Good Shit #2

I like today’s title very much, partly because you can almost sing it to the tune of “On the Good Ship Lollipop,” and partly because a certain delightful repetition obtains in the words Good Shit Number Two. Shit, in any case, is the true focus of my life and not because I believe shit is amusing (not that I don’t) but because my Celiac situation forces me to assess my life with an intake-and-output mindset, whish is to say if I intake the correct gluten-free things, the consequent gluten-free output generates occasion for happiness, contentment, spiritual centering, and bunch of other wonderful conditions both mental and physical.

Look, I know this kind of talk drives you crazy but we’re friends and with whom can I share my problems but my friends?

So pictured above is the hog trough area at Whole Foods in Glendale, California. Predictably enough, we see skinny women situated in front of the vegan selections and we see a non-skinny fellow, alone, in the arms-folded Mussolini posture of thought, contemplating the chicken salad with mayonnaise. Me, the guy taking this poor photograph with a cell phone, I was in line for a 24 ounce iced coffee – black, no sugar – because I wanted the experience of spending my life savings in one shopping trip to be really speedy and really electric, which is the problem with Whole Foods: It’s too fucking expensive, right? It’s Whole Paycheck. It’s Hole in Your Wallet. And so on. And for sure if you purchase items from the hog trough or if you get three pounds of sashimi-grade tuna from the seafood department or if you buy an assortment of fancy cheeses or jellies or soap – and on and on. Obviously, you have to think carefully at Whole Foods if you want to leave with your personal finances intact. But if you have celiac disease, Whole Foods is without question the finest source for gluten-free items you will ever find. On their website, for instance, to which I won’t post the link because I figure you’re smart enough to get there on your own, they have huge lists of gluten-free items that are in stock at each Whole Foods location and these gluten-free items will not leave you with a functioning shit system and an appointment with a bankruptcy attorney.

This being said, because I’m not rich in the first place, I wandered the store for about a hour examining the gluten-free selections – breads, pastas, cookies, flours, and even gluten-free gluten! – and I ended up only purchasing a three-dollar bag of gluten-free petite madeleines because what middleage man with a sickness doesn’t want to revisit Marcel Proust? (I’m not explaining that, if you don’t get it.) The madeleines were definitely some good shit.

Verdict: Whole Foods rocks. Study up before you shop, and of course make sure you have an high-income job if you want to shop there regularly.

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.

Good Shit #1

See the ‘g’ in the lower left corner? That doesn’t mean ‘G’ in the old-school rapper way that the white kids in Iowa have never understood in the first place. The ‘g’ means this product is safe for Celiac sufferers. The ‘g’ means Mag can consume what’s inside and not have it emerge from his ass in increments over the course of a entire weekend reading of Anna Karenina.

‘g’. ‘Gluten-free.’ Fuck. This shit is good, though. Not as a good as a Five Dollar Goddam Footlong from Subway. But it’s still goddam good. $2.99 a bag. I am dipping one of these fuckers in tahini right now and for forever and ever, amen.

Verdict on TRADER JOE'S THIN MINI EDAMAME CRACKERS: Serve early and often during March Madness.

Point: “When there’s nothing bad to say, there’s nothing to say.” – Lao ‘G-motherfucker’ Tzu.

Counterpoint: “Something’s fucked up with these elephants.” - ‘G’ Hannibal, citizen of Carthage.

Bad Shit #1

The name of this product gets astonishingly close to summarizing its quality. Take the L out and you’ll have it in a nutshell – or a nutless shell maybe? Or better yet, a tasteless nutless shell? I have to ask: Why the hell wouldn’t you the L out of the name? Everything else has already been taken out of this shit: Wheat free, gluten free, fat free, no sugar, low sodium, no cholesterol, only seven calories per cracker. Sure, a poor, long-suffering, shit-unstable Celiac can eat this these ‘crackers’ without experiencing complete intestinal collapse, but Jesus fucking goddam Christ, you might as well cut strips of typing paper and spread them out on a plate and people can dip these strips of paper into your Trader Joe’s tahini when they come over to watch the game. That’s right: These HO – GRAIN CRACKERS are simply awful, worse than awful, not even worth feeding to a starving chickadee in Saskatoon on the coldest night of the year. HO -GRAIN CRACKERS make communion wafers seem like they’re Kettle Cooked Salt and Vinegar potato chips (incidentally, do you think Christ would be mad at me for mentioning Salt and Vinegar chips in the same sentence as communion? He had some bad experiences with vinegar, you know, and might still be in therapy over it). To make matters worse, which is almost impossible that matters with this shit could be worse, HO – GRAIN CRACKERS are almost six bucks a box at Whole Foods.

Now listen, the first thing that happens when you realize you have to live on a restricted diet is that you search for the things you can eat: And Celiacs can actually eat all sorts of neat things, including Mission Tortilla chips, which are completely totally one-hundred-percent kickass in every possible way, and I guess Fritos are sans gluten, too, but since we’re keeping Christ in the mix today, let me say this: As Christ as my goddam witness, I declare that Fritos ain’t got one iota of donkeyshit on Mission Tortilla chips. Ah, the joy of having a disease! So yeah: celiacs can also eat rice and meat and cheese and potatoes and anything that fuckin-A doesn’t have any gluten in it. All those wonderful items that celiacs can eat: fattening. Or maybe they’re not really fattening. Maybe it’s that when you realize what you can eat in the context of what you can’t eat, you naturally feel the need to eat more each time you eat because you think that’s all the food you’re going to get. The consequence for me is I’m eating my gluten-free way into the Pillsbury Doughboy look. Which is not optimal.

As a corrective measure then, I spent way too much money on HO - GRAIN CRACKERS only to find out they suck. And I’m pissed.

Final verdict: The only good use for this product is as tinder to start a fire.

Can't Get No Worse

I’m all about happiness and light today. Fuckin-A. Slap me in the face. Call me a piece of shit. Take away all my shit. Take a shit on my driveway. I just don’t fucking care! I am so incredibly overjoyed about all aspects of my life. And I’m sure you are, too.

Okay then. Seriously. I’m happy. I mean, it has just taken me thirty minutes to type those words – not the first paragraph; the words ‘I’m happy’ – but now that I’ve typed them, wow, I guess I’m obligated to let the emotion course through my body. Admittedly, it’s not exactly coursing like the Niagara River through me or anything, but I definitely believe that a tiny, remote, abstract element of joy might exist somewhere in the fetid swamplands of my inner soul.

Happiness point #1: I have been bitching nearly nonstop about my Celiac Disease problem – about the gluten-free life, about my lifetime ban from the Five Dollar Footlong at Subway, and so forth – but I have to admit that a life sans gluten, at least for me, ain’t so bad. It’s not that a fellow can’t eat; it’s that a fellow can’t eat certain items. And the benefits of following the program are amazing: gastric improvement, mood improvement (doesn’t this make you sick?), weight improvement (or maybe that’s because I’m riding my bike a couple/three hours a day?). I mean, I feel fantastic, better than in years and years.

Happiness point #2: See #1.

Happiness point #3: There you go. I’m fresh out of happiness again.

Anyway, see that light socket in the picture above? It’s fucked up. It looks like somebody shit on it (imagine the logistics), but goddammit, that light socket still works. Screw a bulb in and we have light. I feel like that. I feel like life has handed my ass to me so many times and in so many ways and that it’s just going to keep handing my ass to me. Like in the old joke: It’s Life 42, Magnuson 0. And Life’s lining up to kick another field goal. But what can a person do? Quit?

Let’s hear a big goddam HELL NO, people! We ain’t quitting.

Meantime, a couple of Mag’s Sentence announcements: Mike (that would be me) has got huge stacks of work piled on his desk the next few days. He is considering a three-day hiatus from Mag’s Sentence in order to complete his professional mission. Of course, he is not considering taking a few days away from his bicycle, which will go to show you where Mike’s priorities lie.

In other words, if I post some grammatical nonsense tomorrow, look for it later in the day. If nothing appears, please don’t leave me forever!

I’m thinking about reviewing books on Mag’s Sentence, too. Sound like a stupid idea? I mean, since I can’t hardly read in the first place?

When You Say ‘G.I.,' You Don’t Mean ‘Joe’

Desiderata:

This Celiac Disease/no gluten breaks what’s left of your spirit. There are entire isles at Ralph’s stocked full of food you should never eat again: Triscuits, Wheat Thins, Rye Crisps, Saltines, Brownberry Ovens Natural Wheat Bread. And what about Pepperidge Farm Cookies? And what about life with no Five Dollar Footlongs from Subway? These days, you burst into tears when you hear the “Five Dollar Footlong” song. Maybe this means you won’t make it. Maybe you’ll end up accepting the fact that your favorite foods turn your G.I. system into theatrical recreation of the Bataan Death March. You’ll say, “I'm tough. I can take the pain.” You’ll eat what you want for the rest of your life. Your shit will be totally fucked up, but then again, whose isn’t?

The plus side of Celiac: Thousands of blogs exist on Celiac. And there are associations you can join. Cookbooks you can buy. Recipes you can obtain for free. You can have your picture taken next to a huge sign that says GAS or BLOATING or DIAHREEA. And you can share this picture with your friends. You can make cookies that probably taste like the bad shit you’re trying not to take, and you can tell people they were excellent.

You can say to all the people who over the years have called you a pussy because you’ve got a sensitive gastric system, “Hey, fuckers. I was born with this shit problem. You want me to stop talking about it?” And you can rail on them for their complete lack of human understanding. You can improve your mood this way. You can feel as if you’re exacting revenge on the brutal world that has consigned you to a lifetime of bloated, flatulent misery.

And you can stay home and drink your goddam gluten-free lunch out of a cup. You can consequently take the best shits of your life and feel a great calm spreading across the wastelands of your undersides. You can become the Bodhidharma of the bathroom if you want. But will this make you happy? Will you find peace in this?

Magical Fruit: The Broadway Musical/ CANCELLED

I know it. Shit shouldn’t be discussed in polite company. By shit, I don’t mean the catch-all metaphorical type of shit in which our professional and emotional lives are inevitably mired. I mean shit-shit. I mean that which comes out of your ass at more or less regular intervals. Think about it: To broach that horrifyingly secret subject here in whitest, purest, most proper Puritan America? To post, for instance, the following as your Facebook status? Mike Magnuson took a goddam excellent shit this morning. He thanks all his friends and the City of Los Angeles for making this wonderful moment possible. The moment you do – especially if you keep the terminology simple and easy for anyone to understand – you are branding yourself as a hoohaa, a low-brow, someone with whom intellectual commerce is not possible. (Also, if you actually do post that as your Facebook status, several of your ‘friends’ will unfriend you quicker than you can mouth the words ‘explosive diarrhea.’) Of course, it’s perfectly okay in America to discuss, in pinpoint graphic terms, wars and murders and poverty and human hatred on scales hitherto unseen in human history. But mention taking a shit? Whoa, son. This is civilized society. We don’t talk about that here.

I know you agree with me. You just don’t want to come out and say it.

But hey, I’m a lifetime sufferer of Celiac Disease, and people like me, we measure the quality of our lives by the successful function of our gastric system. Fuckin-A. Maybe Celiac doesn’t make me special: Everybody measures the quality of their lives by their gastric systems. Still, Celiac sufferers need to go to certain unusual lengths to ensure success – that means no gluten, ever, for the rest of eternity.

Anyway, a week and half ago, as you may recall, I reached a low-point in my struggles with gluten intolerance. I mean, my shit was totally fucked up. And I knew why. I guess it’s funny but then again, it’s fairly horribly not funny. I can’t remember exactly when my parents decided I was cured of Celiac – must have been when I was ten and the nightmare of enforcing a regimented diet on a kid that age had gotten to be too much of a pain in the ass (pun most definitely intended) – but the deal with Celiac is you’re never cured. This means I have lived in misery – physically, mentally, and probably spiritually even though I could give a fuck about being spiritual – for at least thirty-six years. Every classic symptom of the Celiac has been present in me, on a daily basis, for all that time: gas, diarrhea, depression, dental problems, bone aches, muscular problems, and on and on. Fuck! I should be pissed. Doesn’t do any good to be pissed, though. Wisconsin’s state motto is Forward. I haven’t lived there for years, but a guy’s still gotta believe in the motto.

So let me get back to shit and why I’m so happy about it today. For the last week and half, because I finally decided enough goddam misery was enough, I’ve been gluten-free, and I’m absolutely feeling better, particularly in the waste-elimination department. But here’s even more exciting news: Last night, I totally chowed down two massive bowls of black bean chili, and I didn’t so much as fart afterwards, not even one tiny popcorn toot. And this morning, after a crisp Washington State apple and a cup of coffee? Ah! Isn’t that incredible?

All right. Collect yourselves. I know you’re weeping with joy for me. The cure may well be at hand.

My ass feels great now. Rain’s falling in Los Angeles today, but I’m suiting up and going outside for a bike ride.

Technical Failures, Whining As A Way Of Life

You may well ask what the hell happened to the random picture that bears no relation to the text that appears underneath it? You may say, “Mag, have you really gotten so goddam lazy in your forty-sixth year that you can’t step outside and take a stupid, probably blurry snapshot and go back inside, download the picture on to your laptop and upload it to Mag’s Sentence?” I may respond with some friendly, loving remarks of this nature: “If you’re so great, why don’t you try it?” You obviously are trying it – most everybody these days is – and the chances of you living a more efficient and artworthy life than me are vast indeed.

That reminds me of something that’s occurring to me a lot lately. Hey, if you’re better than me, I think that’s great. I admire whatever you’re up to. You know what I’m talking about? We spend too much time on a who’s-better-than-somebody-else level. Like I’ve actually heard this question: Who’s a better guitarist? Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix? The only correct answer: Who fucking cares?

So wait: where's the useless, artless picture to go along with this post?

Okay, I had meant, first, to post a remix of one of my original Xtranormal videos today and then make a few announcements about several neato upcoming programming changes here at Mag’s Sentence. But wouldn’t you know it: Xtranormal has been puking the last few days, and I can’t access my account to access the remix. I had a long talk with myself and decided that this was going to be difficult, but I was going to proceed today without a visual aid.

Anyway, announcements.

Xtranormal videos. I’ve made something in the range of twenty-five of those things, and I’ve had way too much fun in the process, but for the time being – a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe two months – I’m going to set them aside and wander in some other crazy creative directions.

Posting schedule. I’ve been doing my best to post seven days a week since Mag’s Sentence started. I’m not sure why the daily format, except for I’m a freak, I guess. For purposes, therefore, of getting my freak under control, I’m going to back off to five posts a week. On weekends, if you still feel like dropping by, I’ll be linking to interesting videos, blogs, and news items produced by people with much more intelligent points of view than me. As always, I appreciate that you visit this place. And I owe you bigtime.

Ass problems. A number of you have written me wondering what’s up with my celiac-ravaged gastric system. I’m feeling much better now, thank you very much, because I’m flat-out banning gluten from my life. The last few days, I’ve been able to ride my bike without difficultly, and just last evening, I ate three bowels of some killer chicken chili at my buddy Seth’s house – lots of beans in there – and I am pleased to report that my system absorbed this and has produced nary a toot. Can I get an Amen on this?

All right then. Come back tomorrow for a spectacular Superbowl edition of Life Sentences. I’m like totally sure you can’t wait.

Happy riding and writing.

A Case Of The Ass

Fellow Cyclists and Cycling Enthusiasts:

Perhaps I need a better picture than the one above to illustrate the problem I have down below, and by ‘down below,’ I mean my moral epicenter, the heart of my stern, as it were, the entrance to my Mines of Moria (and please cover your earballs if you find this line of inquiry offensive): Yes, my anus hurts. Not my ass. My anus. I do not mean this in a figurative way, either.

Since I was a boy I’ve had periodic bouts with a disease called celiac, which is an intolerance to gluten, the symptoms of which are lovely things like long-term depression, unpredictable weight gain and weight loss, and, most severely in me, painful digestive troubles. True enough, I could eliminate all these problems entirely by being smart – something rather alien to me – and dispensing with gluten in my life: no more bread, pasta, bagels, schnitzel, pancakes, Tombstone Pizza, and so on. I have eliminated the most profound source of gluten from my diet, Miller High Life, the absence of which has created a sort of long-term depression of its own. But I haven’t eliminated the other fun forms of gluten, namely pasta and bread, my two favorite foods in the world besides nachos (gluten-free!).

What does celiac have to do with my current anus woes? Some forms of gluten fuck me up more than others – oddly enough, cheap, low-quality, processed-flour products don’t faze me one iota – but this last week, owing to a spirited stock-up session at Costco, I have found myself in possession of numerous loaves of excellent, high-quality La Brea bread. First, it tastes great. Second, it really tastes great. Third, I’ve been eating La Brea toast breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Happy times, right? I don’t know the exactly chemical formulation of La Brea bread, but there is clearly some significant, possibly world-threatening quantities of gluten in that stuff. I would count myself lucky if I had simply gotten a bout of good old explosive diarrhea from this bread. Instead – and I apologize for being clinical – I can’t seem to get a clean pinch. That’s right. I can’t finish the job! And I’m feeling rather raw, shall we say. Now, this would be horrible enough for a person whose chief recreational activity is playing bridge with little old ladies in Massachusetts, but for a cyclist on a nine-month epic quest to return to regular cyclocross racing, for a man who needs to place his anus on a thin strip of Italian saddle leather for a minimum of two hours a day? To have Unclean Pinch Syndrome?

Needless to say, I went out for a ride yesterday afternoon on the L.A. River Trail, heading west along the 5 toward Griffith Park, and the anus pain and misery were so horrific, so searingly unbearable, that I literally rolled my bike down the embankment to the raging river and placed my ass in the water for relief.

I was not relieved.

A homeless guy saw me in the water and said, “Something wrong?"

He was shell-shocked-looking after being outside all last week in the El Nino rains, and if anybody were expert in things going wrong, it had to have been him. But he kept his distance from me and waited for my response.

I said, “My anus hurts.”

He stared downriver and shook his head.

“Whose doesn’t?” he said. And he walked away.

I called after him: “You want six loaves of La Brea bread? Come on over to my place.” But he didn’t hear me.

The moral of this story is simple.

Oatmeal.

Ponder that.

And have a nice ride today.

Respectfully submitted,

Mike ‘Raw Anus” Magnuson