Racial Debate 2008

You know how in sci-fi movies the president is always black? Yeah. The future is now, baby!

Every eight years or so, Uncle Sam wets the bed, and we have to hold an election in order to change the Sheets of Democracy™ and restore his dignity. This is especially true for this coming election, in which we find Uncle Sam very nearly drowning in an ocean of his own body waste after eight years of George W. Bush as the leader of the free world. We, as Americans, can best be considered negligent nursing home staff because in 2004 the bed had already clearly been wet, but even though everyone could smell the urine, we persisted in not changing the sheets for another four years. Are you tired of this metaphor yet? Me too. Let’s move on.

No presidential campaign is complete without a little mudslinging, and in the 2008 race there’s been more mud slung than at the 1987 National Mudslinging Championship, the tournament’s muddiest year. First, everybody was shocked at that minx Hilary Clinton for showing off her bodacious 61 year old funbags, and then we all got mad at the race’s token WASP for paying $400 for a haircut*, and then we openly discussed all the weird rumors about Mormonism that are usually only discussed behind closed doors. However, the most mud has been slung at one Barack Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law, bestselling author, and most importantly, a black guy. Isn’t that cool!? Don’t you think that’s cool? There’s a black guy running for president! Look how far we’ve come! Let’s all treat him just like the other candidates and pay close attention to his political philosophies and ideals, okay? Let’s prove that the Democrats can rise above the reputation of the Republicans.

*Yeah, I know, it’s really freaking funny that I’m writing about a guy spending a lot of money on hair care. But you know what? The hair I pull out of my shower drain looks better than the stuff John Edwards has on his head, and it only costs me $15 to get it cut, plus tip (which is substantial, considering the labor involved). You know what this tells me about John Edwards? It tells me that he’s not good at money management, and therefore a sucky president. God, he should really drop out of the race or something.

Psych! You forget, this is America. Sure, Europe was pretty good at racism, but we’ve taken it and turned it into an art form. You’d be hard pressed to find a single race or culture that we haven’t tried to suppress/completely wipe out in the past 400 years. Hell, look at me dissing all white people based on the actions of the vast majority of our ancestors – that’s what it is, that’s America, right there, the ability to hate anyone, anytime, for anything. Sure, we all cry during American History X and turn our nose up at KKK marches, but as soon as a black guy runs for president we set our phasers to racist and we just go. No, we’re not going to say that he’s big into watermelon or fried chicken, because that’s old hat racism – this is the 21st century! Plus, Islam is currently our religion of choice for hatred, so we’ve got to work that in too. What we’ve come up with is a unique blend of racial and religious bias that burns two separate races: Because Barack Obama is black (1), people are willing to believe that he’s a Muslim and therefore a terrorist (2)! Also, according to the above document, his mother is an "ATHEIST", but this doesn't count as a slam because atheists don't have feelings anyway. This is a spectacular and very creative show of racism; I give it four out of five Strom Thurmonds.

“But Truman,” you say. “We don’t think Obama’s a Muslim because he’s black! We think he’s a Muslim because his middle name is Hussein and his last name rhymes with Osama!” Ah, but I beg to differ. Do you think that those scare-tactic emails would be forwarding as fast if they alleged that Dennis Kucinich was Muslim? No, they wouldn’t, because Kucinich is a short white guy from Cleveland who most of the country hasn’t heard of despite his massive political cajones, and he’s also dropped out of the race already, so there’s that, too. Simply put, we’re not as willing to believe wild religious rumors about a white guy unless he’s a Mormon, in which case nobody will be afraid to ask if he eats his own young for vitality.

The damndest part of this is that we’re not even to the real election yet – this is all Democrats bringing down Democrats, because this party doesn’t have enough problems as it is. A lot of people are assuming that since the Republicans have done nothing but very publicly screw up for the past few years, Americans will be so disenfranchised with corruption that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate just to keep the Republicans out of office again, thus the fight for the Democratic nomination is the real fight for the White House. Here’s the thing, though: Norbit was nominated for an Academy Award. This is proof that America, the country that invented democracy, has forgotten how to vote in a logical way (American Idol be damned). If we expect a Democrat to win, we’ll wind up with a Republican, and vice versa, and if you adopt my perspective and assume that all presidential candidates, regardless of race, have some degree of inherent criminality, then Criss Angel will be our next president. Sure, he may be ostensibly Satanist, but this is America, so we’ll probably give the white guy a free pass.

Truman Capps would be fully willing to elect Teddy Roosevelt as emperor of Earth for all time, but that would require bringing him back from the dead, and a zombie emperor of Earth is hardly a good thing.

Animals That Deserve Your Respect

My tears cure cancer - too bad the only thing that comes out of my eyes is blood!

There are a lot of very awesome animals on Earth, however, they seldom get credit because by the virtue of their extremeness they’re not particularly cute or cuddly. The Texas Horned Lizard is one of the few awesome things to be in some way tied to Texas (see also: Texas Toast). In most respects, the Texas Horned Lizard is just an ordinary looking scaly animal, but as soon as you try to attack it, you will find that you’re up against the Chuck Norris of the animal kingdom. The Texas Horned Lizard will, in self defense, shoot jets of its own blood out of its eyes at its attacker. Did you hear that? Did you hear what I just said? It uses its own blood as a weapon, and it doesn’t even have AIDS*! Honestly, I don’t even think that’s a great attack from a purely logistical standpoint – unless the attacking coyote is particularly squeamish, getting a facefull of blood is about the same as getting a facefull of thick Kool-Aid, but it’s the sheer awesome factor that I think would make this effective. If I was a predator and I got squirted in the face with a lizard’s blood from its eyes, I’d give up out of sheer awe and respect. Any animal that’s willing to shoot its own blood at an attacker has earned its right to not be food.

*I mean, I hope not, because if it did, it meant that somebody with AIDS had sex with a Texas Horned Lizard, which as I’ve said are far from the most attractive or friendly of creatures. I suppose maybe a masochist would be up for it, or somebody with a blood-shooting-from-eyes fetish, but even then you’d have to catch the damn thing, and then there’s proportions, and I just don’t really want to think about it. Of course, maybe the lizard would have just shared needles with somebody who was HIV positive, but the thought of a Texas Blood Lizard tripping on heroin with nothing to lose is actually scaring the crap out of me right now…

God, out the eyes, too! It could have been anywhere – the nose, the pores, the butt, even – but it’s the eyes. That’s evidence of intelligent design right there. I wonder if the lizard can see while he shoots…

Another animal that deserves our respect is Michigan the Cow. I don’t have a whole lot of respect for cows in general, perhaps because of my lactose intolerance or perhaps because they remind me of people in airports, but Michigan deserves mention because of her incredible luck. Michigan is a cow with a spot on her side that’s shaped like the mitten part of the state of Michigan. That in and of itself is a pretty big deal, but here’s the kicker – she lives on a farm in Spaulding Township, Michigan, and because of her unique markings she’s been spared the slaughterhouse in favor of promotional deals. What are the odds!? If this cow had been born in, say, Nebraska, she would have been a passing curiosity before taking a one way stroll down Stabby Lane, and had she been born in Ohio she probably would’ve been killed sooner!

I give you these examples of animal role models because of a popular group on Facebook right now called ‘Fuck College, I Want To Be A Panda’. Pandas are fat, lazy animals that practically never have sex. You want to live your life like a furry, black and white Truman Capps? You go right ahead, brother, and see how you like it. Only in America would people resent a world-class education so much that they’d wish to be an endangered species. You know what I’d rather be than a college student? Tina Fey’s husband. I said good day.

If Truman Capps' insensitive comments about an endangered species have made you angry, he wants you to know that he might have a birthmark in the shape of Oregon, therefore entitling him to do whatever the hell he pleases.

Forget About It Jake, It's China

From time to time, I’ve been accused of what one Internet pioneer once referred to as Hot Spicy Racism™, and in order to clear this issue up before it even starts, I’d like to point out that this blog is not an indictment of a race, but instead their hilariously negligent government. Also, I think Asian chicks are hot, so, I mean, that’s not racist.

Made in China, along with the Hasbro Ice-Nine Starter's Kit.

You know, you’d think that after the first time you make a serious product contamination boo-boo, or, well, the second time, but definitely by the third time, that you’d kind of have the hang of not inadvertently poisoning thousands of people. You’d think that after the government executes the head of your product inspection agency for his negligence and the CEO of one of the guilty companies hangs himself that maybe, just freaking maybe, you’d stop manufacturing products that double as booby traps. However, it seems that this is not the case, because this is China we’re dealing with, and now that they’ve fulfilled every 1980s parent’s worst Halloween nightmare by putting razor blades in lollipops, they have officially stolen the title of “Most Incompetent Country On Earth” from the United States.

Come on, China. I mean, really, it was cute the first time when you killed a whole bunch of dogs, and the second time with the lead paint endangering the lives of our nation’s children was good for a chuckle, but by the time we had the toothpaste thing it was getting on everyone’s nerves and at this point you’re heading straight for a spanking. I mean, really? A razor blade in a lollipop? How- How did you even do that? Were you trying? I think you were trying. I can’t see that being an accident, China – why would you have razor blades lying around in your candy factory? What were you going to do with them? Can you not make candy if you have a beard? Because, I mean, that’s really the only reason I can see for having razor blades in your candy factory. The only other option is that somebody went out, found a couple of razor blades, brought them to the candy factory, and threw them into the candy making machines. Which one do you want to admit to, China? Blatant stupidity or child-hating malice? I asked you a question, China, and so help me God, you’d better answer. We don’t have to go to Disneyland – I’ll turn this blog around. I am so not kidding. I’ll count to three.

It isn’t just us, though. The Chinese sometimes burn themselves, too. Recently, an investigation revealed that a company in Southern China was turning used condoms into hair ties that were being sold en masse at low prices in markets all over the country. Everyone was shocked to find out that they’d been wearing used condoms all this time, and I’d like to point out that only last weekend the University held a “Condom Fashion Show” in which students paraded around wearing unused condoms in another LOL IRONY type of affair. On one hand, I have to say I respect the ingenuity of the Chinese condom converters, because if you’d asked me what piece of garbage to make hair ties out of I would definitely not have thought of used condoms, perhaps more out of good taste than any other reason. On the other hand, I’m completely disgusted, as I hope you are too. Used condoms? I get that you want to cut costs by any means possible, but used condoms? There’s cutting corners, and then there’s scavenging through dumpsters for latex covered in strangers’ semen and vaginal fluid, and that second one is a surefire indicator that you’re far too greedy for your own good. Honestly, the only reason I can see for making hair ties out of used condoms is just spite for everyone with long hair. Methinks the mastermind behind this scheme was bald.

A few years ago, when we spontaneously realized that there were literally hundreds more Chinese people than Americans, there was a lot of talk about a possible war with a country whose military had more soldiers than Canada had citizens, and how screwed we’d all be if we pissed them off, and how soon we wouldn’t be living in the most powerful country on Earth anymore because the Chinese had ninjas and would be running the show before you could say Jack Robinson. However, in light of recent events, I think we need to reevaulate that position. We need to be more scared, because the Chinese have proven themselves incapable of making any product that does not in some way harm Americans. If this is what their candy does, I’d hate to see what their guns are like!

Truman Capps urges the United States not to get too cocky about now being the #2 most incompetent country on Earth - even though China is a communist pseudo-police state with no regard for the environment, the United States is a capitalist pseudo-police state with no regard for the environment with George Bush as president. He's sure the USA will earn the title back.

That's Amore

No, trust me, this will make sense in just a sec. Just read the blog and then come back, and you'll be all "Oooohhh, I get it now..."

There are two kinds of people in the world: People who think Valentine’s Day is adorable, and people who are single. Based on the content of my blog over the past few months, I’m sure you can tell that I’m not only single, but also jaded and cynical to the point that my heart is as cold and bitter as an ear wax popsicle. Valentine’s Day has been over commercialized – “No duh, Truman” says your 1994 alter ego, “But that’s no reason to be a total buzzkill about it.” Well, with all due respect, I think this is a holiday especially in need of trashing, and also I suggest that you enjoy Clinton while you can.

Valentine’s Day has given birth to the notion that if you want to tell someone you love them, you should do it on one day of the year – the day that they’re expecting it. This takes the spur of the moment, giddy excitement out of love in the same way that calling the terrorists beforehand takes the shock-and-awe fear factor out of late night commando raids. Valentine’s Day is essentially a heavy handed shove toward romance for unromantic guys who, by virtue of Aryan features or a trendy, single syllable name, have wound up with girlfriends. Why be spontaneous and romantic all year round when you can put on a tie and smooth out your spiked hair to take your girl to Olive Garden on February 14th when everyone else is doing it?

Being the prolific bachelor that I am, I tend to get a bit cranky around this time of year. I pride myself on having dated some redonkulously great women; however, none of my relationships have ever fallen on Valentine’s Day, so I’ve never had the chance to view it as anything more than a voyeuristic outsider looking in on everyone else’s romantic bliss. Adding to that is the fact that I’d expected things to be different this year, my freshman year of college. In high school, where I was trapped in an asbestos laced prison filled with cliques tighter than anything Tony Hawk does on his skateboard, asking women out for a guy like me was about as easy as building a treehouse using three nails and my wang as a hammer. But this didn’t bother me too much, because I figured that in college, where social castes weren’t as important and beautiful women practically grew on trees, that I would be swamped with potential mates come February 14th.

I was partially right: there are literally hundreds of drop dead gorgeous women at the University of Oregon. If any of you are reading this, do please give yourselves a hand. However, I went wrong because I came to school assuming that it would be like a petting zoo, whereas it’s actually a lot more like the Lourve: You’re face to face with the utmost in beauty, but none of it talks to you and touching is a definite no-no. And of course, it doesn’t help that I don’t drink, because I get the idea that most relationships are started when one or both involved parties are blitzed out of their skulls. Because, really, women don’t need men, as many girls have tearfully told me after ChadBiffLyle breaks up with them, because we traditionally offer little more than simple physical protection and reproductive opportunities, both of which women can now take care of themselves with tasers and sperm banks. What sober woman would take on what is essentially an emotionally handicapped tumor that will still look at porn while she dates him?

The fun-ness of sex is probably one reason, but there’s another, more sentimental explanation that I prefer to believe. Women and men might just put up with each other because love doesn’t suck quite as much as I say it does (it comes close, though). Valentine’s Day, despite all my griping, is sort of like a homecoming parade for the people who put up with the constant, and believe me I mean really flippin’ constant crap that a relationship throws at them and continue to weather the storm. A lot of people have compared love to a rose, because it has thorns that you have to put up with to enjoy its beauty. These people, despite being well intentioned, have it all wrong, and I’ll take this opportunity to present my own metaphor:

Love is like an MG42 machine gun operated by a crack squad of Nazi Stormtroopers on the outskirts of Stalingrad in early 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad, which is widely considered the bloodiest battle in the history of armed conflict, frequently saw hordes of untrained Russian conscripts charging German machine gun nests in an attempt to overwhelm them when they ran out of bullets. Thousands and thousands of people died this way, but every so often a few conscripts managed to survive long enough to kill the Germans, capture the machine gun, and continue in the fight against fascism. So, you see, that’s what love is. You take on incredible, nay, suicidal risk in the pursuit of something good – and if you don’t, your commanding officer shoots you for cowardice.

Have a happy Valentine’s Day tomorrow, everybody. Chances are, you’ve earned it.

His knowledge of obscure World War 2 history is probably one of the reasons Truman Capps is single.

Three Observations

Jerkface.

Writing Is Hard

Pretty much all great writers have some sort of vice. Faulkner couldn’t write a sentence unless he was submerged in a bathtub full of rum with a vodka IV in his arm and a gin and tonic for each hand, Charles Dickens loved making future generations of high schoolers miserable by writing mind bogglingly long and dull novels, and Edgar Allen Poe was really into cutting himself and listening to My Chemical Romance in his Mom’s Escalade. Why did they do these things? Two reasons: 1) Writers are, in general, losers, and 2) Vice is a great way to get around writer’s block. Between Diet Coke, cheap stir fry, and autoerotic asphyxiation, one would assume that I had enough vices to be able to write two blog entries a week, but more often than not I come right down to the wire trying to think of something funny to talk about.

When you maintain a relatively successful blog (and by “relatively” I mean relative to the success of Crystal Pepsi or Meet the Spartans) you start to look at the world through a different set of eyes, especially on Wednesdays and Sundays, provided that those are the days you update. I try to find the comedy in everything now – I did this before, too, but back then I’d just usually say “That’s what she said” whenever somebody finished speaking, and even though TWSS is quite possibly the finest thing ever created by humans, I doubt that you’d all enjoy seven paragraphs of sentences that involve the words “hard”, “long”, “moist”, “rough”, or “very large penis”. It’s easy to see something and think up some funny stuff about it, but what’s hard is to scrape together enough of that funny stuff to make an engaging and funny read. I carry with me a notebook in which I write down funny stuff I see, on the off chance that maybe it’ll grow into a fertile garden of humor that I can savagely and relentlessly harvest, spray with pesticides, and serve up for you in the Marie Callender’s of the Internet that most people call my blog. If that doesn’t get the creative juices a flowin’, I can at least admire its stylish moleskin cover and gloat about how cool I am for owning such a classy piece of writing paraphernalia.

Banana Chips – Worst Thing… Ever?

I’m trying to eat healthy, and I’m trying to save meal plan points, and I’m also going to college. These three combine to form a veritable dietary perfect storm that rains stale rice cakes and pelts me with brownish, overripe fruit that the University deems “fresh”. The other night I was hungry but I knew that if I ate another meal I would not only become slightly less attractive but also use up points that I would definitely need later in the week. I went down to the University market and poked around for awhile, looking for something good. Now, you’ve got to understand, the market at the University of Oregon is designed to give you school spirit, if you replace “school spirit” with “a nasty case of Type 2 diabetes”. Perhaps Wilford Brimley is part of our endowment. The point is, our market is 80% Hostess and 15% Little Debbie, and the last 4.5% is sort of like lard lollipops, where the sticks are made of bacon and the center is filled with heavy cream and Virginia Slims. I searched through all of this and finally found the .5% of the inventory that was not designed to rot teeth or block arteries. This section consisted of trail mix (good), and freeze-dried banana chips (which I’d never had before). They both cost four points, but the banana chips were marginally less fatty, so I picked them.

Let me tell you, even as I bought them I knew I was making a grave mistake. I mean, since when has something with all the moisture taken out of it been good? Maybe the moisture should have been left in there, because banana chips have an unsettling crunch to them, and an even more unsettling odor that you don’t want to smell coming from something that you’re putting in your mouth. If I had to smell banana chips at all, I’d want to smell them in the house of someone I didn’t like, or on a bomb that was about to be dropped on the factory that creates and exports banana chips.

I Hate The Sun

People in Texas always go on about how big everything is down there, when really the largest state is Alaska. This is probably because nobody would buy a pair of boxers that said “Everything’s Bigger In Texas, Almost To The Point Of Being As Big As Things In Alaska” and because neither one of Alaska’s inhabitants care enough to dispute the point with the state that brought us such travesties as El Paso, our current president, and El Paso. A fun fact that you may not know about state size, however, is that Oregon is the 10th largest state in the US. Pretty cool, huh?

Well, see, here’s the thing: It turns out that the Sun comprises 99.8% of the mass in the solar system, thus negating the importance of Oregon’s size or history, or of anything that has happened or is going to happen in your life. Ever. Whatever your dreams are – money, family, something involving mud wrestling – you’re going to get upstaged by that cocky jerk the Sun, because for all intents and purposes it is the only thing in the solar system. Every human, animal, nation, and geographic feature on Earth, not to mention every other planet near here, is statistically insignificant because we happen to be sharing the neighborhood with an unspeakably huge sphere made of nuclear explosions. Did I mention that in the next few billion years the sun is actually going to get bigger, to the point that it will start absorbing everything around it? Yes, you heard me - one day the Sun is going to eat our planet. Granted, after that it’ll get smaller, but not before ruining all our stuff. My advice to humanity is to try and pack a whole lot of living into the next five to six billion years, because before we know it the real culprit for global warming is going to come a knockin’.

Truman Capps is the only blogger on the Internet with the audacity to take on William Faulkner, bananas, and the Sun.

Of Rats And Sloths

I was going to post a picture of a sloth here, but they're honestly some of the most hideous creatures I've ever seen outside of Congress, so instead, please enjoy this picture of beloved actor Jimmy Stewart, and try to imagine him every time I say 'sloth'.

As I’ve mentioned before, half of my readers are either attending MIT or trying to attend MIT. Based on the two MIT students I know, I take it that you’re all highly motivated, energetic people who feel at a loss when you’ve got no new problems to solve. As for everyone else reading this blog, I’d like to assume we’re more like ordinary people, the sort of people who do what needs to be done and then head home and have a beer, play some Team Fortress 2, and maybe look at a little goat porn on the side.

Let it be known that I don’t like to be busy. Many of my friends, both in high school and now, get to be like lab rats a few weeks into every term. Have you ever noticed that lab rats will periodically decide that enough is enough, that they’ve procrastinated for too long, and that they have to do everything they’d been meaning to do in life for the next ten minutes? It sounds meaningful until you remember that lab rats have the life expectancy of a non-Bauer CTU agent and live in a small glass enclosure that’s pretty much empty. Regardless, you can be watching and suddenly one of the rats will jump up and go running over to the water bottle and sucksusksucksucksuck and then he’ll tear up the alfalfa to get to the exercise wheel and runrunrunrunrun and then he’ll jump out and try to bury himself in the alfalfa and digdigdigdigdig and then he’ll be so exhausted that he’ll fall asleep. This has been a pretty long metaphor, so I’m going to remind you that I’m describing about half of my friends right now. However, I definitely prefer to not be busy. If I were an animal, I’d be a sloth, and I’d love every minute of it because if you can get a deadly sin named after you then you’re probably a badass. However, this term it’s come to my attention between all the work I’ve been doing that I’m taking 20 credits, which is kind of a lot at a school where the recommended number is 15, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to keep doing this sloth thing anymore (however, ladies, if you’d like to help me out with lust you need only give me a call).

So how did the lazy guy come to be taking 20 credits? I blame wizards, and not those benevolent Dumbledore types, either. Whenever I’m not busy, which, and it saddens me to say this, is not that often these days, I start worrying about whether I’m going to be able to graduate in four years because of all the crap I’m not doing. To be honest, none of the classes I’m taking are harder than a couple of the AP classes I took in high school, but this is mainly because the guy who taught those classes was arguably The Best Teacher In The Universe™. If I were return to the animal metaphor, he would be like the Jesus of lions, combined with an eagle, and all the water-centric skills of a shark, and he’d have opposable thumbs so he could use guns whenever he was tired of killing people who turned in homework late with his 12-story scorpion tail. Point being, my college classes don’t keep me quite as busy as my high school classes did, which worries me because I’d been preparing myself for a tidal wave of work in college which honestly still has yet to fully hit me. Whenever I’m not busy, I start to worry that it’s either because A) I’m neglecting some highly important work or 2) Because I didn’t take enough credits and I’m just going to burn more of my parents’ money by staying here for an extra year. I worry about this even now, when I’m one credit shy of the University’s maximum! Granted, I did just wake up from a three-hour nap so I could check my email and update my blog, so maybe the sloth in me lives on.

Yesterday was one of the days that made me feel like a lab rat. I got up at 7:05 so I could go to Spanish, had a bowl of delicious Raisin Bran, went to Visual Communication so I could learn to unlock my intuitive mind through meditation and thus improve visual literacy (keep in mind that this is a required class for the journalism school, lest you ever forget that Oregon is chock full of new age hippies), studied with my Spanish partner at lunch for our midterm, went to my humanities class in which my partners and I tried to use a series of abstract runes to describe a picture of a waterfall in order to prove the importance of a standardized language, rushed to the student union so I could help to film an episode of a campus TV show I wrote in which an activist throws a dead fetus at a public safety officer, went to a three hour workshop in which I was taught how to use PhotoShop and InDesign (and yes, geeks, that does mean I now have additional ranks in ‘Forge Document’), met with the other writer for aforementioned TV show so we could write an episode in which a public safety officer unsuccessfully tries to hide a massive erection, and then went to bed so I could get up at 6:50 this morning for an oral exam, and not in the spanky fun way, either. Mind you, I don’t do coffee or energy drinks, which might be why I took a few surprise catnaps during my classes (including one while I was trying to do a sketch for Visual Communication, which resulted in a straight line quickly becoming diagonal).

At the moment I’ve weathered the homework storm and have a few days of ease ahead of me. I’m a much happier camper this way. However, I’ve found that I only really get pissed about being busy when I have time to think about how busy I am, and when I’m busy I don’t have time to think about much anything but not trampling an orphan in my haste to get to class. What does that make me, then? A person who can handle being busy, but also handle being idle? By that logic, I embody the greatest qualities of both lab rat and sloth*! It’s true what all your hot female friends have been telling you – Truman Capps is truly the greatest human being on Earth, and also a spectacular lover.

*I embody the greatest qualities of both Southern California and El Paso! I embody the greatest qualities of both Metamucil and Oat Bran! I embody the greatest qualities of both Crystal Pepsi and New Coke! I’m like a Transformer that transforms from a forklift into a small, weak robot that can only lift things!

Truman Capps is truly the greatest human being on Earth, and also… Wait, crap.

Bingo Wizard

Cyrano de Bergerac wins at Bingo.

Some time ago, teachers from around the world gathered and decided that there was to be one way and one way only to educate elementary and middle schoolers, and that would be Bingo. Screw textbooks, screw construction paper and glue, screw dodgeball, these days school is pretty much just Bingo and recess. I’m sure there was an AP Bingo class at my high school, and the Department of Bingo sent me a letter not too long ago about a possible minor in, well, you know.

No, I’m serious, though: We would play Bingo all the freaking time in elementary school! That was like the only thing they could think of to do with us! For example, my fourth grade class, like all people everywhere except my readers from MIT, were horrible at fractions. Why was there a line between the top number and the bottom number? We didn’t know, and our teacher sure as hell couldn’t seem to explain it to us,* so she broke out the Bingo cards.

*My fourth grade teacher was a mean old hag who would kick us out of class if we chewed gum or drank pop, but then she herself would chew gum and drink pop at her desk while we worked! I brought the unfairness inherent in this up to her one day, and she said “Life isn’t fair, Truman.” Well, yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean you have to be part of the problem, lady! What if they started paying you less because you were a woman? You’d just have to suck it up and deal with it because life isn’t fair. What if they paid you less because you were a mean, crappy teacher? That would be poetic justice.

Now, here’s the thing about Bingo: It has no educational value past simple motor skill testing. You hear the word (or fraction, as the case may be in Fraction Bingo) and look to see if it’s on your pink laminated card. If it is, you put a scrap of paper over it. Then you wait to hear more numbers that might make a line of paper scraps, so that eventually you can yell Bingo and get a Jolly Rancher. What kind of education is that!? I know what a freaking fraction looks like, what I don’t know is how to add the damn things! The only thing you can learn from Bingo is that your Bingo card will always come within one square of a winner, and then some Aryan looking kid with a name like Kyle will get a Bingo just before you. And then he’ll join choir in high school and be really, really popular.

I think the number of Jolly Ranchers you received in elementary school determined how successful you were going to be in life. If you drove a Dodge Charger and dated all the cheerleaders and some of their mothers in high school, you probably spent most of your childhood sucking down cherry Jolly Ranchers because you had the Bingo cards that were winners. I did not like Jolly Ranchers, which would explain nearly everything that happened to me in high school, but even if I did like Jolly Ranchers it wouldn’t have mattered because I was bad at Bingo. Now, of course, being “bad” at Bingo is like being “bad” at going to the bathroom: There’s no real conceivable way for it to be possible without considering very embarrassing social issues, and while I’m very sure that I had a plethora of social issues in elementary school, that didn’t seem to be the reason for my bad luck with Bingo. I could find what the teacher called out just fine, and I could recognize a straight line of torn up bits of paper with the best of ‘em, but my cards just never warranted a Bingo. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t win a single Bingo game in my entire educational career, always just coming close to the win and then watching Kyle, who probably grew a totally rad soul patch in like seventh grade, take it away from me. There came a time at which I was in it not for the prize, but just for the very sensation of winning at Bingo and knowing I wasn’t cursed.

Well, big news, everybody: It took me 19 years, but yesterday I won a freaking game of Bingo – and for a $650 jackpot, no less! It’s part of the halftime festivities at the UO basketball games, and a bunch of guys in the band bought Bingo cards, and I won! Me and about 50 other people. When the University mails me my check for $2, I’m going to frame it and hang it on my wall. Bingo, like life, isn’t fair. It’s the one game you play in elementary school where there isn’t a happy, positive ending for everyone, and just when it looks like you’re going to win it, you with the funny name who’ll go on to be speech team vice president and band treasurer and the guy known for nothing more than his hair, somebody with a much more conventional and popular name will get there before you. But you keep playing Bingo, don’t you? Maybe it’s because they make you, but you keep playing Bingo.

Incidentally, last week somebody in the band won a $93 jackpot from Bingo. His name was Kyle.

Truman Capps would like to take a moment to commemorate his blog’s 1000th hit, which came from Ann Arbor, Michigan. If this particular reader would please send him his or her name, address, social security number, credit card information, and birth certificate, Truman will make sure to buy them something nice before leaving the country in his newly acquired zeppelin.