The World is My Urinal
' I had once intended to write an entire novel while having to urinate very badly. I wanted to see how that need affected the style and tempo of my work. I had found, for instance, that when I'm writing about a character who's in a Ph.D. program and I don't have to urinate very badly, I'll have him do a regular three- or four-year program. But if I'm writing a novel and I have to urinate very very badly, than I'll push the character through an accelerated Ph.D. program in perhaps only two years, maybe even a year.'
Mark Leyner, Et tu Babe
When your bladder is calling the shots you are the co-pilot of the sack of fluids that is your body. (As I jot down these thoughts I have a creeping suspicion that one of the comedians was talking about this during the recent Melbourne Comedy Festival. I apologise for any plagiarism herein but I saw not one of the shows and besides it's a topic that stretches back to early civilisations and get off my back and oh-yeah?-your-horse-ugly. So there.) The pressure builds in the lower "rude bits" of your body and no matter if you spend your life donating to charity and doing other Good Samaritan-y things you WILL push old ladies into oncoming traffic, destroy life long relationships, kill relatives, etc. for that sweet sweet release. All other commitments evaporate from your alcohol-decayed mind as you hunt down for someplace to whizz. However, once finished, you revert back to your normal, neurotic self and apologise to the horrified onlookers/ relatives/ ambulance guys of that tragic 'pushing old lady into the traffic'-thing.
It takes a very special kind of prick to not acknowledge the lend of the facilities of a bar. (Yes, this is a long winded gripe about 'idiot customers' and will affect most of you not one bit.) Like Mr.Personality who slithered wordlessly into the Amethyst and tried to walk wordlessly out.
Me:(shouts) You're welcome!
D-ckhead: (turns around) Excuse me?
Me: I said "You're welcome). You used the toilet without saying anything.
D-ckhead: So?
Me: It's polite to ask.
D-ckhead: You actually expect me to ask you permission to use your toilet?
Me: Yup. It's called courtesy.
And so on and so forth. The scenario ended in a lot of shouting and hand gestures and this angry bastard making monkey gestures (Honest Injun!) before he left.
Peeved,
Fatman
Mark Leyner, Et tu Babe
When your bladder is calling the shots you are the co-pilot of the sack of fluids that is your body. (As I jot down these thoughts I have a creeping suspicion that one of the comedians was talking about this during the recent Melbourne Comedy Festival. I apologise for any plagiarism herein but I saw not one of the shows and besides it's a topic that stretches back to early civilisations and get off my back and oh-yeah?-your-horse-ugly. So there.) The pressure builds in the lower "rude bits" of your body and no matter if you spend your life donating to charity and doing other Good Samaritan-y things you WILL push old ladies into oncoming traffic, destroy life long relationships, kill relatives, etc. for that sweet sweet release. All other commitments evaporate from your alcohol-decayed mind as you hunt down for someplace to whizz. However, once finished, you revert back to your normal, neurotic self and apologise to the horrified onlookers/ relatives/ ambulance guys of that tragic 'pushing old lady into the traffic'-thing.
It takes a very special kind of prick to not acknowledge the lend of the facilities of a bar. (Yes, this is a long winded gripe about 'idiot customers' and will affect most of you not one bit.) Like Mr.Personality who slithered wordlessly into the Amethyst and tried to walk wordlessly out.
Me:(shouts) You're welcome!
D-ckhead: (turns around) Excuse me?
Me: I said "You're welcome). You used the toilet without saying anything.
D-ckhead: So?
Me: It's polite to ask.
D-ckhead: You actually expect me to ask you permission to use your toilet?
Me: Yup. It's called courtesy.
And so on and so forth. The scenario ended in a lot of shouting and hand gestures and this angry bastard making monkey gestures (Honest Injun!) before he left.
Peeved,
Fatman
posted by Fatman | 1:55 pm
1 Comments:
Just as an afterthought...I remember as I wrote the phrase 'pushing little old lady into traffic' I couldn't help but recall a John Ralston Saul quote on Ethics from his brilliant 'The Doubter's Companion';
"It takes less effort to push a little old lady off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic than it does to go around her. It is unlikely that anyone will notice, so there is little risk of punishment. In fact, it's more efficient to kill her than to step out of her way.
Some people do this. Others, afraid of being caught, do not. Both see the law as a means to control mankind's unruly or unethical nature.
A third group includes those in positions of power who consider the law and its enforcement to be the principal barrier between order and mayhem. They fear that without the law everyone might begin pushing little old ladies off sidewalks. Their distrust of the population must be an expression of their own unspoken fear that without effective restraints they and anybody else would do the same. Given the opportunity, Hobbes would probably have shoved a little old lady into the traffic.
A fourth group, which may include as much as 90 per cent of the population, perhaps 95 per cent, included those who, even without witnesses, do not push little old ladies off sidewalks. They don't even consider it. They simply step aside.
The first two groups believe that ethics are a matter of measurement. The third do not believe in ethics and so replace them with a rationally organized antidote to Fear. The fourth simply seems to understand that ethics are a matter of personal daily practical responsibility. They seem to know this irrespective of education, religion, whether reason is a conscious fact or not and whether or not they have access to sidewalks."
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