The greatest difficulty one might impose on oneself while trying to collude with others on a writing project of any sort is probably to place immeasurable physical distance between everyone involved, and this happens to be precisely the failing formula that we at 'Color me Unimpressed' have adopted. What began as easily traversable distance between adjacent states has grown to include the vast expanse of multiple continents; we now find ourselves trying to manage the sysyphean task of honing our terrible craft as though circumstances did not singularly stand to impede us. So it is that this blog has been established as a desultory attempt to bridge the gap and amuse each other by proxy. Hopefully it will also serve us as an effective heuristic to improving our ability to generate actual content.
Lord knows this sort of thing has proven difficult in the past, as was duly demonstrated when, right in the beginning, my luddite tendencies ultimately necessitated that the task of actually creating this blog be pushed onto 'imp.' If one purveys the below documented Santa-riddled odyssey of terrifying introspection which he traversed in the process of performing this perfunctory first step, you get an idea of the kind of troubles that can beset a project like this when in the hands of people like us. But, lest we stagnate further on a second introductory post, I'd like to illustrate for you the general dynamics at play amidst the contributors to this blog. Maybe when you read this, you'll understand a bit better where we're coming from:
Let's say, as is so often the case, that the three of us are in the car en route to one of our many favorite pancake-and-waffle joints. From the passenger seat next to me, Cory takes another drag of wild dagga from his commemorative alabaster Ute calumet, adding a bit more smoke to the already impenetrable haze which fills the car, severely impairing my ability to see the winding country roads along which I tear recklessly at top speed. (Which admittedly is less than impressive in my run-down 1986 Chevrolet Cavalier). The windows in the back don't work, and Klein's famed intolerance for effluvia of any sort is prompting him to indulge in a series of severely embellished coughing fits. Eventually realizing we aren't going to take the hint, he resorts to a more direct form of communiqué:
"Roll your fucking windows down, assholes!" he blurts out, at last.
"What's that, hoss?" I yell, my hand simultaneously twisting the volume knob to turn up Shonen Knife to an ear-splitting volume.
"God damn it, you motherfucker!" can just barely be made out over the din of broken English caterwauling and erratic guitar raking. "FUCK!"
"Alright, alright, sorry about that," I say as I turn it back down to a reasonable volume. "What did you want?"
"Open a window in here! I can't BREATHE." From the rearview mirror I can see his exaggerated gesturing as he tugs his collar away from his neck, as though to vent some pent up body heat away from his vital areas.
"Jesus, it's not that bad!" I say, although in in all honesty it is, by any reasonable standards intolerably smoky in the close confines of the car. "I think it smells like blueberries!"
"It does not!" he retorts, his frustrated tone becoming severely grizzled. "And it's not just the smell, the SMOKE is irritating my EYES." He punctuates this with another round of vociferous coughs.
Cory, silently laid back in his seat, shows sudden movement for the first time in maybe 20 minutes as he reaches for the window lever, cracking the window a bit and letting in a whistling stream of shockingly cold air. Happily, my view of the road clears up a bit as the smokescreen is reduced to a thin residual haze.
"There," I say. "Happy now?"
I am answered with another flurry of histrionic coughs; there's no pleasing some people.
Finally we arrive at the place. Klein, all too eager to finally be free of the smoke, lunges for the door and piles out of the car before I even come to a full stop. Getting out of the car, I can't help but take a quick mental inventory of the number of moments on the drive here where we well may have been killed. As usual, my imagination is able to generate an unsettling multitude of unique causes of death, both plausible and farfetched. After a moment of being frozen in transfixed horror, I follow after Klein while Cory hurriedly huffs a last few precious puffs of smoke like they'll be his last for the next 3 weeks.
In short order, the three of us are situated at a booth, warding off a waitress with simple orders for ice water and perusing a fairly standard breakfast menu. For me this is really just a formality, serving little purpose beyond determining whether a photograph of pancakes or waffles might in that moment influence my choice in favor of one or the other. At the very least this serves as a welcome distraction from my ongoing morbid internal montage.
Klein meanwhile scrutinizes his menu like an engineer poring over reactor core schematics. It takes me not long to make a choice between my self-imposed binary selection; I've been fixated on blueberry pancakes since my quip about the smoke. Cory announces to no one in particular that he wants only some coffee. When the waitress reappears with our water, Cory and I relay our selections and prepare to face the deafening silence that ensues.
In a few minutes Cory has his coffee and Klein wonders aloud if the Tater Crisper Deluxe is preferable to the Bacon and Egg Breakfast Platter with hash browns. Minutes later our ice water stands sweating and undisturbed as I continue to avoid eye contact with any and all sentient beings, and try not to think about dying in traffic accidents, as Cory busies himself emptying what would seem to me to be an inordinate amount of sugar into his coffee. Klein continues to deliberate over god knows what, the waitress' patience undoubtedly waning away rapidly.
Finally the silence is broken:
"Can I get the Bacon and Egg Breakfast Platter?" he asks in a deadpan monotone.
"Would you like white toast or wheat?" she asks.
"Actually, I was wondering if I can just get it without toast?"
Oh, Jesus.We've been through enough meals in public venues that I have come to dread this point in the proceedings, where I know we will be made to bear witness to Klein's special gift for turning any food-related endeavor into a goddamned filibuster. There is an inexorable 10 minute or so process of arduous song-and-dance with the barista before he finally deigns fit to order anything. Surely a test of patience for even the most magnanimous food industry worker, and a source of anxiety for me as I hope that tales I've heard of the goings-on in the kitchen of a slighted crew are purely apocryphal.
In what eventually amounts to a parlé the likes of which this waitress surely never imagined she would be contending with in a career in the service industry, relative market values of the various Platters and their constituent ingredients are compared and contrasted, and a vast array of recombinations of meals and side dishes are proposed, all for the sake of finalizing the details of Klein's Perfect Breakfast. Time drags by like the moments of a terrible car accident.
Snow leopard leaps into the road. Never see it coming.Next to him, I can see Cory maintaining a surprising level of nonchalance. Although she shows no outward sign of it, I suspect the waitress now hates all of us.
"I'll just have wheat toast" he decides at last.
The waitress scrawls something on a pad before taking the menus and departing.
"But I'm not going to eat any of it," he adds, turning to me.
Silently I hope in vain that the wait staff will appreciate my non-involvement in their suffering and leave my pancakes free of scrotal contact.
The three of us banter for a while, managing to mitigate some of the tension in the air left following the requisite ordeal. Mostly our discussions involve arcane in-jokes, vivid recollections of grievous faux pas past, and frivolous debates comparing the merits of Beakman's World vs. Bill Nye the Science Guy.
"I liked Beakman!" says Cory, defensively but diffidently.
"Bill Nye had liquid nitrogen and all kinds of stuff," I assert. " What did Beakman have? A guy in a rat suit and some jailbait hippie assistant he probably started grooming from the time he dosed her with acid at whatever peace rally he found her at."
Cory looks mildly horrified at the terrible turn this innocuous topic has so suddenly taken, even Klein halts for a beat before taking a long sip of water. Got 'im there, I think to myself. For a moment Cory seemingly prepares to offer a rebuttal, but finally just sighs and shakes his head, the very picture of resignation. Turning to Klein, I ask,
"How about you Klein? Were you big on Beakman or Bill Nye?"
"I don't know what Beakman is," he says. "And I never watched Billy Nye."
"What," asks Cory, "Mr. Wizard then?"
Several seconds pass as Klein takes another lengthy, deliberate sip of water, apparently the only response he intends to give.
The atmosphere is very much back to normal by the time our food arrives, the entire incident with the wheat toast seemingly forgotten by all. I look for a moment at the short-stack that is set before me, before taking a pensive bite. It's flaky, fluffy, blueberry-ey...
Hmm. Does this taste at all like someone dabbed it with their balls?Some moments pass as we eat in silence. Suddenly, I am wrested from what is probably some dire rumination by a clanging sound. I look to see Cory ducking beneath the table. He reappears holding a spoon, elucidating:
"I dropped my spoon."
He flags down the waitress, while Klein eats silently, looking wholly unamused.
"Excuse me," Cory says in a tone which "winsome" wouldn't quite do justice. "Something happened to my spoon, can I have another one?"
For the first time since she had the misfortune of having us in her charge , I note that she is smiling as she takes the sullied instrument and vanishes around the corner of an adjacent row of booths. It doesn't seem like a mandated smile of the "service-with-a" variety, either. There is genuine endearment on her face. 'Shit,' I think. 'Why couldn't you have done that before I ate somebody's ball sweat on a pancake?' As if in response so my silent query, Cory turns to me, grinning slightly and pointing in the general direction the waitress had gone.
"I think she likes me!"
"Fuck you, Cory" interjects Klein.
"No, really." He takes a quick look behind the booth. "I'm gonna talk to her when she comes back."
"Make sure you tell her you were a Bill Nye fan," is all I care to contribute.
In a moment or two the waitress is back, handing a fresh gleaming spoon off to Cory. I watch with bemusement as Klein lets out a resigned sigh, Cory leaning far to reach over his head to receive it, all the while effusing his thanks.
"Thanks, thanks, that's fantastic," he says, looking over the spoon like it was a finely crafted filigree.
Just as the waitress is turning to go, Cory speaks up:
"Wait, wait, just a sec!"
She stops and looks on with what seems to be approval as he scrambles up in his seat, Klein giving absolutely no outward reaction besides a perfunctory grunt as Cory presses his weight down on the back of his head to vault over him, still clasping the spoon in his other hand. Klein brings a forkful of egg white away from his mouth and sets it down with a measured click, staring dead ahead with an unamused grimace.
The ensuing conversation between Cory and the waitress carries on just softly enough to be inaudible from where we sit. I look from them down to Klein, who meets my gaze, shaking his head disapprovingly. The best I can offer in response is an exaggerated "I dunno" gesture. He merely resumes his straight ahead stare and pushes his plate away, his appetite apparently gone. He's hardly eaten a third of his Platter.
In the next instant, the clang of a spoon bouncing across the table immediately precedes the raucous clatter of 2 people slamming their full weight upon it. I have only barely enough reaction time to save my extant breakfast from being crushed beneath Cory and his new associate, who proceed to fuck right there on the table; fuck like it was going out of style. I hear Klein let out a loud and pointed sigh. We both just do our best to keep the spectacle just beyond the limits of our peripheral vision , and I note with mild annoyance that the violent shaking of the table has caused some of my water to splash out of its cup. But then 'Say,' I think. 'This might make a funny idea for a skit someday.'
