Happy Halloween Everybody!

Short, short, short forward written by the noted scholar of the super-natural Dr. Jeckyll:

What follows is a compendium of highlights taken from the online dating profiles of Count Dracula, The Mummy, The Wolf-man, and the Swamp-Thing. They have not been altered in any way, and were collected by students from the University of Iowa’s MFA program; depicting what the future great writers of America are doing with their spare time.

Dracula’s Interests: I enjoy quiet walks in the city by moon-light, preferably with a lady; especially, if that lady is a virgin from the village. I’m new to the New York area, so I’d like to meet a woman that could show me the sights, while not being embarrassed by my wearing my “I heart NY” t-shirt everywhere I go. I have been told that I have a bit of a drinking problem that only hurts those close to me, but I’m trying to change. However, I have gone through fifteen A.A. sponsors. My other interests include stalking prey, morphing into a bat (a killer at cocktail parties), and sleeping in all day. I am unemployed, but don’t worry ladies I’ve inherited a long standing family fortune.

The Mummy on Apparel: Listen to me ladies, off-white is the new pink! Even after Labor Day! I cannot count how many times I’ve shown up at a Halloween party and someone else was wearing my same outfit. It’s actually become bothersome to go the whole night with the other people at the party calling us twins. I was born a whole millennium earlier and it’s not like I have a great choice in costumes. What, am I supposed to dress up like a cowboy, so this guy can dress up like me? That’s ridiculous. Anyway, hit me up if you want to get with a real man; I’ve got belly lint older than some of these imposters.

The Swamp-Thing on owning property: You have to own your own property now-a-days—renting is a joke. I own a place on the water. I built it myself, back in the seventies. It’s probably worth a cool million right about now, with the housing boom and all, but I don’t wanna brag. Just know that I’m settled. Ain’t nobody pulling the sea-weed out from under my feet. So if you’re looking for a responsible man who already has a stake in his future, and you like fog and the sweet smell of swamp air, I’m your guy.

The Wolf-man’s message to the ladies: Ladies, if you’re looking for something soft and furry to cuddle up to—I’m your man. If you want babies in your future, look no further. I love babies. Sometimes I even sneak out late at night to go and find them. They’re so cute, and tiny, and they taste like chicken. If you’re into hair, I’ll have you know that I go through about ten gallons of conditioner a month. A month! And only Tre’ Semme’. Oooh la la is right! I swear it gets my hair like silk. But I hate silver. This guy only rocks platinum and ice, so if you like silver go back to the dollar store, cause you’re not for me. Ouwooooh!

Will hopefully be in The Metro

The Metro

Rock Out with Your…Um, Rock Out?

As Frost once noted, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” So how long can FDU entertain a rock? Reuter’s Rock is a massive, brightly-painted eyesore that stands near the mansion in one of the campus’s most picturesque areas. According to FDU’s website, “It was dubbed years ago by students in honor of a former faculty member with a reputation for being ‘hard as a rock.’”

Professor Reuter, a take-no-crap professor that evidently had to sit down during lectures every time he wore a pair of polyester slacks.

The site doesn’t comment on the date the rock was instituted, which either means God created it on the third day and saw that it was good, it rose from the ground when the continents broke apart, or FDU chose a discount web developer who figured for ten dollars and fifty cents an hour getting the name right was good enough.

The rock is used in the spirit of FDU: it hosts advertisements for upcoming events that probably no student of FDU’s will attend, with new upcoming events regularly painted over previous failures. This was the brainchild of a student who grew a bias against fliers after his “Everything-Must-Go!” garage sale was an utter failure. The student was forced to rent a storage unit when he decided that he couldn’t simply throw away things he knew people could use.

Fraternities and sororities also use Reuters’ Rock for advertisements, which are always painted in the most enticing diction. The rock has recently featured such blurbs as “Join the Brotherhood,” suggesting a clan of cave dwellers whose members found rubbing the blood of virgins against your temples eliminates crow’s-feet. Such effective diction is absolutely mandatory when trying to convince people to pay dues to be friends with you.

And just this semester, Reuter’s has donned the title of the book The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I have not had a chance to read the book, but walking past Reuter’s one day the name alone, painted on that archaic rock, was enough to make me want to slay my first-born brother. However, since I only have a younger brother who lives an hour away in west Jersey I decided against the trip. It wasn’t worth it with gas prices today, and that’s before the tolls!

In the end, in an age when we’re all inundated with information, is it really necessary to print news on a rock? I may not be an aesthete, but if it’s about artistic expression, students can still be content in the usage of their usual canvases—bathroom stalls and desktops. It’s possible that no one remembers exactly when the rock rolled in, but we can all watch it roll away.

Writer's Block

This is how daddy pays the bills!

Girls Gone Wild 1435 (I think?) Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, Clinton NJ!

The Star Ledger reported today, that studies have found prison rapes in New Jersey are on the decline. Sorry Ray-Ray from D-block, I guess our time together has passed. However, studies show that now women champion as the most sexually victimized prisoners between the two sexes—a selection from the music library of the band Queen will now become their official song. Apparently, one in five women said they had been abused sexually, compared to one in twenty-nine men, though there has been some talk of a Conservative “cover up” for the drastic decline in the men’s numbers. But, this has recently been debunked, citing that you have to be at least the age of eighteen to enter prison.

The fact that all female prisoners are sent directly to the same place—the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, in Clinton NJ—has been suggested as a possible explanation as to why the women’s numbers are so much higher compared to that of the men. “It’s like a giant slumber party,” a female inmate giggled. Then, yelled “pillow fight!” and scurried off with the rest of general population, who had joined in the fray.

Girls Gone Wild has not made an offer yet, but it may be on the horizon. Based on the commercials they run on Comedy Central after twelve a.m., I wouldn’t put it past them.

Curiosity May Have Killed the Cat, but in Warren County it Convicts the Twelve Year Old

A nineteen year old teenager from Phillipsburg, NJ, has been attached to Megan’s law today for supposedly “playing doctor,” as it was written in the Star Ledger, with his half-brother on a visit when he was twelve. The nineteen year old, who will be referred to only as “T.T.,” according to his half-brother who was only six years of age at the time, suggested T.T. woke him in the morning, “threw me on the couch and took off my pants.” Then he inserted the douche bottle. I assume I don’t have to clarify where. T.T. said afterward, that he first, to quote the Ledger, “had done it to himself.”

T.T.’s psychiatrist, Timothy Foley—who’s last name holds so much irony presently—administered a test for detecting pedophiles, which I can only conclude involves giving the patient the options of having a bag of lollipops, a big blue—windowless—van, a bag of lollipops and a big blue van, or possibly a hero sandwich, then seeing which one the patient goes after. The test results, according to Foley, showed no sexual interest “in males or pre-pubescent children.” Therefore, T.T. was not sexually motivated. However, is that enough to exclude this “curious,” as T.T. stated in the Ledger, twelve year old boy from getting roped with Megan’s Law at nineteen?

“It’s a win, clearly,” Assistant Warren County Prosecutor Howard McGinn told the Ledger, which once again proves that there is nothing to do in Warren County. He says that many experts believe that a majority of rapes are motivated by anger rather than lust, not to be confused with the ‘after the fight, make-up fuck’ many couples enjoy. McGinn says it’s the only reason he appealed: that, and “fucking boredom. I mean, all we got is fields out here, buddy. My last case was over cow-tipp’n for Christ’s sake!” Ok, maybe the last quote isn’t entirely accurate, but I’m sure he was thinking it.

David Burton, a professor at the Smith College School for Social Work in Northampton, Mass., who the Ledger states, “researched juvenile sex offenders,” said: “When we apply Megan’s Law to kids, I get concerned.” He went on to suggest that he only wanted to know where all the naughty, naughty men were in his community.

But T.T. has a chance! He can utilize a procedure, created in 2001, which allows juvenile sex offenders to ask a judge to relinquish them from Megan’s Law once they turn eighteen, which I believe includes a paddling in the judges chambers to pay penance for sins committed. However, if T.T. has to continue to register under the law, he can still have another hearing held to determine the amount of risk he poses, based on the reliability of a new scale designed to assess juvenile sex offenders. The test may involve placing juvenile pedophiles at the opposite ends of seesaws as adult pedophiles in hopes to excude a bit of levity in the case against the J.V.’s.

On a personal note, I grew up in the town of Phillipsburg. Except, luckily for me, my sister, brother, and I opted out of “playing doctor,” in exchange for the board game operation, which only allows you to touch with tongs and buzzes whenever you touch a bad place.

Some Short Parables, or Aphorisms. Preferably, the One that Makes Me Sound Smarter.

One time I relieved myself gastrally in front of a Shakesperian scholar in a tiny literary office. He had to have noticed it, since the blast moved the page I was reading, but some reason he didn't read into it.

Once someone referred to me as a comic, and I was immediately reduced to a two-dimensional stencil that smudges at the touch and is only colorful on the day the Lord rested.

I got a page on myspace only to immediately discover that I was part of an extended network of others. I immediately deleted the page and continued my Yoga meditation.

After twelve years of smoking I discovered that cigarette smoking is bad for you, but knowing how to read is a privalege.

After McDonald's stopped serving super-size, I began to purchase two orders of large fries. I retained the ability to leap tall buildings, but lost the ability to see through the act of getting into a pair of H+M jeans.

In the second book of Samuel, when King David witnesses Bathsheba bathing, he essentially becomes one of the first documented males to try and "hit it, then quit it." However, had he not plotted her her husband Uriah's death and made her his wife, he may have become the first documented male to suggest "it's not mine," while being a guest on the Maury show.