Note: this biography is about Kenneth Donald “Kenny” Rogers the golden-voiced and immaculately bearded performer, not the dog.
1938. Small town on the outskirts of Houston, Texas. A rough-hewn town. Out in the cracked Texas plains. Tumbleweeds, cactuses, possibly other succulents. Scrub and chaparral. Low slung bungalows with no indoor plumbing. Instead a pineboard outhouse with a quarter moon shaped hole carved in the door like outhouses always have, that the locals refer to by some quaint vernacular such as “the jakes.”
The type of town that has a sign saying “N*gger, don’t let the sun set on you in (TOWN NAME),” which implies weirdly that they would be welcome in the daytime. N*gger, don’t let the sun set on you here– but by day, enjoy our fine restaurants and shops. Maybe it’s a courtesy. Like, they have vampires that only prey on blacks. Continue reading →
If I did all the work I was supposed to do, there would still be more work. If I read all the things I was supposed to read– which would be a fucking superhuman feat, let me tell you. Reading twenty scripts and two full novels every week, if you had nothing else to do, would be pretty sustainable, but factor in that it’s the part of your job meant to be done in the off hours, nights and weekends, above and beyond the eleven hours per day that you are sitting on a desk concentrating on work related tasks– and then factor in that the vast majority of this shit just sucks. It would actually be a pleasure to read twenty good scripts and two smart, interesting novels per week — twenty scripts that were cool thrillers you couldn’t put down, or comedies that made you laugh; two novels that actually inspired you and taught you something new about the human condition. Or even a giant mass of hackish works that were nonetheless suitable for moving up the chain in this crass market-driven Hollywood world. But they always all suck, they are always not viable; it all turns out to have been for nothing. Destroying your scant leisure hours with crap, it all turns out to have been for nothing. Continue reading →
This chick never texted me back. Sara. Beautiful girl. We had a great date. Ended up at her house; we had a Grateful Dead singalong for like 4 hours. I for one had a really good time. And we texted back and forth, and then I sent one kind of stupid text message, and it was over. Never heard back from her. Never will. Maybe I should have called her. But no. You can’t send two unrequited texts and then call her. Maybe I should have called her in the first place. Instead of texting her. Maybe maybe maybe. Every little thing. Maybe it’s something I fucked up in some way. And I would have gotten to have sex with her. But I also would have had to listen to, and pretend to like, her horrible horrible retarded music. Maybe it’s nothing to do with what I did. It wouldn’t have worked out anyway. She works 3 jobs, two of which are at night, and has to spend her days flying around on wires into the mouth of a giant puppet of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, while singing. Every day I have to drive by a billboard of the goddamn Creature from the Black Lagoon and be reminded of her. There is nothing I can do about it now. I can’t text her. Anything I do would just debase myself, make it worse. This is the same shit that happened with Erin. I’m obsessed with it. The only thing that could possibly make me happy in the entire world would be if she were to text me back. Or If I met another, equally hot chick, who didn’t suck as much. Continue reading →
She started hemorrhaging. They had to stop the surgery. They only got three of the five cancerous lymph nodes out. The other two were too close to blood vessels, and she had been given blood thinner, and she had already bled all over the damn place apparently, and lost so much blood that she was in danger of dying.
So she’s out; she is alive; she is talking and mentally composed. She is at her house laying around in bed all day eating soup and popsicles* and watching HBO Go. The three cancerous lymph nodes being gone is good; it isn’t some bullshit where the surgery was all for nothing. Three fifths of the cancerous mass being gone, like some slave voting compromise. The remaining two they will continue to try to shrink with radiation. Which you should read in the tone of Marvin Gaye singing in “What’s Goin’ On.”
I fucking told her going in: don’t hemorrhage. You’re gonna get on that operating table and you’re gonna want to hemorrhage all over the place, but don’t do it. They need to keep your blood in your veins to finish the operation. And of course, what’s the first fucking thing she does. Stubborn. Continue reading →
I have a hernia, I think. And my nuts hurt, too… or rather that muscle right under my nuts, the cremaster. I was about to take a piss at the office; there are three urinals– two normal ones and one short midget one– and I go for the one in the corner, and this agent walks in, short guy… and instead of going for the midget urinal on the other side like etiquette would dictate he has to go for the middle one right next to me. And normally I don’t get stage fright but this fucker looked at me just as I was taking my dick out of my shorts and made this sort of meaningful eye contact– not a homo thing but this weird kind of contemplative, philosophical look, and I had to really ponder this guy’s inchoate preverbal communication for a second while I was also very conscious of the smooth warm flesh of my penis in the other hand… and it weirded me out. Continue reading →
My binge eating has transcended the point where it brings on euphoria. Now I eat until I experience gut-spliting pain. I eat beyond my physical capacity to eat. Like 10 slices of pound cake at a buffet. 35 chocolate chip cookies at a pilot premiere. And if I need to take a break, if I can’t possibly take in any more, I reach for the booze. Liquid food.
My life is full of buffets now. I can’t take drugs anymore and nobody will fuck me. Grinding my body down to a thin wick on the stairmaster has burned out some central fuse that tells people when to stop eating and I’m left with infinite hunger, a bottomless need to cram anything at all– especially sweet foods– into a hole that will never be filled. Eating is better than fucking, better than masturbating, better than having some great intellectual insight, better than writing or guitar playing or anything constructive. Eating and its horrible guilt, and its corresponding self-flagellatory hours shredding my tendons and bones on the stairmaster… this awful cycle of regret and further self-debasement that happens because I have no girlfriend and very few friends and so quite simply nothing else to do with my time.
It’s a sad fact of life: the penis is cruel. Hundreds of hours of your youth will be spent with an unwanted boner that could embarrass the fuck out of you. Then the one time you need it, the boner is off somewhere playing cards with his boner buddies instead of doing his job of tearing up that ass. It’s like if Batman kept walking in on you while you were taking a shit, but when you were getting the crap kicked out of you by thugs he was nowhere to be found.
I’m trying to track down my college ex girlfriend. But She’s Korean, and Koreans are impervious to Google.
So are Mexicans, generally. Kenny Rogers the dog was owned by somebody; there was a name on his chip but it was something to the tune of “Miguel Hernandez.” Try googling “Miguel Hernandez Los Angeles” or even “Miguel Hernandez Echo Park” and see where that gets you. It sucks if someone’s considering returning your lost dog but it’s great if you’re on the sex offender registry I guess. Mexicans have 8 last names and 15 first names so good luck finding one individual. And then Koreans are WAY, WAY worse because you have 5 last names if that.
I’m trying to track her down because she was hot, and we had hot sex, and I want a picture to remind me what she looked like so I can beat off to her tonight. Except– what the fuck happened to Julie Kim? How is somebody not on facebook and tons of people knew her and yet no one has spoken to this person in over a decade?
What if she’s dead? What if she died on 9/11? What if I’m beating off to her later and she died being roasted alive by jet fuel and had to leap flaming through a plate glass window and fall 100 stories to her death?
So, pray to whatever god you pray to. Cast your wishes into the deaf and uncaring wind. I almost did. I almost prayed: “Lord, please don’t let Nikol die,” but then I thought God would hear me and think “oh, this jerkoff” and hit that red button and a game show buzzer would play– BAAAHHHHH– and she’d be dead. Or maybe the losing horn from “The Price is Right.”
Nikol is having surgery today. Eight hours to remove seven lymph nodes. Or something. Maybe five, I don’t know. Some number of lymph nodes where it makes the math extremely difficult to divide by eight hours. The surgery is so long and complicated that there is an intermission.
Lord, please don’t let Nikol die. Please please please, don’t let Nikol die.
There is a chance, a twenty per cent chance, that when removing the lymph nodes, one or more will break open and cancerous cells will leak into her bloodstream. This would result in a much quicker death from the disease. The cancer would be everywhere. Twenty per cent chance. Please don’t let this twenty per cent happen.
When she recovers, if she recovers, her immune system will be permanently compromised. She will have to take prednisone for the rest of her life. I don’t know what predisone is. I didn’t know what lymph nodes were; that they were part of your immune system. I didn’t know what the spleen did until Nikol had to have hers removed. Having a terminally ill friend is like having an old car– you learn how things work by watching them break all the time.
A lot of people are helping her. Someone is with her at the hospital; someone’s on her facebook keeping her friends up to date; Xeni Jardin, who is internet famous, is tweeting about her. Other people cleaned her house so when she returns home with her decimated immune system she won’t immediately fall prey to plague. My job is to take care of her son tonight. Spend the night over there, make him dinner, make him breakfast in the morning. Make sure he gets on the school bus. I guess– I don’t know. I should have paid more attention when Nikol was telling me these things on the phone. Maybe her anesthetized soul is floating over me watching me type these words, thinking I told you exactly what to do, you fucking retard. I gave you specific instructions; it’s not building a god damn particle collider– well, I’m sorry, discorporeal spirit of Nikol. My best friend is having fucking cancer surgery, it’s kind of fucking distracting. Jerk.
I always used to joke with her that I would take Trast to a whorehouse to lose his virginity. I almost posted that on her facebook– Trast and I are finally gonna take that field trip to Fontana. But she hated that joke. And plus if she dies it’s an asshole last thing to have posted on her wall. But then, she would have been even more pissed that I didn’t post a joke about taking her son to a whore on her wall. And if I had said “I love you and miss you and I am terrified that you are going to die and I am praying that you are going to be safe” she would have been infuriated.
Well, I love you. I miss you. I am terrified that you are going to die. I am praying that you are going to be safe.
delicioustacos 