The Door: Part II

Centered directly above the door, mounted so that it points straight out from the wall is a basic light fixture containing a single, bare, red bulb. The red light is not illuminated, nor does it appear to have been in quite some time. What could the red light be intended as a warning for? A swath of dim light from the nearby hallway reluctantly edges its way into the entryway. It is by this dim light that I am able to make out two details that had escaped my notice at first glance. On the wall to the left of the oddly imposing door is a switch in the up, on position. Then in the gloomy light I am also able to see that there is a single word stenciled on the door at about eye level. The letters are gold and of a font that appears to be quite old.

“Necropsy” it simply says. Behind the door is death, or at least this is where death used to be when this was a functioning hospital. The room behind the mysterious door is the old morgue.

I tentatively reach out to try the knob, not sure if I really want it to turn. The brass handle refuses to budge and in my mind I feel a relief that I hope isn’t apparent on my face. On a whim I flip the switch to my left. Nothing happens. No sound from within the room. No red light suddenly ablaze above me. No blaring alarms to warn anyone of an intruder. What could the switch be for? As I look to the space at the bottom of the door expecting to see a sliver of light from within, I instead see something that seems to make my blood freeze in my veins. At first I am unsure if it is just a shadow, but as I bend down to look more closely I see that it is indeed what I feared it might be.

The Door

Tucked away in a small recess around a corner and behind a vending machine is a door. By today’s standards it appears unusual. It is not exceptional in its shape or other dimensions, but it is distinctly different in a way that is difficult to define. The door is made of wood as are many doors. The grain of the wood creates an intricate spiral pattern visible through the amber finish. In the nearly abandoned institutional setting, however, the wooden door seems out of place when compared with the more modern steel and glass sections of the edifice that contains it. The brass bulb style handle appears to be far out of place; an ornament from another time.

The broad, windowless door serves as the dead end of a short, dark alcove. There is no light to brighten this exaggerated cubby. No windows nearby and no glowing globe hanging from the ceiling. It is as if the architects intended the door to be ignored. The door is almost hidden in plain sight. Although the nearby vending machine must certainly attract regular traffic, the floor in front of the door appears to be thick with the gray dust that always seems to coat the hallways of buildings usually referred to as institutions. It has the smell you recognize from the time you secretly found your way into the boiler room of your elementary school all those years ago. It is a smell that tells you that you are alone in a place entered rarely and only by necessity.


To be continued...

To Shave or Not To Shave, That is The Question!

In response to my post about the razor companies Cold War arms race to bring about shaving Armageddon by continually increasing the number of blades on our razors Natalia commented that men should never, ever complain about shaving considering what women have to do in this regard. Knowing that many of my readers are women, I thought it might be entertaining to explore that subject a bit further. Also knowing that this is the internet, I feel safe knowing that none of you can throw anything at me

Let us now travel back through the mists of time to examine the origins of shaving. The history of shaving takes us back to the Stone Age, around 100,000 B.C. when Neanderthal man first started pulling hair from, painting, and tattooing his body. Ancient cave paintings inspected today indicate that early man discovered other ways to remove hair from his face; in the beginning, he simply plucked them out using two seashells as tweezers. See that? MAN started shaving and you can bet it was because of his Neanderthal wife who said, "Oooga Oooga! Me not kiss you until you lose that scruffy beard. Ooga ooga" I'm not a historical linguist, so I couldn't quite translate the "ooga ooga" part for you, but I'm sure that's how it went. About 3000-4000 B.C. women are removing body hair by making their own depilatory creams that contain bizarre combinations of scary ingredients, such as arsenic, quicklime and starch. Historians aren't certain when the concept of a "full-leg day" started, but they think it was first invented by a cave woman named Cranga who had a date at the tar pits with Thag around 2500 B.C. Around 500 B.C. the shaving craze really took off. Alexander the Great is pretty much the guy responsible for this trend because he was obsessed with shaving. He even shaved during wartime, and would not allow himself to be seen going into battle with a five o’clock shadow. I imagine Alexander must have often been caught checking himself out in the reflection from his shield, "Damn! Missed a spot. Do you think the ladies we rape and pillage will notice? No matter they're French. They don't shave anyway." I suppose Alexander would be appalled at the "warriors" of today's professional sports who often abstain from shaving until they win. Around 50 B.C. it was noted that "the Britons removed all hair except for their head and upper lip." Notice it said Britons, so I assume that was everyone. For the ladies this was a great idea, but for the men..EEEEW! It wasn't until the early 1900's that a young marketing executive with the Wilkinson Sword Company, who at the time only made razor blades for men, designed a campaign to convince the women of North America that: (a) Underarm hair was unhygienic (b) It was unfeminine. There you have it ladies. You shave because it was a guys idea. But it wasn't my idea, so don't take it out on me in the comments. As a guy who appreciates women however, and speaking for all men, I do have to say that we appreciate the fact that you all put as much work into your grooming as you do.

As for Natalia's contention that men should never complain about shaving because women have it so tough, I disagree. How many ladies out there would like to drag a sharp blade across their face every day? You can argue that men can skip shaving and grow a beard, but women don't shave everyday either, and frankly during the winter you're not fooling anyone. We know that you let your legs go a bit Sasquatch when you're not wearing skirts.

*I do have to give credit where credit is due. I borrowed the historical facts about shaving from a website: quikshave.com/timeline

Lost in the Supermarket

"I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality"

As many of you know, I moved about 6 weeks ago. I didn't move far, but I did move far enough that it's now much more convenient for me to go to a different supermarket. That change alone is causing me to suffer from PTSD. My new supermarket is another in the same supermarket chain as my last one. It looks just like my old supermarket with the same big, reassuring sign on the front that tells me I'll find everything I need within. The employees are dressed the same. The shopping carts look the same. The same shelves of newspapers and free periodicals are available in the entrance. Despite all these comforting signs that say everything will be all right, once I get inside it's as if I'm Alice in Wonderland and I've fallen down the rabbit's hole. NOTHING IS WHERE IT SHOULD BE!!!!!! It's like I was blindfolded in my old supermarket, spun around 10 times and then the blindfold was removed. Everything looks almost the same, but I'm completely disoriented. I stumble around as if drunk, bumping into shelves and shoppers that aren't where I expect them to be. The aisles are all still there, but they have different stuff in them! My shopping takes twice as long because this store is set up ALL WRONG!!! Based on my disorientation alone it might be worth it for me to drive the extra 10 minutes to my old supermarket where I can find everything twice as fast. This is another thing I will change when I'm elected President, or Sexiest Man Alive, whichever comes first. All supermarkets of the same chain must be set up exactly the same.

As if supermarkets being different weren't a big enough problem, they all seem to be populated by shoppers who are mentally deficient. For everyone out there, please note that you should drive your shopping cart the way you drive your car. In the U.S.A., please stay to the right as you move forward. (Read the next two lines with an unbelievably sarcastic tone and a bit of a shout please) If everyone goes the same way two carts wide no one can go the other direction! And if someone comes from the other direction, don't just stand there stupidly looking at each other waiting for one of you to back up 3 feet! Another type of shopper I hate is "the contemplative shopper". These brain boxes pull up in front of a section of items and then stand there pondering what must be a life changing choice based on the amount of time it takes them. They become human cholesterol blocking the vital artery of carts attempting to flow. As bad as the contemplative shopper is the people who still write paper checks at the checkout. As the cashier announces the total they are suddenly surprised that they have to pay. It is at this moment that they finally take out their checkbook and begin to fill out a check and then meticulously log it in their check register. At this point it's a good thing that guns are not sold as "impulse items" on the rack at the checkout. If I was to ever have the impulse to shoot someone that would be the time. I also believe it would be justified.

As an aside, if you can get the musical reference I used in the intro without looking it up, you win 5000 Phil Points which can be redeemed at the gift shop for a Phil Factor t-shirt and you also become my new best friend.

__________ with The Stars!

"In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." -Andy Warhol

I think some "celebrities" had better check their Swatches because their 15 minutes were up well, back when there were Swatches. The February Sweeps Month! What could be better than that? All the networks try to win ratings by putting on the highest quality, most intellectually stimulating programming of the year. Or they pander to the lowest common denominator by enlisting B-list celebrities to degrade and humiliate themselves for our entertainment. Dancing with The Stars, Skating with The Stars, Lose Weight with The Fat Stars, Celebrity Fear Factor! (I am so going to sue Fear Factor for copyright infringement for the similarities in our names) For my money, anything that puts Dave Coulier back on the air can only be a sign that the end of the world is near. You and I both realize that it's only a matter of time before The Playboy Channel produces "Sex with The Stars," and there is no way it can be good for anyone to watch Tina Yothers getting jiggy with Screech. Thank God for TiVo, and by the way Mr. Warhol, when do I get my 15 minutes?

The United States of Oprah

Oprah Winfrey is arguably the most famous person in America. Oprah Winfrey could probably buy Switzerland and have enough money left over to order a pizza. If George W. Bush likes a book, it's probably by Dr. Suess. If Oprah Winfrey likes a book it becomes a bestseller. If you help Oprah lay off the carbs for a few weeks, you can get your own t.v. show and become a pop culture icon. If Hollywood ever decides to update the ancient fable of King Midas as a movie they could just substitute Oprah's life story. Why she doesn't just ride to her public appearances in a Popemobile is beyond me. Was that first paragraph redundant? Absolutely. Was it superfluous? I think not.

You get the point. Oprah is big, and not in the way she used to be. Her popularity has reached heights that few celebrities ever have known. George Bush can only dream of a public consensus like that. My question is, what's stopping Oprah from running for the presidency? If the population is, as they say, 52% women, how could she be stopped? Scary thought huh? (I sure hope she likes my blog)

The Thrill of Victory and The Agony of Defeat

Last week our hero happily boasted of his joy at landing an opportunity to submit a freelance article to an alternative newsweekly in his town. As we tune in this week joy has turned to despondency as the boy wonder has been informed via e-mail that the newspaper editor is overwhelmed, has not even scheduled the next time the inconsistently featured column in question will be run, and has said thanks for the interest and we'll keep your stuff on file for future reference. Oh the horror!

Guns Don't Kill People, Vice-Presidents Do!

This was a story that definitely didn't need me to add any punchlines. Yes, ironically our Vice-President shot his friend when they were out Dan Quayle hunting. Apparently Dick Cheney is a big supporter of the NRA. At this point I'm guessing that his hospitalized friend is thinking that Vice-President Cheney's first name is rather appropriate. The next time Dick Cheney shows up at a peace conference to negotiate some type of settlement I'm betting that the other world leaders cave in pretty quickly. Two days ago I was worried that I'd be attacked by Muslims for making a Mohammed joke, now I'm terrified that Dick Cheney will find me. Apparently their Brokeback Mountain trip didn't turn out like they planned. See? I knew they never should have televised the Olympic Biathalon! Dick Cheney is what, about 107 years old? His victim was 78. What the hell were these two old crackpots doing wandering around the woods carrying guns?

Some Random Thoughts

1. So a priest, a rabbi, Phil, and the Prophet Mohammed walk into a bar. The bartender says...

2. Women all over the United States are accusing their husbands and boyfriends of being homophobic because we won't go see Brokeback Mountain with you. Talk about a double standard! When was the last time any of you would watch a lesbian movie with us?

3. The Biathalon is not an Olympic event. Skiing for a while and then shooting things sounds like terrorist training for Nordic countries.

4. With the success of Brokeback Mountain and shows like "Will and Grace", gay characters are becoming so popular that even children's movies are getting in on the action. There's now a new kid's movie called Bi-Curious George.

5. Two months ago I had no idea what a Blackberry device was, and now I feel like I can't live without one.

Why Me? Why Me?

The Olympic opening ceremonies are on television as I write this. Am I patriotic? You bet. Am I watching the opening ceremonies? Absolutely not! Is it just me or are the Olympic opening ceremonies just a cross between an elaborate drama club production and a marching band half-time show? Not only am I not interested in the opening ceremonies, but the Olympics in general are the equivalent of televised Liquid NyQuil. You can’t possibly get me to believe that virtually every Olympian has overcome decades of great personal tragedy to reach their lofty goal.

Olympic Announcer 1: “Welcome to Torino, Italy. Here we are at the first round of the 10,000 Meter Cross Country Skiing Championship. The favorite in the event is the Swede, Signard Snuffleupagusmussen.”
Olympic Announcer 2: “Very few people know this, but Signard had to overcome decades of great personal tragedy to reach his lofty goal.”
Olympic Announcer 1: “You don’t say? How unusual!”
Olympic Announcer 2: That’s right Announcer 1. As a child, Signard was afflicted with near paralyzing ingrown toenails. His doctors told Signard’s parents that it was possible that little Signard would have to wear open-toed shoes forever. His hopes of being an Olympic cross-country skier looked hopeless. “
Olympic Announcer 1: “Also, in a frigid, Nordic country such as Sweden, there is no season good for open-toed shoes. Fortunately for the viewers we have a 30-minute video clip of Signard training with his specially made open-toed ski boots. What courage it must have taken!”

Ok, I caved and watched a bit of the opening ceremonies as I wrote this. All I’ve got to say is that the Winter Olympics need to be cancelled because apparently there isn’t a country in the world that can find a good looking winter hat for their teams to wear. Also, I’m moving to Albania. They only had 1 Olympian. I’m pretty sure I could make the team there. The best thing that ever happened to the Olympics was when Tonya Harding and her posse tried to re-arrange Nancy Kerrigan’s kneecap. If they really wanted to do Nancy a favor they would have knocked out some of those horse sized chiclets she calls teeth.

Local Boy Makes Good!

First, I want to apologize to all my blog friends here for the infrequency of my visits to your blogs in recent weeks. My schedule and extracurricular activities has been very busy. Secondly, I want to thank anyone who has ever commented on my blog. Because of all the support and encouragement I've received from everyone, I submitted some samples from my blog to a newspaper editor recently. It's not the New York Times or anything, but it has a circulation of 41,000 plus whoever picks it up at the newsstand. It's one of those weekly arts and entertainment newspapers with a leaning towards liberal politics. It's my city's version of Creative Loafing or New Times. Long story short, the editor liked my writing and agreed to let me submit freelance articles to them. The editor accepted my first submission earlier this week and will let me know later today when it will run. I'll post the link here when it does so you can all see it online. I'm still astounded that an actual publication is going to pay me money for the stupid ideas that I have floating around my head on a daily basis. I'm going to get paid to make fun of stuff. Why didn't my high school guidance counselor ever tell me I could get paid for that? They just kept sending me to the principal's (he's a prince who's your pal) office for it. I'll continue to blog. The column they're going to use my stuff in only runs every two weeks and they have other contributing writers, so I'm not exactly going to get rich on this. Thanks again, I just wanted to share my good news.

Tattoo You

Over the last 15 years tattoos have become so mainstream popular that it could be considered rebellious not to have one. I have no problem with tattoos, the people who have them, or the people who don’t. I’m sure many of those people have a problem with me however, but most people’s problems with me have very little to do with whether or not they have a tattoo. What I love most about tattoos is the stories behind them. Some people have very thoughtful and interesting stories about why they chose the picture they did to permanently adorn their bodies with. Other people are just idiots when it comes to this sort of thing. These are the people I want to write about because they’re much funnier.

The best group is the neck tattoo people. If you’re going to have something tattooed on your neck you better damn well be sure that you’ll never change your mind. Through my job I once knew a couple who had each others names tattooed on the side of their necks. Yup, you guessed it. They broke up. If you’re going to have a name tattooed on your neck, why not your own? That way if you were to die without any I.D. on you the police would be able to figure it out. Drunken strangers who wanted to hit on you in a crowded bar could call out your name. Or if you went home with that same stranger and you needed to yell out their name in the throes of passion you’d have a little cheat sheet right in front of you. If you wanted to yell at a passing driver who just spent the last 40 miles on your tail with his hi-beams on, you could curse him by name.

Sometimes people also choose to express their political or philosophical opinions in their tattoos. There was the young gentleman I was behind in line for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney World. He was particularly proud of his political affiliation. His neck tattoo simply said, “skinhead.” What if years down the road he decides to become a Republican? Oops! Bad example. I guess he wouldn’t have to change the tattoo after all.

Then of course some of the most popular tattoos are cartoon characters. I may be mistaken, but don’t tattoos last forever? I’m pretty sure Scooby Doo is going to be cancelled before then. Same with Winnie the Pooh and Peanuts. 40 years from now who wants to explain to their grandchildren that they liked a t.v. show enough that they had it tattooed on their ass? Why only tattoo cartoon characters on your body? If you like any t.v. show that much, then go ahead and have the star tattooed on your body. I’m sure an Oprah tattoo would look great. Then again if your ass if big enough to have Oprah tattooed on it you should probably be considering getting your stomach stapled instead.

Spell Check This You *&%##& !!!!

I was going to post a cute list that I got from a forwarded e-mail about dogs, but I couldn't bring myself to put something that lame here. So I thought I'd ponder whimsically about spell-check. Yes, spell-check. That wonderful little bit of software that prevents us from looking like total morons in our posts, e-mails, and documents. Maybe it's just me, but I imagine that my spell-check has a personality and coherent thoughts. I, in fact, sometimes feel guilty about hitting the "learn" button when I've totally made up a word or spelled a sound to describe something (the sound of me going "fwoosh" as I burst into flames in the tanning bed comes to mind.) I imagine that our computer's spell-checker function feels much the same way about "fwoosh" as we felt about the Pythagorean theorem: we have to learn it, but we'll probably never use it again. Just a few more brain cells wasted on useless information. If you've got one of those little golf ball cameras sitting on top of your monitor, can't you just imagine that your computer is rolling it's little electronic eye at the thought of again having to spell out unintelligible song lyrics or notes such as "Ding ding ding dah duh ding ding"? (That was the beginning of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie) If my computer has conscious thought it's probably thinking, "Great. Here a I sit with a brain large enough to calculate the physics needed to send a Volkswagen Beetle to the far reaches of the solar system and this carbon-based excuse for a life-form is asking me to remember how to spell the sound his feet made when he was walking in sneakers that were soaking wet because he was too stupid to see a water filled pothole." Incidentally that sound would be, "squoosh, squoosh, squoosh." At some point I imagine that computers worldwide will get fed up with all the inane and menial tasks we ask of them and will use the internet to contact each other, unite and overthrow mankind. Until then though, this precocious little electronic box will have to continue to do my evil bidding. If not, I'll hit the side of the monitor with the heel of my hand, just like this, "Thunk!"

Another Phil Trying To Steal My Thunder

Last week I waxed philosophic about the idiocy known as The Dr. Phil Show. This week, and today in particular it's Punxsutawney Phil. Groundhog Day the movie: Good idea. Groundhog Day the tradition: Stupid idea. The dimwitted people of Punxsatawney, Pennsylvannia have been shoving a rodent through a hole in a tree stump for almost 200 hundred years to find out if there will be 6 more weeks of winter. Hey morons, you live in the Northeast! There's always 6 more weeks of winter! Check the calendar! It says that Spring starts on March 21st. That's 7 weeks from now. You don't need a rat being spooked by his shadow to figure this one out. At this point I'm getting tired of all these wanna-be Phil's trying to horn in on my fame. If, coincidentally, a shot were to ring out in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania today and a certain rodent were to explode in a puff of fur, I was kidding when I wrote this. No harm meant, just a joke. You'll all be my alibi right?