DBKundalini Ass-kicking Service

Today's a big day for me! It's the one year anniversary of my business, DBKundalini Ass-kicking Service. I have to tell you, I was a little nervous when I started out. I had a number of friends who foresaw nothing but doom and gloom. They thought they were being cute when they said I'd be the one getting his ass kicked. Well, they were wrong. Business is good, I'm keeping busy.

It's frankly amazing the things that have happened in one little year. I have a few guys in town who simply enjoy having their ass kicked, hard. I do the best I can, although, to confess, I have a little arthritis in my kicking foot (I'm rightfooted). But I'm saved because mine's the only ass-kicking place in town. I do all I can to send them out with a smile on their face and a sore bottom in their pants.

I don't mind the arthritis so much when I'm making money, as you can well imagine. But I made a major mistake in this regard trying to gin up business. You know those discount cards civic groups sell? They list a business, then there's a freebie or discount. The pizza place gives a free order of break sticks with purchase of a pizza, the bowling alley gives a free half hour of bowling with the purchase of 5 pitchers of beer, and of course a hair salon offers a eye wax for a measly $5. Notice the common denominator there? They're buying something, unlike mine. In my ignorance I offered three free ass-kickings period. It's tough, since the average person with an ass is content with three kickings.

Still, life is good. To make up for that, I get lots of recommendations from doctors and lawyers. It turns out doctors are more frustrated with their patients than they let on. A guy drinks more than he should, for example, you'd think that'd be good for the doctor; he's going to need more care. But doctors look toward a more distant horizon, keeping the patient on the hook as long as he can. Early mortality (as in drunk driving) means lost money, especially when you consider the true bonanza they're look forward to, an average of 14 surgeries for every guy over 80. So they find "something wrong" with their ass and send them to me for $20 to $25 worth of kickings. I like that.

Lawyers are about as good, as they're usually acting on behalf of an aggrieved spouse. The guy's been cheating, the wife wants a divorce but wants the husband's weekly paycheck. She agrees to keep him, but only if he knows there's an endless stream of severe ass-kickings in his future if he misbehaves. The husband knows he has to submit, because it's cheaper occasionally denying her expenses while married than divorced. That leaves more money for his mistress. I don't care who wins or loses. I just take the money, kick his ass, and let it go.

One of the big surprises in the last year, something I didn't expect in my wildest dreams, has been a contract with the university for their losing sports teams. Basketball is entirely successful, but football is a total bust. Which is bad for the town but great for me! Because written into their scholarship is a nasty little agreement that at "the coach's discretion" they agree to "counseling, verbal or physical, as he shall choose, excluding the death penalty, of course, but including ass-kicking." This is amazing stuff. I have these huge guys who could kick my ass east, west, north, and south, if provoked, and there they are, lined up, getting their ass kicked by a wimp like me. Big bucks, too, university standards ... they pay five times the normal therapeutic rate! I just keep my fingers crossed, that they win enough to make the kickings seem beneficial but still lose enough to keep them necessary.

I've had to turn down a few clients. One thing I will not do is kick the asses of kids. Unless I'm personally and severely provoked, and even then I haven't been able to catch the little shits. Again, my arthritis, and, at the end of an average day my leg's dead tired. Which they know. I came home one day and these kids had picked every pussy willow off one of my pussy willow trees, and had them stacked up on my fish-cleaning table. I went limping toward them, moving my foot in a slow swing, and they dashed out of the yard quicker than snot. Still, like I said, I've turned down clients. Home school parents are often frustrated, and they're always calling me. "Junior's falling behind in his scores." I'm all like, "Then get him a different girlfriend ... I'm not kicking kids' asses!"

One whole year. And now, if my leg holds out, I'm going for two!

How To Be A Local Character

I've been a collector of local characters, like forever. Of course I don't bring them home; they're not butterflies to pin to the curtain. I only make note of them and observe them as much as is polite. And since they never seem to notice observation, you could stare all day and still be polite.

They're always out and about, the basic thing of the local character being the need for a public. You could stay home and be a local character -- depending on your mentality -- but you'd soon find there's little point in it. Let's say you're a wild guy waving all the time. It might be fun to prance around in the mirror waving for a while, but it'd have to wear off.

I think I could be a local character, except my mentality, alas, is still way too far on this side of the line. Try as I might, my normal brain power will not release its damned grip. So I'm doomed, it seems, only to watch from the sidelines and never know their full joy.

In researching the subject, I found an obscure book downtown, "How To Be A Local Character." It makes interesting reading. And makes me wonder, maybe these guys aren't all mental, just acting out the advice of the how-to author. ["How To Be A Local Character," Corky McDermott, Vantage Press, 1977.] But surely they haven't all had access to this book. So the only other possible alternative is they're mental. Or just doing it on their own initiative. There could be something to that. Instead of being mental in the negative sense, maybe they're mental positively, "with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men" (The Adventures of Superman.)

I remember a couple of the local characters downtown on the square from when I was a kid. One guy was called Paulie, and I'm not going to make any jokes about him, because I'm merciful. I'll just say his coordination was totally gone, and that's not meant as a joke. Then there was Hoyt, the guy who always stood on the edge of town, not putting his thumb up, but waiting till someone gave him a ride back to his own town. Talking to Hoyt, as I did many times, was an experience. There were actual words in what he said, but most of it sounded like bluster and babble. He was friendly, and I even saw his apartment once when I took him home, with waterlogged ceiling tiles hanging everywhere. Very memorable.

Anyway, our author, McDermott, sketches it out much like I would were I to write it. Which is to do a brief survey of local characters, then sketch what it takes to be one. I'll list just four of his points:

1) Something to make you stand out -- What you do as a local guy has to be unusual enough that people notice. I saw one local guy whose thing was to walk around in a white sheet, nothing underneath. He'd often lay on the sidewalk. And I still have retina burn from seeing his entire business while crossing the road one evening. His legs were up under the sheet in full childbirth pose. But the problem with indecent exposure is the police get involved, as they did that night. Interestingly, McDermott doesn't mention this as a possibility.

2) Something you'll be bold enough to do -- McDermott's book presupposes that you're doing these things by choice, not from a mental problem. This is a point I'd have a hard time with. I'm not really that bold. I can think of plenty of oddball things a guy could do -- carrying a toilet seat everywhere would be a fantastic one -- but where to get the boldness, I just couldn't. You have to find your boldness (or comfort) level. Maybe start with the flush handle and work your way up.

3) Something constant -- I see this as an important point. You might carry a big ugly doll one time and think it was funny, but you have to do it all the time. You need to settle on it. That's it. You can't be carrying a dead guinea pig tomorrow. It's got to be the doll. We have a guy downtown who's always got a doll with him. And he definitely turns heads and keeps us wondering. But so far I've never seen anyone ask him what he's doing it for. As for me, with my mental state being what it is, I would want more variety than that, and that'd be my downfall. They'd all know I was faking.

4) Something no one else is doing -- You need to study your environment. See what's going on and what's missing. Cross off your list what you see already being done. If there's already a guy who looks like a freak from R. Crumb comics waving at everyone, there's no room for two! You're going to have to do something different. I think it'd be cool to have a megaphone and walk around shouting things. I've never seen anyone do that, even though I've definitely seen local characters walking around shouting. Why they never thought of the megaphone, it could just be they don't know where to get one. Where do they sell megaphones?