Things I Think I Overhear From Old Austrian Men Playing Chess in the Park

(Note: Oh no! My computer is broken. Posts will be infrequent, but hopefully pick up again when I return to the United States for the summer - June 17th. Also, be on the lookout for a certain new blog featuring a certain feature actor from the films "Tremors" and "Hollow Man" and a certain breakfast meat.)

--You played an excellent match. You are as brilliant as the President Bush.
--I deserve no such praise. No one is as smart as smart as he.
--Or as handsome.
--I will paint a picture of him.
--Let me give you money for it.

-----------

--Why aren't you wearing lederhosen today?
--I do not always wear lederhosen.
--But you are Austrian.
--As are you.
--I plan to wear lederhosen later.
--Stereotypes are not funny.
--No, they are not.
--Schnitzel?
--Absolutely.

-----------

--I've taken your rook.
--No, you've taken my heart.
--If you truly love me, stretch your arms and then rub your soiled back brace.
--...
--My soul dances with solemn respectfulness.

-----------

--You are in checkmate. I experience a feeling analogous to orgasm brought on by a beautiful woman.
--I imagine sex with your wife, then, is analagous to winning the Special Olympics.
--Funny. Isn't the Special Olympics where you met your wife?
--I invite you to watch "The Sound of Music" with me in my mansion.
--I thought you'd never ask.

-----------

--What do you like best about being old?
--The diapers.
--The diapers?
--I finally have something to transport sauerkraut across county lines.
--I knew I smelled something.
--Quiet. Big Brother.

-----------

--Careful bringing your queen out.
--I envision you regularly warning your son with those very words.
--I do not understand.
--Your progeny lusts for cross-dressers.

-----------

--Who is that young one, writing in his diary?
--I do not know.
--How is he so beautiful?
--He may very well be a son of George Bush.
--Were I more worthy, I would ask to wash his feet.

In Pictures: Slavery Reinstituted by Son of Man in Order to Stack Champions League Soccer Team

Carter Talk

Jimmy Carter, age 13

Mother, from the recent welts that father recently inflicted upon my rear-end - welts so profound that the simple act of sitting has become a painful test of will - I have ascertained that you have grown angry at me, and I think I know the reason why. Last night, after a wonderful dinner, I noticed a change in your mood soon after I said that the peach cobbler you made for dessert was the "worst peach cobbler in American history."

Mother, I must admit that I've been confused as to why you would feel offended by a remark like this. But I think I had a moment of clarity in between belt strikes from father. Because my remarks were either careless or misinterpreted, you saw them as an affront against you and your culinary prowess.

This is simply not the case.

You see Mother, while you may have been under the impression that you and your cobbler were the subject of my harsh criticism, the truth is that at the time of my remarks, I was not talking personally about any cobbler. Or creator of said cobbler. No, in actuality, I was making a general remark about your cobbler compared to Billy Dixon's mother's cobbler that we all experienced a few weeks ago at the Dixon's Fourth of July party.

While I think Mrs. Dixon had a very juicy yet still flaky peach cobbler, I certainly meant no ill-will to your peach cobbler, your sweet potato pie, your cripple creek ferry berry surprise, or any of the other confectionery strides you have made in your tenure as Mother.

Now as far as the comments I made regarding your stance on stem-cell research, well Mother, I still believe you are downright batty in that regard.

Hey there. My name's Rick. Mind if I sit here and try to get you drunk in the seventeen minutes before last call?

So what's your name? Oh cool. I have a cousin named "Lauren." That's crazy! Well, we've got to drink to that. Hey Sam! A B-52 for my new friend, Karen.

So Karen, where do you come from? Ah, so an Ithaca girl, huh? I've got family in Poughkepsie. Sam! Bring me a Long Island Ice Tea with that B-52.

That dance floor is looking pretty fun, huh? Shall we mosey on over there? OK, great! Real quick, though, let's do these vodka shots to loosen up a little bit. One...two...three...go! Whewww weee! That burns! OK, let's do one more vodka shot and then I'll be ready to dance. One twoshoot! Oh ho, careful there. You spilled a little. Here, drink mine. Alright now we'll...well, actually, I don't really like dancing anyways.

I know! We'll play a drinking game. OK, I'm thinking of a number between one and ten: guess what it is. Ooo, sorry. It was nine. That means you have to drink four beers. I'll just get you a pitcher. Sammy! Pitcher of Old Style, on the double. So, where did you go to school? Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh look! Here's your pitcher. Please, allow me. There you are, Karen. Well, drink up!

Haha! Got you. Simon didn't say. Now you have to drink whiskey. Here, I've got some in this flask.

You said that you studied English Lit? What was your concentration? Uh huh. Yeah. Totally. Man, poetry is so awesome. Don't forget to drink your beer.

Say, are you feeling all right? You look like you might want some water. Here, have mine. That's better, isn't it? What? It was vodka? Oh yeah it was vodka. Now I remember. Man, my bad. Hey Sammy, please some tonic water. And, uh, Sammy: utpay omesay injay inay the onictay. Omprendecay?

Last call already? Man that flew by. I can't believe how much you drank! You are totally...um, actually you look fine. How is that...where are you going? Hey, wait! Do you want a breath freshener? I have a film canister of irregularly shaped Tic Tacs. Can I at least get your number? I'll buy drinks for you tomorrow too!

I'm Batman

No, really. I'm Batman.

I found out I'm Batman this past Friday in Salzburg. I had three hours to spend in Salzburg before meeting my friend Matt and taking a bus to St. Gilgen, a mountain town about 50 minutes east of Salzburg. Genuine "Sound of Music" country. Lederhosen and everything. You shoulda seen it.

But before I'd be teaching children of sexually overactive parents how to harmonize, there was the matter of passing the next three hours. Which I did in a park not to far away from the train station. With me I had the following items, ONE OF WHICH played the key role in revealing my role as new Batman:

• iPod
• Journal
• Frisbee
• Ulysses
• Poker chips
• Batmobile (not really)

Finding a comfortable-enough looking tree, I started reading Ulysses. Having filled my intellectual quota for the day (14 mins.), I started listening to my iPod. Feeling ancy from sitting down for almost an hour, I got up to play the "Throw-the-frisbee-to-myself" game – an individual game that's not quite as cool as kicking a soccer ball against a brick wall, but still less pathetic than throwing a football to no one and chasing after it. It's actually really neat! You have to throw it at just the right angle to get it to come back to....hey, where are you going?

As impressive as my angling is, running is occasionally necessary when playing this game, so I freed my pockets of any items that would encumber agility: wallet, keys, and iPod. These items were left by my tree. I scampered about forty feet away to get some open space.

After about ten minutes of whipping the disc around, I was getting pretty freaking good. I'd wing it twenty, thirty, forty feet in the air, file my nails for a little bit, and then snatch it out of the air as it torpedoed towards the earth. I caught it with the help of my eyes – on occasion. The killer was that no one was around to marvel at my greatness. It was a big park, but it was on the other side of a big, nasty-looking office building, which I assume encourages the locals to seek out more scenic space.

There I was all alone, but not for long. From the left-hand entrance of the park appeared an early twenty-something with hair cut close to his head and pants suggesting a potential need for instant pants removal. Finally having an audience, I casually peeked over a few times to see if he was admiring my throws. He was not. Instead, it appeared that he was admiring the personal possessions I left by the tree – as he made his way across the park, he made a pretty obvious double take at my goods. And then he walked on by.

"Silly Mathias," I thought. "This is Austria: They don't have crime here." I threw away my paranoia as I whipped the frisbee just inches away from the sun, and forgave myself by the time the disc was back in my hand. For good measure, I looked over to my stuff and to my nearly bald friend and saw that he was talking to someone on his phone. "Ah yes," I thought, "I talk on the phone sometimes, too. This man and I are one! Shame, heaps of shame upon me."

I pulled back the frisbee to see if I could get this toss higher than the last one, and just as I was about to let it go, the man with athletic pants made an athletic about-face and was sprinting towards my stuff. "There's no way he's..." But sure enough, he was. The next several things happened in a very short amount of time:

1. At about ten feet away from my stuff, he began crouching down the same way a shortstop does when he's getting ready to barehand a grounder before he rifles it to first.
2. With the frisbee already in my hand, I changed the grip from the traditional backhand style to the more advanced forehand technique, which, as frisbee aficionados are already aware of, is a throw that enables the frisbee to reach much higher velocities than the traditional backhand style.
3. I threw the frisbee.
4. The thief, having reached my stash, grabbed my wallet with his right hand and appeared to be reaching for my iPod with his left.
5. Frisbee already in flight, I shouted as authoritatively as I knew how "Hey!"
6. The thief looked up just long enough to present his forehead for the now trucking frisbee.
   
7. A noticeable "Thwup."
8. My wallet flies out of his right hand as the thief is knocked back into the mature oak behind him. He quickly falls to his hands and knees.

All of this took five seconds. Maybe four.

And it was in that time that I became Batman.

With adrenaline coursing through my vines, I was standing over my target – the would-be victimizer who fell victim to my Batdisc. (Batbee? No, Batdisc. That's it.) Panting a little, I managed to bark what inarguably Batman would say, were Batman German, and capable of incredibly ironic politeness in the heat of battle:

"Möchtest du mehr?"

(Would you like more?)

He did not like the idea of more. He scrambled to his feet and scampered away – nothing to show for his malfeasance save what I'm hoping developed into a fairly hard to explain bruise upon his brow.

Justice prevails,
Batman

The Silence of the Palm Pilot

The corridor was about thirty yards long, with cells on both sides. Clarice Starling was aware of figures in the cells, but she tried not to look at them. The lights were on in the last cell. She moved toward the left side of the corridor to see into it as she approached, knowing her heels announced her.

Clarice Starling stopped a little distance from the bars, and as quietly as she could, cleared her throat.

"Ms. Hilton?" Her voice sounded confident enough, she thought.

Without diverting her eyes from her Lucky magazine, Paris Hilton barked a response. "Do you know my dad? Why are you here? Who are you?"

"My name is Clarice Starling. I represent the Behavioral Science section of the F.B.I. I was hoping to talk to you for a bit." Starling crouched to try to make eye contact with Hilton, but to no avail.

"What day is it? I'm bored."

"Ms. Hilton, the F.B.I. is conducting an investigation and we have a hard problem with psychological profiling. I want to ask you for your hel--"

At this moment, Hilton looked Starling in the eyes for the first time. Starling was frozen. With the one dim hallway light reflecting in Hilton's eyes, Starling couldn't decide if Hilton was analyzing every fiber if her being, or if she was thinking absolutely nothing at all. She continued, "Ms. Hilton, the fact of the matter is that there is a killer out ther--"

Ms. Hilton stood erect. Here eyes scanned the ceiling of her cell as she inhaled sharply through her nose. "That smell. You use Evyan skin cream..." Another whiff. "...and sometimes you were L'Air du Temps perfume, but not today."

Starling almost smiled. She was right. "How did you--"

"Yuck, does that mean you're poor? Gross."

Starling shifted her weight to her right foot. "Ms. Hilton, please, if you woul--"

"God, I can smell how poor you are. I'm gonna ralph. When's lunchtime? Are you here to bring me lunch? Who are you?"

Starling ground her teeth behind her pursed lips. "I represent the F.B.I. We're looking for a murderer, Ms. Hilton. The media is calling him "Buffalo Bill," because after he kills his victims, he removes a large area of their backs - he takes their hides, Ms. Hilton. For every second that goes by that we do not get any closer to catching him, it becomes more and more likely that another dead woman is going to turn up floating face down in a river by the interstate, just like the three girls we've found in the last three weeks. My superiors believe that your psychological profiling skills, Ms. Hilton, could provide us with information that will bring us closer to finding this man. Needless to say, should you provide us with information that leads to his arrest, a great deal of compensation will come your way. The F.B.I. is already willin--"

"Quid pro quo, Clarise," said Hilton.

"Excuse me?"

Hilton took two swift steps so that she was only inches from the bulletproof glass that separated her from Clarise Starling. "Quid pro quo. You give me some information about yourself, Clarise. Information that I request. You do this, and I will do what I can to help you find this, 'Buffalo Bill.'"

"Ms. Hilton, please, we have very little time and we need--"

"Precisely, Clarise. Time is a precious commodity that you and especially whoever Bill's next victim is simply do not have. The sooner you give me what I want, Clarise, the sooner I will give you what you want."

Starling glanced at her watch. It seemed to be moving faster than usual. She looked back up to Hilton, who stared into Starling without blinking. Without moving. Starling decided to play along. "Very well, Ms. Hilton. Fire away."

Hilton smiled with the corners of her mouth. "Very good, Clarise. Tell me, how many boys have you kissed?"

"Excuse me?"

"Tick-tock, tick-tock, Clarise. Answer the question."

Starling thought quickly. "I'm not sure. Fifteen, maybe sixteen."

"I see. Do you want to know how many boys I've kissed?"

"Ms. Hilton, what I'd really like to know is what you think abou--"

"OK I'll tell you: a million. And I'm not just saying 'a million.' Literally, I have kissed a million boys. One million, fifty-two thousand, three-hundred and sixty-two, to be precise."

Starling stood there, not knowing what to say next. Her next words would have to be chosen carefully if she was going to get any information from Hilton. "Ms. Hil--"

"Wanna know how many I've sucked off? Because it's probably a lot higher than you'd--"

"OK, you know what? I'm just gonna ask the cannibal down the hall what he thinks. Thanks for nothing."

As Starling turned to leave, Hilton pressed herself against the glass to keep Starling in her sight for as long as she could. "Guess what: it's more than the number of boys I've kissed! Where are you going? When's lunchtime?"

Ideas to Make "Lost" Stay on the Air Much Longer Than It Already Doesn't Need To

When in Season Four the Others descend upon the crash survivors' camp site, they bring with them what no one else expected: Tacky Prom. Who will Jack vote for in the Tacky Prom Prom Queen contest: Juliet, or Kate? When Hurley adds up The Numbers, will they give him the exact sum of jelly beans in the jar for the Guess-A-Bean contest? And can Charlie reunite DriveShaft with enough time to convince Aerosmith, the Tacky Prom headliners, to let Charlie's band open for them?

In a Season Five shocker, Sayid comes out as a homosexual...and a robot. And you can bet your bottom dollar that Sayid is the sassiest gay robot you've ever seen!

Halfway through Season Six Claire discovers a hidden factory on the island, but she is denied access. Who can get in? Only five people: whoever's the first to find the five golden tickets hidden in Wonka Bars from all over the island!

We finally learn the truth behind the Dharma Initiative in Season Seven: They're Neo-Nazis. Too bad for them, the island's got a secret of its own: Neo-Indiana Jones.

Two words for Season Eight: More raptors.

Season Nine: More rappers. ("Yo Luda, how the fuck you steer us from Australia all the fuckin way off course to this broke-ass island?" "OK Cee-Lo, ya fat bastard, why don't you chill. The fuck. Out.")

In Season Ten, gay robot Sayid uses his own mechanics to turn himself into a high-frequency radio. Within days, they're able to hail a helicopter piloted by....NBA star Kobe Bryant! There is much rejoicing on the island, until Kobe Bryant reveals that he is only going to rescue Ludacris and Cee-Lo: "Every other Black person on this show either gets killed or turns out to be a traitor. You white bastards can rot here for all I care."

By Season Eleven, the original survivors, the Others, and the Raptors have all joined forces against a common enemy: Mutant Stay Puft Marshmallow Hurley, who in addition to mutating into a sixty-foot tall monster made of marshmallow also turns out to be gay robot Sayid's robot father. And he's gay.

Gallagher: Aisle Seven

YOU [AS MALE]
Hi there. This is, actually, really stupid. I looked everywhere in the Pharmaceuticals, any where I could think that was part of home medicine, and I just can't find the, um, condoms. Where would they be?

GALLAGHER
Ah, prophylacticos, eh amigo? "Where would they be?" Well, if this place weren't so screwed up and it weren't so hard to find things, then they would be covering you up [Points to your groin] as we speak!

YOU
Yes, well, I haven't really been looking that long. If you could just--

GALLAGHER
Now the problem is that these stores nowadays are H-U-G-E huge. Back when I was your age and not wanting children, if I wanted a rubber there was only one place I could get it: Earl, from Walgreens. Sad thing was, didn't look like Earl there needed protection from any vaginas whatsoever! You see, we used to call Earl "Big Ears Earl." And that was one of his better features!

YOU
I'm sorry, can--

GALLAGHER
Nope. No more Big Ears Earl. Now we've got a three-story multiplex eyesore where we can't even find a pack of Trojans! Well let's see then, you've already tried looking all around Pharmaceuticals...say, maybe they're over in the produce section, hanging out with the cucumbers and bananas - like in the educational videos!

YOU
What? Why--

GALLAGHER
Nah, that ain't right. Did you already check the bakery? We might have some condoms there. Oh wait, I forgot - you're probably on Atkins! Who isn't these days?

YOU
What are you--

GALLAGHER
Try frozen foods? Maybe for when you want to freeze your DNA and get yourself one of those clones. Hell don't you wish they made some Nixon clones? Too bad he never used a frozen condom!

YOU
OK, that leap is even less logical than Atkins. Or maybe not. Do you even work here?

GALLAGHER
Say, did you say you wanted to be able to check your e-mail while you're gettin' lucky? Maybe we should check out the electronics department! You know? Hey, here's the real question: Do you have an external hard drive, or are you still workin with a three and a half inch floppy?

YOU
Now you've gone from not making any sense to blatant sexual harrassment. I'm taking my business elsewh--

GALLAGHER
Hey man, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

YOU
Please let me get by.

GALLAGHER
Hey, listen man. I'm sorry. I was just trying to make you laugh, I'm sorry. Listen, I can tell you where the condoms are. Again, I'm sorry.

YOU
Oh, now you can. Finally.

GALLAGHER
Yes I can.

YOU
Well?

GALLAGHER
Well, I'm not sure if you want them.

YOU
I'm getting really close to not...just, where are they?

GALLAGHER
[Sigh] They're over in the clearance section. But you know what the type of guy who buys condoms from the clearance section is?

YOU
No. What?

GALLAGHER
A cheap fucker.

YOU
...

GALLAGHER
...

YOU
Ha. Hahaha...

GALLAGHER
Heh heh heh!

YOU
Haha, hehe, OK, that was pretty funny. But really, do you guys hav--

GALLAGHER
[Spikes watermelon at your feet, leaving red, fleshy chunks of sticky fruit all about your shoes.]

YOU
I want to talk to your manager.