Wasn't there somebody who read a Taco Bell story for the Portland Story Night? I think it most likely ended in a painful shit session, as most Taco Bell nights end in.
I guess my default book example for the topic of the fantastic and the known is Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’. Narrative about how the average day of an average man can have all the wonder and virtue of a Greek epic.
And speaking of shaving foam, the book also starts with someone shaving.
My dad pulling his finger apart without any blood then returning it to normal. Bigger than that was Christmas. How the tree he bought on clearance two days earlier from a lot on the bad side of town. How we decorated that tree whose trunk seemed so much straighter while being propped up in that lot. All the god damns it took to get the tree in the stand before making it look like Christmas. The next day all these wonderful presents appeared out of thin air from this generous fat man from the north pole. I don't think anything beats Christmas.
MY dad could roll his eyes backward until only the whites showed. It used to make us kids scream. But Christmas... thank you for your gracious email via Dennis. I'm not bull shitting you, you've come a huge distance. Very impressive.
Usually I was a heavy sleeper as a kid, and sometimes sleptwalk. But one Christmas when I was six, I heard footsteps during the night, saw my parents coming up with empty plastic bags. It was about 2am, and the next morning I knew what it meant.
But I kept lying to myself about it for another couple of years afterwards.
When I was a child, I used to walk to school with my sister. We noticed some pretty yellow flowers popping up in lawns in the spring. The leaves of the plants were even shaped like hearts. The first time I bent down and sniffed one of the flowers, the petals curled around my nose like a little kiss. It tickled. My sister and I took to calling them "kissie flowers." Now I've learned it's called yellow woodsorrel. Apparently it's considered a weed. Still feels like magic to me. 😊
Mar 25, 2023·edited Mar 25, 2023Liked by Chuck Palahniuk
The magic for me has always been in a chequebook. Write a number on a piece of paper and money just appears. Sheer magic.
My dad was telling my mum about some bills they had to pay. Growing debts. The usual struggle. I sit next to him, my feet dangling off the chair and say, “Dad.” My tiny hand patting his shoulder, I say, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you write a big number on your cheque book to get all the money you need? Like a big, big number, Dad. A million bucks. Maybe two.”
I think he laughed. Or maybe he just gave me that look of compassion that people who want to solve real problems with magic always get.
Oh and, of course, sperm. Sperm was a big magic one for me.
I was probably late with the whole wanking off ritual. My friend Bob, he brought me up to speed. After our piano lesson together Bob asks if I have ever wrapped my hand around my willy and jerked it back and forth. I say, “No.” I say, “What for?” He says that something comes out. Eventually. It’s pleasant.
So I do go home. I do wrap my hand around it and move my hand up and down. And then, nothing. Put my pants up and go play Tomb Rider on my Playstation.
On our next piano lesson, Bob squeezes one eye in a wink and says, “So?” So nothing, I say. Nothing happened. Maybe I don’t have it in me. Is he sure this is a thing? Like, does it happen for real? How long does it take? I’ve got homework to do and videogames to play. “Eventually,” Bob says. “Keep doing it until it happens.”
Back home I sit on the loo. Pants down, hand closed into a fist. The ritual begins again. And when I was about to give up, when I was about to go and finish my maths homework, it happened. My butt cheeks squeezed up, my toes stretched up, and just by magic something shot straight into the bathtub. That’s when my Mum knocked at the bathroom door and asked, “That’s quite a long shit you’re taking in there, innit?”
Can't get enough of masturbation stories, really funny and fantastic. I remember mine, quite vividly. It involved a tooth brush up...my...never mind. And late late night Porno channels on the Hotbird satellite. Life only got better since!
Really wanted to draw attention to Hotbird satellites, but that's what caught your attention?
You were late. Puberty hit me earlier than most. It coincided with my father bringing a satellite remote switch box to our home. His intention was to find ZDF, a german channel that broadcasted free European soccer games. Being an only child, and my parents both worked 9 to 5. I was alone all the time. Prior, all I knew were the Jim Carrey, Robin Williams movies, and early 2000s internet porn. But when I switched to hotbird, screw ZDF, and soccer... there I'm at hundrerds of European movie channels, showing transgressive, odd yet artsy x rated low budget movies. Looking back, it's mostly French, Italian and Eastern European. Couldn't understand a word. The porn sowed in between the garment of interesting human stories, so to speak, blew me away.
I remember a movie, a post war movie I think. Bleaker in it's images, and darker in tone. Had some kitchen sink realism. What I took most, were two lenghty graphic scenes of one; two middle aged men having sex outdoors. And two; this perhaps misplaced neon lit dream sequence of a female heroine acting out her sexual fantasies. The movie showed everything. Next day, I knew my parents won't be home. Waxed the carrot and all. But, my big puberty moment came, when I wanted to recreat those neon lit scenes I loved. Carrots and cucumbers scared me away. So, a toothbrush looked welcoming and kind. So, up, up, and I hit my spot really well, that I came out of my prick this way for the first time. No one caught me.
Looking back, I was probably the Bob in your story. I was the dude you got to for porn you wouldn't catch on the vanilla Nilesat satellite. This was before internet invaded every home in developing countries. Not sure if this is incredbile, or a special experiences in any way. Maybe the magical part for me, were those movies. The television as a whole. A magical box that looks ordinary, placed in a room corner like furniture. But, if you just move the antena a little, you tune in to all sorts of experiences that the Moroccan ultra conservative authority wouldn't want you to know, or feel. It was a real pleasure back then, simple yet magical. That should never be taken for granted, although it feels the whole world has.
Oh gawd. These stories would fill an anthology. In grade school a friend told us he'd taught his dog a trick. We went to his house after school, and watched as he jerked off his dog. We had no idea what was happening, but we knew not to tell anyone. The kid was so proud. The dog was transfixed. Definitely not a bike-riding Steven Spielberg afternoon.
See how "crowd seeding" works? Now everyone will weigh in with escalating stories...
ahahahahaha "not a bike-riding Steven Spielberg afternoon"
Some of my friends used to gather after school for a length shooting competition. All in line, masturbating together and see shot the farthest. I never got an invite, and still can't figure out if I'm offended or relieved.
Just like that George Carlin bit. I'm paraphrasing here; '' if two guys wearing pink dresses take turn to jerk off their cat, it's not my business... the cat probably liked it.''
Cause we're telling real stories. I know this is not about masturbation, it's a story involving a pet though. But first: A warning -- You might find this offensive -- And I'm sorry.
During a Sunday afternoon. Nothing to do, no internet, no consoles, just two kids with tree sticks, sitting on the steps of an apartment building bored to death. A kid with a white hamster at his palm, accompanied by his mother, walk out the door. My friend asks if he’d borrow the pet for later. A fascinating friendly creature. My for once good hearted friend had the thought of feeding it something. I was actually surprised the little asshole can be nice at times. All he had was a coin good enough to buy you a small slice of cheese. We head inside the building, both of us sat on the steps. He unpacked the cheese, cut it to very small pieces, and tried to feed it to the hamster who refused to eat. Probably cause he’s full. But, my genius friend took it personally somehow. Got so pissed, so mad, that in his mind he wasted what's equivalent to 0.25 cents for nothing. A good deed without good ends is pointless, he must have thought. What a shambles. So, he grabbed the stick and took a swing towards the hamster. He beat it and beat it, ti’ll the little animal’s insides came out. I’m left speechless. Yet, not surprised cause that’s the friend I know. The little devil went Joe Pesci on it.
Wait, it doesn’t end here.
He took what’s left, and held the remains up by the tail and nailed it on a wall outside. And no, you can’t go to the police cause your neighbors’ kid killed your son’s pet. Animal abuse is still not considered a serious crime in most of the country.
My maniac friend, somehow grew up to become a decent law abiding police officer. Go figure.
A student of mine, a firefighter, once told me the secret code of civil service:
"Cops beat. Firefighters cheat." In short, police officers tend to beat their spouses, while firefighters have a knack for identifying wounded/needy people and having affairs with them.
And, yes, your hamster story broke my heart. Endlessly sad.
It is sad. Don't know if you believe in Karma, or that 'what goes around comes around' idea, I don't, but sometimes life throws a situation that's so relevant.
That same maniac friend, years later, in his teen years, developed a fucked up hobby of sneaking behind homeless people looking for food in dumpsters. He'd grab a poor guy by the legs, flip them inside the trash dump, and then cover the lid tight. By the end he'd turn over the dumpster on it's head. At one night, he was walking back home, wearing a green cap and a white shirt. Minding his own business. As he passed through an unlit street corner. A random guy hit him with something heavy. And beat him up badly. His front teeth were gone. His head had a couple blood-filled swollen bumps. Even his blonde hair was torn in some places. The white shirt covered in blood. He had to stay in a hospital for a couple weeks. It turns out, the random guy was a homeless man from a far area of the city, who was chasing after some other guy. That other guy just happened to be wearing a green cap and a white shirt. The homeless man had mistakenly beaten him. My maniac friend stopped messing around with homeless people. The whole neighborhood found it funny in an ironic sort of way. We taunted him for a while.
The first time I noticed the shape of snowflakes. I was little and outside at night and I saw the light reflection on the snow and realized that’s why we cut the shapes we do with white paper at school! The shape of snowflakes is still magical to me.
Thanks for the note! I don't remember the first time I saw shaving cream billow out of a can, which is a shame cause I'm sure I was blown away. It's the old Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And we mostly just sleepwalk through it in adult life.
I _do_ remember wasting my dad's shaving cream to give myself fake facial hair cause it was _right there_ in the medicine cabinet for anyone to play with.
I also remember a bit of black magic from my childhood: vacuum cleaners. They sucked the world away into some unknown abyss, which I found terrifying. I used to run away when my parents turned one on, worried it'd get me. At least the cats understood that one.
A bit of a tangent... The other day I was thinking about how a plumber and a carpenter never walk into the same room. When I’m dealing with a salesperson or some type of negotiation a lot of times what I’ll do is concoct some sort of strange perspective that the person can’t argue with. It’s my “truth” and it doesn’t matter how wrong it may be, you can’t change my mind on it. Maybe I’m trying to buy a Jeep and the sales person has convinced me that it’s a good car. But my friend had a Jeep and had all sorts of mechanical problems. I won’t shut up about how the price is too high because they “always break.” It doesn’t matter what the facts are, really. Only what I believe to be true. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But at least I have some sort of way to pivot the negotiation haha.
I love that. Creating your own logic. Erma Bombeck would argue with police officers who tried to give her a speeding ticket. She'd say, "Last week I drove 25 mph in a 35 mph zone, so the truth is You Owe Me those ten extra miles-an-hour of speed." That custom-made logic charms me to death.
Alex who?
The Alex with the Taco Bell story.
Dang, thought I was special!
Don't believe everything your mom tells you.
Phew, because mom told me that eating glass was the best way to make the demons go away.
Wasn't there somebody who read a Taco Bell story for the Portland Story Night? I think it most likely ended in a painful shit session, as most Taco Bell nights end in.
Alex Grejuc if I am spelling it correctly.
Yep, that's me!
I guess my default book example for the topic of the fantastic and the known is Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’. Narrative about how the average day of an average man can have all the wonder and virtue of a Greek epic.
And speaking of shaving foam, the book also starts with someone shaving.
Most of writing is remembering. What did you experience as a child that seemed incredible?
My dad pulling his finger apart without any blood then returning it to normal. Bigger than that was Christmas. How the tree he bought on clearance two days earlier from a lot on the bad side of town. How we decorated that tree whose trunk seemed so much straighter while being propped up in that lot. All the god damns it took to get the tree in the stand before making it look like Christmas. The next day all these wonderful presents appeared out of thin air from this generous fat man from the north pole. I don't think anything beats Christmas.
MY dad could roll his eyes backward until only the whites showed. It used to make us kids scream. But Christmas... thank you for your gracious email via Dennis. I'm not bull shitting you, you've come a huge distance. Very impressive.
I tired to think of an example but here I am now nearly an hour later with no answer and a faint feeling of existentialism.
Let’s say Christmas.
Usually I was a heavy sleeper as a kid, and sometimes sleptwalk. But one Christmas when I was six, I heard footsteps during the night, saw my parents coming up with empty plastic bags. It was about 2am, and the next morning I knew what it meant.
But I kept lying to myself about it for another couple of years afterwards.
I'm not Alex [clearly], but thanks for this.
When I was a child, I used to walk to school with my sister. We noticed some pretty yellow flowers popping up in lawns in the spring. The leaves of the plants were even shaped like hearts. The first time I bent down and sniffed one of the flowers, the petals curled around my nose like a little kiss. It tickled. My sister and I took to calling them "kissie flowers." Now I've learned it's called yellow woodsorrel. Apparently it's considered a weed. Still feels like magic to me. 😊
Hey Chuck, are you planning to do another workshop series?
We've got four more meetings in this series. Then we'll talk.
I'm Jack Everly and I wholeheartedly support Chuck Palahniuk's Plot Spoiler (mostly cuz of pieces like this one...).
The magic for me has always been in a chequebook. Write a number on a piece of paper and money just appears. Sheer magic.
My dad was telling my mum about some bills they had to pay. Growing debts. The usual struggle. I sit next to him, my feet dangling off the chair and say, “Dad.” My tiny hand patting his shoulder, I say, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you write a big number on your cheque book to get all the money you need? Like a big, big number, Dad. A million bucks. Maybe two.”
I think he laughed. Or maybe he just gave me that look of compassion that people who want to solve real problems with magic always get.
Oh and, of course, sperm. Sperm was a big magic one for me.
I was probably late with the whole wanking off ritual. My friend Bob, he brought me up to speed. After our piano lesson together Bob asks if I have ever wrapped my hand around my willy and jerked it back and forth. I say, “No.” I say, “What for?” He says that something comes out. Eventually. It’s pleasant.
So I do go home. I do wrap my hand around it and move my hand up and down. And then, nothing. Put my pants up and go play Tomb Rider on my Playstation.
On our next piano lesson, Bob squeezes one eye in a wink and says, “So?” So nothing, I say. Nothing happened. Maybe I don’t have it in me. Is he sure this is a thing? Like, does it happen for real? How long does it take? I’ve got homework to do and videogames to play. “Eventually,” Bob says. “Keep doing it until it happens.”
Back home I sit on the loo. Pants down, hand closed into a fist. The ritual begins again. And when I was about to give up, when I was about to go and finish my maths homework, it happened. My butt cheeks squeezed up, my toes stretched up, and just by magic something shot straight into the bathtub. That’s when my Mum knocked at the bathroom door and asked, “That’s quite a long shit you’re taking in there, innit?”
Can't get enough of masturbation stories, really funny and fantastic. I remember mine, quite vividly. It involved a tooth brush up...my...never mind. And late late night Porno channels on the Hotbird satellite. Life only got better since!
Oh man, you can’t bring up the toothbrush like that and then drop it. I wanna know the entire story now.
Really wanted to draw attention to Hotbird satellites, but that's what caught your attention?
You were late. Puberty hit me earlier than most. It coincided with my father bringing a satellite remote switch box to our home. His intention was to find ZDF, a german channel that broadcasted free European soccer games. Being an only child, and my parents both worked 9 to 5. I was alone all the time. Prior, all I knew were the Jim Carrey, Robin Williams movies, and early 2000s internet porn. But when I switched to hotbird, screw ZDF, and soccer... there I'm at hundrerds of European movie channels, showing transgressive, odd yet artsy x rated low budget movies. Looking back, it's mostly French, Italian and Eastern European. Couldn't understand a word. The porn sowed in between the garment of interesting human stories, so to speak, blew me away.
I remember a movie, a post war movie I think. Bleaker in it's images, and darker in tone. Had some kitchen sink realism. What I took most, were two lenghty graphic scenes of one; two middle aged men having sex outdoors. And two; this perhaps misplaced neon lit dream sequence of a female heroine acting out her sexual fantasies. The movie showed everything. Next day, I knew my parents won't be home. Waxed the carrot and all. But, my big puberty moment came, when I wanted to recreat those neon lit scenes I loved. Carrots and cucumbers scared me away. So, a toothbrush looked welcoming and kind. So, up, up, and I hit my spot really well, that I came out of my prick this way for the first time. No one caught me.
Looking back, I was probably the Bob in your story. I was the dude you got to for porn you wouldn't catch on the vanilla Nilesat satellite. This was before internet invaded every home in developing countries. Not sure if this is incredbile, or a special experiences in any way. Maybe the magical part for me, were those movies. The television as a whole. A magical box that looks ordinary, placed in a room corner like furniture. But, if you just move the antena a little, you tune in to all sorts of experiences that the Moroccan ultra conservative authority wouldn't want you to know, or feel. It was a real pleasure back then, simple yet magical. That should never be taken for granted, although it feels the whole world has.
Oh gawd. These stories would fill an anthology. In grade school a friend told us he'd taught his dog a trick. We went to his house after school, and watched as he jerked off his dog. We had no idea what was happening, but we knew not to tell anyone. The kid was so proud. The dog was transfixed. Definitely not a bike-riding Steven Spielberg afternoon.
See how "crowd seeding" works? Now everyone will weigh in with escalating stories...
ahahahahaha "not a bike-riding Steven Spielberg afternoon"
Some of my friends used to gather after school for a length shooting competition. All in line, masturbating together and see shot the farthest. I never got an invite, and still can't figure out if I'm offended or relieved.
Just like that George Carlin bit. I'm paraphrasing here; '' if two guys wearing pink dresses take turn to jerk off their cat, it's not my business... the cat probably liked it.''
Cause we're telling real stories. I know this is not about masturbation, it's a story involving a pet though. But first: A warning -- You might find this offensive -- And I'm sorry.
During a Sunday afternoon. Nothing to do, no internet, no consoles, just two kids with tree sticks, sitting on the steps of an apartment building bored to death. A kid with a white hamster at his palm, accompanied by his mother, walk out the door. My friend asks if he’d borrow the pet for later. A fascinating friendly creature. My for once good hearted friend had the thought of feeding it something. I was actually surprised the little asshole can be nice at times. All he had was a coin good enough to buy you a small slice of cheese. We head inside the building, both of us sat on the steps. He unpacked the cheese, cut it to very small pieces, and tried to feed it to the hamster who refused to eat. Probably cause he’s full. But, my genius friend took it personally somehow. Got so pissed, so mad, that in his mind he wasted what's equivalent to 0.25 cents for nothing. A good deed without good ends is pointless, he must have thought. What a shambles. So, he grabbed the stick and took a swing towards the hamster. He beat it and beat it, ti’ll the little animal’s insides came out. I’m left speechless. Yet, not surprised cause that’s the friend I know. The little devil went Joe Pesci on it.
Wait, it doesn’t end here.
He took what’s left, and held the remains up by the tail and nailed it on a wall outside. And no, you can’t go to the police cause your neighbors’ kid killed your son’s pet. Animal abuse is still not considered a serious crime in most of the country.
My maniac friend, somehow grew up to become a decent law abiding police officer. Go figure.
A student of mine, a firefighter, once told me the secret code of civil service:
"Cops beat. Firefighters cheat." In short, police officers tend to beat their spouses, while firefighters have a knack for identifying wounded/needy people and having affairs with them.
And, yes, your hamster story broke my heart. Endlessly sad.
It is sad. Don't know if you believe in Karma, or that 'what goes around comes around' idea, I don't, but sometimes life throws a situation that's so relevant.
That same maniac friend, years later, in his teen years, developed a fucked up hobby of sneaking behind homeless people looking for food in dumpsters. He'd grab a poor guy by the legs, flip them inside the trash dump, and then cover the lid tight. By the end he'd turn over the dumpster on it's head. At one night, he was walking back home, wearing a green cap and a white shirt. Minding his own business. As he passed through an unlit street corner. A random guy hit him with something heavy. And beat him up badly. His front teeth were gone. His head had a couple blood-filled swollen bumps. Even his blonde hair was torn in some places. The white shirt covered in blood. He had to stay in a hospital for a couple weeks. It turns out, the random guy was a homeless man from a far area of the city, who was chasing after some other guy. That other guy just happened to be wearing a green cap and a white shirt. The homeless man had mistakenly beaten him. My maniac friend stopped messing around with homeless people. The whole neighborhood found it funny in an ironic sort of way. We taunted him for a while.
The first time I noticed the shape of snowflakes. I was little and outside at night and I saw the light reflection on the snow and realized that’s why we cut the shapes we do with white paper at school! The shape of snowflakes is still magical to me.
Thanks for the note! I don't remember the first time I saw shaving cream billow out of a can, which is a shame cause I'm sure I was blown away. It's the old Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And we mostly just sleepwalk through it in adult life.
I _do_ remember wasting my dad's shaving cream to give myself fake facial hair cause it was _right there_ in the medicine cabinet for anyone to play with.
I also remember a bit of black magic from my childhood: vacuum cleaners. They sucked the world away into some unknown abyss, which I found terrifying. I used to run away when my parents turned one on, worried it'd get me. At least the cats understood that one.
A bit of a tangent... The other day I was thinking about how a plumber and a carpenter never walk into the same room. When I’m dealing with a salesperson or some type of negotiation a lot of times what I’ll do is concoct some sort of strange perspective that the person can’t argue with. It’s my “truth” and it doesn’t matter how wrong it may be, you can’t change my mind on it. Maybe I’m trying to buy a Jeep and the sales person has convinced me that it’s a good car. But my friend had a Jeep and had all sorts of mechanical problems. I won’t shut up about how the price is too high because they “always break.” It doesn’t matter what the facts are, really. Only what I believe to be true. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But at least I have some sort of way to pivot the negotiation haha.
I love that. Creating your own logic. Erma Bombeck would argue with police officers who tried to give her a speeding ticket. She'd say, "Last week I drove 25 mph in a 35 mph zone, so the truth is You Owe Me those ten extra miles-an-hour of speed." That custom-made logic charms me to death.
Hahah that’s hilarious!