Album: Running With Scissors
Song: Albuquerque

Way back when I was just a little bitty boy living in a box under the stairs in

the corner of the basement of the house half a block down the street from

Jerry's Bait Shop... You know the place... Well anyway, back then life was going

swell and everything was juuuust peachy!!! Except of course for the undeniable

fact that every single morning my mother would make me a big ol' bowl of

sauerkraut for breakfast.

Daaahh!! Big bowl of sauerkraut!

Every single mornin'! It was driving me crazy.

I said to my mom, I said, "Hey, mom, what's up with all the sauerkraut?" And my

dear, sweet mother, she just looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train.

And she leaned right down next to me, and she said, "IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!" And

then she tied me to the wall and stuck a funnel in my mouth and force fed me

nothing but sauerkraut until I was 26 and a half years old.

That's when I swore that someday, someday I would get outta' that basement and

travel to a magical, far away place, where the sun is always shining and the air

smells like warm root beer, and the towels are oh so fluffy! Where the shriners

and the lepers play their ukuleles all day long, and anyone on the street would

gladly shave your back for a nickel!

Wacka wacka, doo doo, yeah!

Well, let me tell you, people, it wasn't long at all before my dream came true.

Because the very next day, a local radio station had this contest to see who

could correctly guess the number of molecules in Leonard Nimoy's butt. I was off

by three, but I still won the grand prize. That's right, a first class, one-way

ticket...

to Albuquerque!

Albuquerque!

Oh yeah. You know, I'd never been on a real airplane before, and I gotta tell

ya, it was really great... except that I had to sit between two large Albanian

women with excruciatingly severe body odor. And the little kid in back of me

kept throwin' up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Dr. Pepper and

salted peanuts, and the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore...and, oh

yeah, three of the airplane engines burned out, and we went into a tailspin and

crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant fireball and everybody

died. Except for me. You know why?

'Cause I had my tray table up

And my seat back in the full upright position

Had my tray table up

And my seat back in the full upright position

Had my tray table up

And my seat back in the full upright position

Ah-ha-ha-ha! Ah-ha-ha! Aahhhhhhh. So I crawled from the twisted, burnin' wreckage, I

crawled on my hands and knees for three full days, draggin' along my big leather

suitcase and my garment bag and my tenor saxophone and my 12-pound bowlin' ball

and my lucky, lucky autographed glow-in-the-dark snorkel. But finally I arrived

at the world famous Albuquerque Holiday Inn where the towels are oh so fluffy!

And you can eat your soup right out of the ashtrays if you wanna. It's okay,

they're clean.

Well, I checked into my room, and I turned down the A/C, and I turned on the

SpectraVision, and I'm just about to eat that little chocolatey mint on my pillow

that I love so very, very much, when suddenly there's a knock on the door. Well,

now, who could that be?

I say, "Who is it?" No answer.

"Who is it?" There's no answer.

"WHO IS IT!?" They're not sayin' anything.

So finally, I go over and I open the door, and just as I suspected, it's some

big, fat hermaphrodite with a Flock of Seagulls haircut, and only one nostril.

Oh, man, I hate it when I'm right. So, anyway, he bursts into my room, and he

grabs my lucky snorkel, and I'm like, "Hey, you can't have that! That snorkel's

been just like a snorkel to me."

And he's like, "Tough!"

And I'm like, "Give it!"

And he's like, "Make me!"

And I'm like, "'kay!"

So I grabbed his leg and he grabbed my esophagus, and I bit off his ear and he

chewed off my eyebrows, and I took out his appendix and he gave me a colonic

irrigation, yes indeed, you better believe it. And somehow in the middle of it

all, the phone got knocked off the hook. And twenty seconds later, I heard a

familiar voice. And you know what it said? I'll tell ya what it said!

It said, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator.

If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again.

If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator."

In Albuquerque!

Albuquerque!

Well, to cut a long story short, he got away with my snorkel. But I made a

solemn vow right then and there that I would not rest, I would not sleep for an

instant, until the one-nostrilled man was brought to justice. But first, I

decided to buy some donuts. So I got in my car, and I drove over to the donut

shop, and I walked on up to the guy behind the counter and he says, "Yeah,

whaddaya want??"

I said, "You got any glazed donuts?"

He said, "Nah, we're outta glazed donuts."

I say, "Well, you got any jelly donuts?"

He said, "No, we're outta jelly donuts."

I said, "You got any Bavarian cream-filled donuts?"

He said, "No, we're outta Bavarian cream-filled donuts."

I said, "You got any cinnamon rolls?"

He said, "No, we're outta cinnamon rolls!"

I said, "You got any apple fritters?"

He said, "No, we're outta apple fritters!"

I said, "You got any bear claws?"

He said, "Wait a minute, I'll go check."

"No, we're outta bear claws!"

I said, "Well, in that case... in that case, what do you have?"

He says, "All I got right now is this box of one dozen starving crazed weasels."

I said, "OK, I'll take that."

So he hands me the box, and I open up the lid, and the weasels jump out and they

immediately latch onto my face and start bitin' me all over. Oh, man, they were

just goin' nuts! They were tearin' me apart! You know, I think it was just about

that time that a little ditty started goin' through my head. I believe it went a

little somethin' like this:

DOH! Get 'em off me! Get 'em off me! Ohhh! No, get 'em off, get 'em off! Oh, oh

God, oh God! Oh, get 'em off me! Oh, oh God! Ah,

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I ran out into the street with these flesh-eating weasels all over my face,

wavin' my arms all around and just runnin', runnin', runnin' like a constipated

wiener dog. And as luck would have it, that's exactly when I ran into the girl

of my dreams. Her name was Zelda. She was a calligraphy enthusiast, with a

slight overbite, and hair the color of strained peaches. I'll never forget the

very first thing she said to me. She said, "Hey, you've got weasels on your

face."

That's when I knew it was true love. We were inseparable after that. Aw, we ate

together, we bathed together, we even shared the same piece of mint-flavored

dental floss. The world was our burrito. So we got married, and we bought us a

house and had two beautiful children, Nathaniel and Superfly. Oh we were so

very, very, very happy, aw yeah. But then, one fateful night, Zelda said to me,

she said, "Sweetie pumpkin? Do you wanna join the Columbia Record Club?" I said,

"Woah! Hold on now, baby! I'm just not ready for that kind of a commitment!"

So we broke up, and I never saw her again, but that's just the way things go...

in Albuquerque!

Albuquerque!

Anyway, things really started lookin' up for me, because about a week later, I

finally achieved my lifelong dream. That's right, I got me a part-time job at

the Sizzler! I even made employee of the month after I put out that grease fire

with my face. Aw yeah, everybody was pretty jealous of me after that. I was

gettin' a lot of attitude.

OK, like one time, I was out in the parkin' lot, tryin' to remove my excess

earwax with a golf pencil, when I see this guy Marty tryin' to carry a big ol'

sofa up the stairs all by himself. So I-I say to him, I say, "Hey, you want me

to help you with that?" And Marty, he just rolls his eyes, and goes, "No, I want

you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw!" So I did.

And then he gets all indignant on me. He's like, "Hey, man, I was just being

sarcastic!" Well, that's just great. How was I supposed to know that? I'm not a

mind reader, for cryin' out loud. Besides, now he's got a really cute nickname -

Torso-Boy! So what's he complaining about?

Say, that reminds me of another amusing anecdote. This guy comes up to me on the

street and he tells me he hasn't had a bite in three days. Well, I knew what he

meant, but just to be funny, I took a big bite out of his jugular vein. And he's

yelling and screaming and bleeding all over, and I'm like, "Hey, come on,

don'tcha get it?" But he just keeps rolling around on the sidewalk, bleeding and

screaming, "Aaaahhhh! AaaaahhhhOhhhhh! Aaaaahhhh!" You know, completely missing

the irony of the whole situation. Man, some people just can't take a joke, you

know?

Anyway, um...um...where was I? Kinda lost my train of thought.

Uh, well, uh, OK, anyway, I-I know it's kind of a roundabout way of saying it,

but, I guess the whole point I'm tryin' to make here is...

I HATE SAUERKRAUT!

That's all I'm really tryin' to say. And, by the way, if one day you happen to

wake up and find yourself in an existential quandry, full of loathing and

self-doubt and wracked with the pain and isolation of your pitiful meaningless

existence, at least you can take a small bit of comfort in knowing that

somewhere out there in this crazy ol' mixed-up universe of ours, there's still a

little place

called Albuquerque!

Albuquerque!

Albuquerque! (Albuquerque!)

Albuquerque! (Albuquerque!)

Albuquerque! (Albuquerque!)

Albuquerque! (Albuquerque!)

I said A! A!

L! L!

B! B!

U! U!

querque! (querque!)

(Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque)

(Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque)

(Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque)

(Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque, Albuquerque)

Al...buquerque!

uuggh

heh heh heh heh