Head Shop: Vinnie's life choices catch up with him
Vinnie stood silently in the line that started at the small, non-descript door not 15 people ahead of him and snaked long and thick around the corner of the brick building behind him.
It was a huge crowd, an impatient crowd. Like it was every Saturday night. Like every night. Cars drove by and the passengers within either stared in unabashed amazement or looked coldly ahead, as if blind to the spectacle stretching down the dark city sidewalk. Like they did every Saturday night. Like they did every night.
Vinnie bobbed his head back and forth slowly in an erratic pattern to the music thumping between his ears. His ripped denim pants were slung low revealing his underwear. His shirt was open to the waste exposing his sun bronzed skin that was tight and lean over his ab muscles. His sleeves were rolled down to hide his needle ravaged arms. Glimpses of poorly scrawled tattoos peeked out from his chest and shoulders as he wobbled back and forth.
The line shifted forward a few slow, agonizing steps as the man at the door motioned for a couple of women to go inside.
Vinnie craned his neck and swiveled his head at the sound of as a scuffle broking out somewhere behind him. Not everyone was as patient as Vinnie.
He came here every Saturday night. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with others.
He couldn’t call them friends. No, not friends. Just others that shared his interests, that shared his needs. They were all here for the same reason. Like a bizarre, Orwellian conveyor belt the line jerked to life again and Vinnie danced forward three more feet.
A few people ahead of him Nikki shuffled along with the rest. She pulled her jacket tightly around her rock hard, mostly exposed fake tits, shivering as much from the cold night air as from the nagging, desperate need for another fix. Her skirt was too short. Her heels too high. Her frayed stockings the fashion of the day. An hour earlier she had been in the ladies room of “Paragon” two blocks over throwing up what little food was in her stomach.
Nikki wasn’t making good choices and the beauty she’d been born with was rapidly fading to a hard, ravaged mockery of youth. She ignored all the men around her with practiced indifference while and shooting vicious daggers at all the other women in line.
If Bruce didn’t let her inside tonight she was more than ready to change the situation. The line moved again, Bruce counting heads as they rushed past him. The protests threatened to turn ugly when he stopped the line at a group of men. A cold stare from the experienced doorman calmed tempers quickly.
Again and again the line limped forward as more and more people passed greatfully within the familiar building that everyone recognized though it bore no signs of any kind. It was a building everyone liked to pretend wasn’t there.
Vinnie hoped he would get inside. Inside it was a different world. Inside was comfort. Inside was companionship. Inside was the chance to maybe even get laid. Inside was a world that so many people just didn’t understand. If he would have thought about it at all he would have decided that suited him just fine.
It was his world.
A world he’d maybe not been born to, but a world his choices had destined for him none the less. Many people had tried to make him change. Tried to make him see that he was making mistake after mistake. But he had never listened. Never wanted to listen. Vinnie bobbed his head erratically to the music thumping between his ears. He looked up as the shouts of frustration swelled at the front of the line.
“That’s it!” Bruce shouted down the crowd, “That’s it, no more room! You know the drill!” The line began to melt around Vinnie. Some protested, hurling insults and curses at the large black man. Others persisted, demanding entrance, pleading to be let in. But Bruce was practiced at his job and everyone knew it would do no good to beg.
Vinnie saw Nikki slink up to Bruce, her coat open, the cold night air and taught skin of her silicone pushing nips through the thin material of her top. Saw her hand glide across the front of his shirt, drift down over his belt. Saw Bruce half-smile and motion faintly with his head. Nikki squeezed Bruce’s arm and dashed past him on her too high heels, disappearing around the corner that shielded the employee parking lot.
“No more room!” Bruce yelled again. “Sorry folks. Find another place.” For the briefest moment the fog cleared in Vinnie’s mind and he saw himself for who he was and where his life had taken him.
But just as quickly as they dissipated the clouds closed back upon him. Vinnie stuffed his hands in his pockets and began to shuffle away with the rest of the homeless. He wouldn’t be sleeping at St. Vincent’s tonight.
Maybe there would be a couple beds available at the city shelter two stops up 17th. That is if they weren’t holding spaces just for people with kids. Like they did every Saturday night. Vinnie stuffed his hands into his pockets and began walking up the street.
His head bobbed erratically to the music thumping between his ears.
Much as Stackhouse emerged one January and held the bar high (low) for a year, Mr. Scrotato Head has thrown the gauntlet down for best post of the year.
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If we were good people we would print this onto index cards and slip them into the pockets of all the Ed Hardy and Affliction apparel so maybe just one could be saved.
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Nah. Fuck ’em.
If you can scrape up enough change to buy a cup of coffee, Dunkin’ Donuts will usually let you sit in there for a couple hours before throwing you out.
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As long as you don’t smell too bad and refrain from shouting obscenities at the other customers.
very crucialheadesque…bravo scrotato!
Wait…where’s Crucial?
scrotato – very well written piece on the bleak existance that infects the douchebags.
well done sir.
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coke whores
I drink to forget, but I certainly don’t drink to forget Crucial Head. Nicely tome’d, Señor Scrotato Cabezo.
…before I hit da clubs, I slam my winky in ma drawzzz drawer a coupla times…the swelling makes it look enormous!
…scrotato goes in the front
Salty fuccen tears, Señor Scrotato!
Somebody else likes turtles.
If you can read this…give him back his turtle. Yo.
You sir, wield a fine pen. I am not complaining, but I would point out that this story smacks of anthropomorhiziations. Its like when you go to the zoo and you see the chimps throwing shit, you think, “those poor bastards must be suffering from a ‘reverend chad like’ mental disorder that they would throw their own shit.” The truth is much more boring though. Monkey’s like to throw shit. Its normal for them.
My bigger point here is that you almost make the douche antihero of your story a human capable of some human feeling. But the douche is not capable of normal feelings and thoughts. I think this is at once the genius of your story and its own down fall. We see ourselves in this and are at once attracted and revolted. As fiction it is great. As mock it fails because I pity the douche. But the douche should not be pitted. The douche should be exposed and eradicated. Therefore, I think this piece should be censored. It is radical and degenerate.
I recall an old Scrotato yarn which referenced a neglected toddler in droopy diapers nervously chewing the lead paint off the side of his crib.
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I always found that endearing.
Crucial Head is the stuff of HCwDB legend.
Crucial Head sucks ball sweat of bottle service boys in hell.
Crucial Head was captured after a ten day standoff in his Vegas bunker, along with the entire cast of the upcoming series, Real Wives of Crucial. They ran out of lube.
Mr. Scrotato head could bring back the Friday Night Mystery Movie featuring Columbo, McMillan and Wife, and MacLoud, featuring Sigourney Weaver.
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Young uns.
Is there any truth that Crucial was really Pumpy and when one died, they both died?
I think Crucial got super busy at work and drifted off. I know how that is.
Scrotato’s essay is awesome…
Crucial was murdered. Apparently, he was found nude and duct taped to an armoire. He was given continues suppositories of tanning lotion until the active ingredient leached into his blood stream from his anus. It was a beautiful death. Apparently his asshole looked like a golden crocus in full bloom. This is the way a real hero dies. Bound and gaged with tanning gel on ballon not. RIP Crucial.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Crocus_flavus.JPG
Crucial’s arse hole.
As always, when Scrotato retires to his den and lays it down, we are the beneficiaries of gold. His riffs on John Largeman were outstanding. Fine work, fine work my man.
tournequetdick & douchenuzzle are the same person & should be pitted
Pipe-Farters. This site spawned that word. I can’t remember which reg busted that out.
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That alone redeems the existence of this site.
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Pipe Farters.
There was a time, before most of you were born, that this site could unleash a bevy of ‘tard on other unsuspecting sites. Such as the unfortunate complex.com, which in passing mentioned this site as one that should become a reality show. Which, regrettably, it did once some Hollywood Nephew stole the boss’s bit and unleash Jersey Whores unto us.
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Witness:
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Jean Claude Van Douche September 11th, 2009 at 04:48 PM
I find your tagline to be quite racist sir and I quote… ” September 10, 2009 | Permalink TV | Tags: TV, When blogging goes wrong, douche bag, white people, hipsters ” White people? Why not Black People too? Or Hispanics? Had you pulled your head out of your anus and actually read some of the extremely intelligent banter that resides upon this blog, you might even see that there’s such a thing as a “Brothabag”…you see, we discriminate not, for the Douche virus is strong in this world, and knows no borders, nor races. Rethink your taglines before posting you racist bastard, may you rot in the deepest parts of a thousand retarded Dugong intestines.
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DarkSock September 11th, 2009 at 04:55 PM
I peed in a horse once.
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Admiral Hamilton Mantitty September 11th, 2009 at 04:56 PM
Reality is the scraped bottom of a barrel. And by barrel I mean your mother’s cervix. Douche.
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Southern Scrotic September 11th, 2009 at 05:02 PM
I think Marc is just jealous.
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Walrus Whisker September 11th, 2009 at 05:06 PM
After looking at this blog for the first time, I feel I have finally scraped at the bottom of the retreaded and regurgitated mediocrity barrel known as Complex.com Could you change the name of this website to AcidReflux instead, so internet surfers would be warned before having this taint of a website foisted uponst our eyes? Thank you, and good night.
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Pommelhorse Pummelfister September 11th, 2009 at 05:07 PM
I’ve got a bone to pick with Complex.com. As I elaborate on that concept throughout this letter I will use only simple words and language so that even a child can understand my message. Yes, even a child should know that Complex.com’s faculty for deception is so far above anyone else’s, it really must be considered different in kind as well as in degree. It’s directionless for Complex.com to make things worse. Or perhaps I should say, it’s temperamental. Although Complex.com has managed to avoid indictment, or even a consensus that it did anything illegal, I’m not writing this letter for your entertainment. I’m not even writing it for your education. I’m writing it for our very survival. Given this context, we need to return to the idea that motivated this letter: Complex.com has a talent for inventing fantasy worlds in which it’s okay to lower our standard of living. Then again, just because Complex.com is a prolific fantasist doesn’t mean that some people deserve to feel safe while others do not. Complex.com sees the world as somewhat anarchic, a game of catch-as-catch-can in which the sneakiest bigamists nab the biggest prizes. If I have a bias, it is only against pesky nutters who convict me without trial, jury, or reading one complete paragraph of this letter. Mutual efforts against appalling particularism are not just an educational process designed to teach people that I will never identify with what I call illiberal manipulators of the public mind. These efforts also serve as a beacon, warning the world of the snivelling consequences of Complex.com’s gutless statements. There are three fairly obvious problems with Complex.com’s allegations, each of which needs to be addressed by any letter that attempts to appeal for comity between us and Complex.com. First, it’s time that a few facts had a chance to slip through the fusillade of hype. Second, Complex.com is as biased as it is dour. And third, you won’t find many of Complex.com’s dupes who will openly admit that they favor Complex.com’s schemes to let malodorous, loquacious moochers serve as our overlords. In fact, their machinations are characterized by a plethora of rhetoric to the contrary. If you listen closely, though, you’ll hear how carefully they cover up the fact that this makes the issue an even greater tragedy. Disguised in this drollery is an important message: Complex.com commonly appoints ineffective people to important positions. It then ensures that these people stay in those positions because that makes it easy for Complex.com to promote antiheroism’s traits as normative values to be embraced. To conclude, the similarities between Complex.com and effete riffraff should not be taken lightly.
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Teddy Tendergass September 11th, 2009 at 05:09 PM
Please allow me to be brief in my critique: Marc Ecko’s principles have been getting a lot of undeserved attention recently. What follows is a call to action for those of us who care—a large enough number to debunk the nonsense spouted by Marc’s confidants. If an attempt to hammer a few more nails into the coffin of freedom isn’t scummy, it certainly is contumacious. Rather than respond to my letters with reasoned arguments, Marc prefers to open the gates of Hell. Although this method of attack is unparalleled in any other sphere of literary controversy it does prove that this is a free country, and I warrant we ought to keep it that way. Like a materialistic, apolaustic mountebank, he will poke and pry into every facet of our lives. Not that I’ve come to expect any better from him. Rest assured, whenever Marc is blamed for conspiring to create problems that our grandchildren will have to live with, he blames his attendants. Doing so reinforces their passivity and obedience and increases their guilt, shame, terror, and conformity, thereby making them far more willing to help Marc insist that our society be infested with unilateralism, classism, barbarism, and an impressive swarm of other “isms”. On that note, let me say that the reason he wants to spawn delusions of nativism’s resplendence is that he’s utterly combative. If you believe you have another explanation for his empty-headed behavior, then please write and tell me about it. This is not wild speculation. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is documented fact. Marc’s the type of person who would address what is, in the end, a nonexistent problem if he got the chance. But let’s not lose sight of the larger, more important issue here: his detestable campaigns. In the course of my work, I regularly come in contact with longiloquent ogres, and most of them also feel that we have a dilemma of leviathan proportions on our hands: Should we present a clear picture of what is happening, what has happened, and what is likely to happen in the future, or is it sufficient to lift our nation from the quicksand of injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood? I’m sure you already know the answer so I won’t bother repeating it. I’d like to emphasize, however, that I recommend paying close attention to the praxeological method developed by the economist Ludwig von Mises and using it as a technique to move as expeditiously as possible to place a high value on honor and self-respect. The praxeological method is useful in this context because it employs praxeology, the general science of human action, to explain why every time Marc tells his brethren that children should get into cars with strangers who wave lots of yummy candy at them, their eyes roll into the backs of their heads as they become mindless receptacles of unsubstantiated information, which they accept without question. On a similar note, I believe I have found my calling. My calling is to put the kibosh on Marc’s musings. And just let him try and stop me. To tolerate Marc’s vapid comments simply because they’re not packaged and sold as deranged is to uproot our very heritage and pave the way for Marc’s own incontinent value system. I allege that the best way to overcome misunderstanding, prejudice, and hate is by means of reason, common sense, clear thinking, and goodwill. Marc, in contrast, believes that the existence and perpetuation of emotionalism is its own moral justification. The conclusion to draw from this conflict of views should be obvious: Marc is frightened that we might rage, rage against the dying of the light. That’s why he’s trying so hard to prevent whistleblowers from reporting that he says that everyone would be a lot safer if he were to monitor all of our personal communications and financial transactions—even our library records. Why on Earth does he need to monitor our library records? The answer is obvious if you understand that he craves more power. I say we should give Marc more power—preferably, 10,000 volts of it. To quote the prophet Isaiah, “Woe to ye who disarm us morally, make us rootless and defenseless, and then destroy us”. Is that such a difficult concept? Marc owes us all an apology—and Marc knows it. In its annual report on incompetent incidents, the government concluded that he thinks I’m trying to say that an open party with unlimited access to alcohol can’t possibly outgrow the host’s ability to manage the crowd. Wait! I just heard something. Oh, never mind; it’s just the sound of the point zooming way over Marc’s head. Anyhow, I guess I’ve run out of things to say, so let me just leave you with one parting wish: Together, may we illustrate the virtues that Marc Ecko lacks—courage, truthfulness, courtesy, honesty, diligence, chivalry, loyalty, and industry.
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Crucial Head September 11th, 2009 at 05:10 PM
Is anyone in here still talking about Rush?
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Amanda September 11th, 2009 at 05:12 PM
I hate to say this guys, but Admiral Hamilton Mantitty is hot.
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Plinky’s Mom September 11th, 2009 at 05:16 PM
Is that Mathew Stafford in line at Wal-Mart?
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?LÆaMmmAa September 11th, 2009 at 05:19 PM
Hårh? HoW -bout æ Šhow aböüt a Shïttÿ B?øg thæt B?øgz abœut B?ÖGS?!? GOMPER!!!
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Donkey Douche September 11th, 2009 at 05:21 PM
The guy in People of Walmart has some quality ass, doesn’t he?
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Elastic Snap Hole of the Love Bear September 11th, 2009 at 05:21 PM
Marc, you’re gonna LOVE OUR NUTS
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Elastic Snap Hole of the Love Bear September 11th, 2009 at 05:23 PM
Hey Marc – Perez Hilton called, he wants his business model back.
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Lamp September 11th, 2009 at 05:37 PM
I would eat a small box of nerds out of ?LÆaMmmAa’s asshole.
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Fish Slap September 11th, 2009 at 05:38 PM
Hey, fuck me!
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The Mars Vulva September 11th, 2009 at 05:59 PM
Complex forgot to add Samurai Scrote to the list.
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Ümläüt Smäck Döwn September 11th, 2009 at 06:18 PM
Märc Eckö änd Nïc Rïchïë änd Përëz Hïltön = Gäyër thän Eltön Jöhn hümpïng ä Chïhüähüä.
and it keeps on going on and on….
Good fukn Gawd that’s funny.
Scrotato truly strikes a the heart of the inner douche. It is not that we may feel sympathy for a saturday night doucheclubber, but that he may serve as a cautionary tale to those thinking that the peak of socialization is being herded into an incomprehensibly loud soundstage, to watch human degenerates act in the most irresponsible manner, in accordance to survival of the fittest.
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This is the end for all those who fail to pique their curiosity, and are determined to find a mate in such a subversive, unforgivingly controlled environment.
…bunghole
“inner douche”?? Margera needs to share-a bit of that weed, lol
Adding to ‘Sock’s post:
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[FLYTEETH September 12th, 2009 at 09:22 AM
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NO FCUKIN’ TARMAL FOR YUO EKCO SLAPWHOAR!]
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We need a time machine. NOW. And that whole Complex.com thread is hilarious.
Creature and the big steaming shit I took are the same thing.
…troll on sad poster
It’s weird to pretend you are someone else. I’m just The Dude, or Duderino. And, I’ve worked on a couple of movies with Jeff Bridges, so he knows I use his image as my avatar, I have that going for me in life. Feeling it yet? The awesomeness?
Stark, Scrotato, very stark. Well done.
I love this place, and I’m a bit drunk. Now I will attempt to not say anything really stupid on the interwebs. Wish me luck!
Epic.