Tag Archives: Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: More Tidbits

22 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Culture, History, Stupidity

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By Tardsie

Despite the impression given by this series of tales, not every episode in my life has involved me being an asshole or looking like an idiot, but those are the stories worth telling. Nobody wants to hear about that time I got my mom flowers for no reason and really made her day.

The Really Great Thing About Mom Is That No Matter What Kind Of Disreputable Shitbag You Are, She Still Thinks You’re Good Enough To Be President Of The USA.

***

After the sixth grade, we moved away from my hometown, and I graduated from high school in another state. After my freshman year of college, I was back in town visiting my Grandma when I happened across an old friend from grade school, Rusty.

We were talking about people we used to know, and I asked about a kid whom I’d thought of as “Wayne.”

“Who?” Rusty asked.

“Wayne,” I said again, “The kid who came over as a boat person from Vietnam.”

“Oh,” he said, “You mean Wang Jones. Yeah, he’s still around.” He then added, “He’s kind of a dick, though.” Rusty remained in the dark as to the reason for Wang’s hostility, although I soon figured it out.

“Damn, I always called him ‘Wayne,'” I said, embarrassed. “Wang probably thought I was an asshole.”

Rusty laughed. “He probably just thought you were an idiot.”

Someone certainly was. I soon got the opportunity to look at Rusty’s yearbook and check out the boy I’d accidentally ridiculed for so many years. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, my very first discovery was that the kid’s name was in fact ‘Wayne.’

“Go Fuck Yourself, Rusty!”

***

I’m always suspicious of guys who aren’t gay but who have way more chick friends than guy friends. What’s up with that? If they were having sex with the various women, I could at least understand it.

***

When I was a kid my mouth got me in trouble a lot. A lot a lot. But there was one time when I was about seven that I didn’t deserve it. Not that much anyway.

I was at my friend Ricky’s house, and we were watching TV. My troubles began when Ricky’s mom overheard a comment I made about a commercial. The commercial began with several silhouetted figures running up a hill. “Look at those idiots,” I said, mostly due to my then-nascent love affair with my own voice.

“SHAME ON YOU!” Ricky’s mom bellowed from seemingly out of nowhere. “Shame on you for picking on those people!”

I started to protest my innocence, and then saw with growing horror that it was a Special Olympics commercial I’d besmirched.

As if unsure that I’d grasped the enormity of my act, she said, “Those people can’t help that they were born that way! How would you like it if you were born that way?” Not waiting for me to answer, she went on, “You should thank God you weren’t. Shame on you!”

I again protested my innocence, and after a while she seemed to believe me, and the incident was forgotten.

Hours later, my mom was over visiting Ricky’s mom. As I passed through the kitchen where they were drinking coffee, my mom struck like a cobra, smacking me across the face.

“Don’t make fun of retarded people!” she said.

Seriously, Guys–We’re Innocent. This Time.

***

Sometimes it’s funny how a moment just happens. One time in college, a bunch of us dudes were drinking in a big ol’ sausage fest (all guys), when somebody said to somebody else, “Hey man, you’ve always been a good friend to me, Bob. I love you, man.”

“Bob” turned to another guy in the room, and said basically the same thing. “Joe, I don’t say this much, but you’ve always been there for me. I love you, man.”

This continued for a while, everybody in the room professing his love to another friend. Finally, it got to our friend “Steve.” As everyone else had, Steve turned to another friend and said, “Mike, you’re a good guy and I love you.”

And then, in one of those beautiful, unplanned moments where everything just seems to come together perfectly, everyone in the room pointed at Steve and yelled “FAG!”

Good times.

You Should Never Be Afraid To Tell Someone How You Really Feel.

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: The Corporate Job (Almost) Goes Up In Smoke

21 Monday May 2012

Posted by in History

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By Tardsie

Yeah, Well Sometimes It Involves Keeping Your Fucking Mouth Shut.

I taught for a few years after college before making a career change to sales. The two fields are not so dissimilar as you might at first believe; the best teachers are salesmen at heart, I think, labelling their product ‘knowledge.’ As my life began to ebb toward one of responsibility and potential maturity, I viewed the career switch–erroneously, it seems to me now–as an almost necessary rite of passage into adulthood. The first thing you should understand is that I believed I needed this job, and made every effort to convince my new employers that I was Joe Corporate.

The other thing you should understand is about my friend Dave Chen–he’s not at all stupid. If this weren’t already apparent from his ethnic heritage (Asians don’t come in ‘dumb’; folks, you can call me a racist if you like, but only if you have ever personally encountered an unintelligent Asian–and no, Filipinos don’t count), it would be after talking to Dave uninterrupted for a few minutes–at his core, he’s an intelligent, thoughtful guy.

An Actual Scene From ‘Ramon’s Wedding!” (Posted 05.11.12)

But despite his intelligence, Dave wields stupidity like a weapon, having long since learned to use it to his advantage, preferring to look the fool to achieve his own ends. In school there wasn’t much that Dave couldn’t get out of by pretending he was clueless.  Twice  Dave “forgot” to knock and barged into my apartment, once lucky enough to catch my girlfriend while she was changing. Even though I had long since become hip to his game, his sinister super stupidity power made it impossible to get mad at him. “Oh, Dave…” was a familiar refrain in our group.

But sometimes Dave’s affected stupidity will the better of him, as events conspire to erupt in hilarious or tragic (and sometimes both) consequences. Once such time was shortly after I got my new corporate sales job.

Oh, Dave, You Incorrigible Lout!

Although the job was in Washington State, I was sent down to LA for training, which was ideal, because many of my college friends still lived in the Southland, and I hadn’t seen them for a few years. Dave was one of many friends I planned to see.

One night, a few days after I’d arrived in Los Angeles for training, I had gone out in the evening with a couple of college friends. When I returned to my hotel room, my roommate and fellow trainee Justin (yeah, roommate–I was quickly to discover that I was working for one of the most penurious companies in the Western Hemisphere) told me that while I was out, I’d received a call.

“Who was it?” I asked, walking up the stairs to grab a shower.

I stopped dead in my tracks when he answered “Dave,” not completely sure why I was gripped by such a sense of mounting dread.

“He did?” I said, “What did he say?”

Justin’s chuckle didn’t reassure me. “Well,” he said, “For about the first minute of the conversation, he thought I was you.”

Oh, He Isn’t Even Warmed Up Yet.

OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod! “Oh really?” I asked, making an heroic effort to remain casual.

Justin laughed again. “He mostly talked about dusting huge bowls {partaking in the consumption of marijuana, a harmful and highly addictive narcotic}.”

Before I could protest that I didn’t know what that meant or say something ridiculous like “I never inhaled,” Justin assured me that he didn’t care and wouldn’t mention it to our corporate masters, and that moreover he’d even smoked pot once or twice.

I told him that my experience with the pernicious drug had been equally infrequent, and asked him, if he should happen to talk to Dave again, not to mention that he’d told me about the conversation. He agreed.

A few days later, after we’d gotten together and dusted a few of the aforementioned huge bowls, Dave asked me, “So how’s training going?”

I grew very serious, and cast my eyes downward. “Not good, Dave. I got fired.”

“What? What happened?”

I told Dave that I had reported for training as usual that morning, but that my instructor had held up class to speak with me privately. “She asked me point-blank if I’d ever smoked pot,” I told Dave. “I said, ‘Once or twice in high school, but not since.’ But Dave–they fired me anyway.”

But Getting Shitty Drunk With The Boys From Corporate Was A-OK.

Dave had the good grace to look stricken. “So how did they find out?”

“That’s the thing I don’t understand,” I said. “It makes no sense. The nearest thing I can figure is that one of my Washington buddies called corporate as a joke. It wasn’t very funny, though.”

We sat in silence for a while before Dave spoke again. “But you really don’t have any idea who it was?”

I affected the most touching look of bewildered hurt I could muster. “No, man–not a clue.”

Said Dave: “That sucks, man.”

Thanks, Buddy! It’s Great To Know You’ve Got Our Back!

Dedicated to my friend and brother, Dave “Chen.” Hope you got an eyeful, pervert! ∞T.

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: Frogboy

16 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Culture, History

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By Tardsie

In which, through an act of reprehensible drunken thuggery, we learn a very valuable lesson about our behavior.

“Whatever You Do Unto The Least Of My Brethren You Do Also Unto Me.”

First of all, I am in no way responsible for Frogboy’s undignified, if appropriate, sobriquet. That honor goes to Daria, one of my fellow layabouts at my college’s writing center, who had only minutes before been propositioned by the wretched little creature whom we later learned was named Evan Spieglemann. He was polite, she told me, and said that Frogboy had offered her a shy smile when he asked if she wanted to go with him to the movies, suggesting that they walk to the theater in town, as he had no car. It might have been a touching, if ultimately futile, scene if not for an unfortunate occurrence. “When he smiled,” she said, “his gums began to bleed spontaneously.”

Why Frogboy? It’s hard to say just why some names fit almost magically. It’s not that the pitiable little creature known as Evan only to his parents actually looked like an amphibian; he didn’t. But he looked like a Frogboy. Frogboy was short, and thin almost to the point of emaciation. His dark, oily hair stood in stark relief to his pale skin, still marked by splotches of fading acne and the blue-black tinge of a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow. He wore chunky black glasses with lenses as thick as a baby’s finger, magnifying his heavy-lidded and mud-colored eyes, lending a slightly contemptuous effect. And of course, the pièce de résistance was his million-dollar smile: each of his long, yellow teeth seemed wholly remote from the tooth next to it, brought into relief by the darkness to either side of it. And the bleeding.

Seriously, Those Teeth Were Nasty.

The first time I had the privilege to see Frogboy up close and personal was in the men’s restroom. I was standing at a urinal, the only occupant of this low-traffic bathroom beneath the college cafeteria, and looked up when the door opened. At first, I didn’t know what to make of the comically-horrifying creature in the doorway. Frogboy, in addition to being possessed of the unfortunate physical traits described in the previous paragraph, wore garishly patterned weight-lifter pants with flourescent green highlights, and a plain blue muscle shirt that highlighted his pale, pimple-studded shoulders and girly broomstick arms.

Despite the two other perfectly good urinals from which he could have chosen, Frogboy chose the urinal next to mine (a brief digression: ladies, as you like to gab in the can, you may not be aware that except for those fellows interested in a bit of the rough trade,¹ choosing a urinal next to one which is occupied when an unoccupied alternate exists is simply not done).  He pulled his shirt up and tucked it beneath his chin, which was pressed into his chest. As he began to go about his business, all the while accompanying it with a litany of grunts (in retrospect it seems so obvious that the boy had Tourette’s, but at that time, I thought the condition just made you cuss-crazy), I got out of there in a hurry.

This Is Something Most Men Understand Instinctively.

There is the assumption that anyone so freaky and physically deficient must therefore be brilliant.  Although Frogboy had the requisite arrogance and look of house-bound scholarship, his intellect was disappointingly pedestrian. But, like the rest of us, maybe he was fooled by his own appearance. We were in dummy physics together, and I can still recall how exasperated the professor would become with Frogboy’s inane, nonsensical questions and bizarre theories about the nature of science.

That would have been the limit of my interaction with Frogboy if it hadn’t been for a night of drinking. I woke up on a Saturday morning after spending the evening with a bottle of Rebel Yell and assorted attitude adjustments, gripped by a wicked bellyache and a vague but persistent feeling of wrongdoing. It didn’t take me long to find out why that was.

Instant Mean. Just Add Tardsie.

“Dude, you were kind of an asshole to Frogboy last night,” one friend told me. Before an hour had passed, at least four people stopped by my room or called to let me know they’d been witness to my ugly behavior. I never got the full story–never wanted it–but the crux of the tale is that I spent part of the evening being an ass to Frogboy, pushing him around and even, I’m told, boxing his ears.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I was not an intentionally hurtful young man, but more like a reckless puppy, living as I did in my collegiate world of low-impact consequences. Given that I stood almost a foot taller than Frogboy and outweighed him by about 100 pounds and moreover that I was possessed of a conscience, I was overcome by shame at what I had done. In the long-term, this incident would have a profound impact on my behavior–I grew much more respectful of alcohol and more cognizant of my behavior when under the influence.

Not One Of Our Finer Moments.

But the incident also had a profound effect on my final year in college. Not long after being apprised of the extent of my buffoonery, I found Frogboy sitting alone in the cafeteria. “I’m sorry, Evan,” I told him honestly, adding that I was deeply ashamed and that I hoped he would forgive me, although I didn’t deserve it.

To my surprise and relief, he forgave me immediately. However, I should have remembered that nothing comes for free, and that if I was truly to learn a lesson, there would have to be attendant consequences. For me, those consequences took the form of a friendship. Frogboy and I were now pals, and for the rest of my senior year I was friends with a guy who didn’t know how to be friends.

After I graduated, I never saw Frogboy again. But a few years later, one of my friends was working in a deli in San Francisco when who should walk in but Frogboy. He recognized my friend and addressed him by the wrong name. He remembered me, though, and asked after me.

Friendship: You’re Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t.

¹Or boarding school boys, but it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it? ∞ T.

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: Would You Like (Penis) Fries With That?

01 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in History

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By Tardsie

But Before We Stamp It Out Entirely, Maybe We Can Have Some Fun With It First.

As a lad, I used to hang out with a kid we’ll call Zed. Zed was a couple of years older than I was, but we’d met when we were both in the 8th grade. Zed was not a bright boy. In fact, he was a stone-cold moron, and the 8th and part of the 9th grades were the only times we were in school together, because Zed dropped out as soon as the law would allow.

Despite being a halfwit, Zed actually had some things going for him. For one, he was reasonably good-looking and had a–if not refined, then at least well-developed–sense of style. For whatever reason–back then, anyway–girls flocked to him, and Zed could boast a number of conquests before the rest of us had even reached second base.

And while Zed wasn’t exactly a mean guy, by being the youngest of our group and having the biggest mouth, it ended up that he’d pick on me from time to time. He was bigger and stronger than I was then, and there wasn’t much I could do but take it. For a while.

As a functionally retarded ninth-grade dropout, Zed’s career prospects were by no means overwhelming, and so when his mom finally made him apply at McDonald’s, it seemed Zed had found the job he was born to do. But first came the application. Sadly, as a consequence of his infrequent and attenuated schooling, Zed was virtually illiterate. Simple words like “cat,” “dog,” and his own name were within Zed’s oeuvre, but more complicated or polysyllabic words might as well have been Sanskrit to the boy. When Zed needed help filling out the application, apparently forgetting his regular abuse–or hoping I would, he turned to me for help.

Obviously, We're Not Too Worried About The Possibility That Zed Might Someday Read This Post.

“How do you spell employee?” Zed asked.

At first I was cautious. “E-M-P-L-O-Y-E-E,” I told him. I spelled a few words for him like this: “E-X-P-E-R-I-E-N-C-E,” “P-R-O-M-P-T,” “H-O-N-E-S-T.”

After a while, though, when I saw that Zed was writing exactly what I told him, the temptation for mischief became too great.

“How do you spell important?” Zed asked.

“Important?” I said, “That’s easy: “I-M-P-O-R-T-A-P-E-N-I-S-N-T.”

Fact: Employers Respect A Powerful Vocabulary.

Zed dutifully wrote it down. Several more followed. “F-R-I-E-N-C-O-C-K-D-L-Y,” “R-E-S-F-U-C-K-E-R-P-O-N-S-I-B-L-E,” “R-E-F-E-A-S-S-H-O-L-E-R-E-N-C-E-S,” and a whole lot more.

Fortunately, just after Zed turned the application in, I called the manager of McDonald’s and told him what I’d done. Zed got the job and we all had a great big laugh.

Maybe You're Not Using Them Right.

The above story is 100% true, except for the last paragraph. I never told anybody anything, and of course, Zed didn’t get that job.

Don't Fuck With TarPENISdsie!

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: Ronnie’s Watch

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Culture, History

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By Tardsie

Seriously, I Would Have Said A Corrupt Cop Took It. Anything But The Truth!

Ronnie Duggan was a kid I knew in college. Although Ronnie was by no means memorable, there are two recollections of Ronnie which, try as I might, I can’t forget.

The first I was witness to personally. Ronnie had been partying hard in his dorm, drinking “jungle juice,” a combination of punch and whatever random liquors could be scrounged on short notice. A highly-potent and ‘sneaky’ drink, Jungle Juice was mainly used to get girls drunk quickly (for no purpose other than so that they could enjoy themselves). Ronnie, always on the scrawny side, was quickly hammered and soon passed out on his floor.

College Is A Time For New Experiences.

Some hours later I happened to be passing by his room and saw that his door was ajar. Ronnie was still sprawled out on the floor. I was a little drunk myself, and couldn’t understand at first what was so wrong about the tableau I saw before me. Then the horror of what I was seeing finally hit home.

Ronnie had passed out on his back, his mouth hanging slackly open, a thick, syrupy skein of drool running down his cheek to a growing pool under his jaw. During the previous few hours, a line of ants had come seeking the source of the sweetness, forming a grotesque, undulating black chain starting at the window and leading into the darkness of Ronnie’s mouth.

Trust Me When I Tell You It Was Even More Disgusting.

But that wasn’t even the worst humiliation to happen to Ronnie that year, although it was the worst that anyone need have found out about. The very worst thing, which happened after all, in another country, would never have become known if Ronnie had just kept his mouth shut and let the past disappear along with his watch. Had he done that however, this story would just be about a guy who passed out one night and had a trail of ants leading down his gullet. But fortunately for our readership, as we have already seen, keeping his mouth shut was always a challenge for Ronnie.

Ronnie’s ultimate humiliation occurred late in the year. Truthfully, we weren’t hanging out much by this time.  The schism in our friendship–more of a drift than a break, was due to the different paths we had recently taken. We had both pledged a fraternity earlier in the year, but Ronnie had washed out while I remained, causing some friction between us. We stayed friendly however, and when I heard the terrible rumor going around about Ronnie, the ghost of our old friendship brought us together once again as I sought to tell Ronnie about the things people were saying.

Remember When This Was The Worst You Could Expect From A Drunken Night In College?

Over beers, I broached the subject delicately. “Ronnie,” I said, “People are saying something about you that’s pretty awful, and I think you should know.” If Ronnie didn’t look surprised to hear that I had something to say, I didn’t notice at the time, unsure of how to relay the cruel things I’d heard.

I realized there was nothing to do but say it. I told Ronnie that people were saying that on his recent trip to Tijuana (the one detail about the story I knew to be true) with some friends, he’d picked up a professional woman. However, according to the scuttlebutt, while “she” was certainly a professional, she was no woman. And, if paying to be pleasured by a man (Ronnie was a through-and-through heterosexual) wasn’t bad enough, the Hispanic He/She stole Ronnie’s watch.

Is This Ronnie's Lady-Friend?

Ronnie broke the tension which had crept into the room after I’d finished my telling of the awful rumor. He said quietly, “That was no rumor.”

DENY! DENY! DENY!

Folks, if there’s any lesson to be learned in this, it’s that what happens in Mexico SHOULD stay in Mexico. Believe me, if this kind of thing had EVER happened to me, you would NEVER hear about it.¹

Because There Are Some Things The Public Doesn't Need To Know.

¹ Or if you did ever tell the story, you could say it happened to someone named “Ronnie.” < S.

Tardsie’s True-Ass Tales: I Am Such An Ah-So

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Culture, History

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By Tardsie

To Get Your Head Around This Story, It Might Be Helpful To Picture Tardsie With Not Just Arms And Legs, But A Big Fat Mouth As Well.

It’s bad to be a racist, but it’s worse to be a bad racist.

When I was a kid, I was an obnoxious little snot, whose quick mouth earned me many a well-deserved ass-kicking. One time, in fifth grade, I was picking on an Indian kid (dot-head, not scalphunter). Being a racially insensitive lad (a trait which, as the previous parenthetical notations so ably demonstrate, I’ve thankfully outgrown) I decided to go ethnic.

As Difficult As It May Be For You To Believe, There Was A Time When We Were Really Insensitive.

You may wonder, Gentle Readers, whether I would have been more inclined to be sensitive had not the boy, whom we’ll call ‘Indian Kid’ (not his real name), and his younger brother, ‘Indian Kid’s Little Brother’, been the only Indian kids in school. I leave that matter for our readership to determine.

Actually, They Looked Nothing Like This.

Already brave and courteous, I created a perfect storm of honor by displaying my ignorance not only of other cultures, but more damningly, of the proper slurs by which to insult them. The best I could come up with for Indian Kid was “Ah-So!” like the stereotypical Hollywood ‘Chinaman’ of the thirties and forties. And of course, I went ‘Full Celestial,’ bucking out my teeth,  squinting my eyes, and topping it off with a little clasp-handed bow.

Yeah, That's Pretty Much It Right There.

Indian Kid actually put up with about a half-day of my horse-shit–‘Ah-Sos’ in the lunch line and on the playground, solemn bows from across the room during class–before he’d finally had enough, and decided to tell somebody during the long, after-lunch recess. But apparently, Indian Kid had misunderstood me–he told the playground monitor that I had called him an asshole.

You'd Think I Could At Least Have Come Up With This, But I Was Drawing A Blank.

When the playground monitor, Lady Who Spent Her Childhood In A Japanese Internment Camp During WWII (not her real name), asked me if I’d called Indian Kid an asshole, I told her, “Yes. Yes, that’s just what I called him.”

I Learned A Valuable Lesson, But Just What Exactly Is Open To Debate.