(2003)
Imagine in slowmotion this fat/beautiful man. Everything is transparent to his eyes except that mystery which remains one thousand yards exactly ahead. Unfocus yourself, forget yourself, and you might see the terrible Globe of Dismemberment, the invisible force field that secretly surrounds him, placing objects on edges, browning plants, rotating screws. It crushes outward the hallway walls, the floor and ceiling. Think Anime, like Tetsuo, in Akira, that little guy who splatterpaints walls with the pulp guts of any poor saps who attempt his arrest. Except fatter. And all will collapse after him: a luge of quivering debris – the unhealing bruise he leaves deep throughout the skin of Earth. Our world will call him theRuiner. But I just call him Hooner. The guy is my sidekick.
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I gave this kid my 79 Olds wagon for his Bday. My girl made me a man in this car plus it was in A-one shape. Next minute all the door latches are snapped off so you gotto roll the windows down to get out. Third time I try to get out the window crank comes off in my hand, headliner’s torn down drooping, speakers are soaked, f-ing windshield’s caved in and he’s got samwiches lining the floor boards. Nowadays you can only slime an exit through the backseat driversside door, and all this only up until the 25th cause thing’s been police-ordered off the road permanent. Yesterday he popped a tire on the Knight Street Bridge due to pressure-check neglect so we slap on a spare which blows on our first left. Scraped all the way up to CapCollege on the rim. 40km per hour. Buddy here never ever drives above 40k. WTF?
And this summer I was half killed: 2 tonnes of garbage avalanched into my neck as I tried to pry our WhiteLightning Honda Spree Scooter out from beneath some miscellaneous meat slicers in his garage… Rjat and I then investigated the garage situation, we recruited No-Nonsense BeeTeeReid, tucked shirts, and we chucked everything into the back of Hooner’s pickup… we emptied a 2 car garage into the back of his MazdaPickup and the guy gets in and starts driving around taking huge turns and gunning it down No1road until everything just rattled itself off.
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Me and Rjat then set up comprehensive TVs, couches, vanseats, cargo-holds, stoner posters, KevinSpacey weightbenches and carpet samples throughout this reclaimed space… we even built a huge wall of gear to shield from Hooner’s mom for when she would yell Korean at us. We’re about to move in, live out the rest of the summer, but jeez-loois you turn your back for three days to go to a wedding and theRuiner has the place re-trashed floor to ceiling with miscellaneous BS. Try to grab TheGerr’s bicycle – you’re nearly killed by a huge plastic bag a shattered fluorescent light bulbs.
Okay I’m gonna level straight and brass tack my situation: I’s raised by TheGerr, and in me he’s of course reproduced his Legendary-Status Cutthroat-Compulsion for immediate surroundings to be Efficient, Disinfected and Square. You make jokes, but I have to do certain things which Hooner deems 100% unnecessary. Simple things like refrigerating eggs, rollingup Van windows when the thing’s parked in the rain overnight, and vacuuming frickin samwiches out from under seats once a month.
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Oh man I dunno... sometimes I try to just let it slide, refrain from unconscious cleaning instincts, cut loose, be “All Natural” as he’d suggest; scatter my personal belongings throughout the Northwest, leave teakettles half full of chilli in the van sink for 1.5 months, drop salsa-laden tortilla chips into my sleeping bag and just pour the rest of my milk into the cupboard all over my socks and magazines, just to take it easy and let go. I was chillin like this on the AugustToour, and in Saskatoon we were parked in some bs parkinglot and I was lying back in my ginch with my chin on my chest staring 1000 yards east, just letting the 37+ flies buzz about and batter off my face World-Vision-Commercial-Style (this is true, ash and I counted 37+ flies in the van)
…and all of a sudden Hooner just snaps, jabbering on like Cronenburg Spyder, shaking rugs, sopping up misc green fluids with brownstained wetsocks, blasting flies off my and Ash’s faces with Furbreeze, yelling at unknown entities and the van itself and flippingout cause Steve’s off bamboozling with the last 25pages of Moby Dick The Book… Hooner completely starts organizing and wrapping up electrical chords… the guy is sweeping compost off the futon and even throws me and Ash out of the van sos he can get underneath the front seats with my minibroom. WTF? This kid thinks he’s a Real Hotshot and sees himself as the Real Hero of the All-Natural-No-Nonsense-Lifestyle-Situation. Then he folds under slight pressure. I just chilled back and yellowtooth-smiled, thinking to myself: "Heh, this kid is playing little league tball for life."
All that and he doesn’t listen to my speculative advice about how to step it up bigtime asap: sheesh man we could be Cyborgs by now but nooooooooooooooo, in the words of the Biggest Slob In The History Of All Life In The Universe: “We just gotta be legit RF"
OK. I'll give it a shot.
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Yeah. Right. Next thing I caught Hoon tail end of a four day Episode II Attack Of The Clones immersion. Now he’s always using The Force, mostly outside Safeways on their automatic sliding glass doors. So to decrease expenditure and roadtest more immediate Jedi skills, Hooner now drives without using the gas pedal or the brake pedal. This throws Rjat into fits of F-bombs during high traffic daytime situations. On the approach of an intersection with a red light Hoon takes both hands off the wheel soas to palms-out hold back perpendicularly approaching traffic. Sometimes I use The Force on the red light, but mostly I just close my eyes.
Somebody pawned off Hooner’s professional SLR camera and didn’t even detatch the quickclip tripod mount from the bottom of the thing so this screws the entire mechanism additionally save elaborate duct tape skills. At 4:30am Hooner yanks his old man out of the casino by the back of the guy’s neck. In the parking lot I watch Hooner trip the guy grade 3 style then wind up and kick him violent right to the chest. Joe Lee. That’s Hooner’s old man’s name. The guy used to be Tokyo Joe until a chinese flybynight ripped him off big and threw their family from middle-upper to steady-decline-lower class. But Joe Lee is a rock. The guy is the most hardcore guy I’ve ever heard about or seen in live situations. Because of this we have created an acronym in his top honors: JLS. Joe Lee Style. If something is intense then it’s JLS. I’ve got one of his toothbrushes mounted up above my door in my room for respect and homage since I grabbed it from his bathroom cause the bristles were 90% flattened or nonexistent JLS. He runs a dying joint called Opera Sushi. He’s a Korean sushi chef who sings Italian Opera behind the counter for kicks and promotional gimmicks. Hooner says once we get rich we’re buying JLS a one way to Verona. Then for his mom Dana, a one way back to Korea. Dana and JLS sleep in separate rooms / drive separate cars to the Opera where they look in separate directions behind that same counter til 10pm six and a half days a week. Dana bogarts all the income so JLS can only skim a 20 probably once a week, seriously. Late nights when I’m loading amps into the garage I see JLS wandering over head down fishing a crumpled box for half cigarettes. He’s needing me to garner Aircare clearance for his 89 Bonneville so he can accomplish some police-slapped safety inspection due to blue exhaust brown coolant zero headlights and problematical automatic driver’s side windows. Dana drives a 2003 Volkswagen Jetta and JLS drives a dented-ass 80s POS. He’s wearing some khakis my dad scored from a dead guy and the C.A.T. steeltoes I found in a box out behind our old practice space. Hooner’s neighbour Bobby told me that JLS came over randomly one night, poured himself approximately a 12oz Crown Royal, dispatched it straight then left quietly…
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Hoon was on a huge Beatpoets kick cause he heard William S. shot his wife in the face. I show up and the kid’s swiped 14 plus books chronologicalling the entire gang, newspaper clippings and original microfilm repros taped up all around, got a Howl-read knob-elevened and I’m immediately tasked to unjamming one two three cracked/mossed mechanical typewriters. Kid assigns a detailed Neal Cassidy report-profile due over Quarterpounders on me tomorrow night. All this within the thick smoke haze of Vancouver’s Premium Blend #1 care of RJ Clark’s Tobacconist cause Hoon’s got three newfangled class-act grandfather pipes: one for me, another with flat base for surface resting, and one it seems he's fashioned from a cherrywood branch complete with a few dangling twigs and leaves. Smells gooooooooooood.
Hooner eats as a python. One time we scored a Costco sixpack of Figaro Canned-N-Pitted Black Olives and this guy downs three cans including juice, and all this after Fullsize Flowers Family meal of squash spaghetti and turkey sauce. Hooner’s immediately sprawled and groaning due to incredible pains and regret. Clock him just under 30 seconds of this excruciation and all of a sudden silence and zero writhing. I’ve got my ear to his chest hoping he’s moved on to better worlds when I clue in on the snoring. He aint corpsed he’s asleep! Hoon passed out cause he ate too many olives plus juice. Uncontestable Legendary-Status in my books.
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The child swipes all my VHSes and stacks them hostage with my VCR so as to seem like he’s got a topquality virtuoso collection. Three minutes a webresearch and now guy’s pipin big bout opening some revolutionary Video-Oasis with my tapes. Apparently it’s a complete breeze cause only time we fork Plus-Prices and Licensing-Hassles is on New Releases; Non New Releases equals no strings attached so screw New and we only carry Legendary-Status-Certified Materials. When necessary we dub tapes on my clocked-out JVC mod and just rent everything for 3quarters competitor’s prices. Sounds reasonable up to part bout me sliming in on Historical Steveston-Video-One Teresa so she’ll hand over the premises in her will. That and we’ve got other top priorities. Like tortoises.
Hooner’s got my cats climbing all over him and tells me it’s cause he’s At One With The Cats. Next thing we’re going halfers on a Maine Coon for our van. Maine Coons are the fattest most coolest looking and badass creatures available throughout the northern hemisphere. I suggest we cut off his tail at birth sos he looks like a 16-18 pound bear yet with large talons plus inherent catlike speed and reflexes. But Hoon’s immediately sidetracked and contacting Eastcoast-based Tortoise breeders because Sulcatas grow approximately 3 feet diameter weigh 260+ pounds bust 126 year lifespans look like grandfather muppet dinosaurs and eat strawberries plus flowers… all that plus this: in our new Tortoise’s formative years we’ll keep him on us at all times in the breast pocket of button-up shirts soas to develop an instinctual motherly bond. And once we get some land we’ll be raising real Wolfs. To get the specs we stayed with these outlaw Wolf breeders somewhere between Saskatoon and Calgary. I got the idea when imagining myself walking the earth in my dad’s BenKenobi robe with my second stage Kendo sword and White Fang on me at all times keeping up appearances. Hoon’s girl Heidi (who’s a consensusTwelve and ditched him because he’s got no heart due to the Abyss), well she’s planning on a Stallion, and our Wolfs should eat the stallion and she’d be pissed but we’d think it was sweet. Who knows though, maybe we’ll all robe up and storm the Northwest.
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Hooner don’t care about sex or drugs, just the rock and roll and no alarm clocks. But him and JLS’ve been passed out since Sunday, sternside of some five day tear through a wood jug of Logan Fils Absynthe and a 2 pound bag of Roger’s White Cane Sugar, so I snake the garden hose through kitchen window up the stairs and cold blast some sense under the fleece sheets… cause other than previous five days Hoon’s never hit the bottle for personal reasons, like too many nights hauling his foaming ex-girlfriend Hurricane-Kat out of coke-soaked hotel bathrobe parties and too many mornings hauling JLS out of the drunk tank cause the guy's reattempted suicide by crashing my 79 olds into various ditches on the way home from the Opera. I used to slip Southern Comfort into his Sprite during McDeal feastings but this only gets him red in the face for three minutes before he stumbles off to snooze out under some hedge. Guy’s somewhere between 200-350 pounds 22 years of age and busting grade 9 alcohol tolerance.
Come up into my bedroom and Hoon’s sposed to be ontop of some Contemporary-Post-Something essay yet he’s got about 26 miscellaneous MSNMessenger conversations obliterating the Microsoft Word Document. I cuff his ears and reuninstall the program soas to get him on task but I know its generally an inconsequential move. There’s bout 740 Messengers on his contact list all typing at him simultaneously, which means you’ll hear this little MSNdoodoodulootbing! 740 f-ing times per minute. When we make the movie I’m going to have that MSN thing bing! off whenever he appears onscreen.
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Between not speaking in public plus the unshakable non-threatening staredown gaze, Hoon looks tough, but I can take him if circumstance requires, just like this one time I stabbed him in the head with a fresh Oh Henry. In retrospect I regret the move cause he set himself to confiscating the weapon at any personal cost. With this I’ll invoke referential parallel to that scene in Saving Private Ryan where the German slowly slowly pushes the knife into the other Soldier’s chest. That is Hoon so slowly pulling the chocolate bar from my wirey yank and into his mouth. That’s when my heart collapses into the Drop-Dsus Heavy Metal Power Chords Heralding Everyone’s Immediate Death. After casually reasserting my Alpha-male status I cave due to pity and buy the kid a restorative extra large bowl of fatty flank fatty beef brisket noodle soup at Pho Viet for $5.50 straight. We get back to garage HQ and on approach Rjat materializes through hedges to take Hoon’s legs from behind with an old Gretzky Easton-Aluminum. Hoon ground attacks back with a Gambit-Style wallet throw to Jat’s neck. I toss between them for first taker the halfsize samurai sword in sheath and run for the camera. Jat’s got his one inch Mini Swiss blade out Kumar-From-Royal-Tenenbaums-Style, and Hoon’s holding the sword in front of his eyes as would his Kill-Bill Bride. Face-offs between these boys are 100% gold but never catchable on video. Digital immortalization of their dance is a top priority life resolution.
Year after high school I went halfers on a 69 Triumph Chopper with the founder of Chamberism Matthew Chambers. My dad theGerr was right pissed cause day before he ordered me not to get the thing since it was a punk bike plus we ain’t finished restoring the 1964 Volkswagen Bus. It was me or the Triumph sos Chamberism and I had the Seller come pick it back up and everybody was 100% pissed. Anyways a few years later Hoon sees a pic of that old would-be bike and we start talking big about going halfers on some newfangled badass hog. That night Hoon gets home from cutting grass with the backrightside of his Mazdapickup sparkin the pavement, and all this due to the huge 1983 Suzuki GS 650 roped up back there in all its majestical beauty. We throw our backs manhandling the thing down this half-inch plywood ramp which immediately snaps – bike cranks the tailgate doubleback and mashes a huge dent in the pavement but otherwise seems to be in top form when Hoon fires her up. I instruct him quickly about the clutch-gear-throttle relations as he’s pulling away from me and off into the distance. Kid’s wearing a blue t-shirt pair a Costco shorts my old grasssoaked runners plus moldy baseball cap, its fucken pouring rain first of October and he’s roaring off into the gloom on our new GS. Never been on a bike before.
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I bust the kid without seatbelt and I’m off into fatherly roars about his lower face caving-in with eyeballs dangling from retinal chords as result if I take our vehicle into concrete overpass supports. Hoon says he prefers to build tension and so only buckles when the fear takes him, like if Ash drives. Glove box exam and I note we been on expired insurance for 1.5 weeks. No big liability deal he says, cause we’re caughshj. It’s caughshj. Fuck.
Hooner crashes my Dodge campervan into a dumpster outback of theOpera in attempt to terminate the Pastor who was spending too much time with his mom. Five years prior JLS and son were going to burn the guy alive but settled instead for excommunicating his righteous ass off to California. So Hoon catches buddy snooping out back of the family restaurant in Present Day Vancity and goes to splatter his guts on my radiator. Guy dodges the Ram but Hoon grabbs hold of his running ass and throws him around that back alley for a good 10 minutes ‘fore the fuzz peel em apart.
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We’re riding bikes over the No2road bridge when Hooner pulls out an old baseball cap. He tells me this is his dad’s gambling hat and asks if I’ll chuck it into the river. I speak Ezekiel 25:17 then drop it in. Water pulls it away from us forever.
One day Hooner will be riding a four foot tortoise all through his abandoned shopping mall farm in the middle of the forest in the middle of the desert on an island somewhere South Pacific. I might be tagging along, but maybe probably not. Especially not as a gameplayer or a wingman, cause I can see it in him now: he’ll hear what I say but it won’t really register or matter cause he’s staring off 1000 yards exactly ahead. It’s through his gaze that I feel myself fading into transparency. I can hear it in my voice, like I’m quivering... just another piece of debris, another burst vessel in that never-ending bruise.
HOONERTHERUINER
thetruthbyflowers