“The answer is of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.” —Machiavelli

“It is better to be Tag Larkin than to not be Tag Larkin.”  —Tag Larkin

This has been your Precious Encouragement of the Week.  If one must choose between being precious and being encouraged, anyone will find greater security in – LOOK, A MOO COW!

I don’t understand what I just watched, but I know my life will never be the same…

This one is called “Things are much cooler when you mishear them.”

Abstinence only?
Try Absinthe-only sex-ed
Trippin’ and learnin’

This one is called “Why I stopped going to the Lilith Fair.”

Acoustic guitars
plus pretentious twats equals
Bad open mic night

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So I’m at our fisherman-themed local bar, the Bass-to-Bass with Anonymous Doug, and I’m disappointed that the jukebox doesn’t have any Feather Healer, especially their pinnacle album “Twenty-sided Die: The Roll of Destiny.”  So I decide to get drink until every song sounds like them.  Instead I get drink until I start spouting poorly-thought out random ideas that pop into my head for who knows what reason. Like… 

“I think if I were a woman I’d be a slut,” I say.   For the past few hours we’ve been drinking pitcher after pitcher of Dingo Stout.  It got this name because the alcohol content is so high that if a pregnant woman were to be within five feet of it being poured, they would no longer be pregnant.  And then someone will yell “The Dingo took your baby!” and we’d all laugh and laugh.

“Hell, you’re a slut now,” Anonymous Doug says to me.

“Really?”  I say. “I thought guys can’t be sluts because of the double standards set up by society, thanks to Lance Patriarchy?”

“For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume things are actually equal in this world,”  says Anonymous Doug. 

“Okay,”  I say.  “But I still don’t think I’m a slut because the fact that I haven’t touched a girl since Obama’s inauguration would say otherwise.”

“You’re a slut without opportunities,”  says Anonymous Doug.  “Given the chance you would be a total slut.  So would most people.”

“I’d like an explanation on this,”  I say.  The words are slurring together at this point, like I’m Marlie. 

“Okay, give me your instinctual answer for these questions,”  Anonymous Doug says, pointing across the bar at a blond woman.  “Would you have sex with her?”

“Yeah,”  I say.

“And the chunkier brunette friend next to her that she brings along to make herself look better?”  Anonymous Doug says.

“Yeah,”  I say.

“And that whole table of hot messes over in the corner?”  says Anonymous Doug.

“Yup, all of them,”  I say.  “From the strung-out college drop-out in the arm sling to her 43-year old friend in the jean jacket.”

“The 43-year old is actually only 31,” says Anonymous Doug, not proud that he knows that fact first-hand.

“Really?  31?”  I say.  “That’s rather unfortunate.”

“So you wouldn’t do her?”  says Anonymous Doug.

“No, I’d still do her,”  I say.  “But that’s just sad she looks so much older than she really is.  I mean, 40 may be the new 30 and that’s hot, but you should at least get to be 30 in your 30’s.  Does that mean she looked 30 when she was 19?  That could have gotten her served alcohol while underage without getting carded, I guess.  But still… she’s going to look 70 when she hits 50.  You gotta feel bad for her.”

“You get over that quick when she starts talking to you,” says Anonymous Doug.  “But the point stands: the only thing keeping you from being a slut is opportunity.  And maybe self-respect and concern for your personal health.  But the potential is there.”

“So I’m a slut in the same way that there were WMD’s in Iraq,”  I say.

“You’re a slut of mass whorishness program-related activity,” says Anonymous Doug.

“So what does that make you?”  I say.

“Considering no one will remember me, does it really matter?”  says Anonymous Doug.

Probably not. 

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Ninja Vicki has a computer.  Stolen, of course.  She uses it mainly to load up her stolen iPod with Euro-dance (though I’m trying to get her into some Feather Healer; Vicki is big in synthesizers).  But she doesn’t have e-mail and she’s not on Facebook,  so she can’t do all those quizzes and surveys and tests that people do to determine which member of the Justice League they are or what color their soul is or which Harry Potter character are you most likely to give a rimjob to.  This means I have to hand-deliver such quizzes to her.

“The Tag Larkin quiz?”  says Ninja Vicki, reading the quiz’s title.  “Find out how much like Tag Larkin you are.”

“All you have to do is read each of the 20 statements and decide how much it applies to you,” I say.  “Put a zero if it doesn’t apply at all, a one if it sort of applies, and a two if it totally applies.  If you score over 30, you’re Tag Larkin.”

“Okay… Question one… Glib and superficial charm…”  says Ninja Vicki.  “I’ll put a zero there.”

“Yeah, Samurai Cathy says you have the charm of a sebaceous cyst,” I say.

“Question two…”  Ninja Vicki says with a growl.  “Grandiose self-worth.  Maybe a little.  I am a ninja.  We’ll say one on that.  Question three: Need for Stimulation or Proneness to Boredom…”

“You’re a ninja, so that’s a two,” I say.

“Question four: Pathological lying… wait a minute…”  says Ninja Vicki, who then starts flipping ahead to the other questions.  “Conniving and Manipulativeness… Poor Behavioral Controls… Lack of Remorse or Guilt… Impulsivity… Irresponsibility…”

“Don’t forget Promiscuous Sexual Behavior,” I say.

“This isn’t a test to find out if someone is Tag Larkin,” says Ninja Vicki.  “This is the test to find out if someone is a psychopath.”

“Can it be both?”  I say.

“Dude, you can’t be giving this test to people,”  says Ninja Vicki.  “You’re not qualified for this sort of thing.”

“I already gave it to Bernie the Half-Cyborg Cat and he scored a 38,”  I say.  “He got a zero on the Many Short-Term Marital Relationships question because he’s only been married once.”

“Well, cats are one of nature’s prominent psychopaths,” Ninja Vicki says.  “Right up there with sharks, snakes, and swans.”

“So this test will tell you whether you are a cat, a psychopath, or Tag Larkin?”  I say.  ”That’s pretty cool.”

“No, it’s not cool,” Ninja Vicki says.  “I remember being forced to take this test in high school.”

“Then let’s see if you do better this time around,” I say.

Ninja Vicki scored a 20, the same score she got in high school, so she is not Tag Larkin.  Or a cat.  Or Tag Larkin if Tag Larkin were a cat.  I wonder if Tag Larkin has a cat.  Cat Larkin.

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I was rocking out to some bootleg Feather Healer concert tracks the other day when I came across some sciencey story about the future evolution of women.  Much to my disappointment, there was no mention about a third breast or tongue clitori.

Apparently according to the article the evolved woman of the future will be “slightly shorter and chubbier, have lower blood pressure and cholesterol and will have their first children earlier in life.”  I find this disappointing as well because I thought the future would be dominated by 6-foot tall amazon women in shape-hugging jumpsuits wielding laser rifles.  So I decide to share this news with someone who has already reached the form of what these scientists suggest is the evolved woman of the future.

“I said I will go to the gym once this cold clears up,” says Tina the Lesbian, who I estimate to be around 5′ 5″/ 5′ 6″.

“But aren’t you glad you’re the model of the future woman?”  I say.

“Well, I’m glad women won’t have as many problems with heart disease in the future,”  says Tina the Lesbian.  “But the increased time it takes to reach menopause is sort of weird.  Why would we evolve to be fertile for longer?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t make sense if evolution will have you having your first child sooner than you already do,”  I say.   “American women have their first child at 24.9 years old.  What does nature know that they’d push that up to 23 or 22 or even 19?”

“Maybe this part of woman evolution is geared toward other countries where they have babies later in life,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “New Zealand woman have their first child at 29.9 years old.  The UK is 29.1.  Maybe America stays the same and they slide down to like 27 or 26 years old.”

“Or there’s some sort of cataclysmic event that requires a steady sustained effort to repopulate the Earth,”  I say.  “Like 300 or 400 years from now, because Mother Nature always plans long-term.”

“Actually that’s a bit comforting,” says Tina the Lesbian.  “Knowing that the largest test for the survival of the human race won’t be for another few centuries.”

“And it might be something really cool too,” I say.  “Like an alien invasion, or a civil war between Earth and our colonies on Mars that leaves the Earth a smoldering chunk of rock and so we have to get on rocket ships to Venus because those genocidal pricks Mars won’t have us.”

“You just want your future to be like the song The Final Countdown,”  says Tina the Lesbian.

“It’s not just the greatest song of all time but it is also a prophetic look into the future of humanity,” I say.  “Did you know the keyboardist for Feather Healer almost was in the band Europe?  But he misread the audition sheet and ended up trying out for the band Asia instead?  He didn’t get in that band either.”

“Who the hell is Feather Healer?”  says Tina the Lesbian.

“Never mind that,”  I say.  “The important thing is that we start stockpiling these shorter, chubbier, more fertile women of the future on Venus before those Martian bastards bomb the shit out of us.”

I think that was the plot of a Robert Heinlein book.

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A friend of ours found this story about a regional manager at a Bath and Body Works allegedly firing an employee because said employee was a pagan.  The money quote from the article was allegedly said by the regional manager: “I will be damned if I have a devil-worshipper on my team.”

So I took the time out of my busy day of scouring the Internet for MP3’s of obscure 80’s power band Feather Healer to ask Avonia the Wiccan Pimp whether there will be a Wiccan boycott of Bath and Body Works.

“I don’t shop there anyway,” says Avonia.  “I get my body scrub and shampoos and scented candles and oils from my own shop.”  Her shop being Wic-Mart, which doesn’t do well financially – hence the pimping.

“So?  Boycott them anyway,”  I say.  “Wiccans need to boycott something to let people know they mean business.  Like how Southern Baptists boycotted Disney.”

“Yeah… they really put the spurs to Disney there,” Avonia sarcastically says.  “You could hear ol’ Walt sobbing his frozen eyes out over it.”

“It doesn’t matter if the boycott works or fails miserably,” I say.  “All it is a showing of force, a sign that your group can rally together and organize against someone who you don’t like.”

“But I don’t even know if firing devil-worshippers is company policy at Bath and Body Works,” says Avonia.  “This could just be an isolated incident.”

“Tempered and well-reasoned arguments are useless!”  I say.  “Hysterical overreaction is the only way to effectively express yourself.  Accusations must be made!  Characters and reputations must be maligned and tarnished!  Tangential associations must be woven into a devious tapestry of evil collusions!  And all of these things must be done regardless of validity or coherency.”

“These don’t sound like things that mesh well with my Wiccan beliefs,” says Avonia.

“Then let me pose this scenario to you,”  I say.  “Say it wasn’t a Wiccan getting shit-canned at a Bath and Body Works for their faith.  Let’s say it was a Catholic getting shit-canned for their faith.  You don’t think the cable news networks wouldn’t be flooded by Catholic talking heads screaming about how this was their own kristallnacht?  By the end of the day, they’d be saying Bath and Body Works molested all those altar boys.”

“Yes… that is entirely plausible,”  says Avonia, sadly.

“So when I can expect to see that boycott of Bath and Body Works?”  I say.

“After my coven starts talking to each other again,” says Avonia.  “This past weekend’s Samhain sabbat did not go so well.”

“How so?” I say.

“You know how Samhain is the time where the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest?”  Avonia says.  “Well, in the course of a heated disagreement I told one of my coven sisters that if she didn’t shut the fuck up about who got to do the God and Goddess Ritual that I’d witch-slap her ass on the other side of that spirit veil.”

Avonia knows how to keep her pimp hand strong.

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“It’s not an accident if you enjoy it.”

This has been your Precious Encouragement of the Week.  A lot of smack is talked about accidents, but if it wasn’t for accidents a lot of us wouldn’t be here.  So how about we step off of accidents just a smidge, okay?

Tag Larkin is the Bat…

Halloween… Christmas… whatever.  Tag Larkin has no jurisdiction.

Last Friday of the month again.  Couldn’t find an interesting t-shirt for October, but I do have a pretty big hockey jersey collection…

If you remember the Paul Newman movie Slap Shot you’ll know this is the jersey of his team Charlestown Chiefs.

So if I get invited to an impromptu costume party this weekend, all I’ll need is a pair of thick black glasses and I can go as one of the Hanson Brothers.

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