This is Why I Can't Write a Novel

I think that a bar should smell like a bar. It’s the first thing I noticed when I walked into that place. It didn’t.

Before my eyes had a chance to investigate my nose had already made its mind up. I wasn’t going to like this place. It smelled like spice. I don’t know which. Doesn’t matter. It wasn’t club soda. Not the syrup you mix with water to make the fountain Pepsi that shoots out of that wonderful gun. It didn’t smell like the 40^th anniversary of cigar smoke and cue chalk.

It smelled nothing like leftover buttered-toast on my chin. The best toast I’ve ever had. It smelled nothing like strawberry jelly on my brother’s breath. Nothing like the ash-littered, sun-baked, road-tested fabric seats in my grandfather’s Lincoln that might as well have been a Panzer Tank. And it was. And it was the Batmobile. And it was fast. And I was immortal and a ninja turtle. And the wind was perfect.

This place smelled not at all like those mornings, when I still so young, and grandpa was still a superhero, and we would make the rounds. First to the O.T.B. for breakfast and bets, and then to the bar, so I could play pool with my hands and shoot Pepsi out of that miraculous Pepsi gun until I couldn’t stand another glass. Which was never. There has never been, nor will there ever be enough Pepsi.

Things being things, because that’s the way they are, I’m not so young anymore, Grandpa is somewhere drinking scotch and Metamucil with Jesus (not really, he’s dead) and that bar is gone. The O.T.B? Can’t say. Probably in ruins like the rest of the West End.

When my eyes caught up it was about as bright as 8am, when the sun sneaks past your blinds, crawls up your bed, sits on your face, and whispers in your ear, “you have shit to do.” In terms of available light, this isn’t very different from the dusty concussion that was the West End Club, but when you put it together with the smell you realize that you are underdressed. And I was. And so was she. But we didn’t care. So there was hope.

Maybe I was going to like this place.

But then everybody died of mouth AIDS quite suddenly and I was the last person left on Earth.

With Regards to The Homeless Lady on The Corner

Dear Homeless Lady,

I walk passed you every day. I have done so since late June, 2007. You have never asked me for change. You have never gotten in my way.

We have never exchanged a glance. We have never had a moment. You have not even politely feigned interest in me, and I have likewise not returned the same un-favor that you haven't given me.

I've noticed that you have a blue jacket. It looks like you purchased it at R.E.I. I enjoy R.E.I., though I really can't afford it.

Homeless Lady, if you got that jacket at R.E.I, did you not also notice that they have tents, kitchenware, showers, pots, pans, sinks, grills, and literally anything else you can think of or not think of in a convenient fold-up-all-weather-all-situation packaging?

Are you concerned about bear attack? No worries, they have bear-spray at R.E.I. You got your jacket from there. The blue all-weather one that you have. In fact, the jacket itself is probably bear-retardant. Most things at R.E.I come stock with some level of bear-retardancy.

I do not own one of these jackets.

What is it that you do all day? I see you reading the paper, A paper I should say. I don't know which it is. Maybe it's a paper from that fateful day when your husband and only child died from food poisoning after a post-soccer-practice trip to McDonald's. Rightfully so, your whole world was torn asunder, and now you walk around like Robert DeNiro in "Awakenings" (he didn't walk around in that movie. he sat there, vacant and vacuous, just like you. All fucking cool and shit with your R.E.I. jacket).

Homeless Lady, Do. I. Need. To. Call. Robin. Williams. To. Come. And. Fix. You?

I. Don't. Have. His. Number.

I've left this note here by your two rolling suitcases full of what is probably the contents of your food-poisoned and deathly dead child's bedroom where you let him eat beef until he died.

Do you hug his old Teddy Ruxpin every night before you fall asleep to the chime of 7 bells? Do you whisper to yourself, "it was just a happy meal..." You make me sick.

Here's my point. I left this note here to tell you that I'm taking your jacket. Tomorrow.

Fuck you. You don't deserve it,

- Your Dead Son and Husband from Hell's Post Office

The Production Assistant's Desk Reference: Maximizing Your Production's Crafty Table and How To Get Into Meal Penalty With Consistency

chapter will be written soon....

A Cat's History of the United States: 9/11/2001

Most of us can remember exactly where we were when we first heard the news about 9/11. Me? I was in high school, just a stones throw away from Ground Zero. Just a 90 mile toss of a stone from the financial district of Manhattan is where that stone called home at my high school in southern Connecticut. Which is where I was on September 11, 2001 when I first heard the news. More specifically, I was in theater class with my soon-to-be convicted pedophile of a teacher.

We gathered 'round an old black and white TV with a satellite feed of NBC on the screen (seems ridiculous, I know, but seriously it was a black and white TV running off of a satellite. The theater room was in the basement of the school, basically in a corner of its own. The superintendent would later question how my teacher got away with smoking pot and trading oral sex with a male student. I don't know, man, maybe because you put the THEATER room in the BASEMENT in its OWN WING with NOBODY ELSE AROUND and you filled that room with a PERSON WHO IS INCLINED TO TEACH HIGH SCHOOL THEATER.) Not smart.

But, I will never forget staring at that TV, not really sure what I was watching as the first tower fell. I remember vividly my teacher saying with a very frightening calmness, "I hope you know you're all watching the start of World War III."

He turned out to be wrong. He turned out to be a pedophile.

Now, here in 2010, I realize that no one has taken the time to ask domesticated animals about their experiences on 9/11. We have been all to busy selfishly wallowing in the human experience, oblivious (willingly oblivious in my opinion) to the feelings of the fury things that take your spot on the couch as soon as you get up to take a piss. I'm told they do that because your body heat makes that spot particularly warm and cozy.

I think they do it to be dicks. Also, my spot on the couch is the prime viewing angle when it comes to watching my nightly stories on the Television. It is with this evidence that I support my hypothesis that my cat is kind of a punk-ass dick who steals seats even when you call "fives", and he likes "Lost" a little more than he lets on.

You know what? Here I am with these two cats at a coffee shoppe fully prepared to ask them about what they felt that morning in September and all I can think is, "who gives a shit, they're just going to take my seat when I get up to take a piss."

This is why no one ever asks you questions about your life, Milo and Peanut.

What if I want to watch "Lost" too? I'm not sitting in the arm chair. I bought that for decoration, not comfort.

You sleep in the fucking mulch under the deck in the summertime. You can't sleep on that fucking arm chair? That thing is from Pottery Barn.

Is it the color? I realize it's a fern green whereas the rest of the room is designed around a more hunter green.

Wait, cats can't see color. More evidence to suggest their dickishness.

Also, Peanut just ordered a "LARGE coffee". Ha ha. We're at Starbucks you fucking n00b.

Tuesday

There I stood. I wasn't really paying attention, How could I be? As you might imagine my mind was occupied. What I was about to do was going to take all of my concentration. They say we only use something like ten percent of our brains. I can tell you, here and now, what I was readying for was going to take at least eleven.

It was a Tuesday. That much I can recall. I couldn't tell you the weather. I couldn't tell you what I had for breakfast, or even lunch for that matter. Dinner, a turkey sandwich with a side salad, but that is neither here nor there. Work was uneventful. The commute home was more uneventful than work.

Was it kismet that landed me there? Was the painfully uneventful actually a series of seemingly uneventful happenings all aligning to create something eventful?

Maybe it was just chaos. Independent forces acting on their own behalf colliding with each other, rocketing me through space and time with the accuracy of a pinball with the flight pattern of a bumble-bee that had just recently mistaken a smashed bottle of watermelon vodka for a non-alcoholic flower.

Doesn't much matter at this point. Because there I stood. Staring down at my shower drain. That rusted shield of valor. That stronghold, only accessible by plumbers and other vigilantes, protecting me from all things washed away. Protecting me from all things I was about to do.

That was when the burning came. Burning, and the smell of wild wintergreen, freshly sprouted in the Vermont spring. Just like I used to smell as a boy walking home from Little League practice. There was no time for nostalgia, however. The burning was just too much to take.

It was then and only then that I realized I had made an error that would haunt me for the rest of the hour. From roughly 6:10pm to 6:38pm on that most eventful Tuesday that, from its sunrise, looked so pure and honest and bright.

That was the last time I ever masturbated with Icy Hot in the shower after work.

Things You Could Do With a Pots-and-Pans Iron Man Suit

There are very few things in this world that are more exciting to me than the idea of having my very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit. I say "very own" because, to be crystal clear, I would never ever share this suit with anybody. In fact, I really shouldn't have to address that because if you know anything about pots-and-pans Iron Man suits then you know that they are tailored to fit the androgynous yet supple curves of only one man/girl. That man/girl is me, and this is my pots-and-pans Iron Man suit that we're talking about, not yours. Yours probably sucks because you have no idea how to make one.

Did I say there are "very few things in this world that are more exciting to me than the idea of having my very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit"? I did. Did I mean it? No. Because there is NOTHING more exciting to me than the idea of having my very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit.

How does one attain a pots-and-pans Iron Man suit? You build it. Tony Stark built his in a poorly-lit cave with the use of only semi-fancy and expensive tools, an accented slave, a smelting cup, and some fire. This is how it is done in Jon Favreau's feature film on the subject. I'm told "Iron Man" is a comic book. I don't know how the suit is built in the comic book, I have a personal life.

Things you will need to build your very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit:

1) Pots

2) and Pans

3) that metal wire stuff one might use in a garden to tie up plants, such as tomatoes, so they don't fall to ground from their own weight.

4) no metal wire stuff? String could work. (note: this item will be paramount in holding your suit together)

5) Super-soaker (2) and/or Nerf gun (2)

6) Cereal Box (Captain Crunch works best)


Assembly:

1) make a helmet out of the Captain Crunch Box.

2) Cover your body in pots (item 1) and pans (item 2) so that you leave no skin exposed.

3) grab onto your guns of choice and hit the town!


I know that this already sounds like an awesome time. You might even think it sounds off the chain. Well, I couldn't agree more. Imagine walking to the Supermarket in your pots-and-pans Iron Man suit. Imagine chasing a squirrel. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH FUN IT WOULD BE TO MAKE GUACAMOLE IN A FOOD PROCESSOR WHILE WEARING YOUR VERY OWN POTS-AND-PANS IRON MAN SUIT? Too much fun, that's how much. Imagine going to work in your very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit and marching into your boss's office, drunkenly slurring the melody to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" while you urinate into the pot covering your penis which creates a hysterical pinging sound as you shoot your super-soakers all over the presentation documents on his desk.

Imagine getting fired in your pots-and-pans Iron Man suit.

Imagine going to the unemployment office in your pots-and-pans Iron Man suit.

Oh my God, Imagine being homeless in a pots-and-pans Iron Man suit! Imagine how much change you would rake in. Enough to build another pots-and-pans Iron Man suit? Maybe enough to build your homeless friend you've recently defeated in a territorial dispute with the help of your pots-and-pans Iron Man suit, or the stray tabby cat you've affectionately named "Lawrence" a pots-and-pans War Machine suit? Probably not. But, that is for the better. Trust me, you WILL want to be the only one on the scene with your very own pots-and-pans Iron Man suit.

Bottom line. The possibilities are endless.

"I Just Wouldn't Stand For It...": An Interview With My Cat, Milo, and His Involvement in The My Lai Massacre

On March 16, 1968 U.S Infantrymen from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Light Infantry Brigade of the 23rd Americal Division moved in on a tiny subhamlet of the Son My village in the Quang Ngai Province of Vietnam. What followed was a disgusting act of malice carried out on the defenseless. Some five hundred Vietnamese civilians were killed in the incident. Women, children, infants, the elderly. However, this was not a spasm of violence. Not an uncontrollable twitch, flinch, or otherwise of sadistic persona-malcontent. This was a half-a-day's trudge through cleared jungle and mangled bodies. A seven-hour-long, eerily relaxed and pinpointed assault through fire and ruin. Through destroyed homes, families, and livelihoods.

Life Magazine ran a cover story on December 5, 1969 on African wildlife featuring a remarkably beautiful variety of antelope. Tucked inside the same issue was a set of obscene color photographs: A trench full of bodies, obviously dead; a close-up of a baby, smeared with its own wet blood; a group of women and children huddled together in panic and disbelief, and what would come to be the final breathes of their lives. It took this long for the story to reach the shores of America. It was of course greeted with passionate disbelief by the patriots of a God-fearing, Nation-building, Democracy-spreading superpower.

In the aftermath of the story coming to light as the worst atrocity in an already atrocious war, the defense of American Foreign Policy was as follows: "everybody does it". This was, of course, an unacceptable explanation for the Americans who grew up knowing that their country would never sink to the level sunken to on March 16, 1968. Indeed, the "everybody does it" defense was unacceptable to Americans like my cat, Milo.


After a long day of eating, sleeping, and occasionally going outside, Milo retired to his favorite quilt on the couch in my finished basement. Though he has painfully relived the events in the past, I ask him once again to dig into the trenches of his memory and bring to life his story. Milo was a helicopter door-gunner who aided in the stoppage of killing at My Lai. The pilot of the whirlybird, Frank Thompson, landed the chopper in the heart of the ongoing bloodbath to try and save the lives of a group of villagers being cornered by GIs. Milo, Thompson, and the other crewman, Perry Brighton, were prepared to shoot and kill any and all Americans threatening the lives of the Vietnamese villagers. Three decades later, the US Army awarded the Soldier's Medal for Gallantry to Thompson, Milo, and Perry Brighton (who died two weeks after the My Lai Massacre of a shrapnel wound on or around his neck area).

Milo began...


I wasn't some pacifist. I wasn't one of those pussy conscientious objectors. Not some Amish prick from Hershey, Pennsylvania too busy being scared, too busy sucking down chocolate and riding roller coasters to pick up a weapon and fight for my country. You have to realize, back then, we really did think that that's what we were doing. Fighting for our country. But I didn't shoot people just to shoot people. It wasn't a game to me. I wasn't out there playing John Wayne. If somebody shot at me, I'd shoot at them. It was easier for me to justify my own killing when I could tell myself, "well it's either him or me. If I get hit nine times I'm done for." I wanted to get back to The States in one piece.

We were of a new breed for the US Military. We were aerial scouts. Not an assault helicopter. We flew an OH-23, a small, light, gasoline-engine, bubble helicopter. A goofy looking thing, sure, but that bastard kept me alive, so I won't complain. I should be blunt here: Aerial Scouts we were indeed. But only in title. What we really were was bait. You see, they'd send us in ahead, with two gunships or so covering us. We'd fly around looking for trouble, basically, and when we found trouble, trouble found those gunships that were flying behind us. We'd just mark the spots with smoke, throw back some fairly light return fire, then book it the fuck out of there and let the big boys handle the rest. That's mostly what my time in Vietnam consisted of.

On the day in question here, The boys and I came on station at 7am sharp. No real briefing that morning, just that we were going to sweep this village. No "baiting" mission, which, looking back on it now should have raised an alarm in my head, but it didn't. It was a typically warm, typically unbearably humid day, luckily most of my winter-coat was gone by March. My body clock was still on East Coast time. Christ, I was in the God damn bush in December sweating and panting my nuts off, well, if I still had nuts, with at least a pound of extra fur. Not ideal, as you might believe. Anyway, the fog was lifting from the rice paddies, you could swear you heard the sun vaporizing that moisture sometimes. Sounded like those extra few drops of water on the bottom of a pot touching down on the stove top. And with that, we took to the sky.

Round about 8:30, our first pass, we spotted a man in uniform. He was carrying a pack and carbine coming out of some tree line. I remember Thompson saying, "who wants him?". I said, "I'm on it." You see, he was clearly Viet Cong. As soon as Thompson aimed the chopper at him he started running for the trees and evading. I couldn't hit this fucker to save my life. We circled the area a few times to no avail. I hit nothing but elephant grass and dirt. Point of the story is, that is the only armed Vietnamese that I saw that day.

After that we started working the perimeter of My Lai. We saw a few wounded women in the fields, so we marked their bodies with smoke for the medics to take care of. It was market day, so there were women out on the roads, which we saw, carrying baskets and things down to the market. Nothing out of the ordinary so we kept making the round.

When we got back to the road we saw the same women we had seen headed to market on the ground dead. Baskets empty. They were in piles. We didn't know what to make of it. Me and Thompson and Perry began trying to come up with a possible scenario for this, and we just couldn't. The American soldiers nearby were just walking around, just sort of strolling. Nobody was crawling, or hiding, or running. Nothing suggested a battle, nothing suggested there was return fire from anywhere.

We saw a young girl lying in the grass. She was unarmed and wounded in the chest. We moved over to her, did the usual. We hovered real low, about 10 feet off the ground, marked her body with smoke for the medics. Then, Captain Medina came over to the girl. He kicked her in the head, took two steps back and finished her off. I saw him do it. We all did, we were right there. Then it all made sense, sort of. It had to be that our guys were doing the killing.

Here we are, marking wounded bodies with smoke, basically telling the soldiers on the ground where they were so they could go ahead and finish them off. I was feeling like I was personally responsible for their deaths, and I just wouldn't stand for it. None of us would. We were sane. We were rational.

Thompson set the chopper down at around 10am near an earthen bunker. Perry had spotted some faces sticking out of it, horrified, as some soldiers advanced on their position. We landed in the way of their advance, and had a stare down with them. Thompson stepped in the path of the soldier leading the march, shouting over the noise of the helicopter still cooling off, "These are civilians! How do we get them out of this bunker?!" The soldier responded, "I'll get them out with hand grenades." This is what we were dealing with. Almost immediately, Thompson just said "fuck it" and went in the bunker, and took the civilians out. Brighton hopped on the radio and called a gunship friend of his and he somehow convinced him to use the gunship for medivac which was just completely unheard of. I think he had to make two trips to get all of those people out of that fucking village.

A few hours later we flew over this ditch. there must have been a hundred or more dead bodies in there, man. Just a mess. The worst you can think of. Remember that time i threw up in the litter box? But I sort of missed the box, and the puke was cascading down the side of the box? Remember that, when you had to clean that up? Well, this ditch was worse than that. There was no vomit visible to me from the OH-23, but I'm sure there was some in there. What was visible to me was movement. I caught something out of the corner of my eye. I had Thompson land, and I moved in. It was a baby. I couldn't tell if he was hurt, he was covered in blood, but everybody was. He was crying, this helped because I could always keep tabs on his position whilst I waded through blood and guts and shit, and like I said, probably vomit. I finally made it over to him. He wasn't shot, none of the blood was his, he was okay. He stopped crying when he saw me, probably because I'm a kitty cat and, not to brag, but i looked adorable in my helmet and flak jacket. I instructed him to grab onto me so i could drag him out. He didn't obviously, because he was a baby, and Vietnamese, so on two levels he had no idea what I was saying. Much like my winter-coat incident in December, this was again, not ideal. Luckily, the child had some hair on his head i could tangle my claws on. It's all I could do, so I did it. I dragged that baby out of there by the hair on his head. I took him back to the chopper and we got out of there.

And that was that.

I don't know how people can reach a point like that reached by those soldiers that day in My Lai. I just know that it happened, and I know I was there. I take comfort in the fact that I know in my heart I did everything I could to stop it.


Milo then got sleepy. He quickly added, as he got up from lying down only to spin around once and lay down again, "Also, I really do prefer the Newman's Own cat food. That Nine Lives stuff really blows, and it reminds me of the kinds of things I crawled through in that ditch in My Lai." For an American hero, like my cat, Milo, the least I could do is get him the food that he likes. But I can't afford Newman's Own on my salary, and he's a fucking cat.



*Author's Note* *This is based off the true story of Larry Colburn captured brilliantly by Christian G. Appy in his novel, "Patriots". I edited some of it to include my cat.*