Cover art for Squalor And Language Barriers by The ACTUAL God

Squalor And Language Barriers

1 viewer

Squalor And Language Barriers Lyrics

In my dream last night I was at Blockbuster. I found six hundred dollars and change behind a video. I assumed it was drug money – in my dream past, I had been involved in a similar money drop. I figured someone would be keeping watch, but I couldn’t resist, so I took the money and walked real fast outside, where my Zayde was waiting in a van. I slid in the back seat. As he started to drive away, a short, round (Indian) boy flew in to the back seat alongside me. He looked like a fat four-year old, but he could talk.

Actual God: Lil’ man.
Indian boy: I think you have my money.
Actual God: No I don’t.
Indian boy: Actually, I’m 100% sure you do.
Actual God: Scram!
Indian boy: Come on, I saw you take it.
Actual God: Really? How much was it then?
Indian boy: $640 exactly. Six hundreds and two twenties
Actual God: (scratching head) That’s weird, because I only found $200…(He looks at me like I’m absolute scum) Tell you what - I’ll give you $160, but that’s it. That’s a good deal for you! You came into this van with nothing, and now I’m giving you $160 of my own money, so you better take it. I can afford it.
Indian boy: That’s such horseshit.
Zayde: If it’s the boy’s money, I strongly suggest you give it back.
Actual God: You can fucking search me if that’s what you want.
Zayde: (shaking his head) I hope to God you’re telling the truth.
Actual God: Search me, asshole.

Thinking I was talking to him, the boy tried to search my person, but I threw him off and that was the end of the dream.

I thought that actually seeing people live in cripple shit would make me more sympathetic and passionate about the poor. Instead I feel a lot more competitive with them. Overall, poor people seem like a happy bunch. And they’ll do anything to steal your resources!

Naturally then I wasn’t totally devastated to hear about the recent floods in Bombay that have killed over 1,000 (remember the joke about the lawyers at the bottom of the sea?). I was scheduled to leave the day after it rained over a meter in twelve hours, but I’ve actually been home for a little while, all praise be DIRECTLY to Allah! Here are some lame stories I remember from my trip (other things happened as well).

The day before I left I had my hair buzzed by a sexy if not very overweight Ukrainian lady. She asked me "Why do you want buzz, you have such nice hair?" I told her that I wanted people in India to respect me, plus it's hot there, and in addition, I don't care if people there think I'm bald. She mumbled something about how I am bald but I'm not that bald and there's still hope and her son is bald but it’s all the same. She was more blunt about my condition than most hairdressers, but she was also very stupid and confusing. After I told her to “Please stop talking and just cut my hair,” she looked toward the front of the barbershop window and said, “I love when it’s hot.” Yeah, me too. “I love when it’s hot because my husband can’t drink Vodka.” I laughed, and asked how come he couldn’t drink Vodka when it’s hot? “No, he does drink when it’s hot! A lot! Too much!” I stuttered, “He still drinks, huh, wow…even, even when it’s hot?” She said “You better believe he tries.” I blacked out after that – I’m pretty sure she or her son date-raped me.

That evening, I was driving to farewell Sushi dinner with my dad in the passenger seat, and he asked me, “Did I ever send you that article from the LA Times about the rowboat?” No, you didn’t. What rowboat? “The poker rowboat.” You mean riverboat? “No, a rowboat that plays poker.” What? “This guy from MIT made it, and he makes a few hundred dollars a day online.” I was stunned and very embarrassed. “You mean ro-BOT, not rowboat. You know what a rowboat is? It’s a boat. How long have you lived in this country?” He giggled and, mocking my accent, said “OK fine, ro-BAHHT, hehe!” I obviously wouldn’t let it go and ultimately we both got pretty upset. The weird thing is I think we had this same exchange like a week before and I had just forgot, but now I’ll never forget.
When I was boarding the plane in Detroit to Amsterdam, who do I see sitting in first class? Little John! A few hours in, I went up to say hello. He was wearing big studio headphones and scribbling music notes on staff paper; on the top of the page were the words “Slurp it Down.” I tapped him, told him I admired his work, shook his hand and left. An amazing start to the trip I thought.

When I got off the plane in Bombay, I mumbled “Damn, this place really does smell like Hannah Arendt’s ass.” This bald fat ass with cracked teeth walking next to me started cracking up in an English accent. I smiled at him. I was surprised that he liked my joke. I looked over at him and smiled, thinking I was off to a great start in India, and he cracks up even harder. I started to wonder if he was really laughing at my joke. “What’s so funny?” I asked him. “My ex-wife’s name is Hannah!” I stopped smiling, squinted my eyes, and gave him the sniff. He didn’t sense that I hated him, and he started yapping about how he’s been in India for the past three years and how he hates it and it’s a dirty no fun shitbox and Bombay is especially terrible.

My boss, (name wittheld), picked me up from the airport. It was about 11 PM browntime. My first impression was “Indian Peppermint Patty.” In the cab on the way to her place, she pointed out the window and said, “You see that? That’s the largest slum in Asia. Actually, the largest slum in the whole world!” She seemed to speak pretty well, but I wanted to test her knowledge of colloquial English. So I asked if I could shoot a video for the United Way website of myself streaking from one end of the slum to the other. She sensed something was amiss, but wasn’t sure enough that streaking wasn’t just an American way of saying moving through.

When we got back to her place, there was this young Indian guy there named Ankush. My boss explained that Ankush would be staying there for a few days, that they were both devotees to the great guru Shree Shree Ravi Shankar, and that Ankush was working for a while for Shree Shree’s software company in Bombay. It was Ankush’s birthday, and Shibani brought him a Toblerone. We all ate some to celebrate, and (name wittheld) asked Ankush if he had made a wish for the new year. He had, so she said, “Then I eat this sugar in the hopes that you’re wish is fulfilled.” They told me about their cult and how special it was, and that if I was lucky, I could go with Ankush tomorrow to the other side of Bombay to see some festival. Wow, India, so full of wonder, etc. I ended up going, it was lame, and I had to ride a train for three hours with nasty armpits and breath all up in my face.

My first full day, my boss and I went to a grimy Muslim neighborhood called Ghat Kopar (from Jay Z’s first verse in Renegade “where they got goats who are not kosher”). It was about 110 degrees and dusty, and everyone seemed to have at least skin cancer. I was taking pictures of a Muslim who was untying a goat for slaughter. He noticed me, and started gesticulating (wildly!). I flashed him a peace sign, then put both hands over my heart and tilted my head a little to the right. I thought that was more than enough, but he continued yelling and waving, bobbing and weaving. I now know that when a Muslim gets angry, he stares at you while he violently slaughters an animal with a knife and then raises his blood-soaked hands in the air. My boss said, “Where you find the most dirty and disgusting places in the world, you will find Muslims. They are Neanderthals! I am not a racist. This is my experience.” You live, you learn.

Somehow I got kind of friendly with a street hustler named Pinchu. By that I mean he liked to follow me around. One night he met me coming out of my (dirty piece of shit) hotel and it looked like he was wearing lipstick. “Night on the town?” I asked him. He opened his mouth to respond, and basically puked blood all over the ground between us and on a dog, who also had cancer.

One night at Domino’s, there was this Israeli faggot with long curly hair. He was trying to order a pizza that was not on the menu (it was actually a very simple request he was making), and the Indian kept suggesting that he get the Margherita pizza instead. After some back and forth, the Israeli guy started whining and saying “But I don’t laaahhhhvvve Margherita, I lahv..” whatever else it was he was ordering. His girlfriend calmed him down, then I watched them eat.

Before leaving Bombay, I spent six hours trying to mail my computer home, unsuccessfully. In Aurangabad, I honed my Indian small talk:

Indian: Which country?
AG: USA. And you, which country?
Indian: (laughing hysterically) India!
AG: (laughs hysterically) or (rolls eyes)

I rode a sixteen hour bus to get from Aurangabad to Ahmedabad, where Krys and I had to kill a day before our eleven hour train to Udaipur. The blanket they gave me was fifteen years of dried sweat too heavy. In Ahmedabad I had a nice dream, saw some elephants with cancer, got caught in a rainstorm, and shat in a very bad place. On my way out, a man demanded that I shake his hand, even though there clearly was no toilet paper and no way for me to wash my hands. The Indian custom is to wipe (and eat) with your hands, and he couldn’t have known that I had Kleenexes. I vigorously shook his hand – I was feeling much better – and he asked me if I felt relaxed. I told him I felt “twice as relaxed as Michael Schiavo after he relaxed his wife to death.” He demanded 100 Rupees ($2.50), and I told him to fuck off. He offered to teach me his life guidelines for 20 Rupees, and I told him that if I needed life guidelines, I’d simply request them in a heartfelt letter to the Schindlers.

I’m boring myself to death. What else happened? I watched an old man die in Pushkar, then left for Delhi. The bus was way overbooked - I sat next to Sunny who wouldn’t stop talking. I found out he was a wrestling fan so we went back and forth naming wrestlers for a while. After he mentioned a wrestler I had never heard of (John Cena), we went silent. He was staring at me and I gave him a look like ‘step off,’ and he said “I sorry …you so…you so…good looking.” I blushed and told him he was alright too. He slept on my shoulder for a good chunk of the thirteen-hour voyage.

From Delhi, I flew to Thailand on a whim (I waited 26 hours at the Delhi airport instead of sightseeing), bought some worthless gems for $700 and a sweet baby blue Saddam t-shirt, brooded in my room like a spider, then came home because I missed the way gambling makes me feel. I’ve been wearing my Saddam shirt pretty much every day – one scared Thai lady pointed at me and said “Heetla.” I said, “No. Not Hitler, Saddam. VERY different.”
Since I decided to leave kind of suddenly, I had to scramble to make some emergency changes. To simplify things, I had to tell a little fib to a few people. I asked a lady working at an internet café if I could switch to a faster computer. She made a wise crack and I was like “I’m sorry if I’m not in the mood for jokes, but my cousin died today in a car accident.” Some guy overheard and asked me if my cousin were alive, would he want me to cut my trip short or stay and have a good time. I said, “You know, you’re probably right. I just don’t know how I would feel if I missed his funeral.” My Australian friend Hayley met me at the Bombay airport on the way home. She was like, I’m so sorry about your cousin. I shrugged and bravely said “That’s life, ya know.”

Then I got home and promptly punctured my lung smoking gweedz in the Motor City Casino parking garage. Oops.

How to Format Lyrics:

  • Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus
  • Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines
  • Use section headers above different song parts like [Verse], [Chorus], etc.
  • Use italics (<i>lyric</i>) and bold (<b>lyric</b>) to distinguish between different vocalists in the same song part
  • If you don’t understand a lyric, use [?]

To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum

About

Have the inside scoop on this song?
Sign up and drop some knowledge

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Comments