Selected 2009 Titles from Uncle Dickie's Adult Video Bargain Bazaar

The Lovely Boners

Pubic Enemies

(500) Days of Hummers

Trannyformers 2: Revenge of the Fellas

In Glourious Basterds

Legs Up in the Air

He's Just Not That Deep Into You

Hairy Pooper & The Half-Inch Prince

XXX-Men Orifices: Wooly and Mean

Up

A Good, Old-Fashioned, Jewish Christmas

FULL DISCLOSURE: AS I WROTE THIS, I WAS LISTENING TO BOB DYLAN SING “HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS” OFF HIS NEW CHRISTMAS ALBUM: CHRISTMAS IN THE HEART (WHICH I ASSURE YOU IS A REAL THING).

As you can probably tell, this is going to be different. For starters, I feel as though I must preface this post by saying that I’m not a religious person—and it’s my parents fault. I never went to church, both my Mom and my Dad found “Church” to be creepy and hypocritical. They were right, and I don’t blame them for keeping both myself and my sister away from Organized Religion.

Both my parents believe in the basic tenant of “God will be cool as long as you live a good life.” Christians will say (and have told me when I’ve repeated this) that unfortunately that isn’t good enough. In fact, I had one spit-frothing-Christian once shout at me that “your good works are dirt in the eyes of the Lord.”

Well shit. Here I was NOT killing this spit-frothing-asshole because I didn’t want to piss-off God…and he was telling me that it didn’t matter. Jesus said “I am the way” to which I reply “That’s your opinion.” I wasn’t raised with that as a core belief, and many people I know who WERE turned out to be assholes (some of them spit-frothing). Ever the antagonist, I feel that if that really is how God is, I want no part of Him.

But I think that’s a lot of bullshit. After all, if you’re not raised with religion…God hates you? You go straight to Hell if you’re born in China (where Christianity is a no-no)? That’s a billion people going to Hell because of Geography? I think not.

And like I said, if God really would damn say, the Indians of pre-Columbus America to fiery damnation simply because they were born in an era where GOOD CHRISTIANS were unable to reach them...well then I don’t want to hang with God.

So growing up my life was pretty religion-free, but my Dad works for Hallmark so we were VERY big on holidays. Holidays are good. They bring people together, they stimulate the economy. They…uh…give us time off from work and/or school?

Christmas was one of those holidays where I was excited about the PRESENTS but leery of the “trappings” of Christmas (the “reason for the season” if you will). I don’t need to tell you that every TRUE Christian knows that Christmas is a holiday co-opted from the Pagans. And that Jesus was NOT born on the 25th of December. Basically, Christmas is just an excuse for a party. Now, I’m always cool with parties….except when they depress the hell out of me.

And that’s what Christmas has degenerated into. To be brief: Christmas depresses me because I don’t have enough money to buy the people I love the things I feel they deserve. It depresses me because I always spend too much money. It depresses me because the gifts I get are crappy, thus making me feel ungrateful. It depresses me because it makes me yearn for childhood, when Christmas was wonderful and magical.

When it was ALCOHOL-free Egg Nogg and fuzzy slipper. Back when Santa was real, and I didn’t have to think about SATAN (and how 90% of this country thinks I’m going to hell because of a parenting choice).

So this year I’m “Skipping Christmas” (to reference a bad John Grisham novel, oh wait—they’re all bad…never mind).

I’m going to have a GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED Jewish Christmas. Now, before I tell you what that is and what that means (it’s fucking wonderful kids) I feel that I need to address my parents:

“Mom, Dad. I love you both and I know you’re disappointed that I’m not coming home this year. I’m sure a part of you (just a part, a small part because you’re both really cool) thinks that this has something to do with me marrying a Jewish girl. And you’re right; it DOES have something to do with it. But you see, just because you’re BORN into one thing doesn’t mean that you weren’t really MEANT for something else. I love you, and I’m coming home for Cousin Jimmy’s (I’m sorry “James”) holiday party this weekend…but I’m not coming home for Christmas. I’m having a GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED Jewish Christmas here in St. Louis.”

Okay. I feel like they might still blame my wife on some level, but there’s nothing I can do about that. When I say a “Jewish Christmas” I bet a lot of you are thinking “Ebenezer Scrooge.” Well nothing could be further from the truth! You see, much like me, the Jews of the World don’t really dig on Christmas either. And on this day, 90% of the US “disappears” into lame family parties and long, snore-ous sermons/services.

The heavens part, and so do the crowds!

“But Jason,” I hear you say, “nothing is open on Christmas Day!”

Ah, there you are incorrect my friend. There are two things that are open SPECIFICALLY for Jewish Christmas: the movies and Chinese restaurants. Apparently, as my wife has explained to me, Jews get up early…go to the movies (more than one show! *squeal*) then gorge themselves on crab-rangoon.

Sign me the fuck-up. Sorry Jesus, but you lost me at “movies” and “crab-rangoon.” So that’s what I’m doing. I’m going OUT on CHRISTMAS with my wife to see a crap load of movies and eat chow mein.

“Joy to the World.”

No Sweat

This past summer, being both bored and relatively broke, my friend Brittany called me and asked if I would want to go see a movie with her. As I was in much the same situation, I agreed, and so I met her at her apartment. We stopped at a department store to pick up some snacks we could smuggle into the theater, and as we parked and got out of the car I commented on how hot the weather was.

“Can you believe this?” I said.

“Yeah,” Brittany said, grabbing from the backseat something black and shiny and what appeared to be about the size of an army-style duffel bag. “It’s crazy. Just last week it was, like, seventy degrees out.” She attributed the dramatic swings in temperature to global warming, and I, being neither a scientist nor very well-read on the subject, chose to agree. St. Louis, it seemed, had always been prone to extreme ends of the weather spectrum, but it was strange to go so quickly from an unseasonable cool to what now felt like standing five feet from the front gates of Hell.

Walking from the parking lot to the building left us drenched in sweat, and as we made our way over the hot asphalt, I looked over at Brittany and realized that the bag she was carrying was actually her purse. I wondered how she could manage to lug something so gigantic around in this kind of weather, and, more importantly, why she would want to do so. Getting from the car to the door seemed to be draining my energy, and as the entrance came closer my desire to be inside began to grow.

Normally, after years of walking into shopping malls, stores, and public places, one expects a feeling of relief, a rush of cool air to beat back the heat hanging outside. The experience is not unlike stepping in front of a large air conditioning vent: an immediate and overwhelming drop in temperature, followed by the sensation that one has been transported, as if by magic, to one of the Earth’s polar regions. After a quick shiver, I’m left wondering if I’m the only person questioning my decision to wear short sleeves instead of a parka in the middle of July.

But when Brittany and I crossed through the door, the wash of cold air I’d expected didn’t come. I wanted what would amount to a bucket of ice cubes poured inside my pants, and instead all we got was a window fan set to low. It did feel good to be out of the sunlight, but as we dragged ourselves along I found myself looking at the floor and wondering how long the cool feeling would last if I were to collapse to the ground and press myself against the tiles.

In the candy aisle, we made our selections, measuring them against the size of Brittany’s purse to figure out if what we wanted would fit. As if there wouldn’t be enough room in that giant bag of hers. After we made our decisions, we went to the cashiers at the front of the store and bought the candy.

Back outside in the heat, I saw a man mowing grass along the outside of the parking lot, on the little concrete median that divided the parking lot from the road that led to the highway. Immediately I felt sorry for him. He made me think of myself, growing up, when I, too, had had to step outside and, under the intense stare of the sun, cut the lawn.

When I was eleven or twelve, my parents had the brilliant idea of making me work outdoors. I don’t know if they thought this would help turn me into a more well-rounded person or if they had more practical considerations — maybe they saw me stumbling one day into construction work or felling trees as a lumberjack — but I begged them to reconsider. Maybe they just thought I was lazy and needed a kick in the pants, but being lazy was fine with me, and so I instead suggested that I try to better my work ethic indoors, preferably washing dishes or dusting, where the closest I got to direct sunlight was next to the kitchen or living room windows.

“You can’t sit inside all the time,” my mother said, standing over me as I lay sprawled out on the couch, craning my neck to see the television behind her.

From his recliner my dad spoke up. “You really need to get outside and learn how to cut the grass.”

“But my allergies,” I said. “I can’t breathe when I’m out there. How can I do it when I can’t go five minutes without sneezing?” And I wasn’t making this up. On weekdays during the spring and summer when my mother would push me outside along with the daycare kids she watched, I would play around for maybe twenty minutes before the smell of freshly cut grass or wildflowers started getting to me. My nose would run and my eyes would start to water, making it appear as if, in the midst of the worst sneezing fit of my life, I had just watched my cat get run over.

The discussion was over, though, when my mother returned home one Saturday afternoon from a trip to the drugstore and handed me a paper cup of water and a tiny white pill. “It’s for your allergies,” she said, and after I choked it down my father led me outside to the little white shed in our backyard. The day was a warm one, and I felt myself growing nervous and riddled with anxiety as my heavy jeans weighed me down and I worried about getting my shoes dirty.

Inside the shed, I was sweating already, and as I gazed at the various tools shoved on my dad’s crude workbench and heaped on naked wooden shelves built up in the roof’s exposed crossbeams, I realized how seldom I had actually been in here. The smell of sawdust tickled my nose as a bead of sweat stung my eye, and the various devices hanging from the walls were reminiscent of the late-night horror movies of which I was so fond. Here was a dusty shovel like a hockey-masked serial killer might use to decapitate his victim. Next to it, leaning against a vice, lay a chainsaw nearly identical to one that killed a teenager in a wheelchair under a blackened Texas sky. Above me hung the sinister J of a hook, while beneath my feet dried blood from a now-absent deer carcass made a crude circle in the dirt floor. I jumped away from the stain, more scared than ever, as my dad pulled a plastic tarp off of the lawnmower. He dragged it outside to show me how it worked, and then left it running so that I could begin. But while I was glad to be out of the shed, I wasn’t sure which situation was worse.

Getting started, the first few minutes weren’t so bad. Sure, it was warm, but it didn’t seem like anything I hadn’t experienced before. And, in a way I suppose it wasn’t. But this time, there was no option to run inside to splash cold water on my face or sit in front of my oscillating fan for the better part of an hour. I tried to make the best of it, though. I would cut little designs like concentric rectangles into the backyard or make zigzag paths in between the swing set seats. The fun lasted until I realized my hair was a slick dark sheet against my forehead, and after that I started to notice just how hot it was.

When I’m tired or uncomfortable I tend to let people know it, and so once I got past the twenty minute mark and saw that I’d only gotten half of the backyard done, I started pouting and pushing the mower like it were a mythical boulder I had to roll up a hill only to watch it tumble back down again and again. Shoving it forward and then dragging it back, I felt my legs begin to burn. My eyes ached from their exposure to the bright sunlight, but still I kept glaring at the kitchen window looking out over my progress, hoping that maybe my mother would see the pain I was in and come rescue me.

Maybe I’ll just die out here, I thought. That’ll teach them a lesson.

Finally, when I was done, I pushed the mower back into the shed and shut its heavy white door. It was a full hour and a half later, and I went to my room and collapsed on my bed.

I felt the same way before falling into the passenger seat of Brittany’s car. The heat had taken away my strength and, it seemed, my desire to go on living. The scene felt reminiscent, like from a movie where the supporting character, exhausted and unable to continue, says, “Leave me behind. I can’t make it.” I could imagine myself, lying on the hot asphalt, crawling a few final inches before nobly giving up the ghost and baking in the sun.

Even with the windows down, the car had heated up since we had gone inside, and as we pulled out I was grateful for the breeze that come with driving. With no air conditioning, sitting still could be deadly, and so I prayed that we would either miss the red lights or Brittany would have the good sense to gun the engine to make it through before they turned.

The department store must have been a fluke, I thought as we drove along. “Why wouldn’t they have had their air on higher?” I asked.

“Probably the economy,” Brittany said. “It’s too expensive to keep the air running on high.”

Again, I agreed. I hadn’t thought of that. Or maybe I had and just couldn’t remember it now. My head felt light. And had the temperature dropped, or was I starting to get sunstroke?

The theater appeared in the distance, and I went through the list of deities in my head, thanking them all. Surely it would be air conditioned, cooler than the department store had been. I was eager to park, and so I kept pointing out spots. It was a matinee show, and so the parking lot was pretty close to deserted, but I wanted to make sure that we got as close to the front doors as possible. The thought of another trek away from the car was almost too much to bear in this heat, and as my strength felt like it was slowly draining away I pushed out of the car as soon as we were stopped.

“Hey,” Brittany called out. “Wait for me.”

She was barely out of the car, but I was already lumbering towards the building like a character in his final moments, reaching as a boy finished with his day’s work might for the knob of the back door and the promise it holds for just a little time out of the summer sun.

Squashing the Rebellion

I feel old at night. During the day, my body lets me do whatever I want, and usually without complaint. Kneeling down, bending over, picking things up: my body has learned it must do these things in the course of each day to keep the two of us from, say, starving. Every once in a while my knees will snap at me for trying to pick up a piece of paper, or my shoulder will pop with cruel laughter as I sit at my desk stretching. These little bumps in the road I can ignore.

At night, though, everything changes.

My legs give me no trouble, really. It’s my eyes and back that try hardest to ruin me, along with any number of other parts that lie in wait, ready for the revolt that we are all certain is one day coming. When it does, my body’s components will simply abandon their respective duties, and I will end up in a heap on a floor or a sidewalk, maybe lying draped like a blanket over my desk or slumped raggedly behind the wheel of my car.

After about eight-thirty or nine, my back starts to slack off. Usually I find myself slouched over like a hunchback at that time, and I have to constantly remind my erector spinae muscles not to give up just yet. It’s like giving a motivational speech to a crowd of sick, homeless women whose children have just been taken outside and shot. It doesn’t really work.

Depending on where I’m at and how well the talks are going between my back and me, a person might look and see an emboldened twenty-something man, chest forward and back arrow-straight; or, somewhere else — and more often than not — another person might think of me as a marionette, standing tall and slumping forward, back and forth again and again as if in the hands of a toddler.

To compound matters, my eyes start in with their issues not long after my back does.

“We’ve been working all day,” they seem to say. “We just need a break. These working conditions are atrocious. We might as well be working in Somalia, for God’s sake.”

I try to ignore them, and mostly things work out fine; they go back to doing their job, the insurrection stalled for another day, and all I have to worry about is not looking like I’m having back spasms.

Things like these usually happen at the movies, especially when it’s a late one or, when one is enticing enough, a midnight show.

When I go to late movies, I should know by now that I need a break sometime before seven o’clock. If I try to force myself through, my body starts to fail me. It’ll warn me with a yawn like a look that says, “Don’t push your luck, mister.” At the theater, to ward off sleep, I step up to the concessions counter and arm myself with an array of sugars and caffeine. To the worker, some sixteen-year-old kid who’s forced to wear puffy white shirts and caps stolen straight from a 1940s bellboy service, my order must appear intended for a small cluster of friends, but in actuality it’s all for me.

I force whoever is seeing the movie with me to carry a box of chocolate-covered mints, a soda cup the size of a football, and a licorice bag, while I cart around my gummy worms and a box of last-resort super sour candies in one hand. The other one, holding up a plastic cup of frozen coffee topped with whipped cream, shouts, “Screw you, man! This cup is freezing.”

As we leave the counter, I look at my compatriot and say, as if reassuring them, “Don’t worry. We can share.” This is a lie.

In the time between our arrival and the dimming of the lights, I occupy myself with conversation. There’s no topic I won’t talk about, from the state of poverty in the United States to vaginal discharge. It’s all fair game. And if I don’t know anything factual to share I’ll make something up. Anything to keep me awake. With the candy boxes and bags built up around me like a fortress, I feel safe against the world, but then I realize, often just as the lights reduce to orange embers in the ceiling and along the walls, that the threat comes not from without, but from within.

I feel a yawn begin to rise.

It is then that I start to gorge.

The people around me must hate me, then, as the previews are reduced to simple moving pictures against the din of ripping cardboard and tearing, crumpling plastic. The slurp of an empty frozen coffee drowns out an actress’s tagline for the newest romantic comedy, and women throughout the theater ponder just how valuable their purses would be as weapons to hurl in my direction. All I can think about, though, is that my body will give up — will, in fact, turn on me and start to sabotage everything it and I have gone through in order to buy our ticket, that little ten-dollar scrap of paper now crumpled in my pocket.

The coffee gone, I turn to the soda, and as the previews give way to the feature, I catch glimpses of men, now joining in on the beams of hatred pointed solely at me, silently pummeling fists into open palms. They aren't throwing anything, which I count as a plus, but as I weigh that against the idea that maybe they're saving their anger for outside the theater, my bladder speaks up, in a threatening voice pulled straight from a horror film: “Remember me?”

Throughout the years, I have worn holes in my shoes from the incessant kicking of seats before me, crossing and uncrossing my legs. Finally, at a lull in the movie, I stand up and make my way to the bathroom. As I stand there relieving myself, the thought does not escape me that if it really wanted to, my body could leave me right here, like a dead vagrant at the base of a urine-stained toilet. My eyes and back and the rest of them don’t say anything, and that’s the most unsettling part. I hurry to finish, and my fingers zip up so quickly that I feel sharp metal teeth where I least care to feel such things. I threaten my hands with scalding hot water, but in the end I back down, knowing that it’ll only cause strife between me and my skin, who claims to be a pacifist but really just doesn't give two shits in a woods about what goes on with the rest of us.

Back in the theater, I make my way to my seat. From that moment, I can last approximately twenty minutes before things start up again; my eyes will grow heavy, my back will slouch. Against my will I’ll sink back into the chair cushions. And when I wake up ten or fifteen minutes later I realize that they have won. The rebellion has overthrown me for now. So, I settle into my defeat, trying not to listen to the cheers and jubilation that come from each of my body’s parts, no longer paying attention to the movie but instead shifting in my little mound of empty boxes and used cups, an ousted king in a crumbling cardboard castle. Yawning, I begin a dream of redemption and reclamation, hearing my voice, as if from an increasing distance, whispering, Next time. Next time. Next time.