saturday . december . twenty three . two thousand spam is evil and makes me want to pick up my laptop and shake it back and forth like a british nanny. i don't, but i wanna. i'm used to manipulative subject lines, such as: — Subject: Hi — Subject: Re: How are you? — Subject: I'm so hot and i need your help, Stud! but i just got a piece of spam for some online casino. this was the subject line, verbatim: Subject: I LOVE YOU AND I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!!!!!!!!! wow. um. is that what you call a "hard sell"? -- tuesday . december . nineteen . two thousand paul and i won a contest. "the stranger", seattle's wackiest weekly, had a scavenger hunt type of contest. you had three clues to find the "golden shears". if you found them, you got to cut jamie hook's hair in any way you choose. (jamie hook is the stranger's film editor). the morning after the paper came out, paul and i parted ways for the day. i went out with a friend. i asked paul what he was going to do while i was gone. he told me very casually that he was off to find the golden shears. i thought it was real cute and wished him luck. six hours later i got home and the shears were on the coffee table and last night was the big event. the minute that the elusive golden shears were in our possession it was clear to us what necessary, righteous and inevitable: jamie hook needed a mullet, the most unfortunate hair cut of our time. upon arriving at the Twilight Exit, many tried to sway the Vision. these were hook’s friends, and every one of them had a lust for mutilation. the best suggestion was a comb-over, but the power of the mullet was just too seductive. hook was excited. too excited. we assume this was due to a cross between his relentless personality and that he was already up to his nipples in wine by the time we got there. there is something about this man that makes you fall in love with him while simultaneously wanting to punish him. first came the bleach. throughout the entire process, hook himself seemed most intent on some kind of personal injury. we just wanted him to look really, really ugly, even by capitol hill standards. but he was running around the bar with a plastic bag on his head bragging about the burning sensation. we think he was hoping for boils, but we don’t understand why. when it came time to rinse the bleach, we had to literally pull him away from his sudden obsession with smelling annie marie mussleman’s fingers. it was then time for the hair cut itself. at hook’s prompt, we sold the chance to take shears to him for $1 per snip, $2 for a bald spot. we followed up with an ersatz application of green hair dye. after the final rinse, hook’s obscene confidence and bravado changed quickly to a sullen disbelief when he finally got a look at himself. his wine-soaked armor ultimately cracked. he said “this is the worse i've ever looked. this is way more...creative than i could have ever expected. wow. i've never looked quite this bad before. my kid is going to look at this and have to call me 'daddy'.” that was when we started to feel bad, but the rest of the crowd was so pleased with the job that our confidence was boosted and we left satisfied. and today i awoke as if it was the morning after a one night stand. i feel groggy, titillated and a little ashamed of myself. pictures to come. -- friday . december . one . two thousand i've noticed that since the passing of thanksgiving, porno rentals have quadrupled. literally. we're not talking about russ meyer or radley metzger movies (note: i love these guys. their films are GENIUS), or even fetish stuff. the movies i'm talking about have box covers with photos of 20ish women with dicks in their mouths, grinning ridiculously at the camera with a "hey! i've got a dick in my mouth!" look on their face. these are the movies with names like "assgasm 7" and "25 naked coeds have a pajama party 4". this is the mcdonald's of pornography. and ever since thanksgiving, day after day, eleventy-million of these are coming through the store. because of the tone of these particular pornos, i have a hard time believing that people are enjoying the holidays with a celebratory wank, like "yeah!! it's holiday time!! i'm gonna touch my area!!! wooohooo!!" if that were true, i'd take it as a good sign. no, this type of porn, in this kind of quantity, signifies more of an "i'm going to go home with my goddamned copy of '48 girls, 49 blow jobs', sit in the dark with a fucking luke warm schlits and masturbate in a scary, scary rage." so, not only am i privy to this sociological hotbed, but as a christmas bonus, i get to spend a lot more time in the steam room putting "lawrence of a labia" and "shaving ryan's privates" away, in alphabetical order.