Brian Michael Bendis, �Powers: Little Deaths�
The Ex gave me this book.
Hoo-boy...
Kidding! Kidding! Ho ho! Well, I�m not kidding about her giving the book, but I�m not going into another long sad mopey woe-is-me late night drunken ramble. This time I�m just going straight to the drunken ramble, thank you very much.
A while back, I said that Tulip from Preacher was one of the best female characters in comics. Scratch that, �cause Deena (nice name, by the way. Just don�t call me that, unless you want a face full of broken...) is the coolest I�ve seen, hands down. Deena is how many of my girlfriends, or best friends who happened to be girls, acted: Smart, sarcastic, funny and obnoxious.
I suppose that�s why the post-crash-breakup is always so hard for me. These girls, most of them anyway, were so much fun to be around that you wanted to forget things like how they liked to pick fights with you because they were bored. Or how they claimed to be possessed by Satan. Or how they were batshit crazy. When the good times are that good, you forgive a lot. Probably not the best policy, but hey...
So Luva, another smart, obnoxious, funny and sarcastic woman, recently wrote about two weddings she attended. I left a comment about the fake wedding I had about six years back, and remembered that I�ve never said anything nice about the last girl that I seriously dated � the one who I had the fake wedding with.
There�s only a small percentage of people who read this that were at that event, and it�s safe to say none of these people really knew her. So when I complain about her being psychotic or crazy or mean, people probably wonder why I was with her in the first place.
Of course, I wonder that myself sometimes, especially with the high volume of crazy girls I�ve dated. But it�s not like I walked up to the first girl who was babbling in the gutter babbling to herself while smearing feces on her chest and screaming about how the mole people are reading her thoughts and asked, �Pardon me madam, but I was wondering if you were free for dinner and perhaps some oral sex this evening.�
Well, ok, there was that one time. But let me tell a good story about her. About the crazy ex-girlfriend, I mean, not the one with the feces.
The insane ex-girl friend and I were dating, and she was neither my ex, nor psychotic. We decided we needed two things: We needed the band Your Mother to play in this area, and we needed presents. The easiest way to achieve this was to have a fake wedding.
We made flyers with two bunnies kissing, each holding weapons behind their backs. We got my fellow pastor, Reverend Brad of the Universal Life Church (Represent, represent!) to perform the ceremony. In chaps. We got four bands to play at my friend�s house. At her suggestion, we got rings engraved with the words, �I�m With Stupid.�
You can see why we worked well together. When she wasn�t being insane, that is.
My hippie journalism adviser gave me two hundred bucks as a gift. I tried to remind her that it was a fake wedding. She still gave me the money. I reminded her she was ensuring that we would be purchasing dangerous amounts of liquor for this event with the money she was providing. She still gave me the money.
My bride wore a black dress, and a ball gag. I had one hand strapped with some sort of bondage gear, connected with the low ceiling beam and wore a blue checkered lounge jacket that Chuck Barris from The Gong Show would have found too vulgar. I had also been drinking all day.
I couldn�t give you an estimate on how many people were in attendance, as I was seeing triple, but the place was packed. Alan from Your Mother started the processional music � the Darth Vador Death March.
Performed on a tuba.
The bride was carried in, as her limbs were duct-taped and she couldn�t walk on her own. They strapped one of her arms to the ceiling beam, then handcuffed us together, and Rev. Brad said the first words of the night.
�Maa-wige�
Man, we were such geeks.
The next ten minutes consisted of Rev. Brad reading the most sexist things he could cur from the Bible, things about women not being worthy of life, except through their husbands, while the all-female crust-punk band Reina Aveja pummeled him, and us, with food and other objects that were much harder.
We were supposed to start our vows. On the video you see me holding in my shackled hand, one of those plastic cups filled with beer. One person in the front row and knocked it out of my hand from the bottom, making a full beer splash in my face. I had prepared for such an eventuality, and grabbed another, which was also promptly knocked out of my hand and into my face.
I grabbed the third and final beer I had brought with me. Same result. The next shot was me lunging for the person�s neck with my free arm. This is where people behind me picked me up and held me upside down.
This is also the point where I blacked out. Thank god for video.
The place was so chaotic, filled with people screaming, 39 cent hamburgers from McDonalds flying every which way, and the bride and I being doused in condiments. We gave up the idea of exchanging vows and Rev. Brad asked if anybody had any objections to the union.
The place fucking exploded, and the bride and I were still louder than anyone else.
We skipped the vows and Rev. Brad pronounced the two of us man and wife. I grabbed Craig, the author of the second half of my book, and kissed him instead. Brad did the same thing, but kissed my bride.
I say Brad got the better deal. But Craig still remembers it fondly. He said I taste like hot dogs.
The crowd insisted on hearing our vows, even though they were determined to not shut up. One guy kept trying to start a chant of CON-SUM-MATE!
Kim was more prepared, having written her vows down beforehand.
�Dean,� she began, �when I told my friends back home that we were getting married, they said, �why are you marrying him? He sounds like an obnoxious asshole!� I told them I didn�t think of Dean as just an asshole, I thought of Dean as an erection with a wallet. Unfortunately, neither one was as big as I hoped it would be.
�I guess the guy from The Princess Bride said it best when he said �get used to disappointment.� And yet here I am.�
�Get used to the haircut too!� somebody yelled from the back.
�I thought I�d deliver your part to you in the form of a cop reading you your rights, as that seems to be the form you�re most comfortable with. So, Dean Carrico, you are under arrest!
�You have the right to remain SILENT! Anything you say can and will be held against you throughout the course of this relationship.
�You have the right to an attorney on the glorious occasion of our divorce! But, under California law, I would like to remind you that I get half of everything you own. Do you understand these rights I�ve just explained to you, you fucking moron?
�Dean, as for my half, I promise to pledge myself, body and soul, to you and you alone as long as you keep me duct-taped and chained to a chair in your bedroom.
�And Dean Carrico, I love you.�
Jesus, one person told me she cried when she heard that.
So did I, but for different reasons.
It was my turn. I hadn�t written anything down. I had rehearsed it, but I wasn�t expecting to black out. But, as I�ve been told that seem sober, even when I�m hammered (it helps that I have a slight lisp), I managed to get through my speech.
�I know Kim prides herself on being different so I did a little research,� I began. �The median age of women in their first marriage is 24. The average age of a male in their first marriage is 28!�
Of course, these were our ages.
�And since we�re quoting statistics, here�s the worst part: The percentage of sexual relations goes down by 17 percent, than if they simply lived together!
�But here�s the good news � the average first-time marriage lasts for less than one year! So now that we�ve failed to defy all the traditions, and tradition decrees that we make promises to each other, I�ll make two of them.
�I promise that this baby will have a father � hopefully, it won�t be me!
�As for the second promise, I promise that I will never take this marriage as seriously as everybody else in this room.�
Rev. Brad took the rings. �Dean, do you promise to put up with all of her shit, 24 hours a day for whatever reason?�
�No,� I said.
�What about me?� the bride asked. Rev. Brad looked at her condescendingly.
�There�s no hope for you. Just kiss each other.� We did.
�I present Mr. and Mrs. Dean Carrico! Let�s go get drunk!�
Your Mother played. I apparently sang 15 of their songs. I should state that I know the words to about five of their songs, and these weren't the songs that were played. There were also reports of a turkey that ended up in the middle of the dance floor/mosh pit, but I don�t have video of that.
As for our hopes of free swag, we got nine toasters from Goodwill�s and Salvation Army�s across Santa Clara County. None of them worked.
Eight months later, she moved to another country. Statistics don�t lie. Thank sweet fucking Christ I didn�t sign anything.
