Seconds

This happened a while ago, but my laziness should not impede your entertainment. Some stories need to be told, like Vietnam massacres and the continuing sagas of churlish meatheads.

So do you remember these charming fellows (link success! Thanks, Beth!), as well as my comrade Yusuf's delightful defense of them? Well, there's plenty more where that came from.

My first encounter with these courtiers came shortly after I was first exposed to Yusuf's rendition of the "Guba-Guba" dance. Four, five, or six of them, I don't know exactly how many there were, just that they were occupying two rooms. They all had stubbly facial hair, and each carried just a little more heft than their respective frames called for. One of them nicely filled out the "short-crazy-ex-IRA-asshole-munitions expert," model, except he wasn't Irish, while the rest of them conformed to more general Jungian bitter-former-high-school-football-offensive-lineman archetypes.

I'll channel Voltaire here and say that though I hate you and you add nothing whatever to the commonweal, I will defend to the death your right to have prostitutes in your room if you so desire. But seriously, these weren't just jovial good ol' boys hammin' it up for their big-city weekend; these guys were genuinely awful.

Their full rap sheet against ethical and aesthetic decency:

--The first time I saw them, they came down about midnight, swept across the lobby spewing inane, brutally-phrased horse-shit about "hittin' da clubs." Then the last one, probably the most bland and nondescript of the bunch, as he's swaggering past the front desk, "Hey, buddy! Want my SLOPPIES? (emphasis mine, can't be helped)"

--About four hours later, one of them comes back in, reeking and reeling, and swearing a blue streak. He was of medium height and swarthy, and his swarthiness was increased by his drunkenness. He had lost a great deal of his voice, which I'm conjecturing was rather acute and scratchy to begin with. Mostly he just stumbled around the lobby in circles wailing, "Motherfucker! Motherfucker!" This was his story, as best I could gather it (rated PG-13).

He was just sitting in the fuckin' deli next door with that Chinese motherfucker, chilling the fuck out and minding his own damn business, when some damn plastic bag sticks itself on his damn foot and he's just having a little fuckin' fun with it, y'know, jumpin' around just trying to kick it off, like a fuckin' ninja, FACK, when HE KICKED THROUGH AND SHATTERED THE FRONT DOOR TO THE DELI. And then that Chinese motherfucker wouldn't let him leave until he had paid damn 250 bucks for the door. I mean, he didn't even give a fuck, because he's on vacation and, what the fuck, y'know, he's just trying to have a good fuggin time, so wha's 250 bucks, y'know what he's sayin'? Bu'still, what a goddamn asshole, right? Motherfuggin GOOK!

I know it's been absolutely beautiful so far, but it ain't always pretty, folks.