The Office TV Show Series on NBC: Creed Thoughts

Pretty much everybody gets mad when you try to pay in pennies these days, and I don't get it.  So what if it takes three hours for the cashier to count it out?  It's still currency!  Not to mention they've got tons of other far out uses.

For instance you can pour a bunch into a glass bottle, and boom: instant maracas.  I actually played the penny maracas with a band called Crap Kidney back in '79.  It all started one day when I was sitting on the steps of the library, shakin' some pennies around in an old A&W bottle.  Honestly I was just doing it to annoy this librarian broad who refused to go bowling with me.  The drummer of Crap Kidney just happened to be walking by and thought it sounded like heaven on earth.  He had me join the band right then and there.  My maracas brought a fun Latin flare to the group, so they renamed me Creedo Castillo.  I've never felt sexier.  I got to tour the entire state of Minnesota and some of Iowa with that band, and I owe it all to pennies.

And it doesn't stop there, folks.  You can melt your pennies down and make a real groovy pair of brass knuckles.  I whipped some up for my grandson and let me tell ya, he was king of his preschool 'til he got suspended.  You also can check the tread on your tires, use them to balance an uneven table or a wobbly coffin, put them in your brassiere to enhance cup size, or even throw 'em in your breaker box instead of replacing an old fuse.  Sure it might cause a fire, but if it doesn't, you just saved yourself fifty bucks!  So think about that before you go and say pennies are useless, cause that's the biggest load of garbage I've heard since some jerk told me Atlantis "never existed."  It most certainly did, and guess what their preferred moolah was?  Actually it was squirrel pelt and feta cheese.  But if they had known about pennies, it would have been pennies.

I don't know about you, but I refuse to die from "natural causes." Who'd want that on their tombstone? That's boring as hell. I want mine to say something like, "Here lies Creed Bratton. He died doing what he loved - distance jumping his motorcycle and crashing through burning fuel."

I think the best way to put a stop to deforestation is for scientists to develop trees with larynxes. Think about it. It'd be a lot harder to cut down a tree that's screaming in your face.

It's not the homeless that scare me. It's people with the enormous homes. Maybe it's because I spent '76 - '81 as a homeless man, so I'm biased. But I honestly feel like the wealthiest are always the weirdest. Once I saw this rich guy eating raw fish eggs out of a jar. The man was completely insane! I'd much rather spend my time on the street hanging out with down to earth dudes like Dirty Rusty or One-Leg Bob.

Today I started to regret that fourth string cheese I had, and most of my 50s. I have a feeling I'd regret most of my 40s too, if I could remember them.

I think the vending machine in the break room should take credit cards. I prefer not to carry cash, mainly because it's dirty. I should know. Once when I was super ticked off at the government, I spent hours germing up a bunch of dollar bills and putting them back into circulation.

Here's one thing I'll never understand: people who blast music in their cars, but then act all freaked out when I jump in and start dancing.

In a pinch, butter also makes a great moisturizer.

This is something that keeps happening to me lately - I see a "Subway" sign on just about every block. I walk into one so I can hop on the 6 express to 138th Street, but suddenly I'm in this sandwich shop being asked if I want my bun toasted. It's real strange, man. Like some kind of time train portal to hoagie town. On a side note - great B.M.T.

*Reminder: breathe in, breathe out.

It's been a long time since I took a flight anywhere. Legally, that is. Usually I throw on my "aircraft mechanic" coveralls (which is just my Michael Meyer's Halloween costume), tell everybody I'm fixing the air-conditioning on an Airbus 340, head for the tarmac and hop into somebody's luggage before it's loaded into the belly of the beast. But I've been dealing with a torn ACL after joining this break-dance circle at a bar mitzvah I crashed last month, and there was no way I'd be able to stay in somebody's suitcase for hours crouched up like a giant in a Japanese apartment. So I booked a flight the old-fashioned way: I hid in the airport bathroom and waited for some chump to put his carry-on down, stole his tickets and wallet and bada bing bada boom - Ol' Creedy's got himself a business flight to San Jose.  

The experience started out pretty great. At security - out of nowhere - this TSA broad says to me, "I'll be passing my hand over your backside and then come up the insides of your legs toward the private parts. Is that alright?" I said, "Hot damn, is it my birthday?!" Now I've been rendered irresistible many times before, but never publicly by an older security lady who I wasn't even sure was a woman at first. I guess maybe that was my reward for having to wait in line for 20 minutes. Though after that, things started to go downhill real fast. I was in first class, but I didn't even get a pillow. How am I supposed to lay back and have psychedelic dreams without a pillow?? I knew I'd be wide awake the whole time, so I figured I might as well stuff my pie hole, primo style. Until the flight attendant tells me the only food available is crackers and pretzels. And there wasn't even any ketchup to dip them in! I was so peeved I smoked a cigarette, which got everybody's panties in a bunch because apparently it's "illegal" these days.

Before this, the last airplane cabin I was in was Elvis's Convair 880. That thing had real Graceland elegance, man. I'm talking blue shag carpet, gold faucets in the bathroom and all the peanut butter and catfish you could ever want in a lifetime. I wasn't quite expecting that level of grooviness on this flight, but I also wasn't expecting a penitentiary with wings. Not to mention the guy next to me was a real nutcase. As soon as my knee heels, I'm going back to my old ways of hiding in the cargo section. At least down there I can make my own pillow out of shirts and jeans.