Time Zones Tutorial

I don’t know if this has ever happened to you. Did you ever live in a foreign country, and – god knows why – decide to travel east to west instead of north to south? Huh? No, I am not kidding! Heading southbound is great: warmer weather, friendlier people, etc.

But as I was saying, if you move east to west, a really strange thing happens: The time when the sun rises and sets, changes. This really happens. Because, and don’t get upset if you already know the answer, the Earth rotates! Yes, incredible! This means that if it’s morning in the US, it’s already afternoon in Europe, and that in Japan… it’s already tomorrow! This is how Santa Claus is able to give presents to children all over the world (with a twenty-four hour-long night!). Thus, time zones were born!

Thanks to time zones, people all across the globe will see 8:00 am when they check their watches in the morning and 6:00 pm (18:00) when they check them in the evening. Isn’t it great?

What did you say? You already know all of this? Then why the hell does everybody in Europe insist on calling me at four in the @#$%*&^% morning?? And when I say everybody, I mean not only telemarketers but even parents, friends, and old employers. Everybody! My priest back home even called me once wondering why he hadn’t seen me at church in 20 years.

I know what you are thinking: this will never happen to me. Well, trust me. It will happen even sooner than you could possibly imagine. So do the right thing. Teach your parents and friends about a fantastic new invention called Google. Just type a phrase in any language, and this “magic box” will teach you all about it. If they type “Time zones” for example, they will even be able to find simple charts that will clarify any “confusion” they might have. But just in case the charts aren’t straightforward enough, learn them yourself to be able to explain them to your loved ones.

Last but not least: Always turn your phone off before you go to sleep! Good night.

- Simone la Cuercha

“Poor Osama, Cruel Obama”

I’m in my room. I had decided to stop drinking coffee, and as a result I am sleepy already even though it’s only 10 PM. I am in my bed, falling asleep. But I can hear car tires drifting on the street and a radio with its  volume turned alway the way up, “Weeeeeh are the champions, my friend.” What the fuck! I’m trying to get some sleep here! “And we’ll keep on fighting, till the end, tan naa naaaaaa” through the blinder I can see some guys with US flags hanging out the window of their cars, screaming and laughing and drinking. And I think that probably US won some kind of football, soccer, baseball, bullshit match this evening.

The next morning when I wake up, l will find out from a rebroadcast of  President Obama’s speech, that in fact Osama Bin Laden was killed during a military operation. A lot of people will give different accounts. I’ll imagine his death as I’ve always imagined it: Osama is sun bathing next to his pool, with a Margarita in hand. An American agent sneaks up next to him. He notices that it’s  not that CIA agent that he usually bribes. The agent screams “I am Dread, I am the law”. Bang. Final credits.

Obama will claim that “Justice has been served.” Half of the nation will cheer and the other half will claim that this is all just a big conspiracy and that Osama was only some poor shepherd or something. The only reason that they killed him was for votes and to prove that a war that’s gone on for years, wasn’t only fought for oil. And I will wonder: maybe all of this is true, but even so, why should we make a scandal out of the fact that bin Laden, who explicitly admitted to being responsible for the terrorist attack, died. In the end Adolf Hitler openly cried out his plans for the Shoah on the radio and in public. True, nobody understood him – who wants to learn German? – but nobody nowadays would dare to say a word in favor of Hitler.

And this is what I will be thinking tomorrow. For now I’m just wishing I could fall asleep. The guys jumped out of their cars and are walking to the mosque near my house, vandalizing everything in sight. And I feel like going to the bathroom and puking, as I witness the purity of “everlasting justice.”

- Simone la Cuercha

Quack, Quack!

“Quack, quack!” I wake up, look down and there is a duck with her little ducklings swimming around my bed.

I know what you are thinking. “Simone, you have to stop this, we are tired of your stories about hallucinations. Seriously, dude, we don’t know what you’ve been smoking but you gotta stop. Go and tell them to some stranger in a pub or your favorite crack house, but stop pulling this shit with us and write something real.”

And you know what? “You’re right, I have to stop writing this stuff all the time. Because the good Lord – the Master of Extraordinary, that is – wants the next Diet Column. But I’m sorry, I just can’t today. I need to talk about yet another incredible morning.

So, there are ducklings in my bedroom. I put my feet on the floor, and it’s wet. Is this a hallucination? It’s real water! Then I go to the bathroom. I look outside. Apparently my house is surrounded by what an English speaker would call a lake… My garden is an ocean and the tree in my backyard is a giant tropical plant. I go to the front door and open it, still in my flip-flops and pajamas. “Fuck…”

There are cars stuck on the street. Water is everywhere. There is no chance of survival. People run through the water and break into abandoned houses to rob the few things that the flood spared. Police cars try to patrol, but they are all stuck in the mud. It’s total anarchy! And then there are all these blondes dressed up to go jogging in the water with iPods attached to their arms as if nothing had happened.

And maybe I’m exaggerating a bit. And I am kinda pissed off. Why, you might ask? Because when I woke up, all of my stuff was ruined; apparently, people here have never heard of a little thing called rain. And since they didn’t build the houses the right way sooner or later there was bound to be a flood. But this isn’t a third world country I’m writing about or some nation plagued by the monsoons. I am writing from upstate New York!!! But it could be worse, at least it’s not Alabama…

- Simone la Cuercha

In Defense of Carnivores

I just keep making things worse for myself. People already think I’m a drunken party animal and a perverted deviant, do I really want them to think that I’m a murderer too? I should just quit while I’m ahead. I’m going to alienate the few fans I still have. I’m going to… Fuck it, I love meat too much!

Look, I have no problems with vegetarians. If they don’t want to eat meat that’s great, more for me!! I promise not to make fun of them. Just don’t try to get between me and my food. Don’t you know what happens if you stick your hand inside a dog’s bowl when he’s eating??

I’m a carnivore and I’m proud of it. Why? Because it tastes good! In my mind there is nothing better than gorging myself at a good Brazilian steakhouse (have you ever tried picanha?), unless it’s stuffing myself with lobster rolls in Maine. And you would take this away from me?

I know, I know, I’m a selfish bastard. I’ll be the first to admit it. I was the asshole who didn’t cry when they shot Bambi’s mom. I was the maladjusted kid who always cheered on Tom, hoping that this episode he would finally catch Jerry. The poor cat only wanted to eat.

Let’s face it, carnivores are just cooler than vegetarians. How many of you wanted to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex or a Velociraptor when you were a kid? And how many of you wanted to be a Stegosaurus or a Brontasaurus? Hell, the Brontasaurus was so lame that they eventually decided that he didn’t exist.

If a T-rex gets to eat meat why not me? But Carlos, you can survive without eating meat and he can’t. You’re an omnivore; you have a choice. Alright, you’ve got me there. I’ll stop eating meat. You will? Yes. On one condition. Anything Carlos! Convince my friend the grizzly bear to stop eating meat first.

- Carlos de la Gringa

Shit Another Day

Yesterday’s article about the sleep strike got me thinking about striking in general and how shitty it is to have to work. And then something started to bother me.  I remembered the last book I read – which sucked – and the boring movie I saw last Friday. I started calculating all the money I’ve wasted in book stores and movie theaters over the past years, not to mention the money I’ve thrown away on videogames that turned out to be real pieces of shit after I installed them. And I started wondering: if everybody else is getting rich off this shit, why can’t I?

I can be just as much of a lazy bastard as the next guy. I can crank out pure shit. It’s easy. And as a writer that’s basically what I’m doing already. So why can’t I get paid for my shit? You know what? I’m going on a shit strike. I don’t give a shit. No more bathrooms for me. Good bye toilet. I’m done with that shit. From now on, if I’m going to be shitting, I want to be adequately compensated. Nothing in this world is free anymore. And all you other lazy employees out there, follow my lead. They can’t survive without our shit! So let’s go on a shit strike.

I know what you’re thinking, “But Simone, if we don’t shit, we’re going to explode!”

Repeat after me: I am a brave man! I DON’T GIVE A SHIT! Make sure they can hear you! I DON’T GIVE A SHIT! Why can’t they pay for our shit, just like they pay for everybody else’s? WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT! For they can take our lives, but they will never take our shit!

- Simone la Cuercha

An Article about Something

It’s 4:30 in the morning and I have nothing interesting to say. I’m screwed! If I don’t have something ready by the time my editor wakes up, he is going to fire me. ME!? Can you imagine that? He is already mad at me for “showing up late for work” (clearly, his watch is fast), “wasting time on the computer” (checking facebook, downloading music and watching porn are all productive uses of my time, since you never when you’ll get your next inspiration), and “possessing a general lackadaisical attitude” (Should I bother looking that word up in the dictionary?).

He even said that a “pair of armless blind baboons” could do a better job than me and would cost less too (Talent costs money!!!). Besides, who knows more about “extraordinary sanity” than me? Somebody, who never does any work unless he absolutely has to, never goes to a party unless he already knows who he is going home with and never cooks unless his maid, his sister and his mother are all sick at the same time. Moreover, somebody, who generally finds a way to cheat, lie or steal his way out of any problem that he has ever faced.

You are never going to find anybody else like me! You should be begging me to stay. You should plaster my face on every Goddamn page of your stupid fucking site. Hell, you should build a temple dedicated to my awesomeness, that dwarfs the temples for Zeus, Buddha, Maradona and Charlie Sheen.

How is that for extraordinary sanity, asshole?

- Mike “the Tiger” MacNamara

-Ed. Nice piece but you’re still fired.

Mastering the Art of Eating

I always loved to eat: to eat good food. Despite what is written in the diet column of Tales of Extraordinary Sanity – and I must say, I am completely against the editorial choices that this project is taking as of late – if there is one thing you shouldn’t joke about, it’s food.

Millions – what am I saying? – Billions of people die every year because of bad food. Food must be cooked with mastery and Grace (my sweet friend Grace, her flesh is so tender…). Have you heard about those poor children dying of starvation in Africa? They are not dying because you didn’t finish your meal! That’s the crap that your grandmother used to tell you when you didn’t finish her disgusting over-salted “homemade” French fries. The ones covered in mustard, remember? And she knows that you can’t stand mustard.

Why is good food so important? Because I love good food! Why is it that when I am in a Sushi restaurant, the cook is always Korean? And how come when I go to a Korean restaurant the cook studied in Japan? A “salty crêpe” means salty, so why does this one – that costs 5 bucks since I am downtown – taste like Nutella?
And pizza. God, PIZZA!!! Pizza can be made out of provolone and ketchup, if you want to eat shit. Haven’t they ever heard of mozzarella and tomato sauce? And no, you can’t just bake it for two minutes either. I am having these and hundreds of other considerations – and hallucinations – while I lie here collapsed on the sidewalk thanks to that slice of pizza which I bought from that street vendor. Because yes, I am stupid! And something starts to grow inside of me. And it’s not the dough of the pizza that only now starts to ferment and grow in my stomach. But something else starts to come out of me. And it’s loathing, loathing for myself, because I’ve forgotten what real food is. Disgust for my lazy ass, that made me eat this shit: something I would only feed to my grandmother. “I’ve had enough of this shit!!!”.

Are you sick of this as well? Then go to the Grocery store, spend 20 bucks and go home. Wash your fucking pots and pans – who knows what kind of readers we might have. Get a clean chopping board and a sharp knife and cook! Girls love guys that know how to cook – since they have forgotten how to do it themselves. And if you are a girl, reading this: learn to cook as well! Guys love eating – and you can make him do anything once he is well fed. Don’t know where to start? You can read, right? So google “recipes” and pick one. Just an hour of hard work – a good time to forget the miseries of life – and then “violà, bon appétit.”

– Simone “Child” La Cuercha