Why does the new Gustav want to go to Jamaica, anyway? You've heard his rants & raves about reggae - "It all sounds the same!" he'd bellow, banging his fist on the table like a Khrushchev wishing for a shoe. Hey! He doesn't like hot weather, either!
But he's changed. You've all seen it. He used to be a one-hundred & forty pound emo kid named Jack. He seemed to like it. & yet, as some of you recall, it was a couple of years ago, watching some "news report" on a "news channel" about a baseball player & his alleged steroid problem, your friend Jack turned the recorder on & watched the "before & after" pictures again & again. The last time you saw him like that, you'll recall, was when you got really stoned & watched "Atomic Cafe" with him, & he tried to build his own atom bomb, & he somehow imagined that, if he could get his lead gloves on some uranium, he could enrich it in a process he thought was like enriching white bread. "I'll add vitamins to the radioactive goo!" he'd shout, in-between muttering to himself & falling asleep watching an infomercial about night-blindness.
He changed his name after the steroid documentary, & he changed his life. Whether he got some or not, you don't know. "It vill be easier to get zan uranium!" he told you after drinking an entire bottle of Jagermeister on a dare, in that fake accent he's adopted since the name change. That was the last time any of you saw him until he emerged months later, weighing forty pounds more, all the extra pounds in the grotesque muscles, & missing a neck.
Speaking of drugs, he never much liked pot, either. So why Jamaica? As well, he's not terribly religious, but wasn't he raised Mormon? He'd have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Rastafarianism. It's a puzzler.
You have to admit, though, it's not like he's more likable as "Gustav" than he was as "Jack." Perhaps owing to the mysterious disappearance of his neck, Gustav doesn't talk as much as Jack. Gustav spends a lot of time paying attention to all the new things his body is doing, not complaining to anyone who'll listen why the Hollies are underrated or why Brian Wilson's return to music destroyed commercial rock in the 21st century. Gustav seems to coo a lot. Kissing his muscles. Stuff like that.
& since he doesn't drink, you don't have to worry about him haggling over a check. He's not more likable, but he is, you guess, more tolerable. But why go to Jamaica?
Oh. Oh damn. It's just a Reuters headline about a hurricane. Never mind.
No comments:
Post a Comment