NICE GUYS FINISH LAST

I’ve decided to be a bad guy. A louse. A no-good, irredeemable, malignant, nasty, nefarious, unscrupulous, vile son of a bitch. I tried to be a good guy. I’ve helped old ladies cross the street. Put my coat in a puddle so a pretty woman wouldn’t get her feet wet. I’ve donated time and money to charities and the community. I’ve been a good friend, a good son, a good brother and so forth. Trust me, I’m not stroking my ego here. I am a deeply flawed person, but I’ve always had good intentions, and I’ve always put others before me. I even created The Timmy Fund, which is like The Jimmy Fund, except all the money goes to one boy named Timmy. Timmy isn’t even sick. He’s just a nice kid and I wanted to help him out. Timmy is now 13, worth $15 million dollars and no longer returns my phone calls. But I still love him to pieces. Anyway, my point is, I’ve tried to be an altruistic, kindhearted, caring, benevolent and philanthropic person for 33 years.

But not anymore.

Because here is a fact, folks, an irrefutable axiom that, once you understand and accept it, will change your life forever: Nice Guys Finish Last.

I began to realize this during my marathon training. Even though I was running more and drinking less (I cut down from 9 days of drinking a week to 7. I invented two new, imaginary days—Runday and Laturday—so I could pretend I wasn’t getting drunk daily), my times were getting slower. At first, I thought it was my running shoes. I had went the costly route and bought the most expensive running sneakers in the world: Nike Gold. The sneakers are literally made from two bars of gold, and while they look fabulous, they weigh 50 pounds apiece. Running with those things feels like Kirstie Alley is holding onto my ankles.

So I got new sneakers (Nike Steel—they’re made from the popular alloy, and are 20 pounds lighter), but that STILL didn’t work. I tried changing my diet, and switched from all-fried food fare to a regimen of amphetamines, steroids and painkillers, but that didn’t cut it, either. Flustered and fatigued, I started to realize that every time I committed a good act or deed, I got SLOWER. If I held the door for someone, that cost me 10 seconds. If I said “Please” or “Thank You” to someone, that cost me 15. If I helped out a co-worker who was behind schedule, that was 20. You get the point…

What verified and validated my assumption was when I checked the history of EVERY marathon ever run. And, you know what? In EVERY SINGLE FRIGGIN’ race, a NICE GUY FINISHED LAST. It’s unbelievable. In fact, everybody who finished at the tail end of the field in every marathon was a Nice Guy. Immorality has prevailed in every marathon, sport, business and enterprise since the beginning of man. Checking the fastest runners in the history of men’s marathons backed it up for me: These guys—all the winners and frontrunners—were PURE EVIL. And they were speedy!

So that did it for me. Gone are the days of goodness, righteousness and rectitude. Integrity and probity my ass! I’m no Luke Skywalker. I’m Darth Vader, baby! I bow to the altar of Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger and Kiefer Sutherland in THE LOST BOYS. Wait, those aren’t real people. Well, I guess that’s beside the point.

Ever since I’ve dedicated myself to a life of wrongdoing and peccancy, my legs have felt stronger, I’ve had more energy and I’m the fastest I’ve ever been. Man, it’s awesome being a rotten son of a bitch. So for all of you out there in TV Land who are reading this and want to change your un-wayward ways, here’s a list of unforgivable acts I’ve recently committed to make myself a worse (and therefore better) person:

DARTMAN’S ACTS OF DIABOLICAL CRUELTY TO MAKE HIMSELF A FASTER RUNNER

1) I laughed uncontrollably at the end of MILLION DOLLAR BABY.
2) I became a Cub Scout leader, and took a group of 11-15 year old boys on a 30-mile hike in the Adirondacks. Come nightfall, I abandoned them without food, water or shelter and sprayed their bodies with a special homemade concoction that enrages and attracts carnivorous bears.
3) I pretended that I was terminally ill and was granted a wish by the Make A Wish Foundation. My wish was for them to never grant another wish to another sick child again. Bound by their rules, they had to agree, and thus, the Make A Wish Foundation exists no longer.

I could go on with my multitude of transgressions, but I just swiped a wallet from a blind man on the subway and am feeling particularly fast today. I gotta tell you, people, it feels good being this bad. Like I said, nice guys finish last…

STATS FOR THURSDAY 8/15

DRINKING
10 Beers

RUNNING
Nada

SLEEPING
5 hours

NUMBER OF SONGS I DRUNKENLY SANG ALONG TO DURING THE NEIL DIAMOND CONCERT
3

DIAMOND IS FOREVER

Hello again, hello...

A picture speaks a thousand words, so I'll keep this post brief and just let you soak in this ultra-cool picture of Neil Diamond. I have tickets to see him play at MSG tonight, but Louise can't make the show 'cause of work, and nobody else I know seems eager to pay $70 to see a sexagenarian songbird serenade an audience with "I Am, I Said" while dressed in a 1970s gold-sequined outfit and a girdle to hold his gut in. Go figure. My plan was to get hammered with Louise and then see the show, but now I don't know what to do. Here are my options:

DARTMAN'S OPTIONS FOR THE NEIL DIAMOND CONCERT

1) Go to a homeless shelter and find someone who is a huge fan of THE JAZZ SINGER and JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL and offer them 50 cents and three bottles of OLDE ENGLISH to go to the concert with me.

2) Get drunk at a TGIFriday's, put on my "Kentucky Woman" T-shirt, go solo to the concert and then wallow in depression throughout the show as I realize how pathetic it is to be alone, drunk, 33 and singing "Song Sung Blue" with a crowd that is basically twice my age.

3) Scalp the tickets and use the money to by a super-intelligent chimpanzee. We'll become instant best friends, I'll teach him to love Neil Diamond (and malt liquor) and we'll get drunk every night and listen to "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" over and over again until we pass out.

I don't plan on running tonight. I do plan on drinking. As for sleeping, I accidentally cut off my eyelids yesterday while trying to trim my lashes, so I don't think slumber (or blinking) is in the cards for me for quite a while. 

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

Greetings and salutations, fine readers. With the Olympics going on, the war in the Middle East, a distressed U.S. economy and the death of Isaac Hayes (“Yeah, I’m talkin’ ’bout Shaft!”), I know what’s on your mind: How is Dartman doing in his marathon training?

Well, thanks for asking. Actually, I’m doing just peachy keen. I’ve increased the running, decreased the drinking and accepted Christ as my savior. But enough about me. Wait, this is MY blog. These posts are all about ME, ME, ME! I don’t have to be parsimonious with my words. It is my right, my entitlement, to bore and tax you with my list of complaints, achievements and endeavors. So here’s the latest rant from the running, drunken reprobate (I’m so vain, I now refer to myself in the third person. I tried referring to myself in the second person, but every time I used “you” in a sentence, the other person thought I was talking about them.)

So, I gather you’re surprised about the decrease in my alcohol intake. Don’t fret. I still enjoy my cocktails, but I’ve found new and exciting ways to abuse my body: 1) Painful and dangerous piercings (I just got an earring put in my frontal lobe), and 2) Having the unhealthiest diet possible. Because of the former, please forgive me if I ramble; my memory isn’t so good since my cerebral cortex was punctured.

Anyway, most marathon runners consume complex carbohydrates, lots of protein, fruits, vegetables, etc. for energy and endurance. Smoothies, energy bars, whole grain foods…blah, blah, blah. You get the point. Most runners eat EXTREMELY healthy. But not yours truly. I don’t eat vegetables, stay away from fruit and haven’t eaten anything healthy since the third grade, when I accidentally took a vitamin, mistakenly believing it was a Quaalude. I concentrate on eating meat, fat, fried foods, desserts and humans. Did I mention that I was a cannibal? Did I mention that I ate my twin in the womb? And did I mention that I ate my entire family when my hunger got the best of me during a NY to Orlando flight that was 30 minutes behind schedule due to turbulence? Anyway, here are my basic food staples that I’ve been eating during my training

DARTMAN’S RUNNING DIET
Ice Cream
Chocolate Bars
Pepperoni Pizza
Hamburgers & Steaks
Tacos & Burritos
Potato Chips & Onion Dip
Nachos & Salsa Con Queso
Anything to do with a potato (including “Spuds” MacKenzie)
Anything to do with BBQ (including humans)
Naked Mole Rats
So, as you can see, I abuse my body in a multitude of ways, but this past Sunday, I finally paid for it. I did my long run on Sunday, and I promised myself on Saturday that I would eat healthy and abstain from alcohol. Well, I kept one of my promises: I didn’t have any beer on Saturday. Instead, I waited until the clock struck midnight, officially making it Sunday, and then I had three pints of Captain Lawrence Pale Ale. But my Waterloo was what I ate for dinner on Saturday night: I pigged out at Taco Bell.

I love the Bell. It’s by far my favorite fast food. But eating two Big Beef Burrito Supremes and a Gordita wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And it didn’t help that I ate a homeless person’s appendix (my cannibalism got the best of me). Come Sunday morning, I downed a cup of coffee (also not a wise idea), ate a bowl of cereal and a spleen (left over from the homeless person the night before) and went out for my two-hour run.

Make that my ONE-hour run. With all that Taco Bell in me, plus the coffee and those organs extracted from that inebriated hobo, and all that jostling going on in my stomach as I pounded the pavement… Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happened next. Thank goodness I’m actually a good runner now, because if I hadn’t gone supersonic and sped to my house, I probably would have ended up with a Nachos Bell Grande in my pants.

But I made it. Crapping myself would have been REALLY embarrassing, especially since it would have been the fourth time that week. (After numerous co-worker complaints, I now wear adult diapers at the office.) But something good came out of all this, because I learned a valuable lesson: If you’re going to eat a homeless person, stay away from the spleen. It tastes awful. Go for the liver instead. As for eating healthy and staying away from Taco Bell, hell, I STILL haven’t learned a thing. Excuse me, but I must go. I have to do a run today and I need to have my lunch. Let’s see, I’ve got a six-pack of beer and a burrito the size of Fatty Arbuckle. Oh well, if I get the trots later, at least I’ve got my adult diaper on…

STATS FOR SUNDAY 8/11/08

RUNNING
13-14 miles

DRINKING
4 Dogfish Head India Brown Ales (48 oz.)
5 North Coast Red Seal Pale Ales (60 oz.)

SLEEPING
6 hours

BRETT THE JET?

Screw running. Screw the marathon. Screw everything. The Packers have just traded Brett Favre to the New York Jets. It's the worst thing to ever happen.

TOP 5 WORST THINGS TO EVER HAPPEN

1. Brett Favre being traded to the Jets

2. The Holocaust

3. Louise ditching me as a running partner

4. The Vietnam War

5. Brett Favre being traded to the Jets

I'm currently buying a ticket to Green Bay so I can visit the Packers' management, rip out their large intestines and beat them to near-death with them. Then I will put their half-alive bodies in shallow graves, drive to the nearest chili festival, find the four nastiest port-a-potties and dump their foul contents into the graves and bury Packers General Manager Ted Thompson and Coach Mike McCarthy alive with that excrement.

Brett has been wronged, and now I am a broken, broken man.

RUNNING

Who cares?

DRINKING

Keep 'em coming!

SLEEP

Who can sleep at a time like this?

SHE'S GONE

She’s Gone, Oh I, Oh I’d
better learn how to face it.
She’s Gone, Oh I, Oh I’d pay the devil to replace her.
She’s Gone…what went wrong?

Remember “She’s Gone,” that song by Hall & Oates? Well, now that Louise has left me as a running partner, that is one of the songs that I perpetually listen to on my iPod as I run back and forth on the West Side Highway, unattended and abandoned, an outcast forgotten and forlorn. Like Neil Diamond once sang, I truly am a “Solitary Man.” That is another tune that I listen to while solitary forging ahead in my marathon training. The other melodies this woebegone loner listens to while I melancholically and miserably count the miles I tread are “One is the Loneliest Number” and “All By Myself.” I also listen to “Someone Left a Cake Out in the Rain” by Richard Harris, but that has nothing to with my running companionless. I once left a strawberry shortcake out during a thunderstorm, and I just really relate to that tune.

Yes, dear readers, I have been betrayed and discarded by my running mate. Yes, dear readers, it is true, I am a running cuckold. At first, I believed the lecherous Louise’s explanation that she was now working for TOP CHEF and could no longer participate in the marathon training. But now I have my suspicions that she has left me for another runner, and I am plagued by self-doubt: Am I too slow? Is my gait off? Are my calves to small? My quads undersized? Do I sweat too much? Should I start wearing underwear when I run so my balls don’t hang out of my shorts? Man, that’s a GROSS image.

I’ve been keeping my eye on Louise. I would keep both of my eyes on her, but I lost one orb three years ago when a beautician with dangerously long nails accidentally skewered my left eyeball while plucking my monobrow. I won’t tell you what happened when that beautician waxed my nether regions using those same Freddy Krueger-like talons, suffice to say that I’m now circumcised and, like Hitler, only possess one testicle. Man, that’s even a GROSSER image. (OK, I pledge, no more ball jokes.) Anyway, Louise says that she isn’t running anymore. She swears that she doesn’t have the free time now that she’s constantly working and, plus, she claims to have hurt her neck while mimicking Steve Wonder’s side-to-side head sway during a live performance of “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

But I suspect that Louise is running behind my back. Last week, she was wearing her running shoes and wolfing down energy bars. Another time, I saw her varnished in sweat. And Louise NEVER sweats unless she has the DTs or is failing a lie detector test. Then, two days ago, I barged into her apartment and caught her watching RUNNING MAN with a Kenyan wearing a headband and a JACKRABBITS RUNNING CLUB T-shirt. Yes, dear readers, I think I have been played for a sucker. I believe my marathon compadre has ditched me for a better runner. Also, yesterday probably cinched it for me when I spotted Louise running by me on the West Side Highway with Renaldo Villarubios, my despicable archenemy and also the best runner on Team Tiger. Still, I’m not sure. Maybe they were just walking together really fast.

Lachrymose, disheartened and dewy-eyed, I am a lost and broken man, traveling this world alone like David Banner in THE INCREDIBLE HULK—except I’ve never been exposed to Gamma radiation and only turn green when I drink too much whiskey. Damn it, I’m welling up again. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. Between Louise going all Judas on me and Brett and the Packers fighting, I’m a friggin’ mess. Like my sole testicle, I have no counterpart to hang with. (OK, I truly avow to tell no more ball jokes.) I run. And I run alone. Actually, it’s time for me to hit the West Side Highway right now. Excuse me, dear readers, I must go. “She’s Gone” is playing on my Ipod, and this sniveling, broken-hearted shell of a man must train for a marathon. I only hope I have the balls to go through with it. OK, I had to tell one more sophomoric gonad joke…

STATS for 8/5/08

RUNNING
9 miles

DRINKING
2 Smuttynose IPAs (32 oz.)
1 Victory Baltic Thunder (12 oz.)
1 Stoudt’s Fat Dog (12 oz.)
2 Brooklyn East India Pale Ales (24 oz.)
1 Sierra Nevada Anniversary Ale (12 oz.)
Flying Dog Wild Dog Dopplebock (12 oz.)
Ommegang Chocolate Indulgence (12 oz.)

SLEEPING
4.5 hours