Dongu Barney RMOK

The Artist: Heim

RMOK 2011 - Before through After - $1,000

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He's Back

Just Call Me Tater

I consider myself to be a fairly reasonable person. And being a reasonable person I fully realize and accept that there could be some people who would argue that I am not reasonable at all. That's totally fine with me.  Yet, there comes a time when even the most reasonable of people simply break. And, this morning, simply put, I had had it with selfish, self-absorbed assholes.

It's Thursday. And on Thursday mornings I have to abandon my studio because the wonderfully heroic people who clean my home arrive at nine.  Since I cannot bear to sit in the same house where someone is scrubbing my toilet, I usually walk over to Chloe's because everything about my existence revolves around being a close partner with routine or deliberately breaking all deals with routine.   I need only a semblance of order and my life continues without pain or suffering to self or others.

And I usually feel warm and welcome but rarely hassled at Chloe's.  Even when newbies insist on chatting me up about something, there are typically enough friendlies to rodeo-clown them fools until I can get some headphones on. It's two hours of my week.

I was already flummoxed because as I walked the two blocks to Chloe's I become mildly distracted by a visual production situation.  There were catering tents, motor coaches, remote power trucks, a lot of brighter-than-daylight ultra white lighting, and assorted other production equipment everywhere; truckloads of equipment driven in from NYC, ostensibly.  Fortunately a couple of the tech crew professionals saw me walking up the block where I live and actually moved shit out of the way (Moses + Red Sea style).  In fact, they were very nice with morning greetings and all. 

Very bright lights everywhere.

So I got to Chloe's unscathed.  This is important because anyone who knows me knows how sensitive I can get when I'm in work mode.  But when I went to my usual zone in the back of Chloe's (despite the outstanding job Rosa Parks did) there was this couple sitting there--sitting unusually close to each other.  In fact, they were literally gazing into each other's eyes. OK.

As I unloaded some of my equipment from my pack, they exchanged excited whispers, hugs, touches, loving kisses, secret giggles, and more fucking gazing into each other's eyes. But, these were grown-ass adults.  The dude was in a suit.  The woman was dressed for office working as well.  I am estimating that they were in their 30's.  The fuck?  I could give 17 year-olds a pass but these two were so consumed by their own secret gardens that everyone felt several percentage points more homicidal.  Shit, event the Do-Gooder Socialist Klan would've been absolutely un-PC about this shit.

I figured that once I sat within three feet of them with all my computing and production equipment they would, you know, act like adults.  I'm not suggesting that these star-crossed lovers should erect a firewall made of bibles between them, but, you know, reasonable adults don't act like truggats.  I couldn't even bring myself to take a photograph of them, they so fully disgusted me.  But I did get Emily and David to approximate afterward.  Just add business-friendly attire and about ten years (switch races, but that's not important).

David and Emily re-enact some star-crossed gazing.

Here's the rub. They were both wearing wedding rings. So either they were on the most desperate extended honeymoon ever, someone was terminally ill, or they were fucking around.  So what?  I don't fucking care.  That's none of my business, but when they literally made-out Frenchie-like right there in my field of vision, where an occasional tongue would appear and have to listen to that shit in a coffee shop at 9:05 a.m. it sickened me. Grow the fuck up!  Quit imposing your madness on everybody else.  I would have been less annoyed if they were smoking cigars in an elevator with me.

So at 9:21 a.m. after the non-stop eyeball gazing, ardent whispering, childlike giggling, and tongue kissing, I lost my shit and...

"FUUUUCCCKKKK!!!

YOU ARE THE MOST ANNOYING PEOPLE EVER!!!"

After a brief awkward silence, they quietly and quickly--without any eye contact with anyone--departed.  Me? I got a standing ovation and pats on the back.  I apologized to David for yelling at his customers but he thanked me in all sincerity.  Apparently those two had been as self-absorbingly engaged since 8:15 or so and everyone who had been through had vomited just a little bit because of it.

Seriously, people.  Why do I always have to be the jerk because you can't control yourselves?

Call me Tater. As in: Ty + hater = Tater*


* "Tater" courtesy of Irish Pat.

This Has Got To Stop

[edited]

Leave your weak game at home, old man.

RMOK - "Dogshit Plastic Dude"

So I was working in the kitchen this morning. Nothing unusual for me even though the studio is downstairs. I enjoy listening to the a.m. funny-stuff radio and drinking coffee while starting my day. So I was in the kitchen this morning, in the bay window, watching the joggers, the moms, and the dog walkers.

I notice a guy, thirty-ish, yuppish dude I've seen but whom I don't know. He's walking a little white moppy dog--you know the yappy, lap dog type--and he stopped in front of my neighbor's house and started fiddling with their newspaper, the Washington Post (see above). I was thinking that he was going to do the neighborly thing and toss it up on their porch like a lot of a.m. walkers do. Nope. He ripped a piece of the plastic bag off and left the paper there just slightly more susceptible to the rain, of course.

So I repositioned myself to see what the hell he was doing. The dude proceeded to wipe his yappy, lap dog's ass! Turns out that there was some shit stuck to its fur. I guess he didn't want that on his precious carpet or something. The fact that he had no poop bag with him probably meant he let the damn thing shit in front of someone else's house and left it there (you'll see why I say this, but mostly we have horrible dog walkers, there's more dogshit on the sidewalk than Paris). So this guy wipes the dog's ass. Right there in front of my home, he wipes a dog's ass with a hunk of plastic bag. Then, get this, then he drops the plastic directly atop my other neighbor's plant (see below). Right on top like that's perfectly his right. Didn't try to hide it or anything. Right on top like that's the acceptable pet owner thing to do. A piece of dogshit plastic bag right on top of my neighbor's plant. Honestly, I don't know what pissed me off more: the polyethylene litter or the dogshit. No, it was his audacity and entitlement that pissed me off the most. Dude dropped it there and kept walking like it was just no thing. At all. Norms of the New America.

Well I bum rushed the door and shouted, "Hey!" Dude didn't turn around. Seriously, he pretended he didn't hear me. For real, if you're walking your dog and someone shouts, loudly and suddenly, in this neighborhood, you turn around because it's startling and we have people who steal guns, Lordy! So I totally know he was trying to bail. So I gave it a personal touch with, "Hey, dog dude! Dogshit plastic dude! I'm talking to you!" He slowly turned around and, grinning, says, "Sorry, man." Yes, I called him "Dogshit plastic dude."

"No you're not. You're not sorry at all. You did that on purpose, dude. Pick your dogshit plastic up like a responsible pet owner. Fuck!" And he did too. And quickly scurried away.

I mean, what the hell, right? This is not how we act, people. The part that made me most mad was his lame "sorry, man" nonsense. Forget audacity, it was his pretending to ignore me and the situation he created followed by his lame no-game apology.

I trust he won't be walking that yappy mop on a certified RMOK block anymore.

My Town, April 30, 2010

The Other Side of RMOK

S-s-s-something From the Emailings

"I just used my new tow strap to yank my neighbor's car out of a snow drift.

I love having a 4wd SUV.

Man shit."

- FOT (friend of ty)

Amen. No waiting for AAA. Just pull it out in the here and now. Or, "chain saw's in the back." Or, "Step aside, I'll get it." Or, "This might get loud." How (sh)it gets done.

Eye of the Proverbial Storm, or, Too Legit to Quit (MMX Remix)

WELL.

Here we are in beautiful suburban Washington, D.C. Thirty inches of Mother Nature's finest white on the ground. Schools closed since mid-day Friday. Most major roads just now passable. Shit, the federal government has been closed for the last two days. Thousands of families have been without power or plowed roads since the brunt hit on Saturday.

We are expecting 20 additional inches of snow tonight into tomorrow. As George W. Bush once said, "Bring 'em on!"

We've been lucky where I am, however. We have only had to endure two short power outages (6 and 4 hours). But we also have a fireplace and a gas stove. Also, where I live, the roads get plowed (high-income people who know how to make a stink and who vote, see?).

People have generally been in Help Thy Neighbor mode but you see the social fabric getting shaky with regard to parking spaces and grocery store manners. On one hand, I was at my local supermarket and saw that there were four plain bagels remaining when I heard a woman loudly and sadly sigh. I asked, "did you want plain bagels?" She kind of shrugged and conceded that I was there first. I said, "how 'bout I split what's left with you?" She acted as if I gave her a gold coin she was so delighted. We both soon shared that our respective daughters only eat plain bagels.

On the other hand, I did have to remind a couple at Target® that the keystone to an orderly civilization was the attention paid to the commercial queue. They apologized.

My daughter estimated that if each shovelful of snow/ice/slush weighs 10 pounds (conservative). And I've shoveled 500 repetitions each day (conservative). Then I have personally shoveled 15,000 pounds of brimstone into the icy furnaces of hell. Am I complaining? Nope. This is what I do. We keep the sidewalks and streets clear. We dig each other out. We free ice dams. We restore supplies. We cut wood. We start fires. We clear hydrants. We go and get people in our tribe who have no power or heat and we bring them to our homes.

We are the Real Men of Kentlands (RMOK).

From the El Manniyer:

Ty,

I would like to see you write a post on the RMOK, not about you and I, but about old heads like Barney, Pete, Dick, and such. I want you to compare them with some of these other "men." The more I think about them, the more pissed I get how fucking lazy most of these pseudo-men really are. How useless the are too the species.

This is officially Man Time. Time to demonstrate why women married us in the first place; to haul stuff and shovel like a motherfucker. To use chainsaws, Jeeps, and spades like we know what the fuck we're doing. Not sit in the house and do arts and crafts with the freakin' kids or catch up on old movies (that is just bonus stuff).

By rights we should be able to knock down doors and beat some manliness into these non-RMOK bastards.

- Manniyer

Makes a real man want to puke.

Manniyer Mark, I feel you. I agree 100%. It is not a time to fend for yourself or hunker down and cower as many fellas seem to have done. They are barely freeing their own vehicles, throwing the snow into the middle of the street, and putting chairs and cones in "their" spaces (we take that shit away thus making the public streets free to the public since our taxes should not support private property). In fact, I didn't see a lot of guys doing much of anything. At all. We were questioning if they were even in town. But lo and behold, they were. These dudes send their wives to go solo to free giant SUVs from icy windrow.

I asked one mom-friend, "Is Tom in town?" She said, "Well, Tom said that we probably didn't need to clear the car because it's only going to get plowed back in." I said, "Well once this compacts overnight, you're going to have to chop the car out with pick axes." She rolled her eyes and said, "I know!" I said, "Get him on it, he's making men look bad. Go shame him." Thirty minutes later, Tom was doing some work. With wife and two small kids (who were almost killed by a wayward plow). AND YOU DON'T DRIVE A CAR WITH THREE FEET OF SNOW ON THE ROOF!

Manniyer mentioned Dick (in title image, above), Pete, and Barney. Neighbors who are 72, 50, and 58, respectively. I have a very hard time beating any of the three out to put work in in the morning. Pete is a workhorse. Barney is the slow and steady philosopher. And Dick is just pure scholar-gentleman. As Barney said, "It's a time to DO more than your own personal sphere of living. It's a time to DO as much as you can for all that you can." According to Dick, "I live for this."

Even my OCD and perhaps addled neighbor cleared everyone out before even attempting to free his car. I saw him out at 6:30. I finished dinner, put my boots on and gave him a half-hour of my time. In the dark. In the cold. Then Pete appeared. OF COARSE (sic) DOYE™!

When I received the last low-on-power report from my friends in Bethesda who were out of power going on 42 hours and the house was at 41 degrees and the father was still stuck out of the country, who did I call? Brett! Brett rolled up in a heavily modified Jeep with winch and shovel. He said, "all roads are passable to me." And we went and got my friends (people Brett's never met) and brought them to my house. When I thanked him a second time, Brett said, "You already thanked me. This is why I have this vehicle."

So to Pete, Dick, Barney, and Brett. I toast you as men who I hope to someday make proud by emulating your selfless, proactive, intelligent, and community-minded manliness.

You are the RMOK. We are RMOK. Why do we do it? Because it's what we do. Life's not about fucking around all the time. We work. We share. We do fun shit. We die.

MMX Blizzard Ride

RMOK Mission #1 (RMOK Conquers Forest)