The Irrationally Exuberant

Bad news, friends. I died.

Parasites. They are horrifying. More than normal bugs, even. Like bugs for bugs, but with insane, almost supernatural powers of manipulation. They are also fascinating and, I suspect, much more important to our lives than most would imagine.

No script this time, because I wrote this a long time ago and don't know where it is. References and allusions include, but are not limited to: God, Jesus, Mork and Mindy, NASA, Armageddon (movie), Aerosmith, American Idol, the United Nations, Freemasons, Bill Nye, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Degrasse Tyson, the New World Order, Satan, New York, Lutherans, Facebook, YouTube, PIZZA HUT, Disney, Metallica, Isaac Newton, "God Bless the U.S.A.", Pokemon Go, Feminism, the Coriolis Effect, Admiral Byrd, Red Bull Stratos Felix, Apollo 8, Strawberry Kiwi Shasta, Carl Sagan, Albert Eistein, Apple, Reptilians, and Mole People.

about. Meeting girls. I want to meet girls. And I want to drink. Drink to meet girls, that's the goal.

Depression Hello, friend. Welcome back to The Irrationally Exuberant. I hope you're taking care of yourself in these troubled times. Which brings me to our topic: Self Care, specifically, dealing with depression. I have it, you, I assume, have it, since you're listening to this show. Your Mom's probably got it. Your Dad's in denial about his, has never done the work needed to overcome it and has instead repressed the deep sadness he feels intrinsically, but also about dreams unfulfilled, potential untapped, relationships irrevocably harmed, and maybe expressed that hurt as anger and resentment over some perceived change in the world that has left him behind, a victim of some ambiguous other. Little Timmy Messerschmidt: Dis isn't funny, Weid. Dis is pwetentious pwojection and not neewy as cweve as you fink it is. Why do you even botha? Does anybody even listen to this widiculous show? Oh, hello Little Timmy Messerschmidt. Ladies and gentleman and ungendered friends, this is Little Timmy Messerschmidt, a little boy/physical manifestation of my depression. Timmy, I thought you were sleeping? LTM: I don't neva sweep, I jus west. Isn't dis show just a futile attempt to mask the meaningless of wife wif artistic pwetensions wifout actuwawy physicawy exposing youself to the outside wold? Isn't dat just a wittle pafetic? Yo a gwown man doing goofy voices in his basement. God, Little Timmy, you're just awful, but also painfully insightful. You know, that may be somewhat true, but that's what everybody does, or just about everyone. I understand that life is meaningless, probably, but that's fine. There's literally nothing you can do to give it meaning, so why worry about it? Even if I were somehow performing this show in front of thousands of people and effusively praised and rewarded, you wouldn't go away, right? You'd still have negative things to say about it - probably something about selling out or being an imposter or whatever, right? LTM: Hey wememba all dose times wen you were wiwy dwunk and you cawed wike evwyone you know and just wambled on wike an asshole? You fink they forgot about dat? Or do they just constantly have in da back a der mind how widicuwous you weawy a? Uh. Timmy, I'm trying to do an episode here. I don't have time for this. Why are you a little boy, by the way? LTM: Dunno. I fink you jus had dis dumb voice and fot it would be funny to make it say depwessing fings. So owiginal. You know what? Since I've got you here, and this show's about depression, why don't you just plop down in that chair and I'll ask you some questions. You're going to be here whether I want you to be or not, so you may as well make yourself useful. LTM: Weawy? You wusuawy jus igno me. Wew . . . okay. Dis is all jus a finly veiwed and gimmicky pwemise dat you have aweady done befo wif Foam Chomsky. Great. How old are you? LTM: I'm dis many! He's flashed all ten fingers three times and then held up eight of them, so thirty-eight. Same as me. Makes sense. Let's try this another way. Can you think of any reason you might look like a little boy? LTM: Wew, maybe I'm da age you were when you stahted to wealize dat maybe wife wasn't pewfect and yo pawents wasn't pewfect and evewyfing didn't wevolve awound you. I assumed I was a bit older when that realization came. You seem like, three, maybe an immature four. LTM: Wew, I guess you assumed wong. You pwetty dense awot of da time, even do you fink yo soooooo smart, or act wike you do, anyway. Great. Okay. I feel like we're making progress. Hey! you spilled my water all over the desk! LTM: YOU spiwed yo watow aw ove the desk. God, you're impossible. Why is clumsiness seem to be such an intrinsic part of depression, for me anyway? LTM: Because you can't do anyfing wight! Yo not a gwown up you know. Yo basicallwy and ol child and a burden to dose awound you and evewything you fink is good about yoself is an iwussion.

A few years back I got the itch, as I often do, to start a new podcast. I mostly ignore these itches as scratching just makes it worse, but this time I could not. I began writing and planning a solo show called Reid Messerschmidt Gets Metal. I was going to start it like this: RMGM INTRO Hello. I'm Reid Messerschmidt - a 34 year old father and husband. I have a house and many things - four vintage globes, a vinyl collection, and a desk job among them. I'm a culture snob. An elitist. What's charmingly known these days as a libtard cuck. A low T Beta, as they say. A snowflake. I enjoy musical artists like Belle and Sebastian and Jimmy Scott and The Smiths and Edith Piaf and, sometimes - a lot, really - Neil Diamond. I think he's criminally under rated and I like to talk about that opinion as though it were objective and important. I've spent significant time with the Pet Sounds boxed set and I love documentaries, Ingmar Bergman films, calling movies films, feelings, books about feelings, bike rides, progressive (not prog) agendas, and quietness. I don't love injustice and toxic masculinity. I say things like toxic masculinity. I've been known to sport a cardigan. As such, I am not a metal guy. I like to think that I know good music when I hear it, regardless of genre, but metal is a blind spot. A big one. And I don't just mean the music. Metal is more than a genre, it seems to me. It has a built in culture, and that culture feels impenetrable and scary. I've dabbled around its edges, sure. I went through the requisite Metallica phase in Junior High-school. I saw Corrosion of Conformity live once. Also, Korn. I liked the former and not the latter, though, to be honest, I went into the Korn show with a pretty bad attitude. Let's see . . . That Roots album by Sepultura is pretty rad. I predictably kind of like Deafheaven, as they are the metal band that guys like me are supposed to kind of like. I enjoy what I've heard from Hawkwind, but I haven't gone very deep with them and I'm not sure they're very metal. I think occult stuff is fun, but I didn't care for the Lord of the Rings movies and I've never read the books. I don't care for dragons. I'm not particularly angry. Occasionally perturbed? Yes. Often annoyed? Sure. Riddled with angst? Less, in my old age. And not angry. To me, at this point, metal represents rage, a spectrum of masculinity that I find completely foreign, and a complete disregard for fashionably good taste that a big part of me admires. It's a home to a lot of unrepresented folks in the ongoing culture wars, some that I get, many that I don't. So I want to get metal. And that's what this podcast is all about. Getting metal. I've made a list of every metal band that I can come up with, From Sabbath to Cannibal Corpse to whatever the fuck is going on with metal right now. I honestly don't know. Based on some cursory internet searches, it looks to consist mostly of skinny guys with neck tattoos and Hot Topic haircuts calling each other fags and arguing about absurdly specific genres designations. For the most part, I only know the band names. I've purposely tried not to really listen to any metal yet or find out too much about any one group. I've chopped that list up and put it in something very metal – a skull to which I've applied Norwegian Black Metal makeup – and each week I'll draw a name out of the skull, deep dive into whatever band comes out, and let you know what I find and what I think. And guests. There might be some guests and whatever else comes up here. My goal is not just to understand the music. I want to understand the culture. To understand the anger and the dragons. The term metal is broad to the point of meaninglessness, but under its tent are generations of unsatisfied and angry white folks in all the styles that those people come in. Folks that feel persecuted even if the “mainstream” sees that as a delusion.

The last two episodes of the show were heavy, so this episode is just a compendium of weird things that people said to me when I worked at a grocery store.

Someday I will stop. Of course. The voice that whispers this is the same voice that says fuck it, and it says them both with utter conviction, utterly convincing, so long as you don't stay sane long enough to really interrogate it.

The reason I'd started doing this in the first place – to make myself an extrovert – had lost to my strong, innate introversion. Drinking became 20% a means of being social and 80% a means of obliterating my ego to let my unrestrained Id have its time on the stage, free to act out its horrific, primal, sparsely attended one man show.

He was sitting, pants-on, in an overheated fiberglass port-a-potty, soaked in sweat, breathing the thick stink of 200 shits, swigging from an old glass liter vodka bottle filled with new cheap whiskey, now three-fourths gone. In twenty minutes, Sag Jenkins was supposed to jump thirty-five cars on his motorbike, and there was no way he'd make it. In twenty minutes, 227 attendees of the Argus County Speedway in Golgotha, South Dakota would watch Sag Jenkins die.

Listen. I'm well aware that the last thing the world needs is another biography of Klaus Nomi. He's already a household name on par with James Polk, young John Cusack, and the Andrews Sisters. What could I – a humble podcast magnate - possibly add to the reams upon reams of information already available to you via your home library, public library, magazine subscriptions, nightly newscasts, corner newsstand, and pocket super computer?

Gorgeous George was the most prominent and important figure in wrestling's ascent into the American zeitgeist, largely due to his gimmick. But he wasn't the first or, most assuredly the last, wrestler to adopt a unique persona for the ring. The history of wrestling is littered with characters. Some have been wildly successful -Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, The Big Boss Man - who became household names and can illicit the most bittersweet of remembrances in vast armies of doughy diabetics, nerds, and toothless, bigoted human trash.

Gorgeous George nee George Wagner, a flamboyant, hulking, blond bombshell of a man who fancied ornate, lacy robes, liquor, and prostitutes, and made his bones faux-grappling with various and sundry half-nude, oil soaked brutes to the delight of shrieking rubes in stadiums and on unaccountably massive early televisions.

Apparitions. Ghosts. Spooks. Haints. Whatever you want to call them, you haven't seen spirits like this before. Hello. I'm world renowned palm reader and séance professional Madame Esperanza Lechuga, owner of Madame Lechuga's Celebrity Haunted Apartment, and boy, have we got dead celebrities. My place is lousy with ‘em.

Naturally I was intrigued. Who was Dick Moss? As the inheritor of his library I wanted to know the man and his work, if he'd done any, in the field of UFOlogy. I assumed he was dead, as that's how most collections come to live in thrift stores. I once found about 30 snap button cowboy shirts each with the name Herman written in blue marker on the tag – a truly wonderful old man habit that doesn't seem to be done much anymore - starting in the Medium section and going all the way to XXL. I figured Herman had either eaten himself into oblivion or wasted away from cancer or a Romanian curse like that guy in Stephen King's book, Thinner.

I've now read 34 of the books I purchased that day in the space of 4 months, as well as watching countless sketchy documentaries and even sketchier YouTube videos AND 6 and a half seasons of The X-Files and despite my undoubtedly now-shakier-than-ever mental health, I'm here to educate you – the ignorant masses - on the TRUE nature of the phenomenon.

The Mandela Effect was discovered by an adult reading a children's book. Their name has been lost to time, but the book was one in The Berenstain Bears series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. They are about a gender normative family of bears that live in a tree and may or may not be farmers of some sort. They are vaguely Christian but not in a “We've read and understand the bible” kind of way. They're very relatable to many Americans.

Now, again, in case you're not aware of him, Tiny had a very distinctive look. Long curly hair parted on the side - dirty and tangled, although he bathed many times a day. A notably large, exquisitely arched nose, with these exceptionally long nostrils. A large mouth just stuffed with teeth. More than is normal, you'd think, by the looks of it. The teeth were pushed out by these huge gums. And then he had this flaccid, Cheeto shaped body that he held with the confidence of a chubby, polio struck kid on roller skates, balancing a triple scoop ice cream cone. He'd started perilously, upsettingly thin, but had expanded with his fame, so that he looked like he'd been stung by a wasp and desperately needed a shot from an epi pen. And he would have been conspicuous just based on all of this, but he also slathered his face in pancake makeup, filled in his eyebrows, and wore ill fitting, out of date, wrinkled suits in patterns that bumped up against each other like delirious bums fighting over a street corner in a bad neighborhood. Sometimes he wore a velvet cape. He came off like, royalty – genteel – but of the inbred, anemic variety.

No justice, no peace.

In 1991 Marie Osmond scratched my brother and one day I will scratch hers.

Ladies and gentleman, heteros, gays, bis, subs, doms, chubby chasers, power bottoms, furries, bronies, and every other permutation of human sexuality, I'm proud to present to you my brand new series of Reptilian themed erotica – Lizard Lovers! Guaranteed to be the sexiest depictions of human on shape shifting humanoid adult situations you'll ever read!

Welcome to Para Palaver – the only podcast that isn't afraid to tell you the truth because I don't have anything left to lose. I'm your host, Darvin Schlender, and I guarantee that this is the most revealing unadulterated paranormal podcast out there. Unlike some other podcast and radio hosts, I'm not afraid of the government or the Illuminati or the Greys or even the Reptilians because nothing that they could do to me could ever make my life worse than it is now. I would welcome the sweet touch of death, if I'm being perfectly honest, but I'm too cowardly to do it myself. I'm fat, balding, smelly, a little drunk, I lost my job, and my wife took the kids and moved in with Salvatore, my shift manager at Arby's, oh, I don't know, 187 days ago. We've got a great show for you today brought to you by the good people at GetchaGold.com, amongst others. GetchaGold.com – the world is ending, why not get some gold? Go to GetchaGold.com and enter the offer code “Sadsack” to get a free 8 by 10 professionally taken photo of all the gold you'll be buying with your first order. That's GetchaGold.com – the gold getters! Tree psychic and my Brother-In-Law, Bramlett Kendripple will be calling into the show later. But first – the news. Well, folks, the Reptilians are at it again. One of their scaly minions, my wife Sheila's new boyfriend Salvatore Cullata, cut my hours at Arby's down to 20 a week. Looks like I'll be living off of stolen curly fries and Horsey sauce for the foreseeable future. Let me tell you something about that Lizard bastard – and this is just so typical of Reptilians – everybody treats them like they're so great just because they don't have an ever-growing, irregularly shaped bald spot and a sweating problem, but that's the dead give away. People have bald spots. People sweat. People gain enormous amounts of weight in very short periods. Real flesh and blood people like you and me. We'd all have flat stomachs and long curly black hair and pencil moustaches and be 23 years old if we could just shape-shift into whatever form we pleased. And it's just so obvious that he's a Reptilian, it makes me sick, but Sheila just won't listen. How else would you explain the fact that he's only been in this country for 8 months and is already a god damned shift manager? Strings have been pulled and I'm talking about from all the way up the chain of command, folks. Thinking of him bringing back a bag of Jr. Bacon Cheddar Melts to my blissfully naïve, smiling children just makes my skin crawl. Oh, god, I just wants my family back! Sheeeeeeilaaaaa! Sorry. In further news, Reptilians egged my car again and the Illuminati stooges at the bank keep charging me overage fees. I'm being told that our guest is on the line, so let's go to a commercial and we'll be back with my brother in law, Bramlett Kendripple. And we're back. We've got our guest on the line. He's a tree psychic as well as the brother of my lying, cheating wife. Bramlett Kendripple, welcome to Para Palaver. BK: Now, Darvin, we agreed not to talk about Sheila. I'm happy to be on your little show, but if you continue to say things like that about my sister I'm just going to hang up this phone faster than you can say Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. Is that going to be a problem, Darvin? DS: No. No it's not. My apologies. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do. BK: Darvin, I'd be happy to. First and foremost, I am, as you said, a tree psychic. Now – tree psychic, what does that mean exactly? Well, it means that for as long as I can remember I've been blessed by the good Mother Earth with the ability to communicate with what I like to call “the wise old dinosaurs of the plant kingdom.” And by that I mean trees. Why do I call them dinosaurs? Well, ‘cause they're so big, silly, and they've been around for so long. Longer than real dinosaurs, even.

Let's get to know our Reptilian Overlords!

I lived in Post Landing for something like 6 years.  It's a small, white painted wood and brick apartment building on the edge of downtown Fargo and I guess it used to serve some function of the Post Office, hence the name.  The individual apartments vary wildly in size, seemingly built at random like an eccentric widow's dilapidated mansion, but mine wasn't one of the big ones.  It was definitely among the smallest, but the one across the hall was even smaller.  I know because I trudged amongst the wreckage inside of it once. We'll get to that in a bit. My home was a strange one. In the basement, underground, as I am nothing if not an underground person. It's where I feel most comfortable. The apartment was longish but very narrow – essentially a wide hallway vaguely divided into rooms.  Not a utility, but close.  A living room with a tv about 2 feet from the couch, separated from the kitchen by an arched outcropping of the ceiling, then a door into the bedroom, and then the bathroom.  If you stood against the wall in the living room and walked straight for 30 feet you'd be in the bathroom, which was so small you could wash your hands while sitting on the toilet, which was kind of nice. You weren't supposed to smoke in Post Landing, but almost everybody did, and the Landlord was this big dopey guy that told me he wanted to be a writer within 5 minutes of meeting him.  He was pretty lax about the rent, but he was also pretty lax about repairs, which was irritating but understandable. It was cozy there and I loved it, even though I was miserable most of the time, and it was conveniently located within walking distance of about a dozen bars, two liquor stores, and the library, which pretty much covered all of my needs in those days. Two liquor stores was perfect, because if you'd already been to one that day, you could go to the worse one about a block down the road and not be judged for buying more booze at 2 PM when you're already noticeably drunk, which I was about 60-70% of the time. The residents of Post Landing were - and are, I suspect – your usual combination of hipsters, the mentally ill, mentally ill hipsters, and borderline homeless.  All the way homeless people surrounded the building – I'll tell you their stories another day – as Post Landing is conveniently located between a homeless shelter, The Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, and Fargo's only strip club – kind of a Bermuda Triangle of sadness and desperation. I felt very at home.  These were my people, all of them. I loved nothing more than to post up on the front stoop with a case of beer, a pack of smokes, and a pizza, and offer any combination of the three to whichever transient was passing by, so long as they would tell me their story.  This was very effective. Anyway, I tell you all of this to set the scene, as more stories of Post Landing will follow. But this story is about Sheldon. I was absent from Post Landing for about a year and some change – maybe more, everything from this time is a bit hazy - basically living with a girl in her much nicer apartment, but continuing to pay the rent in mine, not fully committed. We broke up and I trudged back to my old squat, possessions in hand, to see how the place was holding up. It was holding up all right.  A little musty, but not much worse for the wear. As I was loading in my stuff, a man ambled down the long narrow hall separating my apartment from the one across from it, coming from the laundry room.  He was short, squat, and hairy and he wasn't wearing anything but Tobasco print pajama pants.  I immediately noticed there was a swastika tattooed on his doughy left breast, which was alarming, but his amble was amiable and my last name is Messerschmidt, so I'm usually given the benefit of the doubt by these people.   I was going to ignore – as is my wont – but he was clearly going to engage. He walked up to me, confidently, smiling – terrible teeth, but not without charm. “You new here?” he asked. “Actually,

It occurred to me on the way here that I might die doing this and should probably record something to specify that this is not a suicide. Also, this is kind of an event, so there should probably be some record of it. If you happen to find me in this undisclosed Red Roof Inn surrounded in blood with a hole in my head, Post-it notes with unintelligible scribbles covering everything, nonsensical notebooks in a pile on the desk, and a hoard of unlabeled non-perishable food products stacked to the ceiling, first of all, sorry for scaring you and making a mess. Please don't be traumatized and have a terrible life. Second, this is not a suicide.

Late 19th century Poland was a place of division and turmoil. The population was incredibly diverse, but not in a happy, elementary school math book illustration way. Yiddish, Russian, German, and Polish were all spoken - mostly used to hurl slurs and insults at opposing ethnicities. At any given moment you could look out of your window to see a craven German strong-arming a miserly Jew, while a drunken Russian looked on in disgust, and a dumb Pole tried in vain to tie his shoes. One group's success was perceived to be at the cost of another's. The police force was prejudiced against people they viewed as interlopers. Street signs were growing problematically jumbled. Tensions ran high and violence ran rampant. A breaking point was at hand. Sound familiar? It shouldn't. That was a very long time ago. There's no way you were around to see it. Unless you are a Crow, Lizard Person, or Dracula, of course. In that case – Welcome to the Podcast! Caw! Hissss! or Blah! to you! Don't forget to check out the web page at theirrationallyexuberant.com for past podcasts, pictures, videos, and the transcript of this episode! So, enter L.L. Zamenhof, a sensitive young Jewish lad with a penchant for peace and a yearning for learning. He also had, it is said, a yen for Zen, a lust for language, a dictate to abate hate, and a total boner for unity. He was, by all accounts, a great guy, worthy of respect, so shame on you for assuming that I was going to make some inane joke about LLs Cool J or Bean. Dismayed by his surroundings, he came to attribute the fractiousness of his homeland to what he later called “the heavy sadness of the diversity of languages”. He himself spoke Yiddish, Russian, German, French, Hebrew, Polish, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Lithuanian, Italian, English, and something called Volapuk, which I assumed was old-timey nerd language along the lines of Klingon, but was actually something of a precursor to what we are discussing today. What are we discussing today? Esperanto. It's in the title. Pay attention, Champ. Zamenhof's solution to the problems he observed was a an easy to learn universal language, with a simple grammar and a vocabulary of root words that would be modified by standardized prefixes and suffixes, free from the irregularities that make a language like English so difficult to master. It was based on a combination of several European languages, as well as Latin, but, to this monolingual English speaker, anyway, sounds a lot like Spanish. He worked on the language for years while attending medical school and then practicing Ophthalmology, and finally introduced it in a book, the Unua Libro, in 1887, under the pseudonym Doktoro Esperanto (meaning Doctor Hopeful). He called the language Lingvo Internacia, but no one liked that, so they called it Esperanto, which has a nice ring to it. Now, constructed languages – languages created for an express purpose by a specific individual or individuals, as opposed to evolving naturally over time - have an estensive history that begins long before Esperanto and continues through modern times. They are rarely successful, as evidenced by the fact that the aforementioned Klingon is the second most successful of all time, behind Esperanto. The first known instance is the Lingua Ignota, created in the year 1200 by Hildegard of Bingen for “mystical purposes”. She didn't bother to teach it to anyone else, presumably because she didn't have any friends. In the 16th century, the alchemists and Kabbalists also constructed mystical languages of sorts. I'm sure they would have gotten on swimmingly with ol' Hilde. Many others came and went after that, typically constructed by idealistic philosophers and would be magicians or wizards or witches or whatever. In 1982, author Suzette Haden Elgin created Ladaan, a feminine-centric language to test the effects of gender normative language. Today, most constructed languages are for artistic purposes. Even as we speak,

What they see now is this: Lester Manly and his three crew mates, not important to this particular story, strapped to their seats, preparing to touch down on the red planet in t-minus five minutes. What they can't see is this: Lester Manly desperately has to take a shit.

It's a classic episode of The Irrationally Exuberant! This beloved Christmas episode is about The Caganer, a pooping man the Catalonians hide in their Nativity Scenes, for some reason. It's fascinating, hilarious, features the first appearance of Foam Chomsky, and . . . there's a beloved Christmas song, "Oh, Caganer"!

In the beginning were only Steve the Infinite Tortoise and Karen the Infinite Chinchilla, and they were one, and they were everything, but they were only friends - Karen's choice, not Steve's.

The platypus, as we've established, is certainly an odd creature, but it is by no means the only odd creature in Australia, or even the oddest. Let's take a look at some of the other critters that share this bizarre continent.

Are you tired of brushing your teeth eeeeevery morning? Sore from walking around on only two legs? Sick of incubating your young inside of your body? Had it up to here with having nipples? If you said yes to any of these questions, then, boy, have I got an opportunity for you!

Platypus don't need your platitude He's gonna Swim around and eat bugs and shit If it's all the same to you

The platypus got it's name from the Greek words “platus” which, loosely translated to English, means “freaky-deaky” and “pous”, meaning beaver. As with most things, its existence was fairly inconsequential to Europeans, but folks were eager to wear and consume its parts.

In 1998 something wonderful happened. I found a two liter of OK Soda in the back of a refrigerator at a church.

Ok Soda was a soda. A pop, as most folks call it up here – it's shameful what we've done with language - made by the good folks at the Coca Cola Corporation, dreamed up by the same ad wizards that created New Coke, the Coke that tasted like a Pepsi. Full caloried sodas were all the rage back then, as the boomers hadn't yet caught the health food bug. It was wreaking havoc on everyone as has pretty much everything the boomers did and didn't do. Also many things they kind of did. As a result, everybody in 1994 was hideous - bloated and pallid, capped by fluffy hair, wearing either long sleeve, white collared polos with pleated khakis or Big Johnson t-shirts and jeans so grotesque you wouldn't believe me if I described them to you.

The honey bee is peace loving. It doesn't want to sting you and will not unless you bumble into its dwelling like a massive, unannounced house guest, you buffoon! When you are stung by a bee – you can bet dollars to donuts it wasn't of the honey variety and I would bet those same dollars to those same donuts that it was in fact a wasp. Perhaps you should learn some science before hurling wild accusations, buffoon!

What do you think of when you hear the name Roy Orbison? Black glasses? A bad haircut? A soaring, operatic voice? A partially shaved bear in a Dracula costume? Pretty Woman? The Travelling Willburys? Maybe even David Lynch movies?

You, a middle class white 35 year old male living in Fargo, North Dakota are going to do a COMEDY podcast about an African American PIMP. You, Reid Messerschmidt, are going to make COMEDY about sexual violence against women, human trafficking, and racial stereotypes – in 2018 – without any black folks or women contributing? Just you and me, a dumb gimmick that is also just you.

This is the story of my attempt to buy cocaine.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Icarus,  John Travolta, the Genesee River, George Washington, King Arthur, Jesus Christ, Niagara Falls, New England, base jumping, Western Migration, The Bible, Andrew Jackson, Elvis Presley, Gorgeous George, The Jolly Green Giant, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Carlos Williams, Bob Newhart, Craigslist, My Little Pony, Barry White, Betsy Ross, Netherlanders, Jedediah Smith, Puritans, opium, Giant North American Mason Bees, Freemasons, blueberries, and platypus buttholes.

This story is about the birth of my son – the most joyful and terrifying day of my life so far. This story is also about the time I beat a rabbit to death with a shovel.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Taco John's, flutes, Oakley brand sunglasses, the Minnesota Vikings, John C. Lilly, coon skin caps, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsburg, dolphins, Altered States, Paddy Chayefsky, William Hurt, Mexico, AIDS, Joe Rogan, Fargo, The Beatles' "Rocky Raccoon", Steve Erkel, Bowzer from Sha Na Na, Loggins and Messina's "Danny's Song", mole rats, and Dr. Cliff Huxtable.

The story of the time I split a six-pack with a homeless guy behind a closed Hardee's and something unexpected happened - even more unexpected than splitting a six-pack with a homeless guy behind a closed Hardee's.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: Eddie Vedder,  cruel wizards, Ten, Fargo, AIWA stereo equipment, Candlebox, Dishwala, Better Than Ezra, The Refreshments, Eels, Bush, Goo Goo Dolls, "Heyfoxymophandlemama, That's Me", Pearl Jam, "Last Exit", The Virgin Mary, Green Day, Tupac Shakur, Yield, "Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'em" by MC Hammer, "Stay Sick!" by The Cramps, "The Earth, A Small Man, His Dog and a Chicken" by REO Speedwagon, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Boris Yeltsin, Home Alone, MTV, VH1, Soft Rock, John Mellencamp, Gloria Estefan, Sade, "Pump" by Aerosmith, Bryan Adams, Longfellow Elementary School, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, "When She Cries" by Restless Heart, "Lightning Crashes" by Live, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Metallica, Guns 'n Roses, The Melvins, Hit Parader, Circus, Scott Weiland, Don Dokken, Blackie Lawless, Rolling Stone, Spin, Grunge, Tad, Fig Dish, Vitalogy, Bono, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Sharpie, Saturday Night Live, Alanis Morrissette, Dr. Zhivago, Potato Days, Bob Dylan, Arthur Rimbaud, Kermit the Frog, Roy Orbison, Neil Young, Dead Boys, Split Enz, Van Halen, The Ramones, Otis Redding, The Byrds, The Beatles, The Who, Daniel Johnston, Arthur Alexander, Tom Petty, Lucinda Williams, Green River, Mother Love Bone, Brad, Hovercraft, Bob Marley, No Code, Mike Watt, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn, Ben Harper, Frank Black, The Pixies, Binaural, Belle and Sebastian, Riot Act, Fleetwood Mac, The Harlem Globetrotters, No Doubt, WWF Wrestling, The Shrine Circus, Weezer, Bright Eyes, Charles Bukowski, Russel Crow, the Chicago Cubs, The Wizard of Oz, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, The Fargodome, and crossing the road like butterflies.

A new feature on The Irrationally Exuberant - Guaranteed 96% true short stories from the life of yours truly.  This second edition is a story is about a former co-worker, Brian, who kind of looked like a shaved bear.  This story is out of control sad.

References and allusions include but are not limited to: Body shame, Basketball, Canada, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Dr. James Naismith, the YMCA, Esperanto, Television, hula-hoops, the Internet, Scarlett Rubella, Tuberculosis, Jim Croce, Chicago, kangaroo boxing, The Harlem Globetrotters, New York City, Louis "Red" Klotz, The Philadelphia Sphas, Ken Doll, Judaism, Philadelphia, Rucker Park, South Dakota, Dynarex Cleansing Disposable Enemas, Karkov Vodka, Ralph Nader, Sisyphus, the gender spectrum, Sports Illustrated, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, The Chelsea Hotel, The Borscht Belt, Shecky Greene, Soupy Sales, crows, Mother Russia, the Mayflower, psilocyben, Williston, North Dakota, Arby's, Whapeton, World War II, Betty Boop, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Greatest Generation, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 1960s, Baby Boomers, Richard Nixon, Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World", The Osmonds, The Manson Family, Stanley Kubrik's "A Clockwork Orange", Jim Morrison, D.B. Cooper, Sean Astin, Brian Dunkleman, Ryan Seacrest, Meadowlark Lemon, Yiddish, Tootsie Pops, Super 8 Motel, Kool and the Gang's "Live at the Sex Machine", and black licorice jelly beans.

This is a poem about Donald Trump.

A new feature on The Irrationally Exuberant - Guaranteed 96% true short stories from the life of yours truly.  This first edition is a story about a time maybe ten years ago when I should have known I had a problem. This is the story of the time I found myself in front of the Fryin' Pan at three in the morning, drunk, wearing a bloodstained suit and a backpack full of potatoes.  This is the story of the time a grizzled old hobo asked me if I was okay.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to:  The Hale Bopp Comet, Bonnie Lou Nettles, God, Marshall Applewhite, Jesus Christ, Nikes, California, Eddie Vedder, Christianity, UFOs, Revelations 11, "The Denial of Death" by Ernest Becker, suicide, Tupperware, vegetarian chili, healing crystals, Oregon, Walter Cronkite, cancer, Luciferians, David Koresh, The Starship Enterprise, Mexico, Sodom, Egypt, Bill Engvall, Fargo, Feminism, Breathe-Rite Strips, and bedazzling.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to:  Valentine's Day, The Ronald McDonald House, McDonald's, Ronald McDonald, "Summer of Roses" by Willie Nelson, David Lynch, Egg McMuffin, Zune, Beijing, "Rock N Roll McDonalds" by Wesley Willis, Scotland, Robert the Bruce, Druids, the warlord Gillebride, Angus Og McDonald, The Knights Templar, Pope Clement V, the King of France, Satan, Pagans, The Illuminati, the New World Order, The Pantheon, The Luxor Temple, Freemasons, Ray Kroc, Mike Douglas, Baphomet, Cliven Bundy, chemtrails, Sarah Palin, AIDS, Space Pens, Willy Wonka, grimoires, magik, Willard Scott, Henry Kissinger, Heinz, Fruit of the Loom, Slinky, ouroboros, the All Seeing Eye, Liberals, Grimace, Hollywood, Shamrock Shakes, Uncle O'Grimacey, Mayor McCheese, Officer Big Mac, The Hamburglar, antisemitism, Goebbels, John F. Kennedy, The Professor, Captain Crook, Fry Guys, Anne Coulter, Dr. Drew, George W. Bush, The Fisher's Island Golf Club, Skull and Bones, harakiri, Big League Chew, Raybans, and a SHOCKING TWIST!