Greetings from mars. Well more like the moon. I’ve been working on this little book thing and distracting forces have been attacking my tiny studio from the inside and outside so I’ve rented a room in a cheap hotel in Santa Rosa for three days in the hope of getting some solid writing time in. We’ll see, but a little bloggy-blog can get the juices flowing sometimes.
The coffee pot is full, the typewriter primed (well… okay my typewriter has been collecting dust on top of my bookshelf for a while now… replace smith corona with dell latitude – model d820) and I can’t find the promised HBO on the motel television so something is bound to happen.
I may sneak out a few times to see some old hometown friends while I’m here. There are a couple of local shows tomorrow night, in particular, that I want to check out.
The drive here should have taken about an hour, but ended up clocking in around twice that do to some hellish rain and freaked out drivers, but it gave me time to think about something.
Gremlins. I watched gremlins last night with a friend who had never seen it - despite being the same age as me and growing up in America.
So in gremlins there’s this scene where the mom becomes aware that the mogwai have hatched from their larva stage (now they’re gremlins) and are wandering the house. When she’s confronted in the kitchen by a few gremlins she proceeds to butcher the lot of them by the most gruesome means possible.
At this point in the movie she is unaware of the danger she’s in. This is like if you walked into the kitchen, saw a few raccoons (or maybe little green men) and started throwing them in blenders, nuking them in microwaves and stabbing them to death with knives – completely unprovoked.
I’m just saying. That was kind of fucked up.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, September 11, 2008
seattle, cutting faces and forgetting nirvana
It's a lazy dog-dangling afternoon. Not a care in the world. I don't know how it happened, but I really have absolutely no plans today. None. It is the greatest feeling in the world.
Seattle
AG had a show up in Seattle and, graciously, invited me along to be her roadie. All I had to do was lug a heavy ass cello around. Hell yeah.
I'd been to Seattle four or five times and I always thought it was kind of bullshit, but I'd never really given the place a chance. I mean I've never really checked out downtown or anything.
Here's the thing: I was recently in a grunge band. Well, we called ourselves grunge, but it was kind of a joke. Our songs were what we imagined grunge sounded like had any of us actually listened to it. I think we sounded like grunge, but how would I really know? I wrote the songs, but I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Sound Garden and… well I don't know any other grunge bands. See? People often told me we sounded nothing like grunge music. I needed some vindication. So in my grand tradition of doing everything backwards it was time to discover my roots.
We flew into Seattle and rented a car. Here's the thing: I'm a sucker for up sells. I mean I love upgrading things. Salesmen love me and I love them. GPS? Hell yeah. Upgrade to a nicer car? Hell yeah. I bring this up because the GPS ended up being the bane of AG's existence. I had never really gotten to use one of those things before and I loved it. I gave it all my trust. We were a team. Me and the GPS.
A GPS sucks the spontaneity and heart out of driving around in a strange city. This comforts me, but freaks out anyone with any kind of heart or sense of adventure. I would follow the GPS's computer voice to the end of the Earth.
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
AG and I would end up driving in circles. She would be pointing in the direction we need to go and still I would repeat my mantra of "Trust the GPS". This would have gone on for three days, but AG, wisely, unplugged the thing and took over driving.
We had a chance to hang out downtown for a while before AG's show started. Here's the thing about downtown Seattle: It's white. I mean WHITE. And it's clean. Where was all the litter? Everyone we passed seemed happy. The natives were practically skipping down the street. It was unreal.
Where were the homeless people to step over every few feet? Why was no one asking me for money? How do all these Starbucks stay in business? There were no poor, angry, black youth menacing the corners. Shouldn't there, at least, be poor, angry white youth menacing the corners? I was not in Oakland anymore.
At first I was elated. It was pretty nice to walk around a city and feel no real or imagined tension, but I very quickly became creeped the fuck out. I complain about the East Bay a lot, but when you take away all the sketchiness and character you end up with a stepford wife metropolis. White, middle-class happy people – in great numbers – are absolutely terrifying.
AG plays "experimental sound art" and, because I want to be near her, I keep finding myself at "experimental sound art" shows. Now, I haven't listened to a new band in, like, ten years and my itunes artists are firmly split into "rock" and "hard rock" so - despite AG being hella fine – these shows are a bit trying.
I'm sarcastic to a fault and my cynicism is unwavering, but who among you could keep a straight face while listening to a guy hold a power drill up to a microphone for half an hour - as I did a few weeks prior to this trip? The performance ended to thunderous applause.
"He's a genius!"
"He's exploring the boundaries of what sound is!"
Really? Maybe. I understand that to really appreciate any new art form you may need a foundation in the medium. The first time someone hears rap or sees a Picasso they will, no doubt, have reservations at the barking rhymes and grotesque figures. I suppose that could be me. I hated Jawbreaker and Operation Ivy for years before I became, unhealthily, obsessed with them.
Fuck it. My hat is off to you Mr. Power Drill Guy. May your power drilling fill the hearts and, uhg, ears of people for years and years. May you reach the highest echelons of power-drill-sound-art and become a legend and inspiration for young aspiring power-drill-sound-artists around the world.
Anyways. Back to Seattle. AG played a great set. She rocked the cello. I tend to lurk around the back of the club when I go to shows and I overheard some guys talking about how rad she sounded. I had kind of a glowy moment of proudness and appreciation. Hearing these strangers talk fondly about AG and her music made me all gushy.
Then I got all jealous and cut their faces up. I'm kidding. I wasn't jealous. I just love cutting up faces. LOVE IT. Who doesn't?
The show ended with a quartet of balding, middle aged men plucking these little plucky instruments and fucking with various peddles creating a cornucopia of haunting, echoing plucky sounds. The music was whatever (see last sentence/everything I have ever written), but the thing I really dug was the little fantasy about these guys and their lives that brewed in my head while I watched them.
I imagined one of these guys at home or at work. Maybe at some shitty job that morning - just counting down the hours to his show. Maybe he's been counting down the hours for weeks. I do that.
Maybe it's the only time these four, all life, friends ever get together. His wife doesn't get the plucky sounds, but she humors him. She knows that one night a month he's going to disappear for a couple of hours to a shitty little club downtown and do the thing he loves more than anything.
He's going to stand on stage, oblivious to the crowd, and play trippy plucky sounds with his three best friends in the whole world.
And I got to sit - hunched in a dark corner sipping a bud light - and watch.
Seattle
AG had a show up in Seattle and, graciously, invited me along to be her roadie. All I had to do was lug a heavy ass cello around. Hell yeah.
I'd been to Seattle four or five times and I always thought it was kind of bullshit, but I'd never really given the place a chance. I mean I've never really checked out downtown or anything.
Here's the thing: I was recently in a grunge band. Well, we called ourselves grunge, but it was kind of a joke. Our songs were what we imagined grunge sounded like had any of us actually listened to it. I think we sounded like grunge, but how would I really know? I wrote the songs, but I would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Sound Garden and… well I don't know any other grunge bands. See? People often told me we sounded nothing like grunge music. I needed some vindication. So in my grand tradition of doing everything backwards it was time to discover my roots.
We flew into Seattle and rented a car. Here's the thing: I'm a sucker for up sells. I mean I love upgrading things. Salesmen love me and I love them. GPS? Hell yeah. Upgrade to a nicer car? Hell yeah. I bring this up because the GPS ended up being the bane of AG's existence. I had never really gotten to use one of those things before and I loved it. I gave it all my trust. We were a team. Me and the GPS.
A GPS sucks the spontaneity and heart out of driving around in a strange city. This comforts me, but freaks out anyone with any kind of heart or sense of adventure. I would follow the GPS's computer voice to the end of the Earth.
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
"In 40 yards turn left"
AG and I would end up driving in circles. She would be pointing in the direction we need to go and still I would repeat my mantra of "Trust the GPS". This would have gone on for three days, but AG, wisely, unplugged the thing and took over driving.
We had a chance to hang out downtown for a while before AG's show started. Here's the thing about downtown Seattle: It's white. I mean WHITE. And it's clean. Where was all the litter? Everyone we passed seemed happy. The natives were practically skipping down the street. It was unreal.
Where were the homeless people to step over every few feet? Why was no one asking me for money? How do all these Starbucks stay in business? There were no poor, angry, black youth menacing the corners. Shouldn't there, at least, be poor, angry white youth menacing the corners? I was not in Oakland anymore.
At first I was elated. It was pretty nice to walk around a city and feel no real or imagined tension, but I very quickly became creeped the fuck out. I complain about the East Bay a lot, but when you take away all the sketchiness and character you end up with a stepford wife metropolis. White, middle-class happy people – in great numbers – are absolutely terrifying.
AG plays "experimental sound art" and, because I want to be near her, I keep finding myself at "experimental sound art" shows. Now, I haven't listened to a new band in, like, ten years and my itunes artists are firmly split into "rock" and "hard rock" so - despite AG being hella fine – these shows are a bit trying.
I'm sarcastic to a fault and my cynicism is unwavering, but who among you could keep a straight face while listening to a guy hold a power drill up to a microphone for half an hour - as I did a few weeks prior to this trip? The performance ended to thunderous applause.
"He's a genius!"
"He's exploring the boundaries of what sound is!"
Really? Maybe. I understand that to really appreciate any new art form you may need a foundation in the medium. The first time someone hears rap or sees a Picasso they will, no doubt, have reservations at the barking rhymes and grotesque figures. I suppose that could be me. I hated Jawbreaker and Operation Ivy for years before I became, unhealthily, obsessed with them.
Fuck it. My hat is off to you Mr. Power Drill Guy. May your power drilling fill the hearts and, uhg, ears of people for years and years. May you reach the highest echelons of power-drill-sound-art and become a legend and inspiration for young aspiring power-drill-sound-artists around the world.
Anyways. Back to Seattle. AG played a great set. She rocked the cello. I tend to lurk around the back of the club when I go to shows and I overheard some guys talking about how rad she sounded. I had kind of a glowy moment of proudness and appreciation. Hearing these strangers talk fondly about AG and her music made me all gushy.
Then I got all jealous and cut their faces up. I'm kidding. I wasn't jealous. I just love cutting up faces. LOVE IT. Who doesn't?
The show ended with a quartet of balding, middle aged men plucking these little plucky instruments and fucking with various peddles creating a cornucopia of haunting, echoing plucky sounds. The music was whatever (see last sentence/everything I have ever written), but the thing I really dug was the little fantasy about these guys and their lives that brewed in my head while I watched them.
I imagined one of these guys at home or at work. Maybe at some shitty job that morning - just counting down the hours to his show. Maybe he's been counting down the hours for weeks. I do that.
Maybe it's the only time these four, all life, friends ever get together. His wife doesn't get the plucky sounds, but she humors him. She knows that one night a month he's going to disappear for a couple of hours to a shitty little club downtown and do the thing he loves more than anything.
He's going to stand on stage, oblivious to the crowd, and play trippy plucky sounds with his three best friends in the whole world.
And I got to sit - hunched in a dark corner sipping a bud light - and watch.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Oh and D totally almost got bit by a rattlesnake
See, the thing is D and I have been working on all these things. A sitcom and a movie. We’ve been trying to keep it real, like, he’s always flying up from LA and we write all day long. We take lunch breaks and everything - like a real job. I have a real job. I’m a web development engineer. Mostly he flies up here to Oakland, but sometimes I fly down to LA and we write there. That’s what I did a few weeks ago.
Here’s the thing: He’s got this new girlfriend and a new place. I’d never been there before, but you know how it is when you, sort of, invade a friend’s world? It’s kind of amazing to see someone in a place you don’t usually see them or to see a good friend out of their element. I guess this was his element, but he looked like a fish out of water. He girlfriend is amazing, but it was funny watching him run around trying to make us both comfortable.
The thing with D is he’s this brilliant, good looking, charming guy right? He doesn’t really work. He dropped out of med school. He has a degree in physics or something, but what he really wants is to get paid to write. I do too. We’ll get paid to write soon enough, but I’m writing all this so you know how surprised I was when he picked me up at the airport and took me to his 3.5 million dollar mansion.
Fuck Yeah.
I guess he worked out some deal through a friend or his girlfriend’s friend where they could live in this mansion until it sells. His place was tight. It was all up in the hills of Topanga. There were rattlesnakes and coyotes and this wicked view. Miles of hills everywhere. We wrote twelve hours a day and once in a while it would hit us: If we wrote well enough this house could turn into our house. Not necessarily the house (i don’t want a big house), but it was like we were chipping away at a safe. Building towards our reward. On top of it.
His place was on this hill and you could see LA lighted in the valley at night. Nature and poison right there. Coyotes and hollywood. It was all right there and fuck if that didn’t motivate us.
On our last night we were driving up the dark windy road to his place and this owl flew past the windshield and perched (perched?) on the side of the road. Right next to us, like, ten feet away. I had never seen an owl that close up before and it was like it was posing for us. We stopped the car and just watched it for, maybe, five minutes. The thing had these huge eyes. It didn’t sweat us at all. It was, jesus I can’t believe i’m saying this, magical.
When it flew away we drove up the hill to D’s mansion and wrote our asses off.
**********************************************
Oh hey. J and I started a website. We write about video games. This is our site: www.yetihunt.com
Here’s the thing: He’s got this new girlfriend and a new place. I’d never been there before, but you know how it is when you, sort of, invade a friend’s world? It’s kind of amazing to see someone in a place you don’t usually see them or to see a good friend out of their element. I guess this was his element, but he looked like a fish out of water. He girlfriend is amazing, but it was funny watching him run around trying to make us both comfortable.
The thing with D is he’s this brilliant, good looking, charming guy right? He doesn’t really work. He dropped out of med school. He has a degree in physics or something, but what he really wants is to get paid to write. I do too. We’ll get paid to write soon enough, but I’m writing all this so you know how surprised I was when he picked me up at the airport and took me to his 3.5 million dollar mansion.
Fuck Yeah.
I guess he worked out some deal through a friend or his girlfriend’s friend where they could live in this mansion until it sells. His place was tight. It was all up in the hills of Topanga. There were rattlesnakes and coyotes and this wicked view. Miles of hills everywhere. We wrote twelve hours a day and once in a while it would hit us: If we wrote well enough this house could turn into our house. Not necessarily the house (i don’t want a big house), but it was like we were chipping away at a safe. Building towards our reward. On top of it.
His place was on this hill and you could see LA lighted in the valley at night. Nature and poison right there. Coyotes and hollywood. It was all right there and fuck if that didn’t motivate us.
On our last night we were driving up the dark windy road to his place and this owl flew past the windshield and perched (perched?) on the side of the road. Right next to us, like, ten feet away. I had never seen an owl that close up before and it was like it was posing for us. We stopped the car and just watched it for, maybe, five minutes. The thing had these huge eyes. It didn’t sweat us at all. It was, jesus I can’t believe i’m saying this, magical.
When it flew away we drove up the hill to D’s mansion and wrote our asses off.
**********************************************
Oh hey. J and I started a website. We write about video games. This is our site: www.yetihunt.com
Sunday, March 2, 2008
$750 close to BART
It's an olive, beat-up, apartment complex. Totally looks like a hotel. Grey, weirdo neighbor, stands on the balcony laughing about it with me. We joke about painting a pool on the parking lot below. We're completists. Jewish immigrants down in the corner apartment on halloween with their kid. He's dressed up as a dragon. Says "raaaaaaaaawwwwwwwr" when I walk by. Cute as hell. It breaks your heart. Guy downstairs gets his kid once in a while. Must be some divorce. He wants a yard. He wants a garden. He's always trying to make the tiny space in front of his door into a garden. More plants than can fit. Watering all the time in his sandals. Cars try to edge by without breaking his pots, but they can't. He waters other people's plants. Wants to make this cheap hotel into something. We all do. Teenager downstairs is a trouble maker. His mom says so. He sneaks behind the complex to smoke pot with hot high school girls. His mom says he's always up to no good. N and I lurk into some indian place downtown and see this kid in the corner playing the most beautiful guitar ever. He's in some trance. Just playing his heart out. Do the hot high schools even know about that? Old black lady in number four is in some pyramid scheme. She's always giving me samples. Tubes of liquid that are supposed to revitalize your day and sketchy vitamins like you'd see on the counter of some liquor store. When she walks by i'm out smoking and I say "hey thanks those things did wonders for me" and she says "thanks sweetie". I've got a cabinet full of this stuff. Never touched it. Land Lady speaks in a thick accent. Her son always wanted to play music. He's got to come around and move the trashcans out to the street etc. I'm pretty sure his wife hit on me when he was out of town once and my kitchen sink was fucked up. He's got this little kid with curly blond hair. Looks like an Aryan angel poster child. Kid hangs out in my studio while his dad fixes things. I know one magic trick. It's some cheap disappearing coin thing and it always cracks the kid up. We all listen to NPR and joke around. It's this trashy olive apartment complex filled with starts and middles and ends. We share laundry detergent and sometimes say "hi" when we pass each other.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Mothers: Lock up your daughters. They’re stupid.
Last night, after experiencing for the first time in my life the human emotion they call "boredom", i decided to meet N and Crazy D at the stork club for some drinks.
Well, actually, we were supposed to meet some common friends of ours at this "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing on San Pablo, but then I remembered that I'd rather stick an ice pick into my eye while listening to led zeppelin then go to an "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing unless, of course, I knew for a fact that Mary Louise Parker was going to be there waiting for me with a can of gasoline, a lighter and two tickets to a secret Jawbreaker reunion show.
So Stork Club it was. This was my first time meeting Crazy D and let me tell you, as someone who tends to err on the side of "hate" on first impressions, I immediately liked the guy. Glasses, slight build, biology teacher by day, karate teacher by night and way too drunk to be out in public. He radiated that cross between manic energy and comforting warmth that I just love in people.
Shortly after ordering drinks a band took the stage. N and Crazy D disappeared into the crowd for a better view. I kind of slunked off to a corner by myself to watch the band in peace and got the fuck rocked out of me. Really. This band was the most amazing thing I'd seen in a long time. They were kind of an east bay TurboNegro. The singer worked the crowd with this vicious energy and was about the coolest, most good looking guy I have ever seen. Ever.
Seriously, I would have even remembered their name if they hadn't been such annoying pricks between songs. Got to work on that witty banter kids. You'll go places.
About two or three songs in N tapped me on the shoulder and said we had to get out of there. Behind her, looking dazed and swaying, was Crazy D. He looked like he wanted nothing more then to cuddle up, right there, on the stork club's filthy floor and crash out for a few days.
We hopped in her truck, threw his bike in the back and got the guy home. After saying goodbye to him and pushing him off in the general direction of his front door I asked N what happened.
"He kept saying people in the club wanted to start a fight with him so I thought we should get him out of there. Why would anyone want to start a fight that guy? He's so nice."
"The last thing he said to me before running into the crowd was 'I feel like breaking things and fucking shit up.'"
"Oh. Well that makes more sense then."
I got home around midnight, wrote this and went to sleep.
*****************************
Christmas Eve N and I bought a six pack and walked down to the bay. From the pier by my house The City is perfectly framed, dead center, and you can even see all three bridges. We played with her dog and listened to some guys near us pass an old acoustic guitar around and talk about music. We talked about christmas. We talked about christmas so much that we got christmas fever and decided to go christmas crazy.
We tore off down university in search of all things Yule. We found a christmas tree lot by my house and as soon as I walked in I knew exactly which tree I wanted.
"oh yeah... there's my bitch. Who's my mother fucking christmas tree? You are."
It was a tiny little tree, small enough for us to carry off, and only cost us $20. We got the tree to my studio and then split off, scavenger hunt style, to hunt for more christmasy goodness. N hit Andronico's for christmas food and some popcorn we could thread for the tree. I hit the dollar store for some decorations and lights and found plenty of both.
"God bless you dollar store. God bless you dollar store, everyone."
Back at my place we decorated the tree, listened to Bing Crosby, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (see? my christmas cheer is so huge that it overrides the part of my brain that would, normally, mention that I had never noticed what a hard core christian message that cartoon ends with) and ate N's famous french onion soup.
Merry Christmas.
*****************************
The colder seasons are the time to make changes. Overcast days with firewood chimney smoke smells. The rain just explodes at your window and that's when you start making lists.
Time to hunker down and plot your escape. Camp down. Stay in. Read some books. Make decisions. Winter is when you're sun deprived and depressed enough to really dive deep and get things done.
You have to come out of the other side cold, well planned and ready to strike.
Well, actually, we were supposed to meet some common friends of ours at this "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing on San Pablo, but then I remembered that I'd rather stick an ice pick into my eye while listening to led zeppelin then go to an "art show/hip fuck/band/house party" thing unless, of course, I knew for a fact that Mary Louise Parker was going to be there waiting for me with a can of gasoline, a lighter and two tickets to a secret Jawbreaker reunion show.
So Stork Club it was. This was my first time meeting Crazy D and let me tell you, as someone who tends to err on the side of "hate" on first impressions, I immediately liked the guy. Glasses, slight build, biology teacher by day, karate teacher by night and way too drunk to be out in public. He radiated that cross between manic energy and comforting warmth that I just love in people.
Shortly after ordering drinks a band took the stage. N and Crazy D disappeared into the crowd for a better view. I kind of slunked off to a corner by myself to watch the band in peace and got the fuck rocked out of me. Really. This band was the most amazing thing I'd seen in a long time. They were kind of an east bay TurboNegro. The singer worked the crowd with this vicious energy and was about the coolest, most good looking guy I have ever seen. Ever.
Seriously, I would have even remembered their name if they hadn't been such annoying pricks between songs. Got to work on that witty banter kids. You'll go places.
About two or three songs in N tapped me on the shoulder and said we had to get out of there. Behind her, looking dazed and swaying, was Crazy D. He looked like he wanted nothing more then to cuddle up, right there, on the stork club's filthy floor and crash out for a few days.
We hopped in her truck, threw his bike in the back and got the guy home. After saying goodbye to him and pushing him off in the general direction of his front door I asked N what happened.
"He kept saying people in the club wanted to start a fight with him so I thought we should get him out of there. Why would anyone want to start a fight that guy? He's so nice."
"The last thing he said to me before running into the crowd was 'I feel like breaking things and fucking shit up.'"
"Oh. Well that makes more sense then."
I got home around midnight, wrote this and went to sleep.
*****************************
Christmas Eve N and I bought a six pack and walked down to the bay. From the pier by my house The City is perfectly framed, dead center, and you can even see all three bridges. We played with her dog and listened to some guys near us pass an old acoustic guitar around and talk about music. We talked about christmas. We talked about christmas so much that we got christmas fever and decided to go christmas crazy.
We tore off down university in search of all things Yule. We found a christmas tree lot by my house and as soon as I walked in I knew exactly which tree I wanted.
"oh yeah... there's my bitch. Who's my mother fucking christmas tree? You are."
It was a tiny little tree, small enough for us to carry off, and only cost us $20. We got the tree to my studio and then split off, scavenger hunt style, to hunt for more christmasy goodness. N hit Andronico's for christmas food and some popcorn we could thread for the tree. I hit the dollar store for some decorations and lights and found plenty of both.
"God bless you dollar store. God bless you dollar store, everyone."
Back at my place we decorated the tree, listened to Bing Crosby, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas (see? my christmas cheer is so huge that it overrides the part of my brain that would, normally, mention that I had never noticed what a hard core christian message that cartoon ends with) and ate N's famous french onion soup.
Merry Christmas.
*****************************
The colder seasons are the time to make changes. Overcast days with firewood chimney smoke smells. The rain just explodes at your window and that's when you start making lists.
Time to hunker down and plot your escape. Camp down. Stay in. Read some books. Make decisions. Winter is when you're sun deprived and depressed enough to really dive deep and get things done.
You have to come out of the other side cold, well planned and ready to strike.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
hand in unlovable hand
Friday my studio was completely demolished in a night filled with unexpected cuddlers, guitar playing geniuses and the good kind of drunken conversation. It could be that the amount of love, alcohol and awesomeness you pour into an evening is directly proportionate to the fucking disaster you wake up with.
B and I had spent the day slogging off work and fucking around with my new four track. The guy can rock the harmonica. I can sort of sing and he can't sing at all. Combine all this with my acoustic guitar skills and we sounded like a lama fucking a tornado. Record deal forthcoming.
When it got dark people started cramming into my tiny castle. I was planning on taking it easy and getting to bed early so i'd be bright and crisp for my reno trip the next day. I think we clocked out around four A.M.
When I woke up my floor (it's a really small place) was layered in an inch of potting soil (all my plants and their pots were destroyed in the chaos), poker chips, pennies, cigarette butts, guitar strings, pens, bills, poems, beer bottles, undefined liquids (beer? probably) and books (my bookshelf took a tumble... fucking ikea).
Joe Awesome was having a birthday party in Reno. Around noon B and I bought a six pack and hit the 80. We were running away from one disaster and speeding towards another. Reno, at least, is not my disaster. Somebody else fucked that town up a long time ago. I was in the perfect post-break-up-mood for a place like that. The city was constructed, solely, for beating dead horses. I certainly did. I cut off its hooves off and smashed its fucking head in.
********************************************************************
There is something so awesome about driving down an interstate highway with the windows rolled down - listening to some shitty cassette tape you found on the floor of the cab - that I can't even write about it.
The Reno trip was all about A's birthday. He rented some big time fancy suite with a full on bar and big screens everywhere. My job (dude if you're reading this I really am sorry. Who would have thought they would all actualy show up?) was to fill it with as many people A didn't know as possible. We flew D in from LA. One of B's girlfriends found out about the trip and drove in from Berkeley. N happened to be staying in Tahoe that night and joined us as well.
Notes:
- I paid $140 so a strange women would dry hump my knee for twenty minutes
- Ashtray rocked harder than Ashtray has ever rocked
- B is the best drunk driver ever. There should be some sort of compeition for this. He would win.
- I am a horrible gambler
shrimp cocktails and rum in bad ass suite JApaid for hundred dollar bills flying at green felt best guy hugs and inside jokes air conditioned cigarette smell awesome entertainer ashtray operation ivy cover filling rooms with dancing smoking a lot and fun iphone broken strip club antics cab driver conversations uncomfortable crushes D flying in from LA M passing to surf instead all you can eat eat like a bird ding ding ding no coke tonight elevators room numbers you want the truth you can't handle the truth falling down squish on fancy couch screens everywhere record deals well deserved hospitality taken advantage of reno dreams crushed balls ready to explode crying crying crying
B cooked N and I dinner in her tahoe cabin the next night. We prefaced the meal with the most hard core game of chess since Ashley's superb endgame play in 1993. B won, but i definitely talked a better talk and, really, that's what matters.
B and I had spent the day slogging off work and fucking around with my new four track. The guy can rock the harmonica. I can sort of sing and he can't sing at all. Combine all this with my acoustic guitar skills and we sounded like a lama fucking a tornado. Record deal forthcoming.
When it got dark people started cramming into my tiny castle. I was planning on taking it easy and getting to bed early so i'd be bright and crisp for my reno trip the next day. I think we clocked out around four A.M.
When I woke up my floor (it's a really small place) was layered in an inch of potting soil (all my plants and their pots were destroyed in the chaos), poker chips, pennies, cigarette butts, guitar strings, pens, bills, poems, beer bottles, undefined liquids (beer? probably) and books (my bookshelf took a tumble... fucking ikea).
Joe Awesome was having a birthday party in Reno. Around noon B and I bought a six pack and hit the 80. We were running away from one disaster and speeding towards another. Reno, at least, is not my disaster. Somebody else fucked that town up a long time ago. I was in the perfect post-break-up-mood for a place like that. The city was constructed, solely, for beating dead horses. I certainly did. I cut off its hooves off and smashed its fucking head in.
********************************************************************
There is something so awesome about driving down an interstate highway with the windows rolled down - listening to some shitty cassette tape you found on the floor of the cab - that I can't even write about it.
The Reno trip was all about A's birthday. He rented some big time fancy suite with a full on bar and big screens everywhere. My job (dude if you're reading this I really am sorry. Who would have thought they would all actualy show up?) was to fill it with as many people A didn't know as possible. We flew D in from LA. One of B's girlfriends found out about the trip and drove in from Berkeley. N happened to be staying in Tahoe that night and joined us as well.
Notes:
- I paid $140 so a strange women would dry hump my knee for twenty minutes
- Ashtray rocked harder than Ashtray has ever rocked
- B is the best drunk driver ever. There should be some sort of compeition for this. He would win.
- I am a horrible gambler
shrimp cocktails and rum in bad ass suite JApaid for hundred dollar bills flying at green felt best guy hugs and inside jokes air conditioned cigarette smell awesome entertainer ashtray operation ivy cover filling rooms with dancing smoking a lot and fun iphone broken strip club antics cab driver conversations uncomfortable crushes D flying in from LA M passing to surf instead all you can eat eat like a bird ding ding ding no coke tonight elevators room numbers you want the truth you can't handle the truth falling down squish on fancy couch screens everywhere record deals well deserved hospitality taken advantage of reno dreams crushed balls ready to explode crying crying crying
B cooked N and I dinner in her tahoe cabin the next night. We prefaced the meal with the most hard core game of chess since Ashley's superb endgame play in 1993. B won, but i definitely talked a better talk and, really, that's what matters.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
asian hookers, false alarms and sea lions
Monday I met M in the city for some adventuring. I was early and, once again, faced with the horrific choice between listening to the crazy christian college kid with the megaphone trying to save souls OR braving Forever 21 which was our proposed meeting place.
I chose option three which was trying to find a place to grab a drink until she showed up. Quick highlight from the Christian with the megaphone (although I already wrote about these fools):
"Evolutionists want you to believe your great grandfather was a monkey! How crazy is that? It's insane! Doesn't make any sense!"
Yeah. THAT'S crazy. What's up talking snakes.
So i ended up around the corner at this semi shmancy place that claimed to be the real bar where the guy from the Maltese Falcon used to fictionally eat. Sam Spade maybe? Humphrey Bogart played him in the movie. I'd like to entertain with the details, but both film noir and detective novels bore the fuck out me.
M finally showed up and we schlepped it (i'm using that wrong. it was an easy walk, but god i love jewey verbs) to china town so i could buy a kimono for someone and M could take pictures for a movie she's making.
We ended up grabbing some drinks at this brothel/karaoke bar. Fools were sitting on couches being seduced by asian hookers and i got this vibe from the bartender like we were wasting her time because we just wanted to drink and flip through the karaoke catalog which, besides the usual standards, also offered bootleg dvds of current new releases.
I have to admit that, for a second, when M said she was taking me to a brothel i thought maybe our first night on the town together would start with a wicked threesome with an asian call girl. No such luck but, M, if you're reading this... hint hint... Asian hooker threesome.
We grabbed some dinner in north beach. Our waitress was funny AND hella fine (you don't see "hella fine" too much these days. thanks for keeping it in style gabe meline), but she was also, like, the worst waitress ever.
We had to wait forever for our check etc and by the time we got to Pier 39 everything was shutting down. M schmoozed the girls in the arcade into letting us hang out a few extra minutes before they locked up. I got my ass handed to me in some low rent Wipeout rip off, but hey, i was in an arcade with a rad girl so it didn't nag at my ego too much.
What else.. Sea lions... Cute photographs.. BART ride home.
***************************************
Check it out: N, B and K crashed out my house on thursday. B was fucking filthy and showed up on my doorstep smelling every minute of his three week salmon fishing expedition in alaska. K is a dog and also a likely, though less likely, candidate for disease spreading parasites.
N woke up in the morning with some kind of insect bite on her leg. I had a bite on my arm. The general consensus was spider bite.
I had launched a campaign of fear against the spiders last summer (partly out of my own crippling fear - partly out of pride), but it could be they've mustered up some courage and are, once again, on the attack. They have to be stopped because I do, after all, pay the rent and that entitles me to not have the shit scared out me by spiders in the middle of the night.
So anyway N had this bite and the next day she showed it to her dad who's like this brain surgeon or astronaut or something awesome which led to this call:
"Hey"
"Hey so my bite has this big, red circle around it and my dad's a doctor and he's positive it's Lyme's disease and writing out prescriptions for us for antibiotics and i'll be by later to drop it off. You've got to get to a pharmacy as soon as possible blah blah blah scary scary scary"
"Wait isn't that shit caused by tics? What is Lyme's disease? Calm down. My bite doesn't have any rings or anything. It looks mellow"
"No. You HAVE to take care of this. Lyme's disease tics are practically invisible and you need to burn all your belongings and vacuum. Be there soon with your prescription. Bye"
"Wait. Vacuum? Hello?"
So panic right? I leaped at wikipedia. Suddenly my whole body itched. I was freaked out. There are republicans in the white house. Seventy eight percent of american's believe noah's ark is a true story. I don't need this right now.
Which was followed by this call:
"Hey so i talked to my aunt (also a doctor) and she said there's, like, zero percent chance you have Lyme's disease and I probably just have a spider bite and it turns out these tics need to be on you for, like, thirty six hours and are super rare in california (rarer in urban apartments i would think) and it's a big false alarm. Bye"
"Hello? Wait. Hello?"
Again, we never even saw a tic. I vacuumed anyway, but only because there's nothing like a freshly vacuumed studio apartment.
I chose option three which was trying to find a place to grab a drink until she showed up. Quick highlight from the Christian with the megaphone (although I already wrote about these fools):
"Evolutionists want you to believe your great grandfather was a monkey! How crazy is that? It's insane! Doesn't make any sense!"
Yeah. THAT'S crazy. What's up talking snakes.
So i ended up around the corner at this semi shmancy place that claimed to be the real bar where the guy from the Maltese Falcon used to fictionally eat. Sam Spade maybe? Humphrey Bogart played him in the movie. I'd like to entertain with the details, but both film noir and detective novels bore the fuck out me.
M finally showed up and we schlepped it (i'm using that wrong. it was an easy walk, but god i love jewey verbs) to china town so i could buy a kimono for someone and M could take pictures for a movie she's making.
We ended up grabbing some drinks at this brothel/karaoke bar. Fools were sitting on couches being seduced by asian hookers and i got this vibe from the bartender like we were wasting her time because we just wanted to drink and flip through the karaoke catalog which, besides the usual standards, also offered bootleg dvds of current new releases.
I have to admit that, for a second, when M said she was taking me to a brothel i thought maybe our first night on the town together would start with a wicked threesome with an asian call girl. No such luck but, M, if you're reading this... hint hint... Asian hooker threesome.
We grabbed some dinner in north beach. Our waitress was funny AND hella fine (you don't see "hella fine" too much these days. thanks for keeping it in style gabe meline), but she was also, like, the worst waitress ever.
We had to wait forever for our check etc and by the time we got to Pier 39 everything was shutting down. M schmoozed the girls in the arcade into letting us hang out a few extra minutes before they locked up. I got my ass handed to me in some low rent Wipeout rip off, but hey, i was in an arcade with a rad girl so it didn't nag at my ego too much.
What else.. Sea lions... Cute photographs.. BART ride home.
***************************************
Check it out: N, B and K crashed out my house on thursday. B was fucking filthy and showed up on my doorstep smelling every minute of his three week salmon fishing expedition in alaska. K is a dog and also a likely, though less likely, candidate for disease spreading parasites.
N woke up in the morning with some kind of insect bite on her leg. I had a bite on my arm. The general consensus was spider bite.
I had launched a campaign of fear against the spiders last summer (partly out of my own crippling fear - partly out of pride), but it could be they've mustered up some courage and are, once again, on the attack. They have to be stopped because I do, after all, pay the rent and that entitles me to not have the shit scared out me by spiders in the middle of the night.
So anyway N had this bite and the next day she showed it to her dad who's like this brain surgeon or astronaut or something awesome which led to this call:
"Hey"
"Hey so my bite has this big, red circle around it and my dad's a doctor and he's positive it's Lyme's disease and writing out prescriptions for us for antibiotics and i'll be by later to drop it off. You've got to get to a pharmacy as soon as possible blah blah blah scary scary scary"
"Wait isn't that shit caused by tics? What is Lyme's disease? Calm down. My bite doesn't have any rings or anything. It looks mellow"
"No. You HAVE to take care of this. Lyme's disease tics are practically invisible and you need to burn all your belongings and vacuum. Be there soon with your prescription. Bye"
"Wait. Vacuum? Hello?"
So panic right? I leaped at wikipedia. Suddenly my whole body itched. I was freaked out. There are republicans in the white house. Seventy eight percent of american's believe noah's ark is a true story. I don't need this right now.
Which was followed by this call:
"Hey so i talked to my aunt (also a doctor) and she said there's, like, zero percent chance you have Lyme's disease and I probably just have a spider bite and it turns out these tics need to be on you for, like, thirty six hours and are super rare in california (rarer in urban apartments i would think) and it's a big false alarm. Bye"
"Hello? Wait. Hello?"
Again, we never even saw a tic. I vacuumed anyway, but only because there's nothing like a freshly vacuumed studio apartment.
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