E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com Archives March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 current Blogs Mandapants farkleberries Uranium City Records The C.M. Sienko Foundation Storyteller Musings Solotarian Views Lynne Wiora Tek Poker News Blog Some Biscuits Evil Eye Emporium Niggling Doubts Pressure Release Sara as Mommy runswithscissors Defective Yeti Afternoon Delight trancejen The Terrarium Bird Nird Slipperily Tofu Hut Stereo Gum Links Fixed Gear Gallery Get Crafty This is Grand Featherproof Books Gapers Block Chicago Bird Watching	No one must know my terrible secret... House of Noh! Thursday, September 30, 2004 Did you know that I have a beard now? I’ve been working on it. I don’t mean to brag, but it’s all huge-assed and shit. But of course, you must be unaware of my beard developments, as I have spent all my time lately hidden behind my apartment door, peering out the peephole at the antics of my neighbors who stage elaborate and dramatic, drawn-out performances in the hall, seemingly for no other purpose than my benefit and entertainment. As a gentleman, I’d like to do the gentlemanly thing and courteously introduce you to my beard. In order to do so properly, I’ve written this poem about it for you. It’s about the power of one vote, certain moral issues surrounding the colonization of space, Summer coming to an end, oh, and my beard too - it’s also about my beard. With all your follicles and crap, You remind me of a pissed off octopus… With a beard… And an eye patch… But an octopus that I would never accuse of being a pirate, and only discuss legitimate sea merchant business with, Lest that octopus pirate, Rake me violently with the hook covering his missing tentacle, An act to which I might possibly lose a testicle, And it’s not like I’ve got a lot of testicles to start with, In any case, no more than two. You’re a little bit itchy and irritating sometimes, And I don’t know why I don’t cut you off, Except that then I’d have to clean up, All that hair. And you know that’d never happen, So then there’d just be, like, this huge mess in my bathroom forever. Also, you’re sorta like pubic hair, Growing out of my face, But coarser, And also with a hint of red (which I think is from the Scot in me). On this rainy day. Brian 4:14 AM (0) comments Friday, September 24, 2004 I must have been really, really tired. When I sat down in the window seat on the train there wasn’t anybody next to me. I woke up all disoriented, multiple stops later, and there was a quiet, diminutive woman sitting next to me, engrossed in her Terry Pratchet book. What’s worse, from the chalky taste in my mouth I was pretty sure that I had been sleeping in my seat with my mouth wide open - the slack-jawed glottis-showing sleep of the really, really tired. I offered the woman next to me a stick of gum, a common opening move in interrogations. Me: (pointing gum package at her) Would you like a stick of gum? Terry Pratchet fan: No thank you. (pause) Me: (cautiously) Hey… when I was sleeping just now… was my mouth hanging open? Terry Pratchet fan: (attempting to be polite) Um.. I wouldn’t have noticed. Me: No, seriously, I think my mouth was all dangling open, you couldn’t have missed it, seriously, was my mouth hanging open while I was sleeping? Terry Pratchet fan: (shyly) Okay, your mouth was a bit open, while you were sleeping, but it isn’t a big deal or anything. Me: (eyes narrowed with contempt and distrust) What did you put in my mouth while I was sleeping!? You evil jerk!! The Terry Pratchet fan didn’t have anything to say after that. What could she have said? I caught her! I hope she didn’t put anything really bad in my mouth, like a microchip, or a little submarine filled with tiny, temporarily shrunken people who would drive around in my body and take pictures of the inside of my butt and my wang and stuff to sell on the internet. I hope she put something harmless in my mouth, like a little piece of turbinado sugar candy, or a tic-tac with a little safety line of dental floss tied onto it so she could ensure I wouldn’t accidentally inhale it while I was sleeping and choke on it, or a breath mint or something. Wait a minute! You know who I blame for this whole, unfortunate incident? That Listerine dissolving breath mint commercial, you know, the one where the sleazy dude is on a plane next to a woman and he’s breathing his stinky-assed breath in her face but she’s all cool and collected and puts a Listerine dissolving breath mint in his open mouth! Well, Listerine advertisers, I have something to say to you: that’s fucking battery! I can’t believe Listerine would be so irresponsible to show, and seemingly condone, acts of battery on national television! What Listerine doesn’t show is that fifteen minutes later the sleazy dude has an SEVERE allergic reaction to the dissolving breath mint and the plane has to touch down early to get him to the hospital which throws the plane off schedule and forces SEVERAL other people to miss their respective VERY IMPORTANT business meetings. Oh God! I hope that Terry Pratchet fan didn’t put a whole sheet of acid into my mouth! One of my friends in college knew a guy who bought a sheet of acid and put it in the pocket of his jeans to take home. But on his way home, it started raining, and his jeans got all wet, and his body absorbed the whole 100 hits of acid! After that, he pretty much flipped out and was put in a special insane asylum. That’s what could happen to me! The guy who had the sheet of acid in his pants thinks that he’s a glass of orange juice, and he only ever says three things: (1) Don’t drink me! (2) Don’t spill me! (3) Don’t tip me over! The guy also uses a funny voice when he makes these statements, presumably that’s how orange juice talks. I’ve always thought that “Don’t spill me!” was pretty much the same as “Don’t tip me over!” And I always wondered why the guy goes to the trouble of saying, “Don’t tip me over!” when not tipping him over would seem to be covered by his admonition not to spill him. I was talking about it with my friend, Chris S., just the other day. What Chris S. said made a lot of sense: To us, spilling a glass of orange juice and tipping a glass of orange juice over is pretty much the same thing, but to a glass of orange juice, they are probably completely distinct experiences. Brian 11:38 AM (0) comments Monday, September 20, 2004 Do you know what a "Hot Carl" is? I just found out this weekend. It's "Carl" with a "C." Not "Karl" with a "K." I'm sure about this letter thing, because I asked. I think a "Hot Karl" is some sort of breakfast pastry, like something flaky, and maybe with apricot jelly or something. I don't know. But a "Hot Carl" - that's "Carl" with a "C" - that's... well really, it's just somebody taking a dump in your mouth - that's what a "Hot Carl" is. Brian 10:11 PM (0) comments Wednesday, September 15, 2004 Do you remember childhood tales of an anti-peeing agent that could be added to pool water? I certainly do. The anti-pee agent came in powder form. The powder was to be spooned into the pool filter box. It would dissolve in the water and disperse throughout the entire pool. As the rumor went, pool water treated in such a manner would turn bright neon yellow upon contact with urine - in effect, granting everybody present at the pool “pee vision” and instantly shaming the fouler of said pool. The reason I remember the tales of this anti-pee agent was that it significantly affected my pool behavior. Previously, when poolside, there had been three reasons to get in the water: (1) too hot, (2) play keep away, (3) whiz. Attempts to discover which pools had been treated with the anti-pee agent met with little success - these attempts usually included involving the kids of the family who owned the pool, (or janitor or lifeguard, in the case of a public pool) in a conversation about pool-peeing. “So,” I’d begin, in a very casual manner, as to avoid arousing suspicion, “good thing you’ve got that anti-pee agent in the water, eh? That way we know the water is pee-free, eh?” What I was hoping for was for somebody to either confirm the presence of the anti-pee agent, or say something like, “heck no, if somebody peed in this pool we’d have ABSOLUTELY no way of knowing about it.” Unfortunately, nobody responded in either fashion. Usually they just clammed up about pool peeing and displayed a little smile on their face because, whether they had treated their pool or not, they knew they had defeated me. The result was a phase lasting for about two years of my young life that required me to constantly haul my little body out of the pool and hazard my way across the wet slippery concrete to some crazy-ass bathroom somewhere - it felt at times that these repeated bathroom forays were taking months out of my life, but what was I to do? A year and a half in, the development of a litmus-like test for the presence of anti-pee agent in pool water (green for “it’s safe to pee,” red for “Warning! Anti-pee agent present!”) stalled due to my complete ignorance of chemistry principles. However, the litmus test wasn’t all a waste of time, at least it gave me hope. But then I got to thinking… Wait a minute! I thought. In these two years’ time, how likely is it that nobody peed in a pool around me? Answer: not very likely! Anti-pee agent was only a myth, calculated to dissuade whizzers from casting their wares into pool water! My first careful, tentative pool whiz confirmed my theories. After that, I became more brash - you know, making up for lost time and all. Nowadays, with all my maturity and aged cynical wisdom and what not, I’d have a much more straightforward analysis, and one that would have required much less empirical evidence. It’s all about cost-benefit. Take a hotel pool, for instance, even assuming that it costs the hotel nothing to purchase and use an anti-pee agent, what does the hotel gain by identifying when somebody’s peed in the pool? Nothing! In fact, this would probably only cost the hotel, like in lost business and stuff after the hotel acquires of the reputation of having a “pee lagoon” or something of the sort. And having its guests unknowingly swim around in all sorts of pee, that doesn’t cost a hotel anything at all. Until a hotel or gets sued by somebody who was adversely affected by pee-swimming in some way, (and such a law-suit, by the way, would be totally rad, aside from the negative consequences to pool whizzers that would surely follow) hotels have no motivation at all to add anti-pee agent to their pools. Simply put, my dear and gentle reader, do not fear that neon yellow dye. If you are swimming and happen to find yourself taken by the urge to urinate, then by all means, do so in the pool! However, this isn’t to say that, when you do, nobody will know that you are peeing in the pool. There exist a few very clever and astute people with a keen insight into human nature. And if one of these people are present when you pool whiz, they might know, even in the absence of anti-peeing agent. My friend Nik G. won’t swim in hotel pools. “They’re full of pee!” she says. She’s not just speculating. She knows. You see, she’s one of these clever and astute people who can spot somebody whizzing in a pool. Just recently, while we were both poolside, she pointed out a boy squatting by himself, eyes just above water level, in a secluded corner of the pool. He was quietly blowing bubbles out of his mouth and appeared deep in contemplation. Nik’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “You see how they get all quiet like that?” she asked me. “That’s when it happens!” So now, when I am swimming with Nik, and I determine that the body of water could use a little, “warm up” (as I chucklingly remark silently to myself), I splash around and talk loudly about something inconsequential. It’s fine for now but I‘m afraid it won‘t last. It won’t be much longer before Nik G. figures out what I am up to. Brian 10:49 AM (0) comments

E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com

Blogs

Mandapants
farkleberries
Uranium City Records
The C.M. Sienko Foundation
Storyteller Musings
Solotarian Views
Lynne Wiora
Tek
Poker News Blog
Some Biscuits
Evil Eye Emporium
Niggling Doubts
Pressure Release
Sara as Mommy
runswithscissors
Defective Yeti
Afternoon Delight
trancejen
The Terrarium
Bird Nird
Slipperily
Tofu Hut
Stereo Gum

House of Noh!

Thursday, September 30, 2004

Did you know that I have a beard now? I’ve been working on it. I don’t mean to brag, but it’s all huge-assed and shit. But of course, you must be unaware of my beard developments, as I have spent all my time lately hidden behind my apartment door, peering out the peephole at the antics of my neighbors who stage elaborate and dramatic, drawn-out performances in the hall, seemingly for no other purpose than my benefit and entertainment. As a gentleman, I’d like to do the gentlemanly thing and courteously introduce you to my beard. In order to do so properly, I’ve written this poem about it for you. It’s about the power of one vote, certain moral issues surrounding the colonization of space, Summer coming to an end, oh, and my beard too - it’s also about my beard. With all your follicles and crap, You remind me of a pissed off octopus… With a beard… And an eye patch… But an octopus that I would never accuse of being a pirate, and only discuss legitimate sea merchant business with, Lest that octopus pirate, Rake me violently with the hook covering his missing tentacle, An act to which I might possibly lose a testicle, And it’s not like I’ve got a lot of testicles to start with, In any case, no more than two. You’re a little bit itchy and irritating sometimes, And I don’t know why I don’t cut you off, Except that then I’d have to clean up, All that hair. And you know that’d never happen, So then there’d just be, like, this huge mess in my bathroom forever. Also, you’re sorta like pubic hair, Growing out of my face, But coarser, And also with a hint of red (which I think is from the Scot in me). On this rainy day.

Brian 4:14 AM (0) comments

Friday, September 24, 2004

I must have been really, really tired. When I sat down in the window seat on the train there wasn’t anybody next to me. I woke up all disoriented, multiple stops later, and there was a quiet, diminutive woman sitting next to me, engrossed in her Terry Pratchet book. What’s worse, from the chalky taste in my mouth I was pretty sure that I had been sleeping in my seat with my mouth wide open - the slack-jawed glottis-showing sleep of the really, really tired. I offered the woman next to me a stick of gum, a common opening move in interrogations. Me: (pointing gum package at her) Would you like a stick of gum? Terry Pratchet fan: No thank you. (pause) Me: (cautiously) Hey… when I was sleeping just now… was my mouth hanging open? Terry Pratchet fan: (attempting to be polite) Um.. I wouldn’t have noticed. Me: No, seriously, I think my mouth was all dangling open, you couldn’t have missed it, seriously, was my mouth hanging open while I was sleeping? Terry Pratchet fan: (shyly) Okay, your mouth was a bit open, while you were sleeping, but it isn’t a big deal or anything. Me: (eyes narrowed with contempt and distrust) What did you put in my mouth while I was sleeping!? You evil jerk!! The Terry Pratchet fan didn’t have anything to say after that. What could she have said? I caught her! I hope she didn’t put anything really bad in my mouth, like a microchip, or a little submarine filled with tiny, temporarily shrunken people who would drive around in my body and take pictures of the inside of my butt and my wang and stuff to sell on the internet. I hope she put something harmless in my mouth, like a little piece of turbinado sugar candy, or a tic-tac with a little safety line of dental floss tied onto it so she could ensure I wouldn’t accidentally inhale it while I was sleeping and choke on it, or a breath mint or something. Wait a minute! You know who I blame for this whole, unfortunate incident? That Listerine dissolving breath mint commercial, you know, the one where the sleazy dude is on a plane next to a woman and he’s breathing his stinky-assed breath in her face but she’s all cool and collected and puts a Listerine dissolving breath mint in his open mouth! Well, Listerine advertisers, I have something to say to you: that’s fucking battery! I can’t believe Listerine would be so irresponsible to show, and seemingly condone, acts of battery on national television! What Listerine doesn’t show is that fifteen minutes later the sleazy dude has an SEVERE allergic reaction to the dissolving breath mint and the plane has to touch down early to get him to the hospital which throws the plane off schedule and forces SEVERAL other people to miss their respective VERY IMPORTANT business meetings. Oh God! I hope that Terry Pratchet fan didn’t put a whole sheet of acid into my mouth! One of my friends in college knew a guy who bought a sheet of acid and put it in the pocket of his jeans to take home. But on his way home, it started raining, and his jeans got all wet, and his body absorbed the whole 100 hits of acid! After that, he pretty much flipped out and was put in a special insane asylum. That’s what could happen to me! The guy who had the sheet of acid in his pants thinks that he’s a glass of orange juice, and he only ever says three things: (1) Don’t drink me! (2) Don’t spill me! (3) Don’t tip me over! The guy also uses a funny voice when he makes these statements, presumably that’s how orange juice talks. I’ve always thought that “Don’t spill me!” was pretty much the same as “Don’t tip me over!” And I always wondered why the guy goes to the trouble of saying, “Don’t tip me over!” when not tipping him over would seem to be covered by his admonition not to spill him. I was talking about it with my friend, Chris S., just the other day. What Chris S. said made a lot of sense: To us, spilling a glass of orange juice and tipping a glass of orange juice over is pretty much the same thing, but to a glass of orange juice, they are probably completely distinct experiences.

Brian 11:38 AM (0) comments

Monday, September 20, 2004

Do you know what a "Hot Carl" is? I just found out this weekend. It's "Carl" with a "C." Not "Karl" with a "K." I'm sure about this letter thing, because I asked. I think a "Hot Karl" is some sort of breakfast pastry, like something flaky, and maybe with apricot jelly or something. I don't know. But a "Hot Carl" - that's "Carl" with a "C" - that's... well really, it's just somebody taking a dump in your mouth - that's what a "Hot Carl" is.

Brian 10:11 PM (0) comments

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Do you remember childhood tales of an anti-peeing agent that could be added to pool water? I certainly do. The anti-pee agent came in powder form. The powder was to be spooned into the pool filter box. It would dissolve in the water and disperse throughout the entire pool. As the rumor went, pool water treated in such a manner would turn bright neon yellow upon contact with urine - in effect, granting everybody present at the pool “pee vision” and instantly shaming the fouler of said pool. The reason I remember the tales of this anti-pee agent was that it significantly affected my pool behavior. Previously, when poolside, there had been three reasons to get in the water: (1) too hot, (2) play keep away, (3) whiz. Attempts to discover which pools had been treated with the anti-pee agent met with little success - these attempts usually included involving the kids of the family who owned the pool, (or janitor or lifeguard, in the case of a public pool) in a conversation about pool-peeing. “So,” I’d begin, in a very casual manner, as to avoid arousing suspicion, “good thing you’ve got that anti-pee agent in the water, eh? That way we know the water is pee-free, eh?” What I was hoping for was for somebody to either confirm the presence of the anti-pee agent, or say something like, “heck no, if somebody peed in this pool we’d have ABSOLUTELY no way of knowing about it.” Unfortunately, nobody responded in either fashion. Usually they just clammed up about pool peeing and displayed a little smile on their face because, whether they had treated their pool or not, they knew they had defeated me. The result was a phase lasting for about two years of my young life that required me to constantly haul my little body out of the pool and hazard my way across the wet slippery concrete to some crazy-ass bathroom somewhere - it felt at times that these repeated bathroom forays were taking months out of my life, but what was I to do? A year and a half in, the development of a litmus-like test for the presence of anti-pee agent in pool water (green for “it’s safe to pee,” red for “Warning! Anti-pee agent present!”) stalled due to my complete ignorance of chemistry principles. However, the litmus test wasn’t all a waste of time, at least it gave me hope. But then I got to thinking… Wait a minute! I thought. In these two years’ time, how likely is it that nobody peed in a pool around me? Answer: not very likely! Anti-pee agent was only a myth, calculated to dissuade whizzers from casting their wares into pool water! My first careful, tentative pool whiz confirmed my theories. After that, I became more brash - you know, making up for lost time and all. Nowadays, with all my maturity and aged cynical wisdom and what not, I’d have a much more straightforward analysis, and one that would have required much less empirical evidence. It’s all about cost-benefit. Take a hotel pool, for instance, even assuming that it costs the hotel nothing to purchase and use an anti-pee agent, what does the hotel gain by identifying when somebody’s peed in the pool? Nothing! In fact, this would probably only cost the hotel, like in lost business and stuff after the hotel acquires of the reputation of having a “pee lagoon” or something of the sort. And having its guests unknowingly swim around in all sorts of pee, that doesn’t cost a hotel anything at all. Until a hotel or gets sued by somebody who was adversely affected by pee-swimming in some way, (and such a law-suit, by the way, would be totally rad, aside from the negative consequences to pool whizzers that would surely follow) hotels have no motivation at all to add anti-pee agent to their pools. Simply put, my dear and gentle reader, do not fear that neon yellow dye. If you are swimming and happen to find yourself taken by the urge to urinate, then by all means, do so in the pool! However, this isn’t to say that, when you do, nobody will know that you are peeing in the pool. There exist a few very clever and astute people with a keen insight into human nature. And if one of these people are present when you pool whiz, they might know, even in the absence of anti-peeing agent. My friend Nik G. won’t swim in hotel pools. “They’re full of pee!” she says. She’s not just speculating. She knows. You see, she’s one of these clever and astute people who can spot somebody whizzing in a pool. Just recently, while we were both poolside, she pointed out a boy squatting by himself, eyes just above water level, in a secluded corner of the pool. He was quietly blowing bubbles out of his mouth and appeared deep in contemplation. Nik’s eyes narrowed with contempt. “You see how they get all quiet like that?” she asked me. “That’s when it happens!” So now, when I am swimming with Nik, and I determine that the body of water could use a little, “warm up” (as I chucklingly remark silently to myself), I splash around and talk loudly about something inconsequential. It’s fine for now but I‘m afraid it won‘t last. It won’t be much longer before Nik G. figures out what I am up to.

Brian 10:49 AM (0) comments

<< chicago blogs >>

Archives