At some point, we're going to have to dig up Mister Rogers's body. I know it's not a pretty business, but there it is: little kids are turning up at the morgue in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. …

As a child, I traveled with my family along the dreary road from Budapest to Bucharest. We were the animal caretakers in the "Csodálatos Cirkusz" -- the "Wonderful Circus." I was born into it, wagon …

On the black uniform of Polish police officers is a patch with a gold embroidered scorpion. There's a saying in Polish: "Don't get stung," or "Don't get stung by a scorpion." I only know how …

My new best friend, a sock puppet, wrote this week's installment of "Remote Control King." I made the sock puppet's eyes with dried jalapeños from a discarded pizza, and his mouth was created by painting …

A stupid Matt Damon movie is on. Any movie will do. I turn the TV up loud, louder than my neighbors will like, but I don't care. I have to get her voice out of …

The Five Stages of Grief as They Pertain to Spilling Beer On My Cable Box and Only Receiving the Asian Channel Denial This should clear right up. I'll try flipping channels. Using the "up" and …

For some reason I wanted an old fashioned, hang-up paper calendar. I'd never had one before. I always relied on people telling me if the date was closer to Martin Luther King's birthday or Hanukah. …

Aer Lingus was my new favorite airline. Mostly because its name sounded like a romantic euphemism for something dirty. But, also because my flight from Dublin, Ireland, to Edinburgh, Scotland, cost me only 30 pounds …

"We need to talk. Come into my office, please," I say, and I switch off my Bluetooth earpiece. "Of course, Anthony. It is a lovely office." "Don't blow smoke up my underpants," I say. Rounding …

Night blankets me as I patrol the neighborhoods of North Park. No, it isn't "stalking," as the police have alleged. It happens that my ex-girlfriend's house is in a hot spot of criminal activity to …

"Oh, for the love-a...," my dad yells at the TV. It's his favorite thing, heckling people who will never hear him. In the past year before his retirement, he's slipped from "disagreeable middle age" to …

"Fine! Do whatever you want! I'm sick of it!" She's screaming, sitting at my counter, and touching her temples. I reach for the bottle of bourbon on top of the refrigerator, unscrew the cap, and …

My dad still calls a refrigerator an "icebox." He got it from his dad, who got it from his dad. You see , Great Granddad Olivieri delivered ice in a horse and buggy through the …

Oh, Britney. If you weren't such a skank you might have a chance with me now that you're single. But, you are. A stupid skank, I mean. I've seen you on TV. Your hair looks …

It's Halloween night, and I live in a residential area. I'm sitting here in the dark. I can hear the little bastards outside, clamoring for candy. I've got a party to attend, and while I …

One time, some friends and I detonated a Volkswagen. It was a field car. When it started having problems, my friend Danny's dad would fix it a little bit, but it was getting worse, and …

"It has to be fresh, you know," the receptionist tells me over the phone. "You can drop it off anytime after 1 o'clock." At 12:59 I'm standing at the counter. Let's get this over with. …

"What do you want to be?" A classroom full of scruffy, grubby, teenaged boys and primped, upright girls. I'm drawing Transformers and comic-book characters on my desk. Optimus Prime and Wolverine. "If you don't know …

Blackout. Then I'm awake. Blackout. Aware. I'm fading in and out, piecing together a weekend gone without me. My girlfriend screaming at me and shoving me. We were in San Diego then. Peanuts and Beer, …

There are these milk crates I have. I found 'em in an alley and when I spotted 'em I slammed on my brakes and rushed from my truck to nab 'em before anyone else could. …

There were those days. When I was young and there was violence in my blood. There were those nights. Pulling a friend from the double yellow line of a busy road while he screamed, "NO! …

Have you ever made an ass of yourself? I mean, somewhere public, involving a loud hissy. Ever done anything like that? I did. I was in a coffee shop in Little Italy last week, getting …

"You're going to feel a pinch and some pressure," is how a doctor says, "You're going to feel me jab a needle into your goolies." After a quick wince and bite on the lip, I …

I don't know why I associated a crashing sound with my truck. Maybe it's the way my brain orders things according to luck. A basket full of chocolates, drugs, money, and strippers' phone numbers flies …

There's almost no risk being a low-level drug dealer as I was. Nobody even notices if you have a monthly rotation where you pick up a few extra pills or a couple hundred bucks. The …

Me: Why are you watching the Teen Choice Awards? You're 27. Her: I just want to see Nick Lachey win an award for his new song. Because, to hell with Jessica. Me: You're a good …

Every year I got a different shaped cake for my birthday. One year it was Bugs Bunny. The pan gave it away. I saw my mother bring it in with the groceries and stash it …

One night, when I lived in Clairemont, horror came in through the front door. I was cooking chicken in the tiny old oven in the dilapidated kitchen of my ancient apartment. While cooking, I divided …

An Open Letter to Mel Gibson Mel, You've had a little trouble this past weekend. It's all right, Mel. We all slip on occasion. I have a proposal for you, Mel. I read about your …

July 20, 1969, is the date that the moon landing was faked. It says so, here in black ink on the yellowing label that's peeling back from the metal canister on my desk. You see, …

When I was in high school, a woman walked into a local courthouse and shot a man in the back of the head. That's when I learned that everything in the news is reported in …

A woman bustles a child through a shopping mall as if he were one of the paper sacks she'd filled and purchased at a designer boutique. It seems harmless enough. You wouldn't expect something bad …

I had never been so disappointed as the day a troupe of Harlem Globetrotters came to town. On TV they were the finest club of ballplayers anyone had ever seen. Steven Brown and I had …

Adult society, at every level, is depraved. Walk up to any jerk on the street and ask to go through the pictures on his cell phone. He sure as hell won't let you. He's got …

Hi, kids! I'm Jose El Burro. Welcome to My Neighborhood. Let's take a look around. Here we are at 36th Street and University. Look at that pink building over there with the stars painted on …

When I was eight, I ripped the skin off my right arm. I had been riding bikes with Timmy Sanguinetti at the churchyard. It was a day of us tear-assing all over. We had seen …

Maybe you have a philosophy. Maybe it has to do with Santa Claus clapping his hands and pop! out comes everything. Out comes the Milky Way and our solar system and down here, on our …

Social pressure is about the worst kick to the ghoulies that a man in his prime can take. Rowland McCowan would tell you that himself if he were still around. You can be charging ahead …

When I was a little kid I underwent surgery to remove my tonsils. This is back in the early '80s. Tonsillectomies were common. Now, I think surgery is a last resort. I imagine the "last …

One time I got a haircut in a Polish train station. I wouldn't recommend it. The woman who gave me the cut must have been an amateur ornithologist because she fashioned the side of my …

When you wake up in the morning, the alarm is worse than a nightmare. The sound of it sends waves of nausea through your body. That's how it works, on the principle that you're sickened …

Having bronchitis afforded me a rare view of the bleak daytime-television channelscape I don't normally enjoy. For a week the coughing banged me up and rattled me awake before regular programming had begun. First thing …

Last Thursday I gave a little cough and rubbed my chest. I'd felt dizzy since I'd woken up and I said, "Man, I think I'm getting a little cold." Ron said, "Oh, no. This is …

This one time I took a pant-load of acid in a bar. Things started out slow; from the corner of my eye I caught a swirling pattern of white lights. Soon things progressed to a …

Snooping for porn when I was a kid was more important to me than school or my friends or pets or damn near everything except breathing or eating. If given the choice, I would have …

Paper tapestries printed with the oily ink and complicated characters of Japanese calligraphy flutter in a soft breeze. A warm wind crosses the sushi restaurant and delivers to me the subtle scent of ginger, tuna, …

Even though I've moved to the big city, I can't forget the wheat farm where I was raised. The color of San Diego stands in contrast to my small home. Here are the aqua tones …

Attention from a pretty girl is all any of us wants -- men, that is. There are volumes of slick magazines devoted to a monthly review of "What he really wants," when it's just that …

Drawn across the top of my Soundgarden CD case are parallel lines of dusty, crushed-rock powder. I suck at one with a straw and rub my nose because of the raw scratching and chemical burn. …

Our last night in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we sat in the yellow light of a Khmer restaurant and sloshed beer across the table and ate frogs. The frogs came out skewered through and giving off …

If you buy two seats on a bus through Cambodia, one to keep your bag and knees on, the other for your butt, you might as well slap every other person on that bus right …

"Dice are out!" the stickman hollers. "Same lucky shooter, number's eight, point eight, hard or easy." "Two bucks on hard eight," a black transvestite yells and tosses down two blue chips. She makes eye contact …