Cities of the Red Night – William S. Burroughs

In the second edition of The Shlog (Sean Blog) Blook (Blog Book) Club (Club), I shall cover Cities of the Red Night (published 1981), the first installment in a trilogy by William S. Burroughs. I’m pretty sure no one is participating in this book club anyway, so I’ll make it quick.

To begin, this novel contains more erections per capita than anything else I have ever read. That being said, don’t let that scare you off – they’re only fictional erections, they’re not going to hurt you. Unless you let them. That’s just how Burroughs rolls. There is a lot going on in this book – piracy, international intrigue, time travel, and a lot of hangings. I finished it and wondered what the crap had just happened. So perhaps I’m not the best person to be giving a synopsis, but I will say that this novel is much more stimulating than the legal buffoonery that takes place in your average J-Grish (John Grisham) novel. So go ahead, give it a read.

Old Mentos Commercials

The title says it all. Here are old Mentos Commercials.

Man, just think if I had a dollar for every time Mentos got me out of a jam. I literally wouldn’t be able to buy a roll of Mentos. I don’t even think I’ve ever had a Mentos before. Probably because I’ve always had a strict personal constitution to avoid situations where I have to rely on a breath mint to help me out. Have a splendid weekend.

Beard Culture

In my never-ending quest to become an eccentric billionaire, or at least a weird millionaire, I have recently been conducting what will eventually go down in history as “The Fantastic Ex-Beardi-ment of 2011.” As Tony Robbins once said, “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.” A truly heady quote from the man with some of the biggest teeth in showbiz. So obviously, I have begun emulating people who are disgustingly rich. I already copied Oprah and started a book club. That was just the first tributary that will inevitably feed the river of unfathomable wealth that I am seeking. Remember when Conan O’Brien got paid like 30 million dollars to leave NBC? Well, he has a beard, doesn’t he? So I’m copying him and growing a beard. Along the way, I’ve learned some very valuable things about myself, and what it truly means to be a person with a beard. And also, some very useless information. Read:

-Pogonology is the study of beards.

-My beard’s name is Agnes and it’s awesome and I love it.

-Now, when I stroke my chin while in deep contemplation, there is actually something there for me to run my fingers through.

-I don’t have a true “manly” beard – it doesn’t grow in very thick, so it looks like someone glued Barbie hair to my face. And if that weren’t embarrassing enough, the sorry excuse for beard hair is orange.

-My belief that I have always been a shining beacon of brunette perfection has been scrambled – the orange beard hair brings to light that I am in fact a closet “ginger.” It is a new, weird, confusing wrinkle in my existence that is difficult for me to stomach. But that is my cross to bear.

-A few days ago, while examination of Agnes was taking place in the bathroom mirror, I found residue from a previous meal of macaroni and cheese clinging to a few fibers of my flocculent growth. You are probably thinking to yourself “That’s gross.” Yes, it is gross, but it signals an important phase in the life of my beard. It is now long enough to snag rogue particles that hover around its “fly zone.”

-This beard actually makes me look like a pubescent Swedish boy so I’m going to go cut it off.

Here’s the Blong (Blog Song) of the day. Tapes ‘n Tapes – Badaboom.

Choose Your Own Blogventure

 In a nod to the popular Choose Your Own Adventure books, today I’m going to totally rip them off and do a little something I like to call “Choose Your Own Blogventure.” In order to differentiate this story from the Choose Your Own Adventure books, I’m not going to do like 50 different endings with varying degrees of success or failure. There will be a lot of different endings, but you will die in each and every one of them. Unless, of course, you make it all the way through to the one true ending, which will result in your character “winning” the story. So here goes:

The Back Story

You are a secret agent/pro athlete/doctor. I think it’s safe to say that you do all right with the ladies. Or if you are a female, you do all right with the menfolk. Or if you are homo/bi-sexual, you do all right in the lady/man department. I guess just imagine the genders in this story however you want to. That’s the beauty of fiction. Anyways, what matters is that you are a secret agent/pro athlete/doctor. You are sitting in your opulent office off of Beet Street in the fictional metropolis of Potato Town. <Editor’s note – I’ve got an intricate plot to focus on so I’m not going to stress my mind thinking of cool names for people and places. I’m doing this for free for pete’s sake.> So yeah, you’re in your office. And oh yeah, your name is Sir Esquire Figgypudding, so remember that. Back to the office. A mysterious millionaire saunters in, and after a lot of clichéd, boring, detective talk, it boils down to this: he wants you, Sir Figgypudding, to track down his hot, adulterous wife, who has mysteriously gone missing. Since it is the off-season of the particular sport that you play, and you are in between secret agent missions for the government, and you make your own hours at the hospital, and you’ve got a few days to kill before your birthday, you decide to take on the case.

The mysterious millionaire, who we will call M&M for now, because he is mysterious and also a millionaire, provides you with the following:

-$50,000 cash, with an additional $100,000 upon the safe return of the hot, adulterous wife. Being as successful as you are $100,000 is just peanuts to you. But you live for the rush, and the passion that you have for a good sleuthing session. And also, you love money.

-A butter knife. (Easy to conceal, but it can also bring the pain.)

-A cell phone with M&M’s encrypted number on it, as well as the hot, adulterous wife’s. And for fun, let’s also have the cell phone double as an explosive device.

-A blow up doll. (So you can use the carpool lane if need be.)

-A photo of his hot, adulterous wife.

-Protein bars. (In case you get hungry and need a snack.)

Well, let’s get this show on the road. M&M has handed you a crumpled receipt from Slappy’s Diner with instructions scribbled on the back. It appears as though your only lead is a bartender at Mr. Giggles’ Comedy Shop (The Shop) in downtown Potato Town where the hot, adulterous wife was believed to have last been seen. Do you:

Take a rickshaw (Potato Town uses rickshaws.) to the shop.

Walk to the club. (In all fairness it is a pretty nice day out.)

 

This Is Pretty Much Everything I Know About Females

How To Talk To A Hot Girl

It’s actually quite simple – get in their way. Case study: when I was in high school, a hot girl would always walk by my friend’s locker and into the adjacent classroom. So one day, I deliberately stood in front of the classroom door as she approached. And then it happened – she talked to me! She actually talked to me! I remember the conversation like it was yesterday. It went a little something like this:

Hot girl: “Um, excuse me.”

Me: “Oh, sorry.”

We never spoke again. Perhaps our paths will cross again some day, but I have a feeling she ended up marrying some walking trash can for his money. Maybe she thinks of me from time to time, but I’m assuming she probably believes I wandered out in front of a milk truck and died. I have come to accept that.

How To Impress Any Female

The popularity of this Bruno Mars character has not evaded my radar. His “You’re amazing just the way you are, I’ll catch a grenade for you, blah, blah” brand of pop is nothing new. But I admire his guile in capturing one of the most coveted money-producing demographics in all of civilization – the tween-to-teenaged girl. So here is how you obtain what those tweens like to call “crazy mad props from the home skillets.” Listen up. For realsies. You should probably just write a song called something like “Yo Wud Up Grrrl, You So Hot, Even When You PMS-ing.” That’s it. Any song that tells a girl they look good will be a hit, no matter how doody the lyrics are.

Marriage Advice From My Great-Aunt

I recently learned a valuable lesson to use in the event of marriage. Last weekend my great-auntie Marm told me that if I plan to get married, at least make sure that I can lift the girl. I took two things from this chestnut of insight: Uggos are still in play, and even good ol’ Auntie Marm has a staunch no-fatties rule.

There you have it. Literally everything that I know about the opposite sex.

Here’s the Blong (Blog Song). Today feels like a punk rock kind of day, doesn’t it? Toys That Kill – Amphetamine St.