Nigerians, Italians, Backwoods, and the Like

You know what movie is surprisingly unfunny? This is Spinal Tap. I laughed at all the things I had already seen: "this one goes to 11," the tiny Stonehenge, and the pod that didn't open. All funny. The cucumber wrapped in foil made me laugh. A few other things did, too, but for a feature-length movie the laughs were way too sporadic. Also, just in case you didn't know, Christopher Guest is apparently the most terrible bastard on earth when he must be interviewed for anything. I don't have any evidence here, but I've read it in a few places that at this point in his career he's a total cock during interviews. He also hates the term "mockumentary," but at the same time refuses to come up with another term for it.

He's also said that being funny isn't what he is, it's what he does for a living.

So apparently he's the antithesis of comedy. Makes me sad for someone who's made some funny stuff. Sorry he thinks comedy is total bullshit outside of a film.

Anyway, Rampvan update? Rampvan update.

I went to Hutto again the day after I wrote the previous post. They seemed upset that I was still having the problem, so good for them. I had a different technician than Little Bill the second day -- I couldn't shake the feeling that Little Bill felt really awkward about not fixing my car in the first place. I also can't shake the feeling that it's not at all his fault, that there's a deeper problem involved, but I felt like if I told him that without any prompting that would've opened up a huge opportunity for him to do this uncomfortable song and dance in front of all the waiting customers.

I just figured avoid it at all costs.

Good story, I know.

Sharon, the receptionist, struck me as intelligent, though she used some of the worst grammar I've heard a person over the age of 40 but under the age of 70 use in a long time. Kind of a shame. She was nice, though, which at times like these is really the only thing that matters.

I was the only person in the waiting room on day one, but on day two things were very different. The most uninteresting in attendance was a woman, about age 40, who was getting her van's lift repaired for her son, who I eventually found out had pretty bad CP and couldn't drive himself. She was nice, kind of a hick, but nice.

The uninteresting turned to interesting very quickly. In walk three people. One was a really, really plain, frumpy lady with a really bad limp and really orthopedic footwear. Just about as unfuckable as possible.

I know that sounds horrible, really, really horrible, but if you saw what I saw you'd know what I meant. She wasn't ugly or really unpleasant to look at or anything, but she was totally unsexy. Just the least sexy person I've ever seen. Hard to explain and maybe I'm the fucking worst, but whatever. It is what it is. She was accompanied by two elderly Italians, a man and wife, who spoke enough English to get by. The couple sat next to the first hick lady and the frumpy girl sat next to me. I listened in on their conversation and began to think they were the frumpy girl's parents, but then she referred to them as "visitors," which definitely made the quiet Italians seem mysterious and powerful from there on out. The man turned to me at one point and asked what was wrong with my car. I told him, and he asked some questions that amounted to me repeating the original story a few times to the point that I considered changing the story a little with each retelling.

That would've been rude, though. These people didn't deserve that.

I wanted to tell them that I really enjoyed their country, but I always assume compliments coming from Americans about a foreign country always come across as "Gee golly I sure did think that there McDonald's outside the Vatican was damn tasty! Couldn't believe they didn't have the McRib, though. Only in America, only in America..."

So I skipped all of that and asked about their problem, which was really only the frumpy girl's problem since they were "only visitors." It was a similar problem. She used a scooter to get around when she wasn't limping all over the place. Their problem got fixed extremely fast, which made me a little angry/frustrated. Can you blame me? I had already been there for an hour and they had been there ten minutes.

I didn't show my anger, though. Counterproductive at that point.

Frumpy and the Italians left, leaving me there with Hick Lady and Sharon. Well, in stroll in a 25-or-so-year-old-man with CP and his 6'5" Nigerian assistant named Mike. CP Man had a very specific white trash aesthetic. Bold polo shirt, baggy, deep blue jeans, two large gold earrings in both ears, Casper-white tennis shoes, and meticulously cropped facial hair.

Let's back up a second. CP Man has really bad CP, OK? Get it? He's got the inward-folding hands, no use of his legs, and frequently-strained speech. It makes sense that he has an assistant, sure, but meticulously trimmed facial hair? Someone had to do this for him. I guess there are either: people out there who would do anything for money or people who would do anything out of the kindness of their hearts. I'm hoping the second, but Mike the Nigerian would suggest the former.

The Nigerian had a laptop with him, which he used whenever he got a moment. These moments didn't occur with any frequency, because CP Man had to have The Nigerian take his iPhone out of his pocket and make phone calls to various people.

The man with useless fingers has a phone operated almost universally by touch.

Okie dokie.

He had a Bluetooth headset, too, which he couldn't operate because he couldn't lift his arms to his ear.

I'm straddling a line here between thinking this guy's a total douchebag and being impressed with his apparent refusal to think inside his own tiny box. I leaned toward douchebag until I learned that he's the head of some kind of disability group that plans events for local cripples. Nothing I'd be interested in, mind you, but it's certainly a cool thing for a lot of people who need it. So less of a douchebag -- and besides, if I had to have someone do just about everything for me I'd want it to at least be fun for him. The Nigerian had a Bluetooth headset and iPhone to fool with.

He also had to help CP Man pee, too.

Less cool thing to work with.

While CP Man and the Nigerian were there, the Backwoods Family entered the scene.

Mr. Backwoods was a man in his 70s with no legs.

Well, he had less than no legs. He was an honest-to-goodness egg of a man. His legs were not stubs, his legs were nonexistent. He was a weeble-wobble. He was Dr. Robotnik. He was a little wooden Russia doll with eight duplicates inside of him. Get it? He was rotund and sans legs.

His wheelchair was held together with tape. Medical tape. He was wearing an A&M hat (what did you expect?), old blue jeans tucked under himself, and a button-up farm-looking shirt. Mr. Backwoods was accompanied by Mrs. Backwoods. Mrs. Backwoods, no shit, was as close to a man posing as a woman (or maybe vice versa) as I've ever seen. Cut six inches off of her black, greasy hair and she was a living, breathing man about town. Her voice was lower than 80% of the men I know. I'm not exaggerating. I'm really not. Mr. B talked to Mrs. B like a husband would a wife, with many "sweethearts," "honeys," and "babes." However, it was later revealed the he is her uncle, but maybe not a biological uncle.

It was confusing.

This was one of their conversations:

MR: Well, ya know I think the best place I ever had deer sausage was there at the uh...
MRS: Oh the festival in Haltom City?
MR: Yes ma'am, the festival in Haltom City. That's where it was. Great deer sausage.
MRS: I ruhmember that. Though I think I remember having great sausage close to here once.
MR: Oh, in Taylor?
MRS: Oh yeah, in Taylor. I think it's great there.
MR: Ehhh, I dunno. They used to be good when theys were making sausage for them and them only and not the rest of Texas. Ya know?
MRS: I think it's good.
MR: Well, alls I know is I don't like the red wieners.
MRS: I ain't never liked the red ones.
MR: I don't e'en know what's in them red ones.
MRS: Maybe some kinda special deer. I dunno.
MR: I reckon so.

Here was another one:

MR: Well my daddy was a bootlegger.
MRS: Was he really?
MR: Yes he was. He had a successful farm until the Depression and then he had to bootleg to get by since nobody wuhn't buying nothin from the farm.
MRS: That's amazin.
MR: He made that there corn whiskey. He made big batches of that corn whiskey in a bathtub in the main house. They used this special corn and when it fermented...they call it "sour feed."
MRS: Is that right?
MR: Yeah, and sometimes they'd mix up the sour feed with the reg'ler feed and the chickens would get drunk.
MRS: Nah-ah!
MR: Oh yeah. One time...he had this rooster...and one time the rooster got so drunk on that sour feed he leaned back to crow in the mornin and fell right back on his rear.

Simply. Amazing.

They also talked about learning the banjo. Mr. B didn't care for the sound of the banjo but plays his "Ghee-tar" with some frequency. He gets magazines where can order his instruments since he "doesn't know nothin about the computer business."

Have we forgotten The Nigerian? Nope. We haven't.

At some point, the Backwoods Family got to talking about gas prices and what its doing to Mrs. B's trucker husband. Mrs. B used to be a trucker, by the by. The Nigerian breaks into a diatribe about how Americans aren't idealogically cohesive enough to do something about gas prices like collectively take a day off work to protest gas prices like some communities do in the UK. He said many things of the hypocrisy of Americans complaining but never taking collective action against the government in protest.

Now, these things The Nigerian spoke of, I don't really disagree with them.

But, given the company, I knew this would be bad. And it was. Not in a climactic way, but it was bad. The Backwoods Family commented briefly about how gas prices were bad and maybe the new elections would bring some change on that front. And then the changed the subject. Very quickly. The Nigerian wasn't done and wanted to talk more about it, heatedly, but I kind of pushed the conversation in a different direction with the Backwoods Family because I knew the poor guy would've been decapitated had this gone on any longer. Kind of a shame, but the Backwoods Family was looking more and more uncomfortable with each passing set of commentary.

It was the kind of hypocrisy the Nigerian was talking about.

And, the car didn't get fixed. Again.



"Get Innocuous!"
LCD Soundsystem