(It's beginning to look like I should change the name from what it is to something more like "The Long Blog." I had no intention to have such huge freaking entries!)
Anyway, for the weekend (and any time desired thereafter), here is the old I AM from my hectorjepsen days, now long gone. Since joining facebook (and only augmented by the emotions that come with unemployment), I've really missed Saginaw and my SASA kids. So, here's my tribute to SASA (and it's LONG):
1: I am a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them.
2: I am the moths that chew up the pants and excrete the subsequent pale green frass into the dust of dark, neglected spaces.
3: I am the obsessive compulsive six-year-old who meticulously plucks the wings from the moths of dark places, which insects (so sad, so sad) subsequently die of shock, exposure, and starvation.
4: I am the alien nation that randomly abducts energetic terrestrial life for study and, both unwittingly and quite unfortunately, pairs the six-year-old with a Bengal tiger.
5: I am the mad scientist who created the black hole that devoured the alien nation.
—Chris Reuther, SASA ‘10 (syntax modified to adhere to I AM format)
6: I am the skin disease that ravaged the mad scientist—he with such low self-esteem—and his once-dashing good looks ‘til he no longer dared venture beyond his door or even communicate with another sentient being, [not even his loving house maid who, nevertheless, checked on him each starry night while he slept,] such that he finally starved to death, wallowing in his grief and pus.
—HJ (modified)
7: I am the sinister maid who pours bleach and battery acid on the diseased flesh of the scientist[, or what’s left of him, thereby eradicating any remaining contagion].
—Hannah Vitu, SASA ‘10 (modified to adhere to I AM format)
8: I am the mutant strain of fast-acting rabies, delivered just this morning from a panicked belfry bat to the scientist’s friendly terrier. Also, just this morning, the sinister maid, of course, discovered the ravaged body of the mad scientist in his lab (“It’s happened. It’s happened. After all these years!” she wept and wailed). She briefly mourned the loss of the mad man and their lovely relationship before sterilizing the scene (as said, with bleach and battery acid). (Any self-respecting, fully occupied mad scientist needs a similarly sinister maid, and, as so often happens, a trenchant, ill-advised, and affectionate coupling ensued between them.) In her distraction, caused perhaps from the affecting blend of fumes in the air, she failed to feed the dog, who nipped her ankle in friendly reminder, as she’d forgotten to fill its food dish in all the morning’s excitement. Shortly thereafter, the terrier died in spasms of foaming pain. The maid watched curiously. Then she, too, fingering the tiny puncture just above her Achilles tendon, went into clenching convulsions, her brain virtually dissolving within her skull, and, finally, her pulse stopped with a resigned wheeze of her lungs.
—HJ
9: I am the catholicon that renders harmless[the] rabies, [thereby] saving many lummoxes that otherwise would have contracted the disease.
—Sam Nolan, SASA ‘10
10: I am the quicksilver handled by the ingenious local monk who happens to be possessed of both an abiding interest in alchemy and the first known formula for the elusive and long sought panacea. As my handler investigates the infested remains of the mad scientist’s lab, its owner, the resident sinister maid, and all those bats, he is subsequently and vehemently determined to concoct a larger batch of the potion and altogether purge the area of rabies and other communicable diseases. Unfortunately, the monk misbalances my delicate proportions against the egg yolk and tamarind slurry and destroys the whole batch. It all goes up in smoke, both singeing his remaining hair and igniting his copious notes (he’s an inveterate note taker, as a result of both long and short term memory loss acquired from an early head-first drop from the monastery’s belfry (there are a lot of belfries in town)—a felonious monk did it). I destroy the catholicon and any hope of its recreation.
—HJ
11: I am [the] hypertrophic cardiomyopathy... [that] struck down the monk shortly after his failed attempt creating the slurry. The explosion caused his heart to go into V-fib, his limp body fell to the floor, spilling the quicksilver into the nearby drain, making it impossible to retrieve, for the drain leads to the sewers below [where the quicksilver is soon irreconcilably disaggregated].
—Chris Reuther, SASA ‘10 (shortened for content and adjusted to ensure the disaggregation of the previous culprit)
12: I am the accidentally injected air bubble (injected at the hands of a new ER nurse totally distracted by the odd ring of hair around the monk’s head, wondering if this might be “monk’s hood”(though, really it’s “monkshood,” but she wouldn’t know that, because she never was much for checking her sources, though, to her credit, she had read one of the Cadfael books, by Ellis Peters),which she vaguely remembers having been mentioned in a Harry Potter book (she has little recollection of the Cadfael story, having read it in a pinch and at a pinch from her grandfather) or an article about it or something, like about herbology or botany, she supposed it’s called in real life, but she couldn’t remember, and by that time, of course, it was too late) that lodges in the heart and ceasing its weakened pumping, happily negating the effects of and generally alleviating the heart of the conditions of the myopathy; sadly, the monk's already dead by this time, though the air bubble would have killed him anyway.
—HJ
13: I am the exequial pyre that consumed the gaseous vesicle in a feat of conflagrative thermogenesis hitherto impalpable in the demesne in contention, it's grandeur resultant of the lamentable cenobite's lionization by the local moppets, though he was fairly eremetic with more ripened hoi polloi. I should be accessibly garroted (metaphorically, of course).
—Devin Langham, SASA ‘08
14: I am the maleficent storm, accidentally created by the monk's forgotten alchemical experiments. I sweep across the land flooding the countryside and destroy crops and homes in my wake. I eventually pass over the exequial pyre, extinguishing all flame while dousing the cenobite and the moppets.
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
15: I am the subordinal modicum of the pressure current glissading the last raindrops into the obscurity of agglomeration beneath the cauterized raft and ergo, obliteration via the diurnally coquettish propensities of Nature.
—Devin Langham, SASA ‘08
16: I am Superman’s emotional funk, rendering the poor being pointedly peevish at his express inability to mold and manage his emotions and mannerisms to match those of the woman he loves, thereby wooing her (really wooing, not just impressing or awing) and finally, finally, finally really hooking up (I swear, he is the most sexually frustrated individual on this rotten planet); alas, this would require lies—or, at least, prevarications or maybe even abjurations of truth—and this is against his nature. He can’t do it. And no woman wants a perfect man, and no woman really wants the truth—at least not the whole truth. We all see that every day. Crazy women.... And it’s just so ... he can’t even swear! “Argh!” he screams, shaking the Earth. And he blazes to the skies in an existential fury, circling the globe and knotting it with the moon and charging the sun and breathing fog and ice into its core, but he stops me. This would destroy all life on the planet. And the frustration builds, pullulating, as he rushes the Earth (even such a necessarily selfish abreaction is platonically interrupted by his wholesome nature) and plants his hands against a westerly wall of the Grand Canyon. He pushes. Just enough to stop the rotation and skew the axis of the cosmically runty sphere. And the frustration compounds: this work out isn’t doing a thing for my avatar’s emotions; what catharsis is there to exercise if there’s no diminution of energies, and, being a freaking alien, he doesn’t even have those blessed endorphins people talk so much about and herald. Stopping the planet, debilitating the majority of weather systems, and blacking out the antipode doesn’t even quell his emotions. “I am so frustrated!” he cries, and sits on a canyon outcrop and weeps. Finally—days later, his emotions only barely assuaged—he stands and sets the earth back into rotation, but not before even that subordinal modicum of glissading pressure fizzles, stagnated to naught but barometric and meteorological neutrality.
—HJ
17: I am Joe Shuster, artist for the Superman comics. After reading this storyline (below), I called a friend, pleading with her to meet Jerry Siegel, the writer for Superman. After telling her that the fate of Superman and the faith of thousands of 10-year-olds rested on her dating Jerry, I finally convinced her [to meet him]. In a matter of mere days, Jerry was more effervescent, having (or so it seemed) finally found his own Lois Lane, thus dispelling Superman's emotional funk.
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
18: I am Barry Finklestein, and that was MY WOMAN what Jerry Siegel started dating. Him and that turd, Joe Shuster, deserved it: I killed ‘em both with my bare hands—my bleeding, bare hands, mind(Superman be damned—I’m REAL and I’m right here and I’ll take on anyone who says that girl ain’t mine)—and jumped out the window with my girl under my arm. Now I got my girl back (she ain’t never leaving that old warehouse again, I’ll tell you that!) and dead’s what her new man and compatriot are. Dead. Just like Superman, and I didn’t even need freakin’ kryptonite, and screw the 10-year-olds.
—HJ
19: I am the new red washing machine that killed Barry Finklestein: I got fed up with him making me wash his nasty underwear, so I walked upstairs and sat on him. I’d like to see him try to get that stain out. Hee, hee.
—Kandi Crockett, SASA ‘10
20: I am the Kool-Aid stained shirt with a front pocket that just so happens to have a right red crayon in it; when washed I turn everything red and cause everyone to curse the new red washing machine and beat it with machine-shaped pieces of wood.
—Sam Nolan, SASA ‘10
21: I am the Tide-to-Go stick which, thanks to mass marketing and highly plausible commercials, have led millions of Americans to purchase and use me when it comes to their such Kool-Aid stained shirts. Sadly, due in part to an unfortunate malfunction, the highly acidic chemical compounds that I'm composed of burn and disintegrate this particular shirt and damn the front pocket and its red crayon to the lowest depths of the neighborhood dump.
—Tyler Soule, SASA ‘09
22: I am the purse in which the Tide-to-Go stick resides, and, due to overstuffing, I have decided to downsize.
Shift a pen here.
A lipstick there.
Check book over there.
A small hole opens up as my seams reach their limit. Unable to resist, the Tide-to-Go pen, an abandoned key ring, and my owner's favorite pen are expelled into the street and smashed beyond recognition by the next onslaught of cars.
—Connie Podleski, SASA ‘08
23: I am the library's robot vacuum cleaner that mutilated the purse, for the owner stowed it under the computer desk. I found out later that she escaped the city after being accused of committing crime: she did not know that blinking was outlawed in this sector of the city. I, having only artificial intelligence, did not know that this purse not only contained her money, pictures from her honeymoon, or anything else material, it carried her memories. But I am just a robot. Blame the library for spending hoards of money on these new Japanese technologies.
—Theresa Mahan, SASA ‘10
24: I am the crazed laid off janitor. I came into that library, just to see how clean it was. No one can keep it as clean as I can. I figured it would be a pigsty by now, and they'd be begging me to come back. Well, I walked in there to see this metal monster. They fired me so they can use a robot? I think not! I showed them what for. Put my foot right through that thing, wires and metal and all. You should have heard how it screamed! I'll tell you, they'd better think before they try to replace me again!
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
25: I am the angry student, enraged by the shriek of that metal abomination and the silly janitor that contributed to the production of that blood curdling sound (you are supposed to be silent in a library). Having jumped in surprise, I lost my place in East of Eden, by John Steinbeck (I can't find my place, and I still have over 20 pages to read). Try as I might, I am unable to bore a hole through his head with my eyes (due to my lack of superhuman capabilities). A whisper draws my attention for a brief moment; it came from the stapler (and I think, that janitor is lucky I'm distracted). Unfazed that I have indeed just been 'pst' by an inanimate object, I venture to its side to hear what it has to offer. (And I remember what page I am on now, but I’m still not happy.) No lips move, no eyes blink, but I know the main idea: that janitor will pay. I draw up the stapler, cold and heavy in my hand, and approach the man (he is shorter than I thought, now that I see him up close). And wallop (one)! Smash (two)! Bang (three)! Crack (four)! And I lose count as I bludgeon him to death. (Dang it, I got blood in my hair.)
—Connie Podleski, SASA ‘08
26: I am Arthur P. McDonald, a sometimes fixer, bookie, hitter for a certain none-too-well-known but plenty reputable (of course it's reputable) family of peaceable butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers. After a slight run in with Tony, the leader of the mob—head of the family, I mean (and I had no idea Tootsie was Tony’s girl, I swear), I was called upon to do a favor. Now I'm just an innocent bookie—book keeper, I mean—and I ain't tryin' to get knocked off or around or nothin’. I had to dispose of a certain janitor, poor sucker—whose mozzarella meatballs were running Tony’s motha’ outta business. That janitor was steppin' on a lotta toes, if you know what I mean, so Tony called on me to take care of it, the stipulation being, I was dead meat—just like the janitor—if I didn’t come back with the body just to prove I’d made good on the assignment. So I went over to the school where the janitor worked his day job and had a little stakeout. I was at a kiosk minding my own business, flippin’ through the National Geographic, waiting for a chance to strike. And it was supposed to be easy: bada bing, bada boom, you know. That’s when that little rat—that freakin’ chick at the desk—stood up, stormed over, and did the jiggered janitor in with a stapler. What’s her deal, yeah? Now I gotta big problem on my hands, and that big problem is Tony. Tony. And hey, if Tony was your problem, you woulda whacked the little twerp, too. Now look, I ain’t tryin’ to get locked up for doin’ no "disposal," so I made sure I took care of that little punk good. So, here’s what I did in bloody, glorious detail: first I bashed her head in with an encyclopedia (gross -- them things are heavy); then I twisted her fingers in the pencil sharpener (I didn’t want no prints, yeah);and finally, I took what was left and put it all in the paper end of the printer; and, I must confess, that’s when the evilness in me took over, and I pushed the print button and watched the poor chickadee slide out with some sucker’s book report all on her face. I hid the body back behind non-fiction, grabbed the janitor’s sorry carcass, and ditched the scene.
—Tyler Soule, SASA ’09; liberally edited by HJ, because he felt like it—no offense to or encroachment meant upon Tyler’s epitomic style and wit
27: I am one of millions of mass-produced lollipops—those giant, megamouth lollies—imprinted with the face of a rat—a rat commonly known as Mickey Mouse, and I find it difficult to be any kind of individual when shelved amongst hundreds of thousands of the same big eared, overly-endorsed rodents. Even once that one small child with her grubby little paws picked me up, it wasn’t without taking along a few others (I am always haunted by the company of my clones). Her mother told her we would make great souvenirs for the family back home. And that is what the world has been reduced to though, isn’t it? Mass-marketed items show how much a person cares for another. I sat around for a month—a whole month—while that devilish little boy I was eventually gifted to ate his way through mounds of other candy. The little butterball grew larger with each bite. My original plan was to put a stop to his horrendous eating habits. Plans change though. Plans change and life goes on. Well, sometimes life goes on. Whilst that rotund child carried me off to school, I was snatched from his hand. Tubby ran and cried all the way home. (At least he got some exercise.) I was now squeezed tightly in the hands of another—the thief: a big, beefy man. He spoke and bragged to himself about his theft being as easy as taking candy from a baby, like it was a great accomplishment on his part or at least hilariously ironic somehow. His appearance disgusted me as much as the child’s. I remembered my scuppered plans: but, I thought, if I can take care of one large boy, I could certainly take out this man. He talked for a longtime—found out his name was Arthur—as he peeled away my wrappings. It wouldn’t have taken him so long had he been paying attention, the big lummox. Deciding to show off to his boss after being commended on his recent hit, he finally put me in his mouth all at once. Even a little kid knows to either bite off apiece or lick away slowly; it isn’t like I am a little dum-dum pop. I’m a big, flattened half-the-size-of-your-face Mickey Mouse freaking lollipop! His mistake and cockiness worked well to my advantage. I wedged myself into his mouth compressing his tongue to cut off air. He thought he was smart when he began to breathe through his nose while motioning for help, I wiggled a bit and had his nasal passages incapacitated as well. His boss just stood there and watched as Arthur’s face turned blue, and eventually, his limp body collapsed to the ground. A kick to the side of his head let the boss know Arthur was definitely dead. He chuckled to himself at the prospect of a hit man being taken out by a lollipop.
—Connie Podleski, SASA ‘08
28: I am the inexplicably acidic and abundantly soggy sneeze of the stooping investigator who gazes, baffled, at the grotesque oral distortions brought on by such evident idiocy (he probes with a chewed ballpoint pen). The investigator wipes his nose and mouth, as my spray collects and pools across the victim’s face and throughout his open mouth. I rapaciously dissolve the Mickey Mouse lolli.
—HJ
29: I am the almighty wind, and with my swooshes, swishes, and zweeeeeeeeeeees I carry things into oblivion. Oh look! A poor man is suffering from an intolerable sneeze! I'll save you! I zoom down and swoosh into his throat stopping the diabolical sneeze in its tracks. The young detective gags as the sneeze retreats back down his esophagus, never seeing the light of day. Now let’s see Batman do that! I fly away with the fresh victory still in my mind.
—Tyler Soule, SASA ’09
30: I am Lord Dark Helmet, and transform my ship, the Spaceball 1, into a giant maid. Using the ship's giant space vacuum, I vacuum out all the air, thus eliminating that almighty wind.
—Ben Platko, SASA ’09
31: I am Lord Dark Helmet (I found need for a second introduction), and I am bewildered. Did anyone else know I was played by that jackass, Rick Moranis! Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Well, I'm pretty much drowning in an overwhelming depression right now. I'm going to go take a bath with my toaster. Farewell cruel world!
P.S Rick Moranis sucks eggs!
—Tyler Soule, SASA ’09
32: I am Recall Man, able to spy defects in a single glance! That toaster of Dark Helmet's was from China and was riddled with lead. I leapt to the ship, crashed through the window, and instantly melted the toaster to a molten blob!
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
33: I am Recall Man's pack rat brother. I watched him melt the toaster; the blob interested me, so I took it. Later that night, Recall Man stopped by to take a look at my collection. He brushed the dust off the toaster blob and enough of that lead puffed into the air, entered his blood stream via his lungs and nasal lining, and killed him.
—Chris Reuther, SASA ‘10
34: I am Angry Biscuithead. I roast any syrup or jelly that gets in front of me with my evil Fart-Ray/Giggety-Goo-Goo Gun. So far every brand has tried to stop me, but they will never get me, for I am hiding in my Mr. Center costume. I look like a man, but I'm really a turtle. No one will never know my secret identity, not even the maple syrup. Since I have no one that can level up to me, I have decided to eat myself, become a chicken with three heads, and peck that pack rat brother of Recall Man to death. So I do.
—Travon Johnson, SASA ‘11
35: I am Colonel Sanders, and *YUMMMMY* them biscuits sure is lookin’ some good eatin'. I saw that ol' angry Biscuithead and shoved him straight into the oven, yee haw—goin' to cooks him up good with some of my gravy.
—Tyler Soule, SASA ’09
36: I am a slew of angry chickens. The Colonel had it coming after killing our fathers, and their fathers, and their second cousins’ fathers. We pecked out his eyes and deep fried his brain, which was good chopped up into one of his Famous Bowls.
—Chris Reuther, SASA ‘10
37: I am the SUV. Stupid chickens, they never learn. They tried to cross the street again, and they got in my way. Stupid birds. How am I supposed to get the stains off my tires?
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
38: I am a very inconveniently placed (for the SUV) thumbtack, that just happens to be upright and consequently pops the front right tire. The resulting crash becomes a horrific 13-car pileup. The SUV is sorrowfully totaled.
—Mitchell Mauricio, SASA ‘11
39: I am the depressed runaway child that just happens to find the unfortunately placed thumbtack in the right tire of the SUV. I picked it up and sketched my life story (in novel form) on the street where the 13-car pileup took place. After scribbling my 11-year narration, the point was dulled and became of no use to me. I threw it to a couple of sheep in the zoo hoping they would choke and die.
—David Brown, SASA, '11
40: I am the printed page of the I AM game. Seeing his name on the paper, the depressed runaway child went berserk. In manic desperation he quickly swallowed me in an attempt to destroy the evidence, but I was having none of that. I puffed myself up in his throat just beyond the reach of his desperate fingers. My survival meant that the child lost his life. His fault for trying to eat me.
—Kiri Brasseur, SASA ‘10
41: I am Chuck Norris. I was casually reading a humorless article from over a boy's shoulder when the little turd ate it. I was angered into action and immediately turned my phaser to DEAD. As my graceful foot majestically, powerfully, eloquently struck the turd's head it simply vaporized. From the puddle of mess splattered across the zoo mulch and pulled the printed page of the I AM game, now entirely illegible and soggy. I ripped the paper to shreds, hysterical with anger, because, as you should know, ANGER + CHUCK’s FOOT = DEAD. Chuck's will be done.
—Mitchell Mauricio, SASA ‘11
42: I am 42, the answer to Life, The Universe and Everything. There is no place for the senseless violence evinced by the Chuck Norrises and their ilk. Returning to an earlier time, I have caused the Earth to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass, so the Earth Mark 2 may propose the Great Question that brought Me into existence in the first place. There is no Chuck Norris, Colonel Sanders, Rick Moranis….
There must be, however, somewhere in a universe of infinite possibilities: a pair of pale green pants with nobody inside them....
—Alex Mitchell, Merewether High (Newcastle, NSW, Australia) ‘10
43: I am....
love it! entertaining.
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