Almost Sane

I like to joke that, when I’m bored, I either masturbate or try to get something published.

“The two, of course,” I said to my wife a few nights ago, “are very similar pursuits.”

Clearly, I don’t just masturbate or try to get something published when I’m bored. I also do dishes and blog. Aren’t you bummed you can’t take this winner home?

A few days ago, I sat down at the computer and (after I’d masturbated, of course) sifted through the vast collection of my unpublished work, this time, I reviewed my work for the stage, and I surveyed it, for the most part, disapprovingly. A slap-dash collection of obscene, off-my-nut, angst-ridden one-acts filled with characters who are thinly-and-not-so-even-thinly representations of yours truly, engaging in a variety of farcical acts, meant to send the audience into spasms of laughter. Meant to mask spasms of pain.

Clearly, nobody needs that.

Then, one peculiar play caught my eye again. A play I started in (EEP!) 2006, the year I (SNART!) got married!!!! A play that I have picked up at least once every year since then to do major facelifts on. I play I have sent to playwriting festivals and directors and playhouses, a play that has gotten little but lukewarm praise and a kind rebuff (“not right for us at this time”) such business. What’s it about? The international investigation into a major airline crash.

What. Is wrong. With me?

? ? ?

Seriously, I need a very ambitious therapist and super-strength, gold-plated insurance card.

So, because I’ve been obsessing over this thing (when I get tired of masturbating and the dishes are all done and I’ve blogged for tomorrow) I dusted this tired old motherfucker off and re-read the most recent draft.

I liked it.

And maybe that’s the first sign of trouble.

It’s funny. At my job, I work with delusional people every hour of every day. One of them thinks I am personally responsible for bringing the slaves back from Africa (“WHY DO YOU PUT CHAINS AROUND THEIR NECKS AND BRING THEM BACK HERE TO DO THE WHITE MAN’S WORK?!”), another one thinks there is a baby trying to slice open her belly so it can get out and kill cops. Another patient is convinced that we put poison in the water cooler and we’re trying to kill everyone in the hospital. A surprising number of them believe there are microchips or radios implanted in their bodies. Delusions like that are pretty easy to identify (though I really did bring back slaves from Africa—but it was only a couple, and my hedges really do need frequent attention) and we laugh about it in the chart room.

“Don’t feel bad, dude,” one of the nurses said to me yesterday about a particularly delusional patient who has negatively fixated on me of late, “she thinks I’m bombing the Vietnamese and so she refuses to take the yellow pill from me.”

But, as I sat there, re-reading my airplane accident investigation play for the manyth time, I suddenly got the shivers a little bit. Am I delusional? Continuing to work on this absurd little probable non-drama, sending it to legitimate, though small and indie-ish theatres in the hopes that they will take kindly to an ambitious, fledgling Philadelphia-area playwright?

Ambitious. Or delusional?

And then it hit me: Oh. Right. It’s all about the perceptions of others.

If some Artistic Director opening up my email with that query letter and that attachment and reads it saying, “Man, this guy’s nucking futs,” well, then, I guess, to him, I am. If another one reads it and says, “Hmpf, this thing isn’t half bad,” then, to her, I’m not. As far as my own self-perception: I’m not sure. I suppose we’re all a little ambitious and we’re all a little delusional, or teetering on the edge, until we’re given a pink slip or an award or a kiss on the forehead or a kick in the balls.

That’s what the rest of the world is for: to let us know where we stand.

Contractually Obligated

As a man of my word, I am contractually obligated to stay at my current job until August 27, and that sucks bumpy nards.

As a blogger of my word, I am contractually obligated to write about this fucking oil-spill. And that sucks bumpy nards, too, ladies and gents (though, let's face it, mostly ladies.)

I fought the fight valiantly for a while, you've got to admit. Sure, I made an oblique reference to it here and there, mostly for comedic effect-- and I'm sure all those oil-beaked birds appreciate my using their life-ending dilemma for a couple cheap laughs. (I can't believe you laughed at that-- what are you, a complete fuckjob or something?)

I think lots of bloggers my age (and younger) are under some kind of delusion that their "followers" (by the way, I have 184 at last count, and I think maybe nine people read my blog daily, so there's that) are sitting by the screen obsessively clicking "Refresh" until we've posted some new introspective musing or thought-provoking monologuette about this or that, and that our views are what this small sliver of the public are pining for.

You're just dying to know what I, Mr. Fucking Apron, think about the oil spill, right?

Well, here's what I think:

The oil spill reminds me of summer camp.

It reminds me of the ominous warning issued by lifeguards that, if you peed in the pool (yes, I went to theatre camp and, yes, there was a swimming pool-- mostly for show) a tell-tale, red ring would appear around your midsection and would label you as a filthy, unclean miscreant who violated rules of common decency who delights in befouling public waters. And you, the villain and arch-enemy of all that is clean and good and pure and chlorine-imbued in the world would be looked upon by your poolmates with such disgrace, such abhorrence, such palpable animosity that you would slowly rise from the filth-filled waters, shame-faced and forever marked as a virulent sinner, wander slowly into the changing room, and kill yourself by drowning yourself in the toilet bowl-- the very place into which you should have peed in the first place.

Because pee-pee doesn't belong in a swimming pool.

And oil doesn't belong in the ocean.

But here we are-- talking about oil and pee-pee on my blog. Surprised?

Here's another thing about the oil spill: I hate it. It makes me want to buy a ferret from Petco and throw it against a window as hard as I can. It makes me want to terrorize elderly ladies by kicking their walkers out from under them and replacing their Polident with linseed oil. I'm so angry I could scream.

But what good would that do?

What good is this post doing?

Hopefully, it's at least making you laugh a little, because that's about all I've got, kids.

Here's the thing about the oil spill-- mothafuckas be trippin'. They walk around in their crisply-ironed blue Oxford shirts and hardhats and they all make a shitload of money, which hurts my feelings. I would like to fuck up the ecosystem and make a shitload of money doing it. Hell, for a shitload of money, I'd nuke Old Faithful or pull down my pants and shit all over Mt. Rushmore-- right on T.R.'s teeth. I'd cover a huge branch with my shit and brush Teddy's teeth with my shit-covered branch if only someone gave me a lot of money to do it.

Because that's what this debacle is all about, really, isn't it? Money? God. Isn't money fucking amazing? You give it to people, this paper and shit, and they're all like, "Oh! Thank you for this paper! You may now have two dozen rolls of wallpaper or this hamburger or this 19th century enamel bowl." Money makes everyone fucking crazy. It makes you dump oil all over the goddamn place until the dolphins eat it. Do you realize that there are dolphins out there that are probably shitting oil?

Wow.

I wonder if a big, red ring will appear around them sonsofbitches. You know, an older camper once told me that whole red ring business was just a scare tactic that the pee-pee obsessed lifeguards used to keep us all in line. I wasn't gutsy enough to test the theory, but I wanted to.

Everybody wants to think BP is evil. I don't think they're evil. I just think they're fuckheads, kind of like everybody else, including me. It's getting sickeningly popular to hate on BP, and I generally do the opposite of whatever is sickeningly popular, so I'm going to resist that social-loafing urge to hate on BP.

I love you, BP. Now clean up your mess like good boys and girls.

Hmpf.

Do any girls work for BP? I think putting a female on the Today Show who works for BP would be a pretty smart PR move for the company. Preferably a female who's in her early thirties with a smooth neck and hair that billows down past her shoulders. Supple lips, eyes half-closed in that seductive and chic way. Pretty tough to hate on that, wouldn't it?

God-- I should have gone into P.R. What's wrong with me?

You know what I think maybe the worst thing is about this oil spill? We can't blame it on North Korea or Afghanistan or something. God-- that's fucking annoying.

Two Tears in a Bucket: It's My Masonic Apron's Motherfuckit List

Everybody's been going on and on about "Bucket Lists" since that moronic movie starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson came out in 2007. I don't think anybody actually saw the film, but enough advertising dollars were spent trying to market it that the term at least became popularized and now everybody wants to know what's on your "Bucket List."

At least, people think everybody wants to know.

I think most of you know me well enough to know by now that I don't give a sparrow's fart about what's on your Bucket List. You want to see the Taj Mahal before you expire? Great. Want to eat strawberries out your boo's asshole before you meet your maker? Um, you rock on with that. Want to skywrite, "Surrender, Captain Morgan" while doing loop-dee-loops in a biplane before you die, probably in the three-and-a-half seconds before you die? That's nice, dear. I support you. From a comfortable distance.

I've read a lot of 20somethings' Bucket Lists, and I have to tell you, they really span the spectrum from the predictable to the outlandish to the moderately touching to the formulaic.

"I want to buy an around-the-world plane ticket & travel for a year."

"I want to publish a novel."

"I want to have children."

"I want to pull off a heel-clicker on a dirt bike."

What?

"I want to host a fabulous dinner party."

"I want to see a Broadway show."

"I want to send myself flowers."

"I want to bungee jump/skydive/parasail/extreme spelunk, etc..."

It's kind of a strange feeling, reading the Bucket Lists of 20somethings because, statistically, they have fuck all of a long time to pull all of this stuff off, and some of it isn't very hard to do. Like sending yourself flowers. I mean, if you can get over the embarrassment of calling FTD Florists and giving the same exact bill-to and send-to information, you've pretty much got that one nailed.

I wonder sometimes how many people actually achieve all or any or one of the items on their Bucket Lists. I guess, if you aim low your chances are better. I have a special place in my heart for underachievers and, if this blog is something you heartily enjoy, then you probably are one.

God, I love you, you hopeless slackass. Keep resisting the urge to get some work done.

It is with a modest degree of hesitation that I give you My Masonic Apron's Two Tears in a Bucket, Motherfuckit List:

Before I die of a premature heart attack brought on by chronic anxiety and poor coping skills, I want to:

* kick a Republican in the testicles-- preferably on live television, but I'll settle for a dark alley

* eat dinner at a very expensive, posh restaurant, and right before it's time to leave, staple the tablecloth, napkins, and the tip to the table

* defecate in my 2nd grade teacher's mailbox

* show up at my parent's house on my mother's birthday dressed as a clown

* see a professional production of "Hamlet" and, when Ophelia dies, stand up and scream, "Oh, SNAPS! No you di'int, bitches!"

* put Milli Vanilli in the stocks and publicly humiliate them as punishment for stealing away the innocence of the late 1980s and early 1990s

* drive my car into a house-- it's the only way an ordinary guy can get his ass on the news these days

* join the Army. And then immediately proposition the recruiting officer for oral sex

* enter a supermarket dressed as a police officer, go to the fresh seafood area, pull a lobster out of the tank, wrestle it to the ground and place it under arrest

* blog-- all the way to the end. And, you know what? I might just be fucking crazy enough to do it.