Bathroom Monologue: Pet Peeves

She stroked the bulging little monster between the ears. Still it growled, nostrils flaring and fangs bearing at all the people texting and talking on cell phones in the park.

"He's getting bigger," said Shirley.

Gina beamed and hugged her newest pet. "You know, he was just seven ounces last week. I can barely stand any sort of conversation now that isn't downright deep. Even you're getting on my nerves."

"Seven ounces?" Shirley turned up her nose. "How much is that in kilograms? You know, the rest of the world is on metric."

"Oh, you. That's a pet I haven't picked up yet."

"Well are you feeding him right?"

Somewhere, a nosy vibrate setting went off. The monster barked. Gina stroked his fur.

"Morning, noon and night he gets excessive helpings of attention I should be spending on my job and family."

"Have you tried generics? They can live on emotional table scraps."

"I would do that, but he likes the full meal better. He's so hungry."

Shirley's not-so-clever ring-tone went off in her purse. She jerked to shut it off while Gina restrained the monster, which snarled at Shirley.

Shirley checked the number. No one important. Silenced, she shoved the cell back into her purse. She looked from her friend to the little monster. They had the same fuming expression. It made her wonder about her own little growing hatreds.

"I guess all pet peeves are like that."

Bathroom Monologue: Haunted House Compromise

They said the house was haunted.

He said the house was cheap.

She was scared to shivering.

He turned on the lights.

The lights went out.

He turned on the solar-powered flash.

It flickered and died.

He threw some logs in the fireplace.

An inexplicable breeze kept killing the kindling.

He poured out lighter fluid on some floorboards.

The lights came back on.

“You see?” he said. “Compromise.”

Bathroom Monologue: A Priest, a Rabbi, a Minister, a Joker

A priest, a rabbi and a minister walk into a bar.

The priest goes up to the man behind the counter and asks, “Do I smell smoldering flesh?”

The man behind the counter points to the NO SMOKING sign.

The rabbi goes up to the man behind the counter and asks, “Do I hear nightmarish wailing from back there?”

The man behind the counter shrugs and turns up the volume on the television.

Finally the minister goes up to the man behind the counter and asks, “Pardon me, but do I see jumper cables in your hands and the real bar tender’s legs flailing behind there?”

The man behind the counter brushes the clips together. They spark. He shouts, “Guilty as charged!”

You probably had to be there.

Bathroom Haiku: Backspace of the Gods

earthquake, avalanche,

sinkholes open with keystrokes,

God hitting Backspace

An Award Goes to John's Head

Today I'm flattered to accept the "Creative Genius Blogger Award." This was cooked up by Deanna Schrayer and has been disseminating around the internet. Rachel Blackbirdsong, Linda Watsila and Stephen Book have all bestowed it upon me. This cannot be an accident. Rather, all three knew the others would give it to me and wanted to co-verify my staggering talent. Their redundancy would be humbling to a lesser being. Fortunately, I am only a greater one - one describable as, perhaps, a "creative genius." Yes.

The typical rules of this blog game are to pass the award on to several more people. In this case, it seems folly. Surely no one can be as worthy of this as me, and therefore passing it on will offend the recipients with what can only be interpreted as sarcasm. Now yes, I could say Hayao Miyazaki or Guillermo Del Toro are creative geniuses and this would be true. But I would be saying it as though they were my peers. There are great novelists and classical composers, and then there is the man who writes dialogues about choking on a glass of water in front of his nephews. These men would be mortified if I were to pretend they had yet reached my breathless artistic heights. I fear if I pass this on to anyone that they will destroy themselves in a sudden spiral of existential angst at even a cursory comparison drawn between themselves and my ouvre.

Because I am to a degree a prescriptionist, I cannot receive this award without sending it back out into the world. But I must stress that everyone listed here should take the award with the utmost half-heartedness. Do not seriously compare yourself, your works, or your ultimate world value to mine. It will crush you. For the sake of your life and my humanity, please only glance at the following list. If you see your first name, then it is already too late. Please, if you see the first letter of your first name, let this be enough and get away from the computer as quickly as possible.

1. Danielle La Paglia. A well-read and perfectly decent writer with generally symmetrical body features. Based on statistics I made up a short while ago, the vast majority of men and free-thinking women would sleep with her, experiencing minimal regret afterward.

2. Tony Noland. He is one of my favorite #fridayflash writ-- No, I must hold back for his sake. Ahem. Tony Noland is a passable human being by someone's standards. Society can ask no more.

3. Michael Solender, usually known around these parts as Mr. Solender, is one of the few souls to attempt daily posting. It is an immortal feat and thus he sometimes succumbs to farming daily spaces out to guest writers. Doubtless his greatest act in life has been to frequently choose to request I be that guest writer. God save the Solenders.

This concludes the blog-humping portion of this post. However, there is one vital thing that still needs reckoning.

I am taking this opportunity to declare war upon anyone who did not grant this award upon me. Clearly you hate me and resent my work, and thus must be dealt with. Brutally. If you're uncertain as to whether my dark fleets will arrive at your door tomorrow morning, prepared to slaughter you and rejoice in the lamentations of your women, give your blog a cursory glance. Has it given out this award to "John Wiswell?" It doesn't matter if you haven't gotten the award yet and can't give it. That's hardly an excuse to avoid praising so important a man. Possibly you can invent your own award and give it to me before my privateers arrive. It will not avert the brunt of their wrath, but may deflect some miscellaneous property damage.

Bathroom Monologue: The Danni

Many moons ago, I promised a young(ish) girl a story about a six-fingered guitarist and his guitar, The Danni. Inspiration to actually write it took an age and a day. It doesn’t have the humor or the wit she probably wanted, but I gave it my best. Enjoy.

In the lull between songs, Randy wandered over to his vocalist. He spoke in a loud hush.

“This next is my last, kid. Time to find myself one of those keepers and mosey out.”

“You sure? It’s been an honor.” Vic gestured to the crowd. “I didn’t know middle-aged women had so much juice.”

“They got more than life, but I can’t play all night anymore.” He gave Vic a six-fingered pat on the ass. “You kids did fine, and you got a good throat. Just get the band to take us into Fire Itch.”

Of course he picked Fire Itch. Two bass solos guaranteed to get as many feminine eyes on him as possible. Randy left his vocalist, waving his cowboy hat to a shriek of crowd joy. He held it over the heart of his suit jacket, that pinstripe job that he’d worn ever since Secondary Colors came out.

“So this next song’s going to play our guest bassist off …”

Three thousand hitch pitched voices went, “Awww.”

“Maybe you’ve heard it. It’s about this thing you can’t scratch alone…”

Three thousand hitch pitched voices lost their God-damned minds.

Randy was laughing as he picked up The Danni, the bass guitar he’d travelled with since Secondary Colors got stale. The faceplate was painted to look like a woman’s bare bottom, her spine running up beneath the strings. The way he cradled it was downright obscene.

Vic rested his throat through the intro, since even with industrial speakers nobody could hear them play over how ovations and ovulations of the crowd. Daisies and roses bounced off Randy’s polished city slicker shoes. He just waved like he was embarrassed, and when the wave didn’t cause him to miss so much as a fret, they went even crazier. Bouquets were touching down less than sixty seconds into the song.

The lyrics were basic and the double entendre kind of chaffed, but so many people singing along gave Vic a rush. So he belted out how he itched when they met, and how he itched when she walked out, and how he itched… and stared off blankly as that first bass solo kicked in.

A pair of panties slingshotted onstage and bounced off Randy’s chest. He caught them on his second pinky and kept playing. Fingers at least fifty-five years old flew faster than Vic’s could right now.

The drummer led them into the second verse. Vic followed with his lips, eyes trying to follow Randy’s gaze. The old goat ignored sleeting wadded dollar bills and errant bouquets, staring through the glitz and making personal eye contact with everyone his glaucoma permitted.

Vic faded back as Randy rose into the second solo, trying to figure out who there was this mythical “keeper” Randy had mentioned. He seemed mostly keen on the middle-agers, old enough to have thought he was the shit when they were in high school. Seemed a shame to Vic since there was a crop of new high-schoolers staring at him right now.

Randy slammed down thrice for the last chords, reverberating through the building. He held out the six-fingered hand like Jesus on the cross, the other cradling The Danni’s bum. More flowers, more panties, and a hotel key card pinged off his chest.

“That the keeper, boss?”

“No. That’s normal.”

Randy shook his head and let the card lie on the stage. People chanted thank-you, thank-you-ran-dee, bless-the-dan-nee, and far less comprehensible but nonetheless positive sentiment. A couple more hotel key cars whizzed along. Then a long plastic tube clattered across one of his shoes. Vic grimaced.

“Is that a catheter?”

"More than that, kid.” Randy reached down and picked up the device between his thumb and second pinky. He waved it to the audience until he spied the owner. He tipped his hat. “It’s a keeper. Mostly about talking at this age, and that’s going to be a hell of a conversation.”

Bathroom Monologue: Triple Time Travel

Time travel actually was discovered many centuries ago. In one of life's great paradoxes it was discovered simultaneously by the ancient Egyptians, ancient Mayans, and a couple of very bored 17th century British children. All three met up at precisely the same non-time, hurtling towards the revelations of the future. They arrived at the first great ripple in time, a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, and skidded over a sea of months, crashing into a snow bank. They bickered over whether human-made global warming could have caused such a snow bank while the children perused culture. They found a present where intimate diaries were supplanted by the Facebook Wall. The dominant musicians, a Justin Bieber and one Jonas Brothers, were in a feud that consisted of accusing one another of femininity. And the president was a Nazi for wanting public health care, and some woman in a red blazer was a Nazi for shooting a moose, and some principal who disapproved of his students rutting in the bathroom was a Nazi for his haircut. They had to travel back in time a little to understand what a Nazi was. After the discovery, they took their technology further back. They've spent a paused eternity playing practical jokes on dimetrodons. This is the most you'll ever hear about it, though, since inter-chronal machines don't fossilize well and these travelers like time to themselves.

Rejection of a "High Quality" Story That's "not all that good"

I've eaten a lot of rejection letters. It's part of a literary career, and authors should be grateful for any degree of actual human response as opposed to automated rejections. This one baffled me to the point where I have to share it.

The dissonance between their editorial readers and the automated letter is a thing to behold. I've redacted the names because I'm not angry with them; I'll likely submit again. Okay, some of the time I'm angry, but the rest of the time I'm snickering.

Bathroom Monologue: Inspired by a coughing fit

“Caro-ach! Car… Carol, little help!”

“See kids? Doing two things are once makes you stupid.”

“What the H-ugh.”

“Uncle John was walking and drinking water at the same time. Now he’s coughing. Do you hear how bad that sounds?”

“Yeah!”

“K-k-come on.”

“Do you want to be stupid like Uncle John?”

“No!”

“I taught you to tie your shoes, you ungrateful little…”

“Now go sit down at the table while you eat, like adults. I need to get your uncle a sippy cup.”

“Why do I come to this house?”

"Might As Well" Recordings

We had a wonderful response to the "Might As Well" challenge. Max Cantor, Nathanael Sylva, Catherine Russell, Nicholas Sabin, Cassie Nichols, Icy Sedgwick, Annie Evett and Tony Noland all submitted recordings.

Max Cantor is a computer programmer. He hosted the original Bathroom Monologues and gave me the audio player you're about to use.

Mr. Cantor's reading.

Nathaniel Sylva is a professional actor living in New England. He's unfairly more handsome than most of us. Scorn him as you listen to his talent.

Mr. Sylva's reading.

Catherine Russell is a writer who frequently participates in #fridayflash and #spokensunday. I can't help but call her Gany, which makes less and less sense over time. She does a weekly Writing Niche podcast on her site.

Ms. Russell's reading.

Nicholas Sabin is a philosopher, and therefore more qualified to say words like "tautologically" and  "epistemologically" than most of us. He once went as Ludwig Wittgenstein for a Halloween. Cringe at his intellectual acumen while you listen.

Mr. Sabin's reading.

Icy Sedgwick submitted her recording through Audioboo, which you can peruse through this link. Icy is a writer based in London, England, with subjects including tragedy and psychic parrots.

Annie Evett also submitted her recording through Audioboo. Annie is a writer based in Queensland, Australia, who has essentially played the boss lady for #spokensunday for months now.

Tony Noland kept with the trend of Audioboo. Tony is a writer of fine flash fiction, aspiring novelist, and blogger with a keen interest in bear trapping.



Mr. Noland's reading:

Jax of Tangled Yarns also tired her hand. She's penned serials, flashes, book reviews and introspective posts on her blog. This was her first Audioboo joint.

Jax's reading:

Lizze is the most unexpected reader to date. I met her playing videogames last night, mentioned this in passing, and was surprised to find her rendition pop up in the Comments. She used the file sharing service Dropbox to stream her edition.

Lizze's reading: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/19137321/mightaswell.wav


Finally, Cassie Nichols is the tech-savvy one. She recorded using her webcam and put it up on Youtube. You can watch her reading the monologue below:




 If you'd like to record your own version of "Might as Well," go ahead! Link to it in the Comments section and I'll add it to this post.

 The original text of Might As Well:

Why? You can only speak around your why, for the truth is that whatever happened once tautologically happened once. What has not happened at all may as well not happen. Anything perceived as happening once may happen again (may well have happened innumerable times before you perceived the once). Only that which never happened may well have never happened, but new things emerge all the time. Gadgets, individuals, sayings – things aligned, but things unique. Things that happened. That which has yet never happened might well happen along any minute. Perhaps it will happen five times right in a row, right across the floor. If it doesn’t, then it might as well not. But it may as well. In the vastness of this universe, you cannot demonstrate epistemologically that anything has not happened. Is not happening. Certainly you cannot demonstrate it in the infinite probability bubble universes outside our own, where all probabilities play out. It isn’t just our universe and one where the Third Reich won the war. It’s this one universe, and this universe where I hesitate half a second (for effect), and this universe where I use “that” instead of “this” in one of the places in this sentence, and this universe where I use “that” in another position that is wholly grammatically incorrect. It’s an infinity, and that means everything, and that means whatever happened once has happened every way it ever possibly could somewhere. If it didn’t, then it might as well not have. But if it did, then it might as well have, and that is truth, and truth is meaning, and if you oppose that meaning then you oppose truth, and the opposition of truth is wrong.

Bathroom Monologue: Sunnier Titles for Books

-Lord of the Butterflies

-Laughterhouse Five

-Huckleberry Pie

-Jurassic Petting Zoo

-Mario Puzo's The Fairy Godfather

-Stephen King's The Lemonade Stand

-Dante's Divine Comedy (surprisingly, needed no alterations)

-The Lilliad

-Love Triangle of the Three Kingdoms

-Tofulet

-Here with the Wind

-Peace and Peace

-Crime and Rehabilitation

-The Underdog Baseball Team in the Rye

-Their Eyes Were Watching God Do Something Funny

-Lots of Water for Elephants

-The Democratic Majority Leader of the Rings

Bathroom Monologue: GifT

It was a box. Inside the box was a flash drive with only one megabyte of space. On that drive was one file. It was a gif. The gif was an unanimated image of a capital letter 'T.' It did nothing.

He said, "Enjoy your gift?"

I broke three of his teeth.

Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins for Him. 11.

Click the button the left to hear today's monologue. Alternatively you can click this text to download the MP3.

I worked at a traveling circus. They weren’t famous for clowns, so I had to try very hard. Fire spitting. Juggling unicycles. I could empty a six shooter into a spinning wheel with a woman tied to it, and I only ever nicked her once, and that was the night after she broke up with me. Some nights I even helped the ringmaster with his lion. I don’t want to credit my outlook to some big cat, but sticking my head in its mouth a couple hundred times definitely loosened me up.

The top act was this family of acrobats. A daddy, and a mommy, and their beautiful little boy, all flying along the ceiling of our tent. They’d somersault along the high wires, swing from trapezes by their feet, tossing their son from peril to peril. He’d come within inches of death, and end up waving and laughing to the audience. They used no net, and he couldn’t be bothered. Mommy and Daddy had him, even if they had him fifty feet up.

The circus had trouble around the major metropolitans. New York, Chicago and Star City were cesspools of corruption. Local fire chief wanted a bribe, and the mayor, and random members of the zoning board, and some union, and the biggest mob, and two-bit wannabe mobs. If you saw our net revenue, you’d wonder why we even bothered with the big towns, but if you don’t hit the bigs, the littles don’t hear about you, and you can’t run the risk of half-empty stands when you’re performing in the middle of nowhere.

That Friday, somebody didn’t get his bribe. Our bearded lady suspected it was this goateed punk who the ringmaster had physically tossed out of his trailer. He had no gang, wouldn’t even give a name. I spotted someone like him around the back of the tent that afternoon, but I couldn’t say if it was him. You may stereotype clowns, but to me, all normal people look alike.

The cannon went off. The lion was healthy. We thought everything was hunky-dory, until our flying family took to the heights. They did these loops. Mommy with her feet on the rail, swinging seven hundred and twenty degrees, hands clasped to her boy, who swung along with her. Two links in a dazzling genetic chain. Daddy sailed in from the other side of the tent, preparing to catch his boy by the ankles.

Afterward, everyone said they saw the ropes snapping. I think people like retroactive foresight. It validates their current horror and hopes of actually being observant next time. But I didn’t hear anyone shriek until all three of them came tumbling down.

I was not fifteen feet from where they hit. Daddy had caught his boy in his arms and tucked a little. He landed on his spine. His limbs jiggled and all his bones seemed to turn to jelly. It still took our strongman to pry the boy from his arms. The kid was in shock, only alive because Mommy and Daddy had had him.

Mommy’s handle skittered over to my feet. I could see where the ropes had been sawed.

Never heard what happened to the boy. He left in a cavalcade of doctors and police, and I didn’t go on with the circus from there. I stayed in town, looking for anyone related to punks who might visit ringmasters. But I’ve got this problem, like I said – you all look alike to me. The fire chief, the mayor, the big bad mob boss and some goateed punk. All that protection money and no protection. Even the caped crusaders in this town hadn’t stopped bullets and dumped criminals in the same jail as cops.

Now I don’t disagree with a little murder and mayhem. If I’d found the guy? I’d have wrung his neck. Killed three suspects that weekend alone, including one whom I dragged to the zoo, and when he didn’t render the confession I wanted, I stuck his head in the mouth of a lion.

You kill that guy, not families. You don’t drop children from their mother’s hands and out of the sky. What is society good for if it’s not going to stop that?

Why, it’s for getting all the guilty people together so you don’t have to aim carefully.

The media already loved me. A clown killed three mobsters in a weekend. Wow, you can’t top that act. Every mug was scared of me, thinking I’m the John Wayne Gacy of organized crime. This make-up might as well be war paint. With that sort of branding? I used it. They all knew me, were all running from me. That was my in. That’s where I got all my goons, people hoping I wouldn’t kill them if they did as I said. And that was just fine, because if enough people follow the clown, then he says who dies, and he can let little flying families keep playing without a net.

I set a mountain of dirty money on fire. I made their corner dealers fight each other to the death for the privilege of paying me seventy-five percent. And if the D.A. tried to get in my way? Well he didn’t look very different to me.

Bathroom Monologue: I believe it was Mark Twain

"I believe it was Mark Twain who said, 'Never let a building located reasonably close to your house, governmentally provisioned with supplies such as books and pencils, staffed by people whose profession is encouraging you to understand mathematics, science and history, interfere with your education.' Surely running off to smoke a bowl behind the Lady Foot Locker is the course to enlightenment he had in mind. Venture forth, young prodigy."

Bathroom Monologue: Original Wearer of the Lampshade

When Jane rubbed the lamp, a genie did pop out, but at a sluggish pace. And it didn't look very happy to see her.

It asked in a moderately terrifying voice, "What are your questions?"

"Questions? Don't you grant wishes? The storybooks say genies grant wishes."

"I'm only in charge of answering questions, not advertising."

"Are you omniscient?"

"As omniscient as anything to date, yes. Even moreso than the internet, but a good deal less kinky."

"Are you sure you don't grant wishes?"

"If I did, I wouldn't live in a lamp."

"Well then... What's the secret of world peace?"

"There isn't one."

"Is there a cure for cancer?"

"Only one so far: death."

"That's not really a cure."

"That's not really a question."

"What good is a genie that only answers questions?"

"It can divine all the truths of the universe. It knows you better than you know yourself. It can, given time, explain away the sad values that might make you seek a genie that granted wishes, and accept the world as it is."

"That's good and all, but I only have one other question."

"And I already know it."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. You can find one of those other genies in the next lamp over."

Bathroom Monologue: Beware the Sign

In the last stall on the left, there was a sign posted above the toilet that too many people disregarded. Consequentially, this stall had the most cadaver removals of any in the theatre. The most common victims are improperly trained children. People thought the sign was offensive or absurd and didn't let it affect their normal "It's not my house" bathroom habits. At first they would feel a little drowsy, then weak. Their hearts would race, and then burst. A janitor came in every hour to drag these people off and donate them to the local medical college. These people didn't realize "PISS ON THE SEAT AND DIE" wasn't a threat, but a description.

Bathroom Monologue: Gets My Coils Going

Nikola Tesla was one of the great geniuses of the 20th century, even if half of his theoretical inventions were insane. Yes, his work was essential to the development of the radio, radar and robotics, but a moral vegetarian always looks a little crazier than the average man when he tries to build a death ray. Trying and failing to build that, anti-gravity ships and teleportation devices may have jaded him. Regardless, his work in magnetism and electricity was brilliant; he was the father of the wall socket, and by extension cord, the father of the 20th century. That's why, in addition to being shocked, I was so excited to find him alive. When I asked him about his death from heart failure, he scoffed, "Yes, heart failure at 9:41 AM on January 7th, 1943. At 9:42 AM, I performed the first defibrillation in scientific history. In case you were wondering, it worked."

Bathroom Monologue: Might As Well, OR, “Whatever happened once may not have happened at all” –Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

This is a tongue twister. To hear John try to perform it either click the triangle on the left to stream audio, or click this text to download the MP3.

Why? You can only speak around your why, for the truth is that whatever happened once tautologically happened once. What has not happened at all may as well not happen. Anything perceived as happening once may happen again (may well have happened innumerable times before you perceived the once). Only that which never happened may well have never happened, but new things emerge all the time. Gadgets, individuals, sayings – things aligned, but things unique. Things that happened. That which has yet never happened might well happen along any minute. Perhaps it will happen five times right in a row, right across the floor. If it doesn’t, then it might as well not. But it may as well. In the vastness of this universe, you cannot demonstrate epistemologically that anything has not happened. Is not happening. Certainly you cannot demonstrate it in the infinite probability bubble universes outside our own, where all probabilities play out. It isn’t just our universe and one where the Third Reich won the war. It’s this one universe, and this universe where I hesitate half a second (for effect), and this universe where I use “that” instead of “this” in one of the places in this sentence, and this universe where I use “that” in another position that is wholly grammatically incorrect. It’s an infinity, and that means everything, and that means whatever happened once has happened every way it ever possibly could somewhere. If it didn’t, then it might as well not have. But if it did, then it might as well have, and that is truth, and truth is meaning, and if you oppose that meaning then you oppose truth, and the opposition of truth is wrong.

Anyone who'd like to tackle a reading is welcome. We'd love to hear your recordings - if you do try it, please leave a link in the Comments!

Bathroom Monologue: Whirlwind Thoughts

I’m not saying the weather should turn you religious. Tornadoes stir irrational awe in the human mind and breast. When a tornado hits your house, some people think of God. When the tornado actually uproots your house, more people think something’s up. When the tornado whisks your house away and lands it safely, even I’d call it lucky. But when the tornado carries your house seventeen blocks and drops it in the yard of the sister you haven’t talked to since Dad died, I don’t know how agnostic you get to be anymore. Especially when our front door is now perfectly aligned with hers. Now go talk to her. I think our mailbox is in the chimney.

Bathroom Monologue: He Has To Wonder At 130

At 0: the first computer fills a large room with thousands of coiled wires, billowing steam and punch cards. It crunches numbers. It will help perfect the hydrogen bomb.

At 20: government workers rely on computers the size of desks for data entry and records.

At 25: 62% of respondents do not know what a computer is.

At 35: government computers are connected like axes in a web that spans the world.

At 40: mastery of the x-ray enables physicians to take static images of patients’ insides. Many patients fear side-effects.

At 50: fearing children who are not computer literate will be worthless in the real world, educators race to bring as many computers in the classroom as there are pupils. The computers are half the size of the average pupil.

At 55: multiple miniature cameras are deployed inside a surgery patient, minimizing size of incision and giving a radical vision of the living body.

Also at 55: a teacher receives a phone call in his pocket.

At 60: a student finds an answer using Google on her cell faster than the teacher can pull it up on Encarta.

At 65: a physician releases nanomachines into his own bloodstream. They collect images and information about his vitals.

At 70: a teacher purchases a laptop computer via his cell. Information about his address, bank account, purchasing history and browsing history are stored somewhere.

At 80: a semi-organic computer smaller than a pimple is unveiled in the brainstem of a leading mathematician. It can make numbers do amazing things in your head.

At 85: legislation to ban “internalcells” is overridden in the Supreme Court. 33% of respondents approve, with 49% undecided. Wall Street sees record highs.

At 95: fearing children who are not e-literate will be worthless in the real world, parents race to implant “intercells” cell chips into the heads of newborns.

At 111: the first class of children whose motor skills are entirely pre-programmed by their “cells” attend their first day of school.

At 120: less than 3% of respondents under thirty do not have “at least some” of their emotions digitally regulated.

At 130: the prodigy who bought too much, including a large room full of wires and tickertape, executes a command. Everything turns off. He goes outside without shoes or socks and feels the grass between his toes. Without intracell assistance, his natural hearing is so weak that he misses all the grinding and screaming around him. He wonders what this feeling is called. For the first time in his life, auto-fill does not answer his question. He has to wonder.

Bathroom Monologue: Checklist of pretentious things to do

-Buy the most expensive thing in the candy aisle, then lay it out on platters. Invite the Kaplins over. Do not offer any to them.

-Gatecrash the Oscars with a classic tobacco pipe.

-Learn to play cello well enough to start progressive band with other beginners. Never attend band sessions. Claim to be “working on other projects.”

-Write novel. Title it after a line from Shakespeare.

-Write novel. Title it after a line from Milton that everyone will think is Shakespeare.

-Ask dentist what toothpaste he uses. Upon answer, recommend another brand.

-Home brew own soda. Do not drink any of it because “even with natural sugar it’s dangerously unhealthy.” Order wine racks.

-Wrap presents in pages from The New Yorker. Possible gift: note of subscription to The Atlantic?

-Rename days of week. After what? Moods? TV shows? Brainstorm.

-Design own crossword puzzle. No black squares. All q’s related to 1800s South America.

-Figure out fashion trends. Critique children’s Halloween costumes.

-Learn Japanese. Learn aerodynamics. Attend next Mothra premiere and complain loudly about implausibility.

Bathroom Monologue: Happily Ever After (In Comparison)

And they lived happily ever after, in comparison. They squabbled, especially when money was tight at the end of the month. When she wasn’t in the mood for four months straight during pregnancy, he eyed the wet nurse. She hated his mother and kept losing letters from her, despite having a firm grip on all the other mail. In comparison, this was the good life. Once you’ve been forced into a toxic magical sleep, or you’re clubbed and kidnapped by a perverted witch, or your kingdom’s been overrun by vines, your lover drinking milk straight from the container isn’t so bad. This they learned without saying. It was implicit. Even when he died, leaving her to spend seven of her wrinkliest years alone, this was still happily ever after, because it was grief for a great family built instead of panic dream in an eternal slumber.

Bathroom Monologue: Possible Origins for Him. 10.

To listen to today's Possible Origin either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming or click this text to download the MP3.

Okay, so there was this guy. Had the genius to program microchips that emitted electromagnetic radiation, which disturbed key connections in the brain. It didn’t cause mere migraines – it brainwashed people, made them drones, made them believe they were entirely new people. His chips were so small he could hide them in the stud of an earring or the band of a hat. And he made these things as an intern at a low-end tech company with very little college education. He had no means or help, and he could have turned half the city into his gangs just by donating some baseball caps to Goodwill.

There was this guy. He had a fistful of mind control, and the world’s worst Lewis Carroll fetish. He took his technology and forced the first dumb blonde he met into an Alice costume. Frumpy blue skirt and doe eyes, everything. When he started a gang, they were Tea Party-themed, all wearing hats. He never thought that somebody might knock them off and free his army. He only pulled robberies to support the hatter habit, trying to run away with this girl he’d brainwashed into being his. He never planned ahead and so got caught. When he escaped? He did the same thing to the same girl and got caught by the same detective. He never brainwashed enough goons, never refined the technology any further, never even looked up a chick on Craigslist who might consent to his cosplay. He was a world-eating genius and it was a miracle the guy could do his own tie.

There was this guy – not that guy. This time, I mean me. Sitting at a lunch counter, watching pundits complain about the rise of monster criminals. A terrorist who left crossword puzzles. A giant crocodile in the sewer. And this Lewis Carroll fetish guy. He didn’t have to drop an electric hat on my noggin to screw up my brain. I dashed into the bathroom and locked it, hoped nobody could hear me hollering. Because I’m unemployed, I’m going nowhere, I can’t get my act booked anywhere in the city while this guy is on TV for squandering his talent. I’m hollering that I can do better than that, and I was going to come up with something before I left this bathroom, or before the owner kicked down the door.

There was this guy – not me. The owner. He made the mistake of kicking down the door too soon. All the inspiration I had was Juicy Fruit in my pocket and obscene jokes on the wall. I blame any shortcomings in my act on his lack of patience. I left him incapable of ever wearing a hat.

Bathroom Monologue: Five Stage Theory

“What? I'm not dead.

“Asshole, how dare you say I'm dead?

“Whatever. What can I give you to get through those gates?

“A thousand years of service? That'll take forever. I'll never get in.

“I wasn’t doing anything anyway. Should I start with mopping?”

Bathroom Monologue: Holicide

There's an audio edition of today's monologue. To listen either click the triangle on the left to begin streaming, or click this text to download the MP3.

I desperately want to put a disclaimer in front of this one. I'm not going to because I trust you folks.

"Some attack the holidays because of the suicide rate, but I find it adds joy to the season. Consider: did you know this person? It’s a slim chance that he or she was sincerely beloved to you. Mom very rarely kills herself at Christmas - she can only do it once, after all. It's usually some uncle who didn't shower thoroughly enough, or the shady co-worker who spent all his lunch time in WoW, or what’s-her-name, you know, the one who barely ever looked you in the eyes. Ask yourself, living moralists, did you really like these people who are now absent? I think if you did, it would have shown, and those people wouldn't have wallpapered their bathrooms with brain. No, no. In death, these folks are missed. But in life, you had no application for them, and didn't like how they stood so close in the elevator, or how they smelled when they passed you exiting the bathroom, or wore loud tops that clashed with their bland trousers, or whatever trivialities essentially defined their existences in your big universe. They were annoying. Now they’ve given you the best gift of all: they went away. So be of good cheer. It’s that giving time of the year."

Bathroom Haiku: Tao-ny Hair

invincible beard

the true hair cannot be shaved

bristly face defense.

Bathroom Monologue: A Man Undermined

Paul Sawyer, real name Saul Sauerberg, pushed through the door and walked deliberately to Gerome’s desk. He put up his hands sideways like a field goal post. The gesture probably meant something else to him.

“I assume you’ve seen the piece,” Paul said through the uprights.

“I assume everyone on this floor has seen it.” Gerome folded his gnarled, brown hands. “I got it as an e-mail attachment, and I barely know how to open those.”

Paul got to pacing, shutting the door like an afterthought on his circuit between the window and his managing editor’s wall of plaques. He paced like this before shows. It was how he warmed up. “I assume you’ve seen it because you summoned me here. But I would have come anyway. I was on my way here when you were calling to have me come in. You were the first person who came to mind when I read the piece.”

“I’d think of the writer. If a pretty lady didn’t like me as succinctly as she didn’t like you, I’d think about her before any wrinkly black men. Now I want you to verify this for me. Is she right? Did you use methamphetamines last year, while under contract?”

“The gall. The bile. The various mythical juices this woman must possess to quote me out of context, and try to paint me as some junky riding a corporate account.” He broke his pacing to wave four fingers and a thumb. “I will have you know that at least five of the quotes in this piece are entirely fabricated.”

“Was the one about meth entirely fabricated?”

The pacing resumed. “She wanted an angle. I mean, why interview a sports journalist? Newsmakers make bad stories. It’s incestuous. It’s masturbatory. I only did it because Kendal said it’d draw more attention. Get me out there, get new eyes. Eyes always help. But it’s clear she only asked so that she could claim things about me. Unsubstantiated things that could damage my career if people in this company take them out of context.”

“You’re saying you used meth out of context?”

“I’m saying that she did not take a single sentence from my mouth and put it where it belonged, and I’m frankly insulted that this company would believe this borderline hearsay, this transparent case of libel, before even consulting me.”

“I’m sorry. Were you expecting the network heads to meet you in my office?” Gerome put a palm on his desk, as though affirming it was tangible and not an illusion. “I am consulting you. You’re facing me and we’re exchanging words in our shared language. What I think is our shared language.”

“This company should have more faith in me. I could have jumped two years ago. I could have jumped last year. I could have gone to NBC Sports. I could be Keith Olbermann right now. But I stuck with the girl who brought me to the dance. Do you know I’ll have been here five years this March?”

“Five years.” Gerome shook his head. “If it’s relevant, I’ve given twenty-three and I have no idea when my anniversary is. I say ‘if it’s relevant’ because I’m older and I know in your position it looks like I’ve had more years to hand out to corporations. But I’d like you to answer if you smoked pot.”

“I know you’ve worked here twenty-three years. Look at those awards.” Paul tapped one, and the noise it made disturbed him. He only gestured to the others. “You’ve earned them all for this company. I respect that, I respect the work. That’s why I’m coming to you.”

“You’re coming to me because I summoned you, and possibly because I can fire you.”

“Out of admiration for all your work in journalistic integrity. Because reason matters to you. Reason, ethics and journalistic integrity. You’re not going to let someone oust me from a position I put my heart into just so she can get more hits on her blog. You, of everyone in this building, will understand a man undermined.”

“Paul, in 1996 I was aggressively addicted to cocaine.”

Paul stopped pacing.

“I spent more than your current salary on it, and twice did lines of it off the backside of a Forbes 400 CEO. If you want to narrow it down, it was one of the female CEOs. My wife and children have forgiven me and I’ve undergone treatment in secret, but I actually still crave to this day, in the adjacent century. It took someone very powerful and patient to save my life. I’m telling you this because you’re making me crave it right now. Also because I think if I tell you this, you will answer me: at any time during your contract with the company we both work for but do not value more than the livelihood of a good man, did you use illicit substances?”

Paul sat. He smoothed out his pants aggressively. At some point the creases had gone uneven and needed pinching.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Now we can talk.”

The Riren 100

Every year I write The Riren 100, a comprehensive list of the top hundred pro wrestling matches in a year. The last couple years it has received pretty amazing syndication, and this year it's expected to appear on a batch of front pages. Since I get a lot of confused feedback about it, I'm opening up this source post. I'll link any place it's appearing, and if you have any comments you can feel free to leave them here.

• Wrestleview
• Figure Four Weekly/Wrestling Observer (requires subscription)
• Inside Pulse
• In Your Head

I won't be posting the list here because it's really long. Feel free to point out other sites where it's popped up so I can add them.

Bathroom Monologue: "You’re in my thoughts." –Many random friends

"I'm in your thoughts? Maybe you should have concentrated harder during the surgery. This scar is way bigger than the doctor said. By the way, did you imagine that guy clearly? Tight ass. Or I was medicated and it was actually an IV stand. I don't know, I wasn't paying attention, but apparently you were because you imagined my entire life. God, my entire life. When I rear-ended that bitch, and then she turned out to be my student loan officer? That time the circus took out a restraining order against me? How did I not see it sooner? I am in your thoughts, and you're fucking crazy. Get on some ritalin and start imagining me getting laid by a cheerleading squad already."

Bathroom Monologue: Black Hulk

[Once again at the booth. MEGATRAN, a Chinese knockoff of Megatron made from blue plastic instead of white, sits on the center, using a flame jet from its index finger to warm a plate of nachos, from which everyone at the table is eating. GRUFF STOVER sits to MEGATRAN’s right, MEGATRAN’s giant cannon slung over GRUFF’s shoulder. GRUFF strokes it possessively. SAMID sits to MEGATRAN’s left, wearing a chainmail bikini. ARYANA sits to SAMID’s left, in a pink tuxedo.]

Gruff: Why’s The Incredible Hulk got to be white?

Samid: He’s green.

Megatran: All the newspapers say he’s white when he turns back into a person.

Aryana: How come it’s white? The only people who are actually white are albinos, and we don’t call them white. I’m kind of sandy.

Gruff: Why can’t The Incredible Hulk be black?

Samid: Because he’s green.

Gruff: When he’s a normal person, he could be black. You don’t know.

Aryana: They say he’s a physicist. David Banner or something.

Gruff: There aren’t any black physicists? What about Neil deGrasse Tyson?

Samid: I really don’t think he’s the Hulk.

Ayrana: I thought he was an astronomer.

Gruff: The Incredible Hulk is not an astronomer.

Megatran: Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist.

Gruff: He could have been bombarded by astro-rays. That made the Fantastic Four. If it can make The Thing, why can’t it make The Incredible Hulk?

Megatran: Because Neil deGrasse Tyson’s job is on the ground. He has never gone into space.

Gruff: You don’t know that. He could have gone to space, got hit by giant green rays, then covered it up. That’s why you don’t know he went to space. The point being if some white Banner can be the Hulk just because of his physics project, why can’t Tyson by the Hulk because of his?

Samid: Under that logic, I could be Hulk and have covered it up.

Gruff: No you couldn’t.

Samid: Why?

Aryana: You’re not black.

[SAMID gapes at ARYANA. GRUFF snaps his fingers victoriously.]

Gruff: See? Woman’s got it.

Samid: How?

Aryana: Because sometimes a lady knows when to jump on a side. [She raises a fist] Hulk smash puny logic.

Samid: Logic is tumbling away from us.

Aryana: In fact, I’m willing to suppose something. [She looks to Gruff] There is only one black man who can’t possibly be the Hulk.

[GRUFF nods]

Gruff: Damn straight.

Samid: Who?

Megatran: Neil deGrasse Tyson?

Aryana: No. Barack Obama.

[GRUFF snaps his fingers victoriously once again]

Gruff: Lady has it.

Samid: And how do we come to this?

Aryana and Gruff: [in unison] Because he’s Superman.