Tarl Cabot, the Box Prophet, who has profited little in life materially, as evidenced by his former watermelon bin home, which was recycled by some ecofreaks and left him homeless, is in fact, an old friend of mine. He dropped off the radar this time last year, and has resurfaced, first with the following text from Saturday, May 30:
“Your voice mail is full ass wipe. Planet Buzz Kill rules!”
I called Carl last week to thank him for the props on my stoner apocalypse novel and found out that, though I last saw him at a hipster coffee bar in Pittsburgh that he is living under a giant redwood tree in Northern California with a cooler and a wind up AM radio. When I told him I would be attempting to walk in Liver-Eater Johnson’s unholy footsteps along with Ishmael and Shayne in September 2016, he immediately launched into a monologue about primitive sanitation:
The Seventh Secret of the Universe
“Dude, when is the last time you shit in the woods? You know I’m looking at a bobcat right now? When’s the last time you saw a bobcat, Bro? Hell, last night I woke up with a goddamn bear sneaking up on me snorting in my ear. I guess wherever you go in this country there’s some brown motherfucker measuring you for a mugging!
“Well, back to taking a shit in the woods. If you have no facilities, and you’re living outside of a town with a population of seventy-fucking-eight you might consider yourself shitterless for half the year. What-the-fuck, you expect me to drag a spot-a-pot two thousand miles in this little car?
“So, you’re squatting on the side of God’s Holy Mountain taking your shit, looking out over all God’s creation, enjoying the scenery. Well whiteboy you better have a little dick or it’s just going to plop right down in that pile of dookie!
“Oh, your laughing, think that shit is funny, huh, city boy? Well imagine this, let’s say you haven’t squeezed all the water out of that puppy yet, and its hanging on and your regretting eating that box of Fruit Loops yesterday, or, like I said, your optimistic ass is enjoying the scenery?
“Funny huh? You might think you are shitting on virgin soil, clean earth. Dude, you look close and the ground is alive, just a heaving mass of insects. You’re squatting for let’s say two minutes with your pants down around your ankles and now you have ants in your fucking pants. Not piss ants, but real fucking ball-biting ass-burrowing ants!
“Okay, that’s bad enough. Now it’s time to wipe your ass. Thank God you brought toilet paper, you say. Well ass wipe, where did you put your toilet paper?
“Oh yeah, and your five pound knife you have on your hip for that fucking child molesting grizzly bear, that’s now dragging in the shit too!
“So, toilet paper to the rescue? No, not if you put it on the ground! Ants love white, they'll be all over it. So you wipe your ass with that and now you have ants up your ass. And when you panic—oh, shit ants all over my toilet paper, and drop it, and it goes rolling down the mountainside, then your squat running with your pants around your ankles, dick and knife dragging in the living fucking dirt.
“Look, Brother, I’m telling you, let that puppy dry out. Keep it in your ass for a couple days until all the water is gone, and then launch that brick on the mountainside and walk the fuck out of there before the mountain comes alive to follow it back to the source with a million ball-biting mandibles.
“Oh, you have to go, vagina at the door—you’re still doing that, fucking with women? What the fuck—I’d rather take a fast food shit on God’s Holy Ass-biting Mountain!
“Later, Brother!”
I just don’t have a good comeback for that. Have fun on God’s Holy Mountain, Bro.
Ha, that takes me back. A few years ago, I took an extended solo bicycle trip across the Balkans and Turkey. Below is an email excerpt:
"Finally, I'm sure that many of you have been wondering, "the places, people and food all sound great, but what's taking a shit like in these strange and exotic places?" I mean, nobody's asked, but I've got a feeling you've been dying to know.
Well, it's like this. Iraq had prepared me for toilets incapable of handling toilet paper, where you have to stuff your shitstained t.p. into a little trashcan-when I got there, I was like, "I do NOT want to put my hand anywhere near that fucking thing." A month later, it was like t.p. Jenga, a running contest to see if you could jam your paper into the overflowing trashcan without being the guy who has to take the bag out.
The army had made me comfortable with shitting in the woods and burying it, like I was a coyote or something.
Turkey has taken the shitter game up another notch, though. They have squatter toilets, consisting of a hole in the ground with some footpads, flush tank optional, with a little water jug and a faucet coming out of the wall. No t.p.
The first time I saw this, I was like, "my people are dying! They need t.p. for their bungholes!"
Taking a shit becomes a sport, like curling or lawn tennis or something. What you do is, you take your pants off and hang them up. You can roll them up around your knees, but this is a dicey proposition. Then you drop down into a squat, heels on the ground, ass stuck out like you're a whore in a rap video, and do your business. Unlike a Western toilet, it is very important that you achieve a tightly coiled Mr. Hankey, because there is no bowl to prevent any potential explosive events from contaminating your legs and shoes.
Then, the main event: you fill the jug from the spigot, take it in your right hand, and...
This whole process is very humbling, and really helps you come to terms with the grimy reality of life.
By the time I'm finished with this tour, I'll be able to shit upside down, hanging from a tree, with aborigines shooting poisoned blowgun darts at my exposed hoop, while dipping Copenhagen, then clean myself with some black palm leaves."