You know how in America, whenever anything bad happens to a person, they think somebody else should pay for it? Like let’s say you’re texting on your phone while walking down the street, and you run right smack into a total stranger, who punches your face so you lose a tooth but you later sue the LAUNDROMAT near where it happened because they maybe could have provided better security and YOU FUCKING WIN?
I’d like to thank trial lawyers and insurance companies for growing this mindset. If you’d like to be free of such societal malaises, I personally recommend relocating to Mexico. When something bad happens there, what you get, instead of a settlement, is a shrug. We used to do these rinky-dink boat tours in Cabo Pulmo where, for about $30, they’d motor your whole family up to a sea lion colony and dump everybody out with snorkels and masks. We’d have like 7-year-olds swimming around with 800-pound sea lions. Big waves would be washing in and out of these rocky blowholes and the guys on the boat would just sort of casually whistle at you: “Eh, cuidado! la roca. ”
If that happened in America, one person would sue the town for endangering hapless citizens. Another suit would be filed on behalf of the sea lion community. And someone else would charge the company owner with exploitation of labor, even though the boat drivers and guides are all his nephews.
Once I was in Mexico with a bunch of surfers and this one guy had a birthday. So we went to the Zona Rosa to buy him some dollar junkie lap dances. That got old pretty fast, so I asked one of the pimp guys about menu prices, I guess in case we wanted to chip in and buy this guy a date. And the pimp said 300 pesos, which is basically nothing. So for some reason, I guess as a kind of drunken test, I asked how much for “el culo” (the ass), which p.s. is not something normally in my wheelhouse. But the guy was completely unfazed; he just shrugged and said “es igual”—”it’s the same.” You see? Shrug life! And now I suppose somebody’s going to sue me for telling this damn story.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
One of my favorite things in life is when there’s some dust or sand or other crap in your eye that you can’t get out. So you go to sleep because you’re just annoyed. Then in the morning, you find that your body’s enzymes have been working overtime, breaking down the foreign matter into a crusty or gooey substance that you can easily wipe away. It’s strangely satisfying, in large part I think because it’s effective and yet 100% free. Thanks to this inspirational healing property, I submit that there should be widespread belief in an eye fairy instead of a tooth fairy. And because the tooth fairy thing is ultra creepy. What kind of weirdo comes in the middle of the night to steal teeth? From small children? And what in God’s name would anyone do with billions of teeth? String them all on a giant thread that would wrap around the earth’s circumference? Build a wall between the US and Mexico? Make a shitload of tooth soup? This is some serious ogre-under-the-bridge, Brothers Grimm shit, the social costs of which are very much unknown.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Wife: Yuck! You couldn’t PAY me to take this cough syrup if I weren’t so sick.
Yawny: Hey, don’t knock it, that stuff ’s got codeine in it. You wouldn’t make a very good drug addict.
Wife: I don’t care. This stuff is so gross! Besides, you know, I don’t need drugs. ”I’m high on life,” haha.
Yawny: I thought you said you’ve been “low on life” lately.
Wife: Well, that's true.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Why is it that the guys with “Darwin” fish on the backs of their cars are always driving dented-up rustbuckets? In these dark days of embattled science, you’re not really helping Evolution’s cause by driving around in a dusty old Accord. Also, if mankind is progressing forward, what’s up with your moth-eaten piece of shit sweater? Is that a peek into the future?
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Once at a party I said that Jimi Hendrix was overrated, but I only said that to get attention. Obviously Hendrix was a musical genius. I couldn’t say the same thing about anyone in Joy Division, not even Peter Hook. No offense, but the best thing to happen to Joy Division was Ian Curtis killing himself. I know that sounds mean, but frankly the guy couldn’t sing to save his life, you see what I did there.
When I listen to Joy Division now, all the misery and depression of my high school years comes rushing back, which is both nauseating and embarrassing. I maintain that Joy Division did NOT help me through those times, whereas Van Halen and Throbbing Gristle most certainly did. See because those bands believed in going hard, and not being a bunch of crybabies, and also they fucking ruled. Furthermore it’s thanks to Joy Division that we’re saddled with the modern-day crap genres of emo, screamo, and crunkcore. Do me a favor, go to YouTube, search for BrokenCYDE and tell me with a straight face that, on balance, Joy Division was a net positive for society.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
| Lotus 1-2-3 | Netscape Gold |
| EasyHTML | PaintShop Pro |
| Norton Antivirus | Network Neighborhood |
| Zork | CorelDraw |
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
OK, so you go out to where there’s no houses, to a kind of shitty area that nobody cares about, like say somewhere a few miles outside of Livermore. There are these giant wind turbines out there on a bunch of dry hills, that would be a good spot. And what you do is you make a town. You could call it, like, Freetown or Paradise Park or whatever, probably something semi-ironic like that.
You put up some cheap metal buildings for administration, plant some grass and a few trees, and maybe pave in a couple of little roads. And you put up a nice strong fence all around the place. Then you get all the homeless people and put them and all their tents and blankets and dogs on buses headed for Paradise Park.
You could offer incentives like a complimentary $5 bag of weed, or a handful of pills for every rider. And Wi-Fi on the bus. When they get to Paradise Park they’d see that there’s soup kitchens and pit toilets—all the stuff they had in the city, but also a free clinic and free movies every night. Pretty sweet!
So who’s gonna pay for all this? Bro, simple. Tax the shit out of Twitter and Uber. They ruined this town, they need to give back. Squeeze ‘em all for, say $100 mil each. Also homeowners. Because if someone came up to me and said, hey would you kick in 50 bucks to make the homeless thing go away? I’d write a check on the spot. 350,000 homes x $50 = another $17.5 million. LEZ DO THISSS
Heartless, you say? Treating poor people like a pestilence to be eradicated? Dude, I’m not advocating killing anyone. I’m just saying airlift them the fuck out of here. And by the way I'd say that stealing Amazon packages off of people’s doorsteps and shitting in children’s sandboxes is pretty heartless. Paradise Parkers would still get their welfare checks.
Even better, you could set up a farm, or a french fry factory where folks could work to earn some extra cash. Be productive, you know. Make drugs and prostitution legal, let people have a little fun. I’m basically envisioning a massive open-air bazaar/Burning Man/internment camp, and honestly the lifestyle wouldn’t be that different from the one of today. Meanwhile SF bike trails would be clear again, the air would have lower urine content, and I’d get that Nobel Prize I’ve been eyeballing for a while.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
The Bougie Kaiser: HERBS
Spices and herbs are crazy expensive at the store, but you can grow them for free. You don’t need fancy planters. You can find terra cotta pots in any old empty lot in America, people throw them out probably because they remind them of old ladies’ underwear, or gout or something. Dirt (i.e.“soil”) is freely available just about everywhere, e.g. at your local park. Plant those herbs, then sit back and watch as dollar bills start sprouting before your very eyes.
Of all the herbs and spices, Kaiser’s favorite is salt because (a) it’s the best tasting (b) it’s necessary for survival (c) it’s the cheapest. As usual, fast food restaurants are giving it away, but it turns out you can buy a huge box of it for like a dollar. However truly committed coastal kaisers will do their own desalination: next time you’re enjoying a free vacation at the beach, bring a bucket. Sun + seawater = $$
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Budget Ramen 2.0
1/3 tsp Hon-Dashi ($.07)Add Hon-Dashi to boiling water. Add ramen, sliced celery, boil 2 minutes. Add soy sauce, sesame oil and red pepper to taste. Christ on a crutch, that’s filling and nutritious for 79 cents.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Overheard at house party, San Francisco, 1991
Surfer: So what are you girls, college students or something? My mom taught me how to eat pussy real good.
Wingman routine overheard in Rehoboth Beach, DE, mid-1980s:
Guy: Hey, you going over later?
Girl: Over where?
Guy (points to friend): Over his balls. With your jowls.
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
They say that just under the surface of every mellow surfer dude lies a macho bro waiting to spring out, and I’m no exception. But thanks to my God-given arthritis casting me deep into a sunless pit of surf martyrdom, I’ve resigned myself to flexing my brochismo as a wannabe bike champ.
SF has great hills and it also has a great number of sucky rich posers. So every time I see some 25-year-old dunce walking his or her top-shelf cycle up a hill in San Francisco, I laugh and point. Especially when they’re also wearing Cinzano racing gear. If I’m on my bike, I’ll make sure to cast a sidelong glance and charming smile their way: “Morning!” …which in this context translates roughly to: “Sup, b*tches.”
My rules are simple:
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
Which scenario would be more morally suspect: stealing pain meds from your pet recovering from surgery, or stealing pain meds from your father dying of cancer? What if you have determined their supply to be more than sufficient?
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
In honor of the 33rd issue of Yawny’s Digest (really), I wrote a little poem. Hope you like it!
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
Yawny’s Digest
Sucks
Issue: 11-3 (orig. pub. date: )
