Animal Instincts

Have you ever stumbled upon a stray dog, coyote, or small wolf unexpectedly? The animal doesn't move but, instead, stares at you...intently...wondering what your next move is going to be...will you be aggressive?...threatening?...scared? He's totally locked in to you...using all senses to detect your motives...showing his teeth in hopes of eliciting a telling gesture from you. Do you stare back while flashing your fangs? Do you reek of weakness? Do you break eye contact? Do you stand your ground?

I approach every encounter with new people as a wolf who has his back against the wall. I used to come at people like a friendly dog...wagging my tail...panting...eager to play with my new companions. I have since discarded this approach to unknown people. I have been kicked, starved, chained to posts, and locked in basements too many times to keep employing this canine style of interaction. I will no longer subject myself to having my tail set on fire or my paws burned with lit cigarettes. I have had my kindness and hospitality taken for weakness far too many times. I now trust no one. This even includes people I think that I know. No one is safe from my scrutiny, paranoia, or my guarded mind. I view everyone as a potential confrontation...a potential enemy...a potential Judas Iscariot. I survey my surroundings like a lone wolf searching for shelter in a forrest full of predators. Each step is extremely calculated...cautious...sometimes even conniving.

I wish I didn't have to be this way...I wish I could shed this paranoia...I wish I didn't have to view everyone as waiting enemies...sleeper cells out to destroy me. Unfortunately, I have no choice. Don't get me wrong...I don't attack without provocation. I don't attack for the sheer enjoyment of tearing flesh from bone. Self preservation is my only motive. While I stay on constant alert, I still have the ability to open up my den to someone...clean someone else's fur...share my rabbit meat.
It might take time, but if you prove yourself worthy...you will receive the hospitality, kindness, and loyalty that you are due as a member of the pack. However, if disloyalty and guile are your paramount qualities, you will be pounced upon and devoured before dusk sets in. And as the moon reveals itself, I howl...with the bitter taste of your disloyal blood and tendons still fresh on my tongue. I howl...as a sincere thank you to the sacred few and as an audible warning to the vile many.

Are you Sirius??

HEY NOW!!!
I really must be the only shmuck who wakes up for work at 3am just to get my balls broken by idiot celebrities, porn stars, and my dumb coworkers all day. It's not bad enough that i have a good friend in the hospital thanks to a botched suicide attempt. I need Bababooey busting my chops all morning with ferkockteh Mets trivia? Ma-Ma-Monkey. That horse-toothed jackass needs to just shut up and produce. I almost wanna fire him just so he understands what a great life I've created for him. He wouldn't last a second anywhere else. He screws up my show all morning long and then has the nerve to sheepishly stick his head in my office and say "Sorry Boff." Just do your job!! Is it really that much to ask? Good God! Ra-Ra-Retard. I've already got one martian on the payroll; I don't need any others. I'm surrounded by baffoons and dopey broads ALL DAY and all my staff can figure out to do is to emulate these wackos.


And another thing...how hard is it to heat up a baked potato and bring it to me? This really shouldn't require an ivy league education. Stupid K.C. couldn't do it. That idiot Grillo invented new ways to screw up this simple task. Hey Dopes!! It's a fuckin baked potato! Not that hard. Throw the fuckin thing into a microwave and bring it to me sometime between 11am and 1pm.

Dinner with Beth was nice as usual. Had my half glass of wine. I still hate to drink heavily during the week. I like to wait until the weekend when i can really get crazy and enjoy a FULL glass in the confines of my sell-out, Hamptons getaway spot. Fuckin Artie. He could be enjoying all of this too. I actually haven't been able to get him out of my mind all day. I hope he can get the help that he needs. Poor bastard. All I've been able to think about is his poor mother and sister. That's gotta be incredibly hard. I hope he fully recovers and gets his head straight. Fuckin guy.

Well, its 7pm already which means i need to lie down so i can repeat all of this foolishness again tomorrow.

Life is Full of Curveballs

Nothing has caused me to raise my eyebrows in surprise more than Mark McGuire's recent announcement that he did, indeed, shoot steroids. Gee...McGuire was involved in the use of HGH and other performance enhancing drugs? I'm completely flabbergasted! Don't get me wrong. I'm not naive. I always knew that some players cheated but i always assumed they were the obvious players like Nolan Ryan, Hank Aaron, or Rod Carew. THEY always seemed like the true steroid red-flags to me. But McGuire? I would have NEVER guessed that his ridiculous bulk was due to performance enhancing drugs. I just figured that he worked out 28 hours a day and ate nothing but raw eggs. What's next? Is Barry Bonds going to issue a statement revealing that pumping steroids into his blood stream is the REAL reason he outgrew a baseball cap and a pair of cleats in his late 30's? Will Sammy Sosa hold a press conference to proclaim that using a corked bat in a game WASN'T his only ethical slip-up? I can't imagine. I've always held these men above suspicion and I've always believed what they've told us. Kind of like how, in the 1980's, I believed that Reagan had no idea about Iran-Contra.

Hold on...A new email just hit my inbox.

Oh, it's from my old friend Orenthal. He just told me that it really WAS him who was responsible for the double murder in front of his Brentwood home. Shut up! I always thought it was that elusive, faceless guy that O.J. and his caddy used to search for at all of the upscale golf courses in California. After all, wasn't that glove not fitting the most damning evidence YOU'VE ever seen!? What a day of enlightenment.

Hold on...My cell phone is ringing.

Sorry about that. My old friend George just called. He just told me that the "WMD" fairy tales were simply to provide justification for a full-scale invasion of Iraq. WHAT? Our president lied about the real reasons we went to war?? That's never happened in America before!! Good God. What a day in the "shocking revelations" arena. I haven't even read the emails that Kwame Kilpatrick, Bill Clinton, Robert Blake, Ted Kennedy, and Roman Polanski have just sent me. I wonder what unbelievable deeds THEY are going to admit doing. One could only guess.

Thank God Jimi Hendrix Died Young

Everyone parties on New Years Eve. Chances are...if you are over 18 years of age in America, you were nursing an excruciating hangover on January 1st. House parties, dance clubs, and concert halls are generally to blame for our December 31st lapses into alcoholism. These end of the year parties are always extremely fantastical and frenzied but imagine standing on the main floor of the Fillmore East on New Years Eve of 1969. High-class, alcoholic libations in both hands with the funky sound of Jimi Hendrix's guitar wafting into your ears as the marijuana smoke from the hippy in front of you wafts into your nostrils. A night like that would definitely put all other New Years Eve celebrations to shame.

Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitarist of all time. You could argue that the crown of six-string superiority should be set upon the brow of Eric Clapton, Chuck Berry, or even Tom Morello. Sadly though, you would be wrong. Completely wrong. No one could caress a Fender Stratocaster and make it wail the way Jimi did. He was amazing and his talent remains unmatched. However, with all of this said...I am very happy he died young.

Remember when Puff Daddy (or whatever moniker he's running with this week) performed with Jimmy Page on SNL a while back? It was some horrible song that he wrote to the music of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir." I was sick to my stomach listening to Puffy yell over one of the best songs of the last century. I still cant believe that Jimmy Page publicly disgraced his own iconic song like that. A textbook atrocity. Luckily, we Hendrix fans will never have to be subjected to something that blasphemous. We will never have to worry about a balding, beer bellied Hendrix appearing as a guest judge on America's Got Talent or on New Years Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.  Most importantly, we will never have to endure a Hendrix album dropping in 2016 with this track listing:

1.   Intro
2.   Hey Joe (feat. Justin Bieber)
3.   Pimpin' dem hippy hoes (feat. Nicki Minaj)
4.   Purple Haze (feat. Iggy Azalea)
5.   Foxy Lady (feat. Adam Levine)
6.   Voodoo Chile remix (feat. Kanye West)
7.   Machine Gun (feat. Taylor Swift)
8.   Red House (feat. Pitbull and Ke$ha)
9.   Fire (feat. Katy Perry)
10. Crosstown Traffic (feat. Sam Smith)

11. Stone Free (feat.  Bruno Mars)
Bonus Track:

10. The Star Spangled Banner (feat. Carl Lewis)

Thank you for dying young and never bastardizing your music. Most of all, thank you for allowing me to remember you as the rock god that you are, Jimi. R.I.P.