Single White E-Mail - Ladies First

Hi Brian,

I hope this finds you in a better place than where we last left off when you were captured by your arch nemesis Capt. Butteryums and dangling over a pen of hungry hogs in his underground lair. It is my understanding that those hogs could devour a human being in just under 5 minutes, which coincidently is how long it took for Nick Cage to break out of hell in his film "Drive Angry". I often wonder if I would be willing to escape from hell, but since I don't believe in hell I quickly snap out of it and go back to drinking. But for the sake of argument, if I did have to escape from hell I would do so with classic misdirection. I would yell to the devil "LLLOOOOOKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!" while pointing over there, and when he turned to look I would make a mad dash for it.

Hopefully this plan will help you escape Capt. Butteryums.

Love,
Tim

Hi Tim,

I am actually in hell at the moment. The hell of the California DMV. I’m stuck here and nick cage is nowhere to be seen. Maybe the movie should have been about escaping from the DMV without hearing any of the potty mouth ghetto talk I’ve been listening to for the past 2 hours. These gems include:

• He’s only in that wheel chair so he can skip the line
• Tyrone is a bitch
• This is retarded
• The police asked my old lady if she had drugs in her ass and if she did the drug dog was gonna bight into her ass hole
• Jamaica guy saying the dmv is the creation of your country not mine
• I think the guy sitting next to me is drunk
• Sir you can’t bring your bird in here
• Where the Fuck is nick cage

I said that last one

b.

 
Well Brian,

You sound like you have a problem with authority and not in a cool Jeff Spicoli sort of way, but more in an older brother from Malcolm in the Middle sort of way, and by that I mean you probably have to light fires to get aroused. Why else would you think it is ok to mock our public servants? Sure they are a surly lot but adult onset diabetes will do that to a person. Speaking of diabetes I have recently become obsessed with the weight loss show HEAVY, which I started watching because I thought it was the old VH1 documentary, HEAVY - The Story of Metal. What musical genre do you think is in need of similar treatment and what do you think the title should be. I would go with DANDY - The Story of 80s Brit Pop.

Hey Tim,

Jeff Spicoli and Mr. Hand did eventually end up becoming friends there in the end, so perhaps there is hope for me to one day see eye to eye with the CA. Department of Motor Vehicles. It was so much more than you realize and had it not been for the fact I was sending you messages via my super awesome middle schooler phone "The Rumor", I would have described in much more detail the horror of that day. Seriously, everyone knows going to the DMV is like getting a vomit colonic, but this shit was off the chain for real. More later.

Brian,

DMV is actually the 4th ring of hell, originally reserved for pedophiles and Agnostics (seriously shit or get off the pot agnostics), but somehow, due a Ron Silver meeting a past/future version of himself and then touching said self in the movie Time Cop, the realm was freed and now we all suffer because of Ron Silver. What a jerk. When I really think about it I have never met a person named Ron who wasn't a jerk. Think about it, and not in your "I'm from California and I'm on some tasty nugs" sort of way, but more in a east coast ivy league elite "I'm trying to avoid sex with my wife because it always reminds me that I am sort of gay" sort of way. Deep right? I can drop gems on you all day if you let me. Drop gems by the way is colloquial hip hop slang. I am well versed in hip hop slang, since I did graduate with a degree in African American studies.

Tim,

I on the other hand graduated with a degree in Woman's Studies. I did however write my senior thesis on the importance of Queen Latifah. My basic argument was, considering my major, that all women are queens and should be treated accordingly. But somehow none can so adequately represent the plight of women, or wonder they represent, or reason they should be celebrated, as the original Jersey Girl herself. Let’s face it; she is the "every woman". Part beautiful, slightly or more slightly overweight (depending on upcoming events) - Part classy, part trashy, her hair in a constant state of unrest or just right. Her movie choices, minus the ones she's in, often reflect her mood at the time.

She can wear a bathrobe as elegantly as a nightgown (if you really like her a lot). Her edgy urban swagger is only surpassed by her ability to put on makeup in a way that is perfectly subtle. Her eyes have a quite sadness, yet at the same time reflect all of the emotions that We Are The World failed to convey. You can see all of history in those eyes, Chris Columbus (The Movie Maker, Not The Sailor), Thomas Jefferson (George Jefferson's Cousin) Harlem (not the band) The Streets (Mike Skinner) thug life (people forced into awkward situations) Glass Bottom Platform Shoes (filled with water so gold fish can swim in the bottom). She understands that sometimes kids get sick, and although she has none of her own- that we know of- goes out of her way to make them soup. She will hold your hand and she always smells like baked goods.

She looks great in a bikini as well as a prison jump suit, regardless of which one is on top of the other. Sometimes she really breaks loose and drinks beer and eats chicken wings. Other times she just wants a foot rub while reading a great R.L. Stein book. She will tell you the truth even when it hurts you in the dick. Her sixth sense is knowing exactly when to tell you to slow down when you drive too fast. She will say "I am always by your side, look in the sand; you will see my foot prints next to yours." You will say, "I looked for the foot prints and then there was only one set, where were you then? Where the Fuck were you!" She will say "Watch your mouth, I told you about that shit, you dumb asshole, I was carrying your worthless jobless ass through the horrible desert that you made out of your life, and dragged me into it, through it, I don't even like the desert, that shit is hot, yet you brought me there and the car broke down, your unpaid car by the way, and what about the bed and breakfast you said we were going to, it was a trailer park, you dumb asshole, you said there would be bathrobes, we didn't even get towels you cheap mother fucker. I should beat your dumb ass, but I won’t, I won't, cause somewhere under all that dumb ass shit is a man who loves me and a man I love.

That's the Queen. And because of my studies I am also well versed in the language of hip hop, one of, I might add, my favorite languages. For fushnikins bitch. But back to the DVM for a moment, I swear I could have sworn I saw Queen Latifah working in one, or was it simply a dream in which she became the president of every DMV in the universe, and her first order of business was: I'm gonna change the DMV to a more "Dave and Busters" like model. While you wait in line you can order food and play long outdated video games, and if that's not enough, you may explore the option of over-expensive drinks. Who can say for sure?

Brian,
I have a few facts about her highness the Queen that I would like to share with you:

1. She was an All State basketball player before her reign as Queen.
2. Her real name is Dana Owens.
4. The David Lee Roth song Yankee Rose is about her and a wild night they spent together in Playa Del Carmen.

It is nice that we both found time to learn about the oppressed living amongst us. I for one like to pat myself on the back anytime I feel shitty and say to myself "hey self, don't beat yourself up over mistakenly thinking that Italian fellow was a Mexican day laborer trying to take American jobs, it was an innocent mistake, plus you have a degree in African American Studies, how could you be racist". It really helps that I don't live in California and by default rarely see Mexicans.

I didn't expect you to be so versed in Hip Hop, or are you just versed in Queen Latifah, or perhaps it is just women that we all have a sneaking sense are lesbians. Whatever it is I applaud you and your efforts. The world would be a better place if everyone bought U.N.I.T.Y, because let’s face it that was the only good Queen Latifah album. If you were an 80s rapper turned movie star, would you go the Queen Latifah route and keep your rap name or the Will Smith route and use your birth name, which we all know is the very unfortunate Cornelius James Roustenbakhole IV. Personally I would go with option C. Create an entirely new entity with an exciting back story. I would be Hedrick Von Schniederhorn, son of Baron Von Schniederhorn via his hillbilly mistress Sarah Wilkes. I would have spent years in an asylum just off the coast of Vermont where I was raised by Dr. Nillson J. Kline where I honed my craft in a series of role plays to determine the true depth of my sociopathic ways. Eventually when Dr. Kline died I left the safe surroundings of Shady Bosom and decided to try my luck on Broadway where I worked mostly as a hustler pleasuring rich old ladies and their dogs. Eventually I caught my lucky break playing Maria in a bold reinterpretation of West Side Story. The rest is as you say - History.

Tim,

My cousin Greta is a teacher at the school where Dana made slam dunks or more likely pick and rolls - I'm not sure of her playing style back then? But yes, I am familiar with her past. I just really like thinking of her in that awful Proto-African garb on a window washer unit going up - that's how I remember the U. N. I.T.Y video. As for the album, I don't think it can be as good as Tougher Than Leather or as bad as any song in which Too Short talks about being a pimp too much.

Brian,

I think you just lost the entire California contingent because California rap fans will wildly support even the most average of rapper because of their inferiority complex. How else would you explain the deification of TUPAC? Although he did spawn the phenomenon known as X-Pac so he can't be entirely bad. Just 87% bad. Did you ever see the 30 for 30 documentary about the night TUPAC got killed? It was terrible, a lot of spoken word poetry set in a boxing ring. Poets in general are funny people. I love how musicians especially singer songwriter types and rappers aspire to be poets. Have they never met a poet? Fuck they might be the most annoying and insincere people on the planet.

Tim,

We should start by saying write of the bat there is only one true poet and he hails from Los Angeles and his name is Jim fucking Morrison. Jim's words touch me like Too Short's hands smack hookers. His other worldly on the edge of life and death take on the universe can hardly be compared to anything else. I mean, this man was an outright savant, whatever that is. And if it is such a thing, he is the prince of the savants. His words are like knives in the ear hole of humanity. I believe it was Jello Biafra who once said, "No Jim Morrison, No Dead Kennedys." And that quote was in regards to Jello Biafra's conspiracy theory about Jim Morrison being the father of the popular MTV VJ Kennedy, who would later die in a vespa scooter accident in the summer of 1992 somewhere in Huntington Beach. Poor Kennedy.

I can really only think about Tupac in regards to Omar Epps as they were truly tight bros in the movie "Juice". When I first saw this film I was pretty sure it was about O.J. Simpson. It seemed to be that it was a "black" version of the movie "Stand By Me" in which young O.J. and his three friends go on an adventure to find a dead D.J. by some railroad tracks in some sort of inner city. But as the movie progresses you come to find that it is less about Orinthal James and more about the actors in the movie and if their individual careers will live or die by some non-descript railroad tracks in some sort of inner city.

Finally, on the subject of Poets, I can only recall the artistic totem. If you're wondering what the artistic totem is, I will tell you:

Historically totem poles where built out of cedar which takes a very long time to decay, making them a perfect way to preserve something. In some cases the totem was a cultural beacon outlining events or fables. In other cases the totem was a straight up bottom to top list in the form of lineage or greatness. In the case of the artistic totem, it is built from the ground up starting with the most worthless artistic endeavor one could pursue ascending to the least worthless. Sometimes though, the absolute shittiest of the worst gets put on top by accident because history has a way of doing that. So don't take it too literally, make your own if you want to. The first one I ever saw looked like this (in words).
 

• Lowest of the Low: Dancers
• Somewhere slightly above this: Performance Artists
• Below or Above these two: Performance Artists that dance
• Above these: People that wear make up to do either
• Circus people need their own totem but would generically go here
• Graffiti artists would be near the top if it were not for their constant paint huffing
• Carpenters
• People that collect things
• A lady in Canada who burns pictures into toast using only a toaster, bread, and tinfoil
• Painters (you choose which kind)
• Writers (they tend to hang around longer)
• Poets

From this, you can clearly see poets are in the lowest position on the first artistic totem pole I ever saw. I feel like if Jim fucking Morrison saw this he would first piss all over it and then make love to it and then destroy it with only the strength of his penis as guided by his poetry. Regardless of how much we both despise poetry one thing remains, totems are usually tall one way or another.

Post Script: I have been listening to Too Short a lot.