The Sounds of Douchebag America

Wait, before you finish, let me interrupt — do you  mean Darren as in the guy who started that sketch comedy group last year?  OH MY GOD I KNOW HIM!!!  I remember one time I totally ran into him on the bus and he started talking to me all like, “What’s that smell?” and I was all like, “I don’t know.”  Then he told me this story about this weird thing that happened to him in a cab, kind of like what happened to my cousin once.  She got into a cab in New York and the driver was all like, “So do you have a boyfriend?”  and she was like “Um, no,” and then he was like, “Well, you’re cute.”  Totally gross!  But hilarious, you know, like, pretty funny and all.  Anyway, yeah, he’s a real…

Wait, stop, I just heard the name Lucy over there.  You guys!  Stop!  No, not you…you!  You, in the blue!  Lucy…what’s her last name?  Lucy what?  Lucy Moore?  OH MY GOD I KNOW HER!  With the blond curly hair and all?  Yeah she’s kind of a bitch and all, sorry, but like, we did choir together for a while and she was always so mean to me.  She’d be like “You’re late” and “What’s that smell?”  all the time.  God she was so mean.  She kind of has an ugly face too, you know what I mean?  She looks like someone took her face in Photoshop, and, uh…well, you know, did some weird stuff to it, I guess.  I’m not as clever as Darren.  You know he’s really funny.  But anyway, yeah, she’s just lame and has that homely look to her, you know?  Like, she’s trying to be ugly.  I’m surprised her boyfriend’s still with her.  Oh, you’re friends with her?  Close friends?  Oh, well, I don’t know what you’re thinking.  But anyway, sorry if I offended you somehow.

Anyway, wait, I know you guys are having a serious conversation because of like, all the tears and all, but I know you guys do the whole jazz ensemble thing in the neighborhood, and I’m wondering if you know a guy named Matt.  I forget what his last name is.  In fact, I barely remember what he looks like.  Wait, is his name Matt?  Maybe it’s Pat.  I’m pretty sure it’s Matt…anyway he’s got kind of lightish-darkish hair, kinda…hmm…shortish-but-in-a-tall-way.  The details are really hazy, but…Matt…oh, yes, Matt Roland!  OH MY GOD I KNOW HIM!  He’s kind of a poser, though, I think.  Don’t you guys think so?  Sorry I’m, like, interrupting everybody and all, I don’t know what’s come over me, like a spell or something.  Whatever, I try not to think about it, hell, I try not to think too hard about anything.  I don’t know, I get the feeling that he’s really fake, you know?  No, to be honest, I haven’t talked to him.  No, I barely remembered his name, you’re crazy to think that I might have talked to him.  Well maybe he’s really shy or maybe I’m really shy in those situations, but no, he just comes across a huge fake poser kind of guy, you know?  Well, like, he was wearing some dark, slim-fit band T-shirt when I saw him and I was thinking all “Here we go, one of those hipster types” or whatever.  He was really nice to other people that he talked to, and he seemed nice to the people he talked on the phone with, but, yeah, still, kind of fake, you know.  I don’t know that much about him though, to be honest.  I just figured because he was wearing one of those band shirts, you know?  Is that judging too quickly?

OH MY GOD IT’S YOU CHRIS, I KNOW YOU!  Welcome to the party I hope you’re having a good time.  What’s that band on your shirt?  Yeah they’re pretty cool I guess.  They look cool; I haven’t heard them at all though.  Nope, not even a little.  To be honest I just listen to musicals and recordings of my neighborhood’s Sunday Mass.  I’m glad you’re here and all, is all.  Ha, I said all twice in a row all silly like.  Silly me!  Wait, stop, who did you bring with you?  Is this…OH MY GOD I KNOW YOU TOO…

Come on, guys!  Give me more cowbell!  Like that SNL sketch!  You know!  Come on!  Seriously!  I’m not being ironic this time, I swear!  Though I have a hard time confusing when I’m being sincere and when I’m being ironic!  Or even when I’m acting out of spite!  You may be able to tell by my size, headband, and/or beard!

More cowbell! Ah jeez, I know you guys can hear me!  Do you have one!?  I think you do!  You do too!  Play it!  Hit it just once!  For me!  Because I actually want it!  I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore!  I’m saying what comes to mind without thinking what it might mean to these other concert-goers and possibly their loved ones!  More cowbell!

Are you talking to me?  Don’t even bother.  Can’t we just watch Jeopardy! or something?  Even Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  Nah, that’s too frustrating.  It takes them too long to figure out a question, no matter how, how do I say, easy it is.  Same thing with Jeopardy! sometimes.  I hate when they have Teen Jeopardy! or College Jeopardy! You do too?  Is it because you’re afear’d you won’t know the answers and you’ll feel ignorant?  Yeah, several acquaintances of mine feel similarly, so I’m not surprised.  See, I think it’s  too easy.  I would audition for the college edition, but I’m so occupied, as it were.  And with my patent, I don’t even need the money, so…

I would elaborate further about my patent, but it’s fairly intricate.  A plethora of quantum mechanics, a sprinkling of pyrometallurgy, and, surprisingly, some obscure facets of obstetrics.  This reminds me somehow, I believe earlier this evening you mentioned briefly something regarding “meiosis.”  It may have been a joke, or rather, a feeble attempt at one, but I believe your intention was to say “osmosis.”  I understand you got your degree in English, so I would not expect anything more (or less), but if you are going to attempt witticisms about semi-permeable membranes, I suggest you either do it properly, or not in my presence.

Wait, excuse me for a moment…Did someone across the way mention Prokofiev?  Prokofiev was not a Romantic, by the way; he’s strictly in the modern tradition.  You might as well say Pierre Boulez was in the style of Renaissance.  Or you could do worse and say Harlem Renaissance.  Or go farther and say the Harlem Globetrotters. Yes, I can keep this chain of references going as long as you wish, or at least until somebody appreciates the Groucho Marx-esque labyrinth of wit I’ve created around this music-ignorant, philistine-like Minotaur.

Anyway, I apologize for the interruption.  Have you read Proust?  I was reminded now because I was trying to remember something, and since the whole novel is essentially a treatise on the workings of memory, it reminded me.  I don’t enjoy discussing it at length, if only because as a novelist he is the go-to writer for pseudo-intellectual elite prattle.  He is more of a watermark of intellectual status for the bourgeoisie than an apex of modernist achievement.  Do you understand what I mean by prattle?  I used to subscribe to Word of the Day, but then I remembered every word they offered.  They were not helpful in conversation at all.  One moment, this plebeian wants to discuss Swann’s Way with me.  Something tells me they will confuse it with Swan Lake…Yes, I’ve read The Guermantes Way, and you are pronouncing it as if it is Spanish.  As you may recall, it was written by a Frenchman, not Pablo Neruda.  If we are to discuss books, shan’t we expound upon Taylor Branch’s 3-part Martin Luther King biography?  It eloquently casts Dr. King as a Moses figure.  Yes, I understand this particular topic is not relevant to anything, but then again, neither are you, so…

Well, this party is boring me.  While you play your first-person shooter video games, I believe I will go home and sip on some herbal-tea-infused Argentinian rum, read in my bathrobe, and fall asleep to some 21st-century sacred minimalism.  If anyone here is interested in a variant of some sort of courting ritual, I would be happy to oblige, though I must say I am not adept at those things.  In any event, I will leave my number if anyone is interested, right here, magnetized to the refrigerator.  Please call it if mating sounds viable.  Farewell, everybody.

You know how you, not even a moment ago, said, “I’ll see you tomorrow”?  Well, it’s 1:30am, and we’re supposed to get brunch at 1:00pm, but, because it’s after midnight it’s technically Sunday, so when you said “I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said you’d see me Monday, which isn’t true.  So basically, you were kind of lying.  You know, like that time you didn’t come to the PTA meeting with me because you had to take your daughter to dance lessons…well, your husband told me himself: you don’t even have a daughter!  You were kind of lying then, too.

I’m rarely up after midnight around friends, so I don’t get a chance to correct people.  My husband gets his fair share, though.  His sleep schedule’s pretty odd, because you know, he does those 48-hour shifts down at the fire station.  So he’ll come back at 3 or 4 in the morning depending, and tell me to pick the kids up from school tomorrow, and I’ll say, “Nuh uh uh, I get to pick them up today…Get it!?”  And then he’ll look at me weird, because he just saw a puppy burn to death.  I’m up pretty late unless I use my usual cocktail of Ambien, NyQuil, Jim Beam, melatonin, and valerian root-infused chamomile tea.  Like I told my husband, those herbal supplements are a medicinal miracle.  Speaking of medicine, I’m almost out of melatonin.  I should tell him when he gets back that I need him to pick some up for me tomorrow.

And by tomorrow I mean Monday, because I have a pill ready for tonight.  You see what I mean, because it’s technically Sunday, so…yeah, you get it now.

Get it?  Get it?  I’m a…listen…I’m a shit head.  I know, right?  DUDE!  I can’t wait to go into work tomorrow.  All the other White House staffers are gonna be like, “Get a load of this guy.”  You gotta admit, it’s pretty awesome that I managed to do it myself.  Like, so far as I can tell, it looks pretty accurate…thing is I can’t tell, really, because the back of your own head is probably the hardest place to look with only the use of your eyeballs.  So, judging from the reactions I’ve been getting, I’m going to guess it looks pretty good.  Actually I don’t know what reactions I’ve been getting, because I can’t really see behind me, at least when I’m walking down the street.  Unless I turn my head or turn around, but when do I ever do that?  I saw my girlfriend scoff and look kind of upset, but only because I was shaving and I saw her walk into the bathroom through the medicine cabinet mirror.  “I hope you’re not shaving a vagina into your beard or something,” she said.  She’s pretty smart, which is great, but I hate when she ruins my surprises for her.  Then she asks how people have reacted to it, and I said, “I don’t know, all I can really do is hear people’s reactions…I can’t really see them.”  (I would have said, “Does it look like I have eyes on the back of my head?”, but that wasn’t clever enough for me.  Maybe if I’d followed it up with, “I may not have eyes there, but at least I have a pooping guy on the back of my head…,” that would have been clever.  But maybe the pooping guy technically has eyes. Unless he’s a blind pooping guy, and that’s why he’s not pooping into a toilet…well, that doesn’t work, because blind people usually have eyes, they’re just broken, so, I don’t know…either way, they’re not real eyes, so it probably doesn’t count.)

Well anyway, since I only hear people’s reactions, what do they say?  Thing is, I don’t really know.  I have headphones on most of the time.  Not earbuds, I mean big headphones.  Sometimes when I have them off they cover the entire guy’s head and neck, which is poor planning on my part, I suppose.  Should’ve taken into account that I wear this very large, obtrusive dome-piece accessory before I shaved my head to have a pooping guy on it.

Now I can’t wait to see what it looks like as my hair starts growing back in.  Maybe it’ll look geographical or something.  If only Africa looked like a pooping guy, right?  And then the poop could be those little African islands that come off of Africa.  Oh, we’ll see.  We’ll see how people react…to geography.