Feel the butt Bern

Making this post as funky as I can get it...

Earlier, I tried to get my daughters to create a Facebook group against people with butts.

When they argued that everyone has a butt, I waved off their objections, arguing that we’ve all had it with those people doing their butt things (I shuddered to emphasize my disgust), what with the, “Oh God. REALLY?” and the, “Goatse? Isn’t that that graffiti artist?” crap.

“They should be shipped off to Antarctica and forced to live in butt-shaped huts that remind them of their sins. Only after they freeze their butts off can they return to us-without-butts,” I said, picturing the potential excellence of such a Facebook group. I added that, if the president of Antarctica wasn’t down with this mass migration of butt people – really, there’s no one else there but penguins and people taking pictures of penguins – then we could ship them all off to Costa Rica. For some reason, that country has been pissing me off lately.

EC asked, “Are there any other reasons why you want us to make this page, aside from disgusting butt stuff?”

“You can say on the page that they don’t like bunnies. In fact, you can say that they hate all cute, furry things because it reminds them that they’re going about the whole wiping thing wrong. Also, say that they hate us for our freedoms, specifically, our freedom to be intolerant of butts and butt culture. “They hate us for our freedoms” is a phrase that seems to get a lot of likes on Facebook.”

“I mean, are there other reasons you want us to do this, as in, is this just Dad Busy Work to kill the joy of us having a week off from school?” Frank was fiddling with her earbuds while EC’s eyes clicked clockwise, calculating the amount of time of hers that Dad would waste.

“The, it’s settled,” I said to two faces worn blank from me passing countless schemes by them. “Same time tomorrow, I expect a rough draft of what you’ve come up with for this Facebook vilification of people with butts –wise. Frank, you get Fall Out Boy on board with this, convince them it’s a thing and that they’d damned well better write a song for it. EC can Google anti-butt links. I’ll wager there’s a video out there of a wolverine or a bear attacking someone’s butt.”

I believe it was at the point where I said, “You know what this family needs? Less pasta, more rice,” and then walked outside to wave at passing traffic that my daughters switched me off in their minds and went back to whatever was bouncing around in Tumblr, pigs on skateboards or babies being shot of cannons.

For me, there was no escaping butts, especially what was getting pulled out of them by pundits and polititwits. Of course, Mike Huckabee went full-on racist – expecting anything less from Gomer is like forgetting your free Snow Ball with the purchase of a two-liter Diet Coke – and CNN scrubbed a poll showing a Sanders advantage so they could announce a Clinton win, we’re just a couple months into the Silly Season and there’s bound to be more stories about cheese eating and corrective shoes over the next year. However, if Clinton gets the nomination, Republicans and cable news yackers will be leaping in on every soundstage to scream, “Benghazi!” like some gas-huffing ninja, throwing punches in the air and doing the moon walk in their socks.

If they’re howling “Benghazi! Benghazi!” with the perseveration of a hobo rain dancer, no one can hear that climate change and income inequality are objectively destroying the world or that continuing to sacrifice innocent lives at the altar of the Second Amendment is absolute insanity.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying anything about Clinton’s culpability in the matter (indeed, it’s a non-issue) but it’s out there, bouncing around like a puppy that got a hold of a roll of Adderall. There’s no stopping that.

That’s just another reason why I’m backing Sanders. No matter how bogus the skeletons are in Hillary’s tastefully stocked closet (prepare for the appearance of a zombie Vince Foster in some Twilight-like Hillary fanfic), Bernie carries none of that baggage, not even enough to mix metaphors. About as bad as it gets with him is, “He’s, um, like, a democratic SOCIALIST, like, um, in those northern European countries that are totally kicking our ass in about everything…”

Not even a dog shitting itself with terror while riding on the roof of a station wagon. With Bernie, the media will be forced to focus on the real issues instead of  scouring the pages of the Weekly World News to search for Batboy’s parents.

EC will vote in her first presidential election next year, turning 18 about a month before ballots are cast and millions are disenfranchised. Not willing to say who won the debate (she didn’t see it as some moronic “America’s Got Sound Bites” competition), she nonetheless felt the Bern, that Sanders spoke best about the things that concern her. Perhaps she’s naïve in that, rejecting the “electability” palaver the Beltway binds up the conversation with, but she’s clear that among all the candidates on last night’s stage, Sanders will be the one least likely to pit special interests against her own.

As for me, Sanders is the candidate who’s least likely to be tainted by butt stuff.

On Any Given Sunday

Turn it up.If you're at work, invite everyone around you to watch the video. Except, don't invite Sarah,

just to, you know, let her know that she's not invited. Just because.

Cue any NFL theme song…

Sometimes driving are a crap shoot meaning, crap wants to get into your car and you have to shoot it. I’ve had people think they were going to get a ride with me – after all, they did request it and I arrived – only to hear me say, “Oh good! Uber is paying me $150 to drop off at detox!” Then I shoot them.

Actually, Uber doesn’t allow drivers to carry guns, something about not wanting riders to able to start a running gun battle while dropping at the airport. Instead, I carry a hammer and wave it around while screaming about my rights and freedoms.

The name that appeared on the call was “NPC Competitor Steven” (really, I’m not shitting you) and I wondered what NPC was and why it had contests. Given that I was picking up in the pit of Scottsdale’s club Hell, I hoped NPC didn’t mean Never Purchase Crabs because they’re usually free with a night of screaming in someone’s ear and blowing money on drinks.

When I Googled NPC just now, I learned that it’s the National Physique Committee, a group of marginally serious people who judge the bulges on men. To be fair, women are also featured but if people are judging girl bulges that gets into a whole different level of fetish.

In fact, there’s some guy running his own competition (which makes me wonder how legit this whole NPC thing is), the pics on his site of male body builders doing their “You call this an arm, I call it my dick” pose. That and lots of photos of the kinds of girls who are, like, totally into guys with arm dicks. It looked as though Jersey Shore had been hit by a nuclear hormone explosion, the Pauly D aftermath being mutations of hideous proportions.

There’s a clan of cop cars when I pull up, lights flashing, a Sheriff’s black SUV, everyone flashing their lights and doing cop things; I should have brought donuts. I pull behind an empty unit and send a text to announce, “It’s time to go, children.” I wait, roll a cigarette, turn up the Buzzcocks. Cops are shouting but not at me, so there's that. I’m watching the timer on my phone, thinking of shaving 45 seconds off the wait time.

My thumb was ready to tap “Rider no show” in order to send me rolling when NPC Competitor Steven texted me back:

My first indication that Uber had instituted a rolling liquor store policy.

I texted back, “LOL, that’ll be extra,” and watched as the seconds neared GTG, hoping to send KTHXBAI. Suddenly, appearing at the car, a couple of roided-out meatheads with biceps the size of pitbulls escorting three stiletto-shod porn bots. It was as if the skies of Scottsdale shat latex, body enhancements, breast implants and dance stank onto the sidewalk. I roll down the window so NPC Competitor Steve won’t break it with his huge, hormone-enhanced head.

“I can only take four unless you want to stuff one of the girls back there. I don’t think either of you guys will fit back there.” Before I could say that there was already a body in my trunk and I didn’t want to dump it in front of the cops, they began climbing into my car.

“We can do it,” NPC Competitor Steve said as he got in the front, “The guy who brought us here did it.”

“Then that guy’s car must have had a seat extension, an option that didn’t come with this car. I’m not carrying an unbelted passenger through the middle of a cop parade.”

“I’ll tip you. Twenty bucks, we’re not going far.”

The cops seem to be seriously occupied with whatever went down with late-night pizza so I considered the Jackson. I could say I was delivering collagen and two sides of beef if I got pulled over. Calculating the best exit, I held out my hand and said, “Pay me now.”

“I just did, on the app.”

“No. You didn’t. You tipped someone else for something if you did anything but you didn’t tip me. The Uber app doesn’t take tips.”

“Bullshit! The Uber app does take tips, they just started it. They did it to keep drivers from taking cash from customers and then also charging their cards!”

It became immediately apparent that steroids had eaten this guy’s brain, leaving just a kernel that allowed him to remember his own name and jump around excitedly when someone offered to take him for a walk. Not satisfied with the outrageous stupidity of the lie he’d just told, NPC Competitor Steve continued to tap the final nail on the Scottsdale clubhead stereotype coffin:

“I should know, Uber sponsors me and they keep me up to date on everything they do. They give me stocks in the company. They just started this in a few cities to see how this works.”

“Oh. Uber sponsors whatever you do because they feel they don’t look ridiculous enough to UFC fans. And Oh, their defining policy of discouraging tips, the one that is screamed loudly on their website and app form, was reversed in an act of corporate whimsy and done some time after I started driving tonight. Get the fuck out of my car.”

NPC Competitor Steve looked as though he wanted to paint the upholstery with me, he was not used to people talking back to him. He was probably confused by the other mouth that had words in it and could think only to crush my little car with me in it then bounce the ball of metal and bloody flesh down the street.

“Really?” whined Bambi or Muffin or Nipples, as the tanned heap untangled from the backseat and oozed onto the sidewalk. The Roid Boyz also got out, defeated, their Uber sponsorship an impossible dream at this point. NPC Competitor Steve’s eyes clenched up like two commas that marked an eternal pause.

I blazed out of there, cancelling the call and hoping I’d never have to go back. A few minutes out, my app dinged, the location about a block from where I’d been. There’s a rule that the distance from best lane you need to turn to take a call is determined by the amount of shit you have left to give. Having just witnessed the horrors of modern body enhancement science, I was curious to see if the freak show still offered specimens of genetic atrocity to cart around.

The rider called as soon as his app dinged. asking where I was. He’d chosen the unfortunate location of a parking lot to meet me at, thinking that among the dozens of cars there, mine would be the one with the glittering Uber icon hovering above it. Judging by the number of phones to faces and traffic all around, it was obvious that a game of Where’s Waldo is quite popular in Scottsdale at 3 am.

“My lights are on. A cop just passed behind me and is now turning into the parking lot.”

After waving them in, I saw that I’d be driving two bangers to Tempe. The riders friend got in and then asked if I’d move my seat up.

“I’m a giant man and I need room to drive us safely. Sorry. You can sit up front if you’d like.”

The rider told his friend to chill, implying it was best to just ignore the old white guy and get home. The two of them barely spoke as I sped south, Jimmy McGriff jamming out organ blues and Muddy Waters wailingabout his mojo working but just not on you.

The energy shifted immediately as Birdman (feat. Lil Wayne) “Neckof the Woods” came on.

“You like this?”

“It’s on my iPod.” I looked back with a nod, assuring him that it wasn’t on there by mistake.

The pair’s attitude towards me flipped like the U-turn I’d taken to pick them up. Suddenly, I was kind of dope for an old guy.

The song ended and I passed over Chris Isaak and John Mellencamp, landing on The Five Heartbeats, “A Heart is a House for Love.”

“You’re not from here, are you?” the friend asked.

“Colorado. What makes you say that?”

“The music you listen to. You’re not like people in Arizona.”

“I just can’t listen to one thing all night when I’m driving, you know?”

“It gets boring.”

“Without my music, I couldn’t do this job.”

I dropped the rider just as the song was ending. We did the bro shake as he indicated that I was all right, after all, “You like Bloodhound Gang,” he said, not asking me if I was into the band but making a comparison, that I was like those dudes.

Sometimes, I’m surprised by my passengers as well, the business executive who asks if it’s The Shins on my pod (it was Deer Tick) or the CEO chick who corrected me, that the Beastie Boys recorded “Ill Communication” after “Paul’s Boutique” (I was confused with “License to Ill”), the sweet granny who was tickled by The Cramps, “Can Your Pussy Do the Dog?”

Yes, I need my music to through a night of driving, if only to bring me moments like that, the ones that redeem an attempt by DuPont products to commandeer my car with arm dicks.