College is a rite of passage. Somehow, we’re supposed to go in being 18-year old assholes and come out 4-5 years later having learned how to be less of an asshole.
For me, college was less about learning things than it was about learning how to deal with people. I managed to make it through high school without:
I played Dungeons and Dragons and taught myself how to program in my spare time. I’m what you call a late bloomer. Needless to say, I didn’t know shit about shit. So I get to college and within the first month I auditioned for, and managed to get into, an improv comedy troupe. I was admitted into the troupe on a Thursday. The following Saturday I:
I might have been a doofus, but I was a totally loveable doofus.
Three weeks later, I’m settling into college life- still no smooches or weiner licks, but them’s the breaks. Halloween weekend is around the corner and everyone is telling me about how awesome it’s going to be. One of the members of the troupe is throwing a Halloween party at her house.
I decide to wear this powder blue and silver pinstriped zoot suit, Jun dressed as a kissing booth and MF The Super went as a Bruin’s fan (These assholes getting me into trouble would become a theme of tenure at Ohio State). I’ve even had a hat to match. At this point in my college career, I’d been to a grand total of four house parties. I’m a pro. I decide to man the keg and do God’s work. This is where the details get hazy.
I remember being furious about the free beer running out. I decided to try to steal bottles of Red Stripe from some asshole who wasn’t wearing a costume, because fuck him. He and his dudes didn’t take to kindly to it. I can understand why.
I also remember trying to mack on some girl named Anesha. That didn’t work either. She was drunk and I was totally inept when it came to girls.
Eventually, Jun, MF, and I decide to go get pizza. I walk out into the cul-de-sac with Jun and MF trailing me. I’m almost to the car when this fucking pumpkin smashes around my feet. I turn around and I see Jun and MF the Super laughing like idiots. MF has pumpkin guts all over his hands.
Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I picked up the pumpkin shrapnel and returned fire. I ain’t no bitch.
The return volley quickly escalated into a full blown pumpkin fight in the middle of this cul-de-sac. Eventually, we came to a cease fire. Not because we wanted to stop, but because we were too busy laughing at what was happening to carry on. I remember thinking something completely sacchrine like “These are totally the best days of my life.” You know- dumb motivatinal posted shit. I was (am) an idiot.
So there we were, being bros, coming to terms with the mayhem that we just caused, when those dudes who Red Stripe I tried to steal come outside. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they actually lived there. These dudes totally looked like they were ready to fight. MF, ever the diplomat, grabs half of a pumpkin and hurls at them. I really thought I was going to get into my first fight.
Turns out, they just wanted to join in. We were laughing and carrying on so much, that our pumpkin fight interrupted the house party. Three became six became eight became fuck-if-I-know. When all was said and done, we had carpeted the pavement with a thin orange film. To this day, my suit is still stained from that fight.
MPMM has a new member- Kenton Cobb. He wrote a poem. He posed a challenge. He powered up.
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They stripped the car in Babylon
Drove fourteen thousand
one hundred eighty six miles
Through
the departed souls of
once ice,
now desert
deserted.
left behind a license and
two mistakes of no consequence.
found god
fleeing
a few miles past
the only gas station for three-hundredmiles,
where minutes prior
a white blast
set pump 6 on fire.
Drove through rail tunnels
that echo children’s mischief and
multiply the pains of growing.
lights off laughing,
playing chicken with every semi-truck,
laughing at luck-gone-planned.
Passed time in the once-great plains,
with heads tilted back and
sucked cigarettes commensurate with
counting corn,
something more exciting in
seeing who can make three inches of ashgo undisturbed,
than who can
Lost the keys at milepost six hundredand twelve,
switched the plates two headyconversations later.
It’s unanimous;
everything is justifiable.
Hours later,
all luggage traded to a homelesscouple,
in exchange for 3 jokes,
one funny,
one not-so-funny and rather offensive,
and one heard before,
making it a more of a personal
challenge.
They threw in the knives
and bad ideas
for free.
Must’ve liked the toiletries.
One day later it’s just me,
thumb out.
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the excess plastic
is called flash.
the parts need to be trimmed
and free of flash.
use the sharpened puddy knife
use the sharpened can-opener.
“flash must be removed
or the part can’t be approved”
the phrase posted to your machine
…never forget.
“if there is time to lean
there is time to clean”
the phrase is posted in your sector
…never forget.
parts.
seventy-five pound pallets
spat from a machine
two per minute
too fast for two men
to trim flash
thick as nickels
at a temperature that
blisters
calloused hands
thirty years in the making.
parts sound so small
easily managed
like press operators.
the same who have
lost all feeling.
shoulders numb.
carpal tunnel.
no coffee on the coffee break…
can’t lift the cup.
retirement is a death trap but
thanks for all your hard work.
what happens when you
become stale?
can’t work anymore
and you don’t have to.
the desire
to avoid stagnation
because you have
woke
worked
slept
woke
worked
slept
for so long that
a hobby is fruitless
passion is buried.
if you can’t work anymore
you don’t…work anymore.
cherish that pen set
and that watch.
write that will.
wait out that clock.
and thanks again.
What it is, it ain’t
and what it ain’t it is,
pour me a glass
of bubbly please
another year down
a night on the town
tomorrow is today
with a different sound.
More of the change
more of the same
top shelf tequila
your finest champagne
Manpower steps up
Its Manpower game.
On a street littered with streamers
and acquaintances long forgot
whom we just met
in the bar
you felt the urge to grab my waist
to press yourself against me
and touch your lips
against mine.
This was most peculiar because
an hour before our kiss
I overheard you
telling him
“You can not drink all day if you
don’t start in the morning.”
This upset him,
so he left
you alone to think about how
you embarrassed him
the entire night.
He forgot
that celebrating New Years Eve
meant new experiences
new opportunities
new people.
“Cassius…teach me to fight”
scream the
American children
in the ghettos
on the red clay dirt roads
and in the uptown brownstones.
“Ali…Bomaye”
scream the
Zarian children
in Lingala
children from Kinshasa
refusing the name of Leopoldville.
Two men,
with the same ineradicable
spirit.
The thrill of victory
the ecstasy of defeat.
Manolete, muleta in hand
obscuring his blade.
Commodus the Secutore
adorned in ocrea and manica
still clinching his spatha
crimson with triumph.
Stu Ungar with eyes
still like a pond
in the dead of winter
and a hand
that laughs at the odds
despite what the
other combatants are holding.
Never take the horns
unless you have earned
that death.
Never leave the coliseum
with your blood
soaking up the earth.
Never play the ace
when you can win with
the king.
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She said
“Let that marinate, and come help me.”
Immediately an avalanche
of memories toppled
me.
A pilfered kiss
at a bar
followed by
“Why did you do that?”
An earned kiss
later that night.
A tire changed
on the side of
a rural back road
followed by making love
on a small patch of
grass a few yards away.
Two Christmases.
Two Halloween parties
with the same Bonnie and Clyde
costume.
Two Thanksgivings.
Three birthday parties.
And one final argument.
It was the last dinner
we ever made together.
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In between
Big gulps of big flats
Big jun makes big stacks
Big Joe does big maths
And some say Manpower is dying.
In between keystrokes and heatstrokes
These folks write jokes
help kids achieve hopes
And some say Manpower is dying.
In between backflips and karate kicks
These dicks do dumb shit
And Manpower falls by the wayside.
In between missed dates and clean slates
Manpower cheats fate.
Manpower lives on.
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