Jamie Iredell's Blog, page 5

Drunk Driver Every morning, in front of...

Drunk Driver
Every morning, in front of the bathroom mirror: the alphabet backwards. He watched flies zitting around in the filthy kitchen. He took the steps down the stoop on one foot. Every trip from couch-to-fridge-to-bathroom was done toe-to-heel, straight-lined.

He and his girlfriend were working to offset DUI inevitability. You’ll see soon that this is not so much a story, but a rendition of everything that’s expected.

Carrie and our man were always together, with the rest of their friends. Their training was why they ended up back at the apartment. They’d all leave the Pub, piled into the man’s Jeep, and everyone would screech out, “To the Zephyr!” Some stupid punk band would be playing that Mike just had to see. The group would find themselves parked in the space at the apartment ten minutes later. Our hero had trained himself to autopilot home. Mike said, “There are artists and leaders of men, but Dave, Dave’s gift: he can drink and drive.”

Dave had gotten himself out of scrapes, once even high on crack. The cops pulled him over for a busted headlight he knew beforehand was gone, but Dave had chained himself to barstools for so long he hadn’t had it fixed. Dave went into his zone. His heart rate dropped. He willed his pupils to un-dilate. The cop said, “What’s the matter with your buddy?” That was Terrance. “Terrance is just scared of cops.” The officer—he wore glasses, so Dave knew he could out-lie him—said, “You seem fine to me, just get home and don’t go out anymore tonight.”
Now Dave wonders if Carrie’s alive, what she’s doing, who she’s fucking, where she lives. Dave rides trains downtown, up to midtown, out to Harlem and Brooklyn. There’s no use for a car in the city. 

Eagle Scout The following ranks denote ...

Eagle Scout
The following ranks denote the path a young man takes in a journey from boyhood to young adulthood, while as a Boy Scout in the Boy Scouts of America, an independent youth organization in the United States.

The Rank of Boy Scout
Ten point five years. The belly rolls out like the shirt is watermelon-stuffed. The tennis shoes’ lips (Reebok high tops) flop while walking. Hair is a massive helmet, and should the head meet—as it often will—the points of rocks, the mesh of curls act as cushion against damage. Girls are closed eyelids and open-mouthed laughter. Baseball—the one thing that makes the little bells toll— has only just begun to grow real. These uniformed kids and their salutes, their hiking boots, sting of the ridicule already suffered. One more way to slowly die will only speed the process.

The Rank of Tenderfoot
The mud will cake along the shorts so that it resembles a butterfly’s wings. The watch will slip from the wrist—time itself—lost along the rocks’ sodden depths of a lagoon later to be poisoned. Oh, irony: a Boy Scout Camp under federal mandate for pollution control. The father will laugh and admonish, thinking, my god. The scoutmaster will smoke cigarettes and his sons—named Robert, Bob, Robert, and Bert—will pull at the skin of their necks making the red redder and the checked flannel will be a symbol of the scotch in the blood, the fear behind the eyes, the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The Rank of Second Class
The hand reaches the crotch. Not of the oak once scrabbled up while playing G.I. Joe and Star Wars, but the crotch. The hand has still skinned no other skin besides its own, outside of handshakes, hugs, chicken— that which peels back before indulging in the thigh. The television in the parents’ bedroom skips from clear to static on sixteen, the Playboy Channel. This entices the hand crotchward. The hand learns things about gripping a pencil and scribbling irregularly the pages of a black and white speckled composition book.

The Rank of First Class
The Mexicans (see Mexicans, pg. 81) have decided that not only are Boy Scouts idiots, but since they consist almost entirely of white boys, they are also stupid. The clothes—outside of uniform—in turn, have taken a decidedly Z Cavaricci turn. The collared shirt buttons button to the neck. The black suede Playboy loafers slip on. The hair, thickly moussed each morning post-shower, sweeps back, the mullet curling at the nape. Squiggling in a collection of merely three hundred strands down the forehead, equally moussed, the squiggles creepily stiff as a pencil, or as a subliminal arrow.

The Rank of Star
An amazing thing has happened: The moths cocooned upon the oak branches have burst forth from their chrysalises and swirl the branches à la confetti. So, too, have the trousers ceased to be trousers and become pants. A crease along the thigh, down the ankle, becomes imperative. So is aftershave. Actual shaving happens only every fourth or fifth day, a routine never to be broken despite the scraggle of whiskers that weekly grow like billions of Jack’s bean stalks, like billions of Jacks, which are ubiquitous, as omnipresent as football players. The mind has become a hive of breasts and breasts.

The Rank of Life
The ranks are obsessive. Each higher rank lilts by, the future waving hello from the passenger window of a passing Dodge, or Chrysler. The Life Scout becomes a life scout at ten point five years. Later, it will be agreed that this was during the eleven point fifth year of life. The lashings have perfected, the two half-hitches, the sheepshank, the bowline (pronounced “Bow-lyn”). Pico Blanco—a mountain aptly topped white with quartz— remains ambitious. Ambition itself is a mountain. The mountain mountains up and the lungs suffer as much as the calves and balls and balls of feet. The rifles of the rifle range smoke and the smoke curls like a woman’s hips, or her tongue, or the hump of a mountain.

The Rank of Eagle
The girlfriend’s Russian accent has tits with nipples that, when hard, are exactly like a baby’s thumb between the fingers. This prompts the plants to strain and swell. Haircuts clip out the end of each bi-week. Under a weed haze the Little Sur River is a wisp of silver hair. The last rank is the door to a bar. The bar holds up a sign reading “We ID”. The ID is the same as the collective soul of the river. The girlfriend’s mouth claims the ID, the lips lipping around the D, closing up the I. This, ultimately, makes the girlfriend the enemy, and the bar a friend. 

Ectrodactylic An ectrodactylic is a hum...

Ectrodactylic

An ectrodactylic is a human whose fingers and toes are fused and form claw-like appendages. In some instances ectrodactylics have performed in circus sideshows. In this particular example, the woman we’re speaking of had a family. Each morning the teeth of her comb combed through the strands of her hair. Oatmeal was mostly what she and her family sucked up for breakfasts and, occasionally, on weekends there were pancakes. The children circled on their bottoms before Saturday cartoons. A husband, a man whose beard stubble could appear by five o’clock most days, hated the cliché five o’clock shadow and once fired himself from a job for squishing his knuckles through the coworker’s face who mentioned it. This husband did this with his own fist. But this man went to therapy over the anger that his rapid hair growth aroused and he applied and interviewed and his new job put him into better checks at the end of every two weeks. And the woman held a productive job as a middle school teacher in the small county in California where this family dwelt. All of the other teachers and even the principal came for the cake they shelled out each year for said woman’s birthday. This woman was an ectrodactylic and she dressed herself most naturally mornings with the sun spilling into her bedroom through the window. Before she quit smoking, often in her clawed hands one found a cigarette deftly handled, lit, and smoked from with ease. But now she merely pens her signature and other writing upon paper, and she maneuvers her modest compact front wheel drive
about the family’s modest town. This woman was not a circus performer and thus her life was quite normal. And that is what most humans on Earth are striving for. 

Environmentalists These humans have taken a political and...

Environmentalists
These humans have taken a political and ethical point of view and transformed it into a religion. Their chief deity is David Henry Thoreau, who, after undergoing a transformative experience (some have called it a “vision quest”) upon a deserted lake shore, emerged changed even down to his name. Afterwards he went as Henry. Henry created a son who was not born, but evolved, and lived to spread the word of his evolution, Charles. Thus combined, the two holy texts of Environmentalism are Walden and The Origin of Species. Modern Environmentalists hold worship sometimes at the base of, and sometimes in the canopy of, rather large trees. Many Environmentalists take pilgrimages to their holy land of California, and can often be found in their holy city of San Francisco, although sizeable populations of environmentalists can be found in the states of Oregon and Washington, as well. Take, for instance, a particular Environmentalist found holding services at the base of a red maple just across the border in an I-5 rest area. He hugged this tree, pressing his cheek upon its bark until a bark interrupted his reverie, and the offending dog lifted a leg in salute of the man-tree the dog blissfully remained unaware of actually being two distinct and individual life forms. The Environmentalist has as one of his many commandments to not harm living creatures and thus the Environmentalist stared peacefully while the dog—a Scotch terrier—kicked up the grass to cover his deed. But walking back to his car—among the sins of this particular Environmentalist—the man could be heard issuing astream of his lords’ names used in vain: “David damned dog, motherfucking Darwin dammit pissed all over my fucking leg.” And through this is revealed the many incongruities and contradictions that most organized religions are beset by. 

fantasy novel, the Here, the wizards ar...

fantasy novel, the
Here, the wizards are middle-aged instead of young or old, and they always stay middle-aged. They masturbate instead of having sex with their husbands and wives, and they’re always dropping their kids off at wizard school, and saying every afternoon you will be staying with either your wizard father or your wizard mother, and no goddamit you cannot come over because it’s wizard daddy’s night, and that’s his responsibility, goddamit. In the fantasy novel the knights’ names are all “Night”,sowhensomeonelurksthroughdarkenedmines plagued by creatures fowler than the stench of this prose, everyone screams Night, watch out! And Night screams back, I can’t see anything! And the princesses are whores, and the princes are frat boys, and their fraternity is called the Royal Fantasy Novel Nonesuch, and the magic is called god, and the lesser magic is also called god. 

flea and snake, the Only in rare instan...

flea and snake, the
Only in rare instances will fleas seek nourishment for their recently-fertilized eggs from the blood of a snake. In one case, the roads that morning were a king snake’s belly, oil and rainwater glazed. A flea drove along in his flea-sized Toyota. To say this flea drove we mean he slid. This is because king snakes are slimy—as are all snakes. To be technical, snakes become slimy only in metaphors, as when a television or film actor refers to another character as a “slimy snake.” Snake’s—literally— are only slimy when sneezed upon, or doused with olive oil. Attempting either of these is not recommended. Touch a king snake. It is not a pleasant experience. The arm hairs tingle and a shooting runs through the knee pits. Most prefer snakes in pictures, still or motion. Then again, a king snake eats other snakes, and thus is slightly more tolerable. There are not any king snakes in Georgia. These snakes one finds only in California, where the hills are gold and the grasses hide black and ivory striped bodies. This morning, the morning being spoken of, the flea was on its way to the snake’s head—which is also known as a Federal Courthouse. At the snake’s neck is where the blood is richest. 

Football Announcers (american) The Amer...

Football Announcers (american)
The American football announcer’s favorite word is “football.” Listen carefully while examining an American football contest. The quarterback cannot protect the ball in the pocket, nor the running back carry the ball upfield. Certainly, no wide receiver ever makes a spectacular catch of the ball. These, according to the American football announcer, the player can only properly do with a football. Thus, the quarterback can really throw the football. The running back really knows how to tuck the football in so as not to fumble the football. That wide receiver sure can catch the football. In the history of the football game, no football pass has ever been completed out of bounds. Also, in order to win the football game, one or the other football team has to move the football downfield, and eventually put the football in the end zone. That’s the only way one of these two football teams can win this football game. Football announcers are almost universally married to footballs. They kiss their football goodbye Sunday mornings on their way to the football stadium. In their football they listen to the football radio station, while stuck in the insufferable football traffic. If they could, they would make like a football player, and power their way through the line of footballs, blocking them from the goal of the football parking lot. Tailgating party here? Oh, footballs shuttle back and forth between football fans’ fingers. Meantime, idling past, the football announcer calls each toss, each gently cupped football grab, he contemplates the fans’ burgers and dogs, crossed legs from lowered trucks’ tailgates. The football announcer parks his football, looks upon his football church, glaring in fall sunlight, and he chants: football, football, football, football, football. Try it. Come Superbowl Sunday. Football announcers cannot even spell baseball. Once, one learned to, and he was summarily dismissed from the football announcers’ guild. It’s said that this football announcer went on to discover the little known fourth law of thermodynamics: the football itself is equal to the football divided by the mouths uttering “football,” multiplied by a variable representing the football fan. This variable represents the source of the universe’s black holes. 

Football announcers (everywhere else) T...

Football announcers (everywhere else)
Their favorite word is gooooooooaaaaaaaaalllllllllllll although singularly syllabic in most instances, this one syllable is impossible to utter with any brevity. Hence, although the announcer’s favorite word, the far more commonly voiced “pass” trumps their favorite in presentation. One observes the football announcer’s enthusiasm for their favorite noun to determine its primary position in their lexicon. The difficulty for football announcers arises in the simplicity of their syllables. Every noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, &c, is single-syllabic. Thus a football announcer’s rendition of the contest’s events resembles the sound of a human’s fingers clacking away at a keyboard. Students mired in their respective areas of expertise at UCLA’s Dick Butkus’s College of Sports Announcers hear these football announcers in neighboring labs and assume them to be prolific writers. They are, in fact, excellent communicators in Morse Code. Thus a few seconds of the football announcer’s genius: dash dash dot, dash dash dash, dash dot, dash dash dot dot, dot dash, dot dash dot dot dot, dot, dot dot dot dot dash dash dot, dot dash, dot dot dot, dot dot dot dash dash dash dash dash dot, dash dash dash, dash dot, dash dash dot dot, dot dash, dot dash dot dot dot, dot, dot dot dot dash dash dot, dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash dash, dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash dot dash, dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot!!!!!!!! Transliterated this comes out: “Gonzales passes to Gonzales, gooooooooaaaaaaaa alllllllllllll!!!!! And when put into context, the football announcer has determined he will have bacon with his scrambled eggs instead of the turkey sausage, because it’s gameday, and he might as well treat himself. 

Freaks The compilers of this volume hav...

Freaks
The compilers of this volume have undertaken a bold task in defining the various types and accompanying characteristics of Freaks. In doing so a definition of Freaks must be determined in order to establish the veracity of such a presumptuous thesis, all in direct compliance with the appeasement of critics of the present volume. Freaks consist of various types and subcategories: namely Freaks of the Freak Movement of the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, the subsequent monikering of analog telephone tamperers and early digital computer hackers under the alternate portmantueau-ish spelling Phreakers (the portmanteau it should be briefly noted has characteristics similar to Voltron and various Autobot and Decepticon combined Transformers, in that the portmanteau consists of combined words. But we digress), and later Freaks are associated with the 1970s proliferation of the pornographic industry due to Rick James’s gold record-selling hit “Superfreak.” Subsequently, the use of Freak has been attributed to humans with unusual lifestyle, stylistic, and body-altering choices. Hence, “Freak” has been attributed to those of the Pierced and Tattooed, to those of dyed and dreadlocked hair (note the overlapping), and of those bearing platformed shoes. In recent years Freak has been used in jocular circles to refer to one’s friends and loved-ones, as in, You’re such a freak. As such, Freak can be defined as nearly any and all humans as they exist on Earth. 

Front MatterThis Book was written f...

Front Matter
This Book was written for one purpose and one purpose only: So that readers will become aware of, and respect the existence of, Freaks in the reader’s everyday existence. The compilers and editors have no illusions about this book being used as a reference tool. They expect you to use this book, make love on top of it when it’s been left on your bed and forgotten in the passionate sweep of general missives to the floor at such times, and they expect you will often spill your beer upon it. After you have learned about Freaks, you can throw this book away. Along the way, the compilers and editors hope you will have acquired a copy of the Freak-In-Training Reference Manual to use throughout your career.
This book is not intended as a reference tool, because you cannot use it in everyday life, nor in the continual examination of the nearly constant influx of Freaks one will encounter.

In the course of choosing specific types to be classified as “freaks” specific criteria must be considered. Therefore in keeping with current scientific and philosophic trends toward human classification, the criteria are as follows: 1) Is the subject alive, living , breathing , cells dividing and dying ? 2) Does the subject make use of—directly or indirectly—a form of complex linguistics? 3) The subject must have at least one of the requisite following characteristics for life forms in the known universe: response to external stimuli, the capability for reproduction, general homeostasis, and the ability to grow and respond to changes in external environments, i.e., to adapt.

Because this book was designed with such care and attention to detail, the options for its use are necessarily limited. Upon its inception, the following uses were taken into consideration:

•You should study every subject in this book. To diffuse the knowledge of Freaks, is the professed design of the following work. What methods, it may be asked, have the compilers employed to accomplish this design? Not to mention original articles, they have had recourse to the best books upon almost every subject, extracted the useful parts, and rejected whatever appeared trifling or less interesting. Instead of dismembering the Freaks of Earth, by attempting to treat them intelligibly under a multitude of technical terms, they have digested the principles of every Freak in the form of systems or distinct treaties, and explained the terms as they occur in the order of the alphabet, with references to the classifications to which they belong. • As this plan differs from that of all the Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences hitherto published, the compilers think it necessary to mention what they imagine gives it superiority over the common method. A few words will answer this purpose. Whoever has had occasion to consult Terwilliger, Owens, &c. or even the voluminous French Encyclopedie, will have discovered the folly of attempting to communicate Freaks underthe varioustechnical terms arranged in an alphabetic order. Such an attempt is repugnant to the very idea of Science, which is a connected series of conclusions deduced from self-evident or previously discovered principles. It is well if the reader be capable of comprehending the principles and relations of the different parts of Freaks, when laid before her in one uninterrupted chain. But where is she who can learn the principles of any Freak from a dictionary compiled upon the plan hitherto adopted? We will, however, venture to affirm, that any reader of ordinary parts, may, if he chooses, learn the principles of the Action Film, of Americans, of those with Big Legs, of Celebrities, &c. &c. from The Book of Freaks. • You need to decide on a study schedule. The compilers separated the subjects and chose the quantity of Freaks in this book so that you can easily review a chapter in an hour or so—even if you are taking other courses with other work. There are ninety-one chapters in the following work. So, you need at least fifteen study days. The compilers recommend a plan to take every fourth or fifth study day off. Use the days off to rest, review, and study Freaks in their natural habitats. If you are pressed for time, you don’t have to take the days off. That remains your choice.

The editors, though fully sensible of the propriety of adopting the present plan, were not aware of the length of time necessary for the execution, but engaged to begin the publication too early. However, by the remonstrances of the compilers, the publication was delayed for twelve months. Still time was wanted. But the subscribers pushed the editors, and they at last persuaded the compilers to consent to the publication. If time had been allowed, the compilers designed to have completed the sciences before proceeding to the technical terms; and by that means to have guarded against omission, and made all the references from the terms to Freaks more particular. The consequence was unavoidable. We must further acknowledge, that, in some instances, we deviated from the general plan;