fire

Town Council Primaries and the Wild Dog Situation

Jun 3rd, 2015
by John.
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Town council primaries were held in my town yesterday. And though the votes are being tallied as we speak, I’m just going to assume that my write-in campaign worked, and I am now one step closer to becoming a member of the town council. Hey thanks. Thank you, it’s been a long couple of days getting this whole thing set up. Let’s go over some of my campaign promises.

I promised to save the Movies Under the Stars program, and I will not break that promise. However, I should make you aware of a few changes that will make this program even more exciting and valuable to the community. First of all, attendance is now mandatory, rain or shine. Second, I’ll be picking all of the movies, and I will also be mic’d so I can share my vast knowledge of movie trivia while you watch. Think of it like director’s commentary, except I’m not the director, and if you don’t listen to me you’re thrown in jail for three years. I look forward to seeing EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU on Saturday, June 20th, where we’ll be watching Nymphomaniac volumes 1 and 2, in French, sans subtitles.

High-ISO-2-wild-dogs

We all know about the wild dog problem around the old abandoned lot on James Street behind the rail yard. No one knows where they came from, but there’s about a thousand of them and they’re all hungry for man flesh. I promised to deal with the situation, and the way I see it, there’s only one solution. My very good friend Boxcar Larry, a local eccentric that lives in the rail yard, has developed a way to communicate with wild dogs. Probably because ol’ Larry was bitten nearly to death, and then a rival pack of dogs nursed him back to health for about 6 months and raised him as one of their own. Who better to start a dialog with these beasts that are terrorizing our yoga classes and eating from the dumpsters behind our vegan bakeries and then throwing up into the dumpsters behind our vegan bakeries? Therefore, I hereby nominate Boxcar Larry as The Lord of Dogs, and hope that he can either forge some kind of peace treaty or round up all of the dogs and light them on fire.

Which leads me to my next point. I understand that other members of the town council may find my methods… a bit… what’s that word where something is too perfect for this world? It doesn’t matter. Let me remind everyone that I ran as an independent member of the “I Will Burn This Motherfucker to the Ground” party. That was not a figure of speech. I have a button in my office, there’s a picture of a flame on it. You don’t even need a key to operate it. It’s right next to the light switch, and it’s gigantic. If I’m having a rough day at the office, maybe I’ll accidentally bash that button over and over and burn this entire fucking town to the ground. No more adorable antique stores. No more independent coffee shops that give you that nice feeling in the pit of your stomach because you’re supporting a local business. Nothing but ash. Volvo after Volvo blanketed in burning embers. Wild dogs, under the command of a local madman, snapping and tearing flesh from bone.

So thank you for your support. When I look at our town I see a bright future full of possibilities, loving parents pushing babies on swings, and a serviceable rail system. And with your support, I’ll ensure it never becomes a smoldering hellscape. Thank you.

You can watch me scream and yell all of my recent posts on AwesomeTalk! It airs every other Tuesday on our YouTube channel, where you can also find past episodes and other psychotic vlog vids.

A Man on Fire, Pringles, and Liquor: My First Memory

Nov 17th, 2014
by John.
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According to a poll conducted by Scientific American, 25% of people recall a troubling event as their first memory, just barely beating out “childhood antics” and “war.” And just as an aside, clearly the Scientific American poll-takers are sadistic fuckers, as they don’t find war to be a “troubling event.” Like, oh your first memory was your brother coming home from Iraq with his legs torn to shreds by a roadside bomb? That’s hilarious, let’s mark that under “light-hearted family capers.”

Nevertheless, I am part of the 25% of troubling first memory havers. When I was around 3 years old, the gas station two doors down from my house exploded. I guess that happens sometimes? So we all run outside to watch the carnage unfold, and everyone on the block is just standing around, like, yup. That bad boy’s on fire all right, flames are gettin’ real hot. But it was probably the sight of the gas station owner on fire, rolling around on the ground, screaming, attempting to pull his melting flesh back onto himself like some kind of skin cardigan that made me think, hmm here’s an image I’m wildly unprepared for. Oh, it’s just the nice gas station man pleading OH GOD HELP ME as the flames spread to his giant flammable beard, his face seconds away from pooling into a chunky puddle in front of some barely concerned neighborhood onlookers. The fire department showed up, and there was nothing on TV, so we all watched them put him out instead. I shook uncontrollably as the grand marshal of the block party from hell was extinguished.

To this day, certain experiences trigger my first memory. Getting gas – there’s the man on fire checking my tire pressure. Going to Burning Man – there’s the man on fire, wearing steampunk goggles and tripping his fiery balls off. Netflix recommends that I watch Backdraft, Heat, and Man on Fire – there’s the man on fire, who somehow guessed my Netflix password and is filling my queue with the hottest films cinema has to offer.

That night, after all the fire trucks and ambulances left, we went over to our neighbor’s house. The adults were all trading stories; undoubtedly my father was calling everyone and everything involved in the evening’s events an asshole – the guy on fire, the firefighters that put him out, the cop that asked everyone to take a step back, the gas station, fire itself. All of them ASSHOLES. I sat quietly on the sofa, staring at nothing, my very small brain processing how to categorize this first memory for a Scientific American poll-taker in the future.

But what’s the old saying? Every story about a man nearly burning to death has a silver lining? At some point my kindly old neighbor Mr. Girardi sat down next to me and handed me two things:  a shot of booze and a can of Pringles. “Here, drink this, it will calm you down. Here, eat these, they come in a weird can.” Because this was the roaring 80’s, when an adult could offer a 3-year-old a stiff drink and some chips and it was fine as long as their parents were present. Back when things made goddamn sense. So, thank you Mr. Girardi for teaching me that when it comes to processing a troubling event, alcohol is top notch. It’s second only to burying the event deep down inside and screaming yourself to sleep every night.

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