Boyman in the Promised Lan

For what it’s worth, I thought Marlo’s comment regarding the last Douche Ex Machina post was quite clever, brilliant. Anyone who’s anyone and anyone who’s a fan of this site knows that it’s all tongue in cheek type stuff and that taken at surface level, a lot of this shit doesn’t really make much sense. It does really, as long as you’ve been following along and using your manboy decoder ring while all the while soaking in the essence of what this all actually is, what the great ride actually was, and what being a part of the manchild experience is all about; equal parts gumption, sticktoitiveness, and a healthy disregard for all things milquetoast. These things mixed in the proper amounts and ratios will propel a body and its 1975 Honda motorbike to the ends of the earth.

Understand that and understand the inherent distrust of all things douche because one knows in their heart of hearts that one’s pink shirt would be covered in dirt and grease and shit, especially if you don’t have a front fender and especially if you’re oiling your chain always and often like you should. It is a known fact that all olden-tyme motorbikes are filthy and covered in grease and tar. They fling chain grease all over the rear wheel and the back of one’s pant leg and leak oil on one’s boots. We know this because we rode one to Argentina. C’mon dog, how are you going to change a tire while wearing that tiny children’s blazer?

“ha! i guess you noticed. But the show is about this marketing agent who is riding his bike at the speed limit or just below everywhere. From one hip party to another. It just so happens that one fine day two young kids put a stump out into the middle of wantagh ave as he’s headed to another awesome party at Steve Reinti’s brothers house. He flies over the handlebars and scrapes off his entire face. The doctors can’t perform plastic surgery cause for that he would have to become sober (he’s an alcoholic) and so on. The rest of the season he tries to be cool, but everyone disowns him and he becomes this loner outcast eating rat shit and shit, sucking on rat dicks for more rat shit rations and so on. it’s a good show. give it a chance. Great American riches to rags story.” says Marlo.

Brilliant right? Well, yes of course, but a lot of the quote’s brilliance relies on one obscure reference. To get it, you’d have to go back in time to one’s salad days in Levittown, back to the days when one was cutting his teeth as a young middleschoolian punk. Some Saturday or something, summer vacation or after school Marlo and I grew tired of lighting shit on fire in his backyard and wandered aimlessly around Levittown. Under the mailbox on the corner of Wantagh Ave and Rope Lane was this tree stump, about the size say of a motorcycle helmet but heavy. Solid. It’s probably still there. Somehow, through a chance kick perhaps, it was discerned that said stump was not really rooted to anything, but just a wooden stump sliced even on the top and bottom, weirdly resting under that mailbox. We did what anyone would do and threw it into the street so that a car would hit it. Every car, like they should have, drove around this big heavy lump of wood lying in the middle of the street and then, to our delight, a huge box  trunk ran directly over it, first front wheels then back, gaining noticeable air BAM! BAM! and next squirting it into the path of a speeding motorcycle which missed hitting the stump, and likely a terrible accident, disfigurement or death, and dire consequences for two young boys, by inches. We say inches but likely centimeters WHOOSh!

That’s all well and good but remember that these are things that come to mind when rememberances are dreampt of a misspent youth growing up in America’s first suburb. And remember still that there is a way to succeed and a way to suck rat dicks.

Gentleboys, start your engines.