I was at the usual Black Hole Coffee House this evening talking to my friends Catherine and Joy, whom I don’t get to see this often, when a guy game up and asked to use my cellphone. This was ok. He asked for a couple of other things that various people provided (cigarette, light, pen, etc.)

Then he sat down to tell his story

The real terror of the oncoming anniversary next week is becoming apparent. Flags and “holiday” type crap starting to appear for sale in stores, prophetic onion article about bartender wondering what to do for the anniversary, etc. My work is offering “anniversary syndrome” counseling.

In case anyone is wondering, I plan to spend the 11th hiding in my closet hugging my cat until all the flagschmerz goes away.

WHAT A COUNTRY! as Yakov Smirnoff would say. Did you know he’s an artist these days? “I was really nervous about starting this painting. Watching the flag fly proudly over my theater always gave me goose bumps. I was hoping to portray it with honor. I hope I did.”

From a movie ad on the radio:

Parental advisory: this film contains nudity, violence, scenes of torture, and language

Please, save us from the Virus from Outer Space.

I was behind a car today that had the following decorations:

1. American flag sticker with UNITED WE STAND
2. Playboy bunny
3. Very large letters on rear windshield that said GIVE ME DA BOOTY
4. To the right and left of the above item, symmetrical naked lady silhouettes of the kind seen on truck mudflaps, except in a Stars and Stripes filled pattern

I await the victory of al-Qaeda with mixed emotions.

In our circle of slackers who hang out at the Diedrich Coffeehouse in Costa Mesa there is a guy I’ll call TA. TA is a stereotypically pugnacious Irish-American and a stereotypically romantic artist, far too self-conscious about both of those things, and much older and shorter than he’d like to be. I get along with him ok although I don’t care for his art, and although he and I aren’t really made to inhabit the same planet. We have a “nod and smile” arrangement and some friends in common but we’d never be friends and could end up enemies easily.

Today things went overboard with him.

stand against terror with my pal TorgoX. I have not yet begun to party!

TorgoX keeps showing me bad things. Like.. umm.. like this

I am now going to wax myself for P. Diddy.

Some powerpoint for

‘Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?’

WELP FOLKS DIDN’T MAKE IT TO BURNING MAN THIS YEAR SO I WILL BE IN THE INFLATABLE POOL IN THE FRONT YARD ALL WEEK IF ANYONE WANTS TO HANG OUT. AND BY HANGING OUT I MEAN JERKING.

LONG STORY SHORT I’M STILL DRIVING THE NEON, NO IDEA IF I HAVE TO PAY THE DEDUCTIBLE, AND MY EPIGLOTTIS HURTS. SERIOUSLY NOT UNDERSTANDING MY LIFE HERE.

WOULD LIKE TO THANK NETSCAPE FOR MAKING MORE SHITTY SOFTWARE!!1! IT’S ALWAYS A PLEASURE TO HAVE MY INSTALL OF OTHER SOFTWARE TRASHED AS I ATTEMPT TO UPGRADE, JOIN THE COOL CLUB, ETC. NOT HAVING AN OPTIMAL MULTIMEDIA/INTERNET EXPERIENCE HERE, WEDGED UNDER THE SINK.

IF ONLY IT COULD ALL BE LIKE POOING.