july 27 2000
i have a stovepipe hat brimming with excuses why i haven't been around for six days. they range from elective surgery to being tormented by the ghost of ted knight (though, to paraphrase, you can't torment the willing--rowr!) to a hostage crisis to a no-holds-barred orgiastic freebase binge. they range from to dabbling in the occult to renewing my scuba certification to a flesh romp with the cast of one day at a time. especially schneider. ohhhhh, pat harrington--your pencil-thin mustache, combined with your quasi-cleveland accent that belied your portrayal of an indianapolis-raised handyman, makes you a man among men. or at least a man among moderately successful stand-up comedians of the 1960s and 70s who were so overshadowed by people like woody allen (in the '60s) and richard pryor (in the '70s) that they became involved with similarly moderately successful sitcoms. that would include you and, let's see, well, andy kaufman. oh, and tim reid.
but, alas, none of those excuses held any water. except maybe pat harrington, because i've seen that cat drink a big gulp of mountain dew and then sit in a jostly train for eight hours with nary a wince. phenomenal. none of the others hold any water, though, because the fact of the matter (ed. note--this is a phrase i've always hated, which i think is why i utilize it now. it strikes me as one of those needlessly redundant constructions, not unlike "same difference." or, rather, not unlike that not because they're both redundant, but because they're both annoying. follow that? good.) is that i've been busy and lazy at the same time. a miraculous paradox, that. but i had a freelance piece to write that's been distracting, and my friend gerhard the austrian skate thug (that's his birth name) came into town on tuesday and is staying with me for a while, and i'm a lazy bastard by nature. put it all together, and there's an unfortunate synergy that results. namely, me watching bad television. well, not bad per se, but television that includes phrases like "i fell on my penis." really.
i do have an anecdote i'd like to share, and it involves two people. one of them is me, and one of them is not. see, there's a guy who works in my office--the only guy my age who works here, actually--who's of a very particular ilk. that ilk is the ilk that includes people who want to bump fists with you a lot, or point at you with both index fingers when they say your name, and call you "bro." any one of those things is grounds for disdain, unless we know each other well; you can imagine how the three added together constitute an unholy triad of ingratiating evil. well, for months now this cat has been calling me "pk" when he points both his index fingers at me. "hey pk!" *point!* the pointing warrants an exclamation point only because it's so fucking jabby. stop jabbing, jabby. normally, i don't have a problem with spontaneous nicknames; my parents used to call me "big ears," and pj calls me "cum dumpster," whatever that means. the only problem with "pk" is that those aren't my initials. well, one of them is, and one of them isn't. it's close, but close only counts for hoarse jews and ham grenades. it doesn't count for nicknames based on initials.
so jabby the hutt was calling me "pk," and i had no idea why. until last week, when he came by my desk to bump fists with me and call me "bro." he then said "hey, bro, i met someone last night who knows you!" "yeah?" i said, "who?" "this kid!" he said. "he was this cool little guy." that, as most people might realize, didn't narrow it down too much, but it didn't seem to phase pointy jabberson, and he kept talking. "yeah, i said i worked here, and he said 'oh! do you know peter keegan?' and i said 'yeah! he's a cool bro!'" those may not have been his exact words, but it's a reasonable reconstruction, and besides, the crucial fact is that he thought my name was peter keegan. every time he calls me, he finds me in the office directory under my last name. which doesn't start with a k. every time he e-mails me, my last name is on the screen, and it doesn't start with a k. every time i fantasize about beating that ass, i tell him my last name, and it doesn't start with a k. so the next time i left a voice-mail with him, i said my entire name, and enunciated. not menacingly, not overtly, but enough that there was no mistaking the fact that my last name isn't keegan. oh, besides--and i forgot to mention this--he's fully aware of the fact that i'm jewish. and not. irish. not that i have anything but love for my irish brethren. they propagate drunken homophobia better than anyone!
yeah, so i left the voice-mail, then the next time he dropped by my desk, he calle dme pr. this is a start, i thought. and today, i dropped by the free table to collect my weekly free table booty. lo and behold, there were cookies. lo and behold! so i'm wrapping some cookies in a napkin to take back to my desk, and what do i hear but "pee-kaaaaay!" i turn around and that motherfucker is grinning like a crooked record executive and holding out his fist for a bumping. bump deez, bumpety. on the good side of all this, everyone calls me keegan now. so may you.
in other news, you can read one fair maiden's account of me here. also, my bwoy pj got his media criticism on in feed. check it out now.
to recap: a no-holds-barred orgiastic freebase binge. hoarse jews and ham grenades. thank you.
p.
and yo. my full-on venture kneejerk.net is up and running, though not nearly full. go and getcha read on. for me.
props to darkcounter.com
and sitemeter