In October of Nineteen-Eighty-Cock-A-Doodle-Two, Lester was born with lungs the size of a newborn baby's. His small, fragile body looked like sweet and sour pork. He couldnt even speak English. Things did not look good for little Lester.

But then he moved to Alaska. Despite it all, he triumphed over his weaknesses while never looking back. Against the harsh, unforgiving Alaskan landscape, he learned English. He learned how to play the saxophone. He learned how to love. He learned how to play the Titanic theme song on the recorder. With his nose. He even learned cursive. But he still routinely begins sentences with conjunctions. Oh, Lester! When will you learn?

When Lester was 16, he started a design firm; one that, like Lester himself, has survived against harrowing odds. Now, at the sprightly young age of 24 and measuring a height of six feet two-and-a-half inches, Lester has become a striking image of the modern-day success story, and christ-like to boot! His taste in music is unrivaled. It is for this reason that he is now judging the Nikiski Talent Show for the second year in a row.

Lester's dream in life is to someday become a Super Bowl MVP. His worst nightmare is that someday he'll get suckered in to riding on a cruise ship and then the crew will be all, Hey, why dont you go for a relaxing swim in the ocean? and then he'll get chopped up by the propellers. He lives with four cats, named Pussywillow Jenkins, Professor Fangsworth, Suckerpants Garfield, and Adam Segura. Adam is a tall cat with no fur or tail, two hands instead of front paws, two feet instead of back paws, opposable thumbs, guitar skills, and he wears clothes. His only cat-like feature is the ability to walk silently. You might say that Adam is not a cat at all, but rather Lester's human roommate with no discernible cat-like qualities (aside from the previously-mentioned silent walking ability). You wouldnt be mistaken. When Adam was a baby, he had webbed toes and fingers. You can watch a video of Adam breastfeeding Professor Fangsworth here.

Lester is a Libra. To learn more about Libras, watch this video.

Would you like to have a word with Lester? Email him.

The doctor says I have Down's Syndrome. Dun dun dunn!!!

That's right, Down's Syndrome. Not Down Syndrome, like so many people are apt to spell it. I should know. I have it.

Okay, the doctor didn't really tell me that I have it. I figured it out on my own. It all of a sudden dawned on me (or is it "donned" on me? They both look wrong and there's no way I can trust myself to know which one's correct considering my limited mental capacities and chubby face) when I was playing Bubble Bobble today. I beat the first level, then realized that I never even knew Bubble Bobble had 'levels'. I thought you just played the first level forever. I can't believe I'd never beat the first level before.

Next you'll tell me Super Mario Bros. has multiple levels. Yeah right, I may have Down's Syndrome, but I'm not a retard.

Or maybe I am a retard. Another epiphany I had was that, maybe I've lived my whole life as a retard and nobody's ever told me. Or maybe they were serious all those times that they did call me a retard. Because, come to think about it, people have called me a retard. Shit.

But how do I explain all the advanced classes I took in high school? Oh yeah, that's right. I didn't take advanced classes in high school, except for English. But I failed 10th grade English, so that sort of cancels out the advanced one. These blog postings also probably cancel out the advanced English class.

Here's a list of random evidence that prove I am, in fact, a retard (but first, a note: several of these items really require a level of explaining that I'm not willing to go into in this blog post, but I might dedicate future posts to some of these topics.):
  • I once played a saxophone solo in front of my church without realizing that my penis was exposed.
  • I once shit the bed in a $1,600-per-night hotel room. The walls were accented with gold leaf everywhere, I had large windows that overlooked all of Portland, there were three crystal chandeliers in my room alone, and the doormen all knew my name. Also, the sheets were 600-thread-count and I have no idea if they threw them out afterward or not.
  • I once unintentionally took a drink from a bottle of my own urine when I lived in Washington.
  • Until I was five or six I thought that peanut butter was made out of chewed-up Ritz crackers, so I'd chew up a cracker, spread it on another cracker, and then eat it.
  • My mom read me to sleep every night until the sixth grade.
  • The first time I took my driver's test, a cat ran out in front of my car. And what did I do? I accidentally stepped on the motherfucking gas. This story does not have a happy ending.
This series of epiphanies I had today came with a silver lining, though. Now that I know how to play Bubble Bobble—and am not just randomly shooting bubbles everywhere and then dying ten seconds into the game—I've found out that I'm really good at it. Too good, perhaps. I actually have to try to die in order to finally get a game over. Let's see Corky Thacher say that.


posted by Lester at 4:21 AM