Parade Of Assholes Part Five

Kirk Van Houten

Wow, okay maybe I wasn't as ready to come back as I thought. Well, what do you want, it's a free blog. On with the show...

This guy literally just popped into my head the other week. I hadn't thought of him in years. I know his real name, but his pseudonym will be Kirk Van Houten. They're both single (presumably divorced) dads and they're both a little sad.

I don't know when Kirk Van Houten started coming into the shop, but I think it was around the time Sarcastro was still working there. Kirk looked to be in his late-thirties/early-forties, but apparently should have been only in his early-thirties when I knew him. He had a classic "grown-up nerd" look to him: wire-rimmed glasses, wide mouth, overall awkward demeanor.

He would come in a lot with his son, who was somewhere between the ages of three to seven. I don't know a lot about kids, but he was young. The kid acted like he had some vague behavioral or attitude disorder. He was just really loud and seemingly out there. I don't want to call anybody's young kid an idiot, but he definately didn't have the spark, charm or wit of some of the other kids that I would see occasionally.

Kirk was also cheap. He was notorious for spending vast amounts of time, sometimes north of an hour looking through the alphabetically organized discount boxes. It was always a huge pet peeve when someone would come in around the time I wanted to eat, so you can just add fuel to the fire when that someone was obviously broke/poor/cheap and not going to spend an amount equal to what you were buying your lunch with. I would've rather put a Lincoln myself in the register and spared myself the aggravation.

But what really makes Kirk "asshole worthy" was the fact that he was indeed an asshole. He would constantly sigh when looking through comics one-by-one, as if he was above it all. If only the industry could write and illustrate to his standards, so he wouldn't have to endure the mundane indignity of looking through such dreck. Hey, here's an idea! Get a real fucking job and you'll be able to afford some higher quality comics. He wasn't too proud to not play Sarcastro's Dreamcast when he left it hooked up one day, either.

I remember talking to the filmmaker that worked there just before me and he mentioned Kirk as well. Said he used to come in every...single...week and ask if League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #6 was out yet. I suppose this was before the internet was in wide use. My friend said that when the comic finally shipped, he wanted to look out for him in the parking lot, then rush the door, throw it open and toss the book at him. "Here"!

Once again, a guy all too happy to perpetuate the stereotypes of comic fans. Sigh.

Parade Of Assholes Part Four

Chunk Jr

There once was a boy with no knees. It was pretty messed up. The end.

Chunk Jr was an interesting sort. Evidently he started coming into the shop around the age of ten or eleven. He was short, even for his young age. I know next to nothing about children or their development, so just trust me on this. He was also as wide as he was tall. You know on those talk shows where they interview people in real bad spots? He could've been one of those people. He had to have equaled my weight. He didn't walk, he waddled. He walked like he had no knees. He never wore shorts (thank God) so none of us knew if he literally had no knees, or if he was just so big that his shins buckled under the weight. Point was, wasn't pretty. The owner remembers overhearing Chunk Jr telling his sidekicks that he couldn't feel anything in his legs, and subsequently watched as they all took turns walloping him something Sasha Fierce. He could tell that it hurt him, but damned if he wasn't too proud to admit he lied.

He would come in with his grandmother. By all accounts, she was a saintly lady who doted on him, which was probably to the detriment of Chunk Jr. When you indulge the young'uns, they don't know enough to get off their fat ass, turn off the Playstation and trade in the double cheeseburger for a carrot. I have no idea about his relationship with his parents, but the grandmother would intimate that they didn't really care for him. His parents were big people, but not morbidly obese. He had a somewhat normal sized sister. One of the guys who worked at the shop took a shining to him, Sarcastro actually. This was surprising as up until he got married Sarcastro was as black-hearted and cynical as they come, unafraid of cutting to the quick friend or foe. But yet he would watch out for this little tub. I'm sure he had his reasons, whatever they may be...

Chunk Jr was a weird little kid. A bit "off". He would request comics like Lady Death and Evil Ernie, and when the workers would balk at selling them to him, the grandmother would just come in and pay for them. He liked metal, and would probably be seen as a modern day "hesher" of a sort. I really need to do an urban dictionary update for this. He played D&D, listened to metal, didn't get outside a whole bunch, ate crappy foods, probably got lackluster grades, and basically did everything you stay up all night worrying about your own kids/kids today doing. He seemed to have a decent intelligence, and had a little wit to him sometimes. He even had a group of guys around him to do his bidding. Hell, he had more lackeys than I ever will. He did have a somewhat annoying habit of repeating catchphrases, particularly "feed us, don't eat us", which at the time I swear sounded like "fetus, don't eat us". Neither really makes sense, though the latter gets points for surreality.

I remember one time my two filmmaker friends were at a party for Sarcastro and wondered out loud on his condition, and being surprised that he was even still with us. "Wow. Good for him," seemed to be the reaction. His grandmother eventually passed on, owing us about a hundred bucks for a case of Mech Warrior she bought and took home while only covering part of the cost. Sigh...

He never particularly bothered me, and labeling him as an "asshole" might be a little strong, but that's the category I made for the customers I had. If anything, I kind of worried about him. But not too much. Frankly, I figure he's either alive somewhere leading a much improved but forever hampered life thanks to earlier health problems that might have been preventable, or he's in a very big coffin worrying about other creatures eating him.

Wow that was dark.

Look Back In Apathy: To Live & Die In Comics

This is the blisteringly exciting tale of one of the few times I worked there that somebody started some shit. They didn't know that I wasn't no ho, though.

There was this dad that would come in with his kid, and he forever wanted a bargain. Nothing could be for what it was marked. I've always been fascinated by this. I've always wanted to go into the Golden Arches and say "you know you've got some Big Macs that have been sitting out for a few minutes... how 'bout letting one go for 75 cents, huh?" Or to Best Buy and say "this DVD of Cool Runnings has a dinged corner. You might as well dollar bin it, and you might as well let me pick it out of said bin and buy it for said dollar." Anywho, I remember this guy wanting a deal for the then-white hot Pokemon tins, and the owner let him have one for a few bucks off, but I still charged him tax and got a thrill when I could tell through the miracle of peripheral vision that he furrowed his brow at the amount. He looked normal, a guy in his mid-40s, glasses, with a kid probably around nine or ten.

He came in one day with his kid and looked around, oblivious to the way I crumpled up a piece of paper on seeing him. He took a look at some sort of Pokemon merchandise that for the life of me I can't remember what it was or how much it cost, so we'll just say it was a box of cards and cost $20 each. He said to me as casual as an elevator companion commenting on the weather, "how about doing 2 for $30 on a Friday afternoon?" Okay, there are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to start. One, you are asking me to knock down an item in price. A significant amount. Our profit margins skewed small to begin with. Two, you are asking me to knock down a popular item in price. This wasn't a back issue of Youngblood: Bloodstrike Deathforce edition. This was something that was going to sell out anyways. That's like going into Wal-Mart and saying, "I see you've got some Kevin Costner movies in the discount bin... how 'bout coming down a third on that Nintendo Wii?" You will get your ass kicked by the reanimated corpse of Sam Walton himself. Lastly, what the flying fuck does it being a Friday afternoon have anything to do with it? I'm obviously still at work, you obviously are not. So... why am I in a good and generous mood? Dumbass. Needless to say, I told him essentially "nice try" and he sheepishly admitted he had to try in case it worked.

They looked around and the guy brought up a Pokemon box and I rung him up. He then pulled out a couple of twenties that looked a little odd. Now, I might have had all the attention and care of a heroin addict in a poppy field, but I could spot this from a mile away. Normal money looks (or looked) dark and light shades of green. This looked jaundiced yellow and black. I pulled out this counterfeit pen that we had. If you marked something and it came up clear, it was good to go. Black, and we had a problem. I was supposed to check high bills, mainly hundreds and up. In all my years, nothing had come up black... until now.

I said something on the line of "uhhh, I don't think these are any good." He furrowed his brow and mentioned something about coming directly from the bank. I told him what the counterfeit marker did, and that if he had come directly from the bank then he had better go directly back because they gave him fake money. He pulled out some other money he had (surprise, surprise!) paid, mumbled something and got the Hell out of Dodge. I can't really remember seeing him again, at least with any frequency.

Looking back, it would have been fun to pretend to have to make a call real quick, and dial the cops. Some of you might think that he was a counterfeiter. Maybe not a professional one who makes flawless copies of Benjamins, but someone who tries to make some twenties to pass around local businesses in order to avoid spending his own income, but I honestly don't think that's the case. I think he was just a weaselly guy who got handed some bad money as change somewhere, and then upon finding out tried to pass it off on a gullible comic shop employee. My man just ended up with the play money still on him, less real money and a near heart attack after narrowly avoiding the Secret Service putting a bullet in his ass.

The Cliques: The Hero-Clix Gang

So I thought I'd start another series to talk about the groups of people that would congregate in our fair store. It'll pad out the narrative as well as give people the opportunity to compare and see if any similarities lie within their own groups.

Before I get to it, I will say I'm surprised that I have 7 followers, but a little dismayed to find people so adverse to commenting. I know it's easier to read-n-run, but when you comment you really let me know there's someone else out there. Plus, it'll give you guys a chance to connect and maybe start discussions amongst yourselves.

Which brings me to a new point. As things wind down (as they eventually will. I have the ending posts pretty mapped out so in my mind we're kinda closer to the end than to the beginning) I'm thinking of starting a new blog/forum based around the industry called something like "Comics Suck". It'll basically be a big bitchfest. Now, I don't think comics suck. I actually told a smoking fox French study partner that I was on the upper floor of Barnes & Noble wrapping up "Civil War". How can I be such a mack? Practice. Plus, I went to Urban Outfitters recently and saw some cool little Mighty Marvel Mugs. So I still like the culture of comics, especially the part about how if you look somewhat normal (ie under 450 lbs, somewhat washed and fashionable) that no one blinks an eye when you let your nerd out. Thank you, "The OC"! But I do think there's a ton of crappy comic stores, customers, and Diamond is still out there making lives miserable so there's room for a spin-off. I swear I'll never know how Diamond built an empire on being a bloated, inefficient middle-man.

Back to the point: every Friday night our shop would host Hero-Clix tournaments. Hero-Clix is a collectible miniatures game that came out in 2002. It's tiny little plastic figures of comic characters with stats on the dial and powers to modify what they can do and you battle it out. And even though I disparaged it earlier on my customer complaint on the Mole-Man... I gotta say, it's kinda fun. Me and my buddy (the cokehead) got into it when it first came out, and even stayed at the store until the wee early hours of the morning playing it. And this was the summer when we hung out with the college girls in their off-campus apartment watching them get drunk on Arbor Mist and going to free radio concerts. Ahhhh, the summer of '02. Why did you ever have to end?

Even back-er to the point: A series of regulars would go to these games. And despite being held on Friday nights, these were generally the most normal gamers of the bunch. I geniunely liked a lot of these people. Now the bad apples were superbad, but most of them were cool, like outside of comic shop cool, even!

There was a guy I'll call D-Rock ('cause someone else did) who was built kind of like a pro wrestler. He was tall, blond and athletic. But most appealing of all was his natural sense of ease and good-naturedness. He just exuded a confidence rarely seen in our neurotic little world. He made frequent jokes, chewed tobacco and married an Asian nurse.

His sidekick and the guy that ran the tournaments I'll call D-Rock Jr, because he was shorter, skinnier and still blond. The big boy from New York didn't really like him because he thought he was smug and caustic. I dunno, I got along fine with him.

There was another guy I'll call McEnroe because he once grew out his curly brown locks into a McEnroe-like 'fro. He was in his late 20s and divorced, and talked about his ex-wife a lot, which was weird. He was a decent looking guy. He also seemed baked out of his mind every minute of every day. He later moved and I have no idea what happened to him. Never got confirmation that he smoked more weed than Seth Rogen, either.

A guy that recently emailed me is someone I'll call Shogun. He was a comic customer first, and would bring his young son in when he picked up books. Now normally, I can't stand kids. Oh I can be civil, but I recognize that at least right now they're not for me. However, this little guy was pretty cute, I admit. He would sing "Ain't No Sunshine" and would run around the store. All of this is making me seem about as normal and manly as Pee-Wee Herman, but trust me. The kid was awesome. If you didn't laugh at him, a part of your soul undoubtedly has died.

I've mentioned Sack Ofshitskin (I ironically encouraged him into playing rather than just collecting) and Mole-Man. There was another troublemaker I'll call Dickhead. Dickhead was disliked by everybody, not really for any big reason, just little, small, subtle ones. He just carried himself in a very dickhead manner. He was in his early 30s, paunchy, and had a perfectly cute fiancee that no one could understand the attraction was. D-Rock joked that he should sleep with her just to spite Dickhead. He should've.

Ponytail had a life that was either the greatest or the worst. I had actually met him back when the Star Wars CCG was popular almost 10 years ago. He had a cute, goth-ish girlfriend who went to a local college. He had a ponytail and worked at Michael's, the craft store. Sarcastro would kind of give him a hard time, but Ponytail seemed to take it well. Before I knew it, he disappeared and my apathy remained. He returned when Hero-Clix took off and came back with a stunning blond girl. And when I say she was an 8, I mean an 8 in the real world. Not an 8 in the comic world, which would be a 4 in the real world. She was thin with a nice body, blond, and a pretty face. And for some reason she was devoted to Ponytail. The guy that wrote an 8-part movie epic involving Atlantis and evoking "Tango & Cash". The guy that ran out to puke on the sidewalk on several occasions. She would fight with him and sit next to him on Friday nights as he played miniature games. Ponytail lived at home. Past 30. I have no indication to believe he might have moved out. He apparently has an 11-inch penis that dispenses Arbor Mist and new episodes of "Grey's Anatomy".

There were some odds and ends. There was one guy with a super-southern accent but actually said some clever things, so it taught me never to judge someone by their cover. No it didn't. The last guy was the first guy to run the tournaments. I shall call him Unibrow Johnson, and I shall get to him later. He was the guy that "bought" the store.

So there they were. These brave champions of Friday night, that would battle until 10 at night. These men with cute girlfriends and normal social lives. Some things are just a mystery, man. Some things are just a mystery.

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Parade Of Assholes Part Three

Jose Illicitano

You know, believe it or not I might end up having less of these than I thought. I think enough time has passed that I'm slowly forgetting all the shitty regulars, and I don't want to post about the occasional innocent annoying people, like that one deaf guy. They weren't evil on purpose.

This guy was. We'll call him Jose Illicitano. He went to my high school and was in a grade lower than me. At first, he seemed really cool. He had a good sense of humor, despite being kind of a weirdo. Example: He fell asleep in Anatomy and when the teacher woke him up, he started up suddenly and said "hoo-ah!" That's right, Al Pacino's catchphrase from Scent Of A Woman. I don't get it either, but it was random thus funny.

Over time, he became a regular, and I'd let him behind the counter to talk, and would even supervise him once or twice on how to use the register in the hopes that he could substitute at some point. I think you all know where this is going...

At college, he found a girlfriend. Now, this was not a minor miracle as he was not the handsomest fella in the world. He had kinky black hair, a goattee, and a paunch. However, his girlfriend seemed really cool and open to comics. She was tall, with curly blond hair and height-weight proportionate. Well, one day I'm helping a new customer (who I never saw again) and was about to ring up his credit card when the phone rings. Turns out it's Jose's girlfriend. She says that she has something to tell me about Jose. She's pregnant. I stammer out an "uh... okay, call me back in a few minutes. I'm with somebody." She gives me a really grateful "thanks, (my name here)" and we hang up. The guy, presumably not wanting human drama with his superhuman drama, promptly pays, leaves, and sticks to mail order from that point on.

It turns out all those years not getting laid and reading comic books left Jose not with any sort of gratitude towards the female race nor a sense of right and wrong. He dumped her and his parents called her a whore and said that she raped (?!) him. She was undecided as to what to do, but ultimately decided to end it and move back down further south of the state where her relatives lived and finish college there. I understand what I just wrote might upset some of you, it's an issue that divided this country with very little, if any, gray area. What happened happened, it was her decision to make, I won't, can't, ain't and don't say what I would have done. Moving on.

The main reason she called was to inform us of Jose's sticky fingers. Turns out he had been stealing from the shop for some time now. A customer ordered the JLA:Earth 2 toys from DC Direct from us, and when we went to retrieve them from the back, they were gone. He had bought a Punisher mini-statue off eBay only to find it was missing the extra gun. No worries, he stole ours from the box and closed it back up. He stole from big box stores like Media Play (kinda like Borders for you young'uns) and Best Buy, too. He would do the old "remove the DVD/video game from the protective covering and slip it in his clothes" trick. This came as kind of a shock and a disappointment. My liberal guilt didn't want to believe the cliche of the sleazy latino womanizing thief, but there it was. I felt like Michael from The Office when he found out the ex-con working for him was the black guy, and not a white guy who got caught polluting in a black guy's lake.

If you're hoping and salivating for the neat and tidy comic book ending of the owner coming in, kicking the guy's ass back to Guantanamo Bay and dropping a bomb on him... keep hoping. I informed the owner of what the girlfriend had said, and of course he was upset. After asking me if she would testify and getting pissed, it just kind of went away. Jose stopped coming in after probably detecting some knowledge on our part and some low-key hostility. I saw him a couple of times at the gym I used to go to, and was a dick to him, but that was it. As tempermental as the owner was (he once kicked a Coke machine's ass and broke a register), he surprisingly didn't do anything. The girlfriend later admitted revenge fantasies to me such as throwing a molotov cocktail in his room, but she didn't do anything and neither did I, despite my own bloodlust at being made a sap as well as the objective anger of treating someone like he did.

I talked to the girl fairly regularly for a period of three to three-and-a-half months, I think. It was a bad year for me, as I moved far away from work with my parents who I did not get along with in the slightest. My buddies were all in college and I felt so very, very alone. It was probably a tie for worst year of my life. Place a gun to my head (at the time I probably would have wanted you to) and I'll probably say it was the worst. So needless to say, those conversations really helped me a lot. I found out she was really cool, and artistic, and her vulnerability probably appealed to me as much as my (admittedly somewhat self-interested) kindness appealed to her. We stopped talking when she moved down south and started a new job, school and life. Probably for the best, as I was most likely a reminder of all the unwanted drama that arose from that period of her life.

As for whatever happened to Jose? Who knows. He's on Facebook and MySpace, but with private profiles of course. I never heard from him or someone else about him dating another girl, and I know he doesn't have that cool of a life or a job. He's probably still living at home with overbearing parents pushing him to get married to some chick who will pop out eight kids and get fat on him.

Also, hopefully this post will show I plan on being honest about myself in the future, as I don't exactly paint myself in the best or most heroic light here. Everyone has their faults, and I certainly had more than my share in those years.

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Welcome, Chums! Think Clean Thoughts!

...what just happened?

So here I am, with my most challenging final being tomorrow, and naturally I prepare by going to this blog and seeing if anyone has commented on it (seriously, Bryan Ferry's Mom? I finally write a strip on the naughty couple that worked there and you don't comment? For shame) and I see tons of people commenting everywhere, because Rich Fuckin' Johnston linked me! Pretty sweet for a guy only getting two hits a week just a month ago.

So to Rich, merci beaucoup (note to self: study for French final tomorrow as well. You have no idea how to ask questions in French, leaving you a life of pissing yourself in Paris because you can't translate the Gallic form of water closet). I was just kidding with everything bad I might have stated about you. Heh heh. In all seriousness, I read your column every week and get annoyed when you take off for American holidays, although by typing that I realize it's probably the American website taking the day off. You stopped giving Marvel so much shit and laid off Millar, too, so good for you! (Full disclosure, I like both Marvel and Mark Millar, and actually find his shameless self-promoting endearing, despite that his being a dirty pinko commie I am naturally inclined to hate him) Do yourselves a favor and go pick up The Flying Friar. Trust me, as someone taking a religious class in a Catholic college you need all the excitement you can get from that genre.

To my new (mostly UK-and-her-former-colonies-residing) readers, 'ello guv'ners! That wasn't offensive, was it? It's odd to find so many comments and such from people across the various ponds, but more than welcome. I would bust a testicle to visit or live in Australia or England, as I'm one of those Yanks that likes and respects the accomplishments of the entire world. And for the record, while the genius of 2000 AD, Doctor Who and even Monty Python escapes me, I am in your debt for the following: Dizzee Rascal, The Streets, Morrissey, The Office, Alan Moore, Peter Milligan, and without a doubt Lucy Pinder. You can keep Madonna.

A couple of quick notes about me: I do not currently work in the comic store. The comic store may or may not exist. I also don't hate England or women. I actually have a lot of friends and am enjoying my much delayed college experience. This isn't one of those things where the guy doing the narrative is blameless or smarter than everyone else or put on a pedestal. Believe me, I will be getting to me later. I don't really keep up with comics anymore, although I know things like Captain America is dead and Iron Man runs SHIELD and everyone is a Skrull. Other than that, I couldn't tell ya.

I'm hearing a lot of recognition on my stories, which is both good and bad. Once I get the time I will be setting up links and stuff, and if anyone wants my (worthless) opinion on something or wants a question asked, ask away in the comments or e-mail me. In the meantime, continue to enjoy the medium of comics, without thinking so much on who makes them, sells them, and reads them. No, not you. The other guy in the store. The creepy one.

Okay, instead of doing the cliched "Welcome To The Jungle" video with Guns N Roses, I'm going to the original "Welcome To The Jungle Scene" from The Dead Pool (Not the Deadpool) starring Jim Carrey and Liam Neeson. Everything goes better with Neeson.

State Of Affairs

Well, due in part to some good ole fashioned OCD, I don't really want to have two-to-three negative "aren't people such dumbshits?" posts in a row, so I'll hold a general catching-up post. Besides, the last couple of posts have had comments from people that aren't people I've known in real life.

So. Hello.

In all seriousness, I'm wondering how people are finding out about this blog. I haven't sent it to Warren Ellis or Rich Johnston yet (but I will, once I get enough content). The only thing I can think of is random keyword searching in the blogosphere. Or someone that reads the blog of my lone follower linked to this. So if anyone out there is reading this, who are you? Where did you come from? You don't have to disclose full name, SSN and address, but it'd be neat to see if you're current comic shop employees, people that used to come in to the shop that they think is the basis for this blog, curious masturbators, whatever.

I will say prepare for a slight (two week at the most) drop in productivity as school starts back up after the weekend and finals rear their ugly head. I have a big load this year (that's what she said) so I have to study up, or at least procrastinate and cram up.

I really don't have a concrete plan for this blog. I'm going to go through all the a-hole customers that I hated (off the top of my head, I can come up with five specific individuals, with perhaps some general "types" later), my idiot co-workers (three more parts, including my boss and the a-holes that bought the store), a couple of more opinions on the industry, one positive post on all the cool people I did meet (it'd be a slap in the face if I forgot them) and a couple of wrap-up posts where I detail what happened to the store (the hot potato change of hands is kind of funnytragic) and my ultimate final say.

I'm a little surprised at just how quaint or seemingly small the blog will be. I worked at this place for about six years, and had been a customer for ten. I have to say, though, that the last time I worked there will be three years this May, and time is slowly healing all the wounds that developed. I think my posts, especially the ones regarding me and my "origin story" will be pretty big, so it will be size and not numbers as we head towards the finish line. Then, I will probably say no more. I kind of thought this blog could be a discussion piece. A sort of example of what's wrong in the industry and how even good and honorable intentions can lead to so much waste and dust. Also, I hoped it would spur others. Nothing would please me more than for some owners (or especially employees) that have dealt with this special level of Hell to start their own blogs, whether here or video blogs on YouTube or Facebook groups or whatever. I am generous with the linking, so by all means if you want whatever meager publicity I can and will one day provide, send me an email or comment and I will link you up something fierce. And really, that goes for everyone in the retail world. Clothing stores, restaurants, video games, big box, it's all designed to make people want to empty a barrell in their face, so let's all express it anonymously on the Internet! That being said, don't think me a coward for expressing it anonymously on the Internet. The only thing I fear is a well-educated lawyer, and the people I am writing about are completely free to come by and see what I have to say. The ones that were good to me I am good to them, the ones that stepped on me are getting stepped on in return. Fair's fair, and you will see later on I can be just as harsh on myself.

I have signed up for AdSense. I resisted for some time, not wanting people to think me some sort of sell-out or that I'm trying to get money from this, but I figured why the hell not? The ads are unobtrusive and I'm a poor college student who needs all the funds he can get. Especially after I explain the owner's actions and how I left the store in my ending posts. He will not get a lot of sympathy from those that know him once they find out some things. For that reason I am also dwelling on putting up a link to PayPal. If I do, please do not feel obligated to do jack squat, but if Rich puts this up in one of this weekly columns and some kind-hearted Marvel editor or store owner or venture capitalist with a heart of gold and more money than Danny Rand(obscure!) gets a chuckle or two from this and wants to float me a fiver online, then so be it.

That's about it. My next post will probably be about the kinky couple that used to work on the weekends. Oh, it's a good one. Until then, stay safe!

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Look Back In Apathy: Blister In The Storage Room

I'm going to post couple of stories that don't really fit in anywhere under this series, as this doesn't really go in any other category (i.e. asshole customers, asshole co-workers, etc etc).

In the backroom where the bathroom and books older than your uncle are, the owner kept some porno comics. He had a euphemism for them, but I just realized I can't probably say what it was as it was the name of the only guy who enjoyed them. In the meantime, I'll just call them porno comics. A lot were published by Eros, which is a division of Fantagraphics and consists of probably their highest sellers. A lot of weird hentai and indie porn by small-press guys like Bob Fingerman(...man?) and one of the Hernandez guys. Pedro, I think.

He kept them hidden in a separate box, or tucked in randomly. Sometimes a regular would pull them out or find them for laughs. Of course, the funniest tale involved another kind of regular. This guy was a card and game player who had to use the potty during an action-packed Saturday. Evidently, he must've come across the box whilst returning from his mid-morning tinkle and decided to flip open a book and get reacquainted with his genitals. He had been gone for some time when the owner tried to open the back door and asked something along the lines of, "hey-hey, what are you doing? What's going on back there?" To which the curious masturbator probably replied, "uh-n-nothing. I'll be right out." Sadly, I wasn't there to take a picture of his walk of shame.

The lesson? Admit you're keeping the books to wack off to at 2 a.m. when your wife is asleep or throw the things out. No one wants a copy of Defenders with the shiny-embossed and sticky-entrailed cover.

Parade Of Assholes Part Two

Sack Ofshitskin

First, an apology. This blog has had crazy delays at least twice, and all I can blame is my schedule and laziness. But this time, it literally has been my schedule. I'm taking 17 1/2 hours of college classes and working 20 hours a week, so I'm packed. I will try to continue posting as the rage remains...

Which brings me to my second regular who gave me regular bouts of insomnia and suicide attempts. Sack Ofshitskin. Once again, people who are familiar with the shop will recognize what the name is based on, others won't.

Sack was an old high school cum of the owner. He looked like a mixture of Mr. Burns and a baby, fitting because he was a fairly well-off right-winger who cried like a bitch at stuff, hence my two photos. He was balding, liked volleyball and walked around a local mall with a Santa hat. Needless to say, he probably was a closeted homosexual. He also had a sweet tat of the eyes of Nightwing on his bicep, so his predilection for man meat was probably true. I mean, it's lame enough to get a comic book tattoo on your bicep, but Nightwing?! The gayest sidekick that ever bared bare leg? And his freaking eyes? Not even his symbol or anything? What was he gonna finish off with, his face and a heart around it? Ugh.

Now besides being lame, Sack was best known for being cheap. Really cheap. Really... really... cheap. This is a guy that would try to get out of paying sales tax. Once, out of frustration and embarrassment, I paid the sales tax on his Witchblade action figure. Oh that's right, this guy is trying to get the best deal on a Witchblade... action figure. Comic fans by and large are known for being extremely selfish, cheap and short-sighted. Eager to pray to the altar of Amazon not realizing that by killing brick-and-mortar they're killing their own hangouts and game competitions. So to be noted by one's peers for being cheap, means that in the natural world you are a Cheap God.

It was his cheapness that ultimately created the schism between him and the owner/store. Sack had ordered a crate of Heroclix for an incredible steal, pretty much what he could have gotten ordering online. We were making close to 0% profit on this, very slim. He balked at paying the sales tax, which was something the owner warned me he might do while insisting that he had told him that he couldn't do away with sales tax that time. Without sales tax the profit might have just gone into the negative. I told him that he'd have to pay the sales tax, and that to refuse was un-American and hampering the War On Terror™ that was so beloved by his fellow NeoCons. He said "you know what? Forget it," and stomped back to his seat like a four-year-old. I said, "all right" as I didn't make comission anyway. Before I opened the new case to sell, what do you think he did? Buckled like a belt. Caved. Backed down like a bitch. He went ahead and bought the stupid case full of plastic toys for children made by Chinese children. Then went ahead and stopped getting as many books and buying Heroclix elsewhere. We sold the store and I moved shortly afterwards so I didn't get the full effect of the Sack embargo. The owner later said he visited the shop under the new dumbas-owners, I meant owners, and Sack ignored him. What a fucking baby.

Fun fact: When the "gang" went to go see X2, Sack talked like a retarded pre-teen throughout the movie, much to the derision of the theatregoers around him. "I didn't know Nightcrawler was so powerful!" "Siryn!" "Ulp, Phoenix! We got a Phoenix!" Dope.

The Bathroom Run By Mephisto

If there's one thing that little liar that I worked with was right about, it was on the condition of the bathroom. Granted, bathrooms aren't generally the cleanest of areas. Public bathrooms are worse. And the type of bathroom that would be found in a fast food restaurant, gas station, or locale where there are tons of fat people, snacks, and reading material (I'm talking about a comic shop)? ...it's over, son.

The bathroom was always a little off, mainly because the store was run and more often frequented by guys, and all guys typically do is stand for a few seconds, flush, and leave. Somehow when we moved stores, however, the bathroom went from "meh", to "I must have died and landed in a circle of the Inferno where I have to use this thing every day for all of eternity".

I think most of the blame resides, believe it or not, on the Friday night Heroclix crowd. Often would be the time when on Saturday morning it would be revealed that there was a little "present" in the toilet for whomever were to come across it. I blame this guy with a ponytail, who despite the fact that he lived at home at age 30, managed to date consistently attractive women. He also wrote a 12-part epic on Atlantis that somehow ripped off "Tango & Cash". I don't get it either. And once ran from the shop to puke on the sidewalk. Pure class. However, it could just as easily been the Mole Man.

Every once in a while, it would get to be too much even for me, and I would enlist in my poor mother (what do you want? I'm lazy and cleaning shit up wasn't in my job description) to clean it up. Oh, the redhead might have talked about her cleaning, but the only thing she liked to do was straighten up (big effin' deal) and type on her computer with no line of sight of the customers. She was really good at that last one.

Whenever the bathroom would be cleaned, we would always make vows to keep it to employees only, or friends only, but sooner or later someone would slip up and it would look like the Golgothan exploded in there once again.

What I really hated was being seen as "responsible" for the mess. Like I went around to outhouses and collected waste material to dump in there. Some asshole consistently shat with no regard and it was my duty to clean up after that booty? Not for the low, low pay I got. I remember one lady asking if some kid could use the bathroom as I was ringing her up. I politely explained that the toiler was out of order, and that even the employees closed up and walked to the grocery store 100 feet away to use theirs. Then she asked why it was out of order and I explained that it hadn't been fixed yet. She asked why not and I said the guy hadn't gotten here with his plunger. I mean, for all she knew it had been clogged not five minutes before. I guess we could have closed the store, called a plumber, and called a locksmith to put a lock on the bathroom... but fuck it.

Parade of Assholes Part One

The Mole Man

The Mole Man begins a long line of a series of people that made my life Hell-like for the simple reason that perhaps they didn't have enough orgasms. Or something. Fuck, it had to come from somewhere.

I will be using cute little pseudonyms for all people involved, at least until I double-check the legality of free speech. One doesn't want to be sued for slander, you know. The people that frequented my store and my life should be able to figure out what's what, and as for anybody that didn't...well, you probably won't meet any of these people anyway so what do you care? And if you do happen to find yourself within 100 feet of the people described in this forum... run. Run!

So we start first with the Mole Man. Why do I call him the Mole Man? Dude looks just like him. Sometimes things really are that simple. His real name was so goofy, however, that it sounds like he descended from the hobbits from... The Hobbit. I swear. Judging from his height, appearance, and personality, he may just have indeed called Bilbo brother.

He was a shorter, stout man in his early 30s, though scientists and gay fashion critics agree he looked 10-15 years older. He had some sort of floppy hairdo, which hadn't been in fashion since never. He wore wire-framed glasses, had some jowlin' going on, and a voice as high and nerdy as they come. Now, surely with an outside this... eccentric, he must have had an inside as pure and lovely as Jennifer Love Hewitt's bosoms. But oh no. The Master of all Creation was thinking something new with this guy came from the E-Z Bake Person Maker. He was thinking outside the box.

Mole Man was and is an elitist. He would practically have an epileptic seizure when I would suggest something written by Mark Millar. He would talk occasionally of how popular things suck. Really, I didn't interact with him much when he came in sporadically. It's what I discovered afterwards that made him worthy of such purple prose of which I am spittin' like I is on fire.

Mole Man has a LiveJournal. That is sad. That is slit-your-wrists sad that he has one at 35. That is seriously-go-drink-bleach sad that he has LJ "dramas" that a teenager would eschew as immature. Turns out he's something of a creeper and not one for the ladies (I am as shocked as you are) so he's had some troubles with that. His journal is a love affair with music fit for any old hipster to pretend to like. He also is a huge Anglophile. Now the things with Anglophiles is that I've found they're either lonely women who aren't attractive enough for American men, or dudes that hold pretentions, enjoy boring things, and secretly smoke pole. Don't believe me? It's on Wikipedia! (May not be on Wikipedia) So this a-hole's idea of Heaven is a lifetime of Doctor Who episodes and 2000AD comics... two things 98% of the greatest country in the world could give two flying fucks about. (The U.S. hates them too. I was referring to the country of Estonia earlier)

This jackoff also wrote a couple of posts about how me and my comic shop sucked. Apparently we don't order enough Ghost World and don't spin enough Roxy Music. I know, it's weird seeing as how there's a huge market for that stuff in the suburbs of the South. I don't know what we were thinking. Well, now I have a post about how his divorced-and-his-wife-has-a-kid-with-another-dude-how-emasculating-is-that ass. Oh, and people agreed with me that he looked like Mole Man. Haw!

P.S. He brought this other big nerd in once, and the guy looked at this rare Red Skull Heroclix (don't ask) and said "$20! I can find this on eBay for $5!" or something, to which I have the helpful suggestion of "You better get your ass online, then!" Idiot.