By John Saleeby
7/01/01
(Note To Readers - Since
the events described in this article occurred on the Deep South during
the summer, please imagine them unfolding against the constant roar
of billions of ice cubes rattling around inside millions and millions
of glasses of iced tea.)
Now I don't know about where
you live (Which is pretty damn insulting since I have been writing these
articles for you people all this time and you still haven't invited
me over for the weekend) but down here in De South you are shit outta
luck if your air conditioner dies on you in the summer time. Air conditioning
is the only thing that holds the modern South together, I don't know
how they kept things going without it back in the old days. Oh, I remember.
Never mind. Forget I brought that up.
Cause my air conditioner
went kerblooey on me a coupla weeks ago and I'll probably never get
over it, man, The Heat just went on and on and on, like this - The Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
- and the "at" part didn't show up until the very second before my new
air conditioner was finally plugged in and turned on. I'm telling you,
The Heat was just as oppressive as the advertising campaign for "Tomb
Raider" starring Angelina Jolie. That oughtta give you some idea.
The first sign of trouble
was when the air conditioner started making funny noises. But I didn't
give it any mind because the noises were much funnier than anything
that was on TV at the time. I made a tape of it that I sent to the local
radio station and they offered my air conditioner a job as their new
Wacky Morning Show DJ. But by then the damn thing had quit the funny
noises and was just blowing out hot air. So they offered it a job as
a Conservative Phone In Talk Show Host. Get it? Cause it was blowing
out "Hot air"? Man, I was sweating my brains out. Literally! One morning
I woke up and my brain had slipped out of my ear and was laying next
to me in bed demanding to know how long it had been since I changed
the sheets. I can't tell you how nice and peaceful the inside of my
head was without that thing in there with it's endless philosophizing
and composing of silly ass comedy routines all the time. I've never
felt so relaxed and all the shows on TV were sooo interesting all of
a sudden! But then I remembered that I would be needing it for my job
so I dried it out in the sun, chopped it up with a razor blade, cut
it into lines on a mirror, and snorted it all back up into my skull.
Oh, well, back on the chain gang . . .
But what about what they
call "The Poor Man's Air Conditioning" - Beer? I can't indulge in that
because I am already taking around five and a half pounds of various
anti depressant mood stabilizing "John, don't kill those people! Don't
say anything, John!" medications that if I consume even a small amount
of alcohol I just fall asleep and wake up in a police interrogation
room with a very satisfied looking cop holding a piece of paper and
saying "Thanks for signing this statement, punk. You just saved the
District Attorney's office a lot of trouble!" "Uh . . . Can I read that?"
"No! The film rights have already been sold to Hollywood! You'll just
have to wait until it comes out next summer with Morgan Freeman as me
and either Anthony Hopkins or Anthony Perkins as you." "Isn't Anthony
Perkins dead?" "Yeah, so he can play the girl we found in the dumpster!"
But you know what? Guess I'm a real tough guy cause I eventually began
to adapt to my environment. Having found out that laying on the floor
was more comfortable than standing erect, I took to crawling around
the floor on my belly, slowly developing a scaly green skin, a four
foot tail, and a twelve foot long sticky pink tongue for grabbing hamburgers
out of the hands of little kids in the playground in front of McDonalds.
Geez, I couldn't have been any creepier than if I was in a Tool video.
I woke up the next morning
and I was back to being a hairy, pale forty year old man with spectacularly
large sex organs. Why, it was all a dream! I mean, the part about me
having turned into a lizard was all a dream. Okay, okay, okay, the part
about me having turned into a lizard AND the part about me having spectacularly
large sex organs. But I had been awakened from dreaming about being
a Lizard Man by the Maintenance Dudes! They were here with my new air
conditioner! It was just like Christmas only Santa Claus never banged
on our door yelling at us to get up out of bed so he could come in and
leave a lot of presents under our tree. And when you hopped out of bed,
pulled on a pair of jeans and a t shirt to let him in Santa never walked
in and made mean cruel nasty fun of The Shrine To The Late Great Joey
Ramone on the front of your fridge you made out of a bunch of pictures
of Poor Ol' Joey you cut out of some magazines and stuck up there with
your Elvis refrigerator magnets. Okay, so you weren't cool enough to
have done that but I was and those rednecks were standing there in my
kitchen making fun of Joey Ramone right there in front of me! Okay,
so Joey Ramone was a pretty goofy looking dude and Southern Rednecks
never got into Punk Rock anyway, but, Hey - I'm a hip guy - I feel bad
when Country Music stars die tragic deaths. When was the last time a
Country singer passed away and I felt every bit as sad about it as all
the hard core Country fans? Hhhmmm . . . Uh . . . Uh, let me see . .
. Hhhmmm . . . Oh! I remember! When Hank Williams died! Oh yeah, man
- When Hank Williams died - Whew! I was almost as freaked out as when
that guy in Blues Traveler died. Oh, yeah. Country Music means a lot
to me.
Of course, I didn't have
time to tell the Rednecks all that - They were too busy rushing into
my bedroom where my air conditioner was and doing their cover band tribute
to Lynyrd Skynyrd in Room 208 of the Trenton, New Jersey Ramada Inn
in '76. See, what rock and roll fans outside the south didn't realize
about Lynyrd Skynyrd back in the seventies was that when they were throwing
furniture around and turning beds over in motel rooms all over the country
they weren't just being destructive - No, they were taking out the motel's
old air conditioners and installing their own Super Southern Summer
Air Conditioners that they carried around with them everywhere they
went on the road. I don't know why those British bands like Led Zeppelin
and The Who were always smashing up those motel rooms - Maybe they were
just dicks.
So that was going on in
my bedroom - The mattress and the box springs were tilted up against
the wall and all the books, magazines, and pieces of paper with comedy
bits scribbled on em I had carefully filed away in my patented "Look
At The Pieces Of Paper Until I Find Myself Looking At The One I Need"
system underneath my bed were being kicked into a completely disorganized
pile in the corner. For one brief moment there I thought I saw the Ghost
of Steve Van Zandt looking on with approval. That's the name of the
original lead singer in Lynyrd Skynyrd, right? Oh yeah, sure. Sure.
They finally got to work on taking out the dead air conditioner, making
so much noise out of it all I decided to just grab my Star Wars pillow
and go outside to my car to get back to sleep in the back seat. But
every time I managed to snooze off and feel a little better (There is
no such person as Bill Maher when you are asleep) the little black kids
who are always playing in the parking lot would sneak up and start banging
away on the side of my car with Voodoo Fervor. You know how sometimes
it seems like the world is in conspiracy against you? Well, relax -
We're not all out to get you, you bastards are all out to get me. But
when I saw their happy smiling faces looking up at me I forgot all about
voting Republican so they'd spend all their lives in misery and poverty
"Aw. I can't stay mad at youse guys!"
So I went back in my apartment
to see if the Rednecks were finished and I found em lounging around
in my living room drinking Gatorade and speculating on if I'm queer
or not.
"Amscray!" I commanded "Me
and the kids wanna watch 'Pokemon'!" But that's all over cause I got
my brand new Comfortaire here and I haven't gone out since. Check out
the high tech controls I got on this thing - First, there's FAN ONLY
- You know, like playing acoustic guitar instead of electric guitar
or watching network television instead of cable or drinking beer instead
of tequila or reading Dave Barry instead of John Saleeby, you know,
like jerking off. Then - POWER SAVER - Did Al Gore win the election?
No, he did not. Screw POWER SAVER! Then, LOW COOL - What, is that for
Lent or some shit? Keep goin' . . . MEDIUM COOL - That's the name of
a shitty old movie from the sixties you don't even wanna watch when
it's on TV. Keep crankin' all the way to Eleven until you get to . .
. . HIGH COOL!!! Yeah! To hell with High School, we've got High Cool
and we won't settle for anything less. Man, this is so great I - Sniff
- This is so great - Sniff, sniff - I said, this is so - ACHOO!! Oh
man, I need some tissues. Better put on a sweater, too. And make some
soap.
