Navarone Becomes Magnuson

My fellow suffers (and sympathizers),

This graffiti is what my body feels like this morning. I made a stupid, stupid mistake last night, and no, I didn’t buy a goddam bottle of George Dickel and a pack of Marlboro Mediums and hang out on the back porch listening to Merle Haggard and trying to get back to my roots as a real man with real feelings and a real desire to turn all this shit into beautiful music, nor did I return inside the house with Merle in my heart and write elaborate romantic emails to all my old girlfriends, emphasizing points like “I’ve just always been fucked up in the head space, baby. I mean, when you and me sang ‘La Marseillaise’ that night in Cincinnati? Don’t you want to do that again? ”

Didn’t fucking happen. And I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express, either.

Instead, at about seven o’clock in the evening, I was so hungry that my dog was maintaining a safe distance from me. She is a smart girl and knows when a fellow is eyeing her up like a piece of meat. She was saying, “Don’t even think about it, asshole.” I was like, “Girl, after all we’ve been through together?” She wasn’t taking to my line of crap. So I had to get my ass out of there.

So I strolled down the hill from my house and wandered over to the local Vietnamese restaurant and ordered a bigass bowl of cheap beef pho. Review: As Paulie Walnuts once said of his chocolate mousse, “It was fucking great!” I poured all the sauces into it and inhaled the bowl, slobbered it over my chin, and broke into a full bike-race-style sweat. Seriously good stuff, people.

But here’s the problem. The noodles in pho are rice noodles, so my weak Celiac system can handle that, but in the broth, in all the cool sauces: soy sauce. And obviously I’m a dumbshit because when I read the words soy sauce I’m thinking that shit’s made out of soy! Wrong, wrong, wrong. Soy sauce is mostly wheat, and wheat is gluten, and gluten turns the Magnuson digestive system into misfiring, turbulent, gas-spewing form of the Guns of Navarone. Oh my heavenly Lord, You who can heal all the bullshit in the world, remove this fucking gas from my body! And Lord, You know I’m trying my best to let it go. I’m in my underwear and my legs are propped up and my dog’s wearing a SARS mask. But oh, it hurts –

Sadly, I’m not exaggerating. So there’s a Celiac rule for you: don’t eat at a restaurant that uses soy sauce.

Blessings,

Mag

p.s. If you’re planning on hanging around with me in person today, I suggest postponing till tomorrow or maybe till I can call in a HAZMAT crew to bring my place back up to code.