DS
Table of Contents
09. Circles
Hello reader/best friend.

Here is a short blurb about some of the writing/comedy work I have done:

I studied improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York and wrote for one of their in-house sketch teams for many years. I have contributed a few headlines to The Onion. I have acted in a few episodes of the AMC show Better Call Saul. 

Along with my sketch group Captain Hippo, I’ve sold and developed a pilot for the IFC network and have been a Comedy Central “Comic To Watch.” We also created, wrote and acted in a few different webseries for Broadway Video’s online extension Above Average.

I hope you enjoy this collection of written pieces. It’s like I always say: “I hope you enjoy this collection of written pieces.”

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Ways That I Have
Been Introduced
This article was originally published on various billboards across my hometown.

“Now here is the only man I know who looks dumber with glasses on…”

“Way to ruin a wedding, Bongo Boy!”

“Now let’s hear from a man who told me to tell all of you that he is the tallest person in the room…”

“This is… David?”

“Someone who probably knows the name of the type of train we are on.”

“Our next speaker is a man who does not know the meaning of the words ‘do not drink, fountain contaminated!!’”

“A young Bernie Sanders in appearance and voice only…”

“Four-time Napolean Dynamite Look-Alike Contest runner-up…”

“An adult who looks like an alien dressed as what a child thinks an adult looks like...”
“A man with the biggest fear of the jungle than anyone I have ever met…”

“David, right?”

“A real goody-bad-shoes…”

“And now, someone who has either never seen a single episode of The X-Files or has seen every episode of The X-Files many times…”

“This is the guy who made my boyfriend’s Halloween costume!”

“Seltzer super-fan...”(Said with utter disgust) “Soup connoisseur…”

“I am excited to introduce to you my very good friend David...”

“A man with the deepest falsetto I’ve ever heard…”

“This is the guy I was telling you about, the guy who knows the difference between a chowder and a bisque and loves to explain. David, right?”

“For all you Muppet fans, here comes Big Bird and Bert combined...”

“Basketball Jones!”

“Proud Monkeybone enthusiast…”

“Reverse-gymnast…”

“My son, David.”

“Slender-Man’s fat cousin…”

“You’re the guy that calls every morning and orders a ‘days-worth’ of minestrone. I got you.”

“This is the man who could have saved your husband but instead chose to shout the color of the car speeding towards him...”

“Self-proclaimed puppeteer…”

“Next up is a man who says he lets his flugelhorn do the talking…”

“¡El Pajaro Gigante!”

“The guy who should be more like his brother, David.”
I Have One Big Dog & One Small Dog

This article originally appeared in both Dog’s Best Friend and Cat’s Worst Enemy magazines.
 The verdict is in and the rumors are true: I have two dogs, one big and one small. Hogzilla (big) is a Great American Fiendish Longhound. Peaky Blinders (small) is a Miniature Long-Haired Pomster/Choo Choo mix.

When confronted with any two things, the human brain attempts to compare them. I do not claim to know why the brain does what it does. I am more of an ass man. Here is a handy guide you can use to tell the difference between my big dog Hogzilla and my small dog Peaky Blinders.

Hogzilla is– and I can’t stress this enough– big. His bark sounds like a human man screaming the word “HARF” in baritone. Once a burglar climbed into my house and tried to burgle my treasure and, with a single harf, Hogzilla stripped the man of his clothes, then his skin, then his muscles, reducing the once powerful burglar into a harmless skeleton. Then, with another mighty harf, the bones of the burglar’s skeleton rattled and rearranged to form a tiny bone prison cell around the burglar’s skull. It was actually pretty cool. Also, and I have no idea how he does this, but right before Hogzilla barks his body wrinkles and it makes the sound of a shotgun cocking.

Peaky, on the other hand, makes nary a peep. This is because, again, he is very small. His barks are often mistook for a faucet leaking in the house across the street. Once he got trapped inside one of my nostrils while I was asleep (probably during one of my snores) and I did not hear his yelps even though he was literally inches from my ear drums. I only realized he was in there after he wriggled up my nose and walked passed the backsides of my eyeballs and I saw his silhouette projected onto my wall.

Speaking of food (I am talking about food in the private conversation I am having while typing this), Hogzilla and Peaky Blinders have vastly different eating habits. Before you ask, the answer is yes: I did buy them a big bowl and a small bowl, respectively. The problem is that they got confused (they are dogs, not bowl scientists) and mixed their bowls up. So Hogzilla eats from Peaky’s bowl, which is about the size of two thimbles. I need to refill it four hundred times per meal. Hogzilla can unhinge his jaw to eat things much larger than himself, which is something I thought that only snakes could do. But what are dogs if not snakes that can love you back?


Me (middle), Peaky, and Hogzilla circa 2018-ish.


Peaky eats from Hogzilla’s giant bowl, which is tricky because I need to somehow affix his single piece of kibble to the lip of the bowl with dog-safe paste so he can reach it. If Peaky misses the kibble and falls into the bowl then I have to call, like, ten of my buddies to come help me fish him out and, when we finally retrieve him, he looks like he has seen ghosts or something. Not fun. Once he fell into the bowl and somehow ended up crawling out of my shower drain, which is also something I thought only snakes could do.

Sometimes on rainy days Peaky, Hogzilla and I will play a game called “Twister Town” where Hogzilla will walk in tight circles around Peaky and I, creating a small tornado that scoops us off the ground. Then Peaky will stand on my back and pretend he is flying on a magic carpet and I will sing the song from Aladdin but instead of “I will show the world” I sing “I will show you a squirrel.” It’s just for goofs and nothing serious, just goofing around. However, the routine of playing this game on rainy days has had some sort of Pavlovian affect on the dogs (did not know this could happen) so now if we are walking outside and it starts to rain, Hogzilla will instinctually start running in circles and Peaky will jump onto my back. This causes problems because once we were in the park and it started pouring and Hogzilla went ballistic and ran around a jungle gym and the jungle gym (along with all the kids playing on the jungle gym) got wrapped up in his tornado and disappeared into the sky and I couldn’t even deal with this because Peaky was gnawing and scratching on my neck and I was trying to calm him by singing the Aladdin song. I like to think that the jungle gym ended up in an actual jungle so, in a way, Hogzilla was just putting it back where it belonged. Also, we got to be on the news!

As you can imagine, transportation can be tricky when you live with dogs big and small. Cars are impossible. Once Hogzilla climbed into my Mercedes and the car’s suspension tried to counter his massive girth but, alas, it could not so, alas, the car began to bend and contort and the metallic bending noises somehow formed the human words “take care of my grandma” and finally my poor car gave up and exploded and when the fire and smoke cleared Hogzilla was standing there, unscathed, wearing old-timey racing goggles. So, yeah, no car. A lot of people ask me why I don’t ride Hogzilla around town like he is some kind of weird horse. The answer is because he is terrified of horses (so cute) and even acting like a horse will cause him to shudder and piss. Instead of riding atop Hoggie’s back, he will graciously unhinge his jaw and allow me to climb into one of his massive jowls. It’s like a hammock.

Transporting Peaky is easy as he can fit inside of my pocket and is undetectable to most airline security measures. Hello, Hawaii!

Bathroom!!! When Hogzilla goes, you’ll know it. His poops, my god, I swear. It is like I have TWO Hogzillas (can you imagine??) I needed to buy a house with an abandoned grain silo on the property to store the stuff. It actually rules because I use his “makings” to fertilize my 200 acre leek farm. Our slogan is “Hoggy Farms: make a poop, take a leek (no hogs on premises)™.”

Peaky’s leavings are the exact opposite, they simply evaporate upon leaving his body. Don’t even make it to the ground. He won a blue ribbon once because of this.

“Enough of these differences,” you cry at me, tears streaming down your perfect face, “do Hogzilla and Peaky Blinders have any special team-up moves?”

Not really. This is real life, not some comic book video game. Except, I guess, sometimes Peaky will climb inside of Hogzilla’s jowl with me and it is like all of our powers combine. But we don’t fight crime or anything. We usually just go into town and watch people play chess in the park. I wish I knew how to play chess. Is it less boring if you know how to play? There are fucking knights and castles in it, why is it so boring?? Christ on a boat.

So there you have it. Despite these differences, my small dog Peaky Blinders, my big dog Hogzilla, my cat Boggles (not a fan) and I live in perfect harmony on our 200 acre leek farm in the heart of New York City. Come by for a tour sometime, but please not when it is raining. 

Bye.
How To Be on a
Talk Show

The following is an excerpt from my book How To Be on a Talk Show. The book was self-published because I couldn’t trust other publishers with information this valuable/un-verified.
 Are you a celebrity? First of all, congratulations! Becoming a celebrity is hard. Whether it was through acting, music, crime, or baseball, you have managed to do something that made you famous. But now what? You can’t just become famous once. You have to keep being famous or risk evaporating into the cultural ether.

How can we (celebrities) cut through the cheese and keep those precious ooey-gooey eyeballs on us? There are dozens of ways to do this. You could take out an ad in the newspaper. You could have a mental breakdown. Or– and this way is my favorite– you could appear on a talk show!

For centuries, talk shows have been the number one way for celebrities to proclaim “here I am!” And I would know!

Who the fuck am I, you ask? Watch your mouth and listen, you little punk. I became famous a few years back after I rode my bicycle up the main support cable of the Brooklyn Bridge. Everyone was fascinated by my story until I went on a talk show (Wednesdays with Gordan Puntarelle) and it became obvious that I had absolutely no motivation for driving up the bridge and ended up biking up there by accident because I was daydreaming about being on a talk show. I guess circle of lifes do happen!

Since then, I have kept a tight mental list of bits, stories and anecdotes at the ready in case the opportunity should re-arise. In the meantime, I will pass the savings on to you, other celebrities, because those who can’t do, teach. And those who can teach, do (for a substantial amount of money please insert payment info below I know you famouses have the cash.)

So strap-in, follow these tips, send me money, and get ready to become the perfect talk show guest!!!
01. The Entrance
Folks, it’s called an “entrance” for a reason. It is supposed to be entrancing. When you are first revealed to a talk show audience, you don’t want to seem too serious or too cocky. You definitely don’t want to trip over your shoelaces because you were concentrating too hard on waving so you stumble for what feels like an eternity and you fall into the band and you land inside of the tuba and the tuba player blasts out a big note and you shoot out of the tuba and land right on top of Gordan Puntarelle and you break his hands and he is not happy about it so he really lets you have it during the interview and it ruins whatever traction you had going which, to me, is classic gotcha journalism. Anyway here are a few ways you can make an entrancing entrance!
  • The talk show’s host will stand up to embrace you as you enter. This is a good opportunity for you and the host to switch places. Trade clothing with the host. After the show, go live in their house. Drive their car. Raise their children. You’ve finally made it!

  • Enter staring at your phone. When you sit down, apologize and say you’re sorry but you had to check your stocks. Keep rudely trying to double-task during the interview. Keep screaming “I’M RUINED” and/or “I’M RICH!” Take us on a ride!

  • Pretend you are being chased and you don’t know how you ended up here but now you have to roll with it.

  • Okay, so picture this: you step onto the stage with bloody bandages on your cheeks. Blood is pouring out from under the bandages. Avoid mentioning the cheeks as long as you can. “You are staring at my buccals, aren’t you?” you eventually ask the crowd. Well, you just had your buccal fat removed. What did they do with the buccal fat they took out? Bestow upon the host a large, dripping sack labeled “CELEBRITY BUCCAL FAT — DO NOT REUSE” as a gift!

  • Emerge atop a majestic English Mastiff.
    02. The Bit
    After you nail your entrance and sit on The Couch™, you enter the “bit” phase of the interview. In my opinion, this is one of the most important phases of the whole thing. A “bit” is like a joke that keeps happening over and over again until everyone needs a commercial break. Here are some groovy ideas for bits that will amuse hosts and audiences alike even though they are NOTHING alike!
    • Not musically inclined but still want to be obnoxious? Have someone bring you a guitar mid-interview. Tune the guitar and strum a chord. Then give the guitar back to the person who gave it to you and say “there, that should be in tune but next time please wait until after the interview.”

    • Talk about how you are just so bad at karaoke. Of course, the host and the naive saps in the crowd will tenderly goad you to sing. Play coy for a bit, then cave and say “give me a microphone!” Immediately start airing your horrible political views. While the host tries to wrestle the mic away from you, reiterate that you are very bad at karaoke.

    • For this idea, you’ll need a water source. This could be anything, like a toilet or a gulch. Tell the host that you tried so hard to prevent spoilers about your newest project but you heard there was a leak. Then put on your snorkel and let’er rip!

    • Ask the crowd if they like impressions. When they answer affirmatively, start to panic. You did not expect anyone to like impressions. What is wrong with these people? You’re already you, why do they want to see you be someone else? Try to do one impression and give up. Keep apologizing.

    • Is your name Gregory? Here is a bit For Gregs Only (“FGO” in the biz.) Dig on this quality interaction:
    Bang!! The audience is in the pocket of your hands like butter! Speaking of pockets…
    • If your talk show appearance falls near a holiday you can use this to your advantage. Is it Rosh Hashanah? Fill your pockets with loose kasha and present your pocket kasha mid-interview. “I brought kasha! Where are the varnishkes?” you can say. Then start poking around in the host’s pockets. Bonus points if you actually find varnishkes in there.

    • Is it Christmastime? Tell Talk Show Host your specific Christmas traditions, like wearing a football jersey and having a BBQ at the Christmas stadium. When Talk Show Host points out that these are Super Bowl traditions, you can break down in tears and admit that you’d never heard of Christmas until you arrived at the studio but you felt pressured to talk about it. Then, point to the crew member who pressured you (it’s the cue card guy and he is dressed like Jesus and the cue card he is holding has beautiful scripture written on it.)

    • Is it Arbor Day? Bring a mighty oak tree with you.
    “Sir,” you begin to say because I have told you to address me as such, “what if I’m am no am good talking at?” Sounds to me like you are bad at talking. This can get tricky, as “talk” is literally right there in the words “talk show” (it’s the first one.) Well, congratulations because celebrities interviewing badly is so in the zeitgeist right now. I almost wish I wasn’t so good at it, but I am. And I would know! Here are some fun ideas to try if you are desperate.
    • Be awkward! Be cagey! Internet will call you “mother.” The young people will say you “altered their brain chemistry” which I think just means horny?

    • Dare the host, the crowd and the nice people at home NOT to see your movie. “I get paid either way” you can say, a lit cigarette between each finger of both hands.

    • Audiences love when celebrities reveal that they are actually boring. Reveal an embarrassing high school photo. Newsflash: it’s just a normal, boring picture of you as a teenager which, statistically, is when every single person is at their shittiest. Celebrities are just like us! If you don’t have an embarrassing high school photo of yourself, you can fake one by wearing a denim jacket.

    • Here is a fun game you can play. Have Talk Show Host start the interview by saying “we here at The Show heard that you are the biggest fan of The Dookie Brothers.” “Oh my god, yes, I have both of their albums” you can say, flashing a blush. “Well, they’re here!” screams Talk Show Host. The curtain opens to reveal two men. “Are we supposed to know who these guys are? Are they The Dookie Brothers?” the crowd seems to be murmuring. They applaud nonetheless. You are beside yourself. You are crying. You fall to your knees and kiss the rings of The Dookie Brothers, who are dressed like the middle and ass sections of a horse and are presenting their rings. “We miss you, Darryl,” says one of The Dookie Brothers. Was Darryl the front of the horse? Was there a third Dookie Brother? We’ll never know! That’s showbiz for ya.

    • Be Australian, but just once.
    03. The Plug
    Celebrities go on talk shows for a reason, people. We’re not just out here fucking around. We’re here to sell ourselves. The way we do this is by plugging our wares for all to see. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a “celeb” (biz talk for celebrity) crush the entrance and bit phases of their talk show appearance, only to be foiled by the plug. Here is a classic example of a plug gone wrong:

    Aaaand freeze! Now what exactly went wrong here? Look closesly. That’s right: this guest is WAY too eager and also badly dressed. You have to play it cool! Use this handy template for a perfect plug:

    This way, the audience gets a taste of your art and you seem cool and aloof. Don’t forget to shrug adorably when the clip ends and the cameras cut back to you! Li’l ol’ you? A celeb? Yes? YES!!
    04.  Bonus Tip: Talk Lots of Shit
    These days, America is famished for perfectly marbled celebrity beef. Don’t be shy. If you’re dropping names you might as well step on them. (ex: “The rumors that I started are true, I am in a feud with one of the guys from the show Suits. No, not that guy, the other guy.”) Bonus points if you trash talk other talk shows. (ex: “You know what I like about you, Jimmy/Jimmy/John? You’re not a complete hack like Gordan Puntarelle.”)

    Well, those are all of the tips and tricks I know. And I would know! If you have a talk show and would like to have me on the talk show to promote my new book How To Be on a Talk Show, then I will gladly be on your talk show to talk about it.

    See you in Hollywood!
    Things I Enjoy

    This article was never published, as it was considered “too optimistic” by several media outlets.
         Things: they are what we do most of the time.

    Sometimes, things are not going so great. Other times, things are going as smooth as a Spider’s Silk™.

    Occasionally I will find myself entombed by an extremely attractive brand of self-loathing. To combat this, I have been making a list of nice things that I like. Whenever I find myself enjoying an activity or a thought or a large rhubarb pie, I take a second to write down what I am doing. This way, the next time I am consumed by darkness or despair or a murder of crows, I can look at my list and remind myself that there are nice things in the world. I would like to share my list with you, The Readers, because I think we could all benefit from being angry at me for enjoying myself.
    1. Playing literally any piano.

    2. Staring into middle-distance. If you are going to stare into a distance, make sure it is middle. I have tried staring into near-distance and long-distance and they are both extremely stressful.

    3. Imagining that I am doing a slow somersault, but my feet never leave the ground so I just kind of roll into myself like I am my own sleeping bag.

    4. Realizing that when I was born I was much smaller and, if these trends continue, I will eventually be the biggest thing in the universe.

    5. Talking to my beautiful buddies.

    6. Thinking about how there should be more jobs that end with “-naut.”

    7. Beholding any piece of art that showcases a river or even alludes to one.

    8. Waiting by a mirror at the furniture store and, when someone looks at the mirror, saying “you should buy this mirror, it has a great person in it.”

    9. Smiling at a dog and then slowly looking up at the dog’s owner as my smile becomes a look of utter indifference.

    10. Imagining that the time between inventing gummy technology and deciding to use it to make worms was less than one minute.

    11. Acknowledging that one day everyone I know will die but it definitely won’t be my fault because it is impossible to get all of them to commit to hanging out.

    12. Making up a name and then adding “@gmail.com” to it and then sending that person an email saying “I hope this email finds you real.”

    13. Imagining the spiciest pepper in the world and deciding to never, ever fuck with it.

    14. Thinking about how my parents met when they crashed their tandem bicycles into each other. The passengers on their tandem bicycles also fell in love with each other but it didn’t last.

    15. Accepting that I will always pronounce it “Sadnay Night Live.”

    16. Partaking in anything breakfast or skateboard-related (but never at the same time.)

    17. Counting the different types of streets there can be: lanes, roads, avenues, drives, dirt, etc.

    18. Looking at my hands until I am sure I can see them making their own decisions.

    19. Doing flowers.

    20. Remembering that one high school teacher who really made a difference in my life and wondering if they think about me more than the once every six years I think about them.

    21. Learning that there are literally hundreds of books just about cooking: how to do it, why we do it, what the stuff we cook is made out of, etc.

    22. How nicely “me and you” rhymes with “pee and poo.”

    23. Pronouncing “bath” like how a British person would say it and then taking one.

    24. Naming the crows that land on my front lawn until I run out of names and switch to numbers and sounds.

    25. Fucking, NOT GOLF.

    26. Playing a recording of the sound a basketball makes when it does a “swish” and pantomiming along to it.

    27. Yelling at my old answering machine for not giving me any answers, literally the one thing it was designed to do.

    28. Just gigglin’.

    29. Hockey. What even is it? I am never going to look it up, but imagining what it could be based on things I have heard through the zeitgeist is fun.

    30. Naming constellations and then looking up their actual names and seeing if I got the same thing and, if I did, giving myself a dollar.

    31. Planting a tree in my friend Jeremy’s name.
      Thank you for reading my list! I hope it inspires you so the next time you enjoy doing something, you will stop and think “wow, that Daniel guy should be on television.”

      If you have a list of things that you enjoy and want to share it with me, please keep it to yourself.
      New York vs.
      Los Angeles

      This article was originally chanted by the New York Knicks after they definitely beat whatever the LA basketball team is called.
             Few people on this earth have been to both coasts of the United States of America. I was born in New York City during a hurricane and raised to be Mayor. Now almost pre-30, I have decided that what I really want to do is be a rich actor. Last week I granted myself 3 days, American, to go to LA and achieve my dream. When I got off the plane at Los Angeles X, I was violently kicked in the head by all the subtle differences between Los Angeles and New York City. I did a quick search on The Internet to see if anyone had catalogued these differences in a list or perhaps even in a listicle, but found nothing. Here is my list:

      (Note: “New York City” has been shortened to “NYC,” for “Nice, your city.”)
      1. In NYC, we have fresh bagels every morning. In LA, everyone drives an electric car to work.

      2. In NYC, hotels have cool, sleek names like “The Annihilator’s Kiss” and “Sleep No More.” In LA, all the hotels are nameless, and you have to go down to the lobby and ask someone if you are sleeping in the right place.

      3. In NYC, I saw a snake once in the gutter where it belonged. In LA, snakes are everywhere: working in the shops and in my car.

      4. In NYC, no one says “hello.” In LA, everyone says “hello” and nothing else.

      5. In NYC, I have a mom and a dad that live in the same town as me. In LA, my mom and dad live far, far away.

      6. In NYC, there are bike lanes on the streets AND you can get a real New York Slice™ at Joe’s Pizza for one buck-twenty-five. In LA, the bike lanes are great but the pizza is just lettuce and tomatoes in a bowl with dressing.

      7. In NYC, everyone tells me to “forget about it.” I miss that. In LA, everyone tells me to remember what I saw here tonight.

      8. In NYC, I take a cab to the subway. In LA, there is only one long subway that covers the entire length of the subway system and you have get in and walk through the cars to your destination because the train does not move.

      9. In NYC, you can see “Hamilton” on Broadway. In LA, you can eat avocados until you bleed a creamy green.

      10. In NYC, the rats play music on tiny instruments made of tin cans and old shoes. In LA, the rats are too hot to play their instruments because the sun is much closer to the earth.

      11. In NYC, it snows every Christmas. In LA, I’m not sure they even have Christmas, but I see a lot of people that have the same haircut as Jesus.

      12. In NYC, nobody wears a hat because, back in the 2000s, there was a man who would grab hats right off of people’s heads and run away and he ruined hats for everyone. In LA, you are required to wear multiple hats and encouraged to grab more. I actually like this about LA.

      13. In NYC, we’ve got the tallest building in the world, but it is empty. In LA, they have the longest building in the world and everyone lives there.

      14. In NYC, I gotta have my cup-a-coffee™. In LA, I drink water with leaves in it.
      Those are all of the differences I have noticed so far. I’m off to audition for a “sitcom” (situation com.) The character is called “hipster.” I’m not sure what that is, we don’t have them in New York.

      Update: I didn’t get the part.
      Being a Ghostly Ghoul
      This article was originally screamed at me in reverse by my own reflection in a dream.
             Hello and boo, my name is Scary Larry and I’m a big ghost. Any doctor is required to tell you that, when you die, you spend a long time trapped between the peaceful world of the living and the dark, dark world of the dark, dark dead. What I thought would be an eternity of moving dolls ever-so-slightly and hiding inside of old paintings turned out to be a lot of those things but also much more. Here are eleven things no one will tell you about becoming a freaky ghost.


      Photographic proof of a ghost. ©Ghouly Images.
      1. You can eat as much cereal as you want, and all of it is FREE.      This might be more of a death hack than a thing all ghosts do. I was really good at hacking in life, so this makes sense. Once I put a boat motor on my longboard to make it go faster in the water and it worked great until I died. Here’s a quiz: what do you do when you are a ghost? Bingo: you haunt houses. Here is another quiz: what is literally in literally every house? Bango: cereal. You can use your ability to walk through walls (newsflash: this hurts a lot) to walk through locked cupboards and fridges and the like to find cereal, milk and blueberries. You can also use milk to write the word WILLIS* on the kitchen floor.

      *I am haunting my friend Willis.
      2. When you become a ghost, you don’t automatically have chains.      A lot of people believe that dead-heads (ghosts) like to rattle their ghostly chains at you. This is not true at all. When you wake up as a ghost, you are completely naked and so cold. You’re gonna want to grab anything you can grab and wrap them around your colorless body to keep warm. Sometimes that means chains. I was talking to another ghost at school (you have to go to ghost school for ten months) and she said she LITERALLY died wearing a bunch of chains, but when she woke up as a ghost? No chains! How crazy is that? I wonder how she is doing. Anyway, once you find good chains, you can use them to break into cupboards and get free cereal.
      3. You can pick what kind of ghost you want to be.      When you graduate from ghost school, they let you pick between Ghost or Skeleton. They also ask if you want to go back in time to watch your own death. THIS IS A TRICK. What they do NOT tell you is that you can literally go back to any time in history and watch whatever you want. They just want you to learn from your mistakes or some big bunk. If I knew this was a trick, I would have went back to 1981 and watched my dad take my mom on their first date.
      4. Everyone can see and hear you and it’s just like being alive.      One thing I definitely used to believe was that, when you become a ghouly-boy (ghost), it’s harder for you to go hang out with your buddies who aren’t big ghosts. Not true AT ALL. I woke up as a cold, naked ghost in the longboard unit of Long Island Jewish Hospital and immediately ran to Willis’s house to start haunting his cereal. When Willis answered the door he was surprised for, like, a hot minute and then we just hung out like old times before I had to go to school.
      5. Ghosts love to watch cooking shows.      Sometimes I have trouble figuring out if something is a ghost thing or if I’m just pulling from the zeitgeist, ya know? Anyway, cooking shows rock. I want to be a chef.
      6. Sometimes ghosts will replace the word “you” with “boo.”      Spooky-Daddies and Haunty-Mommas (ghosts) will sometimes say things like “nice to meet boo” and “what do boo think of my chains?” or “ice to meet boo” (this one ghost died in some ice, I guess?) I tried to do this at first but it’s exhausting and I need my energy if I’m gonna stay up all night to scream and eat cereal and solve my own murder (I think I was murdered.)
      7. You can’t pet your dog.      This one is no bueno and just sad.
      8. You can still go on the computer.      A fun part of being murdered is that you can go on all of your social medias and whatnot and read all of the nice things people are saying about you. This kid I haven’t spoken to in a million years who I kind of thought was a jag wrote “nice dude RIP” on my wall which was pretty nice considering he could have done nothing at all. Solid dude.
      9. You don’t have to go to work.      Another thing no one tells boo about dying is that you can straight-up stop going to work. I tried to go back to RedBox HQ, where I used to repair busted RedBoxes, but Carlo told me to not even bother and to stop rattling my chains at people. Real low blow, Carlo. Better keep an eye on your cereal.
      10. You can come back to life whenever you want.      Probably the most important thing I learned about being a body-chucker (ghost) is that, if you ever feel like you’re done being a ghost, you can come back to life. I guess everyone just loves being a ghost because of the free cereal and no work. Also, when you are a ghost you can break into the police station at night and tamper with evidence regarding your own murder case, and who would give that up? Also, you can fly.
      11. Two words: Monster. Mash.
      If you think you “get” the song Monster Mash you are dead wrong, hombre. I listened to it in the car this morning (ghosts can drive cars) and it fucking hit me like a murder weapon to my head. That song is so on the money. If you want to feel what it’s like to be dead but you still want to pay for cereal, do yourself a big favor and rent the song Monster Mash. It won’t take you all the way but it’ll give you an idea.
      I hope boo enjoyed this list of ghostly facts. Have a happy Halloween, which we call Christmas. See you in hell!




      - “Scary” Larry Ghoulihan
      Our Tiny Instruments
      The following article is based on true events.
             Salutations, new friends. What a warm night. My name is Garbage and I can tell from your wide eyes that I am the biggest rat you have seen in your whole life. While you wait for Train, please spare a moment to hear my desperate squeaks. My furry friends and I have one small and simple wish: let us play our tiny instruments for you.
      As you can see, my fellow rats and one Possum have constructed wee instruments from Man’s Trash. We have foraged and gathered treasures from the dark and twisting tunnels of Subway Deep and have used them to craft diminutive instruments. Let us play for you, please. My best friend Rumbles plays the bass guitar. He has fashioned his bass from an old shoe and three shoelaces and his own tail. The Man from which we have found the shoe is a skeleton. Rumbles has the longest and also the dirtiest fingers. Play a lick for our guests, Rumbles.

      I can see that Rumbles has disturbed all of you. I apologize. Perhaps the bass is not your favorite of our small, small instruments. Please do not cast us into the gutters just yet. Our only wish is to play for you a happy song on our tiny instruments. We have heard the Songs of Man play from the streets above our mangy hovels just as you, perhaps, have heard the squeaks and shrieks of my brethren in your walls. Skittles has made a piano from pen caps and a bird. Won’t you give her a listen?

      Skittles appears to have made one of you cry and the rest of you have angry eyebrows. Skittles went to Juilliard until Man discovered her inside of a trombone and put her in a bag and then out of a window. A tale of woe. Sometimes Man is good and sometimes Man is bad. You seem good, but scared. This is why we rats three and Possum will please play beautiful music for you on our makeshift and very small instruments.

      Perhaps there is a song Possum can hiss at you to ease your sweating? We only play the jauntiest and most jubilant songs, only smaller. One of our songs is called “Flowers at the Beach.” Another is called “I Will Not Eat You (My Cousin.)” Music matters now more than ever. Maybe our tune will force you to fall in love and we can play our fanciful melodies at your wedding. You could erect for us a stage from a bucket upside-down and I can play my washboard, which I have constructed from a small piece of metal that was maybe part of a child’s bicycle. I paw at it most furiously. It is truly thunderous. Behold?

      If you will please stop shivering, I can explain to you that rats like we three do have weddings, but there is no music. There are smells in the darkness. Possum knows not what love is. This confusion makes his singing truly splendiferous. Maybe splendiferous isn’t the right word. What is the opposite of splendiferous? Perhaps instead of listening to me struggle to explain you should just watch his voice with your ears. POSSUM!

      Hmm, now you are all very far away and getting smaller. Wherever you are running, I hope there you will find the music that reduces you to smiles. I cannot speak for Rumbles, Skittles or especially Possum but I will tell you that music has saved my life. When I was but a blind pup, I was without purpose or function until I found a condom and wire insulation from which to fashion a small horn. Farewell, Mans so far far away. My sewer band and I, wet fur glistening in the moonlight, will keep searching for a humble soul for which to display a tiny tune from our most small and fragile instruments. Until then, we must practice our craft. Once more from the top, gang… and a-one and a-two and a-you-know-what-to-do…

      {Truly harrowing tones}

      Oh wow, that was not good.
      Circles

      This piece was originally published in a never-ending issue of Recursive magazine.
             Against my doctor’s orders, I have been doing a lot of thinking. A big part of thinking is noticing, and it is easy to notice things when you open up your life to the possibility, man. Sometimes the world is a’whispering and other times it is screaming like a chicken without its manners. It’s up to you whether or not you want to listen, know what I mean?

      The sun. The moon. The ouroboros. Time. The AT&T logo. What do they have in common? They are all circles. The world (and beyond) are full of circles. That is what I am here to reverse-listen to you about.

      Allow me to get to the point faster by going back a while. One year ago I was dirt poor. I didn’t have a job. I was living out of my motorcycle. Worstly, not ONE of the big publishing houses was interested in my manuscript about what I think really killed the dinosaurs (a house fire.) Now I am ass rich. I get flown around the country - yes, on an airplane - to give talks to college students just like you about my journey.

      An important part of embracing and living by The Circularity is accepting that things are never permanent and, more often than never, you are going to end up right back where you started from. You will die in darkness because that is where you were born. This is why I eat every gold-leaf ice cream Mondae (Mondaes are the new Sundaes) as if it is my last. I make decisions, people. The decision to sell my bones and teeth on the internet after finding out that they had rare, medicinal properties is what made me my fortune. An equally spontaneous decision could put me right back in that motorcycle on the side of the highway, wondering when my next meal will be thrown out of a passing car. Usually, it was whole-smoked cigarettes. Cigarettes are...? That’s right... circles if you bend’em right. Mind if I light up? Mm, smooth.

      Listen- shit, the Earth, that’s another circle I forgot to mention up top. Mother Gaia.

      Scenario: you got no one, you get a cat, you love the cat, the cat loves you, the cat gets bored, you don’t excite the cat anymore, you used to go out and chase mice together, now you are boring, the cat wants to take a break, you know the cat ain’t coming back, you got no one. Circle.

      I’m not crying. Can’t. I sold my tear ducts to the water company.

      Look- fuck, the wheel, that’s another one I wanted to mention up top. Okay, look, I can stand here (using my special machine) all day and list circles for you, so I will: woks and clocks. Doll eyes, moon pies, big guys and chicken thighs. The thing on this guy’s shirt is a circle, what is that? What the fuck is a “death star?” What the fuck is a “star war?”

      Oh shit, that sounds dope as hell.

      Let me “circle” back to the point of this lecture. Live your life like it could stop at any moment and live every moment like it already happened. I am barely- living proof that circles work. But don’t take it from me... seriously do NOT take this from me, it is all I have. I got paid before I came into this lecture hall so I’m going to head out. See you a-ROUND.
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