Odds and Ends from the Vinyl Cafe

[rikki_rakko]

Canadian story teller and humorist Stuart Mclean shares with us material that never made it into his Vinyl Cafe stories. Enjoy.


The plan was unraveling faster than the sweater Stephanie had made him two Christmas' ago. It was only a matter of seconds before the crowd put together the last pieces of the big jigsaw puzzle, the kind of jigsaw puzzle you have made from a photograph at a speciality gift shop. And the photograph was of Dave.
And then something divine happened. One of those moments of clarity that only hits when the rest of the world is falling down all around you. The words rolled from Dave's mouth smoother than Sir Laurence Olivier performing Hamlet before a Sunday matinee of old people.
"It was the coloured fella that did it!" said Dave, pointing at Jeff Franklin, the library's groundkeeper. "He's the one who let these poisonous snakes loose to kill the gophers!"

[Cochino]

I found this tidbit...


The morning was as cool and clear as a bottle of Zima served straight from the refrigeration unit at the back of the bar. Morley pumped away at the pedals on her bicycle, and the chain was clicking in and out of gear with a loud clacking noise, so that the local children and even old lady Magillicudy, wearing a hearing aid with very nearly dead batteries, turned to see what the ruckus was all about.

Morley slowed her pedaling down to a crawl. And then she rested her feet on the ground. The ground was hard; hard like Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. She loosened her bicycle helmet, the helmet that she borrowed from Stephanie, the helmet that was too small for her head, and placed it into the bike basket, which was as wirey as the great champion boxer, Sugar Ray Leonard.

[rikki_rakko]

This one was just laying on the floor near Jim Goldin's office:

And it was at that very moment on that crisp November morning that Dave decided he was going to pimp his ride.

[MrBeguiling]

Here's another:

September may be the most beguiling of the months, but it is October that is the most prodigious. It creeps into town like an old time circus and oddities attraction filled with shucksters, shills and shysters. And for every penny it bilks from the unsuspecting townsfolk, it leaves behind memories of the fantastic that are worth threefold. It's the kind of month that makes some folks question, "Who is that stranger looking back at me in the looking glass", and "What the hell is going on here?" And this paticular October was no different, except for the fact it would be Dave's last...

[Cochino Muerto]

This one was a sublimal message written in those little magnets on the fridge...

Sam, who was still so upset with his lack of culinary skills, who had hardly learned to hold a fork in his tiny hands, gnashed the soft young breast in his sweaty mitt.

[rikki_rakko]

Good God, Cochino, what the hell was Mclean thinking when he wrote that one?! I mean, I know he's a Canadian humorist, but I think that's just downright creepy...and I'm a satanist!

[Cochino Muerto]

Perhaps this would explain it. I found it scrawled on the back of a slightly soiled Micken Chicken napkin:

"What mattered most to Morley wasn't that her hair was perfect that day, wasn't that her tender inner thighs pulsed with the dull pain of Dave's incredible efforts from the night before; no, what mattered most to Morley was that apple turnover cake would never be eaten that year.

[MrBeguiling]

This one was found scribbled on one of those boxes of paper near the basement stairs:

Dave had heard the expression "bra-buster", but never in his wildest imaginations did he ever dream that he'd witness such a ridiculous spectacle and especially not in his own shop, the Vinyl Cafe, the world's smallet record store. Maybe the gal leaning over the bin of ragtime albums had hooked her brassiere one clasp too tight that morning, or perhaps she'd accidentally worn her smaller busted roommate's double barreled slingshot by mistake...whatever the reason, the thing just busted, spewing forth an ample mess of female pulchritude. The buttons of her flimsy blouse were no match against this unholy force of nature, which sent them ricochetting about the room like three ivory bullets. Dave knew he should have turned his gaze in the opposite direction, that would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, but he just stood there staring, his eyes big as saucers.
After an uncomfortable moment, the lady collected herself and said to Dave with a snarl, "Well, I trust this has made your day."
Dave didn't say a word. And then without warning, he threw up.

[Cochino muerto]

Found this one in an LA Weekly personal...

We made eye contact in the Ralph's parking lot on 3rd and Sycamore. It wasn't a long eye contact, not as long as the last 15 minutes of class in elementary school, the last 15 minutes before you are to meet Scudder the school bully for a not-so-even fight; and maybe it was just my imagination, but when I thought that our eyes met, I wanted to take my last two dollars, the two dollars that I had earmarked for a trip to the local gentleman's club, the club where you can get your lap grinded into a fine powder by a recovering heroin addict - I wanted to take those same two dollars and fold them into a paper plane, a paper plane that I could toss into your heart.

Call me.
Cochino. 818-507-0491.

[rikki_rakko]

This one was found on the inside of one of those Starbucks cup sleeves:

Morley dreaded her and Dave's wedding anniversary. And she knew this year would be no different from any of the past ones. She'd get home from work to find a note from Dave reading: "Took the kids to the picture show. Enjoy your gift, my dear wife", written on the rippled abdomen of a Puerto Rican male prostitute.

[Cochino Muerto]

This black Sharpie scrawled inside the "shorty" urinal in the first-floor bathroom...

"Sam stood at the corner, at what could be the crossroads of his very life, deciding where to spend the last two dollars balled up in his cold fist. Two dollars; enough to buy a candy bar but not enough to buy a drink for a girl named Candy at a bar..."

[rikki_rakko]

This one was pinned up next to last years Halloween photos:

And despite all the time and effort that went into their Herculean task, in the end every major network would politely pass on the pilot. Even the WB.

[Muerto]

This one, scrawled on a yellow 3x4" Post-it, was stuck to the bottom of a co-worker's shoe...
"That Morley had turned to cannabalism wasn't such a surprise...the surprise was that she still refused to accept what Dave called the "dirty shower".

[MrBeguiling]

This one was found among the stacks of old magazines in the lobby:

There is nothing intrinsically interesting about a buh-ric...it's nothing more than a block of red clay made hard in the heat of a firey furnace. A buh-ric isn't much to look at either, it's rather plain in appearance. And it's useless by itself...you need hundreds, maybe thousands, of others just like it, bound by concrete and mortar, in order to create a work of functionality. No, thought Dave, a single buh-ric is about as useless as the hound's tooth tie his daughter gave him for last years Fathers Day.
However, unlike the flashy neckwear, if that single buh-ric were dropped from a high builging or thrown at a high velocity, well, sir...now you've got yourself something! (audience laughs).

[MrBeguiling]

I believe that should read high building in the last line.
Sorry, I copied this one exactly as it was written and Mclean's handwriting was pretty sloppy--I bet he was drunk (ie: canadian) when he wrote it.