Anyone who’s seen me in real life can attest to the fact that I am not a conservative person. In addition to my all-black wardrobe, I’ve become quite well known for my unusual body piercings. Granted, there are plenty of people with rings in their noses like mine. That’s why I decided I needed to be different. My solution? A ten-foot pole pierced through my left shoulder.

Why a ten-foot pole? I like a challenge. I mean, when you’ve got a ten-foot pole pierced through your left shoulder, you’ve got to make a lot of adjustments. All of my shirts had to be modified. And getting into my car was quite a pain. LIterally. All I can say is, I’m glad I have a sunroof.

Most adults seem put off by the look of it. However, children like to jump up and try to hit it with their hands. One kid actually managed to get a hold of it and hung on until I passed out from the pain. When I came to, I discovered that someone had stuffed some garbage into the end of my pole. Of course, I couldn’t reach the end to pull it out. I walked around with it in there for most of the day, which really upset me. I mean, it was an eyesore. One guy said he’d help me, but then he just shoved the garbage in deeper and ran away laughing. Finally, I came across a nice young lady who had twenty-five industrial-size staples pierced through her face. She tried to reach in to pull the garbage out for me, but it was stuffed too deep inside. Then she came up with a brilliant idea: she went around behind me and blew as hard as she could on my pole. Ten minutes later, we were engaged.

In any case, I’ve gotten pretty used to having a ten-foot pole pierced through my left shoulder. Dusk, my wife, really loves it. Still, when I think about it, I don’t think it was the smartest thing I ever did. Obviously, the right shoulder would have been a better choice. That, and a longer pole.

Needless to say, the case of the Long-Distance Jumper didn’t go so well. About twenty minutes into my investigation that night, a real detective showed up and confiscated all of the cool things I had managed to put into little plastic bags. He then proceeded to lecture me on the consequences of destroying evidence and blah blah blah. Whatever. I decided to walk back to my office to have a scotch and soda.

After finishing my scotch, I cracked open a soda and took a swig. Bleh. It was root beer—not a good combination. I took a seat in my bitchin’ retro office chair and propped my feet up on the desk. The neon light from the strip joint across the street bathed the room in a soft pink hue. I kind of liked the effect, and for a moment, this made me wonder if I was gay.

That’s when she walked into the room. She was wearing a short, black raincoat and black heels that required a lot of balance to walk in.

“Mr. Keen?” she inquired.

“Who’s asking?” I grumbled.

“I’m Lorena Michaels. I require your services.”

“Have a seat, doll face.”

Lorena looked around the room. There were no seats to be found. Fuck. I blew that one. I quickly got up and offered her my seat. Lorena sashayed over and parked her caboose on my bitchin’ chair.

I started to pace around the room, because that’s what I figured I should be doing. “So what brings you here, Mrs. Michaels?”

“Ms.,” she replied, but she pronounced it as if it had nineteen Zs attached to the end of it.

“I see. So what brings you here, Mizzzzzzzzz Michaels?”

“I require your services.”

“Ah, that’s right. We’ve already established that. Well, let me explain my rates. I get $200 per hour. I play my own stuff. No Top 40 shit. If you want to hear Top 40, you need to find yourself another DJ.”

“DJ? I thought you were a private investigator.”

“Oh, well, that’s just a hobby.”

“I see,” She took out a cigarette and slid it into her perfect lips, letting it dangle just slightly from the corner of her mouth.

“I’m sorry. There’s no smoking in this building.”

“Uh huh.” She pulled out a silver lighter from her coat pocket and brought it to life with one sexy flick of her thumb.

“No, seriously, you can’t smoke in here.”

“Who’s gonna stop me?”

I looked at her and she looked at me and I knew I was powerless to stop her. Not because she had weakened me with her seductive stare. No, she just looked like she could kick my ass.

The flame licked at the tip of her cigarette until the end began to smolder. She took a long drag and blew the smoke up, creating an ironic halo effect over her head.

EEEE EEEE EEEE EEEE EEEE! The smoke alarm shrieked, echoing off the walls.

“CAN’T YOU TURN THAT THING OFF?” she screamed.

“NO. IT’S HARD WIRED TO THE BUILDING!”

“FUCK! WELL, I NEED YOU TO FIND SOMETHING FOR ME!”

“WHAT??”

“I SAID, I NEED YOU TO FIND SOMETHING FOR ME!”

“YEAH, I HEARD THAT. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO FIND?”

“MY BLACK LEATHER HANDBAG!”

“YOUR BLACK WHAT-Y WHAT-WHAT?”

“MY BLACK LEATHER HANDBAG!”

“WHAT ABOUT SINBAD?”

“NO!!”

“I’M SORRY, I CAN’T HEAR YOU VERY WELL.” Actually, I could hear her just fine. I was only fucking with her head.

“NEVER MIND!” She stormed out of the room and slammed the door, leaving only me to listen to the wailing siren.

I reached into my drawer and pulled out my trusty sledgehammer (Not that the drawer was that deep. It had no bottom. See, I thought it would look funny if I opened this tiny drawer and pulled out a giant sledgehammer. Unfortunately, nobody was ever around when I wanted to do it. So, in hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have cut the bottom of the drawer out, since I had no place to put my pens and paper clips) and then I proceeded to beat the living shit out of the smoke alarm, taking out a good chunk of the wall in the process.

By the time I was done, I could see into the office next door. Those fuckers had G5s! And flatscreen monitors! Bastards. I decided to torch the entire building and go out for a Cherry Slurpee. Of course, in the process, I destroyed all of the evidence I had gathered as well as that really cool retro office chair I found at the flea market. But it didn’t matter. After all, I’m a fucking DJ. The private investigator thing? It’s just a hobby.

A lot of you have been writing to me and asking about who I am and why I started blogging. Well, rather than spend all the time replying to every email, I thought I’d address you all at once:

Fuck off. Why are you so goddamn interested in who I am and what I do? Don’t you have your own life? I mean, come on. Can’t you just enjoy the stuff I write?

Ahhhh that was a load off my chest. I feel so much better now. Anyhow, here’s my life story, in four paragraphs:

I grew up as a moderately poor child. I mean, we weren’t totally poor. Sure, we ate cat food for breakfast, cat food for lunch and cat food for dinner. But it was Fancy Feast, not that Nine Lives crap. Of course, there were other kids in our neighborhood who weren’t as poor as us. They got to eat Sheba, the cat food favored by Pharaohs.

As you know, the ancient Egyptians used to consider cats sacred. This might have had something to do with the feline’s mysterious nature, or perhaps it was because the ancient Egyptians had brains the size of unripe tangerines. Does this count as one of the four paragraphs? I sure as fuck hope not.

Anyhow, my father would occasionally save up enough money to pay the water bill and then mom would whip up a batch of Kool-Aid, creating a slightly more flavorful water with vitamins and minerals, kind of like your modern-day Vitamin Water.

Then my Uncle Romona died (used to be Uncle Roland until a horrible chainsaw accident) and we suddenly become filthy rich. And I mean that literally. We lived in a big fancy mansion in the Hollywood HIlls, but we hardly ever bathed. Why? I’m not sure. But I was just glad to be living in a place with four walls and roof. Our previous home only had three walls. Dad was always saving up for the fourth.

Speaking of fourth, this would be the fourth paragraph, unless of course you consider that stupid paragraph about cats and Pharaohs to count as one of the paragraphs. Then this would have to be the fifth paragraph and I would be a liar. In any case, assuming this is the fourth paragraph, I should use it to wrap up my life as best as I can. In all honesty, it’s really quite boring. Our neighbors burned our house down, a “computer glitch” made all our money disappear and then I got a job in advertising. The end.

On occasion, I do some stupid things. No, really. I know it’s hard to believe, but just take my word for it. Better yet, let me give you an example:

So there I was in the supermarket, buying my weekly supply of Hi-C and Special K cereal bars . . . Well, fuck, now everyone knows my secret about how I maintain my svelte figure . . . Anyhow, I was at the grocery store and I had this feeling that they’d be out of my favourite Hi-C flavour, which of course is Flashin’ Fruit Punch®. So I say to myself, “I bet they don’t have Flashin’ Fruit Punch®.” And myself says “Oh yeah? How much you wanna bet?” And without thinking, I say, “Two million bucks.” So myself says, “You’re on,” and we shake on it.

Well, you can guess what happened. I turned the corner and there was a fucking gigantic display of Hi-C Flashin’ Fruit Punch® at the end of the aisle! I mean, it was huge. You could’ve seen it from the parking lot, it was that huge. So myself says, “Pay up.” And I say, “Yeah, right,” and I just shrug it off.

So anyway, I made my way back home and I cracked open a couple boxes of cereal bars for dinner when the phone suddenly started ringing. So I picked up and guess who it was. Yeah, it was me!

“You and me got some unfinished business.”

“What?”

“A little matter of two million dollars.”

“Dude. I don’t have anything even close to two million dollars.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe youze shoulda thought of dat before youze placed that wager.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Crazy? You’re the one who’s crazy.”

“You’ve got a point there. But fuck off, just the same. And work on your accent. It’s terrible.”

And then I hung up. I mean, who the fuck was he to tell me what to do? OK, he was me, but besides that point, what gave him the right to harass me? Anyhow, about an hour later, just as I was finishing my 10th cereal bar, there was a loud banging on my door. Yeah, it was me again. Fuck.

I opened the door and I immediately grabbed myself by the throat and pinned me against the wall.

“Hey, take it easy!”

“Take it easy? You want me to take it easy? How ’bout I take it easy on your face!”

“Was that a threat?”

“Yeah, I think so. It kinda sucked, didn’t it?”

“You can’t threaten someone by saying you’re going to take it easy on them.”

“How ’bout if I say I’m gonna cut you open and spill your guts all over this floor?”

“Dude, c’mon. I just ate.”

“Too much?”

“Yeah. Let’s just stick to breaking arms or something, OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, breaking arms is good. I’m gonna break your fuckin’ arms!”

“Both of them?”

“You said ‘arms.’”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean both of them.”

“You know what, this is stupid.”

“What is? Arguing with yourself?”

“No, this whole story.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty lame.”

“Seriously. Where is this going?”

“No clue.”

“You know what’s going on?”

“What?”

“He hasn’t posted in a while and he’s so desperate that he’s willing to write anything that comes to mind.”

“That’s pathetic.”

“I know. I hope he’s just doing this as an exercise and won’t actually post this.”

“Nah, he wouldn’t. Would he?”

And with that, Smivey hit the “Publish” key and sent the dreadful post to his blog site for all to read. Big mistake.