Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Slight Club, a Parody of Fight Club in Three Acts


The First Rule of Slight Club is you do not talk about Slight Club


People are always asking me if I know Taylor Gurgin.

With a gun barrel between your teeth, you only talk in vowels. And even though your sentences sound like somebody talking in Morse Code, you still aren't all that worried even if the gun is being held by a crazed dentist possessed of an NRA-sized hatred of plaque. 

But the gun between my teeth on this occasion was being held by Taylor Gurgin, intent on an act of mass destruction known as Project Hemline, which he planned to raise up a good two, two and a half inches on the whole of humanity within the next three minutes. 

This is how it all began

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

I hadn't been able to sleep for six months.  My doctor refused to prescribe sleeping pills because if he had there would have been no movie, so I began frequenting support groups at night.  Soon I was as addicted to them as Jimmy Fallon is to not being funny.


I regularly attended groups for "Episcopalians who are Rabbis," "Latin American Dictators," and "Coping with Excellent Health.”  One day I met Marla Stinger who was attending all the same groups, and we decided to split them up. She would attend any groups for "Guys Named Larry" and I would take all the others.  We'd flip a coin for any group in which Meatloaf was a member.


Then on an airplane flight I had a life changing experience: the plane left on time! Also I met a weird creepy guy named Taylor Gurgin who told me he made and sold soap. Taylor said he'd always been mesmerized by soap. 

One day he might even use some.

When my apartment building mysteriously burned down,  I naturally --- as people do --- called the weird creepy guy I'd met only once on an airplane to ask for a place to stay.  So we got toget
her in a bar.

"I want you to do me a favor," said Taylor Gurgin.


"Yeah, sure."


"I want you to slight me as hard as you can."

"What?"


"I want you to slight me as hard as you can!"


"Umm ... you can brighten up a room ... just by leaving it."


"That was perfect!  You have a great personality. It grates on all of us!" 


Err, umm .... You have delusions of competence!" 


"Terrific!  Where have you been all my life?  And how soon can you go back there?"

Energized and excited, I went back with Taylor to live at his house.  It was as crumbling and dilapidated as Burt Reynold’s internal organs.  What a shithole!  Had not the Olympic size pool and health club been world class, I would have been tempted to move out.

We continued to slight each other constantly and soon others joined us.


"Sorry, I almost tripped over your IQ when I came in!" 


"Someday you'll go far, and I hope you stay there!"


Taylor gave our group a name:

SLIGHT CLUB! 

Taylor would give the rules at the beginning of each meeting.

"The First Rule of Slight Club is you do not talk about Slight Club.  The Second Rule of Slight Club is you do not talk about Slight Club." 

"Sir, a question? May we talk about Slight Club?"


Well, we didn't always get the sharpest of members.  Even Meatloaf joined, and this is a guy who votes for Republicans. 


"And the Eighth and Final Rule:  if this is your first night at Slight Club, you have to slight."


"You're a dirty blighter!"


"Your mother wears army boots!"


Some of the slights by newbies were less than epic.

I'd introduced Marla to Taylor Gurgin, and before long they were rocking and gyrating the house with passionate sex. I can't say I was thrilled, but I was making fabulous milkshakes and we didn't have a blender.  Taylor and I began forming Slight Clubs in other cities, franchising them under the name "Slightbucks."  There are probably half a dozen in your town and most likely one in your basement, if not in the left side of your jock strap.  


You didn't realize all this?  I'm not surprised. 


After all, there is nothing like an intelligent man.  And you are nothing like an intelligent man!

Taylor began talking about Project Hemline, his secret plan to unleash veteran loudmouth comic Lewis Black upon all of society. Then one day while in the Slight Club in Havertown PA, someone mistook me for Taylor Gurgin. Even Marla thought I was Taylor Gurgin, which placed future milkshakes in extreme jeopardy. 

It's called a Changeover.   Turns out Taylor Gurgin and I were one and the same!


"All the ways you wish you could be, that's me," said Taylor Gurgin, suddenly appearing in my room. "I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not." 

"Yeah, Mr. Big Shot, but can you touch your elbow to your nose, like I can?"


Turns out he could.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I think this is about where we came in.

"Three minutes left. Do you have anything you'd like to say?"


"Yes, Taylor. What do you expect Lewis Black to do?”   


"Undermine everyone’s faith in humanity with his mordant observations. Then you and I will take over and rule!"   


"That is, I will rule!" I said, snatching the gun from Taylor and placing it back into my mouth. "And since I'm going to be taking over from you with Marla, do you happen to have a GPS of her erogenous zones or something like that?" 


"But why do this?" Taylor Gurgin protested.


"Because it's about time I looked like I wanna look and fucked like I  wanna fuck!"


"What does that mean?"

"I thought you knew!"

I pulled the trigger and it blew a gaping hole in the back of Taylor Gurgin's head and he fell to the ground. I was still okay, wound the size of Rhode Island behind my left ear notwithstanding. In rushed Marla along with Lewis Black, who went about ranting about the state of the world and destroying 21th Century society as we know it.

"Marla, you met me at a very strange time in my life," I said. 


"And, by the way, I would never call you fat, but when you sit around the house, you sit around the house!"



The End


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