How do some people blog on an almost daily basis? What does it take for me to get my own Wikipedia entry? Will I say something else about perezhilton.com? Huh?
I always enjoy a good quest. An adventure with multiple chapters that takes one across many lands and takes days, months, or perhaps years in what seems like an endless odyssey. The last noteworthy query I explored was a song I had only heard twice in my life - once in 1997 and once ten years later. With twenty minutes checking out crappy 90s compilations on Amazon.com I figured out what I was missing (ASK ME ABOUT IT FOR THE INTERACTIVE PORTION OF THIS BLOG), and that was about it. I suppose waiting it out was better than listening to alternative rock radio for ten straight years. I'd probably keep Incubus and 311 CDs in their original jewel cases in the trunk of my car, and I'd rather still drive a 1989 Isuzu Trooper with more dents than Stuart Scott's tie than do that.
Anyway, with a slight jaunt up north to Richmond to ensure my continued existence and a removal of the apron strings (sorry Mom), I have obtained a new automobile with different audio capabilities than my previous 1999 love machine, though perhaps with fewer miles per gallon. In any case, I was previously forced to obtain an FM transmitter in order to use my iPod in a vehicle without a tape deck or iPod input. This proved a most daunting challenge since I found this alien technology from the 1940s (they found FM transmitters in the UFOs that landed in Roswell, durrrr) to be arguably overpriced and wasn't about to let some rapscallion force the inflated doodad upon my person, though most of you will find this to be an ironic situation.
I write in the past tense because after a week of searching high and low, the proper FM transmitter eluded my grasp and I was burdened with CDs from 2004 in true Jacob Marley style, and I thought all was lost, until early one morning...
Ultimately, this is a story about friendship. For in my darkest hour of Saddle Creek albums and the occasional pop punk cut from Victory or Vagrant Records, one of my oldest friends heard of my doldrums and offered me his FM transmitter, under the auspices that I look after it for safekeeping. I understandably obliged and was grateful, though our exchange went something along these lines...
"You can borrow my FM transmitter while I'm gone."
"Really? Great! Thanks!"
"Lose it or break it and I'll devour large pieces of your family."
"..."
I don't know if he will read this because he is a pretty big asshole, but Kris King, one of my oldest and best friends, made a dramatic improvement to my everyday life when he extended me that final gesture of his friendship, and in his classic begrudging way nonetheless. You see, Kris has decided to go on a quest of his own, by journeying across the pond to dear old London, that backwater British town that got on the map after some dudes in this band The Clash wrote about it. His is a quest of love, unemployment, and hopes of seeing the Spice Girls live, which are things that any person on this earth might strive to obtain. He might write about it in his blog, but he's really lazy. There are Spice Girls lyrics to memorize, after all.
Though we have gotten older and the cruel and crippling winds of the world have swept us up into different places, I will never forget Kris King and the times we had together...
We have a longstanding bet that whoever dies "loses." There is no prize.
For three years Kris convinced me he did not sign up for the Selective Service Act. For six years he convinced me he saw a certain girl we knew naked. I was fooled.
I watched his car die in the ghetto with him. We walked the long way to safety because of my suggestion.
I once made a disparaging comment about his deceased dog. He left a pig's foot on my front porch. I deserved it.
He was once fired from his job by our mutual friend. I laughed upon hearing about it.
He almost got me expelled from high school in the ninth grade. I forgave him.
True, this has been a most sentimental detour, but we all have our own personal quests that involve love, loss, friendship, struggle, and maybe even the FM transmitter. I hope everyone has their own Kris King, because life wouldn't be life without one.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Please Don't Mention "Lightning Crashes"
Allow me to apologize in advance for the following "I went to work today" narrative. I went to work today.
Approaching the building for my very first day, I noticed an inordinate amount of people standing outside as if there was some sort of anthrax scare or a really bad fart had been released in the lobby. These weren't disgruntled smokers angry at years of prejudice heaped on them since the invention of secondhand smoke, nor were they Gideons attempting to hand out more pocket-sized copies of the New Testament.
What have they got against the Old Testament, anyway? Without it, the New Testament wouldn't have been such a best-selling sequel. Just saying. Gideons and the Marlboro Man aside, I noticed that not many people were going inside the building as 8:30 rapidly approached. Rather, everyone was standing about, playing Wii work with their Blackberries and Motorola Talkabouts. YEAH RIGHT! Look that one up for a guffaw or seventeen.
Those who did decide to amble up to the front doors did so with very pensive looks on their faces, as if they were Rick Moranis looking for Sigourney Weaver but without the special effects. Each successive person walked in and disappeared for a few moments, then returned in a manner that I thought might have been some tie-in with the new Nicole Kidman movie Remake This About Aliens or Whatever III. I tried not to show emotion as everyone walked stone-faced back to their cars. By that, I mean everyone said "Hell! I ain't goin' in!" and sped away. Still, I had no clue what had transpired. I didn't know people still went on strike, if that was the case. We are long past the days of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, you know. Rough first day.
Finally I decided to call someone on the inside. Otherwise the Mexican gentleman cutting the grass would've mistaken me for part of the sidewalk and blown clippings around my person with abandon. It turns out that
OHHH NAHW FEEYAIL AIT COMAINNNNN BAICK AGAYAIINNN
LIKE A ROHLLLAIN THUNDARRR CHAIISIN THE WEEEEEEYAIND
...the building was struck by lightning.
So they told me to go home. Maybe the sequel will sell better.
Approaching the building for my very first day, I noticed an inordinate amount of people standing outside as if there was some sort of anthrax scare or a really bad fart had been released in the lobby. These weren't disgruntled smokers angry at years of prejudice heaped on them since the invention of secondhand smoke, nor were they Gideons attempting to hand out more pocket-sized copies of the New Testament.
What have they got against the Old Testament, anyway? Without it, the New Testament wouldn't have been such a best-selling sequel. Just saying. Gideons and the Marlboro Man aside, I noticed that not many people were going inside the building as 8:30 rapidly approached. Rather, everyone was standing about, playing Wii work with their Blackberries and Motorola Talkabouts. YEAH RIGHT! Look that one up for a guffaw or seventeen.
Those who did decide to amble up to the front doors did so with very pensive looks on their faces, as if they were Rick Moranis looking for Sigourney Weaver but without the special effects. Each successive person walked in and disappeared for a few moments, then returned in a manner that I thought might have been some tie-in with the new Nicole Kidman movie Remake This About Aliens or Whatever III. I tried not to show emotion as everyone walked stone-faced back to their cars. By that, I mean everyone said "Hell! I ain't goin' in!" and sped away. Still, I had no clue what had transpired. I didn't know people still went on strike, if that was the case. We are long past the days of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, you know. Rough first day.
Finally I decided to call someone on the inside. Otherwise the Mexican gentleman cutting the grass would've mistaken me for part of the sidewalk and blown clippings around my person with abandon. It turns out that
OHHH NAHW FEEYAIL AIT COMAINNNNN BAICK AGAYAIINNN
LIKE A ROHLLLAIN THUNDARRR CHAIISIN THE WEEEEEEYAIND
...the building was struck by lightning.
So they told me to go home. Maybe the sequel will sell better.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Zero to Forty in a While
The whole complaining about the price of gas is old, so don't look here as I discuss automobile-related fare. Just don't. Go away. Read perezhilton.com or whatever else is on your Mozilla toolbar IF YOU ARE EVEN AWARE OF WHAT THAT IS, GOD! REALLY.
I have noticed that lately I have been doing some driving. Most of it is personal, to be truthful. That jaunt out to Tropical Smoothie a few days ago ain't exactly on the company dime. Nevertheless, I have been logging the miles hither and thither.
I have not experienced a truly egregious incident of road rage since August of 2004 while attempting to drive faster than a hurricane, but driving is a most infuriating of necessary life activities, at least in this neck of America. Understand that this is not a soapbox for any particular political agenda, but damn if the roads in seven I-can't-believe-there's-still-road-construction-going-on-here-after-five-years seven aren't an unholy gridlocked labyrinth to the point of making a person bleed out of the anus and ears in sheer agony. I should know because I have lived the nightmare in several movements, and at this point it's hard to decide which example to embellish. It's like having to play Whac-a-Mole with stillborn children. So much suffering is involved yet you want to get that high score.
Tackling Hampton Roads road construction here is best done in an all-encompassing way without accusing any sort of transit authority of taking away my tax dollars and giving them to dangerous minorities. Simply, there is a lot of road construction going on around these parts. Why? Well, I would point the finger at city fathers so eager to rape and pillage the land for tax revenues that they let developers run wild and build a metropolis of two-story vinyl pup-tents on a few swatches of farm land, but that's neither here nor there. So now we gots lots of cars and people and ain't got much roads to put them on to git to places or somethin'. Yes, Virginia, we have traffic. All road construction here seems like once, ages ago, we lived in a prosperous community with a Department of Transportation eager to accommodate the growth of the surrounding cities. Then Deep Impact, Armageddon, or Little Black Book happened and everything was wiped out, leaving a bunch of wretched roadways for oversized gas-guzzlers to traverse with trepidation. I'm not kidding. There are a ton of roads under construction, but no one doing any constructing. Really constructive.
So that's an eye-gouging experience, to be truthful. But amidst war zones of unreasonably slow speed limits, awkwardly placed road cones standing sentry along highway that seems perfectly fine, and construction workers doing absolutely nothing but growing facial hair, there are worse things. Yes, follow your nose...
While road construction might be the third-worst thing out there in the Seven Cities, the second worst thing are the cities themselves. We possess a culture that has, over time, perpetuated what can be described as nothing short of a woefully retarded practice of poorly estimating time and distance between two points within the area code.
Chesapeake to the Oceanfront? Psshaw, that's a quick 20 minutes.
Maybe at 3AM in a Dodge Viper, douchebag. Everything is "a quick 20 minutes." Even Williamsburg to Portsmouth has been topped out at a "reasonable 45 minutes." A tradition of lies if you ask me. Nothing is as close as it seems. Why do we do this to ourselves, crippling each other with optimism? Road construction has exsanguinated the highways and byways to the point of lifelessness and the overabundance of traffic lights has left us with a mutated version of the children's game "Red Light, Green Light," only this time, we're playing for our lives. And inside deadly hunks of giant metal.
This brings me to a concept that I first discovered in Virginia Beach but eventually found it elsewhere in the United States, that of "DON'T BLOCK THE BOX OR WE WILL LOCK YOU IN THE STOCKS!" This is not entirely true, but the Virginia Beach police are decidedly vociferous when it comes to the enforcement of keeping intersections clear for the purposes of a smooth flow of traffic. The fine levied upon the disobedient is admittedly steep, but these days, $500 can't even buy you a next-generation gaming console. Sest lah veeyay, I think is how the French say it. In any case, if you catch yourself in such a debacle where you are "blocking the box" everything turns into a race against the clock to prevent cataclysm, or worse, getting pulled over beside a mini golf course. Here is how things go down...
You're minding your own business, trying not to stare at the pack of boisterous (insert choice of stereotype here), waiting for cars ahead of you to lurch through the waxing and waning green light at the Oceanfront. As time slips through your hands, you notice a buildup by the intersection that shows no signs of dissipating. A most malicious of bottlenecks is beginning to form. Soon, it's too late. Time stands still, and you catch yourself in the box.
The light's still green though. You've got time.
Really.
Don't worry.
You do.
Don't you?
Frantically, you start jerking your head around to view the status of the rest of the lights at the intersection, praying for a reprieve, that the lights don't change colors on you and leave you high and dry. A funny image considering you're at the Oceanfront. HAW!
The cars ahead of you aren't helping a brother out. Every inch forward seems to take eons, as if they envision themselves as a collective Atlas, with the weight of the world on their shoulders. The bright green hue of the stoplight seems to be fading with the setting sun, and the red light at the intersecting street appears poised to drop through like the penultimate Connect Four piece, like you've beaten your ten-year-old cousin for the ninth time in a row at Thanksgiving and are really looking forward to complete victory, not unlike what John Travolta was aiming for in Battlefield Earth. Don't see Battlefield Earth.
You can see each grain of sand fall from the hourglass, as if you have achieved total enlightenment, yet realize that you will never enjoy it if you owe the city of Virginia Beach $500 and can't savor your epiphany over a good sandwich or something.
The light in front of you turns yellow.
Now you are gritting your teeth into dust and your knuckles are a most spectral white. You scream cuss words.
Then, slowly, on cue from TLC, the cars creep, yeah and keep it on the down low.
Said nobody is supposed to know.
So they creep, yeah.
They clear the box. You apply as much gas as time and space will allow and fling your vehicle into the other side of the intersection as the light starts to bleed red. It behaves not unlike the haunted carriage from Beauty and the Beast.
True, the perpetual state of road construction and the lies we acquiesce to about time and space are frustrating enough, but what is without a shadow of a doubt the most nefarious menace on the Tidewater (old school) roads are the other drivers that have held the DMV up with staplers demanding to become licensed drivers. If this is not true, then I am a liar. Even if I am a liar, then it is easier to get a driver's license in Virginia than it is to learn what colors you get when you mix the primary ones together. This can't be made up. It is seriously unfathomable how some people are allowed to get driver's licenses.
I've heard the sayings all before. "It takes all kinds." "Variety is the spice of life." Sure, fine, sunshine and puppies. However, there is absolutely no excuse for stupidity or poor taste, which ultimately translates into an ignorance for the well-being of others on the road. And no, I'm actually not referring to magnetic ribbons or the purloined cartoon of Calvin urinating on everything.
This is easily the best example I can think of in recent memory. The other day I found myself on an off ramp attempting to merge onto Interstate 664 southbound; this involved an off ramp with an acceleration lane that eventually disappears. Now, I have a slow car. A 1999 Toyota Corolla is probably the slowest car on the road besides a 1998 Toyota Corolla with four fat men inside of it.
So I'm trying to make it from my house to Bed Bath and Beyond and back in less than an hour. The time is 3:06PM. It takes 30 minutes to get to Bed Bath and Beyond from my house on a near-perfect day. I am trying easing off the off ramp and actually obeying the yield sign, which most drivers here ignore with a "WHUT'S THAT I CAIN'T THINK 'BOUT READIN' CAUSE THIS KENNY CHESNEY SONG IS ON THE RADIO!!" Unfortunately, such ghastly lack of foresight has caused the right lane to back up from people forgetting to obey the rules of the road, so countless magnetic ribbons, Calvin pissing clings, Bush/Cheney '04 stickers, and vans pockmarked with mailbox decals about Saunders Motorsports and their top dirt bikers Cody #45, Jimmy #9, and Wayne #22 are now sitting at a stop that would make a dead man lose his patience.
The left lane is quite open. So I make a move. And that's when I realized I was going to die.
For one reason or another, my car has no gauge to indicate my RPMs. I understand that such a gauge is largely superfluous in a car with an automatic transmission that is not intended to go faster than quick chickens, but on this occasion it might have been useful. I have changed lanes into the left lane when suddenly the Hound of the Baskervilles in the form of a Ford Explorer is rocketing my way at what felt like Mach 3. I put my pedal to the floor and hear that 750cc engine wheeze for its life. 35...40...42...43...and this car is still baring down on me with a vengeance. Finally, the Corolla rockets forward after an unprecedented 120 seconds of acceleration to reach 61 miles-per-hour...and then I have to come to a dead stop. Why? My fellow motorists saw a special need to inspect the quality of work the convicts were doing at picking up trash and mowing the median on the highway.
When it comes down to it, I can't imagine what the DMV is thinking. I wonder if they're in cahoots with the Virginia Department of Transportation to make everything a living hell for anyone who has actual things to do and isn't driving on the road for fun to check out the hottest rims or truck lifts running the streets. I've seen people in this area read novels while driving, physically fight, drink liquor, sleep, and pick vicious boogers. There is literally a void of accountability on the roadways as people don't accelerate when the light turns green, but they slow down as if I'm trapped in the Bizarro World. Merging, a simple concept, has been transformed into rocket science for most. Speed limits are regarded as a dangerous precipice where no one dares to tread.
"Forty-five through here!? Are you insane? It's much safer to maintain twenty-five."
Welcome to paradise.
Oh, and I made it back from Bed Bath and Beyond at 3:58.
I have noticed that lately I have been doing some driving. Most of it is personal, to be truthful. That jaunt out to Tropical Smoothie a few days ago ain't exactly on the company dime. Nevertheless, I have been logging the miles hither and thither.
I have not experienced a truly egregious incident of road rage since August of 2004 while attempting to drive faster than a hurricane, but driving is a most infuriating of necessary life activities, at least in this neck of America. Understand that this is not a soapbox for any particular political agenda, but damn if the roads in seven I-can't-believe-there's-still-road-construction-going-on-here-after-five-years seven aren't an unholy gridlocked labyrinth to the point of making a person bleed out of the anus and ears in sheer agony. I should know because I have lived the nightmare in several movements, and at this point it's hard to decide which example to embellish. It's like having to play Whac-a-Mole with stillborn children. So much suffering is involved yet you want to get that high score.
Tackling Hampton Roads road construction here is best done in an all-encompassing way without accusing any sort of transit authority of taking away my tax dollars and giving them to dangerous minorities. Simply, there is a lot of road construction going on around these parts. Why? Well, I would point the finger at city fathers so eager to rape and pillage the land for tax revenues that they let developers run wild and build a metropolis of two-story vinyl pup-tents on a few swatches of farm land, but that's neither here nor there. So now we gots lots of cars and people and ain't got much roads to put them on to git to places or somethin'. Yes, Virginia, we have traffic. All road construction here seems like once, ages ago, we lived in a prosperous community with a Department of Transportation eager to accommodate the growth of the surrounding cities. Then Deep Impact, Armageddon, or Little Black Book happened and everything was wiped out, leaving a bunch of wretched roadways for oversized gas-guzzlers to traverse with trepidation. I'm not kidding. There are a ton of roads under construction, but no one doing any constructing. Really constructive.
So that's an eye-gouging experience, to be truthful. But amidst war zones of unreasonably slow speed limits, awkwardly placed road cones standing sentry along highway that seems perfectly fine, and construction workers doing absolutely nothing but growing facial hair, there are worse things. Yes, follow your nose...
While road construction might be the third-worst thing out there in the Seven Cities, the second worst thing are the cities themselves. We possess a culture that has, over time, perpetuated what can be described as nothing short of a woefully retarded practice of poorly estimating time and distance between two points within the area code.
Chesapeake to the Oceanfront? Psshaw, that's a quick 20 minutes.
Maybe at 3AM in a Dodge Viper, douchebag. Everything is "a quick 20 minutes." Even Williamsburg to Portsmouth has been topped out at a "reasonable 45 minutes." A tradition of lies if you ask me. Nothing is as close as it seems. Why do we do this to ourselves, crippling each other with optimism? Road construction has exsanguinated the highways and byways to the point of lifelessness and the overabundance of traffic lights has left us with a mutated version of the children's game "Red Light, Green Light," only this time, we're playing for our lives. And inside deadly hunks of giant metal.
This brings me to a concept that I first discovered in Virginia Beach but eventually found it elsewhere in the United States, that of "DON'T BLOCK THE BOX OR WE WILL LOCK YOU IN THE STOCKS!" This is not entirely true, but the Virginia Beach police are decidedly vociferous when it comes to the enforcement of keeping intersections clear for the purposes of a smooth flow of traffic. The fine levied upon the disobedient is admittedly steep, but these days, $500 can't even buy you a next-generation gaming console. Sest lah veeyay, I think is how the French say it. In any case, if you catch yourself in such a debacle where you are "blocking the box" everything turns into a race against the clock to prevent cataclysm, or worse, getting pulled over beside a mini golf course. Here is how things go down...
You're minding your own business, trying not to stare at the pack of boisterous (insert choice of stereotype here), waiting for cars ahead of you to lurch through the waxing and waning green light at the Oceanfront. As time slips through your hands, you notice a buildup by the intersection that shows no signs of dissipating. A most malicious of bottlenecks is beginning to form. Soon, it's too late. Time stands still, and you catch yourself in the box.
The light's still green though. You've got time.
Really.
Don't worry.
You do.
Don't you?
Frantically, you start jerking your head around to view the status of the rest of the lights at the intersection, praying for a reprieve, that the lights don't change colors on you and leave you high and dry. A funny image considering you're at the Oceanfront. HAW!
The cars ahead of you aren't helping a brother out. Every inch forward seems to take eons, as if they envision themselves as a collective Atlas, with the weight of the world on their shoulders. The bright green hue of the stoplight seems to be fading with the setting sun, and the red light at the intersecting street appears poised to drop through like the penultimate Connect Four piece, like you've beaten your ten-year-old cousin for the ninth time in a row at Thanksgiving and are really looking forward to complete victory, not unlike what John Travolta was aiming for in Battlefield Earth. Don't see Battlefield Earth.
You can see each grain of sand fall from the hourglass, as if you have achieved total enlightenment, yet realize that you will never enjoy it if you owe the city of Virginia Beach $500 and can't savor your epiphany over a good sandwich or something.
The light in front of you turns yellow.
Now you are gritting your teeth into dust and your knuckles are a most spectral white. You scream cuss words.
Then, slowly, on cue from TLC, the cars creep, yeah and keep it on the down low.
Said nobody is supposed to know.
So they creep, yeah.
They clear the box. You apply as much gas as time and space will allow and fling your vehicle into the other side of the intersection as the light starts to bleed red. It behaves not unlike the haunted carriage from Beauty and the Beast.
True, the perpetual state of road construction and the lies we acquiesce to about time and space are frustrating enough, but what is without a shadow of a doubt the most nefarious menace on the Tidewater (old school) roads are the other drivers that have held the DMV up with staplers demanding to become licensed drivers. If this is not true, then I am a liar. Even if I am a liar, then it is easier to get a driver's license in Virginia than it is to learn what colors you get when you mix the primary ones together. This can't be made up. It is seriously unfathomable how some people are allowed to get driver's licenses.
I've heard the sayings all before. "It takes all kinds." "Variety is the spice of life." Sure, fine, sunshine and puppies. However, there is absolutely no excuse for stupidity or poor taste, which ultimately translates into an ignorance for the well-being of others on the road. And no, I'm actually not referring to magnetic ribbons or the purloined cartoon of Calvin urinating on everything.
This is easily the best example I can think of in recent memory. The other day I found myself on an off ramp attempting to merge onto Interstate 664 southbound; this involved an off ramp with an acceleration lane that eventually disappears. Now, I have a slow car. A 1999 Toyota Corolla is probably the slowest car on the road besides a 1998 Toyota Corolla with four fat men inside of it.
So I'm trying to make it from my house to Bed Bath and Beyond and back in less than an hour. The time is 3:06PM. It takes 30 minutes to get to Bed Bath and Beyond from my house on a near-perfect day. I am trying easing off the off ramp and actually obeying the yield sign, which most drivers here ignore with a "WHUT'S THAT I CAIN'T THINK 'BOUT READIN' CAUSE THIS KENNY CHESNEY SONG IS ON THE RADIO!!" Unfortunately, such ghastly lack of foresight has caused the right lane to back up from people forgetting to obey the rules of the road, so countless magnetic ribbons, Calvin pissing clings, Bush/Cheney '04 stickers, and vans pockmarked with mailbox decals about Saunders Motorsports and their top dirt bikers Cody #45, Jimmy #9, and Wayne #22 are now sitting at a stop that would make a dead man lose his patience.
The left lane is quite open. So I make a move. And that's when I realized I was going to die.
For one reason or another, my car has no gauge to indicate my RPMs. I understand that such a gauge is largely superfluous in a car with an automatic transmission that is not intended to go faster than quick chickens, but on this occasion it might have been useful. I have changed lanes into the left lane when suddenly the Hound of the Baskervilles in the form of a Ford Explorer is rocketing my way at what felt like Mach 3. I put my pedal to the floor and hear that 750cc engine wheeze for its life. 35...40...42...43...and this car is still baring down on me with a vengeance. Finally, the Corolla rockets forward after an unprecedented 120 seconds of acceleration to reach 61 miles-per-hour...and then I have to come to a dead stop. Why? My fellow motorists saw a special need to inspect the quality of work the convicts were doing at picking up trash and mowing the median on the highway.
When it comes down to it, I can't imagine what the DMV is thinking. I wonder if they're in cahoots with the Virginia Department of Transportation to make everything a living hell for anyone who has actual things to do and isn't driving on the road for fun to check out the hottest rims or truck lifts running the streets. I've seen people in this area read novels while driving, physically fight, drink liquor, sleep, and pick vicious boogers. There is literally a void of accountability on the roadways as people don't accelerate when the light turns green, but they slow down as if I'm trapped in the Bizarro World. Merging, a simple concept, has been transformed into rocket science for most. Speed limits are regarded as a dangerous precipice where no one dares to tread.
"Forty-five through here!? Are you insane? It's much safer to maintain twenty-five."
Welcome to paradise.
Oh, and I made it back from Bed Bath and Beyond at 3:58.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Clock Punching
Don't lie to me. You've been wondering, and I can't say I blame you.
What does such an esoteric young man do for a living? Certainly not on the assembly line at the modesty factory, that's for sure. Let us not beat around the bush here. (But let's beat bush lol!!!) This one will be heartfelt, and you'll never want to read another one so mind-numbingly personal again. You can just read everyone else's blog every day for the rest of time.
I have been unemployed since the start of this blog. Is that shameful? Mostly. Almost entirely. It's akin to burning all of the money in your checking account, depositing the ashes into an empty hourglass, and turning it over. The stereotypical "moths in the wallet" routine turns into the moths leaving because they haven't felt the warmth of dolla dolla dolla bills ya'll in ages; on occasion, when I turned out my pockets, they disintegrated and blew away. Whatever. I have been telling lies here for the sake of hyperbole. People do it all the time.
Folks have asked me how I have spent my days as a shiftless vagabond, though I haven't exactly been sucking on the teat of the state just yet, peanut gallery. I will break it down for you, and honestly, it doesn't seem so bad at first glance. I wake up around 9:30 every day, run about three miles, eat breakfast, shower, (I used to) tool around on the Internet and newspaper classifieds looking for any sort of reasonable opportunity, complete any sort of errands or housework designated for me, and after that, the day was basically a free-for-all. In between, I went on a couple of vacations, read a lot of books, and saw a lot of movies. In between that, I went as a hanger-on with other hangers-on to places where anyone else might be hanging on. No wire hangers, though. So really, I have rarely been bored, and yet...
Quite simply, being unemployed sucks. I mean, things never got down to me turning into a Dollar Menunaire, or worse, kicking it with haggard and bloated versions of David Faustino and Jeremy Miller. Are we supposed to know who they are when they appear on those McDonald's commercials? Or is our intelligence being insulted when their names appear at the bottom of the screen, as if to say, "Oh that's who it is. Jesus, he let himself go." Or, additionally, are they that desperate for work? Reality television has all but guaranteed that former child stars and one-hit wonders have an eternal place in posterity. Why don't they just resort to that and stare at Flava Flav's nipples or something? Can I get a what what, Corey Feldman?
Hold on, I think I hear Huey Lewis and the News. There is a bar called Bugsy's (look, tying in old material, it's hip to be up on your continuity) in Old Town Alexandria that had to have been the inspiration for Sports, only dirtier and dingier, as if the Hold Steady themselves had left because the barflies were too scurrilous for their liking. Great place, really. Anyway, as Ellen DeGeneres once titled a book My Point...And I Do Have One, I was getting at something here at some point. Ah, yes, as the Kaiser Chiefs once titled a record...
Basically, employment means new adventures. New chances for people to cough when some secondhand smug gets in their lungs. It means that no longer will I have to consider magnetic ribbons or those inane faux baseballs that look like they're smashing through a car window as legitimate topics of discussion. I don't care how much you like baseball, because for one, you probably know nothing about it. But I'd like to take you up on something. How about I start shattering your back windshield with baseballs, because obviously such a destructive car decoration is alluding to your wildest fantasies. Maybe you have a suction cup fetish. I don't know. Take the stupid thing off your car. However, they are still not as bad as Dale Earnhardt memorial window decals. Would you do the same for a hit man who was killed while on a hit?
What does such an esoteric young man do for a living? Certainly not on the assembly line at the modesty factory, that's for sure. Let us not beat around the bush here. (But let's beat bush lol!!!) This one will be heartfelt, and you'll never want to read another one so mind-numbingly personal again. You can just read everyone else's blog every day for the rest of time.
I have been unemployed since the start of this blog. Is that shameful? Mostly. Almost entirely. It's akin to burning all of the money in your checking account, depositing the ashes into an empty hourglass, and turning it over. The stereotypical "moths in the wallet" routine turns into the moths leaving because they haven't felt the warmth of dolla dolla dolla bills ya'll in ages; on occasion, when I turned out my pockets, they disintegrated and blew away. Whatever. I have been telling lies here for the sake of hyperbole. People do it all the time.
Folks have asked me how I have spent my days as a shiftless vagabond, though I haven't exactly been sucking on the teat of the state just yet, peanut gallery. I will break it down for you, and honestly, it doesn't seem so bad at first glance. I wake up around 9:30 every day, run about three miles, eat breakfast, shower, (I used to) tool around on the Internet and newspaper classifieds looking for any sort of reasonable opportunity, complete any sort of errands or housework designated for me, and after that, the day was basically a free-for-all. In between, I went on a couple of vacations, read a lot of books, and saw a lot of movies. In between that, I went as a hanger-on with other hangers-on to places where anyone else might be hanging on. No wire hangers, though. So really, I have rarely been bored, and yet...
Quite simply, being unemployed sucks. I mean, things never got down to me turning into a Dollar Menunaire, or worse, kicking it with haggard and bloated versions of David Faustino and Jeremy Miller. Are we supposed to know who they are when they appear on those McDonald's commercials? Or is our intelligence being insulted when their names appear at the bottom of the screen, as if to say, "Oh that's who it is. Jesus, he let himself go." Or, additionally, are they that desperate for work? Reality television has all but guaranteed that former child stars and one-hit wonders have an eternal place in posterity. Why don't they just resort to that and stare at Flava Flav's nipples or something? Can I get a what what, Corey Feldman?
Hold on, I think I hear Huey Lewis and the News. There is a bar called Bugsy's (look, tying in old material, it's hip to be up on your continuity) in Old Town Alexandria that had to have been the inspiration for Sports, only dirtier and dingier, as if the Hold Steady themselves had left because the barflies were too scurrilous for their liking. Great place, really. Anyway, as Ellen DeGeneres once titled a book My Point...And I Do Have One, I was getting at something here at some point. Ah, yes, as the Kaiser Chiefs once titled a record...
Basically, employment means new adventures. New chances for people to cough when some secondhand smug gets in their lungs. It means that no longer will I have to consider magnetic ribbons or those inane faux baseballs that look like they're smashing through a car window as legitimate topics of discussion. I don't care how much you like baseball, because for one, you probably know nothing about it. But I'd like to take you up on something. How about I start shattering your back windshield with baseballs, because obviously such a destructive car decoration is alluding to your wildest fantasies. Maybe you have a suction cup fetish. I don't know. Take the stupid thing off your car. However, they are still not as bad as Dale Earnhardt memorial window decals. Would you do the same for a hit man who was killed while on a hit?
Friday, August 3, 2007
Once Knew a Guy Who Named His Dog Whiskey...
What is it about bars?
I haven't been to very many. The number can probably be counted on both hands and maybe a few toes, since I am lucky that my parents did not live close to Three Mile Island therefore do not possess mutated hands with irregular digits. Every time I walk through some busted wooden doors with dirty chamber of commerce stickers on them from decades past, bartenders and clientèle look at me I'm Wonder Years-era Fred Savage, completely out of my element with some sort of hyperbolic all-knowing monologue over my head; sadly the dramatic irony is lost on them. Maybe it's my "I swear to God I'm not 19 anymore" driver's license that I take out of my velcro wallet or the Starter jacket I wear in the winter. Look people, I know I'm green, and I like it. Why?
Chances are, you've been to bars too, and you've seen this guy. He was that drunk and put that much hair gel in his hair. Why is that? Why are dudes so concerned with putting gel in their hair before they go some place? Is gel a requisite accessory to the untucked dress shirt and really shiny shoes? I don't understand. Help me.
I prefer being Bambi to a barfly. Less chance of wearing a shirt that says something like "If It's a Race Issue, Settle It at the Track!" and thinking that it's funny. Less chance of taking or purchasing some sort of alcohol decor and putting it my home as a conscious decision...
Conversation about said decor:
Man, that neon inflatable Corona seaplane is fuckin' rad man, where'd you get it?
Oh, at the bar man. Terry was gonna get rid of it on Sunday but I told him I'd take it off his hands.
Man, that's so sweet.
Yeah, it hides the holes where I used to have the dart board.
Good thinkin', dude!
Less chance of appearing in pictures raising a glass/bottle/hands in stupid "Rock on!!!" sign. Less chance of the bartender not needing to card me. Less chance of hearing "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down. You get it.
You have the wrong impression though, I think, from all of this. Bars are fine, unless we're talking about The Barrel, a watering hole's watering hole in Portsmouth, which looks like a 7-Eleven with bricks covering the front and must be like drinking in the trunk of a Cadillac that's been sitting at the bottom of a river for 30 years (finally put that wisecrack to print). Anyway, what makes these places worthwhile are the intangibles. They never stir during the day, and if they do, they always look like that scene from The Big Green when Jay O. Sanders says he's an auditor for the IRS. You know what I'm saying here. Bars are nocturnal. When the bad moon rises, the doors swing open and the stools and tables fill up. Soon, the Industrial Revolution is put to shame by the amount of cigarette smoke that pollutes the air and even the bricks in the wall start to wheeze. The same old barflies waft in and swap war stories with other domestic beer-fueled patrons. Eventually ashtrays start to look like Sodom and Gomorrah instead of an advanced fifth grade art project. Glass starts to crash like Stone Cold Steve Austin's theme music is skipping over the PA on Monday Night RAW. The booze-laden zombies walk the earth for a while before things get kaleidoscopic (a shameless purloining of a Bill Veeck phrase there) and fade to black. Rinse and repeat.
In the end, what matters are the stories, and the stories create history between people and culture. Yeah, here I go again with a point or something. Sitting around, tall tales and short stories start pouring out as everyone sips stutter milk and stun gravy. Blah blah blah about alcohol and losing inhibitions and blah blah blah. I don't think it has 100% to do with the old sauce. It is more of an environmental thing.
What?
People talk at bars. They discuss ideas (mostly bad ones) and people and gossip and the most meaningful and meaningless things in the world. They might not say a word in the car on the way there or the way back, but amidst the decay, they chit and chat and chatter and everything else. I think it's because it's expected. You can't get away with watching SportsCenter the whole time. The ticker moves fast enough for you to get what you need in a few minutes, pending ESPN not telling you how many times Barry Bonds put on pants. Contributions to conversation are expected, and that determines the flow of the evening. Ultimately it's a culture based on oral traditions and unwritten rules. No one tells you how to act or what to order. You basically follow the lead of those that came before you. (Sort of, I mean, easy on the hair gel) No one gets Jack Daniels' Big Book o'Cocktails two weeks before his or her 21st birthday to memorize and look like a pro. That's idiocy. You pick it up as you go along, and before you know it, you're not as green as you thought. Unless like me, you just can't bear to part with that Starter jacket...
I haven't been to very many. The number can probably be counted on both hands and maybe a few toes, since I am lucky that my parents did not live close to Three Mile Island therefore do not possess mutated hands with irregular digits. Every time I walk through some busted wooden doors with dirty chamber of commerce stickers on them from decades past, bartenders and clientèle look at me I'm Wonder Years-era Fred Savage, completely out of my element with some sort of hyperbolic all-knowing monologue over my head; sadly the dramatic irony is lost on them. Maybe it's my "I swear to God I'm not 19 anymore" driver's license that I take out of my velcro wallet or the Starter jacket I wear in the winter. Look people, I know I'm green, and I like it. Why?
Chances are, you've been to bars too, and you've seen this guy. He was that drunk and put that much hair gel in his hair. Why is that? Why are dudes so concerned with putting gel in their hair before they go some place? Is gel a requisite accessory to the untucked dress shirt and really shiny shoes? I don't understand. Help me.
I prefer being Bambi to a barfly. Less chance of wearing a shirt that says something like "If It's a Race Issue, Settle It at the Track!" and thinking that it's funny. Less chance of taking or purchasing some sort of alcohol decor and putting it my home as a conscious decision...
Conversation about said decor:
Man, that neon inflatable Corona seaplane is fuckin' rad man, where'd you get it?
Oh, at the bar man. Terry was gonna get rid of it on Sunday but I told him I'd take it off his hands.
Man, that's so sweet.
Yeah, it hides the holes where I used to have the dart board.
Good thinkin', dude!
Less chance of appearing in pictures raising a glass/bottle/hands in stupid "Rock on!!!" sign. Less chance of the bartender not needing to card me. Less chance of hearing "Here Without You" by 3 Doors Down. You get it.
You have the wrong impression though, I think, from all of this. Bars are fine, unless we're talking about The Barrel, a watering hole's watering hole in Portsmouth, which looks like a 7-Eleven with bricks covering the front and must be like drinking in the trunk of a Cadillac that's been sitting at the bottom of a river for 30 years (finally put that wisecrack to print). Anyway, what makes these places worthwhile are the intangibles. They never stir during the day, and if they do, they always look like that scene from The Big Green when Jay O. Sanders says he's an auditor for the IRS. You know what I'm saying here. Bars are nocturnal. When the bad moon rises, the doors swing open and the stools and tables fill up. Soon, the Industrial Revolution is put to shame by the amount of cigarette smoke that pollutes the air and even the bricks in the wall start to wheeze. The same old barflies waft in and swap war stories with other domestic beer-fueled patrons. Eventually ashtrays start to look like Sodom and Gomorrah instead of an advanced fifth grade art project. Glass starts to crash like Stone Cold Steve Austin's theme music is skipping over the PA on Monday Night RAW. The booze-laden zombies walk the earth for a while before things get kaleidoscopic (a shameless purloining of a Bill Veeck phrase there) and fade to black. Rinse and repeat.
In the end, what matters are the stories, and the stories create history between people and culture. Yeah, here I go again with a point or something. Sitting around, tall tales and short stories start pouring out as everyone sips stutter milk and stun gravy. Blah blah blah about alcohol and losing inhibitions and blah blah blah. I don't think it has 100% to do with the old sauce. It is more of an environmental thing.
What?
People talk at bars. They discuss ideas (mostly bad ones) and people and gossip and the most meaningful and meaningless things in the world. They might not say a word in the car on the way there or the way back, but amidst the decay, they chit and chat and chatter and everything else. I think it's because it's expected. You can't get away with watching SportsCenter the whole time. The ticker moves fast enough for you to get what you need in a few minutes, pending ESPN not telling you how many times Barry Bonds put on pants. Contributions to conversation are expected, and that determines the flow of the evening. Ultimately it's a culture based on oral traditions and unwritten rules. No one tells you how to act or what to order. You basically follow the lead of those that came before you. (Sort of, I mean, easy on the hair gel) No one gets Jack Daniels' Big Book o'Cocktails two weeks before his or her 21st birthday to memorize and look like a pro. That's idiocy. You pick it up as you go along, and before you know it, you're not as green as you thought. Unless like me, you just can't bear to part with that Starter jacket...
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