PICTURES FROM JC TO NC

Stephanie and I started our week in historic New Bern by stalking docents and judging their sub par historical reenactments.

I give New Bern docents a "D". In one old house, a woman was supposed to churn butter and give us a tour, but instead, she was sitting down, smoking a cigarette and kept insisting that we were twins and telling us about current 2007 events rather than pretending that it was 300 years ago like Stephanie and I had driven 500 miles to see.

Therefore, Stephanie and I had to steal period clothing and pretend to be old ourselves. When the woman wasn't looking and not giving the tour like she was supposed to, we went upstairs and tried on the clothing on display and played with artifacts.

This is Stephanie being a ghost:


This is me being a ghost:


The next night, we went looking for real ghosts on the Beaufort Ghost Walk. Despite the guide's insistence that we would see ghosts and be SCRATCHED by them, we didn't see any dead people there but there were tons of kids and babies, which I hate.

This is BlackBeard's house. Supposedly, it's haunted by one of his 13-year-old wives and her little friend. There's almost two orbs, but not really.


The next day, we went to Fort Macon. Fort Macon is the lamest and most boring fort I've ever been to. They only had two battles there, and one of them was gunless. What the fuck? The Union won the gunless one.

This is a picture of me in the upper rightish corner sizing up a cannon right before I tried to climb it and it scraped half of my third nipple off.

I am not a very good climber. The last time I climbed a gate to get into a locked playground, I ripped my pants open and everyone saw my butt. Then this time, half of my third nipple fell off. I was only two feet off the ground when I'd sustained the injury.

Blood was everywhere around my armpits. Stephanie didn't have anything to help me and she wouldn't look at it. The only thing I had to stop it was a maxi pad, and it was a night-time one, one of those super-long ones. I had to strap it around myself and walk out like that with a long maxi pad over my boobs while red necks, old people, and boring people judged me. I think it was the fort getting back at me for calling it boring and lame.

This is me forcing Stephanie to take a picture of it. Notice the armpit stubble and the crazed look in my eyes. That's how you can tell that I'm happy.


This is a close-up of it.


It's hard to see, but half of it was hanging off and scabby. After we went to the beach, it looked like a tiny hermit crab. Now it's almost gone. The fort did me a favor because I couldn't afford to get it removed. Now I call Fort Macon "Dr. Macon" and maybe I'll go back when I have to get my third penis removed. It also looks like a tiny hermit crab.

We spend a lot of time on our vacation in the cemetery. This is the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort. There's only room for one grave left but it's taken.


This is a picture of the grave of the little girl who was buried in a barrel of rum. Apparently, she haunts the cemetery. If I were her, I'd just be drinking!

Postcards for September Selects and BabyHole

BABYHOLE

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back:


SEPTEMBER SELECTS

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back:

Cumming Home

My week in North Carolina was so awful it made me appreciate Jersey City. I will put up pictures as soon as this computer stops being an asshole.

HIGHLIGHTS OF MY VACATION:

Counting rednecks and pickup trucks on the road.
Black Beard.
Awkward tan lines.
The Old Burying Ground.
I touched a stingray with my finger.
Half of my third nipple fell off when I tried to climb a cannon. Now it looks like a tiny hermit crab.
Cigarettes cost like $1.

I really missed Dirt Pie the Empathy Dog while I was gone until I came home and he took three dumps in my kitchen and they were gray in color. Now he's on another hunger strike until I start cooking for him again.

Butterscotch was resentful towards me for leaving and the first night back home, he gnawed on walls and furniture all night long because he likes negative attention and he wouldn't let me pet him.

Anyway, now that I'm back, I hate everything slightly less.

I'm starting to become concerned and disgusted about the third nipple that I started growing a few months ago.

If you've seen my boobs lately, you'd know that I started to mysteriously grow a third nipple by my armpit.

At first I thought it was just a skin tag. I grew one on my neck that eventually dried up and fell off last year. But the one by my boob is NOT FALLING OFF. In fact, it's getting bigger, and I think it plans on staying for awhile.

Every day that goes by it becomes more nipplish. Now, the skin around it is becoming discolored and more aureole-like. It's even got itself a freckle.

I don't want an extra nipple. I might enjoy an extra hand, eye, tail, brain, or vagina, but this tiny armpit nipple is going to give me body-image issues, alienate me from humanity even further, and force me to purchase custom-made bras. I only have one bra and I wear it to job interviews.

It might not be a new nipple. I don't really know what it is. But I can't afford to go to the doctor and find out.

So it doesn't matter anyway.

And another thing: Whatever it is, I don't think I should let it be in the sun. Guess who's gonna be the lame-ass on the beach wearing a T-shirt this week right after she lost 20 pounds? ME.

What is Death?

Sometimes living in Jersey City makes me question "What is death? Is it my neighborhood?" I will find out soon.

This week I'll be lucky enough to get out of Jersey City. And not a moment too soon! I had night terrors the other night that I was dying, which I think is a metaphor for my dreams in general.

I got fed up with the smallness of this neigborhood and/or my existence, and on Wednesday I decided to move to Vancouver. Unfortunately, I can barely afford PATH fare to New York once a week, so a flight to Vancouver is unfeasible at this time.

And I don't want to give up Dirt Pie the Empathy Dog, or Butterscotch the Wall Paper Gnawer. They wouldn't be allowed at the Youth Hostel I'd have to live in.

This week I'm going to North Carolina with my sister. Only Stephanie and I are going, because we have no friends. Since the town is a few miles away from the place we're staying at, we have to drive there, which means that either Stephanie and I have to go everywhere together, or one of us will be stranded.

Even though I'll have to talk to her the whole time, I'm just happy to get away.

An Open Letter To Steve Fulop

I don't have any disdain for Steve Fulop. I said I wanted to see him naked. That's a compliment. And most women and some men in this town want it way more than I do. I can think of a few middle-aged poets, and so can you.

I just have a lot of mixed feelings for Jersey City. Most people do about their hometowns.

Basically, I just want Jersey City to stop sucking so much. Is that too much to ask?

HERE IS MY LETTER TO COUNCILMAN FULOP AND OTHERS WHO MAY DO MY BIDDING:

Dear Steve Fulop,

In the council meeting the other week and in the fabulous local papers with amazing journalistic integrity, there is an ongoing dialog about how to improve the quality of life in Jersey City. Some people, like Christine Goodman, say that it's the arts, by making arts in Jersey City more accessible, and heightening the over-all fineness of Jersey City arts, while boring fuddy-duddys who don't have any lives say it's "noise control".

But here is my proposition: Being from Jersey City, I've grown up with many losers who continue to come into my life and bring me many annoying conversations. Many of them still live with their parents and talk to me about grammar or high school, though they are pushing 30. Since these people are trapped in the past and act like babies, they are obviously not contributing anything to the City.

Is there anyway we can just bring in a bulldozer and push all the losers out? Can we just make them live in the shanty town by the train tracks so they stop impeding the progress of people who are trying to make progress?

And another thing: I am very annoyed with people in their 30's who act like we live in Jersey City High. Can we just make them overdose on cocaine?

Thank you,
Melissa Surach

PS Can you also do something about my homeless uncle? He really creeps me out. He's a millionaire, you know, but you'd never know that by smelling him!

Be The Fire, Not The Moth

I kind of stopped doing comedy stuff for a few weeks because I started hating fun.

Instead, I focused on drinking malt liquor, working on low-paying, shitty, freelance writing jobs, and thinking about life.

I got really disillusioned about stand up especially. It's always been the saddest form of comedy to me. It's not my favorite to do or watch. I like writing jokes, but I don't like repeating them over and over to a room full of people I hate.

Also, I wasn't writing anything but dick jokes last month because nothing else was funny to me. I had dick on the brain, which was a childish reaction to a broken heart lurking in my subconscious. Now that I realize that, when some dick joke makes me laugh, I'll just burn myself with a cigarette.

Anyway, I'll be producing a bunch of new shows in September. And I'm starting a bunch of projects and I'll have new sketch videos by October.

Things go slowly when you have no money.

Don't expect me to remember anything for awhile

I can't write in my notebook anymore because it's covered in alcohol and Chris's blood. And all of my jokes from the past few months are bloody and look like evidence.

Well, the notebook was soaked in beer before because I have a bad habit of carrying open containers of alcohol in my purse when "Last Call" is called.

Anyway, Sunday night, Chris was walking me home from the bar. I was pretty drunk. (On a side note, I now know why malt liquor is not served on draft.)

On the way, we passed this guy he kind of knows, and when he said hi to him, the guy punched him in the face with a six back of promotional Budweiser bottles.

I was confused because I was drunk and it happened very slowly and kind of casually. But then Chris's cheek was bleeding, and the only thing I had on me was my notebook to put pressure on it. So we walked back to his house with four dirty hands applying pressure to his face with my dick jokes.

Then Chris called the cops and had to go to the Emergency Room for stitches. We didn't get back to Chris's until like 5:30 am and I slept on the couch. It was a long night and I didn't even get laid.

But now Chris has a really gross-looking cheek. He says it looks tough. I haven't seen him since, but it probably just looks disgusting.

The Shittiest Childhood Awards...

...go to these girls, the youngest mothers in recorded history.

Notice that, besides the fact that most of them were molested by family members for prolonged amounts of time, most of them were also very poor, AND they got their periods when they were babies. NOW THAT'S A SHITTY CHILDHOOD.

I first found out about Lina Medina, who gave birth to a boy at the age of five, from my job, in their mother's day trivia section. The boy was raised as her brother. The boy probably WAS her brother.

I was shocked that such an obvious case of rape would be celebrated in a Mother's Day Trivia piece.

Henceforth, I will not complain about my relationship problems anymore.

When I was a little boy back in Poland...

I found my old NYU ID card.

When I was 24, I looked like a little Polish boy.



I wish they hadn't cut up my other ID. When I was 23, I looked like Axl Rose.

I'm on vacation this month and forever.

I am taking next BlackHole off because I'm going on vacation. You may be thinking to yourself, "Melissa, aren't you unemployed now, so isn't your life like a vacation?" and "Melissa, since you are unemployed, how can you afford a vacation?"

Well yes and yes!

My life isn't like a vacation. I'm on a vacation from life. And I hope it stays that way. That's why I'm not taking out my septum piercing and I have a tattoo on my hand.

And no, I can't afford a vacation. I currently have $14 in my bank account, and I don't know when my next paycheck is coming in. I think the company I'm currently freelancing for is ignoring me and my invoices!

But who isn't?

Anyway, it's along story how I'm going on vacation, but it's with my family. And it's to North Carolina. I doubt I will have a good time. It's New Bern. This is it.

SO WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?

I tried looking for comedy clubs around there. I think there's only old people.

I plan on entertaining myself by visiting the historical sites and taking pictures of ghosts of slaves.