Guided by Vices

Being merely superficial, the too-defined stain on his jumbo briefs was perhaps the least disheartening element in a ferociously contested field. The winner, by a king's margin, was the slyly composite Looks + Leers, which would quake even the sturdiest of timbers and give foul Chinaski a run for his whisky. But let us not underestimate gallant silver: a minuscule profile dwarfing a minuscule talent. Nor, for that matter, the unmistakable overhang of rotting attentions—attentions, mind you, that poetic justice failed to abort long ago.

And so I burnt those ugly homemade gatefolds, wiped melody from memory and detoxined the motherfucker in a long, frigid shower. If a certain lumberer had similar lackings, maybe he would have the same fate. But one hopes that one learns. Still, when pedestals prove to be a trick of the light, it's easy to overlook the cardboard that made it so, especially when the message takes a particularly grandiose guise. They are flesh and guts, after all; they dread a cold toilet seat as much as a warm one.

Yet despite my best efforts (detailed above—ed.), the image of that Is He R— Or What? teacher engaged in unwedlocked consolidation with the world's vilest is still firmly imprinted upon my brain. Hm—: That taller-than-the-other-tall-fellow fellow once told me that asexuality must lend a certain grace to one's life. I thought that rather boring of him.