Wednesday, August 6, 2008

An Update of Run-On Sentences

1. One of my breathtakingly amazing friends was beaten and robbed outside of her apartment early Sunday morning. This is bullshit, and I will not stand for it. Thinking about it pisses me off. Just so's you knows.


2. This morning there was a distinct burning smell lurking on the street outside. It's really no surprise, since last night I watched lightening strike the hospital across the street. Chicago had a particularly thunderous storm.

After an eleven hour day at BSF, I decided to walk home from the Loop, being the courageous idiot that I am. Inverted another umbrella and got holed up in a 7-11 for over an hour and a half with other stupid ass pedestrians, watching garbage cans roll into the street and reading Maxim articles to each other while tornado sirens yelled at everyone dumb enough to walk the streets. It was all strangers cracking jokes and shallow bonding, like a bad TV drama. I left first, which means that if it were a bad TV drama, I would have been injured or killed.

Once I finally made it home I'd surpassed the windstorm, but not the rain. It's always good to read on the porch during a lightening storm, I think, as long as you don't mind the thunderpunches. I swapped out Snitch Jacket for It because It's scarier and sat out there for awhile. I jumped a lot, but it was kind of like being in a Lou Christie song.

Best storm in a while. Trees were breaking and snapping and toppling into the street, constant sirens, thunder thunder thunder. After it let up at about midnight I headed out with some neighbors to clear out the sewer drains so the puddles would let up, and learned to recognize them by their faces instead of their dogs, so the night wasn't a total loss, and now I know the Joel the Akita is owned by Chris, who unfortunately is wrinkled and sixty instead of pectoralled and thirty. Less Morgan Freeman, more Christian Bale, hell, more Seth Rogen.


3. If you apply the Page 99 Test to Snitch Jacket, you get this fantastic exchange:

Gus shook his head and drank. "They don't take these details into account when they make up our so-called laws, Benny. I say so-called because I don't recognize their authority over me, since I'm an Outlaw. Outlaw's a state of mind, brother. Saying, 'No one controls me.' You didn't know I was a philosopher too. My master's Mr. F. Nietzsche, the Kraut. He invented a lot of this shit. He's the second greatest Outlaw of all time."

"Who's the first?"

"Jesus Christ. I'm a Roman Catholic from way back."

"Jesus Christ?"

"He was the original Outlaw, and he hated the rich, and he fucked up their shit, which is why they had to kill him. A man who makes up his own rules is too dangerous to keep around. Same deal with Satan, who if you ask me always got a bad rap."

Listening, I began to grasp the appeal of a headcase like Charlie Manson. Say a thing with enough fire and conviction, add a few fistfuls of Svengali charisma, and just about anything sounds true. Gus Miller's mind, it occurred to me, was as chaotic as his van. He had been picking up things for years that he couldn't bring himself to throw away. So his brain-pan swarmed with wild notions snatched from a book half-read in 1972, a conversation with a street-corner prophet in Detroit, maybe a 10-year-old-LSD-induced revelation or two: anything he touched went into the bitch's brew of his philosophy.

I'm only on page 32, so we'll see how we get there. Should be good though, since Page 99 Test = fool proof.


4. So within the next month, I'm flying out to DC and driving back immediately to take the Yellavitch (sister) home from her government internship, three days later I leave for Vegas for Yellavitch's 21st birthday celebration, and then one week after that I'm flying out to San Diego for two days and driving back to Chicago on Route 66 with MoLinder, a trailer, and two cats so she can become my new roommate, since Xtine is moving in with her Monkey-Ass boyfriend. Run-on.


5. This means that in the first week of September I will acquire a new roommate and two fucking cats. Never had cats before, and I'm slightly nervous that we'll be mistaken for a stereotypical lesbian couple of Crazy Cat Ladies, what with my sewing machine and herb garden and DIY projects.

Shit.

I should start wearing make up and throw away my hiking boots.


6. My foot itches, big time, and I've been scratching it with a key for better effectiveness against itchery.

...

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL @ the 'Monkey ass boyfriend' - Is he chinese?

Mister Crowley said...

Beverly Rogan gets a whuppin'?

Rassles said...

She deserves it, the whore.

Rassles said...

Oh, and no to 'Non...he's a gypsy. They just call each other Monkey.

It's all,

"You're the monkey."
"No you're the monkey."
"Oh, I'm the monkey?"
"You're the monkey!"
"How 'bout now? Who's the monkey now?"
"Get your banana-peelin' hands off me!"

Rob S said...

What is the page 99 test? I think it was explained to me once but I thought it had to do with love scenes in romance novels.

Rassles said...

Romance novels is the page 69 test.

Just open up any book to page 99 and read it. If you like that page, you'll like that book.

Unknown said...

I had never heard of the pg 99 test before. It's going to become my new favorite thing.

Love Bites said...

Wow, now I'm really pissed that I was so close to you and totally missed getting in touch with you. I'd have liked playing dinosaurs with you in some divey bar.

I miss tornado warnings, btw. They're fun, in some weird way. Kinda like tropical storms and hurricanes are fun, as long as a tree doesn't fall on your house and/or you don't get impaled by flying debris.

Rassles said...

See, the dinosaurs were a one time thing. I was in the moment. And I was completely out of my fucking gourd, and a little vulnerable.

I just happened to have freshly molded dinosaurs at my disposal. I'm not sure if I can just whip out dinodrama whenever you hand me a PBR.

Oh, well. I'll try.

renalfailure said...

There's probably some sort of porn out there for itching feet with a key. And if there isn't, you can get in the ground floor to bring a new creepy fetish to the Internet.

Rassles said...

Think you may have something there. Exhaust my efforts writing a script for a serious movie about fetishes, like Secretary, and then just realize it would make a far better porn. I could call it "The Itchscratchers Guide to the Fuck-a-key" or something.

Whoa, bad title. Real bad. Totally leaving it in there.

Rassles said...

Alfred ItchCock Presents: To Scratch Your Feet

See, I just can't make the whole feet/key thing sound sexual. So lame.

Mister Crowley said...

How about....Michael Moorcock presents 'The Brothel in Keysenscratchsse'? No?

Rassles said...

Nice.

Love Bites said...

I think you should just call it:

"Keywork."

Rassles said...

Ahhh, shit, how the fuck did I miss that?

Bluestreak said...

you're so damn funny. Don't get rid of your hiking boots.

Anonymous said...

The Page 69 Test: http://page69test.blogspot.com/

The Page 99 Test:
http://page99test.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

The Page 99 test for "Snitch Jacket," by the author:

http://page99test.blogspot.com/2007/03/christopher-goffards-snitch-jacket.html

Rassles said...

NICE. And it completely is true, as well...that page sets the tone for the rest of the book, and I don't know if I would think that way if I'd never read page 99 first...