catharsis

(and now concha gets angry)

I don’t know how you grew up. And frankly, I don’t care. But let me tell you about how I grew up. I grew up in a place where shopping for groceries didn’t invoke homicidal feelings. I grew up knowing if the loudspeaker announced “Cleanup on isle 3” Someone went to mutherfuking isle three and started moppin'! I grew up not having to ask myself, “Will there be a prize in my Cracker Jacks, or perhaps a FUCKING DEAD RAT?” Cause I grew up with Publix, where shopping WAS a mutherfuking PLEASURE.

Then I saw this. The fucking entrance to fucking hell, my brethren.

Maybe their lawyers (stupid mutherfukers who think they can actually defend this place) call it Gristedes. But for the rest of you, you better fucking call is what it is. The nasty, fatty, artery-clogging, heart attack causing, excrement of fucking pig lard, lubricant between the sweaty cellulitey thighs of fat chicks: Grease. Fucking Greasy’s!

Here is a picture of the fucking piece of shit Greasy’s by my apartment. See how the sky is all ugly and gray? That’s cause it just realized that it’s the part of the sky hovering over Greasy’s, and it’s about to ball like a fucking constipated baby who’s fortune teller just told him that he’s gonna grow up to be nothing in life but a fat piece of shit mutherfuking Greasy’s employee!



The other night I was in fucking Greasy’ s trying to buy some dinner to end my pathetic day, when the stupid baby who grew up to be a fucking Greasy’s cashier started talking to me.

“You know what?”

No. I don’t know what. And I don’t fucking care.

“I was laying in bed next to this girl last night and I told her, ‘I think I’m in love wit chu.’"

Thank you. Now I have a naked fat man picture in my head. There went my fucking appetite. And by the way…why are you telling me this?

He fucking continued.

“So she rolls over and says, ‘Steve, what you talking about? We just havin’ fun, Steve.’ And I was like, ‘But really, I think I’m in love wit chu. I’m tryin’ to take it to the next level.’ And she was like, ‘Don’t be stupid, Steve.’”

First of all, telling a fucking Greasy’s employee not to be stupid is like telling a fucking emo to cut his bangs. Because one day this idiot woke up and decided, despite all the fucking fungus free grocery stores out there, he wanted to work at FUCKING GREASY’S. OF COURSE HE’S FUCKING STUPID.

FURTHERFUCKINGMORE, If I fucking had anything that resembled sexual relations with a fucking Greasy’s employee, it had better be because I had fucking IVs of GHB in all six thousand of my veins, regaining consciousness only because the fat fuck ripped them all out. And when I came to, and discovered I’d just been (eww, gross, gross, gross!) fondling a Greasy member, I’d say the same thing. And by the same thing I mean, “Put the IVs back in and get the fuck out of my house YOU FAT STUPID GREASY’S EMPLOYYEE!”

This is the fucking stupid door to get into Greasy’s.
(Note: none of these pictures fully capture Greasy’s grease in full glory. Much more acned in person. Much.) Most automatic doors do what they’re supposed to do and open when you step on the mat. But not this fucking door. Step on the mat here and it will say. “Oh, shit. Do I really have to stop eating cheetoes and get off my fat fucking ass to open the door for you. Goddamn fucking customers!” And then you will hear lots of creaking, which is actually the sound of it scratching its fat fucking lazy ass while it opens the door for you.

More grease.

I'm so fucking glad they could get off their fat greasy asses to clean up this germ infested half finished soda can left in the spice rack.


Uh, yeah. That would be dried mud on that beer bottle.



Gee. I was looking all over for the maxi pads. There they are! Silly me, I should've known they would be next to the Jolly Green Giant. Great organization, ass wipes.



This would be the way the genius custodial staff decided to fix the leaky seafood shelves. Really works up your appetite for tuna.

Seriously. With the way this place can ruin appetites, there's no need to buy Lean Cuisine.

AHGHG. I hate fucking Greasy’s!

Believe it or not, once in a while they do make lame attempts to mop up the constant dripping grease of this place. One time I actually saw a fucking Greasy’s employee cleaning the floor. Unfortunately the ramen section was hovering above the part of floor he just mopped. So I had to gingerly step over it. But when I did, the fucking piece of shit grease cleaner shouted out, “You fucking stupid bitch! Fucking walking on my clean floor you fucking stupid bitch!” And this was all in earshot of the manager. But did he threaten to call corporate? Run to me and apologize on behalf of his delinquent employee who would surely be facing some kind of immediate punishment? Offer to comp my Ore-Idas? No. He fucking only grunted and went back to licking the grease out of the corners of his register.

I suppose you may suggest that I do something like stop going to Greasy’s. “They just opened a Trader Joe’s in Union Square, Concha. Why don’t you try that?” To which I’ll answer, “Exactly. It’s in Union fucking Square and I’m not about to ride down the whole green line just cause I ran out of fucking Pot Noodle!” I say we all go to every Greasy’s and dump buckets and buckets of Dawn on them, since it takes “grease out of your way” and all. Only then might we be able to rid the world of this artery clogger, and buy our Pot Noodle in peace.

the bride of frankenstein

At work on Friday night, I had a fucking pounding headache. The pounding part was ever amplified by the fact that unless I’m hung-over, I don’t usually get headaches. So I’m not used to the feeling of a little man on cocaine running around inside my skull, pounding on the inner walls of my brain with a sledgehammer like an ADHD child on a kilo of meth. Yeah, it hurt.

“Can you go down to the ladies room and see what’s going on?”

I looked up into the face of my manager. The entire night I had been awash in a sea of “Can you do this?” “Can you do that?” so I gave him a look like he had just asked me to extend my shift an extra 14 hours.

He sensed my pain. “Please?” he added. He was being sincere, so down I went.

My judgment was clouded from my headache, so I immediately pictured a group of women all partaking in a drug buffet in one of the stalls. (And had I still been working in South Beach, that’s probably what would have been going on.) My plan of action was to march me and my headache all authoritative-like and threaten to call the cops, unless they shared. After I had consumed every drug known to man, I’d just float home, having successfully killed that asshole with the sledgehammer in my brain.

I was confronted with something very different.

Walking down the dark stairs to the restaurant’s bathroom, you get the feeling of walking into the basement of a horror movie. The bathroom is quiet and barely lit by an overhead light, while candles eerily flicker in the corner. When i opened the door, I found a woman standing in one of the stalls. She was overweight, some sort of foreign, with an unbuttoned shirt, droopy eyes, and an agape mouth. There was probably a little drool there too, but me and sledgehammer man agreed that we weren’t about to get close enough to investigate.

Eyes practically rolling into the back of her head, she looked up at me and with a deep, almost demon-like voice asked, “Where are my pants?”

Sledgehammer man and I looked down further, and asked ourselves the same question. Because, good fucking god! Where were this woman’s pants?!

“I can’t find my pants.”

Now, one’s first guess would likely be that she was really – I mean like 87 tequila shots – drunk. But as I stood there in the dark quiet bathroom and watched the candles flicker in her bloodshot eyes, I thought I was starting into the possessed face of Damien’s much older sister.

She reached a shaking finger towards me and pointed to the pants I was wearing. “You. You have pants. Give me yours. Give me your pants!”

Me being 5’9” and 130 pounds (187 if you added the sledgehammer) and her at 5’ 2"ish and probably well over 160, I wanted to state the obvious: “My pants would only fit around one of your toes.” But given the fact that she was standing in the stall of a fine dining establishment’s restroom, inquiring the whereabouts of said missing pants, I don’t think this woman could comprehend the concept of being a fat fucking bitch.

Like a demon after my soul she started to stagger towards me and slowly chase me out of the restroom.

“Give me your pants! Give me your pants!”

I suddenly felt like I was a scared-to-fucking-death little kid in a haunted house, running from a ghoulish skeleton, who was inching its fingers toward me with a greedy appetite. So me and my pants hauled ass up the stairs back to the bustle of the Friday night restaurant crowd, safe from the monster in the bathroom stall.

“A!” I called to my manager, breathless. “A, we’ve got a…a…a ‘situation’ in the ladies room. Woman…no pants…drunk…”

She gave me a puzzled look. Probably cause I looked like I had just seen a ghost.

“Just go down there and check it out.”

My headache now miraculously gone, I walked out of the kitchen to experience the comfort of being surrounded by tables of fully dressed non-ghost like people. And I walked out just in time. Because standing in the back of the restaurant, I had a great seat to the show.

The woman had decided it was time to leave the restroom and join the rest of us. And with the speed of a zombie, she sloooowly and pantslessly walked down the middle isle of the restaurant and out the door with all eyes and snickers on her. Since staring at cellulite isn’t much of an aperitif, the management had badly wanted this situation contained. But there was nothing they could do now but ogle and giggle at the fat lady in her granny panties as she walked down the isle. In the spirit of the procession, I thought about humming a little ‘Here comes the Bride’ to the tune of her walk. It would have fit perfectly. Except for one difference. She wasn’t carrying a bouquet. She was carrying her skirt.

karma tastes like shit

Most of you that know me, are well aware of the amount of shit talking I do. Be it, fruity drinking guys or that fucking anorexic bitch over there, there’s always a plethora of excrement flying out of my mouth. And I guess it’s payback time. Because lately I’m having to swallow heaping spoonfuls of my own sarcastic comments. And Mother Karma is not letting me up from the table till I’m finished with dinner.

The first course of this meal was prepared by the Rican. Last week when getting the mail, he couldn’t help but notice a package from Victoria’s secret arrive at our apartment. He brought it over to me, hoping I'd open it immediately. But me excitedly tearing it open was only prelude to his disappointment. Because he gave the contents one condescending look and then turned his nose, announcing he liked nothing.

“Fine.” I said, throwing the catalogue at him. “Why don’t you go through this and Art Direct me some underwear.” Not one to turn down the chance to peruse the scantily clad, he agreed.

“What about that one?” I asked, pointing at a thong I think most guys would agree with. “That one’s cute.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s okay. But there’s no point in getting it cause it wont look like that on you.”

My face dropped. To the floor.

He, to my disbelief, continued. “What? You know you don’t look like that. I know you don’t look like that. Everyone knows.”

My face was practically fucking the floor.

…and on. “I mean no one looks like that except for a Victoria’s Secret Model. You don’t. So what’s the point of pretending you do and buying something even though it wont look as good on you.”

My face and the floor were now having post coital cigarettes.

All women are painfully aware that because we don’t have 36 hours an afternoon to spend in the gym, nor have the money to afford the microbiotics/coke diet, that we don’t look like Victoria’s Secret models. We don’t need to be reminded. Although I was too dumfounded to say it then, I should have replied with, “Yes, I’m well aware of my sub Victoria’s Secret Model looks. Because if I looked like a one, I WOULDN’T BE DATING YOU.”

During one of my half assed attempts to be a tenth as attractive as the model I’ll never be, I pulled on some sneakers and did my early morning visit to Crunch. Never having been one of those put-on-a-full-face-of-makeup-and-prance-around-the-gym-like-the-Victoria’s-Secret-Model-I ain’t types, I was more the pull-on-an-old-pair-of-Umbros-I’ve-had-since-I-was-fourteen-and-the-rest-of-you-can-just-fuck-yourself chick.

This particular morning I was in a body sculpting, Victoria’s Secret Model looks attempting class. Taught by the sort of perky cheerleader type, that, if I ever have kids, and my daughter turns out like her, then she will have to be taken out back and shot.

Miss sprightly gym class instructor came bubbling and bouncing over to me and pointed to my shorts.

“OMIGOD, LIKE, I TOTALLY USED TO HAVE THOSE!”

Great, I thought. Way to point out my ugly shorts.

“THOSE MUST BE SO OOOOOLD!!!!”

Yes. They’re old. Thanks for drawing the entire class’s attention to my circa 1994 gym short fashion sense. I realize that since you’re shamelessly playing Kelly Clarkson music, you must not mind revealing your incredibly embarrassing music tastes. But some of us and our ugly shorts, would rather go un-pointed out over the fucking microphone in the back of the class.

“I HAVEN’T SEEN THOSE IN LIKE SOOOOO LONG. THAT’S WHAT YOU WORE BACK IN THE DAAAAAAY. UMBROS AND A TANKTOP. THAT WAS SO COOL WAAAAY BACK IN THE DAAAAAY.”

I thought “back in the day” comments were still reserved for my dad. But apparently, kids, I have my own back in the day, and that was the day of the ugly Umbro. Which means I am officially old. No wonder I don’t look like a VS model.

So far I’ve had to swallow the fact that I’m Umbro wearing and sub VS model looking. But I can still write, right?

Lately it pains me to answer the “What do you do?” question. My ad friends get it. But questioned by anyone outside the complicated world of portfolios, and my answer may seem like a desperate string of excuses for why I don’t have a “real” job. Last week I was asked this question by an old man I was waiting on in the restaurant. While I should have stated the obvious (“I’m serving you your fucking foie gras, what the fuck does it look like I do?”) I decided to save my own face and give the short answer to my most dreaded question.

“I’m a writer.”

“Oh!” He clasped his hands together excitedly.

“What do you write? Novels? Theater? Screen plays?”

“No, sir. I write advertising.”

“Oh. His voice dropped to a nadir of disappointment.

“I thought you were a real writer.”

Fine. You got me. I’m the fucking unemployed pack of Splenda in the pastry shop. But you should see how I rock the runway in a pair of Umbros.

If you like Piña Coladas....

Picture this: You’re sitting in a restaurant. You reach down for your crotch (like you probably do about 14 times a day) and there it is again. The umpteenth confirmation that: Yes. You are %100 percent male. But cha coulda fooled me. Cause on the table in front of you is a Sex on the Beach. And you’re sipping it with all the glee of a gay parade.

If I’m waiting on a guy who has ordered a drink that shoud only be consumed by pre-teen girls, I make sure to garnish the glass with an overabundance of pineapples cherries and other fruits that symbolize the female genitalia. You may be wearing pants, but underneath you’ve got on panties. And somebody’s gotta let your poor date know before she gets back to your pathetic apartment and finds herself in the middle of a reverse Crying Game script. Here is a list of drinks that as a man, you should NOT be ordering.

The Cosmopolitan

I find it pathetic enough that there are still large numbers of girls who shamelessly quote Sex and the City and try to find parallels with the plot and their own lives. But chances are, you’ve convinced one of these halfwits to be your girlfriend for at least two weeks. In that short time, you must have learned that the Cosmopolitan is the show’s signature drink. So by ordering this pink puke, you have just carelessly thrown away your manhood. Now you only resemble a Carrie wannabe. Except not nearly as pretty. Which would make you Miranda. And no one wants to be her. Just ask the dimwitted little PR assistant who was dumb enough to go out with you.

Piña Colada
There is only one place you can order this drink. A tropical island. Preferably a deserted one so nobody can see what a douchebag you are.

Bay Breeze
I used to be somewhat of an acquaintance with an RnB singer (that alone already breaks the gay meter) who drank only Sea Breezes. He also sings a song that I’m sure your ears were once unlucky enough to be poisoned by. Excuse my particularly awful singing voice, while illustrate one the most pussified songs in existence.

“I don’t wanna know
If you’re playing me
keep it on the low
Cause my heart cant take it anymo’”

Unable to be a man and dump the bitch, he’s basically giving her an open invitation to cheat on him. He’d rather just live in the deluded bliss that only his Malibu Rum can provide, and nurse his pussy with “Bay Breeth.” If this is your drink, this is also you.

Strawberry Daquiri

Just cut off your dick and stick it in the glass. It’s got better use as a swizzle stick. (Although I’m sure at least one woman has told you this already.)

White Wine Spritzer

Is it a coincidence that the name of this drink so easily lends itself to the lisp? I think not.

Wet Willies
I hope you’re only here because your girlfriend and her six friends dragged you out, and you’re angrily sipping a scotch in the corner. But if you’re sitting at the bar with several sampler cups, and you (insert lisp) “just cant decide between a ‘call a cab’ and a ‘frozen flaming homo’” then I suggest you skip the charade and head over to Scores. I’m only sorry I avoid Wet Willies LIKE THE FUCKING CHICKEN FLU and won’t be there to make fun of you to your face.

Of course you’re now asking, “Well, Miss Concha, fine dinning guru, what IS acceptable for me to drink?” I’m glad you asked. Cause by admitting your ignorance, you just let ME know you’re a fucking HOMO who’s probably sipping on a Mai Thai right now, with your pinky out and a cocktail umbrella behind your ear. And lemmie guess. The umbrella’s a rainbow.

Why so angry, you ask? As a server, I get looked down upon plenty. This is my chance to talk back. So, boys, next time you shout out a supercilious “Miss!” and expect me to take you seriously, I hope you’re slamming down a Johnny Walker neat. Or I’ll make certain you’re next drink is garnished with a neon pussy – giving your date a heads up that, despite your almost convincing man mask, she’s actually on a date with Miranda.


Cheers.