleep, come sleep, Rampage, I miss your touch . ."

It was time to go. But not before I had my first experience in a post-Barack America in Denmark.

As I began to cross the first Seven-Eleven after Rådhuspladsen, a dark man bolted towards me, arms wildly flailing forward, and gaining speed.

"Wait, wait!" he called.

I looked around and saw no one else on the street.

Damn, this is it. This is finally it: I am getting mugged.

, Hillary!

I took a deep breath.

I am getting mugged or this man urgently needs directions at five in the morning.

I brought my bike to a slow stop, not wanting to be a Klansman. This man did not look like Mike Tyson or 50 Cent, but resembled more Apu, Jay Chandrasekhar, and Gandhi. Regardless, around these types, cautiousness before clean conscience.

As he came even closer, I realized I would be the next sucker to fall victim to the oldest trick in the game. 'Excuse me sir, where is Coral Gables Terrace?" BAM! Iron bar to the noggin and wallet gone!

"Excuse me, sir," the man said.

Veerapan: The Most Prolific (Sandalwood) Thief in the World

"Yep?" I said, bracing against my bicycle, a metal barricade between me and my foe.

"Could you, please, tell me where Nørreport Station is ?"

He pronounced the station name dreadfully, neglecting the crucial glottal stops.

"Yeah, sure, just cross the square, go left a block, turn right at the light, go for another two blocks, you can't miss it."

An immigrant. A brand-spanking-new immigrant here to take advantage of the welfare system.

Then in my finest Dansk I pronounced the name for his unlearned ears.

"Just a left, followed by a right?"

"Yeah, basically, yeah, that's right. Just pass that stoplight and hook that right."

"It's not very far away."

"A few blocks."

"It will take me only five minutes?"

"Fifteen on foot," I said.

"Oh, but I have a bicycle," he said and gestured to the bicycle splayed out on the sidewalk.

"Yeah, five minutes." I nodded.

Keeping my wits about myself, I rode home.

No doubt, that bike was stolen.

If I had to look at this ugly chick, I'd let her scratch my eyes out.

The Yearning for Fantasy Fulfillment: My Vote for McCain and Palin

2008-10-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

During the last day many people have contacted me and have asked: "Max, how are you, friend?" And they have also asked, "Why are you voting for John McCain and Sarah Palin?"

First off, I am doing well, but need to clean my room.

Second, I feel like it is my duty to explain my vote as an influential American and political pundit.

I am a single value voter and the one thing I care about one thing more than anything else in this crucial election that will steer the course of this nation between next four to eight years to possibly forty to fifty years is abortion.

John McCain is not categorically against terminating foetuses; his running mate, American darling Sarah Palin, is.

This is also a matter of experience. Barack Obama does not have a lot of it, only a mere four years in the Senate. John McCain has more than fifty years of service in the government, some of which he serviced secretly, and yes, you can trust my sources.

McCain has so much experience, I think he is going to die in office. There is a one to four chance he is going to croak while in the White House. Look at that guy: he walks around like he has destroyed his spine from rolling at waaay too many raves, has skin cancer craters all over his face from too much time soaking up those hedonistic rays in Phuket and Ko Phangan, and has had his body subjected to Mengele-ian experimentations at the hands of the North Vietnamese.

Rest assured, he's going to kick the can way over the hill, leaving this country in the hands of one S. Palin.

She will pilot the path of this nation strongly against smishshormtions. Even our dear GW is not unequivocally against them. And who better to take the right away from a woman than a woman? Yes, you got me there, maybe a dolphin or a chimpanzee would be more apt, but neither of those are born on American soil so they are not eligible. Alas.

Right now maybe you are asking "Why? Why do you care so strongly about the right to life when you have never cared about another living, nor dead, creature in your current existence?"

Once again, the answer is simple.

I have always wanted to be a doctor, but sadly my criminal and my mental health record both make me ineligible to practice medicine. That and I am incapable of thinking scientifically. My dreams of being a doctor have been dashed by a cruel and taxing system of checks and balances, Calculus and Organic Chemistry, similar to the system of safeguards Palin will oversee when she is the Chief Commander of the Senate. And when she attains Commander in Chief, I will be able to, in the words of George W Bush be as an OB/GYN "able to practice their, their love, with women all across the country."

Accordingly, when Palin makes abortion illegal, I will be able to become a practicing doctor: Max Rampage, Back Alley Abortionist, Esq. Hopeless and un-expectant mothers-that -were-never-meant-to-be will come to me and say, "Rampage, do me up, coat hanger style" and my dreams of being a physician will come to life; it won't be fun and games anymore like finding my ferret's temperature by sticking a thermometer or Phil's toothbrush in his rectum. No, this will be real medicine, where I will administer powerful anesthesiolgy in the form of Bengay and Anbesol; use the latest equipment, wooden and plastic coat hangers; and set up a state of the art facility, a blue tarpaulin rich with the smell of zygotic discardation deep within the woods of a city park. As the economy falls to tatters with ill-informed and incompetent John McCain, I can only imagine demand for my careful and semi-sterile services will skyrocket as my prices will be rockbottom. Rest assured,ladies they'll be cheap, veeery cheap.

With great delight, I cast my vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Oldies but Goodies

2008-09-18T08:30:00.005-07:00

I posted three of my writings on my Rampage blog that were previously on Facebook for your reading enjoyment, maaan. I realized after Facebook banned me (and then subsequently reactivated my account) that I gotta diversify my blogs, ninja.

The Wonders of the Road: Experiences in Driving

2008-09-18T08:30:00.004-07:00

Sociologists have long known that stoned drivers are safer than their sober counterparts on the road. Researchers demonstrated potheads make better drivers because their paranoia makes them more cautious and the sights of the road are so interesting to them they are forced to slow down to appreciate their surroundings, making impacts far less explosive.

The first time I drove high was just days after getting my car, a now nearly totaled '94 jeep Grand Cherokee. That introductory evening that I slowed down to enjoy the scenery I had smoked two bowls from my Dr. Vaporizer and hallucinated that I was that little green lizard from Bust-A-Move or Puzzle Bobble.

Lights appeared under my eyelids. Color coded signals dictated what kind of dance move I should perform. Standing in my kitchen, I followed those blinking dance lights and stepped wildly, minutely drooling, giggling, and thinking about what masturbating would be like later that night.

The trance ended abruptly when a foreign phone rang and told me I had to be at Sunrise Springs in ten minutes, a decent 30 miles away.

I hopped into my new chariot, Longmire in tow, and was on the highway south minutes later. I reached my cruising speed and relaxed, wondering if not being able to feel my hands would be a detriment to my reaction time.

Suddenly, other cars started to overtake me at ridiculously high speeds. I wondered where those demons could be off to and felt offended that they dare go faster than I. I revved my engine and looked to my spedometer. It displayed: 35 mph. I was in second gear in a 75 mph zone.

Panic set in as I realized I was a cooked goose. I made vulnerable pray for any vicious highway patrolman who knew not the pleasures of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and sexy mex, and knew only of sister killing stoners compelled to masturbate in the same hotel room as their parents.

I forced my foot down, but everything past the knee disappeared in an abyss of tetrahydrocannabinol. I was high. The meaning of nails are toe covers. I shot a furtive glance at Longmire, who let out a yelp, as he saw the car was actually decelerating.

"I can't go any faster!" I said.

"I know, man!" Longmire said as he firmly grasped my shoulder and pointed at the speedometer. "But you have got to try!"

I willed my leg down. The car gained momentum as the little red hand gradually climbed upward to 40 mph, then 45, then 50 mile mph. Longmire held my shoulder and gaped in compassionate disbelief as we sped up incrementally. Finally we were up to speed and I set my cruise control at 55.

"Damn, dude," he sighed. "That was a close one." I muttered that my dashboard looked like a plane's.

I remembered this experience as I was cruising down St. Mike's on Saturday on my way to a post Bat Mitzvah luncheon with the Brownsteins-Klevans. I had just smoked a personal spliff and the day looked wonderful. I passed the Smith's and the McDonald's. There was construction on the road and the guy in that old Mercedes looked like he was higher than I. The sky was without a cloud. The green of trees looked vibrant, clear.

And I remembered just what I would say to Officer Lozano when he pulled me over.

"Officer. . . Doesn't this dashboard look like it belongs on a plane, man?"

Socks: A Primer

2008-09-18T08:30:00.003-07:00

For much of the last five years, I have experienced intermittent athlete's foot (tinea pedis). I contracted this foot fungus from the Gaetan Dugas of athlete's foot, Sean Wokker, after wearing his of pair sheepskin moccasins. I mistook the exothermic reaction on my foot for the warmth of luxury, enhanced by the glee of running about stoned in his McMansion wearing another man's moccasins.

I'm aware of the dangers of this impediment and I guard myself against it. No, I don't use Tinactin; my athlete's foot cannot be thwarted by standard means. It requires Lamisil-D. And that shit is expensive.

Changing my socks daily, that's the best defense. Unfortunately, I don't always have fresh socks to wear. I may grab a pair out of the laundry or find a pair from last week on the living room futon. But c'mon, I can only do that for so long.

Luckily, I have roommates. Phil has provided me with socks for the last four days. [I would have asked your permission if you had been home.]

(I'd also like to retroactively thank Todd and Colin)

But when Phil ran out of socks after I took that final pair today, I knew it was time: the time to buy more socks.

I've been to a TJ Maxx's before so I figured the one in Allston wouldn't be too different from the one in DeVargas mall.

They weren't that different. The shopper next to me was converting the prices of bowler shirts from dollars to pesos, aloud.

As he converted, I stood awed before the sock rack.

How do you know the sock will fit if you can't try it on?

Don't lie to me. A range 6-12 sock is supposed to accommodate both an eleven year old and someone with a foot the size of six-foot-six Erik Powers? ¡Mentira!

What about thickness? How thick will the sock feel in the shoe? I know the weight of body will certainly press the fabric down making it thinner, but will the fabric bunch with weight exerted?

How loose is the sock? How smooth is the material on my skin?

I quickly tried to examine how many employees were on the floor. Was that Mexican guy wearing all red a Crip, or a salesperson?

I surreptitiously slipped the sock on.

I knew my effort would be stymied by the plastic device keeping the sock attach to the cardboard. Regardless, the trial was fruitful. I could see the sock was bunching at the heel.

I examined the sock rack again. "Irregular." Irregular? What does that mean? Why are they selling irregular socks? Are all the socks irregular? Or is that a Nike Brand? Or is it tailored for someone with a foot like my mother? This confounded me again. I now had to look for defects, impurities, or at least improprieties.

Life used to be easy. White people used to wear Golden Toe. Golden Toe was bought out. They aren't the same anymore. That's what the man at Dillard's told my father.

Can I wear Calvin Klein socks and still feel in touch with my street people?

Can I buy Joseph Abboud and not support terrorism?

When I go back to TJ Maxx to make my return, will I again see those four Mexicans involved in some kind of strange French living situation? Lady, why are you holding his baby and and also kissing his wife?

Things works themselves out. By tomorrow morning, I think Phil will be done with his laundry.

Public Pervert: Cultural Complexities in America

2008-09-18T08:30:00.002-07:00

David S. Lewis is a free spirit among many other things: a native of Ohio, a free-lance journalists, an American patriot, and a Navy Veteran.

I was first introduced to Dave summer of 2006-- the Summer of Hitting the Bottle Hard. Tristan's sheets bared the proof.

Dave began introducing his background to me on my front steps after I lost a Hold 'Em tournament. As they say in Rounders, if you don't who the sucker at the table is, it's you.

"So, Dave, you were a sailor?" I said.

"Yeah, until they discharged men– medical leave."

"Oh, shit, my great grandfather was wounded at war too. His comrades dropped an artillery shell on his foot off the Aleutian Islands." I puffed a Dunhill and swooned under the synergistic effects of Tecate and Humboldt's own as we spoke. [I found out later that my great grandfather only became a 'veteran' after Ronald Reagan by executive order made members of the merchant marines so.]

"Oh shit, yeah, something like that happened to me too. I lost one of my balls in an accident."

I coughed a ball of smoke and stared at him incredulously.

His girlfriend, Kendra, nodded affirmatively.

"Yeah, he doesn't have a left fucken' nut."

"No, shit, Dave? You lost your ball?" I grinned uncomfortably. If you're going to lose a nut, you certainly don't want to lose lefty. That's big one. The one that hangs lower.

"Yeah. That's right," he said. Kendra nodded vigorously and I figured who could know better than Kendra. Maybe his mother. . .

"Show him. Dave. Show it to him. Show him your sole nut."

"Dave you're a monotid? Shit, man. I couldn't even tell," I said as I drank beer and peered at the freak.

Monotid is actually the wrong word, but I was drunk, and high.

"Oh yeah, but he functions just fine." Kendra said, smiled, and nodded her head quickly.

A better world to describe this malady is cryptorchidism. Dave S. Lewis the Cryptorchid. Crypto meaning hidden and orchid meaning testical. Beautiful, isn't it?

"Okay, I'll show you, Max."

"Okay," I said. I was curious.

What would only one nut look like? Would the nutsack be smooth? Would the surgery–– the amputation–– have left him hairless? Would excess skin exist where the teste should be? Would his nut be like the nuts I envisaged having after rubbing Ben Gay on the, only to later a take a shower with all my clothes on, howling in ball curdling pain, at the tender age of 16?

"Oh yeah," Kendra said as David. S Lewis Independent Journalist readied, fiddled, and then took his right nut out.

Ta-dah.

"You fucking liar!" I screamed. "You just took one out! You have two nuts!" I hovered a mere foot away from his groin, crouched down, intently squinting at one half of his existing and visible testicles, pointing my Dunhill at the goods.

"You're a fucking idiot, Max," Kendra said and laughed.

"I was actually discharged because I was pissing, shitting, and vomiting blood caused by a real nasty little ulcer," said the Independent Journalist.

Dave taught me a good trick. This is a good trick to know. Showing people a sole nut is funny. I told Jillian's 13-year old cousin about this good trick during a Chinese-food lunch and he seemed to believe me.

One evening, I thought I would let Phil, my roommate, enjoy this good fun and removed one nut from a hole in my jeans. (These naturally occuring holes are cause by my burly highs rubbing energetically against my bicycle seat.) Just ask Haley, she knows about my thighs.

I walked in to his room, ball dangly freely in warm forced air, and began.

"Phil, did you pay the electricity bill?"

"No," he said and looked up at me and then looked back to YouTube. "I can't pay yet– you owe me the money."

"Oh." I looked down to make sure my nut exposed itself in all of its splendour. The teste relaxed sheepishly on the inside of my right thigh outside of my pants. Pink skin contrasted against dark blue jeans. I yanked on it a little more, benefitting from the natural elasticity of my ball sack.

I clapped my hands. "Would you like to play Halo?"

"Yes," he said.

I sat across from him on the futon. legs splayed, killing opponents and looking at him pensively, nut still proffered.

Nothing.

I stood while the next game loaded and swayed rhytimcally to "Burning Down The House" playing from my room. My nut, a natural pendulum, swinging from the hole.

Nothing.

"Phil, is my controller dying?" I said as I perched the controller upon my lap, inches from my teste.

"No, man," he said without looking. "I just charged it."

I brought him a glass of water and held the glass like a lens infront of my nut.

I placed my leg on the coffee table and tied my shoe, brushing my ball with my elbow.

I practiced calisthenics excitedly next to the TV.

After 45 minutes, he had failed to respond.

We must ask several questions about Phil:
Is he blind?
Is he gay?
Is he a pervert?
Is he without the knowledge of testes or the scrotum?
Did Phil think that my nut must have haphazardly escaped from my jeans and I was the one who failed to note? And he did not want to ashame me by telling me of the escapee?

I may never know–– I'm just glad my best friend enjoyed that spherical flesh as we videochatted earlier yesterday afternoon.

Piss Happens: Lessons from the Grand Master Sean Wokker

2008-09-06T05:59:00.000-07:00

As the body ages, mishaps increase. The body slows, muscles atrophy, tissues degrade. I've found that my limbs fall asleep with ease these days. An awkward position at my desk will leave my foot tingling needles-and-pins for a minute. It's a shame I don't how to masturbate with my foot.

I haven't been a stranger to certain accidents. My buddy in high school Sean Wokker, the product of a man and an alcoholic she-bear, frequently used to piss himself. Through his battled-proven self urinations, I came to recognize the symptoms, treatments, and develop decent prognoses.

"Oh, fuck yeah, Sean is def going to piss himself tonight!" Shouts of glee and horror.

**************************************************************************************************

I recently went to send my friend Robert off the night before he drove back to school in California. I arrived late at his place, preparing for the evening with some heavy beers and some light reading at my place.

Robert lives in a sprawling manse and I had to bumbled my way around his compound to find him and friends. I finally heard the group and wandered over to his rooftop patio.

"Hello, old chap." I must have said.

"Good to see you, Rampage." His body snapped to attention. "Do you have cigarettes?"

"Aw, shit, I left them in my car. I'll be back."

I tripped my way through the darkness, admiring the brisk yet beautiful Santa Fe evening. I grabbed my rolling tobacco from the center console of my car and then trekked back through the estate. Yet by now, my beers had caught up with me. I pondered to myself if I should relieve myself inside Robert's home, but then thought better of it. If I couldn't find my way across his backyard, how could I ever find a place to piss within the complex? I didn't want to half to shake a leg onto one of his living room ferns out of desperation. Additionally, the prospect of bumping into Robert's parents didn't attract me; the last time I saw the septuagenarian pair Robert and I had just smoked a marijuana cigarette, possibly inside his house, and had imbibed several beers. Robert's parents sent him to a reformatory boarding school a week or two later.

So, I strolled off into some moonlight bushes. The star clarity in Santa Fe is a marvel, but not the right locus of attention when one is taking a leak.

"Fuck!" i yelped as my bag of tobacco slipped from my grasp and slid under my arc of urine. "No, no, no!"

I acted decisively, redirected my stream, choked off the flow, and went for my shag. I snagged the tobacco and then took pause, feeling a sensation, a warm sensation, not entirely unpleasant, but foreboding of certain unpleasantness.

"No, no, no, no!" The sensation spread growing over my boxers, my thigh. "Oh, god daaamn."

I figured maybe I could just pass this off, just cope and return to socializng. C'mon, we've all felt a little tinkle and then have proceeded to go about our business, no? Never a little wetness in the underwear and the some classwork? I know girls do it all the time especially in third world countries where TP plays more prominence in cargo cults then in the private parlor.

But when I felt the hot stream snake down my ankle and on to the top of my sock, I knew the gig was up. There was no playing this off. "Oh no, you guys. Heh heh. I spilled some Tecate. . . It smells of piss you say? Heh heh, that's why they call it Mexican piss beer, right? . . . No, that's not right?"

"Robert! Robert!" I listened to Robert gayly laugh and converse with his companions. "Robert, I have to go for a sec! I'll be back!" He couldn't hear me from my position in his woods. "Fuck it."

I moved quickly but with a gait that optimized speed and distance from the stinging acid moisture. I wondered if the lemon liquid would be soothing for the ingrown hairs on my thighs.

I whipped out of Robert's driveway and gassed it home. Luckily, I live in the neighborhood. I entered my driveway and saw lights on in my house. The entire fam was home. This one, I was loathe to explain; it was certainly too early in the even to be piss-drunken and piss-drunken driving as well. That should always come after eleven o'clock. I peered through the kitchen window and saw my little sister reading at the table, positioned just before the entrance to the living room and my own domain.

"Hi, Max." She said as she read her book. We're a literary family.

I side shuffled like a blackfaced minstrel around her, reflexively forced into jazz hands as I went by.

"Uh, hey!"

Within a minute or two I was rounding my sister again. I eyed her analytically. Did she see? Had she noticed that I had changed jeans for no apparent reason? Or had the reason been all too apparent? Had she sidelonged glanced the spill? Fucking boozehound brother of mine. Would she tell my father, her mother? Maxy pissed himself last night, I saw him, I saw it all over his pants! Heavens would have it, my sister failed to eye me at all. Thank hormones for adolescence apathy and that ever-engrossing Harry Potter.

I returned to Robert's twenty minutes later after I had initially left for the Bali Shag or Bugler.

"Man, what the hell took you so long?" Robert said.

I sighed and then smiled.

"Wouldn't you like a cigarette?"

Everything Clean is Unclean: This Wretched Life

2008-07-15T09:21:00.000-07:00

Parties often befoul my house and it seems that I often have parties. Yet, I never get used to the mess, rather naive of me, but I imagine a world where at a party no one punches a hole in my wall, pukes brown wine retch into my toilet, leaves a tampon wrapper on the bathroom floor. At my last one, someone left me a fun never-before-seen little gift.

The next morning my bathroom simply reeked of urine, a strong biting stench of piss. I wondered how my little shitter could smell so forcefully. I peered around searching for an orange drying splotch. Instead, I found that someone had pissed into the toilet scrub brush holder, an accumulated pool of piss. Classy. After leaving it for a few hours, I emptied the contents into my shower and ran the water. Double Classy.

Some messes can be mind blowing (how can there be puke on top of the medicine cabinet?!), but after this party, with the exception the piss in the scrub brush holder, nothing too wretched happened, until I went to put the dishes away.

In the dishwasher, I spied a stray fork that had fallen down and had slipped into the back and onto the drain. I looked harder seeing somethign else in there as well, something white, curiously phallic with little curved pieces coming from the end, I narrowed my eyes refocusing on the white on white. Ah, of course: a butt plug.

Yes, this was the butt plug gifted to me by Eli D. Stevens. I remembered putting it in the dishwasher to give it a through cleansing, jokingly of course, in April. I was not actually going to bring Eli's used anal accoutrement into my bedroom so when the prostate prodder disappeared I thought that Eli had taken it back. Good riddance. I questioned him about its whereabouts, disliking an Indian Giver, even more than a second hand sex toy (contrary to popular belief, a butt plug is not for sealing the ass shut, that's a tampion, related to French word from which tampon derives), and Eli plead ignorance. I left it at that, not knowing the event that transpired that night would soon completely eclipse the bizzareness of being given Eli's favorite dildo. "Max, it even has a perineum attachment."

There it was. It had fallen on to the drain on April 13th. I found it July 13th. The butt plug had been in my dishwasher being run with load after load of dishes for three months to the day. With three loads of dishes, glasses, pots and pans, utensils, and cutlery, a week, the butt plug had been washed with my eating equipment nearly 40 times. Viral particles, fecal bacteria, the feces themselves, and the blood of Eli D. Stevens had been vaporized, sloshed about, and soaked on to every piece that had been in the wash machine, everything single thing that I had eaten off of and anyone else who has ever had a drink or an eat at my house.

Triple classy.

At least that butt plug is super clean.

Deep Lodged: Battling in the Open

2008-06-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

I've never been comfortable with passing a bowel movement in a public restroom. Only under the most dire of circumstances am I able to relax myself and release. These are indeed the most dire of circumstances: when I had dysentery in India I would not use public bathrooms, opting instead not to leave my room, and when faced with a squatter in a Kyoto subway stop after I had just vomited against the side of the building, insides churning with a maelstrom reaction to Suntory Boss coffee, I held it in, nearly overcome by its aggressive diuretic/laxative effect.

When I came to college, my habits reluctantly changed; dorm living forced me to extrude in public. No doubt the purgatives placed in the Towers food coaxed me on, shattering my will. They say the food is laced with the additives for the very reason of ensuring socialization.

I disliked using these public johns for myriad reasons. Those toilet seats are filthy: speckled with feces, spattered with urine, the humanity of ass sweat slow pressed into it, or encrusted with the Smirnoff retch of heedless drinkers like me.

I recall my friend Johnny, puking and then passing out with his head against that Tower toilet seat and the pink rash he immediately developed from the contact. The rash emerged that very night.

These things are unsanitary, but likely nothing an efficient, but not overly lingering wipe down and TP ass gasket can't mitigate.

My problem with using these social shitters is the public struggle. Today, I took a whizz at the library. A gentlemen had ensconced himself at a stall. I overheard his gasps for breath, his assertive grunts, the dilation and then retraction of the sphincter. His battle was on display for the world to listen to. His struggle was public and from cacaphony of his bowels, he was losing, he was floundering right in front of me.

I'm not going to reveal my failings to the populace, let alone my most private ones. I'm not going to mutter to Jesus under my breath a dozen times, curse the spiciness of curry repeatedly, and play the kazoo for the enjoyment of just anyone. I ate eat a lot of Mexican and India food.

I'm actually not willing to make the exertion in front of anyone at all. Have you ever watched a constipated dog drop one on a cold Spring's morning and the way his little hind shakes, the pleas of his eyes, the way he looks away from you, imagining he's alone? He doesn't even eat chicken tikka masala and yellow curry. That poor yellow lab has just lost his dignity, then he goes on to pretend like nothing happened at all. Liar.

This was a motivating factor for me to move off-campus and into my own apartment, into my own sound sealed toilet. I don't even like to dig in when someone else is within ear shot of my private power room, (I'll run the fuckin' water and I'm an environmentalist, okay?) let alone among a sea of god-knows-who passing in and out hearing to me lose to a deep lodged or explosively liquefied fece.

Material Angst: Popping Pimples

2008-05-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

Incomparable levels of satisfaction come from popping blemishes. The body feels release; the mind experiences victory over the zit as the puss erupts past the bottlenecked pore and out onto the mirror. Boom! Left on the mirror is the detritus of victory, the remains of the pimple, a delicate smear of pink blood and dead white blood cells turned yellow from their explosive deaths.

As I have aged, my sebaceous glands have mellowed out; I do not have the opportunity to explode many whiteheads. Frankly, I do not miss this so much. Recently though, I had the opportunity. A cluster of raised red marks had appeared just to the right of the tip of my nose, which is a resplendent organ in its own right. I examined this outbreak. Popping pimples is really a dance, an exacting footwork where moves must be made at exactly the right moment. If the move is not made at the perfect time the dancer stumbles and brings on shame. This is how pimples are. Pimples must be popped at the opportune moment. Too early and nothing will happen. Maybe some dead cells will agonizingly leak down the face and a red mark will form where the white eruption was. If popped too late, the procedure could be a waste and only damage skin that is healing.

I fucked up. I was too hungover and groggy. I stumbled and collapsed on the parquet. I shouldn't have played with it at all, but after days of waiting for this blemish to abate and seeing no results, I went at it in the frustration of the morning-after. I could wait no more. O yeah, I got it all right. I put that sucker between two q-tips and squeezed. Surrounding black heads gave off plumes of white flares across my nose, and at the epicenter, the cluster gave way: blood and puss gushed out, and within the crater the clump of puss coyly revealed itself. "Wow," I thought. "That's disgusting." It was like a congealed up pebble of rotted cells.
In my hungover daze, I hadn't quite realized what I had done, but as the day dragged on and I had taken several ibuprofens, I saw that I had created a blood red disfigurement. The mark of shame was not just a mark. It had three dimensionality: emerging from the right side of nose and peaking all the way over to the left side, entirely visible from the other side of my face.

Yikes.

Humans face a strange predicament. Humans are arguably the only self-aware animals, and while I am (arguably) self-aware I cannot see myself. I cannot see my own face, the most important element I use to interface with other humans. Unless I stare into a mirror I cannot see what I look like when I cry, or the shape my nose deforms into as I sarcastically guffaw. I cannot see that piece of mucus hanging out of my nostril or the pieces of cake schmeared in the corner of my lips.

I’m blind to my interfacing to the rest of the world. As a result, it was not I who would have to endure the aesthetic nightmare of this botched procedure, but my friends, and strangers, and people who weren't quite friends but also weren't quite strangers. What would they think? What would they attribute this abomination to? I felt the need to explain myself. "Oh, yes, [friend], I was bitten. Yes it's true. An eagle swooped down and took my nose into his beak and ravaged me. Oh, no, I fended him off without harming an endangered species." On the other hand, I considered that saying something would have been too vain, too self-deprecating and also too obvious; no one has to be alerted to the presence of a trainwreck, a landmark.
With my disfigurement, I sat with my friends, made regular conversation, took normal swigs of my drinks, and when no one seemed to be looking, crossed my eyes to shoot a look down my snout.

The Terrors of Pissing in Public: Performance Anxiety

2008-05-04T18:24:00.000-07:00

I don't particularly like bathrooms. Maybe this stems from my childhood. My mother says I once narrowly avoided a would-be molestation in the men's bathroom when I was eight. But I just thought that man standing behind me was waiting his turn when she busted into the bathroom and began screaming.

I'm also somewhat germaphobic an the men's bathroom may be the pinnacle of all that is unclean. Often I find myself standing in a puddle of urine while urinating at the urinal. After I see that my loose shoelace dangles in such misfires, (though not all are misfires-- I explained to my friend Matt Levin that I pissed on his shower curtain at a party he threw), I will go days without tying it, further perpetuating the problem by allowing it to be pulled through other piss pools.

However, possibly the worst bathroom predicament has to be Performance Anxiety. This failure to produce a free flowing stream when under the duress of prying eyes may come from: a byproduct sexual behaviors, an evolutionary adaptation, or a crippling neurosis.

Yesterday, during a class break a number of classmates and I went in to the bathroom of College of Arts and Sciences to respectively relieve ourselves.

At the second to last urinal stood a colleague from Trinidad, an extended education student. Likely his penis is larger than mine any maybe that's why he smiled as I stepped up to the pisser. Another classmate, of hazy ancestral origins who dresses too well followed us in. I surveyed the situation as I readied, thinking for a brief moment about aborting the pisser and using a stall to take my leak, as I saw the mulattu did, smart queer mulattu that he is.

I thought fuck it, Max, I'll be able to handle it and stood one urinal apart from the grinning Trinidadian and unzipped. Then in came another classmate, in his fifties, with a paunch and graying hair. He then began loudly conversing with the Islander as he stepped one urinal down from me and unzipped. The Trinidadian gave me another smilish look and I knew I was fucked.

I strained, I pushed my prostate. I clenched my ass cheeks. I set my teeth on edge. I glanced at that Wynton Marsalis enjoying the privacy of his stall. I tried to work, but nothing would come out! I visualized urination. I cursed my prostate. I could hear no streams from the other gentlemen, and considered the prostates plight of these extended ed. students. Maybe their woes came from anal play too.

I tried for one more second and realized the point was moot. Is it easily conceivable that a Bathroom Buddy could piss inaudibly? I hope for the sake of rectitude it is.

For I now had to take a fake piss.

I shook off my dry apparatus, making a real show of it, really thrashing the theremin, sending off every last nonexistent driblet. I cleared my throat, then went to wash my hands. Normally, I do not wash my hands, but whenever I fake piss I do, as though I am really going through the motions, as if I pissed a little on my fingers. I looked back in the mirror as I lathered and saw them enjoying unfettered pisses.

And they too must have thought of me: Max, the pervert. The creep who comes into the bathroom, takes his dick out, does not piss, looks around at all of them, and then shakes it around for a prolonged period, and follows it with washing his hands. A total nutcase. I bet they thought that I had an erection.

I'm not a nutcase, maybe a tad neurotic, but I'm no Ted Bundy or Buffalo Bill. I must have evolved this adaptive trait. When I could be any more vulnerable than when I am unloading? How could I run from a sabertooth tiger when I'm in the process of pissing? Or a lascivious chemistry teacher, hungry for any young flesh, regardless of gender? Or, have you ever pushed a man who is pissing? He'll nearly fall over, or if he's a cruel bastard, he'll flip it on you and try to piss on your leg like my alleged best friend tried to do to me a few years ago.

I left the bathroom, sighed, and sauntered down to the end wing of CAS. I found a single urinal pisser. A man in the stall next to me sounded as if he was battling Caprito Burrito or the three entree Panda Express platter, this was no two entree special. No matter. I took 'er out, pissed one, and then amid the sounds of gastrointestinal gurgling beat off.

What a picture.

My Poor Fucking Mattress: The Case of the Girl Who Shit My Bed

2008-04-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

An old friend of mine from out of town came into visit me this weekend, named Eli D. Stevens. He’s a Freelance Photographer, who recently split up with his girlfriend. He came to Boston with his colleague, Jim. Saturday night the three of us and George went out. Eli has been taking the break up hard. At the party I threw the night before, Eli elbowed a hole into the drywall.
Saturday night we went to a party on Comm. Ave. Five minutes after we walked in I went outside for a smoke and found Eli chatting chatting on the outside porch with a girl.
“I was raised a Christian, but I really think Buddhism is in my heart. I think it’s a beautiful religion,” the girl said.
“I agree with you but I think Christianity is a beautiful thing as well.”
I chortled openly at Eli and after a few more minutes of Eli indulging the girl as she discussed reincarnation, her family, and her past life experiences, she left suddenly and without and explanation. The rest of the crowd on the porch followed suit as I began complaining how I thought I would have had more group sex in college.
“Masturbating in front of several mirrors just does not cut it, even when I’m wearing lipstick,” I may have said.
When we went inside and found the party-goers jumping up and down and singing in falsetto to a bizarre synth driven, hook heavy, and Eastern European club mega hit, I decided it was time for us to leave.
“We’ve stumbled about some strange ethnic-national gathering; it’s a little too culturally rich for me,” I said as I slammed the door.
The next party we went to across the river was more successful, filled with Emerson hipsters. Eli soon began chatting with a black girl who was several inches taller than he and seemed to me to have the face of a fish. A fat chick with red hair and a triangular shaped head stood next to them. Soon the black girl left and Eli stood alone with the homely redhead. Thirty minutes later the two were making out in the middle of the dance floor.
“You hardly ever see that anymore at a party,” a friend Alex Roesch commented.
We laughed at the two as they continued to make out. I watched as tongue slips landed on each other’s face. The girl opened her eyes at some point and was unable to focus them.
“She’s hammered,” George said.
“So is Eli.”
George and I continued to mingle until Eli broke away from the fat girl whom he had pinned up against a wall.
“We need to leave, now,” Eli said.
“OK, let’s get the fuck out of here,” I said.

I drove us back in Eli’s Honda Accord, sporting 197,000 miles, and littered with clothing and junk.
“There are a lot of cops out tonight,” I said.
“We can’t get pulled over,” the girl said.
“Yeah, because Eli probably has guns and knives inside the car,” I said.
“No, because I’m on probation,” the girl said.
“Why?” George asked.
“For being a drunk,” the girl said.
“Where are we going?”
“To her place,” Eli said.
“I live at Emerson,” she said.
“In the dorms, eh?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s better that we don’t go there.”
“We can go back to my place,” I said.

We got out of the car. I walked closely to Eli and muttered.
“You can have my bed.”
“You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”
“It’s okay, Eli,” I said.
“You’re a good friend too. I need this,” he said.
George walked home and I brought the guests into my place. I pulled my comforter from my bed, grabbed my computer, the charger and brought them to the living room. I returned to the bedroom and looked around before I found the bottle of KY Jelly. I walked to the doorway with it. The girl was faced away from me and I hissed at Eli. He looked up.
I pantomimed to him and held the bottle in my hand. So she can fuck you in the ass. So she can fuck you in the ass. I motioned with my finger simulating some aggressive anal play. Eli grinned at me and I tossed him the bottle. I went to the living and sat down with Jim to watch some TV.

“So Eli is finally getting some ass with that fucking drunk chick,” I said.
“He sure is,” Jim said.
“She’s on probation, eh?”
“Yeah, she told us that she spent last night in the hospital for alcohol poisoning,” Jim said.
“What a fucking girl,” I said. She had been stumbling around the house before my bedroom door closed.

I heard the strike of Eli’s boots on the bedroom floor and the first sounds coming from my bedroom in more than an hour and a half.
“Oh, I guess they’re done. He has his shoes back on,” I said.
“I bet he didn’t even take them off,” Jim said.
The bedroom door opened and Eli led the girl down my hallway.
“Hello,” Eli said. “She is going to go home now.”
“Bye guys,” the girl said and smiled at us. She was no longer stumbling.
I laughed. “What a fucking guy,” I said.

Eli returned to the apartment a few minutes later.
“She got a cab quickly,” I said.
“Max,” he said.
“How’d it go?”
“She shit in your bed,” Eli said.
‘What?” I said. I half smiled at Eli not believing him.
“Yes, she fucking shit in your bed and I told her she had to go home.”
“Fuck you, Eli. You’re fucking me,” I said.
“No, man, I am telling you the fucking truth.”
“Bullshit, show me that shit then.”
I sat on my futon and lost another internet game of no cash Hold ‘Em.
Eli returned a moment later with his hand extended.
“Theyre just little girl turdies’ Eli said.
In his hands were two little pancakes of shit. They were the size and shape of two real little hotcakes.
“What the fuck,” I said.
“I was fucking her in the ass and she fucking shit them out.”
“What the fuck!” I yelled. “That fucking drunk shit on my bed! And you’re fucking hold the shit in your hands!”
“Yeah, she also came. She came about three times. She fucking female ejaculated on there. She nearly came at the party. I was fingering her on the dance floor, giving her the ol Captain hook.” He said with a growl.
“No! No! You’re full of shit. Fuck you Eli, you fucking bastard. She had better not have soiled my bed.”
“She was loving it,” Eli said.
“Until she crapped the bed!”
“She didn’t mind that too much either. I told her that she had shit and she said, ‘Oh that’s okay,’ and I said ‘No that’s not okay because this isn’t my bed. This is Max B.K.’s bed and you’re going to have to take a taxi cab home now.’”
I stared at Eli.
“I fucking gave her my business card. She had better not call saying she is pregnant. She’s 18 years old.”
“How old are you?’” Jim asked.
“Twenty-five.”
‘Who gives a fuck how old she is,” I said. “Eli, you fucked her in the ass without a condom didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” Eli grinned.
“I bet you didn’t even use the lube.”
“Nope.”
“Fucking rip those sheets off my bed before it soaks to the mattress!” I jumped up from the futon and went to my bed. I looked down on my dark blue fitted sheet and saw the splotch. The size of the wetness was as if he had spilled a can of beer on my sheets, but this was not beer it was she-jissom. Girl cum.
“Eli! Take those sheets off! You’re a bad boy Eli Stevens, a very bad boy! A naughty, reprehensible boy!”
“I wasn’t the one who did the shitting, man,” Eli said as he grabbed the sheets off my bed. He laughed.
“The pillow case too–– No, not the pillow case! You’ll sleep in the mess you made tonight, Eli.” I looked down at the mattress. A huge darkened wetness has impregnated my queen mattress. “I can’t fucking believe you, Eli. You ass fucked her and she fucking cum stained my mattress. I can’t believe you sodomized her on my bed, a friend’s bed. You don’t ass fuck someone on a friend’s bed, Eli! You’re a very bad boy!”
“Hey, Max, you told me I could ass fuck her. You were pointing at your ass, motioning, and you even gave me the KY.”
“What! I never said you could fuck her in the ass. I said she could fuck you in the ass. I know you’re into that. Bad boy!”
Eli had given me a butt plug with a perineum attachment the day before. The gift was second hand. I stood looking down at my fouled mattress.
“Clean that fucking mattress off with Tide stain remover, put my fucking sheets in the washing machine, and get the fucking camera out.”

My Mother Dear's Thoughts About My Blog

2008-02-28T22:39:00.000-08:00

Dear Max,
having read your blog, I must say how disappointed I am. You are SO Brilliant Max [Rampage], I was hoping to be enlightened. instead I feel sick to my stomach, even angry. Guess i won't read your blog any more, unless of course you have something interesting to say. Which I know that you do !
I keep
telling people that my totally fantastic and genius son will some day soon write for the N.Y. Times, The New Yorker, the Economist., Books,....I hope nobody who matters reads this pap. Sorry to be so critical. I know who you are and what you've got. Hope to see it in written word soon. I guess i thought it was just so immature. Potty talk ??!!? You can do better Max !
I love and admire you, and hope I have not offended you. If you want to discuss this and tell me what was on your mind,or any thing else, I would be very interested. Perhaps you were trying to be funny and i just missed it. hope to talk with you soon, love , your Mother

Boners and the Toilet Bowl: The Education of Steph Shih

2008-02-28T22:28:00.000-08:00

I've woken up with Morning Wood every day since I was 13 years old. This has caused several awkwardnesses, raised eyebrows, blows jobs. (Yeah right. I could never lure the dog into the room while I was asleep) Friend's have been delighted to see me awake so early in the morning, thinking they have caused such delights. Others have been less than thrilled to see me at attention at such a tender hour, or rather any hour at all.

Nevertheless, this is a fact of life and has nothing to do with them. It really such means I have to tinkle on the ivories. My mother noticed this when I was around 15.

Mommy Dearest. (she doesn't like my blog)

Waking up in the Woods, always meant that my first activity in the morning was not chocolate syrup covered self-indulgence, but taking a piss. This required a certain, maneuvering, a fancy footwork. For in order not to expose myself to mother who idled in the kitchen next to the bathroom burning my breakfast as I readied for school, I had to obscure my adamantine, usually by walking quickly with a crook in the back and my wang (or is Called General Tso's Chicken) tucked carefully beneath the elastic band of my boxers.

Attention: If you plan on using this strategy, you have to wear a t-shirt. Otherwise mommy will think you have cancer.

But the real snafu was when I had arrived at the pisser.

Let me make an admission: I sit to piss.

In the privacy of my own home, I will relax, take a seat, enjoy Reader's Digest or O Magazine.

But with a protuberance, this can become a fiasco, because the last thing I need is to place my Sesame Chicken on the dirtiest piece of porcelain in the house. So one must adjust to give the breakfast buddy some space, but this can actually create a trajectory that allows one to eject a stream of urine between the toilet seat and the toilet.

Nothing is quite like Mommy Dear banging on the door demanding I clean the yellow off the white wall opposite the shitter as I am preparing to go to school.

Fortunately, a piss is usually a quick affair and I could the pocket the tiger with control.

The real problem was when I had the nocturnal tumescence and I had to drop the Jefferson's off at the lake house. This can be a problem. Not only are the precious wares in an unsanitary place bumpin' on the bowl, but the danger of disease or disfigurement seems accentuated by the discharge. The perils can be further enhanced with the possibility of splash back, yes, a real big one smacking the waves and sending a torrent of fecal fouled fluids on to the Morning Magnificence.

Come on Steph Shih, of course guys drop the deuce with an engorged member: haven't you ever given a blumpkin?

A Warning to Ferry Lincoln: Life With Weasels

2008-02-10T17:41:00.000-08:00

I put down my xbox controller and shot a glance into Ferry Lincoln's piss sodden cage. Amid the stained red blanky and his composting wood chips, he could not be seen.

I screamed.

How could I? I thought. How could I have abandoned my ferret the way I found him? Sick with cancer, hobbling around the streets of Allston, blind as Helen Keller and even more deaf. Yes, I thought this is how Ferry Lincoln became mine: someone let him out of the cage and then took a bike ride to Newton Center and back.

I hustled out of the living room and began overturning backpacks, my powerdrill box, a pile of clothes in Phil's room. My wee Lincoln! I shouted to him, hopping to break his hearing barrier and signal to his ferret mind. Surely if he could smell like moonshine fermenting in a construction worker's portopotty in the heat of former Rhodesia, he had other superpowers. Latent superpowers.

I desperately bungled my way over to his favorite hiding place and tore the sheets off Phil's bed. But I despairingly knew in my heart Ferry Lincoln would never climb into such a disheveled chamber; Ferry Lincoln is a gentlemen.

I drew in deep a smell of air, hoping to locate him using the smells from his anal gland. (Please do not tell my room mates that it is his anal glands that give him his distinct bouquet, because they do not know. Fools! Where else could such a malodorous experience come from? Hmm? Idiots!) Alas, my roman nose could not place the little weasel.

I called to him using the English accent I think he perceives most readily. "Ferry Linlcoln!" I cried in Northern English phonetics. He responded silently, if he responded at all. I rapped on my room mates door. "Come in," he said. "My ferret is missing," I said. "Oh shit," he said. We tore through the house. I peered under my bed and then I peered atop it. I threw my boxers and hoodie to the ground.

My heart sank. He lay there underneath my fitted sheet.

"YOU FILTHY BASTARD!" I reached under my freshly cleaned fitted sheet and yanked him out from his resting place on the raw mattress, my nice fresh mattress. "YOU DISGUST ME. I'LL HAVE TO CLEAN THOSE AGAIN." I shook him for emphasis. This is how they taught Helen Keller. Screams and violent shakes, that thick dumb bitch. I tossed him back into his diarhheal den.

Watch yourself, Ferry Lincoln, for if you ever sleep in my sheets, you will find the front door open and your bogged cage on the sidewalk.

With a Heavy Heart Comes the Change of My Nom de Plume and URL

2008-01-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bitch+Killer&defid=2784285

The name bitch is not very offensive. The name killer is common parlance. However, the combination of the two, bitch killer, seems like an anti-woman epithet, and as a result, with a very heavy heart and a very conflicted conscience, weighing the personal meaning of the moniker against the public face I reveal to the world, I am once again changing my cyber nom de plume. I will call myself now "Max Rampage." There is brand of shoes called Rampage, and I am naming myself after these. Adieu, sweet Bitch Killer, with other abandoned pseudonyms you will go.

The Handshake: Living a Private Life in the Public Sphere

2008-01-16T16:14:00.000-08:00

I once had a cyber girlfriend. She was a cutie. She looked like a chunky version of one of the Mary Kate or Ashley Olson twins. I called her Joi and she called me Mr. ReadPorn. I thought that was a really classy moniker, one that not only revealed my proclivity, but my intellect. Mr ReadPorn. I imagined sitting down on a light blue velvet chair, wearing a chiffon robe, book perched between knees, going at it. Like Masterpiece Theatre with Ron Jeremy.

I don't read much anymore. No, the days are short and my work is long. I'm lucky to catch five thirty-second glimpses of some kinda Korean sorority backdoor lovefest come school days. Fortunately, during midterms, I found myself with some time on my hands, the time to gratify and edify.

During these exam weeks, I make sure to put away the time to indulge, and indulge I did. I dawdled, enjoying those reader submitted stories, I teased. This was no rushed double vaginal double anal shot from a cellphone in the back of a school bus; this was fantasy land. And I roamed. Imagination.

Four pages and three minutes later, (my hands are slowed by having to click "next page") I had finished. I stood up to go to the bathroom, wash my hands, and look at my sixpack, when instead I stumbled upon Ayaas and his girlfriend in the living room. I said hello and began to shift back toward the bathroom.

"Max, how have you been, man?" said Ayaas, fresh from work, and extended his hand to me.

I winced. I looked furtively at Phil. I shot his girlfriend a tragic glance and then looked down at my hand, then his. He has dark, thick, Paki skin. (He's from India.)

Yes, I thought, here's the solution: I turned my hand into the pound and went to pound Ayaas'.

He stood there bright-eyed and put his hand out further, fingers outstretched, wrist firm.

My fingers uncoiled. I clasped his hand and then quickly withdrew.

"How are you?" I asked Ayaas' girlfriend.

"Good, you?" she said.

"Herm, I'm okay." I said. I watched as she then squinted at my pants and then suddenly averted her eyes. I slowly turned away.

I stepped into the kitchen, shuddered from the experience, and then looked down. My fly hung open. Red boxers peaked from black jeans. A darker red poked through because my boxers were damp.

I stood there for a moment and then asked Phil if he wanted to play a game of thumbwars.

How to Deal at 40,000 Feet: Dilemmas of Public Flatulence

2008-01-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

After years of constant soy milk ingestion, my body adapted. My
innards became more efficient. My breasts became more tender. And of most importance: my physiology stopped producing lactose. Usually a plight of non-Europeans, I found myself in the company of most blacks, woefully lactose intolerant, much to the chagrin of anyone with a sense of smell.

It is said 98% of earth's population can smell.

I try to surround myself with the other two percent, but I do not
always get to choose my company. My friend Dan Crane's moustache filters the worst of it when I am with him, but my classmates are chosen seemingly at random; T Riders seem not have much choice about their lot; And sometimes the airline company forces me to sit with complete strangers, strangers who are at my mercy.

Aviation has revolutionized travel for the world, but with innovation
came set backs. Restrooms, unrealistically small and far away, are only at the tip of the iceberg. Those cramped seats force me to hunch over, concentrating my weight on my gut, creating undue pressures for lengthy periods on bowels.

Inevitably, nature seeks osmosis and my
embottled methanes and carbons try to escape. I try to hold it in. I
do try. But the ancient Romans knew-- it's just not healthy to hold it
in and I must relent.

The same air pressure systems that allows us to respirate normally
thousands of feet above the earth also imposes truly unique smells on your neighbors. They sustain the full plight of the chicken parmesans, the Chex Mix with 2%, the Cold Stone Birthday Remix. Those pressurizers not only surround your seatmates with those aromas, but also require them to suffer the odors time and time again as the finite air supply recycles in the overhead compartments, slow-filtered through your carry on back down on to your head via those little air blasting
nozzles.

Sudden temperature fluctuations can be observed soon after a
meal of fetticini alfredo is served on the flight from New York to
Singapore.

Orville Wright did not have the foresight to manipulate strange
smells, but take heed, you have options and the option lies beneath you. Yes, your seat cushion is the closest thing to a space station air
purifier you have if you're not an astronaut.

Step One: Simply brush the hand of that mother to be who looks like she is on the verge of puking into the seat pocket in front of her off the armrest, grab hold of the rest and dig in.

Put your center of mass into the
cushion and relax. Purified charcoal is a main constituent in those coach seats and they will actually absorb that chocolate malt you ingested in the gate terminal.

But wish good karma for the unfortunate soul who finds himself in the Gulf of Mexico using that very cushion as a flotation device,
grasping it tightly for his life as he takes his last fleeting gasp of
air and thinks: "Smells like 3:00 am Mexican and Danon yogurt. . ."

Miracles of the Human Body: The Phantom Shit

2008-01-08T10:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I felt a big one coming on. My daily exercise must have sped up my metabolism because I was shitting as if I were a rabbit, but with the volume of a rabbit my size, 160 lbs, and the exception that the shits were not little black spheres but instead long, orangebrown, streamlined cylinders.

After meditating on it a few moments, I went to the depository to have a go. I strained mildly, this felt like a small one, and I was able to release. *Plop*

I looked down beneath my legs to examine my Fresh Kill when to my wonder I found nothing at all. No, I saw nothing but unmarked white ceramic toilet bowl. I leaned over, gaining a more obtuse angle to vantage a glance into the receptacle but I could still see no remains.

I stepped off of the loo and crouched down, peering deeper into the plumbing, shifting from right to left. There was nothing there. Was my little Deceptacon able to eel itself down the hole?

Or is it possible I did not defecate at all?

Did I take a Phantom Shit?

I swore I could have felt my anus and intestines flow the little bugger out. And, I knew I had felt my the sphincter of my rectum allow the exit and then pinch the loaf. But, my deuce was no where to be seen.

The remarkable part is that this has happened to me before. The Phantom Shit has struck previously. No, it doesn't count when you sit too far back and high up on the crapper and end up shitting against the seat, your lower back, and down your crack. That's different. I have definitely found those, just not in the bowl. Strangely, my mother often found those escapees before I did and forced me to clean them manually. (I dare ask, what is a mother really for but not too clean her child's escapees?)

A day later I am still miffed. Was my body playing a foul trick on me? Or did another little bugger slip away?