I have unhealthy obsessions with both Taco Bell and Chuck Klosterman.
It's obvious why my obsession with Taco Bell is unhealthy. The food, while simultaneously disgusting and delicious, is probably going to give me some sort of flesh-eating bacteria and will ultimately be my cause of death.
My obsession with Klosterman is more understandable, seeing as he's the best pop culture writer of this generation, and Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs is, as the tagline indicates, a pop culture manifesto.
Klosterman is my Marx; I am his Lenin.
But my unhealthy obsessions are interrelated: Klosterman writes about how there are no-nonsense people (people who eat things like Grape Nuts and Cheerios for breakfast) and all-nonsense people (people who eat Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs). I am, as though it weren't clear enough already, an all-nonsense person.
I wear a Mobil employee shirt bearing a stitched "Carlos" name patch.
I drink Miller High Life because it makes me feel like a blue-collar construction worker.
I eat at Taco Bell because I like the feeling that every meal could be my last. I go out of my way to be an all-nonsense person.
On Monday afternoon, I ran for the border for some crappy tacos to feed my Fire sauce and Mountain Dew Baja Blast addiction.
When eating at Taco Bell, it's necessary to load the food up with Fire sauce to the point where your face feels like it's going to explode. If I don't feel dizzy when I'm walking away from Taco Bell, my mission was a failure.
Baja Blast serves to mollify the burning in my mouth without eliminating the hallucinogenic effects of the Fire sauce.
It's an electrifying combination.
I have looked into the eyes of the Lord, and His name is Señor Mexican Pizza.
But when I took the Baja Blast plunge Monday, I missed out on what could have been the most nonsensical experience of my life.
While I sat not a quarter mile from the Collegian office, Cirque du Soleil invaded the basement in search of yours truly.
A man on stilts reportedly hunched over to fit within the confines of our 10-foot high ceilings.
In case you're unfamiliar with Cirque du Soleil, it's not like a normal circus.
As Patton Oswalt puts it, "Everything in Cirque du Soleil is wet and French and gay and on fire at the same time."
"Keveen Doreen?" the freakish French circus clowns said. Alas, I was nowhere to be found but immersed in a flood of Fire sauce.
"When I find heem, I weel keel heem," the psychopath clown said.
Cirque du Soleil is trying to kill me. Suddenly, the wet hot French circus doesn't sound so entertaining.
On the upside, the killer clowns from France left me a gift bag. I now have a red clown nose (as pictured in my new mug shot above), a key chain and a clown pen that has already run out of ink.
But the big surprise was ... ready?
Drumroll, please...
A PRESS RELEASE!
INFORMING ME THAT CIRQUE DU SOLEIL WAS INDEED COMING TO THE BRYCE JORDAN CENTER!
Thank you, you crazy homicidal clowns, for informing me.
I'll pass that information along.
Whether you're looking for an experience akin to Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd in Knocked Up or just looking for a gay old French time, Cirque du Soleil is here.
But beware the clowns.
