Edric had some choice words to say about my previous blog entry. Little did he know that he was making the wrong choice when he decided to raise up on KZ without provocation.

Edric: that was disappointing. too much hype, not enough substance. i was expecting something funnier.

Kevin: i was expecting you to be funnier!

Edric: nice comeback, writer =)=)

Kevin: YOU are a nice comeback, writer!
…
Kevin: Nothing to say, huh? I’ll take your stunned silence as a concession of defeat.

Edric: oh…i’m sorry, did you say something? i was waiting for something worth responding to.
…
Edric: hah! now i stunned you into silence.

Kevin: oh, you’re still on that? that was so 3 minutes ago. you’re so 2000-and-late.

Edric: hatez

Edric: by the way, what’s up with you Zings and cats? get a real animal, like a dog.

Kevin: Awesome things meow. Cats meow; therefore, cats are awesome. Simple, really.

Edric: I never thought of it that way. You are a wise man, KZ. I especially enjoyed your sarcastic syllogism, which was humorously, intentionally, and satirically unsound. Might you have been teaching me a lesson by “coming down to my level”? Also, might I add that I appreciate the way you faithfully reproduce online conversations for the viewing pleasure of your blog readers? You report the truth with such competence and integrity. In short, you are my idol, KZ.

Kevin: hellz yeah, i don’t make shit up.

Edric: remember the time i dropped my ice cream cone, and i cried for 12 hours?

Kevin: maybe i should take a snippet of this conversation and post it in a blog entry. i’ll make it look like i won, of course, because on the whole, i did.

Edric: such lies. =)=)

Kevin: get your own blog then, and fight back!

Edric: those lies of yours are unbecoming of a wannabe journalist. =)=)

Kevin: i pay no heed to the voiceless

The message written on the bill says the following:

Please return this bill to me
Gary
. . . . . . . . .
Phoenix, AZ 85053
I am very poor.

You may be a poor man, Gary, but I tip my hat to you for having the guts to write your address on a stray dollar bill. You are a far richer man than you may ever know.

By the way, just so we’re clear on this, I’m not sending this one back to you.

For nearly one whole week, the wall behind my apartment building stared out defiantly at all those punk kids with its clean, untarnished surface. It was gray, and dark, and severe, but hell, at least it was clean. That was a good week.

By the following week, some hardcore, schoolyard gangster decided that enough was enough, and so he cut second period and most of recess in order to spray up the neighborhood walls. I came home from work that afternoon to find that the recently reformed “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall was now the “S … s … SC” wall.

Isn’t that one of the saddest things you’ve ever seen? Either the person responsible for this tagging has no confidence in his penmanship, or else he just has a huge stuttering problem, and he’s using this public medium as a forum for catharsis.

Fail, motherfucker. You fail hard. You’re not fooling anybody with those fancy manuscript lines running down the completed “SC”. I still see your rough drafts on the left, you stupid amateur shit.

I might have forgiven the kid’s attempt to advertise his dubious gang affiliation with criminals whom he’s probably never met, but only if his graffiti had been the slightest bit impressive. In light of the genius that was once the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall, I’m offended that I have to look at this half-assed garbage every day.

Fail, motherfucker.

F … f … FAIL.

Diana: That’s because all of your references are stupid and obscure.

Kevin: They’re not obscure, they’re subtle. You know, like the “b” in “subtle”? You don’t really notice it in there, and you never, ever see it coming. It’s just a silent letter. It’s kind of funny when you stop to think about the word, actually. The letter “b” subtly epitomizes the very essence of the word, “subtle”. That’s a highly unusual thing, isn’t it? I mean, isn’t it fascinating how the letter “b” in a word like “subtle” can so perfectly illustrate the definition of the word that contains it?

Diana: . . . (sigh)

Kevin: You like that, Diana?

Diana: Nope.

Kevin: That’s always your answer. Do you ever like anything?

Diana: Not anything that ever comes out of your mouth.

Kevin: Well, that’s not very subtle. That’s like the “s” in “subtle”. Or the “t” in “subtle”. Or to a lesser extent, the “l” in “subtle”. Because you see, you hear the “l”, but it’s not as pronounced as . . .

Diana: Kevin, go away.

I have a story for you, but there are two things you should know first.

(1) I hate redundant language. I hate it when people say “tuna fish”, or “PIN number”, for example. What used to bother me most of all, though, was when people said “ATM machine”. I mean come on, really? “Automatic Teller Machine Machine”? Ick.

But being the optimist that I am, I’ve come to understand that when people say “ATM machine”, I should give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they wouldn’t purposely utter something so idiotically redundant as “Automatic Teller Machine Machine”. If you’ve been to the websites I’ve visited, then you’d know that ATM can also stand for “Ass-To-Mouth.” Let’s just say in my world, when somebody tells me they’re going to the “ATM machine”, I’m always caught breathless by the shameless depravity of it all. Secretly, I’m also a little bitter that my bank doesn’t offer the same generous service at their own numerous locations.

By the way, Diana finds it really irritating when I refer to “Ass-To-Mouth Machines” in everyday conversation.

(2) Recently one night, Diana asked me to lend her some cash. I didn’t have enough in my wallet, and so I ended up driving to the local bank to make a withdrawal from the ATM.

So that’s where my story begins. I came home, handed Diana the cash, and told her that she’d better appreciate what I’d done for her, because I had just been mugged. She seemed oddly unmoved. Unperturbed by Diana’s cold silence, I pressed on with the full account:

It was dark when I got to the ATM, and I was all alone. So I thought, anyway. I had just inserted my card and punched in my PIN when this big dude with a knife came out of nowhere and pinned me to the wall near the ATM.

“Well, well,” he said, “Here we are at the Ass-To-Mouth machine. Hey boy, do you like ATM?”

I said to him, “Just to be clear, when you say ‘ATM’, you mean ‘ass-to-mouth’, right?”

“Of course, boy, what else could I have meant?”

“Oh.” I said. “Well then, no.”

Then the dude seemed really disappointed and lowered his knife a bit and said, “Oh, that’s too bad. Because I had a real hankering for somebody to fuck me in the ass and to put it in my mouth afterward.”

I realized then that I had misunderstood his intentions. He wanted me to play pitcher, not receiver. I kind of felt bad for the guy, so I ended up fucking him in the ass and going ATM near the finish. You’d think the dude would have walked away happy after that. But the thing is, after we were done, he stole my money anyway, and I had to withdraw more cash before coming home.

It was the strangest mugging ever.

Not one single laugh from Diana. She just continued to stare at me until I left the room. Why do I waste all of my good material on her?

Behind my apartment building, just beyond the narrow parking lot, stands a modest wall bearing graffiti that is both hilarious and tragic all in a single viewing. My girlfriend and I affectionately refer to this as the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall.

There’s a lot more going on here than you may realize at first glance. If you look closely enough at this wall, the graffiti reveals a story, told chronologically from left to right. I’ll break it down into seven simple steps.

(1) Somebody comes across an untagged wall and decides to claim this shitty, narrow parking lot behind a row of aging apartment buildings as gang territory. “VNG XIV”, he writes in red. Naturally, the entire neighborhood is impressed. All the ladies want to suck this guy’s cock.

(2) Later, a second tagger comes along and scribbles out the first tagger’s gang markings. Because this individual uses black paint, he will be referred to as the “Black Paint Tagger”.

(3) The Black Paint Tagger scrawls “Fack You” on the wall.

(4) The Black Paint Tagger decides that his pronoun usage is too ambiguous, and thus attempts to clarify his statement by drawing an arrow that points toward the scribbled out gang markings. “I’m not saying ‘fack you’ to the neighborhood as a whole,” the Black Paint Tagger seems to be saying. “My statement is directed only at the person who tagged on this wall before I did.” Communication is key.

(5) The Black Paint Tagger, feeling that “<== Fack You" isn't enough to fully convey his message, steps slightly to the right and jots down the phrase, "THUG LIFE". Notably, deceased rapper Tupac Shakur had "Thug Life" tattooed on his stomach, and he just barely pulled this off because he was one of the greatest rappers of all time. The Black Paint Tagger, on the other hand, somehow transcends the cringe-worthy lameness of this hackneyed phrase and lades it with brilliant rhetorical landmines that explode in a tangled cacophony of life-altering mindgasms.

(6) The Black Paint Tagger garnishes his creation with with some odd looking hieroglyphics, which he ultimately deems unreadable before he scribbles over them. Through this process, he has, unavoidably, partially dissed himself.

(7) A friend of the Black Paint Tagger approaches from behind and aptly points out that the F-word has been misspelled. Dismissively, the Black Paint Tagger makes a halfhearted effort to convert the “a” in “Fack” into a “u”.

And thus was born the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall. The world has never been the same since. Frankly, I don’t want to live in a world where this wall doesn’t exist.

Ugh. Grammatically speaking, the ellipsis (those triple dots, “…”) can be used to either insert a pause into a statement, to trail off thoughtfully from an unfinished point, or to indicate that a word or a phrase has been intentionally omitted from the original text. In the context of this slogan, there really isn’t a legitimate grammatical reason to use the ellipsis as a pause. “Our quality is your reputation” is all that needs to be said, so why bother breaking up the rhythm of the sentence? Dramatic tension? Anybody who would be even remotely excited and titillated by this cheesy and grammatically deficient sentence structure would have to be living a sad and bankrupt life marked with loneliness, light jazz, and a surplus of knit booty socks for the legs of their end tables.

Having said that, I have no choice but to conclude that something has been omitted from the original slogan. My question then becomes, “What exactly does this company have to hide?” They’re clearly hiding something, judging by that guilty looking ellipsis staring at you from the midst of all that italicized intrigue. The following is a list I created of some of the possibilities for the original slogan.

• Our Quality, Motherfuckers, is Your Reputation
• Our Quality, Mein Führer, is Your Reputation
• Our Quality, Lord Xenu, is Your Reputation
• Our Quality, Emperor Kahless, is Your Reputation
• Our Quality, You Dirty Minorities, is Your Reputation
• Our Quality Fish Flavored Soylent Green is Your Reputation
• Our Quality Crack-Laced Crab Cakes is Your Reputation
• Our Quality Four Dollar Hooker Service is Your Reputation
• Our Quality “Happy Ending” Massage Program Involving Fish is Your Reputation
• Our Quality Control Program, “Leave No Dead Fish Unfucked”, is Your Reputation

I’ll be polite and stop it there. But you have to admit, it’s kind of fun dreaming up all of the possibilities for the original slogan. Submit one of yours in the comment box today! You’ll be glad you did. Hell, you might even be included as a defendant in the inevitable defamation lawsuit coming my way. That’ll be an interesting day.

Note: The moral of the story is to never use the ellipsis irresponsibly unless you’re prepared to live with the consequences.

Don’t believe me? I invite you to see for yourself below. This is an old video, but it’s still funny, and forever relevant. Watch your ass, Santa. You are officially on my list.

While common wisdom would suggest that the best way to deliver a toast is to speak extemporaneously and directly from the heart, I took the exact opposite approach and drafted a script that I intended to memorize and deliver. I was so honored that Josh had entrusted me to say something meaningful and to help set the right tone for the night. I prepared as much as I could in order to reciprocate that honor to Josh.

Being one of the Best Men at Josh’s wedding was an experience that I will always remember with great fondness. I’m so glad I was a Best Man at least once in my life, but once is frankly enough. I was a nervous wreck two weeks prior to the wedding reception. I’m a writer, not a an orator.

Special props go out to the other Best Man, Carlos Oliveira, for his support and encouragement while I was on the brink of hyperventilation during the minutes leading up to my speech. I’d also like to mention Conrado Oliveira, who started clapping and chanting “KZ” to help me through that awkward pause when I forgot my next line. This act came from a place of love, and I won’t soon forget it. Special thanks go out to Tommy for heckling me from the guest tables as I was setting up one of my jokes. It’s all love, Tommy, I know. Wiseguy. Finally, thank you to my wonderful girlfriend, Diana, whom I love deeply, and whose loving support gave me the courage to believe that I could do the speech my way, and succeed in doing so.

If you’ll please forgive me this indulgence, I have posted below the original script of my Best Man’s speech.

The Other Best Man – by KZ

Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, I am the other Best Man. We’re kind of doing the People Magazine thing where they name the sexiest man alive every year, but oddly enough, every year it’s always a different dude. It kind of cheapens the honor, don’t you think? Well, whatever, there’s two best men now, and one indecisive groom. The way Josh explained it to us, he couldn’t decide between me or Carlos, so he decided to honor us both as his Best Men. That’s a cute explanation, but if you really want to know the truth, I just think Josh has problems with commitment.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re sitting there in your chair, folding your arms and thinking to yourself, “Oi! How can you say such a terrible thing at the bloke’s wedding reception?” First of all, please drop the terrible cockney English accent because it is not working for you. But secondly, relax. I emailed this very speech to Josh this afternoon at 2 PM. I assume since he never got back to me with a reply or a complaint, that everything I’m doing up here is fully sanctioned by Josh.

Having said that, I would like to read a poem I wrote specifically for this occasion. I wasn’t sure whether I should read this poem tonight. I’ll try to keep it short, but it’s about seven…seven…seventeen pages long. But again, Josh gave me his “silent OK”, so anything goes. Four letter words and all. And…it’s in my other tux. Thank you very much Diana for reminding me on the way out of the house today. Let’s give her a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. She has ruined my entire speech.

At this point, Josh probably hates me, and he’s regretting that he ever asked me to come up here and say something nice about him.

Truth be told, Josh and I have known each other for twenty years now, and we have never been able to get rid of each other. We met at the age of seven at Five Wounds Elementary School. Then we went on to Bellarmine College Prep for high school. Then finally, for undergrad, we both ended up going to Santa Clara University. We’ve remained friends long after graduation. For twenty years, I’ve had the privilege of calling Josh my friend. And for the past four years, I’ve had the delight of getting to know Sarah, and I now consider her one of my closest friends. It makes my heart sing to know that these two have found so much happiness together. After twenty years of friendship, I am proud to witness these moments, the time in my good friend’s life when he starts a new life with his wonderful bride. Josh has gotten married before I have, by the way, and my girlfriend Diana won’t let me hear the end of it. “Oi! Josh and Sarah did it. When are you and me getting married?” Diana’s English accent is terrible. Why does she talk to me like that? She’s not even British.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about love, and what I can say about it without sounding redundant. What can you really say about love that hasn’t been said literally thousands of times before? What more can I say when so many inspired philosophers, authors, poets, and playwrights have already weighed in on the subject with far more eloquence than I’m capable of? Just as humankind has always done for centuries, we are born, we grow, we learn, and we fade away. But in between, there are some beautiful moments where, with a little luck, we find love, we get married, and we celebrate with grand parties just like this one. It’s happened billions of times before throughout the ages, and I should think that it will happen billions of times more in the future. When you begin thinking of anything on that grand a scale, you begin to wonder, “So what?” Love? It’s all been done before, so what’s all the fuss about? What a tidy little rut we find ourselves in.

But love is no rut, not in any form. Love is the grand experiment of life that constantly surprises us by joy, one generation after the next, and always with the same old bag of tricks. The human dance wouldn’t be the same without love to guide us with all of its familiar refrains. Robert Frost once said, “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” That innate desire lives inside all of us, and it begs us to dream, challenges us to grow, and dares us to care about someone other than ourselves. Love is that immutable constant of the human spirit that invariably keeps us all human. Love is our guarantee that the human spirit, for all of its frailties, will always have something worth celebrating. Tonight, my human spirit soars with gratitude and joy because two people whom I love very much have dedicated their lives to loving each other. I can think of no better reason to celebrate.

Tonight, my friends, let’s all raise our glasses in celebration to Josh and Sarah.