When German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder declared “Nein zum Irak-Krieg” (“No to war in Iraq“), pro-war Americans and Brits were appalled by Deutschland’s cowardice.

I see it differently.

If you compared war to alcohol, Germans are like your recently sobered uncle who suffered from alcoholism for decades. Now imagine if your family was ridiculing him for not loosening up at a family wedding. The last thing you want a recovering alcoholic is to hop back on the wagon, especially because of peer pressure. Maybe Americans can drink a case of Budweiser or the English can be satisfied with a few pints of Guinness, but Germans will drain a bottle of Jägermeister.

Citizens of Sudetenland, beware!

Perhaps WWII could have been averted if Woodrow Wilson would have issued the Twelve Step program rather than his Fourteen Points program in 1918 after WWI.

Once a waroholic, always waroholic.

I received that idiotic mass email about Obama (Re: Fw: FW: [Fwd: Fw: FW: Barack Hussien Obama) and I mass responded debunking the “facts”, cut and paste pro-Obama material and cc’ed everyone whose inbox was involuntarily raped by this slanderous list of lies about OB.

Then I got an email from a “lady” named Maggie.

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: Re: Fw: FW: Fwd: Fw: FW: Barack Hussien Obama
From: “Maggie” < ??????@centurytel.com>
Date: Tue, February 05, 2008 6:21 pm
To: “Dan Allen”

I do not know you and do not appreciate receiving this email.
If you are embarrassed by showing your US passport while going to different countries, then perhaps you should stay in one of those other countries.
I will put your email address in my “do not accept” file.

Proud to be an American.

Here’s my response:

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fw: FW: Fwd: Fw: FW: Barack Hussien Obama
From: “Dan Allen”
Date: Tue, February 05, 2008 6:23 pm
To: “Maggie” < ??????@centurytel.com>

Wow.

You are right. I don’t know you and I’m glad I don’t.

As for “proud to be an American”, really? When is the last time you traveled abroad?

As for my patriotism, I served in the USAF, my father was drafted for Vietnam, his father was drafted for WWII and served under Patton during the Battle of the Bulge. In fact, I can trace my family all the way back to the Revolutionary War.

That’s just my father’s side.

My only advice to you is: Read more.

As much as my email offended you. I felt the same receiving that idiotic Obama email.

I’m not saying you sent it to me but I wanted to make sure that all the people that received it have a chance to see it from a different perspective.

I’m sure you will not read this and the this will go directly to your “do not accept” file. You have been single-narrowed minded your entire life. Why would you change now?

Not proud to be an American (for now),
Dan

I felt is was my obligation as an American to send this to my friend Michael at WorstEmailEver.com

And now this:

My friend Christian turned me onto this long ago and I believe he discovered it through our friend Victor. Thank you, Victor, for this gem.

Enjoy and God Bless America!

I was enlightened with the fact, that mangoes belong to the same family as poison ivy, the Sumac family. Certain cultures have made this fruit a staple in their diet. Puerto Rico became one of those countries. In 1750, the mango was introduced to their island and Puerto Rico embraced it. After two and half centuries of consumption, Puerto Ricans have unknowingly developed a natural immunity to poison ivy.
Case in point, my friend Ricardo and I were running through the woods naked. I unfortunately was hospitalized for a burning, eczematous rash and mi amigo Ricardo came out unscathed.

Once I recovered, I had an inspiration and drew out my quill and scribed this poem…

I Wish I was Puerto Rican Because I Love to Go Camping

Mangos
Succulent orbs of protective fructose

Poison Ivy
Infectious, secreting leaves of agony

The devious, demonic plant lurking below
Preying on unsuspecting Gringos with their unprotected skin

Behold!
Mira!

My epidermis is laced with Mango Madness.
Defending my body from the venomous juice.

My regal blood is produced by my pumping, pulminary papaya
Immune to the toxic Taliban of torment

Eschuchen, por favor

I love to lay in the grass
You can kiss my Puerto Rican ass

Five years ago, my ex-girlfriend’s father generously gave us a seven day ski vacation at the Snowshoe Resort in West Virginia for Christmas. He paid for the hotel, lift tickets, and the snowboard rental. All we had to pay for was transportation and food. This was fantastic; unfortunately I grew up in Texas and didn’t have any ski gear. So I went down to Sports Authority to see what I could buy with my limited funds. Since it was a December 26th, I had spent most of my money on presents. I only had about a hundred fifty bucks to spend. Hat—$15, gloves—$30, goggles—$30, thermals—$20, ski pants—$50…fuck! That only left five dollars for a winter coat. I was born in Daytona Beach and raised in San Antonio and had zero body fat. They could have used my legs as doubles in the movie Warm Springs about FDR’s battle with polio. My chances for survival looked bleak. I needed a coat. Fortunately, the sales clerk was a guy named Ron, a snowboarder/surfer burn-out who hated his job. He suggested that I pick any jacket out and just return it for a refund when I get back. I told him that I would feel weird abusing their return policy and would hate for anyone to question my integrity.

Ron said, “Fuck them, they only pay me six dollars an hour. Do it for me.”

He said it with such eloquence and conviction that it was difficult to say, “No.”

Since the ski season had already begun, the selection was sparse. Especially, since I needed a Size XL-T, the O negative in the winter coat world.

We finally found a bright, canary yellow Columbia® jacket. The sales tag priced it at three hundred dollars or two hundred ninety-five dollars over my budget.

Ron smiled and said, “It looks a little faggy, but it’ll keep you warm.”

“Thanks, you sure it won’t be a problem”

“No, man. People do it all the time. Shit, one dude brought back socks.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in a week.”

Since I never snowboarded before, it was extremely difficult to keep the jacket off the ground. I would have to estimate that in the first 48 hours, I was on the on my back for 93% of the time. Not to mention, my biological cooling system responds to cardiovascular activities by activating by sweat glands. Over a course of five days, my taxi yellow coat absorbed the equivalent of a forty ounce bottle of Old English 800®.

To make matters worse, I felt like I had joined a gang. Not like The Outlaws, the Bloods, or the Crips. Nor like Danny Zuco’s The Thunderbirds or The Sharks from West Side Story. My yellow Columbia® jacket “gang” consisted of used car salesmen, well-funded NASCAR fans, and un-hip middle-aged men called The Douchebags.

My cousin Todd called me and asked me to cut my vacation short because our family pawn shop was being swamped with post-Christmas customers. Including me, we only had four people running the store, so I agreed to drive back to Virginia Beach. He was worried because of an incoming blizzard the next day that would prolong my return.

My girlfriend and her family tried to dissuade me from leaving in the middle of the night.
I didn’t want to get snowed in the next morning, so I loaded up my girlfriend’s 1990 Jeep Cherokee and began my treacherous descent down the winding mountain road. When I was a quarter of the way down, I started to see small flurries. In a matter of minutes, I was blinded by a cyclone of ice.

I gripped the steering wheel with my left hand and down shifted to second gear with my right. In tense situations, I had a bad habit of licking my lips to soothe my nerves. When I was a kid my nickname was “Hot Lips” because my adolescent anxieties chapped my lips. This moment redefined the word, tense. My brain responded by sliding my tongue from the 9 o’clock position with the intention of sliding to the 3 o’clock position in one fluid motion. However, when my tongue reached high noon, directly underneath my nose, it slithered back inside my mouth without warning because of an unexpected salty flavor. It tasted brackish and metallic. I looked into the mirror and was frightened by my gruesome reflection.

The change in elevation had turned my nose into a faucet of blood. I tried to look around for a napkin or towel. I had to improvise with a Wendy’s® bag and a grocery receipt. They both proved to be non-absorbent and rendered them useless. I was concentrating so hard on stopping the salty, crimson cascade that I forgot I was still driving in a blizzard. I suddenly noticed a Suburban 4×4 up ahead spinning out of control, engulfed by an invisible tornado. It finally swirled to stop on the side of the road. Fortunately, no one got hurt—shaken not slain.

I would have stopped but it would have been more dangerous to slam on the brakes, so I had to selfishly pass them by. Sorry. Darwin’s Theory is that stronger species descend by modification. Future Man is being modified by apathy, emasculation, and self-interest. Anthropologist in the year 3030 A.D. will discover that I was the link between Homo Sapien and Homo Cowardus.

My salvation came when a general store appeared in the distance. I pulled into a parking space, jumped out of my car, took off my stained jacket, laid it on the hood, and went to the entrance. To my misfortune, the door was locked and had a hand-scrawled sign on the door that stated, “I’ll Be Back Tomorrow”. I found a bottle of water in the Jeep and began pouring it on the jacket and started to scrub it with my hat. I felt like Lady MacBeth, frantically trying to remove the dreaded spots.

My coat started to illuminate as if a ray of holy light was cast down by the heavens above. Being agnostic, I was taken aback by this and didn’t know how to interpret this “miracle”. Then entire Jeep lit up, my shadow grew larger on the hood, I turned around to be blinded by retina-roasting halogen lights from the Suburban 4×4 that I had left stranded. Once they parked, I rushed over to their tinted passenger side window. Someone had triggered the automatic window lever and it slowly slid down to reveal a family of four from Pennsylvania.

As I was about to ask for a towel or more water, the window went up twice as fast as had came down. The driver rammed the gear selector in reverse, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and the ass-end of the Suburban exploded way from the parking lot. They had successfully managed a 180° turn. Now perpendicular to the road, the driver cranked the wheel to the right and sped down the hill like he possessed by a suicide bomber with his eyes glazed over with visions of forty virgins and the embrace of Allah.

I didn’t understand what happened. Yes, I can understand there animosity for me for not helping them in their time of need, but that was an extremely bizarre response to witness.
What had I done to invoke such a shocking reaction? Confused, I went back to my pain-staking, hand-numbing task of cleaning my three hundred dollar “leased” jacket. Somehow I managed to get the blood out. After that episode, the rest of the descent down the mountain seemed like whimsical stroll on the beach.

Once back in Virginia Beach, I had the jacket professionally dry cleaned and went to the customer service counter of Sports Authority. I sheepishly told the clerk that I didn’t like the jacket and wanted a refund. She seemed unconvinced and stared at me with a sneered look of skepticism like I had just told her I was Elvis. I bit my lip, casually looked away, did a little drum tap on the counter, looked at my watch, looked at their clock on the wall, clicked my tongue on the top of my mouth, nodded my head, looked at the ceiling…and she still just stood there staring at my waiting for me to break.

Fuck that, I hated that jacket. It was tense for a few minutes, but the line started to grow, so she succumbed and began the refund process.

Then Ron walked by and said, “Hey, dude! Glad you made it back! Heard there’s been some crazy serial killer cutting people up and tying them to ski lifts.”

“What are you talking about?”, I asked.

“You know, like Jeffrey Dahmer and shit…he’s been doing for a month now. I didn’t want to scare you before you went up.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh yeah, good thing you returned that jacket…the news is saying that the police are looking for a guy in a yellow jacket.”

It all made sense. Each event in the space-time continuum is multi-faceted. It glistens differently depending on which angle you view it. The family of four from Pennsylvania freaked the fuck out, because a serial killer with a yellow jacket, blood soaked goatee was about to kill them.

Life is all about perspective.

The growing population of monkeys in New Delhi, India has been an epidemic for quite some time because many Hindus worship the deity Hanuman, a monkey god who symbolizes strength.

It became international news when a gang of marauding monkeys mauled their deputy mayor to death.

When I read this, my first thought was, “Man, monkeys suck.”

My second thought was, “Man, what the fuck did he do to all those monkeys?”

My third thought was, �Man, that guy probably molested a baby monkey and when the family heard about it they went ballistic and tore that dude to shreds.�

My fourth thought was, “Man, that’s gross. That dude had sex with a baby monkey. Justice served.”

However to my knowledge, he “instigated” the attack by simply walking on his own terrace to get a breath of fresh air and then out of nowhere it started to rain monkeys and he was engulfed in a firestorm of teeth, tails, and hair. His only option to douse the fiery, furry attack was to fling himself off the balcony to the street below taking a few monkey martyrs with him.

You would think that after losing their deputy mayor to a mob of monkeys, that the city would
reconsider their stance on reincarnation and start baiting the city with poisoned bananas. Nope. The city officials decided the best long-term solution to rid their problem would be to import a small elite force of even larger, more aggressive, carnivorous monkeys to eat the smaller, less-aggressive, non-carnivorous monkeys. Perfect! Finally, a government that isn’t shortsighted. What could possibly go wrong? At first, I was a little worried but I was relieved to discover that the Blackwater Corporation is breeding these mercenary monkeys. Everything will be fine.

Hmmm�

If these tactics do work, perhaps we should use it here to deal with New York City’s plague of rats. In fact, they estimate that there are eight rats for every person that lives in Manhattan. By New Delhi-logic, I guess the best solution to get rid of the rats is to import a dozen rat-eating tigers.

With that same logic, the herpes virus is on the rise again, the Department of Health should unleash the anthrax virus to kill the herpes.

Or better yet�you could kill two birds with one stone and infect the tigers with anthrax.

No more rats. No more herpes. No more problems.

Well…sort of…there would be one caveat: We would eventually have to deal with the anthrax-infected tigers roaming the subways.

There is a fairly new (two year old) monorail from Manhattan to JFK called the AirTrain®. Which is great because it cuts the commute time in half.



“Monorail, Monorail,Monorail, Monorail…Can you hear it, Manhattan?!”

Unfortunately, not enough people even know about it. So the Port Authority of NY&NJ have been plastering billboards everywhere. They reads: “AirTrain®. If it was any faster it would be an AirPlane®.”

Personally, I found the advertisement insulting to my intelligence. Which is sad because I’m not that intelligent. Although, I occasionally can fool people into thinking that I am. By American standards, I’m above average, but most Americans are borderline retarded. So that makes me average.

“If it was any faster it would be an AirPlane®.”

No, it wouldn’t. I don’t care if it traveled at the speed of light, it would never transform into an aircraft. The only way that could happen is if the mayor made a deal with the Transformers© to fight terrorists in the guise of mass transit. If this is true, this would extremely inconvenient for travellers.

M
mass (m)

A
acceleration (a)

S
displacement/distance (s)

H
height (h)

If Newton’s Second Law states: Force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma),

then
m × a = Force

Displacement and height are lengths. If you multiply two lengths together, you would create a surface area.

s × h = Surface Area
So,

(m × a)(s × h) = Force × Surface area

Force × Surface Area = Pressure

pres·sure
n.
Force applied uniformly over a surface, measured as force per unit of area.

mash
n.
A crushing or grinding

Tasmanian devils have 300 pounds per square inch of bite.

I must remind readers that I was a virgin until I was 21

Super Unleaded is 93 octane.
Special Unleaded is 89 octane.
Regular Unleaded is only 87 octane.

They should re-think their labeling system considering that the average IQ of a human is about 100.

93 octane should be Regular, 89 octane would be Borderline, and 87 octane would be “Special”.

If you flew to Tokyo, and were to ask any Japanese citizen walking on the street, “What country do you live in?”

That person would say without hesitation, “Nippon.”

This would be very awkward, since you would then have to politely correct them and inform them that they live in Japan not in the Make-Believe Land of “Nippon”.

Who is right?

We have Westernized the name of every country we have encountered.

Hindustan ceases to exist and is called India.
Deutchland is forgotten and is now dubbed Germany.
Italia turns to Italy, Spain replaces España,…etc

Criticizing American’s globalization and smothering domination has become far too easy. It isn’t edgy anymore. Its the norm. Though in this particular case, we are not alone.

Spanish people call Germany, Alemania. The French say l’Allemagne and Italians insist its la Germania.

Fortunately, it is limited to the name of the countries and does not extend to the individual names of the citizens.

In conclusion, humans are fundamentally resistant to adopting and adapting to different cultures. However, we are all carbon-based life forms composed of the same basic molecular structure. The actual quantified DNA difference between any organisms is so infinitesimally small. We should thank God, Allah, David Koresh, or whom ever you choose to believe in for giving us the proper genetic coding to be homo sapiens. We are few deoxyribonucleic acid strands away from being a lemur or a sweet potato.

Furthermore, we can’t even agree on one word to describe the asymetrical ellipsoid in which we live on.

Earth (English)
Mundo (Spanish)
Duniya (Hindi)
Erde (German)
Terra (Italian)

We need to get our heads out of our asses and come up with an international word for our planet or we will become the laughing stock of the United Milky Way Planets Federation.

I played basketball today and realized I was extremely hungry. I dipped into Gourmet Garage to buy something to eat. I didn’t know what I wanted, so I roamed aimlessly around until I found something.

Luckily, The cheese department had five platters of cheese cubes with a cup of toothpicks.

Famished, I plucked out a cube and bit it off the end of the toothpick. I sucked off the lingering smokey flavor that seemed infused into the wood. Still starving, I went to the next tray, then the next, then the next and finally hit the last tray and felt a pang of guilt for eating so much cheese for free. Then out of nowhere, some Botoxed Upper Eastsider bitch felt she needed to teach me some manners.

Another woman pushed her cart directly in between the Upper Eastsider Bitch and me. She was shocked by my expletive statement. I told her the dialogue I had exchanged with the crazy lady. Fortunately, she agreed with me (but I suspect she wanted an easy out of the situation) Then I proceeded to talk to each person and stated my case. Oddly, everyone agreed with me. I realize now that I probably scared everyone I encountered.

The paradox of calling someone a “fucking lunatic” to everyone who walks by because that particular person didn’t like how you ate cheese makes you look like a “fucking lunatic”.

A penny-pinching maven had told me that sometimes you get charged a small fee when you use your debit card. So now I lie every time. No matter what.

I was buying a six pack of Zimas and a box of Snuggie Extra Small Trojans. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any cash so I had to charge it.

An attractive girl behind me rolled her eyes and let out a small sigh of disgust. She then made eye contact with the cashier. They simutaneously passed judgement about me with “knowing” smirks of self-righteousness. I, Dan Allen, represented what is wrong with America.

A drunken consumer with a negative cash flow report fucking the economy and raising
the interests rates for other hard-working Americans who have integrity.

Fuck that! I will not be judged. I have integrity. So I turned to the girl and said in a soft, playful voice.

See I do have integrity. Right?

I couldn’t sleep last night because of the pain, and was elated to finally fall into slumber at the crack of dawn. Only to be awoken by annoying song birds, a woodpecker drilling another useless hole, a squirrel trying scrape his way through my thru-the-wall air conditioning unit, and little fucking boy hitting a concrete wall with a sledge hammer.

Please free me from my prison.

MoMA offers a free audio tour to “help” visitors understand what the artist is trying to express.

While helpful with some, you end up looking like a jackass to those brave souls who ventured forth sans audio guidance as you stare at an untitled canvas painted blue by Yves Klein for five minutes listening to a montage of monologues composed by various “experts”.

“Monochrome abstraction—the use of one color over an entire canvas—has been a strategy adopted by many painters wishing to challenge our expectations of what an image can and should represent. Klein likened monochrome painting to an “open window to freedom.” He worked with a chemist to develop his own particular brand of blue. Made from pure color pigment and a binding medium, he called it “International Klein Blue.” Klein adopted this hue as a means of evoking the immateriality and boundlessness that reflected his own peculiar utopian vision of the world.”

Yves Klein, Untitled blue monochrome, 1959.

I enjoy following kids and listening to their reactions to each piece they encounter. It’s in the same spirit of speed dating, they either “love it” or “hate it”. You will either hear, “Oooh…that’s cool!” or “Eeew…that’s crap!” What’s hilarious is that they are usually dead-on while being extremely economical with their word choice.

One room was entirely empty and the halogen lights overhead flickered on and off every ten seconds. Everyone stopped and soaked in the creativity. One couple had found a crumbled scrap of paper and were trying to decipher it’s meaning in the context of the barren room with faulty lighting. As I approached them, they realized it was just a piece of trash some inconsiderate visitor had dropped. They quickly vacated the room to avoid eye contact with me, knowing I knew they had just applied their art history knowledge to garbage.

I was tempted to stick my gum on the wall and attach the wrapper to it and wait for someone to unravel the meaning behind it.

I wouldn’t be shocked if I walked into an installation displaying a diorama of a middle-aged couple’s bedroom with two live models in coital activity with a group of tourist surrounding them holding their trusty audio guide to their ear.

The last time I went to the beach, I stayed at The Sun Viking Hotel, which had an enormous 50 foot, gaudy, plaster Viking statue in the parking lot. It was a family hotel, and a bunch of kids were running around with souvenir axes and horned helmets. How cute? Then I remembered back to another time I stayed at another beach hotel which was called The Hotel Viking; slightly different, but essentially the same. Every tourist city by the sea has the same lame hotels: some kind of Viking Hotel…across the street Pirate’s Cove…next door the El Conquistador. A lot of people are missing the general theme here. All of these groups being glorified were once associated with murderers, rapist, and thieves. Yippee! Happy family fun-time! I guess all it takes is about 500 to 1000 years to wash away the atrocities of malicious men. The future is looking brighter, and brighter. In the year 3030, you’ll be able to check into The Klansmen by the Sea.

Hotel Clerk
Here’s your key, boy. Room 606. Don’t worry about a thing, we got plenty clean sheets.
If you know what I mean?

It was horrible what happened five years ago on 9-11. People lost their lives and will always be remembered.

But what about me, I still exist. Somehow through this tragic event, I have been deleted from everyone’s mind. Erased. Eradicated. Brainwashed out of Man’s hard drive.

Nine, eleven…nine, eleven…nine, eleven

Anything missing?

What happened to “ten”!

I use to be a “somebody”. The world revolved around me.

The Ten Commandments, “She’s a perfect ten”, “Hang ten”, “ten little indians”…for Christ’s sake the majority of Earth’s civilizations use a base-10 numbering system.

Now I feel invisible. A shadow. I know what Ashlee Simpson feels like at Thanksgiving, or Tito at Christmas. What have I done to deserve this? Am I not easily divisible? Do I not make multiplying a simple task? What the fuck more do you want from me?

I could understand if I was irrational or a transcendental number. They’re enigmas.

Who knows their purpose? I don’t.

I ran with that pack in college.

π, Φ the Golden Ratio, e the base of the Natural Log…they were all deadbeats out of they’re minds.

π was always tripping on acid and trying to convince me he was from outer space and that he helped everyone from the Egyptians build the pyramids to the Mayan temples. Give me a break.

The Golden Ratio was under the impression that he was the divine Renaissance number created by God himself. Φ was one self-righteous, ecclesiastical mother fucker.

The base of the Natural Log e seemed normal, until you started to talk about money. Compound this, compound that…he would get this diabolical look in his eye when you mentioned interest rates. He’d sell his mother’s lung if he could profit from it.

I’m a rational number. A whole number.

God damn you all!

It’s nine,

eleven!

I overheard a conversation:

Name-throwing? What the fuck is that? I’ve heard of name-dropping, but I’ve never heard of a name-throwing. A name-thrower sounds like a weapon used in Viet Nam.

Yoda was a creature called a Gherkin with an average life expectancy of 1000 years.

At age 877 years old, he fought a stalemate battle with Emperor Palpatine, the most powerful Sith Lord in the universe.

He exiled himself to the swampy planet of Dagobah and was able avoid detection from Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine because a powerful Dark Jedi named Bpfassi had died there flooding the region with the Dark Side negating his Light Side.

About twenty three years later, Luke Skywalker returns to Dagobah for the last time to complete his Jedi training. Sadly, Master Yoda the Gherkin died there at the age of only 900 years old.

By problem is this—compared to humans with an average life expectancy of 72 years. Twenty three Gherkin years would have been the equivalent of only two human years since his ass-kicking, Jet-li/Bruce Lee battle with the Emperor.

QUESTION:
Why did his health fade so quickly?

ANSWER:
Luke discovered Yoda’s cyberjournal and found out that he had made a few stops before he permanently exiled himself. He had hyperspaced to Tantooine and bought some essentials: fifty gallons of Rotgut, a thousand DeathSticks and ten pounds of finely-cut Kessel spice. He then visited his favorite Wookie prostitute, Beelacca. Unfortunately, Belacca didn’t honor the Republic’s “Right to Know” policy. She had been infected by a Tusken Raider who had a Wookie fetish with a rare disease contracted from having sex with a Bantha. The drugs and booze accelerated the effects of the STD.

George Lucas was contacted by D.O.G.G. (Daughters of Great Gherkins) to cut the scenes showing these last moments out respect for his family.