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EDITOR'S LETTER
Ben's Fantasy Hockey was founded in 1969, and was the greatest world event to occur that year. It began as a dream, to bring into the world a light, crumbly pastry cookie with a fruit preserve insert, such as strawberries or figs. The item was almost to market, and perfected to meet the wants and desires of the new-age 70s, where the rise of bell-bottoms, disco and sex symbol Richard Nixon would soon take place.
It was then that fucking piece of shit Sir Isaac Newton rolled into town, with his nouveau riche money and Hummer® H3 with the leather package and the Pioneer™ 6-inch touchscreen display...the only thing coming close to 6 inches in that car, am I right?
Anyways, Newton's real name was actually Standartenführer Hans Landa, a high ranking officer of Nazi Germany and founding member of the weekly publication 'Needle Dick Digest'. And of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world, he would walk into mine.
It was getting late, and I hadn’t seen my date. It was seven o’clock and I wanted to rock, want to get a belly full of beer. Over in a darkened corner of the bar, a belligerent pair stumbled from their cover, clearly in search of a fight or perhaps a good night’s sleep.
“Don’t give us none of your aggravation, we’ve had it with your discipline,” shouted a paunchy man, who had clearly spent a significant amount of his lifetime substituting water for alcohol.
The other man, looking no better, had also spent his forty years on Earth searching for a substitute for a father figure at the bottom of a bottle. Following his drinking buddy’s lead, he would boast, “Saturday night’s alright for fighting, get a little action in!”
What these two men didn’t know was that Chris Bowman was not a regular bar attendee. Chris, a simple boy from the mid-west was also a 10th degree Black Belt that would troll bars, looking for fights to practice his karate in street fighting scenarios. What followed was one of the most one-sided bar fights ever.
Chad lost 4 of this teeth, suffered a blowout fracture, an occipital hematoma, articular fractures of the 5th metacarpal, as well as a full loss of bowel control, resulting in a prolapsed rectum. Some would say that his friend Justin got off relatively lightly, with a shaft fracture, broken ribs 7 through 10 and a severe concussion. But Justin never was quite the same afterwards, with what medical experts would describe as “total mental retardation”. Justin quickly fell into homelessness.
“Hello,” he said in a way that told me everything I needed to know about his past, present and future. He had a dog named Leibnitz as a child. He was bullied as a young student, which partially motivated his pursuit into mathematics. Somehow, I knew of this beautiful stranger’s small-dick status. Those pants, while fashionable and did much to flatter his beautiful thighs, were tight. Too tight.
“What are you drawing," he asked, sexily.
Oh no, I thought. My best laid plans for the next evolution in cookie snacking technology was up in jeopardy. He quickly flashed his imperfectly perfect smile, disarming my defenses. So you see, that’s where the trouble began. That smile. That damned smile.
“Definitely not the next evolution in cookie snacking technology,” I bantered, confident that my secrets were most assuredly safe.
“You know, I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
From there began our torrid love affair. We fell in love. Years later, our love story would be used in the major motion picture 'The Notebook' and we’ve been in litigation ever since. Unlike The Notebook however, where it’s quite apparent that Noah is a Nazi; from that day trip to Auschwitz or that secret bookcase door that led to the room filled with Nazi paraphernalia, that fact was hidden from me for years to come.
If only it were that easy to move on. I tried my best to write it out onto a letter and then burn it, like they did in that rom-com movie, Terminator 2: Judgement Day. I went from meaningless relationships, one night stands to orgies and drug filled nights, for this was the 70s, remember? This would also make me in my 70s now at the very least, so let’s retcon this and say I’m the grandson of the main protagonist.
My grandfather would go back to that same bar he met Sir Isaac, or Landa, whatever he called himself. The men that got beat up still went to that bar; their drink of choice they called loneliness, making love to that tonic and gin. The only thing keeping the company of broken men was a jukebox that played Piano Man regardless of the selection. Ain’t that a perfect metaphor for the indifference of life.
That was the last time I ever saw of Chad Kroeger, Mr. Prolapsed Rectum. He married, of course. And inherited his millions. But the crash of ’29 hit his interests hard, and he put a bullet in his mouth that year. Or so I read.
I still see Justin Bieber around. He is a vagabond, disheveled and unorderly, shitty homemade tattoos littering his body. I feel bad for him, like RDJ in blackface said, you never go full retard. He went full retard.
The only thing that makes me happy is the dream, the pledge of creating a confection revolution. Spellbinding in its simplicity, innovative in its merger of two worlds. Two worlds that were never meant to be. Fruit and Pastry. Nazism and Democracy. Fig and Newton.
Wait a minute, all this for a shitty fig newton joke? Yes future me, yes.
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