So the other day I went to get a tattoo. It is something I wanted to do for a very, very long time but I just could never decide on what image I wanted to have permanently and painfully etched into my skin, nor could I decide where I wanted this as yet undefined image to be placed. Naturally, I figured I should have something positive placed in a region of my body where I could easily gaze upon it. Maybe an uplifting Bible verse on my forearm, or the name and birth date of my daughter on my shoulder.
But then one day I was in the local Barnes and Noble, browsing for nothing in particular when I came across Jergen Van Bergenshlabotnik's second Christmas Book: The Christmas Sweater My Great Grandmother Knitted for Me with Yarn Spun From My Late Great Grandfather's Santa Suit That He Wore While Giving Out Candy To Poor Kids During the Great Depression While Working Two Shifts at the Scrapple Farm During The Year We Almost Didn't Have A Christmas But My Mom Also Bought Me A Puppy From Saving The Dollar Bills Wealthy Oil Men Stuffed Into Her G-String While Dancing at the Crazy Horse III That She Should Have Used To Pay Her Way Through College But Of Course They Always Say That About Dancers So You Don't Feel So Bad About Being At the Club But It Turns Out To Be Rarely True: A Sentimental Christmas Journey.
Now, there is something you must understand about Jurgen Van Bergenshlabotnik: He and I are sworn enemies. It all stems from the fact that in the 7th grade he made first chair bass clarinet, which made me angry because the only reason I chose bass clarinet in the first place was that no one wanted to play the damn thing. I already had my eyes set on Harvard, and I figured being a first chair bass clarinetist would look really great on my application. They would never have to know that I was first chair in a section of one. But then there is Jurgen, this new kid from Lower Krakosia, and he's fucking up all of my carefully laid plans.
To make matters worse, he was really, really good. His father, Miroslav Van Bergenshlabotnik, was like the Yo-Yo-Ma of bass clarinet players. Naturally he pushed his son very hard in that lazy sort of Eastern European way to follow in his footsteps.
I went into damage control mode. I first cast about for something else I could do really, really well, but I was too slow for sports, too rigid for art, and my baking skills needed serious work. My only choice was to buckle down, learn my scales, and challenge Jurgen for the first chair spot. I worked hard at it for three months. At last I felt I was ready, but was was undecided about what day I should set the challenge for. Then I remembered that in history class we had just learned that before the battle of Trenton Jesus had appeared before George Washington during his morning quiet time and reminded George that the godless Hessian soldiers loved alcohol and Christmas, and dropped a hint that if he was going to hit 'em the day after Christmas may be apropos.
I felt that I did not have the help of our Lord and Savior because I lusted dreadfully for Mary McTitavic, who had confusingly blossomed over the summer, but I did take the history lesson to heart, and chose Saint Krispin's Day for my challenge. Despite the fact that the Bergenshlabotniks were well on their way to American citizenship, they were still very much Lower Krakosian, and a brief survey of the culture noted that on the the day before Saint Krispin's Day the festival of Shlivovitz is celebrated. During the festival friends and family gather to light candles, exchange gifts, throw plum brandy at the ceiling, and sing the patriotic hymns of the Lower Krakosian Eastern Orthodox Church for a period of 24 hours in the hopes that the family, flock, and wheat will be protected from the ghost of Napoleon Bonaparte. Therefore, on Saint Krispin's Day Jurgen would be tired, his throat would be shot, and his embouchure would be critically weakened.
My calculations proved correct, but even so I barely took the first chair. Jurgen immediately set up a counter challenge for two weeks later, and that kicked off a running set of epic Bass Clarinet duels that lasted all the way through senior year of high school.
They became major events by the time we were in high school. On challenge days the shops would close early, the citizens of Blacksburg would pack the bars tight, get drunk, and parade to the Blacksburg High School auditorium under the banner of either me or Jurgen, their chosen Champion (and everyone in Blacksburg had to make a choice). The auditorium would be overflowing with people, waiting with electric anticipation for the duel to start, and then we would both take the stage to thunderous applause and try to outdo each other in a two hour competition in which the man with the most virtuosity, boldness, and dexterity would win the day.
At the end of senior year I was just on the cusp of realizing my dream of getting into Harvard and studying late 18th century French Literature, but the admissions officers were predictably nervous about the fact that for about half of my time in high school I had been a second chair bass clarinet player. They agreed to attend the final duel, in which both Jurgen and I would play bass clarinet concertos of equal length that we had written and rehearsed with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra. Jurgen was first chair at the time, I was the challenger, and he had the right to either go first or defer and go second. That crafty bastard chose to defy convention and go first (indeed, the knowledgeable crowd gasped when he announced he would go first, rather than second in symbolic defense of his position), because he knew something I did not.
A romance had developed between the Jurgen and Konstantina Von Brugge, the brilliant 20 year old principal violinist in the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, and at long last the night before the challenge the romance was consummated in a daring tryst on top of the desk of the Commandant of the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets. During the love making Konstantina had received a paper cut from some loose papers left on the desk to her middle finger on her left hand. Konstantina may have lacked propriety and judgement, but was still an honorable person and explained her misgivings over the next days performance. She said she could maybe struggle through one piece, but the quality on the second would suffer.
And indeed it did. The end of my concerto was a lovely and poetic interlocking of melodies between my bass clarinet and the principle violin, but Konstantina's paper cut, aggravated by two 20 minute concertos, was finally getting in the way. She tried to substitute different fingers to compensate on the final bars because she could simply not take the pain any longer, our timing got thrown off, and as I began to panic my bass clarinet let out a horrifying and ugly squeak, which had not happened for 5 years. Bedlam broke loose in the auditorium as Jurgen was crowned the undisputed champion.
The aftermath was hard to bear. Harvard decided I was obviously just Princeton material, and I was denied admission. Because I was such a great Bass Clarinet player I did get a music scholarship to Berkley, but the fact that I never made it into Harvard always rankled me. Often, as I toured around the world playing with the greatest orchestras and sleeping with the most beautiful and sophisticated of women, I wondered how my life would have played out differently if I had only gotten into Harvard. To make matters worse, Jurgen not only dashed my dreams but appropriated them for himself. Harvard decided Jurgen Van Bergenschlabotnik was indeed Harvard material, and while he was there he fell in love with late 18th Century French Literature, and became a writer of historical romances and, now, sentimental Christmas books.
It all just seemed a bad coincidence until I got a letter from Konstantina Van Brugge's lesbian lover many years later, who in a strange twist of fate turned out to be none other than Mary McTitavic. She said one morning they were at a Waffle Haus eating their customary breakfast of waffles when suddenly Konstantina just broke down into tears. She related to Mary the whole, awful story, about how she once fell in love with a young bass clarinet player, sustained her injury, and let it slip that she was concerned over her ability to get through the two concertos she would have to play the next day. She felt that this information obviously led the principal bass clarinetist to make the unusual decision to play first in the challenge, and that she was responsible for the challenger losing in such spectacular fashion.
She had never told anyone, because she was so ashamed of her behavior and feared that a scandal would cost her her position in the orchestra, and she had carried the guilt with her for years. To make matters worse for her, the paper cut had not healed cleanly but rather had scarred, making it a permanent reminder of her dishonor. She did not name names, but Mary McTitavic knew exactly what she was talking about because she was there, in the second row, and she remembered how watching Konstantina Van Brugge ploy her violin had stirred feelings in her that she had never felt before, especially for another woman. Konstantina knew nothing about this, because Mary was a CIA agent who was undercover, trying to infiltrate a ring of hot European librarians with advanced martial arts skills who were assassins for hire. To tell Konstantina that she had been at the epic final challenge would blow her cover. Unfortunately, the librarians found Mary first. The CIA disavows any knowledge of this, but I know the truth.
Mary did risk her cover, though, to tell me the shocking news, that Jurgen had cheated. And since that day Jurgen Van Bergenshlabotnik is no longer my adversary, but my nemesis. And when I saw his book in the Barnes and Noble I felt the hatred rise up in my throat. But I had an epiphany. Who says a tattoo has to be a positive thing?
So I bought the book, and took it to the tattoo studio, and got the tattoo artist to tattoo the dust jacket photograph of Jurgen Van Bergenschlabotnik, who has his glasses off and is smiling bemusedly and intelligently for the camera, onto my stomach. And now, as I get older and my skin there inevitably grows more distended and wrinkly with each passing year and each case of Coors, the face of my nemesis will become more and more distorted and disfigured. And when I die and my body rots away, my hate will finally die with me.
The tattoo artist thought it was an unusual choice, but after deciding I wasn't drunk went ahead with it. As she was working she remarked "Hey, are you the writer of Miscellaneous Marickovich?"
I told her that I was, but asked her how she knew. "Not to many Marickovich's in the world, are there?" she said, as she filled in Jurgen's inquisitively cocked eyebrow with black ink.
"No, I suppose not." I replied. "Hey, do you think you could add some devil horns to Jurgen's fat fucking face for me?"
"You got it buddy." She continued working for a bit, and then continued speaking in a soothing, sweet voice which you would not expect from someone who has tattoo sleeves of Satan covering both her arms. "I really like the Blog, by the way. Only, I wish you did more political commentary."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I always thought you had some really interesting thoughts, and with the 2012 presidential election getting underway so soon, I know I would really be interested in hearing what you have to say about the candidates. I imagine other people would be as well."
So, Kat, I have decided to take your advice, and I will now write about what I think of each of the Republican candidates, with a note on the chances I give Obama as well.
Though you know, it took a really long time to set this post up. I mean, I know I usually open with a few paragraphs of nonsense (I got that from the Simpson's, by the way), but this was a bit much. My hands are kind of tired, and the tattoo on my stomach really hurts. I think it might be infected. So maybe I will save politics for another day.
Sorry folks.
Ouch. This tattoo really, really hurts.
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