HERB AND THE HUT

I couldn't access Diaryland from home today.

Which explains why this is late.

Somewhere in a cheap hotel room in Japan, a petite young woman stands poised with the tip of a sword pushing ever so slightly against her belly, ready to commit harikari over this misfortune.

Please don't kill yourself, Yoko!

Me here!

Me love you long time!

Watched "Finding Nemo" last night.

Hated it.

The only emotion I was dealing with at the end of the film was an unusual hankering for some Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks.

Even Andrew disliked it, getting up and leaving the room after about ten minutes.

He'll come around eventually when they buy the tape and show it at daycare ad nauseum.

He's the type that needs something shoved down his throat several times before he ends up liking it.

Sorta like Genghis Jon and my penis.

My boy Mattie Gee gave me a copy of The Spicolis brand new debut disc.

It's all I've been playing since I got it. It's that damned good.

I hate to sound like a groupie over an old friend who's like a brother to me. But I'm extremely proud of him and his band.

Soon, everyone will have a chance to purchase the new disc.

I encourage you rock and rollers to give it a shot. You shan't be disappointed.

Went to Pizza Hut yesterday for lunch because I was craving a side salad.

I get in there and I notice there's a feeble OLD man working there. He's got his little Pizza Hut shirt on, his Pizza Hut hat, the whole nine yards.

He also was shuffling behind a walker.

I have never seen such a thing. A man with a job that's geared toward high school dropouts using a walker.

I could tell the other employees resented him and his walker.

He walked really really slow. Like his colon was hanging out his butt and he was trying desperately to not let it slide down his pant leg and end up in a goopy pile on the floor that would leave everyone gagging and demanding that The Hut pay for their lunch.

The other employees were always trying to circumvent him and do their jobs in a timely manner. But Herb, as slow as he was, seemed to always be in the one spot that everyone was trying to get around him in.

And that spot was in the doorway to the kitchen.

I watched with amusement, creating an entire life for Herb.

I figured he spent about 40 years in lock-up for a crime he says he never committed but his court-appointed lawyer didn't believe him and entered a guilty plea for him just so he could bang Herb's wife for the next 40 years.

Around year 38, Herb's wife passed away from heart disease.

At the age of 79, Herb was released from prison and tried to fit in to society. But society had passed him by. Forty years in the clink can do that to a guy.

Herb tried his hand at different jobs including ticket taking at the local movie theater and cleaning up the birdseed at the local wedding chapel every Saturday afternoon.

But what he really wanted to do ... was work for The Hut.

He built up his courage, went to apply at Pizza Hut and was told he was hired as the dishwasher.

Finally, Herb had reached his dreams.

But Herb wanted more. He wanted to be a table cleaner. He wanted to slice the pizzas and put them on the buffet line. By God ... he'd even clean the bathrooms if it just meant getting out in the public eye and meeting people.

So Herb would oftentimes wander away from the dishwasher and hang around the doorway to the kitchen, making small talk and using his walker to block people from going around him in order to shoot the shit with them.

Then, after I left Pizza Hut yesterday, Herb probably tragically died from slipping on a wet floor and cracking his fucking skull open.

At least .... that's how the story ended in my head.

You know ... since I had to get back to work.

Are there any men's names that start with "H" that don't make the guy sound like a total dork?

Howard? Herman? Harold? Henry? Hubert? Huey? Homer?

I can't think of one cool guy's name that starts with "H".

If you know of any, please pass them along.

And let me be the judge of whether they're cool or not.

I long for the day where we live in a world in which society graciously accepts those of us who choose to spend our lives walking the streets each day in crude clown makeup and honking bicycle horns as a method of communication.

That's it. I've got work to do.