This kid, whether he ends up President or convict, is definitely going to grow up to be somebody special.

A 13 year old from Texas who stole his Dad’s credit card and ordered two hookers from an escort agency, has today been convicted of fraud and given a three year community order.

…Police said they were alerted to the motel by a concerned delivery clerk, whom after delivering supplies of Dr Pepper, Fritos and Oreos had been asked by the kids where they could score some chicks and were willing to pay. They explained they had just made a big score at a “World of Warcraft” tournament and wanted to get some relaxation. On noting the boys age the delivery clerk informed the authorities.

…When police arrived at the motel they found $3,000 in cash, numerous electronic gadgets, an Xbox video console with numerous games, and the two local escort girls.

…Asked why he ordered two escorts, Ralph said he thought it was the thing to do when you win a “World of Warcraft” tournament. They told the suspicious working girls they were people of restricted growth working with a traveling circus, and as State law does not allow those with disabilities to be discriminated against they had no right to refuse them.

…The $1,000 a night girls sensing something up played “Halo” on the Xbox with the kids, instead of selling their sexual services.

…Ralph’s ambition is to one day become a politician.

[Link to full article]

Let me tell you… this Ralph kid has some serious fucking balls. If only I’d known somebody that fucking cool when I was that age.

What a way to start off your kid’s school day:

A daycare in a North York elementary school was under lockdown this morning after a bizarre incident in which a man was found dangling from a tree and impaled by a metal stake.

A parent dropping off a child at Roywood Public School - in the York Mills Rd. and Victoria Park Ave. area - called 911 after spotting the man hanging from a small tree at the back of the school around 7:30 a.m., Toronto Police say.

When emergency crews arrived on the scene, they found the man, believed to be in his 40s, impaled through his “rectal area” by one of the metal posts that were supporting the young tree at its base. [Read more]

What a pain in the ass.

I was a little surprised yesterday to fire up my trusty Google Reader and see that some dude who lived 2 blocks over from me was stabbed in the side of the head with a corkscrew and killed. When I say surprised, I don’t mean the fact that someone was murdered in my neighborhood. People get killed or at least shot and stabbed on a fairly consistent basis in my neighborhood. Mostly, it’s gang-on-gang bullshit and/or drugs. Rather, I was surprised at the fact the crime made the news. Since violent crime in my area is 90% black-on-black violence and usually not involving children, the news never covers it. You can be sure this sudden attention was entirely due to the novelty factor of the corkscrew.

I’ve no shame in admitting that I burst out laughing at the mental picture of it all. Working for a wine magazine all I could think of was…

“THIS…*screw*…WINE…*screw*…IS…*screw*…FUCKING…PISS!!!!”

I’ve spent a chunk of the day reading about Ed Kemper, an incarcerated serial murderer from California. Based on what I’ve read, I’ve concluded that Ed’s one seriously fucked up dude. Some highlights, quotes and factoids from a few sources:

“Kemper’s testimony in court revealed his desire to punish his mother did not end with the fatal hammer blow. He cut off his mother’s head, “put it on a shelf and screamed at it for an hour … threw darts at it,” and ultimately, “smashed her face in,” he recalled for the horrified court.” [link]

“As I’m sitting there with a severed head in my hand, talking to it, or looking at it, and I’m about to go crazy, literally I’m about to go completely… flywheel loose and just fall apart. I say, ‘Wow, this is insane!’ and then I told myself, ‘No it isn’t. You’re saying that…and that makes it not insane.’ I said, ‘I’m sane and I’m looking at severed…’ [unintelligible]…Vikings heroes talking to severed heads and taking them to parties. Old enemies in leather bags…part of our heritage.” [painfully transcribed from audio testimony]

“When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things: One part of me wants to take her home, be real nice and treat her right; the other part wonders what her head would look like on a stick.” [link]
(more…)

In 1992, when I was seventeen years old, I came across the prison address of John Wayne Gacy, serial killer of thirty-three young men. Convicted and sentenced to die (he was executed in 1994 by lethal injection), I decided to send a letter to Gacy on death row, just to see if he would respond. I told two of my friends about the plan and together we drafted a letter and sent it off. I was too chickenshit to list my own address for reply, so we listed the address of my friend James and waited to see if he would write back to us.

(more…)

This past Thursday, fate stuck her incisors in my ass and I found myself ordered to appear at the Brooklyn Criminal Courthouse for a round of jury duty. I figured that my exile to that gulag of civic duty known as the Juror’s Assembly Room was in some way payback, be it karmic or realistic, for my extreme tardiness over returning that damn juror questionnaire for about four years. This time, I intended to be a good little American and show up on time and get this shit over with. I felt pretty confident that, once meeting during voir dire, no sane lawyer would ever want me to actually sit on a jury. I’ve been the victim of several crimes, one violent. I’m a leech on society and an all-around utterly despicable person. Good luck finding any sincerely redeemable qualities. Go me!

Choosing to heed what I later found to be decidedly unsound advice, I went out drinking the night before and got myself as wobbled and hobbled as any a self-respecting scurvied pirate with a bad case of the dreaded clap could wish for. In the morning, I dragged my still-drunken ass out to the courthouse and collapsed on a bench, lost in a undulating sea of near-vomitous joy. Covered in a light sheen of alcohol sweat, I passed the first couple hours twitching, itching and rocking back and forth like a Hare Krishna gone off the deep end, all to desperately divert my mind from the increasingly urgent fact that my stomach was knee-deep into a virtual Richard Simmons workout of projectile-like proportions. Hell, served clammy and cold on cheap, vinyl seating.

The first order of the day for myself and the other prospective inmates was a short film about the history of the judicial system. Hosted by Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer of 60 Minutes fame, this cinematic gem featured such glorious moments as a reenactment by a bunch of renaissance fair flunkies of a medieval trial where the defendant is tied and dumped in the river, his innocence or guilt dependent on whether he should float or not. The aim of the film aside from putting food on the table for the lowest tier of out of work actor was to show us a timeline of the judicial history and hopefully make us feel better about our stay in the courthouse, because by golly gee, look how far we’ve come. We wouldn’t want to go back to dunking defendants and crucifixion would we? Well, actually I would be in a much better mood about having to spend an entire day sitting in a room with a whole shitload of strangers if we had some good old fashioned executions to sweeten the moment. How can you be bored when you have a guy with nails through his wrists and feet, hanging from a tree to keep you company?

It’s a fair assumption to say that if you take a hundred or so people and put them in a room, at least one is going to be shit-nuts insane. Normally, I’m resigned to wear that moniker myself. Show me a jar of peanuts and I’ll show you “fucking nuts”. However, that day I was surprised to find that I had some serious competition in the form of an elderly African American lady who for most of the morning, had been sitting quiet and unassuming in her seat near the front of the room.

After the film ended and the person in charge of keeping us in line returned to the room, the old lady sat up and asked for a question and answer session. The court officer rather reluctantly agreed and the woman proceeded to pull out a couple pages of scrawled notes and began shouting, “Why did you lie to us? The court system began in Africa! You stole it! Admit it! You’re a liar! I refuse to recognize this court because it’s based on a lie! Y’all a bunch of thieves and liars! Thieves!”

The court officer, with a look of glazed pain tried to nip it in the bud by informing the lady that the Jurors Assembly Room’s purpose was not to serve as her personal soapbox and that she was welcome to come into his office where he would be happy to hear her complaints and answer any questions she might have. “Hell no! You’re a liar! You’re big, fat and a liar and there ain’t no damn way I’m moving my ass for you! Hell no! You’re a liar and a thief. Admit it!” The court officer quickly retreated from the room and spent the rest of the day addressing us over the PA system, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

At one point in the early afternoon, the doors opened and a group of tourists were led into the room by a guide. Apparently, the Brooklyn courthouse attracts sightseers. A rather large posse of Asians and what looked to be Sikhs came in, cameras flashing. Their guide introduced us as the lovely and patient Brooklyn jurors, happily waiting to do our civic service. Naturally, this was meant as a light joke, but the crazy lady immediately stood up and started screaming, “That man’s a liar! We’re prisoners here. Ask him where the court system originated! He’ll lie to you! He’s a liar! The court system came from Africa!” A swift exodus of the befuddled and slightly terrified tourists was made.

In between trying not to puke everywhere, plugging my ears against this lady’s rants and another man’s wall-shaking snores, I mentally went over my game plan. Surely no court would want me on the jury and only a few questions would bear that out, but just in case, should I sweeten the pot with some choice behavior faults be they true or imaginary? I envisioned myself in voir dire, and the possible questions that could be asked based on my extensive knowledge of the New York legal system à la Law & Order:

Q: “What do you do for a living?”

A: “I make magazines, but my real love is rubbing my genitals against door handles. Hey, gotta love New york!”

Q: “Have you ever been a victim of a crime?”

A: “Yes! The court system was founded in Africa! Y’all a bunch of fathead liars!”

Q: “Based on your experience and knowledge of the crimes the Defendant is charged with, do you feel that you will be able to weigh the facts impartially?”

A: “Well it depends on whether he floats or sinks after we dunk him in the water. Just kidding. Actually, yeah I think I can. I’m wearing clean underwear. Do we get free tinfoil? Anything longer than an hour without being able to rub my junk against a door handle and I have to wrap that shit up, if you know what I mean and I think you do, you dirty, dirty devil.”

For better or worse, all my preparation was pointless. They never called my name. I spent the entire day in that assembly room. At around four-thirty, I was released with a sheet of paper to prove my service and promised that I would not have to repeat it for another six years. I left the building restless, relieved and with the understanding that I’d done my civic duty. I was a fine little American and I didn’t have end up rubbing my nuts on a door handle to prove it.

This morning, I left my apartment to catch the 2/3 Eastern parkway train here in Brooklyn as I normally do every morning. Normally the station is really busy with people coming and going and there’s usually a kid that’s selling papers parked out in front of the steps but I was running late this morning and instead of the usual 8:30 mad dash, I was starting my commute at around 10 AM and there was no one really around.

As I started down the stairs into the station, five guys started coming up towards me, scoping behind them and ahead off them to see if the coast was clear. They were acting really sketchy and one of them looked at me me and said to the others, “Him! Get him! Do it! Fucking punk-ass, do it now!” I had no doubt that I was about to get jumped for my bag or my wallet.

They blocked off the stairs to try and box me in, so I turned around and high-tailed it out onto the street. One of them reached out to try and grab me, but I was too quick. All five of them ran out onto the street after me and for a few seconds I had the incredulous thought that I was about to get beat down and robbed on a busy street in broad daylight, but they took off running down the block, stopping at one point when the mouthy one slammed another guy up against a car, yelling at him and calling him a punk-ass, I assume because he let me get away.

I really don’t like the idea of being mugged again. I don’t know what it is about me or this fucked up neighborhood ghetto shithole, but being robbed twice and mugged once is really and quite truly fucking enough. Just that morning, I’d received the shipment of my brand new laptop and for some reason decided to leave it at home, against my natural inclination to dive headfirst into a new toy, which is a really good thing because if I had gotten robbed, I’d be shit out of luck.

Lately, as far as I’m concerned, everything’s been all about the mad subway masturbater. A man, dedicated to what I envision as a insane, frantic and unstoppable pud-thwacking frenzy that was caught on a cell phone camera, spanking his monkey like there was no tomorrow. Not a man to be upstaged, nor crossed. It’s all over the news. It’s the topic of conversation. It’s the image that’s burned into the back of my retinas when I awake, sweaty and screaming for mother in the wee hours of dawn.

Few of us, here on this earth can reach such levels of social inappropriateness as a guy who likes whipping his junk out in public. It’s raw, it’s primal, it’s really bizarre. Most of all, after consuming a lot of alcohol, it’s really fucking hilarious to me.

Now I know, this guy is a serious pervert. He’s victimized a lot of people and he’s really bad and should be castrated with extreme dull-bladed prejudice, but fuck, I have brain damage, I come from a broken home and at this current mental state, the whole thing is looking kind of humorous to me.

I mean seriously, a mad, demonic subway masturbater. Just when you think it’s safe to take that 6 train… THWACK, THWAPPA-THWAPPA-THWAPPA-the demon wanker of the underground has struck! You look up from your newspaper to a grinning fiesta of greasy, meat-spanking weirdness and you ask yourself, “Who am I, really?” As a passenger here on Spaceship Earth, do I really know where I’m going in this life?” Some deep moments can be had when facing the leering mask of the Monkey-Spank God.

By whipping his johnson out and painting the ceiling, he has single-handedly (literally) shown the world that as civilized as it may look, underneath the surface, lurking around the corner is a crazy dude that likes beating it in public. You probably work with him and don’t delude yourself by pretending he washes his hands on a regular basis.

There’s something almost primal about a dude who sees something he likes and just starts punching that clown till there’s no tomorrow with total disregard for social norm and restraint. It’s totally fucking caveman and in that sense, is awesome. Unfortunately, there’s victims. But let’s pretend for a minute that there aren’t. Remove the victim and in my mind, the Mad Subway Masturbator is a hero of the times. A man that refuses to bow to society’s rules, who indulges in his animal roots and yanks it left and right, preferrably on public transportation. His rigid, grinning visage of onastic pumping joy serves as a beacon to shock us and remind us that we are human and not that far away from the caveman, whipping one off by the campfire.

If he hadn’t terrorized those girls, I would’ve felt a lot more support for him. I envision him pulling an OJ Simpson, riding the train into the sunset, cops on his tail, whacking that shit till it bleeds because he’s not jerking it for himself, he’s jerking it for the world. He’s whacking it for God, man. I’d be right there on the platform as the train would whip by at breakneck speed, with my cardboard sign that said, “Go Mad Subway Masturbater, Go!”

But reality is something I’m far removed from. This guy’s an asshole. He’s a pervert that needs to be someone’s ass-toy at Riker’s for a few months.

After much toiling, bleeding and quiet, nervous talks with the cracks in the ceiling, I have finally vacated that black hole from Hell that I’ve had the unfortunate karma to call home for the past year and a half.

On Saturday, tired, hung-over and bleary after passing out fully clothed and with shoes on after getting a shade more than slightly pasted at a bar, I dragged my aged ass out of bed and started shuffling boxes down the street. It was absolutely fucking horrible, but worth it just to be rid of the place.

By Sunday, I was able to wrap things up and lock the doors for the very last time by around noon. Turning that key for the final time, I should have at least hired a mariachi band and some confetti throwers to mark the occasion but whatever. It’s over and done with. Some other Caucasian twenty-something who makes too much money and is willing to live in a pit will move in and the cycle will continue. Such is the power of New York real estate gentrification.

I for one am slowly and surely becoming fully fucking sick of the New York renting game. For years now, I’ve opted to live in the ghetto in exchange for square-footage and proximity to things that are “cool”. I spent one year in Queens, in a quiet little residential neighborhood where nothing ever happened, far away from anything that mattered and that experience taught me one thing–that I moved to NYC to be near and to do things that I consider to be “cool”. I want to walk out of my door and within minutes be frolicking in various states of lucidity amongst the things that I find “neato”, “keen” and “boss”. Possibly along with things that are “peachy” as well.

This desire has seen me live in some fucked up situations, this last being particularly trying upon my withered and trodden-upon soul. Two robberies and one mugging with a healthy slice of beat-down is just not worth it to me. Fuck cheaping it out, the next time I move, I’m hiring some guys to do the work for me and I’m going to relocate someplace nice so when I’m mugged, stabbed and left to die, slowly bleeding out onto the pavement as my neighbors dispassionately watch, I can go to the great beyond with some lovely Brooklyn scenery about my body and the knowledge that I leave behind a decent apartment.

Brooklyn at night, in the summer (as long as you’re not getting your ass mugged or shot at) is the shit. Last night, I walked up to the Brooklyn Museum, about a block from me to check out a huge dance party in the back parking lot. The was a good 400-500 people there, but the music really wasn’t my thing, so I just kept walking down Eastern Parkway, getting dizzy off of the lilac flowers that seem to be everywhere and tried to find a decent cup of coffee. I ended up having to walk well into Park Slope, but it was worth it to be outside. Walking around the neighborhood at night is something I haven’t done in a long time, especially since I got mugged. But last night it seemed everyone was out on the streets, so I felt safe enough. It made me miss the nights in Vermont, where restless at three in the morning, I’d roll a big joint and roam the streets on my bike, aimless and insane.

Earlier in the day, while hitting up the farmer’s market for some eggs, I took a spur of the moment excursion into Prospect Park. I rarely venture in there, partly because it can at times be pretty lawless (or at least there’s no one around if it ever should get that way) and also because, being a card carrying member of the BBG, I tend to head there more often, seeing as I paid for it. That’s a mistake. Prospect Park is fucking amazing. I think I found the most beautiful cul de sac in Brooklyn there. It’s crazy that, here in the city, I get to have this jungle only a couple blocks from where I live.

It gets me thinking. What price beauty and culture, if you have to live in places where it seems like every day, something bad happens? Someone gets shot, hit by a car, mugged, robbed, you name it. I can walk out of this building I live in, go one block south and be knee deep in flora, art, culture and every goddamn reason why civilization and city life is the epitome of human existence. Yet, to get there, that one block I pass through shows me the everything thats wrong with it. If I go any distance east, it only gets worse. On my block there have been robberies, muggings, shootings, hit and runs and it gets no better. No one learns. It’s a perpetual ass-fuck of people living in shit and not giving a fuck about their fellow man. Just a few nights a go, I watched a car crash from my living room window. Nothing minor, mind you. It was a pretty good crack-up, leaving one car spun out in the middle of an intersection. This car, after coming to a stop, sat motionless. The driver and passengers either hurt or in shock. People walked right by, deliberately avoiding looking. Crowds gathered on the corner and stared, talking amongst themselves. Finally, about eight minutes after the accident, someone walked up to the car to see if the passengers were all right and dialed 911 from his cell phone. When I got mugged there was at least a couple people farther down the street that just watched like my suffering was that evening’s special entertainment. This is Brooklyn and this is Prospect Heights.

But this other side… the museum, the park, the gardens. Tom’s Restaurant and all the other places that make this neighborhood, unique, original and a fascinating mix of the massive and the mundane. I see these things as much as I see the crap that lives here. I love these things as much as I hate the cancers that rot this neighborhood.