RIFF MARKET

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All you internet Homer Simpsons out there get your heads out Veronica Belmont's donuts, it's the BIG DOH REHAB here on the SEVENTH DAY OF SPIDERRIFFMAS


Each contributor to the 12 DAYS OF SPIDERRIFFMAS was told: OK I'll let you jump on a record, but listen Kite Runner! You got 35 minutes max. Because I do not want no Bonfire of the Vanitas like last year. So the only rule was: Thou shalt not write more than 35 minutes--capito?

Also if anybody knows what happened to my man Don Pollyanna get at me! Also if anybody knows a good dentist

FANG

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YEAR IN RIFFS: STEVE HELY
THE RIDICULOUS RACE: EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

This is an excerpt from the book “The Ridiculous Race”, co-authored by Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran. Look for it in bookstores in June 2008!

A Conversation Which I Imagine Must Have Occurred Somewhere in Ulaanbaatar on the Night of May 6, 2007, Following My Attempt to Eat Lunch

Starring Tishgilit and Borte, two Mongolian girls.

TISHGILIT: ‘Sup, Borte.

BORTE : Hey Tishgilit.

TISHGILIT: Hey, how was work today at Yochin Booye?

BORTE: Just another day at “Mongolian national fast food.” The craziest thing happened today.

TISHGALIT: Really? What?

BORTE: Well, this American guy came in – at least I think he was American. He had like a huge backpack on, and his hair was all crazy and he was totally sweaty and everything. So he walked up to the counter, and started saying stuff in English.

TISHGALIT: What’d you do?

BORTE: So, I was like, “I don’t understand,” but of course he didn’t speak Mongolian, so that didn’t help. So he starts pointing randomly at the menu, and going like this. (SHE PANTOMIMES EATING.) And I was like, “okay, I get it, asshole, I’m not an idiot. You want some food. What do you want?”

TISHGALIT: And he of course keeps babbling.

BORTE: Of course. So, finally, a guy, a Mongolian guy, in the restaurant comes up, and says he speaks French, and maybe he can translate. So he and the American guy start speaking French. Except that it’s pretty obvious this American guy can’t speak French very well, so this takes, like, ten minutes. During which the American guy keeps making the “eating” gesture. Finally the Mongolian guy is like, “he says he just wants whatever’s good.” So, I’m like, okay.

TISHGALIT: So you give him the sauced fat lump?

BORTE: Right, exactly, I give him sauced fat lump with a fried egg on it, and some salty tea.

TISHGALIT: Salt tea, good call.

BORTE: Right, a totally delicious meal. And of course it takes him forever to figure out the money.

TISHGALIT: God, he couldn’t figure out the togrog? What a fuckface.

BORTE: So that takes him forever, and he acts really grateful. But then he sits down with his sauced fat – which is totally good, by the way, and sort of picks at it.

TISHGALIT: Huh. Was there something wrong with it? Was it beige?

BORTE: Of course it was beige! I gave him like the beigest piece we had! And he still didn’t like it!

TISHGALIT: Weird. What about the salt tea?

BORTE: Oh, he tastes the salt tea, and it’s like this dude has never tasted salted tea before. Cause he’s all like, surprised, when he tastes it.

TISHGALIT: Ugh. What the blog?

BORTE: I know. And I’d made it extra salty, just for him! But then he tries to pretend that he really likes it, and keeps looking at me and smiling. Meanwhile he’s, like, picking at the sauced fat. And I’m just staring at him, and thinking, “Dude, I don’t know how you got here, or what you’re doing, but if you don’t like beige fat with fried egg, you’re gonna have a hard time in Mongolia man.”

TISHGALIT: True that. Anyway. Only one way to relax after a day like that.

BORTE, TISHGALIT (simultaneous): Fermented mare’s milk!

They pour themselves two big glasses of fermented mare’s milk and high-five.

97 S'FANGS

Labels: year-in-riffs-2007