Welcome to Acerbia; population: π
This is the archive of the many and fabulous adventures of . Like a hard-bitten son of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius taught to write by William S. Burroughs; continually reincarnated, debated over by intellectuals and literati at cocktail parties the author can't get invited to, the target of scorn and ire from women everywhere, frequently mistaken for a former member of the Warsaw pact, named after the Italian explorer Giuseppe Acerbi, slowly rewriting the Book of Cataclysm, this is postmodern fiction at its most playful and creative.
A Nazi With Real Hair
Things with Eden eventually broke down when it became apparent she was not in fact a student but rather a MOSAD agent tasked with tracking down former members of the Third Reich living in London.
At first it didn't bother me that she would text furiously on her phone or take picture messages of random old gentlemen at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason's. I figured she just liked old men. But then came the day she reached into her purse and pulled an SP-21 on some doddering old man on Oxford Street with a cry of "Ha-ha! SS-Untersturmführer Sören Engels, now you meet your doom!" I struggled with her as she swore at me in Hebrew and the poor old codger ran away with his incontinence pants rapidly filling up.
That night we had to have a sit-down and heart to heart where she painstakingly explained how and why she was a MOSAD Nazi-hunter and why it was important to bring these people to justice. I wanted to understand, really I did. It's not easy to find out that your girlfriend is a secret agent bounty hunter, so I proposed we come to an arrangement; she would be allowed to hunt war criminals providing she called any night she was going to be home late and on Tuesdays we got to do it doggy-style.
Unfortunately she refused. Was I really asking that much?
My Bishonen-chan
Tigerprawn's real name wasn't Tigerprawn, it was something else that started with a t. To begin with I called her Teriyaki but she would frown and tilt her head to one side and those pigtails she wore, one would dangle in mid-air and the other would flop flat against the side of her head and she would pout.
"whya you calla me teriyaki? eh?" when she spoke English she seemed to add in a lot of extra vowels and her voice rose an octave higher than when she spoke Japanese. Strangely, when I spoke French my voice dropped an octave.
So we settled on Tigerprawn. In return she would call me Bishonen, without telling me what it meant. We went to our first anime convention dressed as cats.
Now, you may think "cats, right, four paws, pointy ears, whiskers, tail, meow noises, gotcha" but nooooooo we had to go as some strange felineoids straight out of one of those freaky comicbooks Tigerprawn would always be reading. So I had drawn on whiskers but for some reason battle armor and a preposterously large plastic gun, and a maleable tail that could be bent into various shapes. She in turn wore cat ears, a french maid's outfit, and bleeched her hair blonde which looked very wrong.
While at the convention I hooked up with a bunch of guys calling themselves "The Yaoi-Squad" which Tigerprawn thought was pretty funny, but again being just a dumb Otaku-gaijin I didn't understand. I wished I had a Japanese dictionary with me but it wouldn't have helped as most of the terms appear to be slang anyway.
I introduced myself as Bishonen-chan to the group and there were murmers and nods all round that I was a perfect addition to the Yaoi-Squad. Tigerprawn went off to sing on a stage with a videoscreen showing the opening credits to all her favorite anime series and Trigun Rick of the Yaoi-Squad asked if I wanted to go for a drink.
Over a drink Rick asked me if I wanted to spend more time with the Yaoi-Squad and I asked him what sort of stuff they got upto.
"Mostly reading manga and watching anime. Some of the guys sew their own costumes too, I write the monthly doojinshi. Then of course there's the Yaoi-related stuff..."
Yeah, what is that by the way?
"You mean you don't know? Oh. We figured that if you were calling yourself 'Pretty little boy' then you were, y'know, into the scene..."
Nope, that's just what Tigerprawn calls me.
"Oh right, the girl you came with? She's not your girlfriend is she?"
Sort of.
"Oh... so you're not..."
Not what?
"Y'know... um... gay?"
Whatever gave you that idea?
"You're dressed as an effeminate character from a slash anime called Go, Go, Boys Love"
Ah. Am I.
Yaoi, as it turns out is an acronym for yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi, meaning "no climax, no punch line, no meaning."
Onions Make Me Cry
(sung by Rowlf the Dog of The Muppet Show)
Spoken: You may not know this, but I'm really a very sentimental dog. I cry easily. Onions, for instance, always make me cry.
I'll admit I split bananas,
Take Easter eggs and make them dye.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Once I saw a salad dressing.
My face got radish, my oh my.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Potatoes I've mashed, and berries I've crushed,
I've made an artichoke, and that's not all.
I've also whipped cream, and beaten an egg.
Yes, I've even made a melon ball.
Of all the things above, I'm guilty.
If punished I would know just why.
But I never harmed an onion
So why should they make me cry?
Oh why should they make me cry?
Old Flame
On the off chance that you're Googling your own name Veronique Miro Quesada, who attended Lycee Leonard De Vinci and moved to Peru, please get in touch. My contact details are available on this page.
Hayseed Goes to the Big City
Next stop: Gotham. Maybe after that I'll stop all this "gee-whizz, it sure is a big country" bullshit and go back to writing some decent fiction. You can all go home again now.
I can tell already that after three weeks in the boonies of Florida that New York is going to be culture-shock-a-rama.
What the Deuce?!
When playing Texas Hold'em poker for the first time with real, live breathing players (9 of them) it is very important to remember several vital details to assist in not looking like a complete gimp-fisted fool in front of them.
- When pulling out the $20 to sit at the table for a friendly game, understand that flashing the other $300 you have with you will likely lead to an expensive night where you buy a surprisingly small number of beers but never seem to be lacking in alcoholic beverages. This is not a random or uncalculated state of affairs.
- Do not do card tricks when its your turn to shuffle. Nobody gives a shit how the three burglars got into Fort Knox and displaying an uncanny ability to cause Aces to fall on the table will lead to suspicion and recriminations later in the hand when you pull out the first full house of the game.
- Staring intently at each person as you try to decipher their body language and tells can be considered rude by some. Also, people carry guns in this country and you're only ever one "Are you talkin' ta me?" away from a 9mm sinus evacuation.
- Similarly be aware of your own tells. Whooping "Fuck yeah!" when the flop is revealed and then sitting grinning like fool as you repeatedly look at your two cards does nothing to hide the cool exterior you think inwardly that you are projecting to the cautious fellows you're playing with.
- Conversely gnawing your fingernails down to stumps and crying as the turn card is revealed and then again as the river is revealed doesn't project the impression that you have a Royal Flush anywhere in your near future.
- "All reds" is not a proper poker hand, no matter how much you argue the odds.
- "Pocket threes" is nothing to be proud of.
- Picking between your teeth with the corner of the cards could be considered marking them, so don't do this. Also you never know how many other people have already done this so for the sake of your own dental hygiene avoid it.
- Do not play table hockey with the chips. Do not play tonsil hockey with the person either side of you.
- You can't go "all in" with only half your chips; anything you've hidden in your lap can't suddenly magically appear on the table again at the start of the next hand... unless you're playing at a tableful of Altzheimers sufferers of course... or everyone forgot their Ritalin... or you happen to be participating at the World Goldfish Poker Championships. Okay, so maybe there are exceptions to this one.
- Something can't be "very unique". Its not poker-related but its still something people say far too often for my liking.
- Mirrored sunglasses may hide your eyes but they also reveal your cards to everyone else. They can however be helpful if you need a nap between raises when playing against very indecisive people.
- Saying aloud the exact opposite of what you're doing isn't bluffing, IQs have risen in the past few decades.
- Fate has no sense of timing. The suited 3 and 7 you folded immediately will guarantee the 4, 5 and 6 of the same suit on the flop. However if you've stayed in past the first round of tortuous raises up to the flop you can be sure that someone else just got a nice pair of aces and kings; probably the person grinning at you over their mirrored sunglasses.
- Do not rip the cards in your hand into tiny pieces in disgust and stride away from the table if it is a friendly game. These people know where you live.
Hopefully you've learned a few pointers from these tips and you'll not make the same mistakes that I did during my first game of Texas Hold'em. Although I believe I was unfairly disadvantaged as the house rules seemed to be that the guests never won.
Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque
There must be something about being dropped into an alien culture that causes your inhibitions to slip. Suddenly you're doing things you would never previously have considered doing, your social taboos disappear and you suddenly find yourself standing in front of a crowd of people you never knew existed until half an hour previously, belting out your best rendition of an old classic. Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it; I sang at a karaoke bar.
Just let me explain. There was beer involved and a flutter of eyelashes from the girl who sang "I Love Rock And Roll", and the guy who had been up there singing off key said he really liked the sound of my accent and wondered if it would come through over the sound system.
It wasn't easy, let me tell you, as I browsed through the bible and spotted a song which I now know nobody else had ever requested, not in this part of Florida. For whatever reason, I picked Prefab Sprout's "King of Rock and Roll", self-assured that I knew all the lyrics. As I was called up on stage I was glad that the lights obscured the crowd from my line of sight. The opening bars didn't sound too familiar but then karaoke tunes are always the muzak version, right?
Up on the screen appeared We're the Goodies, how do you do? Say what? That should be All my lazy teenage boasts are now high precision ghosts. I froze in terror. The MC' had given me a song that not only the crowd doesn't know but neither do I, and I'm the only one who realises it! After a few lines I had to give up, I just didn't know the melody or the words well enough. The crowd didn't boo but I knew I'd have to do something to make up for it.
"Gimme Sinatra, any Sinatra."
I don't want to brag too much, but boy can I croon. The patrons were dancing between the tables, couples were nuzzling, the owner was smiling (Italian Americans just love Sinatra) and I got high fives all round when I left the stage. Karaoke only sucks if you do.