Scratching My Ass - Vol. 1

8:56am - Here I sit, bored out of my mind. The morning news rush has come to a screeching halt. I've already eaten breakfast, taken my morning dump, checked my e-mail, had a significant IM conversation. But now I am stagnant. Well, actually, bowels are feelin' a bit funny right now. Might I have a second morning shit?

8:58am - Just re-read what I wrote. I miss writing. I am a writer who has been neutered. Now, I know not what to write of.

8:59am - I just realized that if I don't literally scratch my ass right now, I am a hypocrite.

9:00am - Ahhhhh. I'm glad I didn't cut my fingernails last night :)

9:04am - I suppose I should do something productive at work. I suppose you think I should wash my hands. You suppose wrong.

Fart To The Beat - The iCarta!

I know what you're thinking -- I hate when Ostrich farts in a club, but I love that his flatulence creates ample space for me to shake it like a saltshaker. But that's a subject for another time (probably after someone suffocates to death on the dance floor). Today, I shall practice my copywriting skills by introducing....

The iCarta!
Do you love your iPod so much that you must listen to it everywhere? Have you ever thought to yourself, "This jam is the shit!" then realized you had to take a shit? Do you want to be cool like the people on The OC? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then it's time to Enhance Your Experience! With the iCarta, you can take two of history's most treasured pastimes -- music and shitting -- and roll them into one!

The iCarta features two full-range speakers that double as a toilet paper dispenser, as well as two subwoofers that create sound waves powerful enough to aid bowel movement. The iCarta's practical design allows iPods of all sizes to rest their tired feet in an adjustable spacer while simultaneously recharging. Best of all, after you've spent time ripping your old dispenser from the wall and mounting the iCarta in place, you can remove it from the wall again, fold it up, and take it with you. Now, whenever you fart in a public restroom and someone yells, "What is that hideous sound?!" you can honestly answer "Celine Dion fo' life, biatch!"

"But Ostrich, I can just bring a radio to the bathroom..." Shut up! If you want to limit your selection of music, be my guest. Don't come running to me when Michael Bolton causes you to shit and vomit at the same time.

"But Ostrich, I can just bring a CD player to the bathroom..." Shut up! The sound vibrations caused by your excessive farting will cause your CD to skip.

Plus, if you take your iPod to the bathroom, no one will ever want to borrow it from you again. Sure, the once-pristine cover will soon sport a brownish hue and smell like ass, but you could always wipe that away with toilet paper. Hmmmm...where could you get toilet paper? The iCarta!

Check it out for yourself!


Disclaimer -- Ostrich is not an iPod owner so he is not qualified to write on the subject. But if someone would like to shoplift him the still-non-existent Widescreen iPod, he would gladly give you a live demonstration of the iCarta right in your own bathroom!

Sleepfarting To Puffy Eyelid In 2.6 Seconds

Brrrrrtttt-t-t-t-t-t! I awaken from my slumber to experience one of the great joys in life -- sleepfarting. Those of you in the know probably cherish it as much as I. The gentle vibrating of the blanket as gas erupts from your anus. The sound that echoes off the walls. The smell that only the one who dealt it can truly appreciate. But as I lay half asleep, relishing in my personal victory, I realize that something wasn't right.

Damn it. My right eye hurts like a bitch. I usually sleep on my side -- either side suits me just fine -- and this time I'm on my right side. My face is half-buried in the pillow. My right eyelid, which sports an open wound, is sticking to my pillow. I suppose my wound bled overnight as I thrashed in my sleep. Now, the coagulated blood on my eyelid has married me to the pillowcase. At least Pima Sateen sheets are soft. I highly recommend them to anyone who sleeps.

Stupid me. I yank my face from the pillow, only to experience more pain. I have re-opened my wound. While blood isn't gushing out of my eyelid, squirting everything in sight, it does cause my eyelid to swell up.

As my eyelid becomes engorged, I go to the bathroom to check on it like Beyonce. Whew. From what I can tell through my semi-double vision, the bleeding is far from profuse, but the puffiness is greater than it has been since Saturday, when I first received my wound. Now, a new urgency usurps this nuisance -- I gotta piss. As I take a leak and brush my teeth simultaneously, I ponder my morning routine -- shower, get dressed, and put Neosporin on my eyelid to prevent scarring, promote healing and make the puncture look more grotesque than it actually is.

So how did I injure my eye?

I actually didn't hurt my eye, the doctor did. While at the doctor's office for my yearly physical, he insisted on performing the routine checks -- he held my balls while I looked to the side and coughed, probed my ass for hemorrhoids -- but it's when he joked around and "credit checked" my ass with a tongue depressor that I lost it. In one swift motion I went from being bent over the examining table to grabbing the metal tray full of instruments beside me to slicing his throat open with the edge of my makeshift device of death. With his dying breath, the doctor threw a syringe, which he caught in mid-air as it flew off the tray, towards my eye at the speed of sound (I swear the sonic boom of the hurtling syringe made the room shudder, honest!). Luckily, my cat-like reflexes allowed me to move just enough that it punctured my eyelid and not my eye, and by tensing my eyelid as I had been taught by Shaolin Monks in Wyoming, I had turned my eyelid near impervious -- the needle stuck to my eyelid instead of penetrating my skin and turning my brain into dog food.

Just kidding. I was bored and needed to be creative. Here's what really happened.

I actually didn't hurt my eye, the doctor did. While at the doctor's office for my yearly physical, he insisted on doing the routine checks — he held my balls while I looked to the side and coughed, probed my ass for hemorrhoids.

Upon completion of my EKG, I asked the doc about a skin tag that had grown on my right eyelid. It was similar to the one I had before in the same spot -- this time less irritating, but bigger. He had removed the previous one years ago, numbing it with dry ice then snipping it with scissors, leaving only a small bud. The procedure hurt enough that I developed a headache, but not much else -- no bleeding, no pressure on the eyeball, no feeling like I had a black eye.

This time around we decided he would remove it and have it sent to the lab for analysis, just in case. And this time he wanted to be more thorough.

"Lay perfectly still," the doctor said. "I'm going to give you a local anesthetic," he said while prepping a syringe. Wait a minute, I thought. He's taking a needle to my eye! Before I had time to say anything, he held my head in place as he injected Novocain into my eyelid. Prickly pain was replaced by puffy numbness in mere seconds.

As I pondered this strange experience, the doctor quickly grabbed his scissors. Snip! Careful not to let the tag fall into my eye, he yanked the tag, which was still attached to me by the tiniest of skin fragments, with pincers. He proceeded to snip at the remainder of the stalk, creating a divot as opposed to leaving a bud.

"I'm going to cauterize the wound with iron," said the doctor as he fiddled with various instruments. "It'll leave a black mark on your eyelid, which should go away when the scab falls off in about a week."

"Will this hurt when the Novocain wears off," I asked?

"Nah. Just put Neosporin on it every day to prevent scarring," he smiled.

Liar. Now, every time I blink hard the coagulated blood separates from my skin, re-opening the gash.


Ostrich -- Today I shall wink at the ladies just to hear their screams of horror.

Crazy Wedding Shit

I am a wedding singer. Okay, wedding singer/keyboardist. It's not as pathetic as it sounds -- I do have a full-time job as well (for now). Anyways, last Friday was our band's first gig in a long time. Being that it was a Friday, we knew there would be problems.

3:15pm - Ostrich lands at 150 S. Robles -- The Ritz-Carlton Pasadena -- a whopping 45 minutes early, ready to rock!

3:16pm - Ostrich quickly figures out that Ritz Carlton is not spelled "The Hilton Hotel." Despite what that "Lazy Sunday" skit on SNL claims, Google Maps apparently is not the shit. Ostrich calls Drummer Boy, who lives in Pasadena, for appropriate directions.

3:50pm - After driving around like a moron, Ostrich lands at the Ritz.

4:00pm - Ostrich unloads and is ready to rock. Cuties abound, arranging flowers for the affair. Damn Asian girls. Can't tell if they're 16 or 36. Doesn't matter. With his luck, one of them is bound to be related to Ostrich, or something similarly cool like that.

Ostrich, remembering that he's there to work, texts the homies even-newer directions and requests an ETA. Drummer Boy is still at Guitar Center buying last-minute gear. Dansalsa, the guitarist, had work drama and is in traffic -- arrival time unknown. DooDabooDooDabooDwee, the male vocalist, had massive drama at work. He'll be late. Doog, bassist, is just plain running way behind. Ostrich already knew D-Mama, the female vocalist, would be late, but given the circumstances, he knew she'd probably be cutting it real close to the 6:45 start time.

5:15pm - Drummer Boy and Dansalsa have arrived and are setting up. Ostrich is standing there like a useless sack of shit (are any sacks of shit useful?), so he asks Dansalsa if he could help set up the mics.

5:16pm - After bringing everything including the kitchen sink, Dansalsa stares off into space, puzzled over how he could have forgotten the microphones. Ostrich and Drummer Boy work on Plans B and C -- get mics from Drummer Boy's church and call the late-running Doog to stop by Guitar Center to buy mics, respectively. Thank God Plan B is set into action quickly.

6:15pm - Doog just arrived. Monique, the hotel captain, nags, "Dinner is ready and it's getting cold!" D-Mama has checked in. She just left Santa Monica and is in Friday traffic. Ostrich and DooDabooDooDabooDwee begin concocting an all-male contingency set. On a brighter note, Drummer Boy has returned with mics and he, Doog and Dansalsa are setting up. The wedding party is running late, so doors will open at 7:00pm.

6:30pm - Dinner. Fancy schmancy chicken with potatoes and asparagus. Yum. The band is in good spirits, as they have been since the onset -- they know that they always find a way to pull things off. Cocky motherfuckers.

6:40pm - Dansalsa heads to the restroom, with Ostrich following about 15 steps behind. Ostrich watches the bathroom door shut behind Dansalsa. Ostrich grabs the handle and swings open the door -- a strange metallic clinking sound is heard on the other side. Ostrich walks through, thinks about the sound and discovers the source -- a metal door handle lies broken on the floor. The door shuts. There's no way out.

6:41pm - Dansalsa and Ostrich laugh heartily. Ostrich proceeds to bang on the door incessantly. Moments later, a female worker opens the door, a puzzled look on her face. Ostrich hands her the broken handle, gives her a "Thanks, kiddo!" fisted-nudge to the chin and Dansalsa and he depart from their temporary prison. Ostrich never did drain the weasel.

6:45pm - Soundcheck begins. No monitors -- they can't hear themselves. No biggie. If they can't hear their mistakes, maybe the wedding attendees can't hear them either.

7:00pm - The doors open. The band rocks the house.

7:45 - D-Mama arrives and they play all the songs that they skipped in her absence. No one is the wiser. Mwhahahahaha!

12:00am - The party ends. Highlights: ICE CREAM! The DJ played many of the band's songs and the schedule jumped around, forcing the band to re-order the set on the fly! Ostrich gets confused and loops everything, while also starting songs in the wrong key! Doog joins the patrons on the dance floor while playing! The band gets paid on the spot -- in cash! The groom feels up Ostrich's boob, slipping him a $120 tip for the band! Ostrich decides not to entertain the groom's advances, although he's inebriated and is ripe for being taken advantage of. After all, that's bride's job, and the groom is not a woman. Besides, Ostrich's aunt was in attendance, and she explained that the groom is her ex-husband's nephew, or something like that. Therefore, Ostrich was, in a way, felt up by his "cousin." Awesome.

I Almost Shit My Pants

I Almost Shit My Pants

I just got to work. I should start my day running, after all, it's deadline day. But my ass is still freaking out.

I was driving along the 10 westbound between Robertson and National in the No. 4 lane. Traffic was moving pretty nicely at about 70 miles an hour. Though it was kind of misty outside, you can tell the sun was coming up. Still, everyone had their headlights on.

Out of nowhere I see this flash in my rearview mirror. A speeding black sports car had just cut from the No. 5 lane (I think there's five lanes on that part of the freeway) and/or the onramp into my lane right behind me. From what I can tell, it looked like a black Porsche and the driver must have been gunning it after just getting on the freeway or something, going about 85-90 mph. It looked like it was going to rear-end me -- hard. Before I could react, the car swerved into the No. 3 lane.

A second after it had narrowly avoided my bumper, it tried to straighten out. That's when it started fishtailing. He was still going pretty damn fast and the left rear end of his car began slipping as he pulled beside me and a little in front. Tires began screeching. I started slowing down and checked the rearview mirror. There was another car right behind me, so I couldn't slam on the brakes. By now, the speeding Porsche was starting to cut into my lane at a 30-degree angle, losing control. The car behind me was about 2-3 car lengths back, allowing me to decelerate just a little bit (in retrospect, the Porsche must've cut that dude off big time). Before I knew it, the Porsche was about 5 feet in front of me, skidding along almost perpendicular to my car. Mind you, I had probably only managed to slow down to about 60 mph at this point.

Right when I thought I was a goner for sure, his tires must have caught a little traction. He bolted out of my lane, screamed across the No. 5 and hit the wall of the bridge real hard with a surreal plastic crunching sound. It looked like one of those crazy scenes you see in the trailers for Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Nights. Sparks flew everywhere. Pieces flew from the car like shrapnel and littered the freeway. The entire front end on the driver side hit with such force that you could see the hood and I think the roof crumple upwards. Tire parts were bouncing everywhere. Somehow none managed to hit my car, and the Porsche miraculously didn't float into my lane after colliding with the retainer wall.

I passed him up going about 40mph at about this time. As I checked my rearview mirror to see the aftermath, I could see a couple cars pulling over to aid anyone who may be in need. As for me, I was still in shock, but managed to get out my cell phone and call 911. The operators must get a lot of these calls -- they sounded so bored.

While I have witnessed my fair share of accidents in my lifetime that were pretty freaky, I have never seen anything like this happen so up close and personal, or develop and fade away so quickly. From the time he almost rear-ended me to the time he hit the wall, I'd say at most only 5 seconds had passed.

I drive too much. I need a job closer to home.

Drive safe!