The Clown

The Clown

       I am going to step away from my usual demeanor in the first part of today's blog and tell you about this song. I was walking downstairs, as I so often do, and I put my iPod on shuffle, and the song that came up was a Charles Mingus tune called The Clown on the album The Clown. I listened to it and it absolutely blew me away, the story fit the music so incredibly well and I learned later that Jean Shepard improvised the whole story making it that much cooler. It is a fantastic song and I connected with it quite a bit so if you have time, by all means listen to this great song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Szy-MHXDQQ

So Jade came to Arizona this past weekend and I was absolutely ecstatic. I was shitting bricks until we realized that Flagstaff is sort of lame and doesn't have that much spontaneous fun to offer. It was like Carmen Electra was here but we were stuck giving out diapers at the nursing home. And thats exactly what we did.  We went to the grand canyon, the shit hole of America and we were in desperate need of a diaper to maintain all of its bullshit.

We went there to show Jared, her boyfriend it because he had never seen it, and you know what I realized. I absolutely hate the grand canyon, it cost 25 dollars to see this big hole in the ground that in reality isn't that cool. Like I am sure its geologically fascinating but I don't give a shit about that, that part of it isn't even slightly accessible to me. We got there and we walked for 45 minutes around the rim and it was the same view as when we pulled up with the car. The Grand Canyon is only cool if you plan to go down inside or if you are in high speed chase and you stop right before the edge and the trail of police cars just shoot off the edge. We were fucking bored out of our minds. 

Although probably the reason why I love Jade Bahn it is that no matter how bored we are we somehow always are able to attract the weirdest situation in the world that are not only bizarre but entertaining as well. We decide to go to Denny's later because its late at night and we college students and by dammit thats what college students do (her words not mine). And we go into Denny's and Jade and I were just making your boyfriend Jokes (Mary Kelly's terrible humor is spreading to more people now)  and then Jared needed to use the bathroom so he goes into the bathroom and doesn't even take a step in, he opens the door and walks immediately out like he had just seen a ghost. He sits back in his uncomfortable chair and doesn't even talk and just says "John. . . . . . .  just look for yourself, I can't even describe it". I walk into the bathroom and there is a man in there who is completely covered in what appears to be gang tattoos and looks like he has been addicted to heroin since the age of 5. His skin is stretched backed so incredibly tightly over his entire face that it makes it appear that his eyeballs are just sticking out of his head, looking straight into my soul. This man, (Tatts as we later called him) is just standing there scrubbing his arm as hard as he possibly can, as fast as he can, guarding all the stalls.
            Of course you must think "John you are retarded that isn't that scary at all, he was probably drying off his hands" BUT YOU WEREN'T FUCKING THERE. Its like whenever you hear a noise at night, it could be a cat tipping over a pot or the wind blowing up the leaves, or even my slightly disturbed father walking awkwardly around in his Christmas underwear, but when you hear that noise all you think is " A murder is coming to come get me and steal all my organs, if I pretend I am already dead he won't try kill me " So you lay there and act unconscious and hope the murderer thinks that he is too late and someone has already taken your organs and should move on to another house. My point is when I saw Tatts scrubbing his arm the only thing I thought of was he was either wiping off Blood or Semen and he needed to get it off for a crime. My imagination is a curse and a gift as my mother always said. And for some reason I wasn't as smart as Jared, I stayed in the bathroom with this deranged product of incest. I went into the pooper stall and I just stood there, I DIDN'T EVEN GO TO THE BATHROOM! There was no way I was pulling down my pants because as proved in previous blogs, if I took a shit I would be defenseless. I just stood there trying to look under the other stalls to see if I could see a body and when I got too scared because I thought he was moving closer I just flushed the toilet and walked out of there. But I couldn't let him think I was a snitch, so I washed my hand collectively and calmly singing happy birthday 3 times to make sure he knew I was trying to get off germs as well so he would assume that's what I thought he was doing. After my 3rd birthday I walked out of there, and couldn't contain my horror. My face was absolutely pure white and my eyes were screaming rape, republican and murder.

Jade left Flagstaff the next morning, she couldn't take the boredom and the amount of creppy creepy people that were all her boyfriends. (This joke is specifically for Mary Kelly and Jade Bahn, if you spent more time with me maybe I would include personal jokes in my blog for you too!)



But the reason I am writing this blog today instead of two days ago is so that I can tell you about the coolest idea ever. Peter and I were hanging out Friday night when we decided we were going to throw Brynn and Annalise a scavenger hunt because they wanted free swipes from me and they aren't getting them with a little bit of work first.

So get this Scavenger hunt. We showed up to their apartment with a Saxophone, A Crown, A Book of Matches, The Da Vinchi Code the Book, A Map, and a Bouquet of Sunflowers (those who know me well will understand the symbolic gesture of the sunflowers) And we told them good fucking luck. The map led them first to the Mailbu Boom Boom Bench where we sit and heckle people while enjoying a glass of Mailbu and we hid a note behind the grater and it had this poem in it.

I have heard hysterical women say

In times of anger and passion

That all poets are inherently gay

But some how

Lack Fun and Fashion

But today I call upon you

To soothe my soul with music

Play music that’s kind of blue

Next to a guitar that’s acoustic

I died many years ago

My family buried me at NAU

And put me behind the Bookstore six feet below

And now I am here to say, Fuck you too!

I AM NOT A WOMAN

 

Signed Ruben Lefthand

Buried with a Guitar in my hand

150 Paces into the Graveyard

FIND ME!!

PLAY MY FAVORITE TUNE!!!

So they went to the graveyard to find Ruben Lefthand (This is a real name, we were absolutely shocked that this person existed and he has a guitar as a tombstone, genius man? I think so) when they got there they found Sammy Kurshbaum sitting on a bench, they went up to him and asked him if they should play him a song. First off let me describe Sammy K right now, he is in a robe, looking fucking insane with his hair so long now, wearing Homer Simpson Pajamas and he is just staring at the ground in a fucking cemetery of all places, got that image in your head? good.  Sammy just being brilliant refused to look up from the ground and just pointed so creepily toward the grave, and they kept asking him questions and he just refused to answer. When I heard this I almost kissed him, brilliant work.  They go over and there is a note on how to play the saxophone and how to play Mary Had A Little Lamb on there. How many idiots do you think it takes to play a saxophone? Apperently its more than 2, because they spent 45 minutes putting this sax together and could only blast one note out. Sammy heard this as his cue to go over and stood in between the two of them and stared at the grave and in a solemn depressing voice said " That was his favorite song" and threw done a Box with the next clue in it and walked away incredibly slowly, and refused to say another word. I was so proud of him.

In the box was two prom dresses we got at the Goodwill and it said put these on and go to Lake Mary. Here is where our plan began to unravel, they knew where Lake Mary was and we didn't. We went to where we thought it was and they went to the right spot. But then we told to go to our spot, but the problem is we had just gotten there and they had a car so Peter and I halled balls to just some random spot in the field and set up camp. When they arrived we had shrimp, white wine, a campfire, blankets, marshmellows, and bread with tomato basil and cheese on top and we were laying on the blanket wearing the nicest suits we own inviting them with our sexual demeanor. They absolutely lost it they were laughing so hard. It was the culmination of Sam, Ruben Lefthand and now us with the most extravagant dinner I have ever had. ( I was born in the lower middle class, we had cold pizza and my parents had problems paying taxes, we weren't allowed to have shrimp and bread) This plan was absolutely perfect.

This made me realize though what I truly enjoy in life, it really isn't accomplishing goals or succeeding at life, it is the superfluous that I crave. It is doing the unnecessary acts that are elaborate and eccentric  that creates fun and excitement. We absolutely had no incentive to do this or any even any logic backing this idea but it was probably the best weekend I have had here yet. If there is one thing I need you know about me and this blog. Living Deliberately is always the most important thing you can do but without the bizarre and the  unknown and doing things that have not pragmatic properties, you won't even begin to know what deliberance is. The Superfluous is absolutely necessary.

Live Deliberately

John Kelly

Rest In Peace Ruben Lefthand