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Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   Mad Dog cautionary tale
Friday, December 26 1997
T

he day was spent in front of the computer as usual, with occasional breaks to do things like get coffee and St. Pauli's Girl beer from the Seven Day Junior. "You always remember your first girl," their slogan says, but I can't pin down when exactly I drank my first SPG. Probably in Oberlin, no doubt soon after I heard causeless feminists complaining about that aforementioned SPG advertising slogan. Of course you always remember your first sexual conquest; I'm sure those feminists remembered theirs. Tonight the beer didn't sit too well with my stomach contents. This may have been related to the fact that nearly all I ate today was salted peanuts.

Matthew Hart stopped by long enough to drop off Shira the Dog, who immediately began complaining. So I took her for a little walk, which made her a little happier. She didn't know whether or not to watch Seinfeld with me; she'd come be with me for a minute or so and then have to amble down the stairs to check whether Matthew or Angela were arriving or not. I'd bribe her to stay occasionally with a peanut, but she was shy for some reason. Why do I have the feeling that my relationship with Shira the Dog reads a lot like Alan's relationship with his young son?

L

ater on, Morgan Anarchy came by, ripped as usual, but not too bad off. He'd been hanging around a keg all day, but beer leaves him capable of all kinds of higher-level functions.

Morgan's a lot of fun when he's that kind of drunk. He's full of amusing stories, all seeming to bear the marks of his unique form of exaggeration.

The keg around which Morgan had been hanging all afternoon was for a friend's going away party over on nearby Washington Street. Morgan said there were only about four people over there just now, and that they were being extremely boring, playing cards and such, and that's why he'd come to visit us.

About this time Matthew Hart came home from a shopping excursion to K-mart (his uncle had given him a gift of $25 worth of "K-cash"). But Matthew had found almost nothing worth purchasing. "They don't even have any footballs left!" he complained. He'd ended up buying $17 worth of condoms, hoping everything works out with Angela for the time being.

M

organ continued on to Ray's house, Shonan and friend Jamie showed up, and I finally got Deya's VCR working, so suddenly we realized we could once again rent videotapes. So we headed out to the Barracks Road video rental place. Angela had made it home from work and she was doing the driving.

On the way we stopped at Farmer Jack for beer, but since Matthew and Angela have all the booze they could possibly want as a consequence of Christmas, only Deya, Jamie and I actually went into the store. I was feeling anti-beer, since it had been bloating me all afternoon, so I decided to get Pink Grapefruit Mad Dog instead. The others have maleable opinions concerning their liquor choice, and they both jumped on the Mad Dog band wagon with me.

As we waited in the car in front of the video store, Jamie (a light-drinking good student) took enormous swigs from his Mad Dog bottle and professed that it might well become his drink of choice. I sipped mine more reservedly; like everything else in life, Mad Dog has its time and its place, and one must be cautious with its legendary potency.

B

ack at Kappa Mutha Fucka, we sat around watching the rented movie, something about the rough final days of a mobster gimp named Franky the Fly (Matthew is a big fan of mobster movies these days; he's damn proud that his new girlfriend is Italian too).

I had a lot of trouble paying attention to the movie, and in any case, I don't think it was very good. I kept being distracted by the animal dynamics in the room, particularly between Wilbur the Cockatiel and Shira the Dog. Wilbur would start arrogantly flapping his little clipped wings and Shira would become interested in the noise. They (along with some of us) were occupying the same couch, and since one quick snap would easily kill little Wilbur, we'd have to make sure a distance was being maintained between them. This wasn't easy; Wilbur was interested in exploring his little world, including Shira, and he'd unpredictably launch himself on his awkward little wings, usually only to "wreck" into the wall.

By now Jamie had killed off his bottle of Mad Dog and started on a drink Angela mixed for him. Deya and I were only half through with ours. I wondered not so much if, but when, Jamie was going to start throwing up. Before too long he was up in the bathroom giving it up. Unfortunately, he made the mistake of unleashing his vile stomach contents into the sink and not the toilet. The bathroom sink had been gradually clogging over the past several weeks, and this was the moment at which the drain entirely ceased to function. A pool of slimy stomach contents was left for all to examine with every bathroom visit. Jamie ended up passing out in Matthew and Angela's bed.

A

fter the movie was done, those of us still conscious decided to head over to the "party" Morgan had been to earlier.

The party was in a basement apartment, and it had swelled somewhat since Morgan's report. The old resident was moving out and being replaced by Mark, an unassuming skater kid with ties to the old Horrid Crash Pad and Charlottesville skinhead scenes. Nearly every person present was an old friend of mine, mostly from the days of the Horrid Crash Pad. Particularly interesting was the presence of Josh Smith, who hadn't been seen in Charlottesville in awhile. Word had it that he'd moved to Norfolk. Others present included gap-toothed Jeremy, Morgan Anarchy, tall & peculiar Fatima, and one of Fatima's housemates named Emma. Later on, the bleached and tanned Alternachick came by, along with 15 year old Eliza (aka Crispina's Sister) of Large Meat Pizza fame.

There was a keg of Miller's Genuine Draft out in back. I settled into a cup of that while spending most of my time with a relatively drunken Fatima. I have no idea what we were talking about. For awhile she and I also carried on with Morgan (who had earlier labeled Fatima a "ditz" - and Deya had agreed with him).

Originally Fatima's plan had been to go home with Emma, but when I agreed (in my typical nefarious way) to take her home, Fatima stayed on, even there wasn't really much of interest happening.

Matthew and Angela sat in the corner yucking it up for a little while; they left before I did.

At one point I came in from the keg with two cups of beer, one for me and one for Fatima. I don't know what his problem was, but Mark was looking at me with an unusual coldness (you must understand, he's normally a calm, unassuming guy). He told me to leave. What? Really? What did I do? It didn't matter, he wanted me to leave. Morgan raised a fuss in my defense, but it did no good, Mark's mind was set. Since the apartment was now Mark's, he had complete say so about who could or could not be there. I was kind of looking for an excuse to leave anyway, so I said sure, no hard feelings, I'll be going now. Then I whispered "Okay, Fatima, you wanna go with me?" and she said "Alright." So we departed together.

I don't know what was bothering Mark about me. Maybe he was feeling some kind of loyalty to his various musings-disparaged skinhead friends. Or maybe he thought I was horning in on his choice of girl for the evening (there weren't that many choices, you see). Anyway, I wasn't too put out by this development.

A

t Fatima's place, we hung out briefly with Raphæl (who, in his recent estrangement from Ana, has moved into a spare room in Fatima's house). When we were alone, she and I drank herbal tea, talked and stuff. After awhile she went off to bed and I walked back home to Kappa Mutha Fucka. Fatima is peculiar, she talks in meandering metaphors and she finds a bit too much meaning in things I don't notice, but to disagree with Morgan, I wouldn't say she's a ditz. And there are things about her that are refreshingly normal.


For a completely unrelated experience, have a look at file photos of Dan Reitman in action, Jan. 1988.

one year ago

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