Tag Archives: neapolitan mastiff

April 20, 2011 · 5:07 pm

The Hospital: According To The Neapolitan Mastiff

Everyone is dying, but it’s best to die at home. Or on a cruise ship. Or on a city bus. Or at your favorite shoe store. Or in the parking lot of Home Depot. It’s better to die anywhere than the hospital. When and if you do die at home, be sure to ask your son to drag your carrion from the kitchen floor up a flight of stairs to your bed so everyone will be able to say “at least he died in his sleep.” Only your son will have to carry the burden of knowing his father passed while raiding the fridge for half of a leftover Philly cheese steak.

What I learned in “The E.R.”

If you want to wash your hands, you have to use a pedal.[1]

The guy retching in the communal bathroom is in fact a Visitor, not a Patient.

Avoid direct contact with the high-powered sanitary napkins, which have the ability to kill HIV and type 2 herpes. They will burn the skin off of your fingers.

The man who draws your blood loves to talk but is difficult to understand. His name is Jorge.

The girl who needs your credit card for the co-pay isn’t flirting with you, is she? She might be. You’re dying so you can’t be sure. Her name is Yessi.

The EMT who comes around to tell you ‘you’re fine, but legally I’m not allowed to tell you that’ wishes she was vaccinating Somalian orphans instead of talking to you. Her name is Justine, but she doesn’t really care what you call her because you’re not an African baby.

The guy you came to see has biceps that bulge through his lab coat. He also has more important things to do—like bicep curls. And interns. And internists. He’s really into his online dating profiles. Plural. His name is Doctor, MD.

There are no maps just a red line on the floor that leads somewhere presumably scary.

There are no vending machines. While visitors stuff themselves with Sun Chips and Smart Water the patients are on an involuntary hunger strike.

Everyone looks like their dying or should be dead. The staff looks bored. By the time you leave, you’re bored too. Dying is boring.

Parking is expensive[2], unless you’re dying. Then you park for free.

P.S. Megalomania is not particularly popular in the E.R. (will pay the psych ward a visit next time.)

P.S.S. I am happy to be alive. I am proud to be an American. Can I borrow five thousand dollars?

-The Neapolitan Mastiff

[1] Speaking of pedals and petals. There were no flowers or flower vendors in sight. There also weren’t any rabbis (maybe because it was Passover) or priests (it was close to happy hour). I did however spot a Scientologist or a Delta flight attendant. They look so similar—I can never tell one from the other.

[2] Dying can also be expensive. Ways to avoid an expensive death include suicide and police-assisted-suicide (Waving a phone/keys/comb/taco/beard trimmer/Barbie doll/newborn/college transcripts/popsicle/parking ticket/ID/Orangina in front of the L.A.P.D.)

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Tagged as burbank, ekg, fox news, heart attack, hollywood, hospital, kings, lakers, michelle obama plane, neapolitan mastiff, nhl, online dating, sharks, yelp

April 6, 2011 · 7:22 pm

On Assignment: Tankini Time!

Las Vegas, NV

I’m in town with my friend Balthazar Diaz for the Southwestern Men’s Tankini[1] Convention. Balthazar is a buyer and he’s brought me along as a pair of unbiased eyes. See, Balthazar wears a lot of these male tankinis and he’s honest with himself about the fact that they all look damn good: shades of neon, monogrammed dragons, pink and black leopard print, bespoke faux high school phys. ed. shirts, etc.

“I’d be willing to bet,” Balthazar says, surveying the convention floor, “most of these guys don’t even have a full t-shirt hanging in their closets—some might not even have full tanks.”

This prospect is frightening to me as a person who not only owns “full t-shirts”, but also as person who didn’t know what a tankini was until two days ago. I was in between gigs (manually labor and white collar crime) when Balthazar swaggered over to my usual table and asked, “How’d you like to eat steak at the Spearmint Rhino on the company card?”

“Not very much,” I replied. “I’m vegan.”

“I’ll pay you.” Balthazar pulled up a chair. “I’ve gotta buy the summer line of tankinis for a few gyms in the South Bay.”

A priori, I assumed a tankini was a combination of the indestructible military vehicle and girls in bikinis. By no means am I a closeted fan of half-naked women dancing around on armed automobiles, but like I said, I was in between gigs.

Every year the SwMTC is held at Treasure Island. If there’s one thing that Hollywood bars and Vegas hotels have in common, it’s that they all look the same after that eighty-third beverage. I don’t claim to be an expert—we weren’t out in the wild with some sort of Iphone app that tells you whether you’re about to pierce a sloth or a platypus through its heart (of hearts) with your bow’s arrow—rather, I had a room key and it read Treasure Island.

Tankini conventions are in many ways the male version of the Spearmint Rhino. They serve booze and it’s not full nudity, yet nipples are flying around like it’s August on the Cote d’Azur. Of course these areolas belong to men. At first, I feel like I’m being violated like—why aren’t these guys covering their nipples up? I ask Balthazar, who is wearing a maroon and teal zebra print tankini, What up with that, yo?

I never get a straight answer.

Three hours later my shirt is getting pulled off—I feel self-conscious. There’s a circle around me of women in bikinis and men in tankinis and they’ve just tossed my “full t-shirt” across the tent. Someone pulls my arms up and slips through them something light and airy. I move my arms around. I feel free! Unburdened. Lighter than I’ve ever felt! Like I could (insert impressive physical feat). I pick up my beverage and bring it to my lips. It’s so light! It all happens so fast. I’m smiling and I can’t help it. Neither can my tankini-clad compadres. My comrades cheer. For the first time I look at my tankini: it’s a smoky silkscreened image of a Hispanic girl sort of shooting pool and mainly sticking her ass in the air (right about in the middle of my stomach before my newfound midriff appears).

The next morning we’re passing Pearblossom, which is either in Nevada or California, I’m not sure which because I’ve been sleeping and it all looks the same out here anyway.

“Some help you were this weekend,” says Balthazar.

I stretch and let out a groan. “What do you mean?”

“Did you see what we bought?”

“We?”

“The tankinis, man! Did you see the tankinis WE picked out?!?”

I think long and not very hard. I feel nauseous and my arms are cold in this temperature-controlled vehicle. I want a “full t-shirt” but I know Balthazar doesn’t have any and we’ve got four hours of driving ahead of us. “Did it have a graphic of a sun with crossed out eyes—kinda looked like an ecstasy pill you’d get at warehouse rave in rural Washington?”

“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to get.” Balthazar reaches to the backseat and from an enormous cardboard box he pulls out a piece of mustard yellow cloth and throws it in my lap. “Read it.”

I hold the cotton rag up. It takes a minute for my eyes to focus on the text. “Friends Don’t Let Friends Wear Sleeves!” There are too many words for one line, so it S-curves down the front.

“I wanted you’re unbiased opinion as a full t-shirt wearer. I leave you alone for a half-hour and you convert!”

I shrug.

“No one in Manhattan Beach is going to buy these shirts! Maybe Venice… but not fucking Manhattan.”

“Hey Balthazar.”

“I accept your apology. Just know, I’m never bring you to Vegas again.”

“Can you pass me a couple more of those tankinis? I want to use them as a blanket. I’m cold.”

[1] Created in the mid-70s by bodybuilders at Muscle Beach in California. The tank-kini is the bikinization of a tank top. The objective is to expose as much skin as possible (abs, obliques, bis and tris, delts, lats, side-pec(male equivalent of side boob)) while pretending like you’re just wearing a tank top. Today the tankini remains popular among HGH abusers and professional adult film actors.

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Filed under Information Pertinent To Gratification, Red Cups

Tagged as bodybuilding, comrade, hgh, las vegas, neapolitan mastiff, spearmint rhino, stringer, tankini, treasure island, vegan recipes

March 7, 2011 · 7:41 pm

COLT 45: An advance in oncological treatment?

Malt liquor? Check

Antioxidants? Check

Who says you can’t have it all?!?

It looks to me like Colt 45 believes you can.

Malt Liquor: A Very Brief History

Malt liquor is the lowest grade of booze on the planet. It is primarily consumed by the population of Skid Row, Homies (transcends race) and every teenager in America at least once by accident when you shoulder-tapped the wrong guy to buy you beer and he came out with a couple forties for you and your pals and one for himself. “Hey that wasn’t the deal, man!” you said, if you said anything at all and he cracked the seal on his bottle, winked and walked off into the mediocre grocery store sunset.

Antioxidants: A Very Brief History

About three years ago amateur health experts professed antioxidants were the hottest thing since the multivitamin. Personally, I believe it was a scam cooked up by blueberry farmers who were sick of carbohydrate-petrified consumers spending all their money on rib eye. Most people who peruse for health tips will read a headline on their Yahoo News homepage and without having read the whole article they will dedicate months of time and tons of presumably discretionary cash on some trending health craze they came across. Worse are the people who go by word of mouth.

In life there are fat people and skinny people. In times of desperation, fat people will listen to their genetically better endowed, skinny friend’s advice on how to ‘get healthy.’ This is frightening because skinny people don’t have a clue what they’re talking about—they’re just predisposed to not being obese. This doesn’t make them better informed. So now the ill-formed skinny person has spread some fabricated doctrine to an ill-advised fat person and thus the cancer of misinformation is spread. All of a sudden the fish oil is sold out at Trader Joe’s.

COLT 45 “Blast”

If you drink malt liquor you most likely do not read. I’m not championing email-sponsored news, but it’s often better than relying on your friend who regurgitates everything his Born Again Christian father-in-law says.

Conclusion: Chemotherapy equals poison, Colt 45 equals poison ergo Colt 45 is the new chemo.

I think it’s safe to assume Colt 45’s marketing team is looking to attract drinkers who are vaguely conscious of trends. Regular Colt 45 versus antioxidant-rich Colt 45. This crowd is the ghetto version of people who drink Michelob Ultra because it has six less calories than every other flavorless, domestic beer and Lance Armstrong drinks it. The logic is, of course, if you drink Michelob Ultra you’ll eventually win the Tour De France and have the cycling world forever think of you as a guy who got away with doping because he only has one…

The other demographic they’re looking to tap are those who don’t like the taste of alcohol, but who want to get embarrassingly intoxicated, vomit all over themselves and then wake up to pangs of misery and shame the next day. Who am I taking about? Children. Teenagers. The Four Loko crowd.

Obviously, I champion all sorts of abuse. I’d even champion antioxidant abuse except I can’t afford the habit. What I cannot support slash abide is Colt 45 being portrayed as the lesser of evils available at your local liquor store because they’ve added blueberry juice. But… do I think it’s amazing that they’ve put millions into this campaign? Yes. Do I want to hear rap songs talking about fighting cancer while also inflicting cirrhosis upon one’s liver? Yes! Did I shout cries of joy in the CVS parking lot when I saw this truck? Oh, hell yes. Do I still think it’s the most amazing ploy since Four Loko to get amateur drinkers savagely intoxicated? Absolutely.

-The Neapolitan Mastiff

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Tagged as afroman, antioxidant, blueberry, cancer, colt 45, diet, lance armstrong, malt liquor, michelob ultra, neapolitan mastiff, tour de france

February 26, 2011 · 10:56 pm

Of Avocados and Stork: A Study of Expiration

Lettuce comes from a field with an expiration date. Humans come from a seafaring bird, which is inedible and shares the same lack of a definitive expiration date as humans. Working from the premise that certain seafaring birds and humans aren’t raised for consumption and that they share the same lack of an absolute time of dismal reminds me of an individual I once met in passing at an upscale charcuterie at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. His name was Stork and by all accounts he was human.

Born in Cuernavaca during a period of civil unrest and unseasonably inclement weather, not many of life’s chips looked to fall in his favor. Stork was the towheaded son of a diplomat who by the age of eleven he could curse in four languages and woe native girls with all the charm that is afforded by living in government paid home and possessing a different colored passport. Stork is and was the Cuernavacan equivalent of all those Nordic looking folks with once government issued orders that called the Panamanian coastline home. I believe John McCain falls into that category as well.

But lettuce is not cultivated in los cabos de las huertas de Panama and Stork, now a mild mannered man of refined taste and thinning hair, has never been south of Cuenavaca. The weather never permitted and he had read every James Patterson novel up until that point, which would have been the proper reading material to make such a trip, which is not to say he didn’t want to join his brethren (in appearance) in Panama. Quite the opposite, actually. Stork spent much of his youth wondering when he would be reunited with his fellow ex-pat countrymen who his father knew well, but he had never had the pleasure of meeting although it was often assumed he was just visiting, after thirty-five odd years in the place he was in fact a resident.
Since the overthrowal of the last otherthrowers, the Stork clan rescinded their place in Cuenavacan society. To pass the years they took to watching Turkish Delight each evening as a sort of nightcap. When in season, Stork spent his days harvesting their citrus rich orchard while secretly wishing it was possible to grow rutabaga. The father Stork, long since dead from overmedicating with strychnine, left Stork a sizable fortune in the way of an almond farm in California’s central valley, which Stork frequently and regretfully pointed out, was not in Panama, but rather in America.

“There are far worse places than America,” Stork the mother offered. But Stork would hear none of it. He was no longer a towheaded boy with Slavic and Latin based expletives on his tongue. He was now an overwrought naturalized ex-pat grower of citrus, admirer of Rutger Hauer who looked as if he was never going to make it south of the only town he’d ever intimately known.

I knew all of this by the time it was Stork’s turn to pay at the charcuterie. I tried to wish him safe travels figuring it was best to flee while the cashier occupied him. “I’m sure you’ll love Panama, Stork!”

“Panama? Who said anything about Panama? I’m going to Nederland. I’m going to hunt down Rutger Hauer. I want to write his biography.”

What I learned from Stork was although humans don’t come with a neatly labeled and government enforced day upon which it would be best if they were disposed, the human mind is frighteningly similar to an avocado. While you’re fumbling around the display, cupping avocados, which have no doubt been cupped by hundreds of hands before your own, it’s best to pick blindly and without bias to appearance. Stork had the physical attributes of a healthy avocado—blemish free, not particularly mushy. But once you cut that thing open, it became apparent that what bird, man and avocado have in common is all can be rotten at their respective cores long before there’s evidence on the surface.

–The Neapolitan Mastiff

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Tagged as avocados, chicago, neapolitan mastiff, ohare, ornithology, paul haggis, scientology, under the volcano, where do babies come from

February 18, 2011 · 7:45 pm

Shea Butter and The Neapolitan Mastiff: A Correspondence

To Whom It May Concern @Exchanging Pleasantries:

In my lifetime, I’ve had two dreams.

Kill George Eliot before she wrote Middlemarch. (too late, I know, but a dream is a wish your heart makes and that is mine.)
Intern at Exchanging Pleasantries.

Please find the 2/5 of my C.V. below. I want a job.

Objective

To suckle the fruits of American labor before the entire population dies of obesity in 2012.

Habits

Stunting, flossing (dental), and ornithology (British usage[1])

Best regards,

Shea Butter

Dear Shea Butter,

You’re not an ideal candidate. You don’t even Google. I was holding out for Christina Hendricks or Mubarak, but I’ve yet to hear back. Libya’s beloved Muammar Gaddafi is also in the running[2]. We rely heavily on social media to communicate threats and he seems to have a knack for it.

Also, you appear to be ill informed. The anemic, androgynous, tanorexic inhabitants of my fair city (El Lay) are more likely to die of congestive heart failure than obesity.

That being said, we welcome you with open arms.[3]

Fondly (you know what it is),

The Neapolitan Mastiff

[1] Ladies

[2] No pun intended. Well…

[3] The position of intern is filled, but you’re in luck! We need an internist. What say you? And where do you hail from?

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Filed under Formal Correspondence

Tagged as black and yellow, g.r.e., LA, Libya, muammar gaddifi, neapolitan mastiff, shea butter

January 21, 2011 · 6:24 pm