"To transient killer whales, sea lions are like sausages with whiskers."

This is a quote taken directly from this month's National Geographic (The Crapper Reader par excellence). Are the directors of this esteemed periodical trying to give seven-year-olds violent dreams wherein Willy the Friendly Boy-loving Whale snorks down precious sea mammals like Seal McNuggets? When I was a larva, my mother purchased several of David Attenborough's Trials of Life videos for me from TimeLife Video. I'm not sure she knew what was going to be on them, but I did, having seen several of the episodes on the sly. Let's just say that Sir David doesn't make the animals kingdom seem... well, approachable. Watch, wee ones, as killer whales off the coast of Patagonia fling themselves onto beaches to snack upon terrified sea lion pups! Or, perhaps, as Nile crocodiles savage unsuspecting wildebeest calves as they drink? Or maybe, most terrifying of all, how packs of chimps in equatorial Africa band together and team-hunt lesser primates, whom they consume (alive!) with gusto?

Man, I never had a chance.

An anonymous Life in the Corn reader sent me a personal email. The subject line was "Is it true?" When one recieves an email with that as the opener, you brace yourself for the unimaginable. Essentially, the reader wanted to know if my blogs (the events contained therein) were true. After I swallowed a portion of my tongue laughing, I thought: hmm. Well, I guess if you didn't know me well enough, you'd think that I was joking. Sadly, this really is my life. [takes bite of orphan sandwich with extra pickle]

Today at work, whilst wading through dozens of emails with subject lines like "I need the help urgent!", I found one that intrigued me. And by "intrigued me" I mean "made me temporarily unable to properly hold liquid waste within the confines of my body because I was laughing so hard that Franklin Hall's rodent population committed seppuku en masse." An international student had altered how his name appeared when he sent email. So, instead of the usual first name, last name, this student had made it so that his account appeared as his last name and then the words "Bobo Captain Kiss It." Bobo Captain Kiss It! I repeat, just in case you were having an aneurysm, Bobo Captain Kiss It. Clearly, this was intentional, but it made me think fondly of the amusing names we run across in my office. To name a few:

Ufuk (Turkish).
So Young (Korean).
Bum Suk (Korean).
-and, on the tail of that one:
Suk Bum (Korean).
Kittiporn (Thai).
Bimbo (Hungarian).
Rikshit (Indian).
Deng (Chinese)-pronounced "dung."

The list goes on and on. I am, above all, a professional, so I wait till I am in the "break room" copying their documents to titter like a ten-year-old girl. I'm sure all of those names are noble and beautiful in their native languages, but to our nasty Anglophone ears, uh, wow. If one of you internationals happens on this blog one day and you see your name above, rest assured, I'm not making fun of you. It's coincidence that your name makes me giggle. If it's any consolation, my stage name is Tonsa Rollsafat.

Today was Monroe County's first tornado watch, which of course makes me feel really effing safe living in my plywood palace. Fancy. One more "perk" of living in the corn; you get to die being sucked into a whirling vortex of wind, hail and the fragments of other people's lives.

I was thinking today how fun, and, uh, un-PC it would be for me to do a study I've been desperately desiring to do since I moved to Maine. In this study, I'd interview hundreds of young men in their late teens and early twenties about why it is that they, white-as-cotton suburbanite/farmboy bourgeoise, feel the need to ghetto-ify. What's the draw? How is living in Harlem cooler than living in Des Moines? Why do you wear necklaces with pendants that weigh more than Roseanne Barr? What's with the sideways ballcap? How about the kop-killah rap? I'm just mildly curious, that's all. Aw hell, I'm fascinated. I guess the pot's calling the kettle black on that one, what with how I'm addressed half the time as "Demir." Touche, bitches, touche.

The other day, I had a long conversation about who our heros are. Of course, far be it from me to choose someone rational, like September 11th firemen, a president, a world leader, a strong family member. No, I chose the Wicked Witch of the West. She was misunderstood in her own time. She was unable to properly mourn the death of her beloved sister. And then, the brat who snuffed said sister steals the magic shoes that would have allowed her to realize her dreams. Plus, she had minions. True, they didn't adore her, but they respected her. Then, the little beast assasinates her. What a visionary! We should all be a little more like her.

The other day I was discussing Turkish movies with Abbas hocam before class. I do so dearly love them despite the fact that eight out of ten of them make you want to drink a Drano frappucino. For example, let's take the film "Baba", or "Father."

1) A man (husband and father of three) tries to get a work visa to stay as a "guest worker" in Germany, but is denied because his teeth are bad. (?)

2) In another part of the forest, a rich old man's son gets into a bar brawl and murders another man.

3) Our protagonist is ferrying the rich old man across the Bosphorus when he tells him that his family is in desperate need of money.

4) Old man hatches plan: Hey! Take the fall for my son on the murder charges and, while you convalesce in style in a TURKISH PRISON for ten years, I will financially support your family! After all, isn't prison the same thing as Germany?

5) Protagonist accepts and goes to jail in rich old man's son's stead.

6) Protagonist's wife is raped by the old man's son while he is in prison.

7) She leaves the baby (protagonist's baby) on the steps of a mosque and disappears.

8) Protagonist is told that his prison sentence, which he thought was going to be 10 years, is now more like twenty.

9) When he does get out, he discovers that his wife was on the lam, his baby was gone, his old mother had died and that his two remaining children, a boy and a girl, had been given away to unknown parties.

10) A "friend" tries to cheer him up with a whore. Upon undressing, he notices a strange birthmark. Oh oh oh, his own daughter is about to do him. But because she starts talking about how much she hates her father and how he abandoned his own family, he doesn't reveal his identity. Incidentally, he doesn't do her, either. [Praise the sweet weeping Jesus in his hay-scented manger].

11) He finds out that his son is a petty gangster.

12) He decides, hey, I'm gonna snuff the bass'ad who did this to me, and since the old man was already dead, he decides to blow away the son. As he is pumping him full of lead, more shots ring out from the corner. Turns out his petty gangster son was unknowingly the bodyguard of the rich old man's son. As his father is lying, perishing in a pool of his own red blood, he suddenly recognizes him and, tears in his eyes, says "Baba? Baba?"

So yeah. Most Turkish movies are like this. So I was talking to Abbas hocam about trying to find Turkish movies that weren't complete wrist-slashers when he suggested "Gemide", or "On the Ship." Abbas asked, "Do you want to know how to swear really badly in Turkish?" Man, did he even have to ask? Do I ever! However, a quick glance at the back of the VCD case confirmed my sneaking suspicions: there was gonna be a lot of brutal sex. Apparently, some sailors either buy or otherwise procure a woman and then they pass her around like a 40 oz. of malt liquer. Hmmm. Turkish softcore. Saucy. I'm saving it for a rainy day, but I'll keep you posted, you porn-hounds.

Finally, a word about pollen. Pollen, while allowing many species of plants to propagate, makes me want to take a Soviet flame-thrower to every field within a twenty mile radius. It feels like a hamster is living in each one of my sinuses, all 40 of them. It's only a matter of time before it drives me to the brink and I kill a nun.

Again.

I remain, as ever,

Dom