everyone likes to stroll into the Super Walmart with their sweetie all duded up on a Saturday night

everyone likes to think, i could buy whatever i want and not have to look at my account balance first

everyone likes to know the milk wont be sour and the avocados will be nearly ripe

and the people who are working there are

acceptable

to me an my friends.

america isnt that different than most places. we get comfortable in our little routines and after a while we resist change.

i hate that the record stores have left Westwood, it ticks me off when rock clubs shut down, and if theres one thing that makes me crazy it’s not knowing any of the fucking bands i see on the marquee of the Wiltern. so i can understand why others dont like it when their neighborhoods “change”.

but no matter what the world famous busblog thinks or wants, those marquees keep moving. names i aint never heard of end up on there and sometimes they play for omg three four nights in a row.

sting can barely sell out the palladium but some dipshit dj can sell it out all week and you know what, the answer isnt to fuck up their shit, it’s on me to adjust.

i thought i was good at this hockey game ive been playing for the last little while so i got cocky and went online to play against some stranger, knowing full well it would be some little kid and sure enough the little kid whipped my ass.

sometimes we need our ass whipped. sometimes we need to know that our neighbors dont want hope and change they want fear and rewind. sometimes we need to get sick so we can vomit up all the dank resin in our dangly bits.

it’s just weird that we’re all sick after just 12 days of this shit.

today i woke up sicker than the day before.

i didnt wanna be on the computer. i didnt wanna lay down. i didnt wanna fight crime. i didnt wanna walk in the rain.

i wanted to clean. i felt gross. i am gross. im fat and hairy and disgusting.

my phone battery wont charge all the way. its these chords. these cheap cords.

my back hurts. i have a broom stick i use to play air guitar sometimes. i put it behind my back and roll it on my back and it works for a few minutes. i shower. i scrub

i was listening to lena dunam get interviewed by howard stern while i scrubbed my dull dough and i blew my nose like farmers do. like football players. like mountain men.

and i started bleeding.

the maroon blood drops mixed with my grimey shower water and i thought i could die right here and people would think i was a coke head

let the record state that i dont even like cocaine. i did crystal once at ucsb to stay up to read moby dick before a final and even then i was all wtf this is stupid. so if you do cut me up on my death bed and theres coke in my system it was Putin!

one of the best things about my mom is she studied russian in college to show off. she knows about things.

i was super sad when i realized i was not gonna be able to make it to the Nominees Luncheon today

and at the bottom of the sadness i checked my mail and my mom had sent me a calendar of the Cubs.

made everything better.

turns out my whole work is sick too.

if i have to host the Oscars get ready for some unbelieveable ratings.

last night at this time i couldn’t look up

i could barely breathe.

i had the worst headache i had ever had in my life.

i thought, wow God, you’ve never shown me this level before.

i had the tv on but i had to look at the carpet. my dirty carpet.

everthing looked dirty in my house. everything was the cause of my illness.

my heater was on full blast, i was in my robe, trying to remember if i ate the cold pill already or if i needed one.

i could barely look at the computer but i did a search for Drixoral which was the one pill i knew could defeat the XBI poison

but, alas, the XBI forced it off the market years ago.

i took a sip of water. i tried a bite of a banana. nothing. i’d not eat for another 15 hours.

i slept. i woke. i slept more. i blew my nose into rally towels and tissues and wash rags.

in the morning i rose. would i barf? no.

i awoke to (in)appropriate photos on my phone, well wishes from dignitaries and my neighbor left a box of Girl Scout Cookies on my porch.

my mother reminded me that i always get sick around the Oscars and i do remember that one time that i had kidney stones around this time, so maybe shes right.

all of it was healing to me and i could lift my head.

i walked outside and around the block to the dry cleaners to get my suit for Monday’s Oscar Nomination Luncheon which I hope to work, and i saw a cockroach on its back, legs wiggling in the air

Death was indeed near

and when i returned a minute later

it was dead.