The Larry Chronicles: Part III

A brief biography of Larry Landon:

1975. In the back of a Birmingham church, Larry Landon bursts forth from the shell of a tortoise and into the arms of an 11 year-old orphan named Jippy Jappy. The church burns to the ground a week later, claiming Jippy Jappy's life. Larry is unscathed. Some say he set the fire. Some say hot dogs taste good. The tortoise also survives, with a slightly charred body and a bloodshot left eye that bulges whenever he breathes.

Larry and the tortoise travel through the south for a time, soaking up wisdom, sunshine, and adventure. Just a newborn and his tortoise creator, living life to the max.





Christmas Day, 1979. The tortoise refuses to wake up. He's had enough of the constant traveling and stays in his shell until he lives no longer. This makes Larry very sad, but he marches on with life, and in time, stops thinking about the tortoise altogether.

1989: Larry develops a creamy rash and fucks your sister. These events spark "The Asshole Years", a ten year period in which Larry behaves like a dick and loses all his friends.




On the next Larry Chronicles... "The Asshole Years"....

I Love My Wife. She Hates Her Feet.

She had the body of a dancer, and feet like trashcan lids. Boy, what stompers! People crossed the street whenever she wore flip flops. Big, big fucking feet. Size 34 quadruple wide. But she was my wife, and like I said before, she had the body of a dancer, which turned my peeny into throbbing salami.




We had serious talks now and again, about having her feet cut off and replaced with regulation sized prostheses. Attaining the fake feet would be easy. My cousin Randy is a master whittler, and had already carved and painted a batch of sample feet.

The difficult part would be finding someone willing to chop her goddamn feet off. Every doctor and surgeon we consulted wanted nothing to do with us. They were understanding of our grief, but weren't willing to risk their careers for a cosmetic, non life-threatening condition. Even Dr. Patel, whom I've known for 12 years, was deeply insulted when I asked him for a referral. He shooed me away.




So we ended our search and I told my wife that I loved her no matter what her feet looked like, and she did a backflip because she was overjoyed to have such a supportive husband. Did I mention that she does awesome backflips? Very stable landing gear.

Anyway, we made love twice a day for the next week or so, which was a strange but welcome change, as she hardly ever feels attractive, even though she's got a gorgeous face and her ass is the bomb. I'm always down to fuck, but she'll only indulge me about once a week.




Then came the incident at Walmart. Two teenagers followed her around the store, hitting her feet with hammers, laughing their asses off. After that, we launched another search for a foot butcher. This time, we sought out alternative practitioners, and other underground healers. I found a guy on the Internet who seemed legit, until I got him on the phone. Total creep. He got breathy when I described how big her feet were. Then he asked if he could keep the feet for research after the amputation. I prodded him about what kind of research he was doing, and he whispered, "I wanna hollow them out and wear 'em. In the woods...I'm an asshole." I hung up, and curled into a ball of furious submission.




The fruitless searches and overwhelming despair began to affect our marriage. She started going to pet stores late at night, bringing home tarantulas, and flushing them down the toilet. It was the only thing that made her happy. At one point, she was spending $200 a day on spiders. We were losing money, and I was losing respect for her. Instead of graceful perseverance in the face of failure, she resorted to impulsive behavior. Not to mention the awkward conversation I had with our plumber, explaining why our pipes were clogged with hundreds of tarantula corpses.

Then one night, she didn't come home. I felt relieved. A couple more days passed without communication. My relief turned to concern, which quickly turned to panic. I didn't eat or sleep for 3 days. My body shut down sometime on the 4th day. I woke up on the kitchen floor with a note stuffed in my shirt-pocket. It was from my wife. She was leaving me, leaving the life she knew to follow a higher calling. She was going to protect apes in Uganda and kill rare spiders on the side. I called bullshit on that, and found her a few hours later in a park 3 towns over, eating hot dogs on a picnic table. I retained a lawyer, and we got divorced a month later.




She never did get her feet fixed. On occasion, I'd get an e-mail from her letting me know what she'd been up to. Sandcastle competitions, shaman stabbings, relaxin' in a rowboat. She was living her life without me, and I had to accept it. I kept telling myself that she wasn't the same woman I had married, that our life had become a fiesta of affliction. But no matter how I rationalized it, it still stung. I still loved her.

I got a phone-call from the sheriff the other day, telling me that my ex-wife had died. Apparently, she ate poo and died on a freeway off-ramp. She had eaten too much poo. Don't eat poo. It'll kill you.

Go Home, Jew-Face!

"...It's something horrible. They ram cop cars in broad daylight. Front-end collisions. To explode the air bags. Doughnuting. Heard of doughnuting? Doing doughnuts? You haven't heard about this? This is what they steal the cars for. Top speed, they slam on the brakes, yank the emergency brake, twist the steering wheel, and the car starts spinning. Wheeling the car in circles at tremendous speeds. Killing pedestrians means nothing to them. Killing motorists means nothing to them. Killing themselves means nothing to them. The skid marks are enough to frighten you. They killed a woman right out in front of our place, same week my car was stolen. Doing a doughnut. I witnessed this. I was leaving for the day. Tremendous speed. The car groaning. Ungodly screeching. It was terrifying. It made my blood run cold. Just driving her car out of 2nd Street, and this woman, young black woman, gets it. Mother of three kids. Two days later it's one of my own employees. A black guy. But they don't care, black, white doesn't matter to them. They'll kill anyone. Fellow named Clark Tyler, my shipping guy - all he's doing is pulling out of our lot to go home. Twelve hours of surgery, four months in a hospital. Permanent disability. Head injuries, internal injuries, broken pelvis, broken shoulder, fractured spine. A high speed chase, crazy kid in a stolen car and the cops are chasing him, and the kid plows right into him, crushes the driver's-side door, and that's it for Clark. Eighty miles an hour down Central Avenue. The car thief is twelve years old. To see over the wheel he has to roll up the floor mats to sit on. Six months in Jamesburg and he's back behind the wheel of another stolen car. No, that was it for me, too. My car's robbed at gunpoint, they cripple Clark, the woman gets killed - that week did it. That was enough."

- Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Hell of a book. Great Jewish writer. I saw A Serious Man again the other day. Love it, and kinda want to watch it a turd time. Lotta Jews as central characters among Jewish communities. American Pastoral in New Jersey, and A Serious Man in Minnesota. East Coast and Midwest Jews. Metropolitan Jews and Prairie Jews... Dr. Zoidberg is a Jew.




Jews aren't good fighters - except for Israelis, those motherfuckers are tough. Although you kinda have to be tough if your first name is Fishel.

Dog Hungry

You ever meet a dog that is so loving and trusting and allows strangers to rub its belly? They're the best, right? Well, the reason they're so openly full of love is that nobody ever fucked with them. Nobody taunted them or beat them or neglected to feed them. They're not tough, but who gives a shit about toughness when you've got rainbows and birthday cake.




On the other hand, have you ever looked into the eyes of a rescue dog that's been abused or neglected? The darting eyes and submissive posture. They've been fucked with, and because dogs aren't psychologically resilient, a lot of them have been permanently ruined. Breaks my fucking heart.

In conclusion, dogs are awesome.

Hang In There, Man!

UPDATE: I'm doing better now, eating rice and pretzels and Gatorade on my couch, watching TV, wearing sweatpants. Although, I recently found out that I'm hypersensitive to Vitamin D, which caused excessive urination, nausea, and nearly a sudden bout of vomitus. I only took 800IU of that shit and it fucked me up! Don't you see why I hate my body now? I've regressed from the fun-loving fatass of my teen years, to the anxious skinny sickling I am today. And now I hate Vitamin D, but Vitamin D doesn't even care.

Moving on to more health related crap, because that's all I've been thinking about lately...




Last week I had a blood test to make sure everything was okay, and all my levels came back fine. Went to the GI doctor today and he says that I have some post-viral gastroparesis that should go away with time and probiotics. Scheduled a gallbladder ultrasound on Sept. 15. Got a ride home from a taxi driver who smelled just like you'd think he'd smell. Getting cold feet about LA, but I'm in too deep at this point. Plus, when I think about spending another winter in Chicago, I get really sad, really fast.

I'm anxious and I need a hug.

I've Lost 10 Pounds on the "What the Fuck is Wrong with my Innards?" Diet

I'm writing this right now because I am scared. My health is really bad right now, and I need to express what's been going on. I'm not gonna go into the gory details, but I will be stating the basic facts of my body's decline. So bear with me on another voyage to the Nest of Grump...




My stomach has been fucked up in different ways since July 4th, when I gave myself gastritis. That night, I foolishly ate some chicken drenched in a cayenne- pepper-rich BBQ sauce, topped it off with some chips and spicy salsa, and promptly went to bed, letting all that crap disintegrate the lining of my already sensitive stomach.

That fucked me up for a week with nausea and heartburn. Stomach acid made its way back into my mouth, giving me the pleasant taste of cat shit mixed with pennies. I ate soy ice cream, drank coconut water (which I discovered is a natural laxative...cocksuck!), and munched on crackers. I lost a little weight, but I managed to get by.

By the end of the month, my stomach was on the mend and I was feeling optimistic about my semi-full recovery. I also had several creative projects (playing drums in a band, re-editing a Gandhi trailer, projecting a video collage for a big ol' gay dance party) that made me feel ambitious for the first time in awhile.

Then, on the 8th of August, I felt the first symptoms of a stomach virus that's still fucking with my system as of today. Extreme nausea, cold sweats, low-grade fever. I rode the worst of it out for 3 days with nothing more than Gatorade, ginger ale, and herbal tea. Started feeling better on the 4th day, so I added some soy milk. Mistake. More nauseous fun time. Anxiety and panic attacks ahoy!




By the 6th day, I felt good enough to go without Dramamine, although I was on edge, interpreting any stomach gurgle as a potential regression to the hellish first 3 days. But I made it through the night with a bucket and old linens beside my bed to contain a potential toxic episode.

7th day. Felt better. Added some soy protein drink to my diet, with some Ensure as well.

8th day. Weighed myself. 173lbs. I've lost 7 pounds. Panic attack. Recovered in about an hour and tried to make myself eat something solid. Almost threw up. Back to sipping ginger ale.

Today is the 11th day. I've eaten some crackers and some applesauce, along with a soy protein shake. I weighed myself before I took a shower and the scale read 170 pounds. That's the lowest I've ever weighed as an adult and it freaked me out.




I need to gain weight, but I can't rush it or else I'll just puke it up. I've had diarrhea 4 times in 6 days now. I have no confidence in my stomach, and I'm losing strength. My anxiety is through the roof, and to top it off, I'm going to LA to find an apartment on the 31st. I need to get better by then, or my plans will be derailed.

I feel like I'm stretched to the limit emotionally and physically. I know I'll get over this sickness eventually, but the future seems out of reach because the present is horrific.




I feel better just by writing all this down. I'm seeing a regular doctor tomorrow morning, and a GI doctor on the 26th. We'll have a lot to talk about. Meanwhile, I'm watching The Simpsons, Futurama, Roseanne, Everybody Hates Chris, and My Name is Earl. Sitcoms and cartoons kill time like nothing else. And that's what I'm reduced to, killing time while I try to keep food down.

I hate my genetics, my Jewish immune system, and I wholeheartedly renew my absolute hatred for my digestive system. Fuck you all. I should dig up Andre the Giant and make you suck his dick!

I'll post an update soon...

Viva Racismo!

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