Rituals

 

(I always get drunk on Fridays.)

Today, I woke up at 8 a.m. and walked to the bathroom. Then I read the headlines on my smartphone while taking a nasty shit. A man from Seoul has to spend the next ten years in prison for posting videos of his sexual exploits online for all the world to see. His victims will now be forced to go through life bowing their heads in shame because of his stupid behavior.

After emptying my bowels, I called my mother using Facebook Messenger.

I said, “I have a terrible hangover. In fact, my head is pounding like some asshole is hitting it with a sledgehammer.”

“How much did you drink last night?”

“Only a pitcher of beer.”

“Well, it’s the same old story, same old song and dance. I told you that you should keep it down to only a couple of glasses.”

I nodded in agreement. “I wish I could, but I can’t seem to help myself. I’m a slave to my own idiotic rituals. I always drink a pitcher on Fridays. If I fail to do so, the world might explode.”

She scoffed at me. “Now that’s just stupid.”

“Yes, I agree. But I can’t help myself. I have a low IQ. Plus I’m also battling many demons.”

“Speaking of demons…Have you heard from your wife lately?”

“Not a word.”

“Oh well. It’s probably for the best.”

I changed the subject to happier thoughts. “Larry was in a cross-country competition the other day. He finished in first place.”

Mom clapped her hands in joy. “How many other kids did he compete against?”

“A shit ton.”

“He’s that fast?”

I shook my head from side to side. “Of course not. In fact, he’s not fast at all. It’s simply that he never gets tired no matter how far he runs. It’s like he has five lungs instead of two.”

“Did he get a prize?”

“They gave him a trophy.”

“That’s wonderful.”

Later in the day, I took the bus with my son to visit his dermatologist. The two of them jabbered in Korean for quite a few minutes. I had no idea what they were saying to each other. But I have to tell the truth. This doctor is doing a great job. Larry’s skin is recovering quickly.

We waited in the pharmacy for a good twenty minutes in order to get a new batch of medicine.

He said, “The doctor is lowering my dosage.”

“How come?”

“I can’t stay on steroids for too long because they might harm my body.”

“I didn’t even know that you were taking steroids. I thought he had you on antibiotics.”

“He does. But I take three different pills.”

“Well, he seems to know what he’s doing. So I guess we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.”

When I got home, it was time to clean the toilets. I used a lot of bleach, and it really did a job on my throbbing noggin. I became so dizzy that I had to go for a nap.

I spent the rest of my afternoon watching Netflix. I’m currently enjoying a documentary called Sunderland Until I Die. It’s about the idiots in England who worship football like an idol. They even cry like babies whenever their team gets defeated. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

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Taking a Little Break

I'm taking a three-day break. I need to recharge my batteries. See you then. God bless.

The Antichrist

 

(I believe in the pretribulation.)

Yesterday, I went to a bible study after work. The topic of pretribulation was discussed. According to guys like me, the faithful will be raptured before the Day of the Lord so that we don’t have to suffer a horrific seven-year span in which the Antichrist rules supreme.

I said, “I often wonder where artificial intelligence fits into all of this.”

A guy named Barry said, “Well, what’s your opinion?”

I cleared my throat. “Daniel claims that this tyrant will have no interest in women. So I used to think that the Son of Perdition was either a naughty pope or an out-of-control homosexual. But my thoughts have since changed on the matter. A.I. will have the ability to manufacture its own body in a laboratory. This will allow the technology to actually construct a humanoid dictator capable of taking over the world.”

Barry nodded. “That’s quite interesting.”

However, another man named Rod scolded me.

He said, “You have to be careful with apocalyptic literature. It’s easy to misinterpret. The Book of Revelation should be confined to the first century. It’s essentially a closed tome.”

I looked at him scornfully. “Who says?”

He shot me the stink eye. “Most college professors.”

I shook my head with disdain. “Then what you’re basically telling me is that I need an egghead from Harvard to tell me which way is up. No thank you. I’m perfectly capable of reading scripture and coming up with my own conclusions.”

“Yes, but you’re leading innocent people down the wrong path. That’s why you should be more cautious with your words.”

“More cautious with my words? Why? Are the police going to break down the door and take me away for having my own interpretation?”

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the hour ignoring each other. It was quite uncomfortable.

Guys like Rod really chap my ass. I spent three years in China attending a state-sanctioned church. Talk about tiresome. The pastor wasn’t allowed to discuss anything interesting which might offend Big Brother. It was a fucking snooze fest. Rod, however, would do just fine on the mainland. He’s perfectly happy turning the bible into a giant bore.

I eventually got home at 7 p.m. and cooked my boy dinner. I prepared four fried eggs and a plate full of French fries. The poor kid must have been starving. He wolfed down all the vittles in less than five minutes.

Then I sat on my sofa and watched a couple episodes of Peaky Blinders. Adrien Brody is the guest star for season five. He plays a mafia hitman from New York who has come to kill the protagonist. Adrien won an Oscar for his riveting performance in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. Yet his career has never really gotten off the ground in the sense that he isn’t some huge movie star.

At nine p.m., I walked to my room and enjoyed a quick wank before falling asleep. Then I woke up at 5 a.m. and called my mother using Facebook Messenger.

I said, “How’s Ken the Chicken Man? I haven’t heard from him in ages.”

She said, “He’s at work.”

“Is he still enjoying Chick-Fil-A.”

She nodded. “He loves it.”

“Have I done something to offend him? He never calls me these days.”

“Of course not! He’s simply the busiest man in Texas. He doesn’t even have the time to use the bathroom.”

My main fear in life is losing touch with my children. They’re my biggest source of pleasure.

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The Book of Life

 

(Life's tough, but God has a plan.)

On Friday night, I had to go to my second job. I work in a study room, and my main purpose is to sell overpriced chips and soda to exhausted high school students. My employer lets me watch movies on my laptop during my downtime. Basically, I’m just an overseer who keeps his eyes open for bad behavior.

Anyway, I gave The Pope’s Exorcist a try. It stars Russell Crowe as an Italian priest who drives out demons. The Pope’s Exorcist has to be one of the worst films ever made in the history of Hollywood. It’s literally that bad. But its failure gave me brief hope for my novel The Demon in the Doll. I rushed over to Amazon to see if I had sold any copies of my tome. The final result? Nothing. I can’t even seem to give the fucking thing away for free. Nobody is the least bit interested.

I eventually met Rice-Boy Larry in the chicken restaurant at 10:15 p.m. We ordered fried bird and a pitcher of beer. It’s our Friday-night ritual.

He said, “I got a sixty on a biology test.”

I sighed heavily. “A sixty? That’s very disappointing news.”

“Yeah, but it was a hard exam. The class average was only forty.”

“You can spin it any way you desire. Yet I could find a meth head living in the gutter, and he could score a sixty on the exact same test in spite of his chemically altered brainwaves.”

“Well, he must be an extremely smart drug addict. Because a sixty was the best I could muster, and I’m not some fucking retard.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Fair enough.”

Larry’s birth was an accident. I was too old to be a good father by the time he came out of my wife’s vagina. Therefore, I no longer have the energy to properly break his balls over bad grades. I fear that I’m nothing more than an old eunuch who is perpetually exhausted. But what’s a boy to do? It happens to the best of us.

I woke up Saturday at 8 a.m. with a huge headache. Once again, I had enjoyed the beer a little too much.

I called my mother using Facebook Messenger.

She said, “You look rough.”

I nodded. “I drank a lot of alcohol last night. It’s my Friday-night ritual. It’ll end up killing me.”

“How much did you have?”

“A pitcher of beer.”

“Why not keep it down to a glass or two?”

I smiled at her. “That would make too much sense.”

“So what are you going to do this afternoon when you finally recover?”

“Clean the toilets and vacuum the floor. I also have a couple loads of laundry that I must to get out of the way.”

“And after that?”

“I’ll probably just watch the TV.”

And that’s exactly how it went. It was another day of endless toil. But I’m one of those assholes who likes to whistle while he works. It’s tough to get depressed because the King of the Universe has written me into the book of life. So I try to do my duty with a big goofy smile on my ugly face. And why not, right? I’ve got food in the fridge and a little bit of money in the bank. Therefore, there’s no reason to get all suicidal.

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Sunday

It's Sunday, and I can't be bothered writing a new blog post. So I've uploaded a YouTube video about the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church, instead. This is episode two, and you might get a bang out of it. God bless, and I'll be back to posting tomorrow.

Saturday

It's Saturday, and I can't be bothered writing a blog entry. So I've decided to post a YouTube video about the collapse of Mars Hill Church, instead. This is the first episode of a long podcast. Give it a try. You might like it. God bless.

John Huston

 

(John Huston made some great films.)

Yesterday, I read a story by Ray Bradbury with my high schoolers. It’s called There Will Come Soft Rains, and the title was actually stolen from a famous poem. Anyway, the protagonist of this tale is a house that can do all kinds of fancy things, such as cooking your breakfast and cleaning your floors. The only problem is that no humans are left because they’ve all been wiped out by a nuclear war.

I said, “I’ve never been a huge fan of Bradbury.”

One of my students smirked at me. “Why? Was he an alcoholic or something?”

Everybody laughed.

I shook my head. “Ray wasn’t a drinker. Quite the contrary. It got him into hot water with the famous film director, John Huston.”

He said, “Who’s John Huston?”

“John made a ton of great movies back in the day. And he wasn’t that bad of an actor, either. His most famous role is that of a perverted grandfather in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.”

“You watch too much TV, Mr. Woodd.”

I nodded. “Ain’t that the truth. But let me tell you about Mr. Bradbury’s refusal to imbibe.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Ray wrote the script for Huston’s adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. John kept bullying the poor guy because the director believed that all great writers should be whiskey bent and hell bound. Anyway, Ray went on to write a story called The Banshee which served as a metaphor for the abuse he was forced to endure while working in Hollywood.”

“So why aren’t you a fan of Bradbury’s work?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess it simply comes down to taste. What can I say? It just never floated my boat.”

Later in the afternoon, I caught the bus back home to my apartment. There was a bill in my mailbox. My wife’s car is old and runs on diesel, so the Korean government is charging her a green-energy tax. She has to pay forty bucks for having the audacity to drive a vehicle that is harming the globe.

I took a picture and sent her the bad news. It wasn’t long until she called me back.

She said, “You such da cheap man.”

“Well, the vehicle is in your name, and I’m no longer able to use it. So you have to pay the fine or risk the consequences.”

“You also change da Netfrix passwahd.”

“That’s not true. The password is the same.”

“You da riar. It work on my phone but not da computah.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. It’s working fine here at home. In fact, I’m currently watching Peaky Blinders.”

“Good foh you.”

Then she hung up on me.

I walked to Rice-Boy Larry’s room. He was busy studying for a science test.

I said, “Your mom’s Netflix password isn’t working.”

He sighed heavily. “So what do you want me to do about it?”

“Perhaps you could call and guide her through the process.”

He smiled at me. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why?”

“I’m through with her, Dad. Done with a capital D. In fact, I no longer have a mother.”

That’s the thing about Larry. He’s not one of those kids who believes in second or third chances. He sets his boundaries and sticks to them. The kid has a heart of stone. But who knows? Maybe that’s a healthy character trait.

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