Nik does Dallas

Homecoming.

2009-05-27T21:34:00.001-07:00

Homecoming.

Suggested Soundtrack: “Homecoming” by Kanye West

In less than two days, I will once again be a resident of San Diego. This is wonderful news. It’s no secret that I prefer the sunshine and beaches of San Diego to the thunderstorms and desolate urban sprawl of Dallas. When I first got here, you could actually hear my bitching, faintly, all the way to the tip of Point Loma.

At the same time, I am leaving behind a place that I grew to like quite a bit. The people make the place, you see. It’s easy to love San Diego, because there is a beach and the weather is awesome 99% of the time, but without lots of fantastic people living there, I wouldn’t feel this strong urge to return. It’s the people that are staying in Dallas that makes me sad to go. I’ve made great friends here, and found new family. I know that if I want to or need to, I can come back. That being said, I’m probably going to cry a little when I leave here.

As you may or may not know, I am not coming to San Diego alone. Two of my good friends have decided to go on this adventure with me. Really, I’m going on the adventure with them. Daniel and Adam have never lived outside of Texas. Both of them have 25 years of history here, with friends and family that will devastated when they go. To me, this is huge. The fact that two guys I’ve known less than two years are willing to move to another state with me is mind-boggling. Both have visited San Diego. Both fell in love the same way I did when I visited from Palm Springs almost a decade ago. And both will be happier than pigs in shit when they spend their first lazy day at the beach. I can’t wait to ride bikes with them and show them their new city. Their City. I’m envious of them, because they get to experience San Diego in all of its glory for the first time. As for me, I’m excited to be back home, among a group of friends that I love dearly in a city that makes me happy to be living there.

Since this is officially the last post of Nik Does Dallas, I’m gonna take a moment to go over some of my favorite posts from the last two years. Join me, won’t you, as we go back in time…

sunday, july 29, 2007

“What was originally supposed to be a two day drive instead became a grueling all-nighter.

It was a long and sometimes surreal journey. I started in Palm Springs, at my dad's, waking up at 8am. At 10am, I left and drove to San Diego to pick up some crap that I left. Left San Diego at 2pm, determined to do the drive in one go, but unsure if I could or, for that matter, should. But then I figured: ‘Fuck it.’

So I drove. I drove through desert, across rivers, up mountains, and down them. I drove past billboards for "The Thing?" which was "400 miles ahead," then "200 miles ahead," then "100 miles ahead," then "only 50 miles ahead," then was sped by at 75mph, then was forever behind me, thank goodness. I drove until I needed gas, or a bite, or to stretch, and then I'd stop, do whatever it was I needed to do, and then I'd drive some more. I drove past cops, and cows; through counties, and states; on good road, and bad; while singing, and silently; through good weather, and poor; with windows down, and windows up; while smoking, and eating; from sunset, to sunrise. Drive is what I did. ”

monday, august 6, 2007

“I chain to a tree. Shopping is without incident. This Walgreens is almost exactly like a California Walgreens, except that everyone is slightly nicer, and they sound funny. Finished, I go unlock the bike. As I mount my bike, the unmistakable feeling of a bug stuck to my leg makes me pause to smack it. In doing so, I realize that both of my legs are covered in ants. One hundred ants. Red ones. What followed was probably pretty funny for spectators: I hop off the bike, dancing around the parking lot, slapping myself in the legs while letting out an unbroken stream of curse words that would make a sailor blush. All the while with cheery music from ELO piped into my head from the iPod. Once the slaughter was finished, I rode home (more of the same: pedal, pedal, smack, pedal, pedal, smack), went inside and relayed my story to the Martin family.

‘Better hope those weren't fire ants.’

But guess what?

They were.”

monday, august 13, 2007

“SATURDAY:

10:00am Wake up to the sound of many children yelling and playing

10:15am After peeing for a solid ten minutes, I head into the living room. The kids ask, ‘What time did YOU get home last light?’ I think to myself: ‘Time? HOW did I get home last night?’ but out loud I say, ‘Real late. Now, Uncle Nik needs some cereal.’ Eat and read quietly, drink water

4:30pm Head to Mike's for dinner and booze. We make a big batch of strong lemon-and-vodka drink, and drink it all. Then the two of us, plus another guy, finish off a bottle of Crown. ‘Finally, my hangover is gone,’ is the last thing I remember thinking”

thursday, august 16, 2007

“I finally found something cool about the office where I work. It's the walk to lunch.

Off I went. I had my iPod going, my shirt untucked, and the sun in my eyes. The Subway was around the corner, across the street. The side of the street I work on has no sidewalk. I crossed the street, fully exposed to our closest star, in what was to become the only real hot portion of the walk. Because on the other side, there was a little sidewalk I had not noticed before. It ran between two twin rows of shade trees. The entire walk was shaded! I was cool as a cucumber, stretchin' my shit out, listening to Stevie Wonder and loving life. Thus began a tradition (if something I've done 6 times to date can be considered tradition).

I get alone time, which is nice. I see things that other people in the office never will. I see lots of bugs. My friends the fire ants pop up here and there. Of winged insects there are no shortage: butterflies galore, dragonflies, and the occasional yellowjacket, who tend to buzz around my ankles for a few yards before flying off to do whatever it is that yellowjackets do besides scaring the crap out of me. Huge mushrooms grow out low and flat in places the sun doesn't reach. One time, I got to see a little bird with a long beak nab a dragonfly out of the sky. He landed, set it down and gave it a peck, only to have it fly off. He quickly re-caught the fat green insect as it landed on a leaf, went back to the ground and pecked it twice. Problem solved. As I watched, singing ‘The Circle of Life’ to myself, I realized that although I am not very happy with most of the aspects of my life right now, this walk is mine, and mine alone, and as long as I'm working here I'll have the walk to keep me the slightly sane and tolerably happy.

It's almost like being on my bike, which always made me feel like I was getting more out of travel than anyone in a car was. For instance yesterday, as I thought to myself that there are more and more dead leaves and acorns on the ground with each passing day, a brief but powerful wind kicked up in the middle of what had been a perfectly calm day. For close to a minute, all of the trees waved, letting loose a rain of leaves that poured out sideways and flew in circles, little tornadoes of leaves, as far as I could see, going up and down and around, getting in my hair, smacking into my face, while the leaves already on the ground skidded along like a moving carpet. It made me want to spin in circles with my arms outstretched. Instead, I just took it all in, and when it was over, when all the leaves had settled on the ground and the road and the sidewalk, I smiled and looked at the cars driving by and thought: ‘Suckers.’ ”

saturday, august 18, 2007

“There is a peculiar custom here in Texas. This is in their terrible handling of traffic accidents. Namely, they leave them there. I've seen this a few times now. A car will rear-end another in the middle of the freeway, and officers arriving on scene will leave it sitting there. So a fender-bender can shut down a major freeway in rush hour traffic. You find yourself stopped on the interstate, late for work, and getting later, creeping slowly ahead. ‘If there isn't a dead body up there,’ you think, ‘if I don't see a dead human, in pieces, splayed across three lanes, I am gonna be PISSED.’ Sure enough, when you get to the bottleneck, you see flares shutting down a half mile of three lanes, a Jetta with minor front end damage sitting in the middle of it, and sixteen state troopers in cowboy hats with their thumbs looped into their belts, kicked back and chewin' the fat. ‘Stupid hicks!’ you say. To yourself.”

sunday, september 23, 2007

“Flying at night takes the sometimes ugly scenery of the flyover states away and just leaves the shiny pretty stuff. The Atlanta to Dallas portion only had one thing worth mentioning: the guy sitting next to me was an absolute mystery. While the flight was boarding, and as it taxied and took off and flew along, the guy was writing tiny notes in a full size notebook. Not the page-filling, serial-killer-from-that-movie-Seven kind of tiny notes, but more like islands of itty-bitty writing on a sea of paper. He'd put one near the top, another to one side, and then flip the page and start on the next one. I tried to peek while pretending to read, but I couldn't make a bit of sense out of it. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. I don't think he was scary-crazy like the screaming guy in SD, but more of a kooky-crazy, like he had a pointy tinfoil hat at his apartment and owned a ferret. I can't say what I wanted more: to read his notebook or to magically make him not smell as bad as he did.”

monday, october 1, 2007

“Went to my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana last weekend… The world is sometimes a very ugly place, full of sad people in unintentionally funny clothes, people for whom smiles are few and far between. At least it is that way in my hometown. It's a poor and backwards part of the world, the embarrassing older brother of American culture. It's worse than movies make it out to be. It is quite miserable. I am so happy that my parents moved us kids to California when we were young, and I called my father later and told him just that.

Next time you see Britney Spears on the TV driving on a suspended license while intoxicated and using her infant children as airbags, I want you to understand that she comes from Louisiana, and the statement that starts with, ‘You can take the girl out of the trailer park...’ is absolutely true. I was happy, for once, to be heading back to Dallas.”

monday, november 26, 2007

“In other news...

My foster mom's out of the country again, picking up the new kid from the Ukraine, so the duty of doody collector falls again upon my thin shoulders.

Since I am going to talk about dog shit, again, I think I'll introduce the dogs this time.

BELLE

Belle the retriever, is a good girl. She listens, doesn't beg, and tolerates the stupidity of the other dog, who is younger yet larger then herself. Belle is not just a good girl, she is a considerate crapper who shits dainty, hard little tootsie-roll-type shits that rattle around on the shovel and don't smell bad.

MIA

Mia the mastiff (aka the "couch cuddler" since she always climbs up on the couch with me when I'm watching TV), who weighs as much as I do, is as dumb as a bag of hammers and produces extraordinarily large turds. Lots of them.

Mia's turds are the size of baguettes (but not the color).

They frequently have foreign objects sticking comically out of them. This is because Mia is the dog that will eat anything she can wrap her jaws around. She especially wants whatever it is that you're eating. For example, I was carrying a dirty plate out of the TV room that had bits of trash on it (I was tidying up, you see) and Mia was plodding along behind me, jamming her snout into my ass like she always does. A candy wrapper fell off of the plate and Mia, without a moment's hesitation, ate the wrapper. Just because it came off the plate and she figured it was probably people food and knew that she wasn't allowed to eat it, so she did so quickly.

Which brings us back to this morning, where I'm scooping up a giant turd partially covered in a bright orange Kit-Kat wrapper.”

monday, april 28, 2008

“I recently got a pair of sunglasses. Since my opinion on the matter is that sunglasses always end up getting lost or broken, so spend accordingly, I got my pair on the way to Austin at a truck stop in Waco. Seven bucks. Rosy-tinted, gold-framed aviators.

I love ‘em. And I was never really a sunglasses kinda guy. I’ve always been more of a squinter. Clint Eastwood is also a squinter. But I got these glasses, and now I’m having to learn what to do with them, and to try and build good glasses habits. For example (and here’s the word of advice), always put your glasses in the same spot while not in use. I like the little ‘V’ that is formed by the collar of a button-up shirt. That’s where my glasses go when they’re not on my face. Some people prefer the shirt pocket, others will hold them and set them down on the table, whatever. Whichever person you are, consistency is key. Same spot, every time or else. Otherwise, you may go to lunch one day and on the way out, you may realize your glasses aren’t (for example) in the ‘V’ of your shirt collar, nor are they in your car, so you may just run back into the restaurant and look around the table, and then you might go over to the trashcan and hold the little ‘Thank You’ flap open and look inside to see, yes, okay, that’s my trash on top but still no glasses, and then you might even walk up to the counter because one of these little minimum wage kids might have taken the sunglasses you like so much, and then, as you get up to the counter, you might just all of a sudden realize that the glasses are there, right there, perched on top of your own fucking head, so you stutter something to the counter kid and leave, and because this could happen to you, because this may have happened to someone you know, I urge you to be consistent in your glasses spot.

Thank you.”

sunday, may 11, 2008

“My friend Daniel just got a cool bike, and he lives in Addison, so I convinced him that we should ride our bikes to the festival. He was reluctant but he agreed. The only problem is that Addison is really really bike unfriendly, as only a master-planned suburb comprised of housing developments and strip malls can be, which is to say no bike lanes and intermittent sidewalks. It was treacherous. But we made it and had fun on the way. After the ride, Daniel was fully converted to a bike lover.

This festival itself was a very good time. The Black Crowes, those hippy-rock throwbacks, were live on stage and jammed the fuck out. We were under the influence and the show was great. Afterward, we went to a local bar and got even more drunker.

Everything was perfect, then…

Let’s take a moment here to go over the reasons why you should always, always ride your bike in the street, namely a) the street is smooth, straight and usually well-lit, and b) the sidewalk, by comparison, is fraught with peril in the form of uneven concrete, large cracks, sharp turns, road signs, fire hydrants, low-hanging branches, and debris.

But at two in the morning, when the streets are full of drunks hauling ass to get home, and there are no bike lanes, what are two intoxicated guys to do? Take the sidewalk home, of course.

Which is why, today, I am hurting. ”

sunday, august 3, 2008

“Since I knew one of the dancers well, and a couple more through her, I was well taken care of. Drinks weren’t ten bucks a pop, they were three. So I drank. Kept drinking. Traded a hundo for ones. Made it rain to the extent that I could. Making friends like I do, I had people there to talk to that weren’t working. At one point, one of the dancers I knew came up to me. She had a bunch of pills in her hand. ‘Want some?’ she asked. I was completely plowed, and remember this with only the haziest of memories. ‘Yes,’ I said without hesitation. She gave me four. If I had any common sense left at that point I would have asked what the hell it was I was about to eat. I pride myself on the fact that while I’ve had my share of prescription drugs, I’ve never taken Ecstasy (big fucking deal, right?). Here I am, completely fortified and staring at four little white pills in my open hand. I hesitated for a split second, and the guy next to me asked, ‘What are those?’ ‘I have no idea,’ I said, ‘you want some?’ He did. He grabbed two. Then, like the drunk moron I was, I threw the remaining two in my mouth and swallowed them down with a big gulp of Jack and coke. I had made the decision (unwisely) to take whatever the night threw at me. Then, a thought: What the fuck had I just swallowed? Was I in real trouble here? I sobered up slightly, as one does when one is driving tipsy and a cop is tailing the car and one realizes that one just might be Well And Truly Fucked. It was at this point that I understood what I had done, and the possible consequences flooded into my drunken skull. Shit. Depending on what it was that I swallowed, the night could a) end quickly, b) never end, c) turn into a Dali-esque nightmare of distorted vision and twisted thoughts, or d) become chock-full of heightened sensory perception that made me just wanna lovingly rub couch cushions and chew on the inside of my cheek. None of those sounded good at this point. Not only had I eaten the mystery pills, I had actually given some to the poor stupid motherfucker who was sitting next to me. As I looked on in horror, he popped his two pills into his mouth. Too late. He wasn’t even swallowing them with booze, the dumb bastard was CHEWING them.

‘These are mints,’ he said.”

Sunday, September 7, 2008

"I'm going to take a quick second to mention that there really is nothing like In-n-Out Burger in Texas. Every so often, some ignorant bastard will make the "Whataburger tastes just like In-n-Out" statement. This is wrong. Whataburger is a filthy shithole with burgers that cause explosive gas 99.9% of the time. The burgers are greasy, the fries are for shit, and the staff mopes around like sweatshop workers. There is no comparison. The lack of Double doubles (animal style, with whole grilled onions) is an empty part of my Texas existence, the same kind of emptiness I have from the lack of three-dollar, two-pound Carne Asada Burritos..."

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"There was plenty of powdered chocolate milk mix to go around. This gave me an opportunity to observe their mixing technique, which is, in my opinion, just as important as the powder/syrup issue. There are two techniques.

The Roomies went with technique one: each put two heaping spoonfuls in their respective cups, added milk, and stirred like crazy.

This is wrong.

Technique one leads to sludge at the bottom of the cup.

When I was a kid, I loved the sludge. When I was done, I would tilt the cup way up, position my open mouth at the bottom, and wait for the sludge to slowly creep its way down. Then I would chew the stuff, which was slick on the outside, and powdery on the inside. Only kids can enjoy this. Kids also eat frosting and leave the cake. As an adult, though, I now appreciate the fully-mixed cup of chocolate milk, one that I can sip away at for a little while, and then, at about the halfway mark, finish in one long swallow. I drink orange juice this same way. It allows for measured enjoyment for a while, and then the kind of flavor “hit” that only someone who drinks or smokes or does drugs to excess can appreciate. Having a pile of sludge at the bottom after drinking my chocolate milk in the sip-sip-sip-then-guzzle manner would be like chewing the ice at the bottom of a cocktail, eating the filter of a finished cigarette, or drinking the bongwater: more of the same, but worse."

Thursday, November 27, 2008

"Grown men in homemade superhero costumes exhibit creativity, and chicks dig this. Guys who asked if I made the bat-hoodie myself probably thought I was gay when I told them I did. Girls who made this same inquiry were always impressed, because even bull-riding Texas girls sometimes dream about being with an artsy guy, at least for a little while, and wonder what life would be like with a man who creates brilliant things but also chainsmokes, drinks cheap gin straight from the bottle, and is strung out on painkillers. They see a guy that turned an umbrella into bat wings and they think, “We will have an apartment over a bar, and sleep until two in the afternoon. We will listen to music I can’t even fucking conceive of right now, and get high, and then he’ll have me model nude for him. After he’s done painting me, we’ll have passionate sex for hours. After about a month of this, I will move back to my parent’s ranch in Horsepatty, TX.” I am almost completely sure that every girl has this fantasy."

Thursday, November 27, 2008

"The last night I wore the goatee was Halloween night, where my bangs and facial hair added to the Emo look of my costume (see Dall-o-ween post for costume details). The following night, a bar in my neighborhood was having a costume party, and I switched to my other costume: 1970’s-era tennis player. This consisted of a tight white polo, short (short!) white shorts, tall socks, head- and wristbands, my aviator shades, and a pink sweater tied around my shoulders. I had worn this to an 80’s party months ago, and everyone loved it because grown men in tight clothing and short (short!) shorts is funny. This time around, I was bringing something else to the table in the form of facial hair. But goatees weren’t very 70’s. I needed less. I needed a mustache.

Sadly, I only wore the mustache for two more days.

I miss it now.

“Why not grow it back?” you might ask. Because I am lazy, is my reply. I value interaction with attractive females more than I value the support of guys I know that insist facial hair looks good on me. I cut my hair off shortly after this, and I was back to Nik as usual.

Even though the ladies may love my clean-shaven look, I know now that I have lost something more. It’s hard to tell when it happened. At first, I was a boy pretending to be a man. Now that I’ve shaved it, I feel like a man pretending to be a boy."

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

"Thing two: I am moving back to San Diego. I am most likely bringing Texans with me. My friends Daniel and Adam, who have both visited San Diego with me at some point, have decided to come on this adventure with me.

They are awesome guys and I couldn't be happier or more excited. I am sure this will be a wonderful move and I hope to get back in school and become a teacher, because the work I'm doing now crushes my happiness to a degree I did not think possible."

***

And now here we are. Over the next day Adam, Daniel and I will be loading all of our earthly possessions into a huge UHaul truck and driving that shit to California. I look forward to hanging out with you soon.

Nik Did Dallas.

A Moment of Silence, and A Decision

2009-03-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel

Been a long time, and though I'm known for that kind of thing, I'm still sorry. Let's get down to business.

First of all, let me just say that I'm in a hotel room in Shreveport getting fucked up. Then I'm gonna go eat, find a shitty bar, and get more fucked up. I'm in Shreveport for a funeral. A lot of my extended family (Mom's side) is here, too. By here, of course, I mean Shreveport, not the hotel room. If you haven't read my last post, now would be the time to do that, since it covers all of the depressing family shit and has a prediction in it that came true. At any rate, my Mom is here. I haven't talked to her in AGES. And there's a real good chance she'll be at the service tomorrow. So in addition to mourning the passing of Mimi, I gotta worry about seeing Mama. Lacking someone live to talk to, I'm getting tossed and writing. I have no idea what to say or how to act if she does show up, and usually I'm a whiz at that shit. Hopefully an overnight drunk is a good way to prepare for tomorrow. Time will tell, I guess.

The other shoe in a pile of poop is the fact that my goddamn car broke on the way here. Some crucial pulley froze up, a belt blew, and then my car started barfing smoke. Luckily at the next stop there was a service station. So at this service station is the worker guy and the owner. The service guy is an earnest country fellow, and I tell him my problem and tell him I'm trying to make a funeral, he springs into action. He was awesome. He figured the problem out, got me an estimate, and then the owner guy offered me a ride to a car rental place. We talked mortgages. I urged him to hold off on a refinance because his current loan was just fine. Anyway. They were so nice it was silly. And I made it. Hooray.

On to better things!

Thing one: I finally finished this video/slideshow thing I've been working on. It's from the pub crawl I went on in San Diego for my friend's 30th birthday. It's at the end of this post, since putting it in right here would almost be like I was forcing you to watch it, and it's just a bunch of pictures and video of awesome people getting drunk and having a good time, including riding a mechanical bull, all set to great music, and that might not be your thing. You know, looking at other people get polluted. But it's great. It's down there. The visit associated with this pub crawl was also fantastic, and it further cemented in my mind the fact that I need to move back to San Diego.

Thing two: I am moving back to San Diego. I am most likely bringing Texans with me. My friends Daniel and Adam, who have both visited San Diego with me at some point, have decided to come on this adventure with me.

Thing three: I have been cooking a lot lately and I love it. I'm starting to understand why my dad loves it so much. Part of it has to do with the part when everyone digs in and you can tell that they think it's delicious. I just made five people happy with food that I prepared, you think. That feels really good.

Well, that's all I got in me for now. Talk to you all later. I leave you with a different song, a happy (if not downright ridiculous) song. Peace out. Sorry for all the italics.

Until next time...

A Long Overdue Holiday Post

2009-01-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

Suggested soundtrack: “You don’t know me” By Ben Folds (with Regina Spektor)

(This is not the official video, this is the only one I could embed, and it's pretty shitty. Check out the official video here, Tim and Eric did it and it rules: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSYjbxUoOQM&feature=related)

Holy Shit.

It’s been too long. If you care about these things, I’m sorry. Regardless, I have a post for you. It goes over a few weeks worth of shit. I’ll try and leave out the crap parts.

Okay.

Week before Thanksgiving went to see Papa in Colorado. Ate good food and did a lot of hiking.

On one hike, saw a stick that was just asking to be a walking stick, so I grabbed it and over the next day fashioned it into a smooth, cloth-handled Moses cane. Check out the before:

And the after (the wrapping for the handle part was made of shoelaces and fashioned after Samurai sword handles):

Three quick side notes:

One: People in Colorado love their Subaru Outbacks. I’ve never seen a greater concentration of these earth-toned four-wheel drive vehicles outside of a car lot. At the parking lot of one of our hikes is where I had my eureka moment, and my dad was like, “Yeah, they’re fucking EVERYWHERE,” and sure enough, I was able to easily take a picture of two parked next to each other. As I took the picture, no shit, another one drove by, but I couldn’t frame the shot quick enough to take it all in. Here’s the original picture:

Two: I love fast food chains that have not yet spread to Texas, because I love to always bitch about how much better everything is in California, and fast food is a major talking point. In-n-Out is a perfect example. In-n-Out should never, ever go to Texas because a) Texas doesn’t deserve burgers that good, and b) everyone in Texas tries to tell me that Whataburger “is just like In-n-Out” and they couldn’t be more wrong because In-n-Out never fails to be awesome and Whataburger never fails to give you explosive diarrhea. Anyway, another of my Cali favorites is Del Taco. For Mexican fast food, Texas has Taco Bell (terrible, except for the Double-decker taco supreme), Taco Cabana (decent, with delicious tortillas that taste like buscuits and should be ordered by the dozen and eaten plain), the very wrongly named Taco Bueno (see Whataburger for gastrointestinal details on Taco Bueno), but no Del Taco. I love Del Taco for the chicken soft tacos, macho combo burritos, and especially for the Del Scorcho sauce, which is allegedly as hot as taco sauce gets. Del Scorcho was the true test of manhood when I was 13. Well, there was a Del Taco in Colorado and I couldn’t pass up a chance at some west-coast fast food. Apparently, Del Scorcho is no longer the hottest shit there is, and some asshole upstart named Del Inferno has bumped Del Scorcho into “medium” territory. Bullshit. Here’s photographic proof:

Three: Anyone need an antike phone? This was posted in the common area of my dad’s condo complex, and I love this kind of crap:

By day four, the fresh air and beautiful scenery wasn’t enough to distract me from the realization that I can’t be around my father for more than three days at a time. We are the closest of friends, and I obviously love him to death, but we were always better as co-workers than as roommates.

Went back to Dallas, had a great Thanksgiving with the Roomies and some dear friends.

For the holidays, we all had to tart up our cubes with wrapping paper. The boss brought in three terrible designs, with cartoon penguins and reindeer or some such shit, so I brought some of mine from home with a nice argyle design. It was classy and still in the spirit of things. See for yourself:

Next trip: San Diego for Christmas. It was Kendra’s annual Drunken Christmas Caroling party! Good times! For the uninitiated, this is where a large group of adults drinks themselves stupid, sit on a trailer towed by a truck, and aided by microphones and large speakers, Rock the Holy Fuck out of some Christmas Carols while being driven around a neighborhood. The turnout was so good this year that they had two trailers behind the truck. The second trailer, which I was in, seemed less like a trailer and more like a hay wagon, and just looked dangerous. Normally this would concern me, but I had a bottle of whisky on me so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Many many thanks to Kendra and her awesome family for giving me a holiday tradition I can really believe in.

Ended that night partying with my old crew from Outback, and it was awesome. Saw some people I hadn’t seen in ages, and am looking forward to seeing again on the 24th.

Also had some time to go shopping with my Sister, her husband, their son Micah, and my brother’s daughter, Gabby. We got clothes and books and some dinner, and it was great to see all of them.

I got to spend a lot of time with some old friends that I missed more than I knew, and I got to spend not enough time with lots of other friends. I’m glad everyone understands that I have so little time when visiting SD, and accepts the fact that I may only have an hour to hang out. Someday, someday, you’ll have more of me than you’d ever want. Someday soon…

Then back to Dallas.

The weekend before Christmas, I decided to take a three-hour drive to my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, to visit my Grandparents. When I visit, I stay with Aunt Anna, since I can barely stand to be around the grandparents for long periods of time, which I know sounds really really terrible but if you are honest with yourself you, too, will admit that most times hanging out with grandparents is a fucking chore. Aunt Anna is someone I’ve known since I can remember, and it wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that Aunt Anna wasn’t my aunt at all but was in fact my father’s first wife. She’ll always be Aunt Anna to me, anyway. Plus she’s a badass. She smokes, cusses like a sailor, and loves to play cards, so when I visit we stay up late talking about crap my dad got up to when he was my age (there’s a novel worth of great stuff in those stories). Well, on this holiday trip, after crashing at Aunt Anna’s on the first night, I headed out to see Grandpa Bob, who is now living alone because Grandma (“Mimi”) is in the nursing home….

(Okay, quick aside. I know I’m a pretty happy-go-lucky guy, and I’ve caught some flak in the past for some of my early-Dallas depressing blog posts. Well, this part coming up, which involves my family, is depressing. It’s gotta be, it involves my family. As Jeff Lebowski (the millionaire) put it, “Strong men also cry.” This bit of the story touches on such themes as the inevitability of death and the fear of losing one’s mind, and also features a surprise guest appearance and a bit of an upbeat ending! But, it’s mostly sad as fuck. So skip ahead if you need to. Look for the picture of me with a dog as a sign that the story has ended. Now, where were we…)

I headed out to see Grandpa Bob, who is now living alone because Mimi is in the nursing home. Grandpa isn’t my real Grandpa, but he is the only Grandpa I know since the other one died when I was a baby. After spending a bit of time at his place, we head over to the nursing home. Last time I visited, Mimi knew I was a relative of hers, but couldn’t quite place me. Now, three months and a stroke later, she simply stares into space and shakes from time to time. It is terrible. She did not acknowledge me at all. I stayed with her about an hour and a half, during her lunchtime. Around us sat a bizarre collection of elderly people all at various stages of losing their minds, doing things that would not be out of place in a Kindergarden classroom. When Mimi started eating lime green jell-o with her hands I almost lost it. This is not the Mimi I’ve known all my life. This is a husk of a person, and being there made me feel horrible and wanting to leave made me feel even more horrible. After a while, Bob got me out of there, and in the car he told me that Mimi doesn’t have much longer to live. So this was probably the last time I’d see her alive. I chewed on that for a while. I’m not used to being around death, aside from a good friend when I was 19. Any relatives I’ve known that have died were all in Germany. So this will be the first big death in the family, which sounds morbid, but is true. Mimi passing away is going to be rough, but part of me thinks that where she is now might be rougher. For all I know, she’s in a happy place, but for those of us will full mental capacity, it is really painful to watch her fade away. For me, dementia is one of my biggest fears. All I’ve really got is my mind, and if that goes, I’m fucked.
As all of this swirls around in a stew of misery in my head, Grandpa Bob asks me if I’d heard from my Mom at all. To make a very long and very painful story into a haiku,

Post-divorce, Mom went
bad crazy. Nik brought this up.
They haven’t talked since.

So no, I hadn’t heard from my mom at all. Last I heard she was living in a small town in Texas, had remarried and found God,
and was involved in an annoying letter-writing campaign directed at my little sister.

Well, apparently my mom is still crazy, and decided to get involved in another campaign of annoyance, this one directed at my grandparents, that consisted of multiple threatening phone calls placed at all hours of the day. Social workers got involved, who got deputy sheriffs involved, the end result of which was my mother being held at the jail in Shreveport! So this was the largest gathering of my Mom’s side of my family in years, only one member wasn’t free to meet us at the buffet, and another one wasn’t aware of what a buffet actually is.

Obviously at this point I am in a bit of shock, and the day seems to be headed straight to hell.

After dropping grandpa off, headed back to Aunt Anna’s, where we prepared a traditional German feast of pork, sauerkraut, and potatoes that really hit the spot. Anna had some good things to say about my fucked-up family which put some things into perspective, and as the night wore on, I figured that would be that and Christmas was going to be sucky once again. But then! As I sat reading, late at night, the phone rang. It was Jessica and Amy in San Diego, who were drinking wine and singing the new Ben Folds/Regina Spektor song that I had played for them on my recent visit. It was a wonder call from some of my oldest and dearest friends from my days at the Outback and boy was it nice. Thus cheered, I got back to reading. But the Christmas miracles were not over yet! The phone rang again. Upon answering, I was greeted by the sound of someone singing “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. It was another group of my old Outback friends. Indeed, this was “The Europe Girls,” three of the four girls that went around Europe with me years ago. After serenading me with perhaps the greatest song ever written, they took turns cheering me up and after the call ended, I was back to being happy Nik. Self-reflection time was over. There was nothing I could do about my fucked-up family. So it was time to get into the Christmas spirit and accept the fact that miracles DO happen, and that having dear friends that think to call and sing to me is the greatest gift of all.

And now, a picture of me with a dog!

Back in Dallas, Christmas day was awesome. Hung out with my Dallas “family,” who seem to like me more than my family for whatever reason. I totally got hooked up, gift-wise. Mike got me a dinosaur print onesy (onesie?). He had one of his own:

Got the kids some individual gifts and Mario Kart for the Wii. The lucky kids also got Rock Band 2, so we rocked out for a few more hours in the afternoon.

Back home, Roomie Daniel got Rock Band 2 too. But we were not to play Rock Band on Christmas night. No, Christmas night is
not for rocking. Christmas night is for…titties. Yes! Daniel’s birthday is on Christmas, and since he had been shafted for years (“Happy birthday, now watch everyone else open up presents too.”) he was determined to do something not Christmasy on his birthday. The strip club falls squarely into this category. Dallas strip clubs are BYOB, and the group of us (Roomies, friends, plus a lot of Daniel’s friends from is hometown) stayed from 10pm to 4am; making it the most time I did ANYTHING on Christmas, including sleep. I got a pot going for Daniel and raised lots of money for him to get lap dances with. I also took the time to explain to every stripper within earshot that it was Daniel’s birthday (“HEY! IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY! JUST LIKE JESUS!”), which got him some birthday lovin’. He said it was his best birthday ever.

I’m not a big family person, but this holiday season was chock-full of family – real and adoptive – and 2008 was the closest I’ve ever gotten to being fully immersed in the holidays. Lots of love for those who, for whatever reason, wanted to be around me, or wanted me to be around, for Christmastime.

Until next time...

Who's the Man? Races 2008

2008-12-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video I shot while drunk the other night. The other guys in it are my Roomie, Daniel (who you may remember from my last trip to SD), and our friend Josh (a.k.a. the pirate). The races in question happened before and after dinner. What's missing is the dinner conversation, with Josh making excuses and talking shit. There was enough whining on camera, though, to get a good idea of it in the video. As always, you can watch the embedded video (awesome), or you can double click on it, go to youtube, and watch it in high quality (fucking awesome). Enjoy!!

p.s. See you in SD on the 12th!

How to fill a wall - a high speed painting movie

2008-11-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

I had a blank wall. Then I painted this. This video shows the entire painting being done in high speed (a la Phil Hansen). Now my room is complete. I hope you enjoy it!

If you want to watch this in high quality, go to here and click "watch in high def:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dROq5PAIbE

Who's that man in the Mustache?!

2008-11-27T22:43:00.000-08:00

(Note: I made a new video for this post. Ordinarily, I will put my new videos at the top, but for this post, the video tells part of the story. It’s down there. Don’t skip ahead.)

Every year, as the days get shorter and a chill starts creeping in, I try and grow a winter coat. This usually means I don’t cut my hair for a couple of weeks, then cut it all off when it gets too hard to manage. I have a rule I live by, as far as my hair is concerned, and it is this: You must never spend more time doing your hair than it takes to brush your teeth. When I find myself wasting 10 minutes in the morning wrestling with the curls that sprout from the front of my scalp, it’s not long before I cut it all off.

This year, unmoved by the failures of every winter stretching back to when I was 19 and had really long hair, I tried again. I was gonna take it up a notch, though. This time, my face would also sport a winter coat.

The thing is, as anyone who has seen me shirtless can attest, I have no chest hair.

This is odd because a) I am nearly 30, and b) my arms and legs are hairy enough to give Robin Williams a run for his money. The lack of hair on my “core area” means that, for some reason, my facial hair is patchy and uneven. The area surrounding my mouth gets decent coverage, but cheek hair and sideburns are an absolute impossibility. Thus, a full beard would be impossible, but a goatee was possibly attainable. It was time to give it a shot.

Luckily, my job does not force face-to-face contact with customers, so appearance and hygiene are not really an issue except to those whose cubicles are directly adjacent to mine. This is fortunate because my appearance was going to suffer in the coming weeks and it was going to be hard enough just dealing with the fact that women were going to be appalled or amused by my attempts at looking like an adult.

Sure enough, it came in weak, looking like something you’d find on the face of a junior-high football player or an Italian grandmother. Three weeks in, though, it began to fill in, and look halfway decent, presentable at the very least. Then, at about the three-and-a-half week mark, there it was: A Full-On Goatee.

The Roomies liked it, but most females either hated it or had no opinion. As for me…
It was like a child to me. I haven’t worked this hard on something in a long time. I didn’t really know what to expect. It didn’t sing me to sleep or magically open doors for me, but it gave me something that I hadn’t had before, and that was something on my chin to fuck with besides pimples. Until then, I had no beard to stroke thoughtfully as I pondered things. I had nothing on my upper lip to catch beer foam. Now, though, I could rub my chin and take extra long to answer questions I knew the answer to, because that was what men with facial hair did. When I did answer the question after the allotted chin-stroke time, the answer had more gravity, and a lot of times it had shock value because whoever had asked the question didn’t have a goatee of their own to rub thoughtfully, and were hypnotized by my fine specimen. Or maybe it was jealousy. Whatever the case, the goatee was awesome.

On my annual October trip to San Diego, I got a lot more support for the goatee, but this may just have been because people in San Diego like me and don’t want to hurt my feelings.

The last night I wore the goatee was Halloween night, where my bangs and facial hair added to the Emo look of my costume (see Dall-o-ween post for costume details). The following night, a bar in my neighborhood was having a costume party, and I switched to my other costume: 1970’s-era tennis player. This consisted of a tight white polo, short (short!) white shorts, tall socks, head- and wristbands, my aviator shades, and a pink sweater tied around my shoulders. I had worn this to an 80’s party months ago, and everyone loved it because grown men in tight clothing and short (short!) shorts is funny. This time around, I was bringing something else to the table in the form of facial hair. But goatees weren’t very 70’s. I needed less. I needed a mustache.

The costume was a success. I was hanging out with Adam, who was going as Paulie Bleeker from Juno, so the men-in-short-shorts power was strong with us.

My legs may have been cold, but my upper lip was warm. I figured I could rock the ‘stache for a couple more weeks, at least until I could curl the tips. Mustaches are cool, right? Of course! Just ask The Tick:

Sadly, I only wore the mustache for two more days.

Sunday I went to the King Tut exhibit and I looked, frankly, like a child molester.

Luckily, there was no trouble; I was afraid the authorities would drag me away to the gas chamber, no questions asked (the death penalty here is, as I have mentioned before, swift and arbitrary). I wore the ‘stache to work on Monday, as I had promised some co-workers that if I did ever take it down to that level I would at least show them. They were not disappointed, but goddamn, I looked creepy. Monday night, without fanfare, I shaved it off.

I miss it now.

“Why not grow it back?” you might ask. Because I am lazy, is my reply. I value interaction with attractive females more than I value the support of guys I know that insist facial hair looks good on me. I cut my hair off shortly after this, and I was back to Nik as usual.

Even though the ladies may love my clean-shaven look, I know now that I have lost something more. It’s hard to tell when it happened. At first, I was a boy pretending to be a man. Now that I’ve shaved it, I feel like a man pretending to be a boy. My face looks naked to me.

Next winter, though, it’ll be back. Maybe by then I’ll have some chest hair to match.

Dall-o-ween

2008-11-27T22:10:00.000-08:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Star Witness" by Neko Case

This is going to be one of my “light reading” posts, mostly filled with pictures and some commentary. Let it first be said that my costume this year was awesome, and that I made it with my own two hands. It took just two hours to turn a black hoodie and an umbrella into this:

This was my Budget Batman outfit. With my goatee and bangs, I looked like a hipster superhero. Bringing technology to the table was Roomie Christian’s costume, Budget Ironman:

Amateur seamstress that I am, I made this costume as well. It involved a yellow hoodie, a red t-shirt, a sharpie, one of those round, “stick anywhere” utility lights that are sold on TV at 4am, and a hockey mask I painted to look like Ironman’s face.

The costumes worked on three levels:

Level one: Grown men in homemade superhero costumes is funny. All we needed was a third guy with a red sheet and his underwear on the outside and we could have had Superman, too. A lot of guys, seeing us in our imaginary costumes, were (and I’m absolutely sure of this) instantly nostalgic and insanely jealous. Every man at some point wished he was a superhero, every man knows what it is like to turn a towel into a cape and bounce off the couch, over the coffee table, onto a bean bag. Our costumes are not the “official” superhero costumes, they are the costume you could have made as a kid, if you were creative and handy with a needle and thread. And speaking of creativity, we have…

Level two: Grown men in homemade superhero costumes exhibit creativity, and chicks dig this. Guys who asked if I made the bat-hoodie myself probably thought I was gay when I told them I did. Girls who made this same inquiry were always impressed, because even bull-riding Texas girls sometimes dream about being with an artsy guy, at least for a little while, and wonder what life would be like with a man who creates brilliant things but also chainsmokes, drinks cheap gin straight from the bottle, and is strung out on painkillers. They see a guy that turned an umbrella into bat wings and they think, “We will have an apartment over a bar, and sleep until two in the afternoon. We will listen to music I can’t even fucking conceive of right now, and get high, and then he’ll have me model nude for him. After he’s done painting me, we’ll have passionate sex for hours. After about a month of this, I will move back to my parent’s ranch in Horsepatty, TX.” I am almost completely sure that every girl has this fantasy. But most of those girls would be afraid of being poor, which brings us to…

Level three: Grown men in homemade superhero costumes is prescient. In these economic times, who has $100 to drop on a good superhero costume? Not I. A few people understood this level of the costume, and those would usually ask what I did for a living. I’m sure a lot of them thought I was joking when I said I work in the mortgage industry. They certainly laughed like it was a joke.

The other two roommates had costumes that worked well together: Daniel grew out his beard, bought a hajj, fashioned a dynamite vest out of a lifejacket and some paper towel rolls, and went as a suicide bomber. Marlina was going crazy trying to come up with something, and had asked for help, so the day before Halloween I said “Sarah Palin” and she went for it. Marlina already wears those dress-suit things and glasses, all we had to do was make her a “Miss Alaska” sash and she was done. Right before we left, though, worry sunk in. Marlina’s worry was that there would be a lot of other Palins running around, and I was inclined to agree. Daniel was confident in his outfit but the rest of us were a little worried that some might find it a touch offensive. We were wrong on both counts. Marlina was a hit, and Daniel’s reception was epic. EVERYONE loved Daniel’s suicide bomber outfit. For whatever reason, most people assumed Marlina and Daniel were a planned duo, and I guess it made sense somehow, at least it did on October 31st in Dallas.

Rounding out the bunch was Adam, spot on as Pauly Bleeker. He met a Juno outside the bar and took the perfect photo. Adam got a lot of love from girls who either: a) love the character from the movie, b) love Michael Cera, or c) love the idea of a guy like that (see also: Level two of the Budget superhero costume dissection).

All in all, one of the better Dallas nights out. Here are some random pics from that night, and any comments I feel the need to throw out there. In retrospect, this is not a “light reading” post, but I refuse to go back and edit that out. I hope you enjoyed my rant. Now, on to the pictures!!

The girls in the costume contest. One took her boob out. Winner!

Budget Ironman meets Budget Tony Stark!

Another Superhero meets us outside:

Enemies!

...and one more of The New Roomies:

Tomorrow look for "Who's that man in the Mustache?"

Until next time...

On Chocolate Milk

2008-11-25T18:35:00.000-08:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" by Rufus Wainright

The other day, I was at the store and something occurred to me: I had not had chocolate milk in a long, long time. Chocolate milk is one of my favorite things in the whole world; as far as chocolate flavored drinks are concerned, chocolate milk is third only to chocolate shakes (second place) and Frosties (the best chocolate drink in the whole wide world, bar none).
So I got some powdered chocolate milk mix. This may be a controversial choice for some people, namely chocolate syrup-lovers. But I never liked chocolate syrup. It’s like the nicer version of chocolate powder, and I dislike it in much the same way as I dislike the non-powdered cheese version of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (that silvery packet of pre-mixed cheese sauce grosses me out) and any flavor or Top Ramen besides Chicken and Creamy Chicken (you can keep your fancy-schmancy shrimp and beef flavors). So powder it was.

I didn’t have a glass of chocolate milk as soon as I got home because I knew I’d be forcing it. I wanted to know that chocolate milk was available to me as soon as I got a good, solid hankering for it.

Less than a week later it was time. I was relaxing with the Roomies and I realized that I was a) thirsty, and b) currently experiencing the medical malady known as “sweet tooth.”

The path was clear. It was time for chocolate milk.

What I didn’t count on was my Roomies going apeshit and wanting some too. It was understandable though, and I was more than happy to oblige. There was plenty of powdered chocolate milk mix to go around. This gave me an opportunity to observe their mixing technique, which is, in my opinion, just as important as the powder/syrup issue. There are two techniques.

The Roomies went with technique one: each put two heaping spoonfuls in their respective cups, added milk, and stirred like crazy.

This is wrong.

Technique one leads to sludge at the bottom of the cup.

When I was a kid, I loved the sludge. When I was done, I would tilt the cup way up, position my open mouth at the bottom, and wait for the sludge to slowly creep its way down. Then I would chew the stuff, which was slick on the outside, and powdery on the inside. Only kids can enjoy this. Kids also eat frosting and leave the cake. As an adult, though, I now appreciate the fully-mixed cup of chocolate milk, one that I can sip away at for a little while, and then, at about the halfway mark, finish in one long swallow. I drink orange juice this same way. It allows for measured enjoyment for a while, and then the kind of flavor “hit” that only someone who drinks or smokes or does drugs to excess can appreciate. Having a pile of sludge at the bottom after drinking my chocolate milk in the sip-sip-sip-then-guzzle manner would be like chewing the ice at the bottom of a cocktail, eating the filter of a finished cigarette, or drinking the bongwater: more of the same, but worse. As far as I know, there is only one way to ensure that there is no sludge at the bottom of my chocolate milk without using a blender, and that is technique two.

Technique two is the exact opposite of technique one. It involves timing and finesse, as well as a solid knowledge of the relationship between color and flavor. First, put milk in the cup. Next, take your spoon and begin stirring the milk, not too briskly. You want a consistent mini-whirlpool. If tiny drops of milk are flying out of the cup, you need to slow it down a bit. Once you have the correct spin on things, with your free hand, grab the open container of chocolate milk mix and position it over the mini-vortex. Now, ever so gently, begin tapping the container with one of your gripping fingers, and little bits of powder will begin to trickle out. It is important that you do not stop stirring, and it is equally important that you do not go overboard with the tapping. Not enough stirring or too much tapping will lead to clumps, and clumps sink and become sludge. So stir, and tap, and if you are doing it right, the milk will magically begin to get darker and more chocalatey every second, without any clumpage. If you drink a lot of chocolate milk, you will know the color you like it, and can stop at the exact moment that your mix reaches that color. If not, you are on your own, but keep in mind that grade school chocolate milk is a lighter brown, and bottled Nesquik is a darker brown with a little more thickness to it (If you prefer Yoo-hoo, stop reading this and throw yourself out the closest window, or just omit milk and substitute used toilet water. Yoo-hoo is some gross and terrible shit. This is a fact). I like my chocolate milk slightly darker than grade school brown.

We stirred away, each of us remembering the last time we had chocolate milk, and smiling because chocolate milk is fucking awesome and we couldn’t wait to drink it.

Well, everyone got their milk made and sat back down.

And for a while, all was right in the world.

On Roommates, New and Old, and Facial Hair

2008-10-07T19:24:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "This Time Tomorrow" by The Kinks

I have some important news that I've been holding from you all.

I moved out of my original Dallas Living Situation (DLS) with the fantastic family that cared for me as if I was their own, and moved into a new place with three roommates. The current DLS has disadvantages, namely:
-Rent
-Utility bills
-Responsibility
-No kids running around, keeping me on my toes and limiting the amount of bad words I say on any given day

...but there are advantages too:
-I now live a 10 minute bike ride from work
-I am walking distance from two bars (one is good, the other one is okay)
-I live with three cool ass people
-I can swear
-I can run around in my boxer shorts
-I can have company over, and even overnight guests

So while I'll miss the family, I am happy to be free. I still visit them at least once a week, and it rocks.

So there's that. I'll try and get a video tour of the house put together for next time.

NEXT!

Halloween is coming up. I love Halloween. I'm trying to get the male Roomies to do a group costume thing like Nick, Jason and I did two years back when we all went as Michael Jackson:

As for the new Roomies, well, let me show you the new Roomies. This is a picture from New Years Eve, before I was living with them. I showed up at a "Dress to Impress" New Years Ball in my favorite robe. I knew they were cool when Daniel rolled out in a tuxedo t-shirt:

So given our various heights and hair colors, I thought we'd be perfect as:

I even showed them as much with the photoshopped picture below. I'll keep you posted if that's the route we go.

NEXT!

Okay, almost done. Two more things. I AM COMING TO SAN DIEGO ON OCTOBER 23RD!!!!!

Here's what we know so far:
Thursday
-Arrive in San diego 10:30am, hopefully already drunk.
-Maybe happy hour at the Prado (I gotta get it out of the way)
-Dinner at the Turf Club?

Friday
-Breakfast at Hash House?
-Beach (Weather permitting)
-Drive to LA
-Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt. This will be the 9th annual. You are welcome to go. As it stands, we have at least 8 people on board so far, probably more. We have hotel rooms. If you want to go, let me know, I'll get you the details. It is always a booze and drug-fueled fun-fest. This is one of my favorite things ever, and if you want to come I'd love to have you with me.

Saturday
-Wake up in LA, maybe sightsee a little bit
-Drive back to SD
-Beach (Weather permitting)
-Drink ourselves stupid. If anyone knows of a Halloween party on this night, I'd appreciate a heads up! Otherwise, pub crawl!!

Sunday
-Bluegrass Brunch at Urban Solace
-Beach (Weather permitting)
-Fly back to Dallas

...won't you join us? New Roomie Daniel is coming, and there are serious rumors that Old Roomies Nick and Jason are coming out from Minneapolis and Omaha, respectively.

See you soon, San Diego!!!

NEXT! LAST!!

I'm growing my winter coat. Haven't cut my hair in a while, and am attempting to grow facial hair like I do once a year.

It's pretty patchy (the facial hair) but I'm not giving up! This is one of the benefits of having a job that is done entirely over the phone. I can look/smell like hell and no one will ever know except my co-workers, and who gives a shit what they think?! Sweet!
Well, as I'm looking proudly at my tufty facial hair, which could be put to shame by any 13-year-old whose testicles have dropped, I get a text from Nick in Minneapolis. He's growing his hair out, too.

Holy shit, Nick. THAT IS FUCKING AWESOME!!! You're making me look bad, but I don't mind. I don't mind one bit.

See you in two weeks, San Diego!!

Until Next Time...

The Great Redneck Mystery

2008-09-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Man of Constant Sorrow" by The Soggy Bottom Boys

I figured something out today:

I figured out why you will often see a hot girl walking hand in hand with a dirty, stupid-looking country boy around town here.

Here’s how it works:

We know that a beautiful girl can be born anywhere. So you take some town in the middle of nowhere, a town called Borington or something, and this town will have a fair number of good-looking girls. Among them, we have OUR girl. She’s not rich; her parents have never left the county. But watching TV as a child, she dreamed of one day moving to Hollywood and being an actress. She becomes a cheerleader in school and everyone knows she is too hot for Borington, that this girl is gonna do something someday. But a girl needs love, and that’s where our guy comes in.

He’s a corn-fed farm boy, who is of average looks and intelligence, who knows that he’s gotta work hard to succeed, and so he does, he throws football after football through the tire swing in his front yard, over and over and it doesn’t make him the best, but it does make him the best in Borington. He becomes the quarterback of the high school team.

They met during freshman year, and eventually get married.

His arm isn’t good enough for college, and neither are his grades. His uncle runs a farm equipment store, so he starts working there. She is in community college, or going to hairstylist school.

She may be married to a country bumpkin, but she reads Cosmo and watches Sex in the City. She knows what to shop for when she is out with friends. She looks good before she leaves the house. She loves her man, and would never think that there is anything wrong with him. This is kinda sweet in a way, her nonjudgemental love.

He, on the other hand, at one point just said, “Fuck, it. From now on, I’m stickin’ to t-shirts tucked into tight jeans, high-top Nikes, Texas-shaped belt-buckle, Cellphone holster, and my camouflage baseball hat with a fishhook on it. “

Then, when his uncle decides to expand his farm equipment empire, they up and move to “the big city,” where guys like me look at them and say, “Why the FUCK is that chick with THAT guy?”

It’s the only explanation I can think of.

I wonder if I went undercover if they would know that I was an imposter?

Until next time...

California to Texas in six minutes.

2008-09-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Children" by Robert Miles

If you like a good narrative, don't watch the video yet. The story of this brief trip follows, and if you want to see the finished product right away, go ahead. The version above is the low quality version, so it can be hard to see some of the finer detail. If you are a purist, and you should be, watch this video in "High Quality." It's the better choice. If you are lazy (like me) you can watch the crappy version, but trust me, it's not as pretty.
You should really watch the high quality version:
CA to TX in 6 minutes
Click that and then click the "watch in high quality" thingie on the bottom right corner.

THE STORY OF THE DRIVE

Mike is a very good friend of mine. Here is a brief (brief!) timeline of our friendship:
-Became friends at Outback Steakhouse in San Diego (El Cajon, actually)
-Got up to all sorts of no good for some time
-Mike got restless, moved to Dallas to work a "real job," tries and fails repeatedly to get me to move to Texas
-While Mike climbed the corporate ladder, I fucked off for three years
-Mike falls in love, gets married
-At wedding, Mike finally convinces me to move to Dallas
-I move to Dallas, friendless except for Mike
-Two months after I move to Dallas, Mike gets a better position and moves to San Diego

As I see it, there are two ways to look at that last bit:
1. "Had I moved to Dallas when Mike did, I might also be getting the opportunity to move back to California"
2. "That mother fucker"

Well, as it turns out, the grass is always greener and all of that, and once you factor in the cost of living and a heinous commute, Mike wasn't doing much better in California, and wanted to come back. I helped Mike and his family pack for the move TO California, and swore I would not help him pack ever again. Mike needed help in another way. Would I be wiling to drive one of his cars back for him? he wondered.
Sure, I say.

He found me a wingman: Jonathan, who Mike knew from Dallas. The two of us would fly out on a Friday night, hang out on the beach on Saturday, and drive back in a straight shot on Sunday. Easy, right? I got my camera ready, as I already knew what I wanted to do on the terrible, terrible drive.

Friday night, stepping off the plane, I had one thing and one thing only on my mind: Double double.

Mission accomplished.
I'm going to take a quick second to mention that there really is nothing like In-n-Out Burger in Texas. Every so often, some ignorant bastard will make the "Whataburger tastes just like In-n-Out" statement. This is wrong. Whataburger is a filthy shithole with burgers that cause explosive gas 99.9% of the time. The burgers are greasy, the fries are for shit, and the staff mopes around like sweatshop workers. There is no comparison. The lack of Double doubles (animal style, with whole grilled onions) is an empty part of my Texas existence, the same kind of emptiness I have from the lack of three-dollar, two-pound Carne Asada Burritos...but back to the story.

Satisfied with the meal and tired from getting drunk on the plane ride, we crashed out, ready for our one day of California before we had to set our backs to the coast and head back to Texas.

Saturday, we prepped for the beach. In my absence from the San Diego area, some shitty law got passed and now alcohol is NOT allowed on the beach. Seriously people, I'm not gone a year and the whole place is falling to shit! No booze on the beach?!?!? It was time to get creative. I had a plan. You get a brief tutorial:

**Getting drunk at the alcohol-free beach**

Step 1: Get yourself a handle of vodka, and 10 Vitamin waters of any flavor

Step 2: Empty the top part of the Vitamin Waters out. There is a helpful crease just above the label that helps you determine just how much to pour out.

Step 3: Top up the partially full Vitamin Waters with the vodka. The bottle of vodka will now be split among the 10 Vitamin Waters, with hardly any to spare.

Step 4: Pack them in a cooler. Be careful. Three of these will have you talking to strangers while pissing on cars.

**Tutorial over**

We went to the beach at Torrey Pines. It was fantastic. Good things were happening. My good friend "Serena" came up from Ocean Beach and we discovered that while you may not be able to chug a beer on the beach, it's still not a huge deal if you roll a doobie:

Thus intoxicated, we wandered up and down the shore. I was in a happy place, smelling the salty air, soaking up the sun, and rocking my new beach towel.

As I do every time I'm home, I said to myself, "Why the FUCK did I leave?"

Drunk and happy, we went to dinner at the Outback, and then out to the casino for some more boozin'.

Sunday, after breakfast, John and I set out for Palm Springs, where I wanted to pick some things up from my Dad's place.

That done, I turned my camera on, set it on the dashboard, and we were off...

(If you waited to watch the video, here's that link again. Enjoy.)
CA to TX in 6 minutes
Click that and then click the "watch in high quality" thingie on the bottom right corner.

Until next time...

A Very Special Car Show

2008-08-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "The Kids" by MGMT

Lots happening, lots happening, and in such rapid succession that I'm having a tough time keeping up. Before I get into the serious shit, I'm gonna cover the fun stuff. Namely, this car show I went to last weekend.

If you know my friend Mike, who is the guy the got me to move to Dallas, you know that he is into custom cars. He has a tricked-out Passat station wagon that he takes to car shows and wins tall trophies with. Well, last weekend there was a car show in Dallas that Mike was not showing in, but that he wanted to check out anyway. I decided to go and bring my camera, since any car show I've been to is chock full of weirdos and idiots, as well as the occasional cool car.

Little did I know that I was walking into the strangest car show ever conceived.

Our first indication that something was different was during the walk from the parking lot into the actual convention center where the show was being held. Car show people look a certain way. The people we were seeing did not look like car show people. There were a lot of kids running around in karate outfits. There were grown men in karate outfits. The real freaky thing was all of the over-tanned ultra-buff people. Like, really buff. It was when we got to the ticket counter that we realized that we were getting into a lot more than just a car show.

There were easels set up with posters on them. The first one we saw said that at 2:30pm, we could meet this guy:

Holy shit, right? This guy is IN THE BUILDING. The poster had ben wrapped in saran wrap for whatever reason, possibly to protect it from staining should some sweaty fanboy try and skip the autograph line and just decide to rub on the poster.

So this was a car show/bodybuilding competition? Okey dokey. Odd, but I could handle that. But this was not all. Behind this poster was another:

Wow. Really? So this is a car show/bodybuilding competition/arm wrestling tournament. Aha. Happens all the time. Wait, wait a minute...

It was at this point I realized where I must be: none other than the highly anticipated IFB Europa Super Show. (http://www.supershowexpo.com/). This was a car show/bodybuilding competition/arm wrestling tournament/weight lifting lift-off/mixed-martial-arts exhibition/yo-yo championship!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was very happy that I had brought my camera.

Tickets were purchased, armbands were put on, and we were in!

Right away, I saw human beings that were so unnatural, so freaky, that I knew I had to somehow photograph them. Problem was, their freakiness was usually that they were extremely buff. HUGE. There were women walking around that could easily punch my head off. OFF. So I knew I had to be sneaky. My camera has a little red light that turns on when I am filming.

...see the light there under my finger?

So pointing the camera at someone, they would know they were being filmed, and then, noticing that I was wearing my sunglasses indoors and laughing at them, they might get mad and, I don't know, stand on my feet and pull my head off. So I needed a plan. I came up with the plan pretty quickly:

Ta-da!!

First, I needed to do a lap with Mike to look at cars. The freaks would have to be photographed as we casually took in the custom vehicles, which were distributed evenly throughout the convention hall.

I took a picture of some car, mostly to make it look like I was an auto freak.

Shiny!

At this point, we were near the weightlifters. So while Mike and our other friend Todd were looking at lifted cars on 20s, I popped over and got as close as I could to the powerlifters. These guys were lifting the equivalent of a Volkswagon Beetle and managing to not shit themselves at the same time.

It was kinda neat, I guess. I really liked the fact that there was a whole sub-competition involving mentally challenged lifters. This is not a joke. I don't mean to be an ass here. I am a sarcastic ass a lot of the time, but this was really quite cool. There were about a dozen kids in their late teens to early twenties that had down syndrome that were lifting huge amounts of weight. It was touching and a bit inspiring as well. Not that I want to be able to dead-lift two tons of metal, but hell, they were enjoying themselves and you can't make fun of that. I decided to move on and find some people I could comment safely on.

This took us back to the cars.

Someone decided to go the creepy route and have a mannequin dressed like Elvis parked next to their car. People with custom cars will frequently have some sort of thing in the vicinity of their car to "set it off," usually a stuffed animal behind the steering wheel, or pictures of the car before it was restored, but this was just bizarre.

Now we were over by the arm wresting.

It was pretty funny. There were different classes, I guess based on the size of your wrestlin' arm. Each match was super quick, and it was all or nothing. I figured they would be best of two out of three, but no. It was "Ready? Go!" and then one guy would utterly crush the other, and then after some polite applause, it was on to the next two. You'd see two big ol' boys in Nascar shirts followed by two thin pimply guys wearing Metallica shirts. There was no rhyme or reason to any of it. The bitch of it was that there was never any struggle. One guy always got quickly decimated, no matter how strong or weak they both looked. I stuck around for some time, hoping to see some miracle bout where the two contestants were so closely matched that their grunts filled the room and made passers-by stop and crane their necks to see what the fuss was about, finally resulting in hand-to-hand pressure that made their fingernails burst off and go ricocheting around the room as spectators and judges alike dove for cover, ending when one man's wrist finally snapped off and the winner slammed the armless hand down on the table and the loser sprayed the front row with blood from his stump, screaming like a girl.

No such luck. I was moving on.

Next up, I saw the America-mobile.

This looked like the car that George W. Bush would, on the final day of his presidency, drive around on the lawn of the White House, doing doughnuts and tearing up the grass while drunk on Coors Light. Shouting "WHOOOOOOO HOOOOOO!" out of the window as country music poured out of the speakers. I shed a patriotic tear and moved on.

Now we were near the flexing competition. I couldn't get close enough to get any good pictures, but you know the drill: impossibly ripped muscle-men flexing on stage as Right Said Fred's "I'm too sexy" plays over the PA. The good stuff was happening on the floor of the show.

First off, the fake tan factor was off the charts here. Later, looking at the official website I realized why:

Spray-on tan?!! Sign me up!!

At the time, I was simply amazed at the orange-ness of these bodybuilders. I got a few shots of some of the crazier people. I tailed this woman for a minute. Look at the shoulders on this lady:

The females were way more interesting. The males were either built like He-Man with the tiny waist and huge chest, or of the old school "fat strong guy" type:

This guy was in good spirits and seemed happy enough, but he reminded me of Bob from "Fight Club." Bob had bitch tits, remember?

This Bob wasn't there quite yet, but he was one blown knee from a huge BMI and a C cup.

Then, I saw something that reminded me why I brought my camera in the first place: Airbrushed hoods. Forget airbrushed tans, this is gold! More commonly seen on the tailgate of the Mexican-American pickup truck and featuring men in sombreros and wolves howling at the moon, the car-show airbrushed hood tells a story about the car or its owner or both, and is usually so fucking awful as to be hilarious. Case in point: Money Hungry.

I LOVED this car. So silly that I almost pissed myself laughing, but scary in that I knew if the owner had seen me he would have stabbed me or broken my nose with brass knuckles. As it was, he was off taking a dump or something, so I could laugh at his car with no fear of retribution, like the coward I am. Here's a close up of that hood.

Note the girl on the left side has visible nipple, and is moaning in pleasure while thinking of $$$$$. What you could not see in this picture is that the main girl in the middle is standing on two alligators (she is holding two chains, which are around their necks). The alligators themselves are eating stacks of hundred dollar bills. This is not made up. I just wish I was I the room when the car's owner told the artist exactly what he wanted on the hood. Holy shit, I'd give a testicle to be there.

The Martial Arts Competition was nothing to write home about, and the pictures I got looked more like foreplay than fighting, so I left them out.

Next up, the Yo-yo contest. There was nothing going on on stage, but as soon as the contestants saw my camera they started showboating. It was cool. Before they started blowing my mind with their mad skills, I got a quick shot of one of the kids who was rocking a unique hairstyle:

It took me a second, but then, a voice in my head said, "Use the force, Nik." AHA!!!!

This was an example of Jedi hair!!

Then, an Asian kid begun spinning TWO yo-yo's like a raver spinning glow sticks. The picture is a bit blurry, but it is testimony of the DIZZYING SPEED with which this guy was twirling his yos.

Not to be outdone, this guy went wild and did some single-yo tricks, keeping things tight and playing it close to the chest, so to speak.

It took me a second before I recognized him. This was Shannon Hoon, the supposedly deceased singer from the hit band Blind Melon!!!!

Allegedly, he died of a heroin overdose, but I know now that it was all a ruse and that he chose the path less traveled, and decided to go Pro Yo Yo.

Our time at the show was coming to an end. But there was still one more treat in store for us.

On our way out, that's when I saw her: The Lady in Red. For fear of my life, I could not get too close to this rare creature. I tiptoed as close as I dared and got a picture as she signed up for some Canadian HGH mailing thing. If she knew my intent, her steroid-induced rage could cause her to tear me apart.

She was spectacular, but mysterious. Gentle, yet strong. A man, yet somehow a woman. Strange and new, yet familiar. Then it hit me: "You think anybody thinks I'm a failure because I go home to Starla at night?"

This was Starla, in the flesh, and scary as hell. I knew if I made her too uncomfortable, I'd be asking for a roundhouse to the face.

It was time to go.

Until next time...

Random Roomie Update

2008-08-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Oh Shit" by Pharcyde

This is just a quick update.

Most of you will remember my old Roomie, Jason from the party house. Here we are, on a typical afternoon:

...that's Jason on the right.

Well, after I moved to Dallas, Nick (Roomie 3) moved to Minneapolis, so Jason decided to keep us all in the same time zone by moving back home to Omaha.

Another notable fact about Jason was that of the three Roomies, Jason had the only fully functional and presentable automobile, the black GMC Yukon, or Tahoe, or whatever. Big, black SUV. It was awesome. It fit 8 people, and was perfect for after-hours impromptu TJ trips.

Well, I talked to Jason today, and he had an incident.

Omaha is located in a part of the country known as the "Bible Belt" which, not coincidentally, is also the exact same part of the country known as "Tornado Alley." Why devout Christians chose to live in an area that is frequently hit by deadly pointy clouds is anyone's guess. Maybe the tornadoes inspire faith, who knows? All I know is that very recently, Jason woke up and said, "Oh, shit."

According to Jason, "The back window got blown out and the roof of the truck is shaped like a hot dog bun."

I guess it could be worse?

Yeah, it could be worse:

...that's his neighbor's truck.

That's all I have to say. Jason reads my blog, so if you have any well-wishing to do, or if you want to laugh at his misfortune, feel free to post a comment so he can read it.

Until next time...

Bought Read Watched 4

2008-08-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Don't you forget about me" by Simple Minds

JULY:

Books bought:

Jernigan by David Gates

Anthem by Ayn Rand

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

DVDs Bought:

None

Books Read:

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

Jernigan by David Gates

Movies Watched:

The Whale Rider

Wall-E

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The Dark Knight

The Savages

American Teen

Big movie month, not a lot of reading got done, sadly.

The first thing I read was The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. All I know about Scrooge McDuck I learned from watching DuckTales. I had no idea that he was not meant to be a recurring character, that he was usually an incorrigible asshole, and that he had a huge following in Europe. The original Scrooge artist was a guy named Carl Barks. He invented Scrooge McDuck for one Donald Duck story, but Scrooge was so popular he ended up drawing his adventures in comic books for decades. In the states, Disney comics never really blew up, but in Europe, this guy Barks and his duck comics were a huge hit. So much so that when Barks died, it made national news in some European countries. Don Rosa, the man who took Barks’ place drawing Donald and Scrooge and Huey, Dewey and Louie, is such a fan of Barks that he decided to create a backstory for Scrooge using old Barks comics as research. He went through thousands of Barks comics and took every little tidbit of information he could and used it in this twelve chapter graphic novel that details Scrooge’s poor roots and rise to riches. It’s an awesome story full of historical detail and humor and ups and downs. After each chapter, Rosa writes about all the insane details he used from Barks stories to put the chapter together. It’s a glimpse into what makes the story even more special, although the story doesn’t need any help to kick ass on its own.

Jernigan, by David Gates features what is known in the literary world as an anti-hero. Peter Jernigan is a witty drunk asshole, a sublime fuckup of a man who narrates a novel about a time in his life that took him to the edge, and over. The writing is fantastic, and Jernigan is someone you’d love to know most of the time, and deny knowledge of the rest of the time. Early on, he ends up having sex with the mother of his son’s girlfriend, while his son and her daughter are in the next room, doing the same thing. Here, because it is fantastic and because I am bored, I present to you a couple of paragraphs from Jernigan that describe what happens the morning after:

“Martha Peretsky was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, face down. Shoulders swelling and subsiding. I got out of bed, found the jockey shorts where they’d ended up – I remembered now her taking them down and my not caring what became of them – and crept to the door. Then I remembered the girl, Clarissa, and went back and put on trousers. Glanced at stomach. Put on shirt.
In the hallway I met Danny, in just his jockey shorts, coming out of the bathroom. He gave me a thumbs-up, and a grin I would never have given my father, no matter how much of an old bohemian he was. But what was the point of trying to be on your dignity when you were getting up from doing the same thing he was getting up from doing? I decided fuck it, and gave him the thumbs-up back, the canny old veteran who could still come off the bench and move the runner along with the perfect bunt.”

This stuff makes me laugh out loud, and there’s enough funny in this book to balance out the shitty feeling I got when I read it for too long of a stretch. Too much of it seems too familiar with this man who can’t control his urges even though his life is turning to shit. If you like Catcher in the Rye, you’ll find a lot of similarities between the voices of Holden Caulfield and Peter Jernigan.

As for movies, first I got around to watching a DVD I bought months ago. The Whale Rider was a critical darling when it came out and I never saw it. I’m pissed now that I waited as long as I did. It’s the story of a girl whose twin brother died at birth. He was to be the leader of their Maori tribe. His death left the tribe without a leader. The movie shows what life is like for her (difficult), what kind of existence a leaderless people have (shitty, mostly), and how all that is overcome (in an awesome and heartbreaking way). The visuals of New Zealand made me ask myself, “Why have I not been there?” See this movie, then call me and let me know when you wanna go to New Zealand.

What can I say about Wall-E other than go see it? This movie is incredible. The love story of two robots broke my heart in certain places. I think it was just the way that EVE says Wall-E’s name when she’s frustrated with him…”Wwwwaaaaallllllleeeeeee!”

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was good fun, especially for me, the comic book nerd. It’s worth watching even if you know nothing about the comic just because of the richness of the world that is created in the movie. The monster market is fantastic, and watching Hellboy and Abe the merman get drunk and sing Barry Manilow is worth the price of admission alone. Plus, for fans of slapstick humor, it doesn’t get much better than an old lady getting punched so hard she flies offscreen.

The Dark Knight is another movie I’m assuming you’ve seen. If not, skip this paragraph. Holy shit!! I was lucky enough to catch an IMAX sneak preview of this the Tuesday before it came out. There was no point to that last sentence except to brag. This movie is bad ass. The Joker making the pencil disappear: genius. The Joker in general: mad genius. This movie was near-perfect. Really, the only thing that got to me was the Batman voice. I know it’s to protect his identity, but it grated after a while. I mean, I love the new “realistic” feel these movies have, but the bat-voice is odd enough that it makes me notice that people are talking to a man in a bat suit and not really noting the silliness of the whole deal. But the other 99.9% of the movie is, as I said before, perfect. I saw it first!!!

A friend of mine gave me the DVD for The Savages, a black comedy with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It is about a brother and sister who have to care for their elderly father who is losing his mind and control of his bodily functions. The sad is so sad, and the funny so funny, that it is hard to classify this movie. I’ll just classify it as great.

And sneaking in just under the wire we have American Teen, a documentary that is just showing up in theatres that you should go and see right away. The filmmaker followed a bunch of seniors at a Midwest high school around for a year and picked the four best stories to feature. The movie may seem to be trying to show that al kids fit into groups, but that is not the case. By focusing on the four she focuses on, the director shows us what it is like to be one of the extremes. The Queen Bee, The Sports Hero, The Nerd, and The Outsider. These four may fit the descriptions neatly, but that doesn’t mean they like where they are or are eager to stay there. All four have ups and downs and all four defy their descriptions in some way or another. If nothing else, it will give you that “Thank goodness that’s over with” feeling. In high school, only high school matters, and it’s neat to go back to that for just a couple of hours just so you can know that really, it didn’t matter all that much in the long run. These kids don’t know that yet, and it’s awesome and scary to watch. GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Until next time…

Wasted in The Big Easy

2008-08-03T15:10:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: “Wasted” by South

(Note on the video: the footage is some stuff I shot from the lobby of the hotel I stayed at. The lobby was on the 11th floor and looked out over the Mississippi river. Sunday, in a stupor, I was there doing some editing and reading when a hell of a storm rolled in with lightning and everything. After trying and mostly failing to get some lightning on video, I set my camera on the ledge and let it run. The video above is sped up, except when the lightning hits. It also repeats itself twice over the course of the song I picked, a song I picked because it matches the post and not the footage. But what the hell.)

Last weekend took a trip to New Orleans.

I got there on a Southwest flight that took about an hour and a half. As usual, I enjoyed cocktails during the flight. Also, I always have beers while I wait for my plane to start boarding. The new thing was that I got incredibly high in the parking garage of Love Field, from a spliff I rolled during lunch at work. Long story short, I’m feeling pretty good as we hit our cruising altitude of 15,000 feet or whatever. I don’t know the precise altitude, or the pilot’s name, or any of that shit because, as always, I wear my iPod the entire time, taking one earbud out only when it is time to order another drink. Music is all I hear, except when my ears go through the process of popping.

So you’re with me now, you understand my altered state of mind and my inability to hear anything but music?

Well, the flight is well underway and the nice lady next to me taps on my arm and when I look at her she looks and points at the male flight attendant who is standing in the aisle. I saw him when I got on the plane; like most male flight attendants, he was obviously gay, and loving it. I look at this guy, and with Bill Withers singing "Lovely Day" into my head, this guy mouths a word at me. The word is “penis.” He has his eyebrows raised real high when he says it. What the fuck? It takes me a moment to process it: “Penis.” I’m sure my face was a fright. Did I set off his Gaydar? Does he think my name is Penis (“It’s Richard, thanks”)? WHY DID THIS MAN ASK ME PENIS?! He says it again, eyebrows way up, mouthing the word, “Penis?” Then he holds a tiny blue bag up and shakes it a little. Oh.

“No thanks,” I say, probably too loud on account of my iPod.

No peanuts for me.

* * *

I hit the ground running, headed to a strip club for a bit (I have a friend who works there), and proceeded to get more shitfaced. A man who all the strippers seemed to like a lot came in, sat down next to me, and struck up conversation. Apparently, he had had a life changing event (multiple operations, coma) two years’ previous, and had decided late in life to start partying. Since I had been kind enough to listen to his story, he whipped out a wad of cash as thick as my wrist and bought me a shot and a lapdance. Cool. I’m not a huge fan of strip clubs because in my opinion it is a waste of money. If I want to pay too much for drinks and look at hot chicks I can go to Hooters, where at least I get fed. But a free lapdance, I’ll take. Upon my return, he got me some more to drink, and some more. By this time, I had 6 missed calls from my buddy Mike, who was in town on business. He was at a concert of some kind and I had told him I would meet him. It took a lot of effort to leave the rich Plutocrat who was buying me bourbon and tits, but leave I did.

I stopped briefly on Bourbon Street to see some friends that were barhopping. I was so fucking drunk that I barely remember any of this, and for that I am a bit ashamed. I was so plowed that I have no recollection whatsoever of how I got to the…

Next stop: some bar. It had a stage. And a man called Kermit Ruffins was tearing it up.

I learned later that he is a bit of a New Orleans celebrity. At the time, I knew nothing except that his jazz made me dance. I suavely pulled a cute girl from the audience and twirled her here and there, impressing her with my fancy footwork. Just kidding, I drunkenly made eye contact with her, waved her over, then grabbed her and spun her all around like a rag doll. She liked this enough to insist that we hang out the following night. She was probably fucked up, too.

After this, we rolled up Bourbon Street until who knows when.

Mike went back to his Rain Man suite at the Westin, and I went to my friend’s house. I was awake until 10am, when Mike called me to tell me he was headed to work and that he hoped my night went well. Well, my night was still going.

After waking up sometime in the late afternoon, I had a little lunch, walked around town for a while, and then headed to the hotel. Mike was going to dinner, and told me to come with. I was really on the fence about it, but Mike assured me that his friends who live in NOLA said it was the best place in town. I hauled my stinking sweaty ass into the shower and hosed off to the best of my ability. The problem is that after a bender like the one I had the previous evening, it takes DAYS for all the terrible shit I consumed to work its way out of my body. So even after a thorough scrubbing, shampooing, deodorizing and cologne-ing, I was still sweating that awful mix of booze, smoke and B.O. that gives the French Quarter its distinctive smell. For the time being though, I was mostly sober, somewhat awake, and dressed in clothing that had yet to absorb any foul odors. I was, in a word, ready.

What followed was one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. The place is called Jacques-Imo’s, and if you ever go to New Orleans, you must eat there. If you don’t, I’ll throw a box of kittens out of a moving car. Yes, it is kitten-killing good. The four of us started with Alligator Cheesecake and also some Rabbit Tenderloin. Both were mind-blowingly delicious. Both were sitting in sauces that complimented the main event perfectly. We used some cornbread to sop up what sauce was left after the apps were demolished. Next came the main dishes. We shared everything. I had a Carpetbagger Steak (filet, cooked medium-rare [of course!], topped with caramelized onions, melted bleu cheese, and some rich and yummy sauce), and it was better than any steak had any right to be. Mike had Duck, the lightest dish of the evening, but still one of the tastiest. The female at the table had the Eggplant Jacques-Imo, which was stuffed with goodness and topped with a sauce that could only have been made with tears of joy shed by Angels. The final dish was a stuffed pork chop. Stuffed with ground beef and veggies. It was the size of a whole cooked chicken, and tasted better than any chicken ever has, or ever will. The side dishes were also (predictably) so wonderful that by the time the server came to take the plates away, absolutely nothing was left. I shit you not, they could have put those goddamn plates back under the heat lamp and no one would have known the difference. This meal was so good I was physically aroused. Have you ever gotten a boner from food? It certainly raises questions for the person with the woody. How does one satisfy the culinary erection? I decided that, just like my strip club stiffie from the night before, there was really nothing to be done.

Except, of course, drink.

We went to a bar, I forget the name now, but when I texted my strip club friend to meet me there I got this reply: “Yeah. Chick got her throat slit there last summer. On my way to work for a min. Call u in a bit.” Wow. So I’ve got the throat-slitting thing to think about now, and after asking our local friends about it I found that it was completely true, totally random (he didn’t know her at all), and still (understandably) a touchy subject in the bar. Fucking terrible right? You go out for a drink at the local and some psycho comes in and slits your throat? It’s enough to make a person stay home with the deadbolt locked and the shutters closed. After dwelling on this for a minute or two, I realized that the night would go to shit if I didn’t take immediate action.

I decided to watch a few people play Uno.

“Who’s the underdog?” I asked. “I need someone to root for.”

The two guys pointed to the lone female.

“Make it happen,” I told her.

They played on for a bit, and one of the guys won. They asked me to get in on the next hand. I obliged.

“You know,” I said once the game was underway, “I love this town. I love that people will just invite you to play in their Uno game at a bar.”

“Where you from?” said the shorter of the two guys.

“Dallas, but…” I started.

“You’re really from San Diego!” said the taller guy.

“Holy, shit, man, how the hell did you know that?” I asked.

So he jogged my memory: On my last trip out to New Orleans, I was wandering drunk down Bourbon Street and had stopped and talked to two guys about their bicycles. They had some cool single-speed bikes, one of which was similar to the bike I used to ride everywhere. I must have told them where I was from and where I live now. The tall guy was one of those bikers. Amazing that this dude remembered me.

“New Orleans is a small town, man,” was how he explained it. Fair enough.

That night faded into another blur.

Bars on and off Bourbon. At some point I realized I was at a casino, at a craps table, and I was winning. I’m not sure how far ahead I was, or how much I spent to get there. I really hate gambling, so when I came to, I grabbed my shit and left.

Before we go any further, I’ll take a quick second to talk about the fact that this was the second time in as many nights that I had done things that I don’t normally do. I don’t typically frequent casinos or patronize strip clubs. The town was working its magic on me, and it seemed like that magic was going to get me in trouble. Well, it seemed like that after the fact anyway. At the time, I was just so fucking worn out that none of this occurred to me. Not one part of me said, “Nik, you’re gonna do something stupid if you keep this up.” Which leads me to Sunday.

It didn’t start off too bad. A delicious breakfast with Mike and our local friends from the night before. Margarita to take the edge off, a big one. Then Mike was off to work, our friends off to home depot, and there I was again: alone in a strange town, nursing a buzz on a hot day with infinite possibilities. I did some sightseeing, stopping for street beer when I needed it. The houses in NOLA are crazy. A lot of them still have slave quarters in back. They are the size of closets, but apparently they get rented out these days. Odd.

The town has tons of beautiful graffiti, too.

I went by Jackson Square, which was also nice.

A parade went by, brass band up front, costumed people in back.

Then something occurred to me. Somewhere in this town was a statue of a literary hero of mine: Ignatius J Reilly. Anyone who has read the fabulous book A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole will know of whom I speak. If you haven’t read Dunces you need to. It is a comic masterpiece and the story of its publication is almost as amazing as the book itself. At any rate, the statue was somewhere in the city, I had heard. I place a call to a friend in Dallas, who googled it for me and gave me the name of a hotel. After stopping for a beer in a similarly named hotel that did not have the statue (but I looked anyway), a helpful hotel official told me where I needed to be. Two blocks down the road, I found him.

Mission accomplished.

I needed to sweat some of the terrible shit out my system. I headed to the rooftop pool for a bit, but then a huge storm rolled in and I went down to the lobby to read and edit video of my San Diego-Dallas drive from early June (almost done, and then I’ll post it). Mike got back from work, we took turns showering and then went down to the lobby to drink and wait for our local friends to call. We were meeting for dinner at a place I had gone to the last time called the Port of Call. It has the best burgers. Half-pounders that come with a baked potato to boot.

They also have a drink called a Monsoon that comes in a big plastic cup and costs nine bucks. Believe me, you get your money’s worth. I had two.

After that, it was off to some bar where I took down at least four more beers before parting ways with the group and (foolishly) heading down to the strip club to see my friend. Mike walked with me most of the way, and managed to delay the inevitable by getting me to duck into a couple of bars on the way. The street in front of one place was covered in napkins. What a bunch of filthy animals, I thought. Stumbling drunk with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth, I fit right in.

Then, we were there. Mike left me at the door, headed back to the hotel like a smart man. Since I knew one of the dancers well, and a couple more through her, I was well taken care of. Drinks weren’t ten bucks a pop, they were three. So I drank. Kept drinking. Traded a hundo for ones. Made it rain to the extent that I could. Making friends like I do, I had people there to talk to that weren’t working. At one point, one of the dancers I knew came up to me. She had a bunch of pills in her hand. “Want some?” she asked. I was completely plowed, and remember this with only the haziest of memories. “Yes,” I said without hesitation. She gave me four. If I had any common sense left at that point I would have asked what the hell it was I was about to eat. I pride myself on the fact that while I’ve had my share of prescription drugs, I’ve never taken Ecstasy (big fucking deal, right?). Here I am, completely fortified and staring at four little white pills in my open hand. I hesitated for a split second, and the guy next to me asked, “What are those?” “I have no idea,” I said, “you want some?” He did. He grabbed two. Then, like the drunk moron I was, I threw the remaining two in my mouth and swallowed them down with a big gulp of Jack and coke. I had made the decision (unwisely) to take whatever the night threw at me. Then, a thought: What the fuck had I just swallowed? Was I in real trouble here? I sobered up slightly, as one does when one is driving tipsy and a cop is tailing the car and one realizes that one just might be Well And Truly Fucked. It was at this point that I understood what I had done, and the possible consequences flooded into my drunken skull. Shit. Depending on what it was that I swallowed, the night could a) end quickly, b) never end, c) turn into a Dali-esque nightmare of distorted vision and twisted thoughts, or d) become chock-full of heightened sensory perception that made me just wanna lovingly rub couch cushions and chew on the inside of my cheek. None of those sounded good at this point. Not only had I eaten the mystery pills, I had actually given some to the poor stupid motherfucker who was sitting next to me. As I looked on in horror, he popped his two pills into his mouth. Too late. He wasn’t even swallowing them with booze, the dumb bastard was CHEWING them.

“These are mints,” he said.

* * *

I got back to the room at 3:45am. In order to catch my flight out, I needed to be up at 4:30am and at the airport by six. The smart thing would have been to hop in the shower for an hour and sober up, and then hop a cab to the airport. Instead, I dialed the front desk.

“Front desk.”

“I need a wake up call at four-thirty. A M. Four-thirty-ay-em. Can you do this for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Well, that was a miserable failure. Came to at 7am, cussed a blue streak, called Southwest, got booked on the 9:45am flight (for a fee, a stupidity charge I’ll call it), and hopped in the shower.

Made it to the airport on time, called and let work know I’d be coming in two hours late and then napped my way to Dallas. Luckily for me, the computers were down at work, so no one was working. Tat gave me couple of hours to sit and stare at a blank screen and contemplate the stupidity of the weekend. Decided I would deal with it how I normally do: write it out, do a little self-flagellation, and compare it with some of the other stupid shit I’ve done in the past.

Sadly, this trip was way up there.

At least I got a couple of good stories out of it.

Until next time…

Bought Read Watched 3

2008-07-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: Hoppipola by Sigur Ros as featured in this new movie I made.

(About this video: my boss set a goal for the team in May, and we beat the goal, so the deal was he'd jump in the lake at work. I shot it and edited it, and here it is. I hope you like it.)

This July post is late because I've been busy as hell. I shot a lot of video of various things, so I've got that to work on. I was in San Diego twice in the last month, once for a quick trip (and long drive back) and once for a real vacation. So I've got a lot of writing and editing to do and I didn't read or watch much in June. So chew on the video and the reviews and hopefully my ass will get in gear and flood this blog with lots of content. Also, I have a bizarre idea that I hope you readers (the three of you) will be game for and help me out with. In the meantime, let's see what I consumed in...

JUNE:

Books bought:

No one belongs here more than you by Miranda July

The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

DVDs Bought:

High Fidelity

Books Read:

Riding Toward Everywhere by William Vollmann

Movies Watched:

The Incredible Hulk

The Iron Giant

Slow month for bought read watched. My reading is definitely not up to snuff. I’m in the middle of three books right now, and hopefully July will see those finished. As for this month’s only finished novel, it was a hell of a read.

Riding Toward Everywhere is a nonfiction account of the author’s ramblings around this country, using a method of transport that is old-fashioned, free, illegal, and dangerous as hell: freight trains. Vollmann will set out with a loaded backpack, head down to the train yards, dodge security, hop on any train that is heading out, and see where it takes him. He does this for fun. He travels with friends sometimes, and meets hoboes sometimes. The stories the hoboes tell are sad and exciting, and are insight into what kind of mindset a person has that would choose a life on the rails over one spent panhandling or just getting a damn job and humping the American Dream.

Since Vollmann is such a hater of authority and our over-secured travel options, he sees riding the rails as the only truly free way to travel anymore. He is in constant pursuit of his own Cold Mountain, that slice of paradise that is his and his alone. Does he find it? In some ways, he does. The things he sees are described so beautifully sometimes that it seems like the boxcar door is a window into heaven, and I found myself wondering if I had the stones to ride the rails. Other times, when he describes the squalor of the hobo jungles, and the very real dangers of riding, from human (roving gangs who will kill you for a few bucks) to mechanical (cargo shifting and crushing bones, jumping off a moving train and losing legs), it is enough to make me happy that someone has gone out and done the riding for me and done a great job of describing it. A big part of me wants to try this domestic adventuring. If I do catch out, would any of you reading this want to come with me? It’s potentially a Huck Finn-style adventure, and potentially a trip to jail or the morgue. If I do decide to hop on a train to Everywhere, I’ll certainly write about it here.

This month, I watched two movies whose titles could be changed to “The Adjective Large-Thing.” First I watched The Incredible Hulk, or The Remake That Did Not Have To Be.

I liked the new movie, and Ed Norton is always awesome, but it just seems like the other Hulk movie just came out, and it wasn’t all that bad. The actual green guy looked cooler in the first Hulk movie...

...but the first Hulk movie had Hulkified poodles...

...so the new one actually IS better. Sorry. Tim Roth helps. He’s the bad guy. The movie goes like this: Ed Norton runs away from a threat, the threat catches him, he Hulks out, kills some people, and gets away. This happens twice, then Tim Roth gets Hulkified and a big fight breaks out between two obviously computer-generated Hulkmonsters. Also, Liv Tyler shows up from time to time to suck the quality out of certain scenes. So the bottom line is it is pretty good, but Iron Man set the bar high.

The other adjective large-thing movie was The Iron Giant, an animated movie by Brad Bird, the guy who did The Incredibles. I don’t remember Iron Giant doing very well in theaters, and I’m too lazy to check boxofficemojo.com, but it’s a great little movie. Big robot comes from outer space, crashes down, eats some cars or whatever, kid finds robot, government agent shows up, then hijinks ensue. It’s good fun, and it has some heart, so if you have kids or occasionally are around them, it’s a far better movie to watch then something that involves computer-generated animals with the voice talents of Robin Williams or Ashton Kucher.

That’s all I got! Like I said, I’m trying to get a couple more posts up before next week!

Until next time…

Bought Read Watched 2

2008-06-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins

It's a special birthday edition of Bought Read Watched. A year ago today, we were all running around Balboa Park on a scavenger hunt, today, I'm in Fucking Dallas. I watched Top Chef tonight, so I am happy. This weekend will be the drunkfest that one expects when talking of my birthday. Also, I will be in town from une 20th-26th, so get ready for that. I got a room at the Solamar, and Friday the 20th I'll be at Petco Park with my 5 dollar ticket, and I hope to see you there. Every night will be an adventure, every day will be the beach. See you soon!!

MAY:

Books bought:

The DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore

A Farewell To Arms

Scud the Disposable Assassin # 24: Death of the Over-Used Muse

DVDs Bought:

Boiler Room

Almost Famous

Primer

Hard Eight

Books Read:

Haunted

Scud the Disposable Assassin # 24: Death of the Over-Used Muse

Kitchen Confidential

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War

Movies Watched:

Primer

Iron Man

Speed Racer

The Last Dragon

Hard Eight

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Time for another installment of Bought Read Watched. I hope I have the fortitude to keep this up, since I really like writing it. Let’s go on a filmtastic and literary adventure!
Starting off with the easy stuff, the films. This month was a big movie month. This is because I’ve found a way to go to the movies without wasting two valuable hours on a Sunday: Midnight shows. In this way I saw all three of the theatre released movies this month. I’d go after work, meet some buddies, drink a few, smoke a little, and then sit through Iron Man. Which, by the way, is utterly fantastic. Robert Downey, Jr. is the shit. He makes the movie. I’m sure you’ve seen this by now, right? It’s a solid film, more so than Speed Racer, which was cool but not good.

That’s all I can say for Speed Racer: Cool but not good. The box-office for that movie was disappointing, I guess, but if I was a kid watching that movie I’d be building a soapbox racer the minute I left the theater and on the fast track to a broken neck. Since I am an adult, I recognized the fact that the movie was just a highly polished turd, and because of that, and because I was high as a kite, I liked Speed Racer. Especially in Imax.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was just what I expected, and I had a good time there, too. But since it seems like everyone in the country has seen Indy at this point, I don’t need to go into it too much. Plus it was simple and straightforward, unlike the next movie I’m gonna talk about.

Primer is a movie I bought off of Amazon.com without having seen it. I’d heard a few things about it, namely: a) It was written and directed by a highly skilled independent filmmaker, b) It was made for $7000, and that amount includes film stock which, if you know anything about the price of film stock, means that they didn’t make a single mistake filming, and c) It was an indecipherable mindfuck of a movie that is still being hotly debated about in the nerdier areas of the internet. So I was in. After watching it all I can say is that I’m not quite sure what happened, but I know it was cool. It’s about two guys who invent a time machine in their garage, and what they do with it. Suffice to say that the kind of space-time paradoxes that these two guys get into would make Marty McFly shit himself in confusion. It’s worth watching, but just make sure to block enough time to watch it again as soon as it ends.

As a big fan of P.T. Anderson movies (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love) I was eager to see is first film, Hard Eight. I don’t know why more people haven’t seen it, it’s a tight little movie, a simple story with great dialog and a good story. It also had a couple of actors that would end up being regulars in his future films. If you like a character driven story with enough little touches in it to make you remember it with a smile, throw it in your netflix queue. If you like P.T. Anderson’s stuff, you’ll see the beginnings of what would eventually become his style.

The other movie I saw this month was a blast from the past that I had somehow managed to miss when growing up. I’m talking about The Last Dragon. Holy shit. What a corny 80’s schlockfest. What an awesome movie. It has it all: Bad 80’s hair and clothes, a mystical quest, martial arts, terrible acting, magical glowing punches, and it’s very own theme song. The scene in the movie theater with Sho’nuff (The Shogun of Harlem) is worth the price of the rental alone. Here it is, actually:

Got through three proper books and one comic book this month. I’ll start with the odd man out. Scud the Disposable Assassin # 24: Death of the Over-Used Muse is the ceremonial end to my post-high school dorkiness. I was a full-on comic book geek, and one comic towered above all others, and that was Scud. It was cinematic in style, ultra violent, and funny as hell. The premise: In the future, robot hitmen can be hired out of vending machines. When the robot kills whoever it was sent to kill, it self destructs. No muss, no fuss. Well, the star of this comic book is a robot hitman that is in the process of murdering his target when he sees his warning label and realizes what will happen when he accomplishes his mission. So he blows the arms and legs off of his target, puts the target in ICU, and starts freelancing to pay the hospital bills. Hilarity ensues. This comic was my favorite, and one day it just stopped. On a hell of a cliffhanger, to boot. That was 10 years ago. The creator moved to Hollywood, wrote some movies, and about a year ago decided to give the fans a conclusion. I was not disappointed. In four issues, he finisished of the series with comedy and style. I know that no one reading this will probably ever read Scud but I don’t care. I gotta give props to the comic book character that I almost tatted myself to look like.

Chuck “Fight Club” Palahniuk’s books tend to take one good idea and string them along into a crazy story. Haunted takes about 20 of his lesser developed ideas and puts them into a collective narrative that is all kinds of cool. A group of would-be novelists go to a writer’s retreat that goes horribly wrong, and the novel is built out of the stories they tell. If one story isn’t clicking for you, hold out for 15 pages and the it’s a whole new story. They’re sometimes funny, but mostly it’s horror of the highest degree. It’s a good read.

I’m a big fan of Top Chef, especially when Anthony Bourdain is a guest judge. His book, Kitchen Confidential: Tales from the Culinary Underground is really the best anyone has ever explained the inner workings of a restaurant kitchen. It’s the kind of book that you dog-ear pages of so you can reread your favorite parts over and over again, even sometimes forcing friends to read them. If you work in a restaurant, this should be required reading. Growing up with a Chef for a dad meant I always respected the kitchen, but servers who never pulled a shift prepping or working the line would do well to read this book. It really is funny as hell, and if you’ve seen Bourdain’s show No Reservations, you know he’s a snarky motherfucker. Reading the book is like having him sitting next to you telling the stories. I’m sure the audiobook is a real laugh riot.

Just under the wire I finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks, who I think is the son of Mel “Blazing Saddles” Brooks. Max wrote that Zombie Survival Guide a few years back, but World War Z isn’t funny at all. It is presented as a series of interviews taken a decade after a full-on zombie invasion. The “interviews” deal with the initial outbreak, the spread of the mobs of living dead, their eventual takeover of most of the planet, and humanity’s fight to take it all back. The stories are scary as hell. Every interview is with a different survivor, the flow is perfect, and whenever an interview leaves questions unanswered, subsequent interviews fill in the blanks, unfolding the full story one grisly bit at a time. My favorite thing about the book is the thoroughness of it all. I love zombie movies more than most people, but when they end, I’m always saying “Now what?!” Since all of the zombie movies focus on a small group of survivors, the big picture is seldom expressed, and furthermore, the plague of ghouls is never explained. Do people win? Or do we all just become walking dead? A movie going into this kind of thing would probably suck, so this book is just perfect. It handles a global story in the most personal way, and the interviews add up to cover the full story without being too broad. In this way we get to flee urban centers when the dead first attack, we get to huddle in the massive camps set up for refugees where the threat of infection is always present, we get to spend three years on a submarine that left when the shit hit the fan and returned with guns blazing, we get to be there when the first shot is fired in what turns out to be the beginning of the end of the zombie apocalypse. I heard the audiobook won all kinds of awards, and I can see why, these stories told with different voices would be chilling as hell.

Well that’s it for May. Three great reads, four if you count the comic book, and movies galore. What will I consume in June? We will see.

Until next time…

Stupidity Should Hurt

2008-05-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: “Bicycle Race” by Queen

Hey, all! It’s time for an update, and then a little story time.
Remember the beater bike from last post? Well, with a little help from Andrew I got her up and running.
A new chain:

Tires!

I just got all this work finished Friday, so I wanted to take it out for a ride. A situation presented itself in the form of “Taste Addison,” an outdoor festival in a suburb of Dallas. Addison is the place you go out drinking and see a lot of the pretentious douchebags that give Dallas a bad name.

My friend Daniel just got a cool bike, and he lives in Addison, so I convinced him that we should ride our bikes to the festival. He was reluctant but he agreed. The only problem is that Addison is really really bike unfriendly, as only a master-planned suburb comprised of housing developments and strip malls can be, which is to say no bike lanes and intermittent sidewalks. It was treacherous. But we made it and had fun on the way. After the ride, Daniel was fully converted to a bike lover.

This festival itself was a very good time. The Black Crowes, those hippy-rock throwbacks, were live on stage and jammed the fuck out. We were under the influence and the show was great. Afterward, we went to a local bar and got even more drunker.

Everything was perfect, then…

Let’s take a moment here to go over the reasons why you should always, always ride your bike in the street, namely a) the street is smooth, straight and usually well-lit, and b) the sidewalk, by comparison, is fraught with peril in the form of uneven concrete, large cracks, sharp turns, road signs, fire hydrants, low-hanging branches, and debris.

But at two in the morning, when the streets are full of drunks hauling ass to get home, and there are no bike lanes, what are two intoxicated guys to do? Take the sidewalk home, of course.

Which is why, today, I am hurting.

Observe the fruits of my stupidity:

That last picture bears a striking resemblance to an injury I sustained in England many years ago, while playing in the goat pen next to Stonehenge:

Last night, arriving injured at Daniel’s place, we found out that he had no bandages and hardly any paper towels. So, for my hand I put a paper towel on the wound and secured it with my belt:

And for my elbow, we used one of Daniel’s sister’s panty liners. Lint-free and sticky, it’s like a giant band-aid! I have no pictures of this, sadly, but the counter guy at Dunkin’ Donuts asked about it.

I got home after stocking up on bandages at the Walgreens (“Dude, what happened to your hand?” says the clerk), and with the supplies at hand…

…I patched myself up:

My bike, though, will require a little more help. I broke the brake:

...and in a related story, I got another bike.

I'll let you know when I eat shit on this one.
Until next time…

Bought Read Watched

2008-05-06T22:45:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Paint the Silence" by South

APRIL:

Books bought:

Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars
Farf, and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out by Various Authors

The Future Dictionary of America by Various Authors

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Riding Toward Everywhere by William T Vollmann

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by
Anthony Bourdain

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Will and Abe's Guide to the Universe by Matt Groening

DVDs Bought:

Jim Henson's the Storyteller - The Definitive Collection

Hotel Rwanda

The Whale Rider

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn

Almost Famous

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hang ‘Em High

Books Read:

Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris

The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (unfinished, previously thought lost)

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (unfinished, previously thought lost)

Areas of my Expertise by John Hodgeman (unfinished)

Movies Watched:

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn

Gargoyles

Jim Henson's the Storyteller - The Definitive Collection

Hang ‘Em High

This post is another (hopefully) recurring one. Reading a great book on the way to New Orleans led me to actually think about the obscene amount of books and DVDs I buy. The book, The Polyphonic Spree, is a collection of articles about books written by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About A Boy). He has the same problem I do. Well, since he’s quite a bit older than I am, I guess I have the same problem HE does, namely, buying more books in a month than can possibly be read in that time frame. So as a way of cataloging and keeping track, I’ll try to do a monthly breakdown of what I’ve bought, read, and watched.
I got the Hornby book as part of a bundle of literature from the Mcsweeneys.net website which, if you haven’t heard of it, is awesome. They publish a lot of books and magazines, and every once in awhile they’ll have some bargain blowout, so I’ll grab shit at random and usually do pretty well for myself. The first four books I got this month came in two different sets from McSweeneys. Anyway. Hornby reads a lot, and his opinions on books are frequently hilarious and/or insightful. I have a new list of like, six books I need to buy on his recommendation.

The other McSweeneys book I read was The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip by George Saunders. While it looks like a kid’s story, and you could easily give it to a ten-year-old and he/she would understand and enjoy it, there is a darker lesson in there for the adults, and I liked it a lot. I knocked the whole thing out in one sitting at lunch, and I even had time left over to go back and look at the pictures again. The art is fantastic.

While we’re on the subject of kid’s stuff that adults can enjoy, I picked up a relic from my childhood this month. Jim Henson's The Storyteller - The Definitive Collection is a DVD collection of the TV series made by the same folks who did Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. These have the same look and feel, and the same ability to throw the stuff of nightmares into a story for kids. The one called “The Soldier and Death” has a muppet Grim Reaper that looks like a 3-foot-tall infant and that little bastard gives me the willies.

Put it in your netflix queue.

This was a bit of a horror month for the movies I watched. I also forced myself to sit through Gargoyles, a made for TV movie from the 70’s that a friend let me borrow.

It’s known for having really great monster suits. The gang of gargoyles must’ve been something back in the day, but at this point, a guy in a scaly green rubber suit wrestling with a state trooper wearing bellbottoms is just funny. All the gargoyles needed to seal the deal was sideburns and handlebar ‘staches.

The other old-school horror movie I (re)watched was Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn.

If you’ve never seen an Evil Dead movie, start with this one. It’s better than the first, and looking at it now I realize that it is a comedy first and a horror movie second. Bruce Campbell is so perfect as Ash, the chainsaw-handed hero, that I am positive the movie would suck the biggest boner ever if he were not the main guy. It’s wall-to-wall blood and guts and zombies and dismembered limbs and it’s a hell of a good time. “I’ll swallow your soul!!” Priceless. Get high and watch this movie. Wait – kids: don’t do drugs. The adults can, though.

Also exploring the horrors of the world, but in a non-fiction way, is Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down). It covers the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, and it does so in great detail without ever getting boring. The amount of pull Escobar had when he was at the top of his game was downright scary. Every person in Columbia was afraid of him. Can you imagine George W being afraid to say something bad about a drug dealer? This guy had so much pull that no one would criticize him publicly without expecting to die. In the end, though, he was just running for his life with US-trained soldiers on his tail, and the eventual takedown is as exciting as anything in any work of fiction. There was a time when I wouldn’t read a work of fiction without also reading some nonfiction with it. I would switch back and forth. Killing Pablo reminded me why I need to get back on this regimen. We’ll see if I can do so in the coming months. Actually, looking at the amount of memoirs sitting on my “Books I haven’t read” shelf, I don’t think this will be too difficult.

Mixing it up a bit, I picked up a couple of westerns this month. I got The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Hang ‘Em High. These are classic Clint Eastwood. My dad loves westerns, and some of my childhood memories consist of a jumble of scenes from the various movies I watched with him over the years. No coherent plots, just a bizarre mix of handguns, horses, whores, hangings and the occasional guy getting shot and falling off of a roof. So when I saw a bunch these movies offered as two-for-one packs, I called Papa and got the thumbs up on the duo I picked. TGTBATU is regarded as one of the best westerns ever, but it’s two-plus hours long, and rated R, so I couldn’t watch it with the kids. I’m pretty sure I’ll find time for it in May. Hang ‘Em High is rated PG-13, but the first five minutes turned out to be one of the snippets I remembered from my childhood, and it used to scare the crap outta me. Good old Clint Eastwood is riding along with a herd of cattle when nine men ride up to him, accuse him of rustling and, despite the fact that some of the men believed he was innocent, they hang his ass. As a kid, the part when the camera zooms in on the creepy old leader guy and he says “Hang ‘im” used to make me so scared. Now the whole scene is actually quite funny, just because one of the bad guys is played by the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island. Young Andrew, the adopted boy, had never seen this movie, or Gilligan’s Island for that matter, so he was fascinated. As we watched Clint get saved from death by a passing cop, and then hunt down and kill those nine bastards one by one, I hoped that one day Andrew would have a mish-mash of random western slayings kicking around his mind. I’m doing my part, believe me.

Look for the Skipper about a minute in:

The last book I read this month was the workplace fiction story Then We Came to the End: A Novel by Joshua Ferris. The story is, for me, sadly relevant: a company with declining profits is forced to start laying people off. It’s amazingly funny, sad at times, but the real amazing thing is the point of view. The whole book is narrated by sort of a collective narrator (never “I,” always “we” and “us”), which is genius, since office gossip makes every event a shared experience. In this way, all sides are covered as things progress. The whole story feels like sitting around a table as twenty people tell the same story. If you have a shitty office job, or fear one, this book is a good read.

A quick note now on the three unfinished books on my list. Areas of my Expertise is a weird collection of facts which are all bullshit, and is quite funny. It was written by John Hodgeman, best known as the “PC Guy” from those Mac commercials. Because it offers no narrative whatsoever, and the sections can be read a little at a time, it is the perfect toilet reader. So I haven’t pooped enough yet to read the whole thing, but let me just recommend it, and we’ll assume that at some point in the future I will finish it. The other two books were started by me in March, then I sat them somewhere when I was drunk, they were missing in action for some time, and I only just recently found them. As I write this post, I am on a plane over the barren Midwest, headed back to Dallas, and I have only 60 or so pages left of Haunted, so expect a full breakdown next time. I’ll try and tie up that other loose end, One Good Turn, by the time May is done. So, until next time…

Four Things

2008-04-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Jump" by Van Halen

Okay, where to start? This will be a jumble of shit, so I’ll try and keep it moving swiftly along.

1. THE BIKE

I got a new old bike. You may remember my habit in San Diego of buying old bikes and fixing them up. It has started again here. The only reason it took so long is that Dallas lacks old bikes. As a matter of fact, Dallas lacks bikes in general. It’s as if when the automobile was invented, everyone in Dallas said, “Fuck this bike. I’m getting one of those cars, with air conditioning.” There are no bike lanes, there’s like three bike shops for all 2 million people, and the majority of those 2 million people are woefully ignorant of the fact that sometimes bicycles will be ridden in the road. “What’re you doin’ in tha’ ROAD?!” is the distinctive call of the Nascar-Hat-Wearing-Large-Truck-Driving-Texas-Moron (NHWLTDTM). They slow down and shout this at me, and honk once or twice for good measure, and then tear ass on down the road, empty beer cans rattling around in the bed of the truck. It never gets old. Getting back on subject, this total lack of interest in bikes means that there are less old bikes for me to buy on craigslist. San Diego had TONS of old bikes to buy, because the weather is mostly nice and the residents aren’t mostly NHWLTDTMs. But one finally became available and I snatched it up.

So the moral of the story is: I just bought another bike that I won’t be able to ride.

But I’m fixing it up anyway. Here are some pictures of it now.

If I ever finish it, I will show you pictures of that. It’s in pretty good shape. I really like the fenders and the beer rack on back. That would come in handy if there was a place to buy beer in this fucking county, but Hey! I guess I can use it to bring twelvers of Pepsi back from the Walgreens.

2. BLAST FROM THE PAST

A friend of mine, Steve, the guy whose wife set me up on that Herbal Cleanse, had some extra tickets to Van Halen this past Thursday. It was BAD ASS. Those guys rock hard, and they are well into their 50s. Furthermore, they aren’t trying to hype some shitty new album. They got David Lee Roth back and they just wanna SING. The crowd alone was worth going. Most of the people there looked as if they had been frozen in ice since 1982, and were thawed just so they could witness the reunification of David Lee Roth and the Van Halen family. Sleeveless black concert shirts and torn blue jeans were the name of the game, with headbands rounding out the list of essential apparel. They were jazzed about David Lee Roth. I mean, David Lee Roth really could’ve just farted into the mic for two hours, and as long as Eddie Van Halen was playing guitar, there would have still been uproarious applause. Luckily for us though, old David was in rare form. He was a high-kicking, microphone-twirling, jumping, screaming, props-giving, storytelling, singing machine. And he sang all the hits. I’m not a huge Van Halen fan, but I knew most of the songs. It was awesome. Everyone had a blast, and just being in a place where 20,000 people are fucking stoked to see a band is a wonderful thing.

3. HEADED NORTH

Got a great deal on a ticket to Minneapolis/St. Paul, so this weekend I’ll be up there visiting Nick, and as an added bonus Jason, who now lives in Omaha, might drive up and hang out. So, just to make sure you all know how bad ass this may be:

A full-on reunion!!! I’m very excited. Expect more details after the trip.

4. AND FINALLY, A QUICK WORD OF ADVICE

I recently got a pair of sunglasses. Since my opinion on the matter is that sunglasses always end up getting lost or broken, so spend accordingly, I got my pair on the way to Austin at a truck stop in Waco. Seven bucks. Rosy-tinted, gold-framed aviators (see fig a).

fig a.

I love ‘em. And I was never really a sunglasses kinda guy. I’ve always been more of a squinter. Clint Eastwood is also a squinter. But I got these glasses, and now I’m having to learn what to do with them, and to try and build good glasses habits. For example (and here’s the word of advice), always put your glasses in the same spot while not in use. I like the little “V” that is formed by the collar of a button-up shirt. That’s where my glasses go when they’re not on my face. Some people prefer the shirt pocket, others will hold them and set them down on the table, whatever. Whichever person you are, consistency is key. Same spot, every time or else. Otherwise, you may go to lunch one day and on the way out, you may realize your glasses aren’t (for example) in the “V” of your shirt collar, nor are they in your car, so you may just run back into the restaurant and look around the table, and then you might go over to the trashcan and hold the little “Thank You” flap open and look inside to see, yes, okay, that’s my trash on top but still no glasses, and then you might even walk up to the counter because one of these little minimum wage kids might have taken the sunglasses you like so much, and then, as you get up to the counter, you might just all of a sudden realize that the glasses are there, right there, perched on top of your own fucking head, so you stutter something to the counter kid and leave, and because this could happen to you, because this may have happened to someone you know, I urge you to be consistent in your glasses spot.
Thank you.

Until next time…

New Orleans Trip

2008-04-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

(Note: In a move I hope will become more commonplace, I am posting details of my New Orleans trip immediately, so as to purge my mind of fresh experiences while they are still vivid in my head. The whole point of buying this laptop was timeliness, the ability to write on the fly and throw that shit on the web before laziness forces me to abandon my lofty plans [See also: The 2000-word post-to-be from my Seattle Trip {the one from December, yes}]. In the spirit of all that, this post was started as I waited, delirious from lack of sleep and reeling from a two-and-a-half-day bender, in a shitty food court dining room in the New Orleans airport. Cramped quarters and the reclining asshole in the seat in front of me stymied my plans to keep writing on the plane, so now, with my last nap 36 hours behind me, I’m going to finish this thing and go to bed. So start the music, come with me to New Orleans, and then see what I get for attempting to confess to my sins by spilling my guts to the internet. As always, I welcome your comments. –Nik)

New Orleans Trip

Suggested Soundtrack: “Galaxie” by Blind Melon

or:

"Paranoid Android" Jazz Cover of Radiohead by Brad Mehldau

New Orleans by the numbers:
# of hours spent in the city: 59
# of hours spent sleeping: maybe 14
# of alcoholic beverages consumed: who knows
# of cigarettes smoked: 60-something
# of karaoke songs sung to very crowded bar: 1
# of cute girls needed to provide backup for said song: 3
# of boobs seen: 18 (as in 9 pair)
# of German tourists befriended: 1
# of live music acts witnessed: 6
# of offers from perfect strangers to buy some coke: 7 (just avoid eye contact, and the scary man will go away)
# of requests from perfect strangers for me to sell them some coke: 3 (look at the requestor as if they have some sort of incurable-yet-voluntary mental illness)
# of actual meals sat down for: 2
# of street vendor hot dogs consumed: 2, unfortunately (see below)
# of blackouts: 2
# on a scale from 1-10 on the likelihood of another visit to New Orleans, with 1 being never, ever again and 10 being VERY FUCKING SOON: 10

What a cool town. Considering all the shit that this place has gone through, it’s a damn miracle that it still parties as hard as it does. New Orleans is such an anomaly, such a bizarre place to find myself in in the middle of America. Anyone who has been to New Orleans will understand…with the same standards of partying as Vegas, and a Euro vibe (narrow streets, lots of litter, public drunks), the French Quarter is heaven for a history-loving boozehound such as myself. Uptown and the Garden District, where you can find Autobahn Park, and Loyola and Pepperdine Universities, is a sight to behold with its humongous mansions, stout trees, old-time streetcars and clumps of stranded beads hanging from the power lines. But, as you know, it is not all happy here. Head out of town on interstate 10 and you will see on all sides an absolute mess. Abandoned homes, restaurants, and hotels. Weeds that grow high enough to obscure the first floors of most buildings. Whole large parcels of land that look like the aftermath of a zombie invasion. At night, there are no lights in these places, because the people that lived and worked there are as far, far away. The ones that aren’t far away can be found in the tent cities under the freeway just north of the French Quarter, in a permanent campground for those who had nowhere to go, or would rather be nowhere else. It has only been a few years since the storm, and every conversation that lasts longer than a few minutes eventually comes around to Katrina. I would imagine it was (and possibly still is) the same way in Manhattan regarding 9/11. The people that are left here (400,000 moved and didn’t come back) have come to cope, I suppose, and the stories they tell are sometimes funny but mostly just scary as hell: martial law, and the machinegun-toting soldiers that enforced it; the pain of having to evacuate and leave your pets behind; the shock of finding appliances and boats and downed trees in your front yard, but not finding your house there; signs everywhere that read “You loot, we shoot”; the sometimes tasty, sometimes nasty dining experience that is the MRE (Meal-Ready-to-Eat). After all that shit, some people stayed, not because they had to, but because, I think, they wanted the city to be the way is was before a gigantic storm came through and very nearly pulled the whole area into the sea.
But enough of that.

New Orleans is swinging hard, and this weekend in particular was special because it was the French Quarter Festival. Lots of stages set up on the streets, and (according to my guide) more street art vendors that usual. I flew in right after work on Friday, and hit the ground running. Elaine was my guide, and after dropping my stuff off at her place in the Quarter, we hit the town. Seeing as we never bothered to eat anything, and my last meal happened back at 2pm, I got good and drunk. I really have no idea what time we got in that next morning, but waking up at 11am took some serious effort.
To properly wake up and conquer the hangover, we headed to Café du Monde for coffee and beignets (French Donut Thingie covered in powdered sugar). Holy shit. Strong coffee, and some of the best sugarbombs I’ve ever had. I could see why the place had a huge line (which we skipped, somehow) and why everyone who knew I was headed to New Orleans told me to go there. Yum.

After that, we wandered the streets of the Quarter for some time, checking out the jazz bands that sat at random intervals along the way. We popped into Tricou, a bar that Elaine used to work at, and started the heavy drinking. Two rum punches and I was working a respectable buzz. Elaine was feeling sick so I walked her home, and after a brief nap, I headed back out to Bourbon Street on my own. This must’ve been 4 or 5 in the afternoon. First stop: Tricou, where the bartender recognized me from earlier and proceeded to pour me more of those heavy-handed-hangovers-waiting-to-happen. Four down, and I hit the road, some primal instinct telling me that I should eat something, anything, if I was gonna drink like I had planned. So I headed to the Lucky Dog hot dog stand, which reminded me of one of my favorite literary characters, Ignatius J. Reilly of the fantastic novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (if you haven’t read it, do so as soon as possible, if you need a copy I’ll mail you one of mine). Locals call it “Pigeon in a Bun,” and bearing that in mind, I ordered the smoked pigeon hot dog. I could tell you what it was like, but I’d rather quote Confederacy, as Ignatius tries one of the hot dogs for the first time:

“My,” Ignatius said to the old man after taking his first bite. “These are rather strong. What are the ingredients in these?”

“Rubber, cereal, tripe. Who knows? I wouldn’t touch one of them myself.”

That being said, it was delicious.

Having fortified myself, I headed to The Cat’s Meow where 3-for-1 beers were being offered. In I went.
There I met a couple of girls from up Baton Rouge way: Amanda, who had just turned 21, and her friend Shannon. We became fast friends, and after a short time it was decided that we should sing karaoke. Since “Don’t Stop Believin” was mysteriously “not working,” we decided to do a rendition of Madonna’s “Like A Prayer.” It was awesome. It was easily the most people I’d ever sang in front of, and the girls kicked ass and took names (if we’d been able to sing Journey, man, that place would’ve come apart). We danced:

Took pictures:

The girls hit the stage:

It was a riot.
At some point, the girls took off, but not before exchanging numbers, which was cool. Hopefully our paths cross again.
Alone again, drunk and at large in a strange new city, I did the only respectable thing and went out for another hot dog.

…and then it was back to aimless wandering with a plastic bucket full of booze as my only companion.

The only strangers to talk to me were either a) offering to sell me coke, or b) wanting to buy some coke off of me. So I was a bit wary of the tiny, grinning man in the red shirt that was all of a sudden hanging out with me. Turns out this guy is from Germany (so’s my Papa) and he had gotten to New Orleans earlier that day. He was flabbergasted. He was amazed at the drunken revelry going on all around him, and was really stoked about “zee titties.” Empowered by my full 24-hours-worth of experience, I elected myself ambassador to my German friend. We got ahold of some beads, went back to the Cat’s Meow, climbed the stairs to the second floor balcony, and proceeded to get the guy all the pictures of “zee titties” that his camera could hold. We met a large group of ladies from Dallas, danced around for good long time, and when they departed for some bar with an automatic bull thing, German boy went with them. At this point the sun was on its way up, so I stumbled back to Elaine’s and crashed out.

Sunday, funday. Waking up, it tasted like a beer ate a cigarette and then took a dump in my mouth. Took a quick shower, and Elaine was all better, so the two of us and Elaine’s friend Sadie headed uptown for a picnic.

Picked up Po’boys...

...sat in the park across from Tulane and Loyola...

...fed some squirrels, and headed to the nearby town of Slidell where my Aunt Charmaine lives. Hadn’t seen my Aunt in 14 years, turns out she’s as cool as I remember. Beers, cigarettes, steaks, French fries, and good conversation. It was a vacation inside a vacation. We talked the evening away, and after tearful goodbyes, headed back to the quarter. Drank a lot more, until the sun was on its way up again, and I knew my time in New Orleans was coming to a close.

After showering at Elaine’s, hopped in a cab, and sped off to the airport to catch my 8am flight. Upon arrival in Dallas, hopped in the car and went right to work. Felt kinda like:

All in all, a great trip. It was great to see Elaine. It was good to meet new friends. It was a treat to explore a new place, with and without a tour guide.
Hear me now, New Orleans: I shall return. And when I come back, if “Don’t Stop Believin’” is still “broken,” there will be hell to pay. Consider yourself warned, city. And thanks for the good times.

Until next time…

Holiday home...

2008-03-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Love is a Battlefield" by Pat Benatar

Apologies…

So much, so much since our last visit. Sorry. Sorry. I know I’ll never attract a regular readership if I don’t deliver content regularly. I’m trying. For starters, I am now paying myself to write. Twenty bucks an hour is what I make. So now, if I want to buy some stupid bullshit, I have to WORK for it. Food and drink fall under Countrywide’s umbrella, but new messenger bags with built-in laptop holder area ($160.00, Timbuktu.com) will have to be earned. Speaking of which, I got a laptop.

Meet my MacBook.

Haven’t named her yet. While I did not write for the money to buy it (the write for $ program being fairly new), the MacBook was needed. Now I can write and edit video on the go. I’m hoping this leads to more writing and editing of video. If not, all I have is an $1100 porn machine. Also, I got Microsoft Word and FinalCut Pro, the latter being a badass program for editing video. Plus, it came with this program that lets you distort your face and then take a picture. Some examples:

At any rate, let’s get into what’s gone down since the last time I talked at you. For starters, it snowed here. Yeah, snow. Here's photographic evidence. My car was as shocked as I was.

More exciting: I took a trip to San Diego for Chef’s birthday. It was a great time, and many people came to the BBQ that Monica was awesome enough to throw for him (us). Everyone seemed to enjoy Chef as much as he enjoyed himself. I love my Papa so much and I love it when he is tearing it up and having a good time despite the fact that he can’t drink anymore. He faked it well, with the non-alcoholic beer and all. Not quite sure if he smoked any dope or not. It was certainly offered to him.

As an added bonus, The Wrong Trousers played a few songs for the group, Trent got in there with his guitar as well, and for a little while there, I forgot that when the weekend was over, I had a desk job in Texas to get back to.

Speaking of the Trousers, they played a show after they left the BBQ and a fringe group of us took off the check them out while the hard core boozers and smokers held down the fort. The show was intimate and awesome. I got some of it on tape, the highlight being Joe busting out a badass bluegrass mandolin flourish. The coolness comes 28 seconds n to this clip. Observe:

Sweet.

I forgot to mention the night I arrived! Got into town, went right to Sushi Deli for dinner with my old roomie Jason, and Rufino, my longtime friend, who shares a birthday with Chef. A few more people showed up, sushi was great, and afterward we went to Bluefoot to join a large group there celebrating Tim’s birthday. It was a blast. Got tossed, made it back to the hotel room, where a few of us drunks talked the night away.

Next day went out on the boat with Captain Todd and Mike.

That night was the BBQ (previously discussed). Spent a couple of days in Palm Springs with Chef, and then had a nice lunch at the Prado before I left for Dallas.

Lunch at the Prado was a virtual who’s-who of ex-employees. Myself, Shandra, Shaheen, and Ali, as well as Shandra’s family. It was a fantastic meal, as always.
After another tearful goodbye to he city I love, I hopped on a plane and headed back to Dallas, where I had a lot of crap to deal with…

Until next time…

Ultimate Extreme Golf

2008-01-31T22:42:00.000-08:00

Soundtrack: "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

Wednesday was a random day off, granted to me because I have to work Saturday. My buddy Christian got the day off, too.

This could only mean one thing: Mini Golf.

Decided to shoot some video with my little camera, and then we started getting creative.

Look for the amazing trick shots, and notice the sheer number of Holes-in-one I scored. We are BAD ASS at Mini Golf.

p.s. Kendra pointed this added bonus out to me: The music from the clip, when played over pornography, is the funniest shit ever. You're already online, why not grab a two minute clip of vigorous humping, and play the music from my video over it? You will not be disapointed.

The Herbal Cleanse: An Exercise in Endurance

2008-01-30T21:18:00.000-08:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Lust for Life" by Iggy Pop

Here's the story: the people I watch football with on Sundays decided to do an "Herbal Cleanse." This is because one of the wives is a new-agey yoga-doing healty lady and convinced us all that we needed to do it. This 10-day cleanse would remove all of the crap that has accumulated in the folds of my intestines over the last 28 years. Sound like fun?

This is my daily journal from those 10 days. Note: if you have adverse reactions to the discussion of bowel movements, stop reading now. I shit you not, you'll be sicker than someone with kinetosis on a poop deck after reading the following crap that my mind excreted over the last 10 days. Feces.

MONDAY

I'm kinda glad I'm working today a) because it's slow, and b) because it's so crappy outside that I'd just be sitting around inside anyway.

Was up until 2:30am shopping and prepping my herbal detox crap, but it looks like I'm not gonna need to do much more shopping, which is nice. Here's some of it:

Today I feel a bit loopy from all the bizarre healthy pills and drinks and stuff.

Four of us that are on the program all work at Countrywide and we've been keeping in email contact with each other, for pep talks and so forth. Still too early for cravings. Unfortunately, the company provided lunch today, the guy sitting next to me is leisurely enjoying a plate of catered BBQ, and it smells really, really good. I look at my ziploc baggie full of raw broccoli florets and sigh. Just nine more days until I can once again enjoy terrible food.

My eating options at this point are limited to: cooked chicken and/or turkey breast;

hard-boiled eggs;

tuna (which I cannot and will not eat);

almonds (only 10 a day, though);

fruit (no pineapples);

and veggies.

My meat and fruit intake is somewhat limited (2-3 fist sized portions daily, blah, blah blah) but I can eat as many veggies as I like. The "no limits on the veggies" clause is meant to make me fear starvation less, but after 10 days of unspiced white poultry and rabbit food, I might prefer to starve rather than eat one more goddamn carrot. We'll see.

***

As it stands now, and as my work day ends, I have to say that I'm not hungry like I thought I would be. I'm just amazed at the amount of urine I've produced throughout the day. We're talking buckets here, gallon after gallon of crystal-clear pee. It's like a night of heavy beer drinking, without the awesome buzz.

Tomorrow the bad food withdrawals are supposed to start. Between now and then, I get dinner (one good protien, one good carb, one glass water) and before bed I swallow three horse pills loaded with fiber. Then breakfast, which consists of three hard-boiled eggs, a banana, and a glass of orange-flavored fiber drink. Mmmm...

Until Tuesday...

TUESDAY

The cleansing has started. The growler that I pushed out this morning was enough to almost stink me out of the bathroom. I actually saw a fly come in, turn around, and leave. The turd itself looked like a spotted python coiled around a pig, and the toilet almost couldn't handle it. When I did a courtesy flush, the water swelled up so high I had to lift myself off the seat a bit, and just as it was about to spill over - Whoosh!! - down it went, leaving me relieved and alone with that awful smell.

It was a bathroom adventure!

***

Getting up to go get water here at work, I realize that I feel like shit. I have kind of a buzz going on, and my body is weak. Back hurts. But I'm not hungry.

In other news, the gas has started. I knew it was only a matter of time before the broccoli and hard boiled eggs started coming out in this way.

***

It's later now, and it sucks worse. Headache, joints ache, but still not hungry. Matter of fact, I feel like I'm eating MORE now than I did before. Whenever a scheduled meal time comes up, I feel like I'm stuffing an already full belly.

Also, compared to the other participants, I'm not pooping nearly as much. Someone hit four poo breaks today! I'm kinda jealous. I expected a brown flood, but instead I just had my early morning blowout and nothing else. I did urinate a dozen times, though.

Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment for a full checkup with blood work. Don't quite know what to expect, hoping that this change in eating patterns won't screw everything up. Hope I'm feeling better by then. Otherwise, I'll have to tell the doctor: "Yeah, I stoppped eating red meat and fatty foods, and these veggies are KILLIN' me!!!"

Until Wednesday...

WEDNESDAY

Yesterday I felt terrible. Headache, weak joints, dizzy, and a dry cough. Today I had, by chance, a doctor's appointment for a full checkup. I mentioned my aches and he determined that they're not being caused by the Herbal Cleanse. Turns out I'm feeling like crap because I have bronchitis!! Now we add antibiotics to my regimen.

I'm gonna stick with it, though!

Also, no poop last night or this morning! I must be full of it, though. Can't wait to see what comes out the next time I drop a deuce.

***

Everyone else seems to be doing a lot of pooping. I haven't crapped since I dropped that beast yesterday morning. I had a false alarm earlier, ran to the men's room, and sat down ready to rock. I expected a slew of slimy shite, and I was ready. Instead, I cut three loud farts and peed like a girl. If this keeps up I'm gonna burst.

***

Went home a bit early, because I feel like shit (even though I can't produce any).

***

It's later now, and I've pooped twice!!! They look like little slimy beans. As a bonus, they leave no residue. The toilet paper was as clean coming off my ass as it was coming off the roll. Between the food cost savings and now, the toilet paper savings, this detox might be a real money saver.

THURSDAY

Phase two has begun. Eating something called probiotics now. As I understand it, the PRObiotics are supposed to up the ante a bit, poop-wise. Since I'm on ANTIbiotics for my bronchitis, I wonder...are they counter-acting the PRObiotics I took this morning? Is it a wash, or will there be some kind of epic battle in my guts to see whether I lose my lung infection or shit myself silly? Just curious. We shall see.
Coughed myself awake about 30 times last night, so I'm staying home today. Made an Avocado Omelet topped with my patented "Niko de Gallo" (pico de gallo made by me). It is delicious.

A day off work + lots of pills + EATING HEALTHY = I better be well tomorrow.
Because this eff-ing sucks.

FRIDAY

Slept all day yesterday, waking only to eat and/or cough.
This morning, had a massive bloody nose in the shower.

Other than that, and the lungs, I feel really good. This heathy food diet is having an effect on me. I've already lost a bit of my "Desk Job Gut," and my gums don't bleed when I brush my teeth.

Herbal Cleanse: Your gums'll stop bleeding, but your nose'll start!

Some of the others on the cleanse are talking about going to a steakhouse and eating Grilled Salmon and Broccoli. My opinion on that is:
Sitting in a steakhouse while on this herbal cleanse = trying to quit drinking, smoking, gambling and sex and then going to Vegas for the weekend.

***

Just went for my second dump of the day. Only one stall was available, and the two rolls of TP were down to their last few squares. No problem for me, of course, since my dumps have been coming out clean as a whistle lately. A square (or two, at most) would be more than enough. Down I sat, out it came, wipe I did.
Uh, oh. This is atypical, I thought to myself, there's not supposed to be this much left behind!
Trying not to panic, I ration out the remaining one-ply squares, folding them into slightly thicker but perilously smaller squares to make sure that I a) don't use more than one square per wipe, and b) don't end up pushing my index finger through into my dirty butthole.
Unfortunately, I still run out of TP before the job is done. Now what?
The rough swipe of the ass-gaskets? No: All of the protective seat covers are gone too!
The embarrasment of asking my neighbor? No: It's a small office, rumor travels fast, and I don't want to be known as the Senator Craig of Amon Carter.
I would text a friend on the sales floor, but my phone was at my desk!!
Shit!
Literally! Shit!
What to do? I begin eyeing my boxer shorts, a "Plan C" I'd rather not have to fall back on. Finally, a break! The guy in the next stall finishes his business and steps out. I quickly reach under the stall wall and pull about 6 yards of TP over, rolling it around my free hand. Yes! Mudbutt averted!

WEEKEND

John and I kept each other honest, but talk got serious for a minute there about a run to the old Outback, to go out in a blaze of greasy glory with Cheese fries, ranch dressing, and medium rare porterhouses with loaded baked potatoes.

We were strong though, and instead enjoyed lemon pepper salmon, brown rice and steamed veggies.

Yum.

Stayed around the house all weekend. Sunday I read a novel cover to cover in one (long) sitting. My entertainment costs are WAY down.

MONDAY

Got an email this morning from one of the others gloating about his second crap of the day.
I've had two #2's so far today, also.

Or: Two two's, too.

First one solid, second one soft serve.

Probiotic packet and fiber drink = recipe for disaster. I have an hour commute, and if the timing had been off, I would've had to use my emergency boxers that that I keep in the trunk.
For dinner, I boil some brown rice, and toss it in a skillet with chopped carrots, snap peas, garlic, grilled onion, paprika and eggs. It is delicious.

TUESDAY
Two more days to go!! I feel great right now.
Just a remnant left of my hacking, phlegm-filled bronchitis cough, otherwise I'm healthy.
I have lost weight, but it is in areas that I was getting concerned about (mainly my gut), and my impending jowls are less prominent at this point, giving me (now) the torso and face of a 12-year-old. Again. Whee!

It's odd for me to consider that it has been 9 days now since I've had:
-a cheeseburger or slice of pizza (and I LOVE melted cheese)
-any of the things that go with burgers or pizza, like fries, onion rings, hot wings
-the one thing that goes with EVERYTHING above: ranch dressing - glorious, glorious ranch dressing
-a sip of soda
-any chocolate or candy
-chicken fried steak covered in white gravy with mashed potatoes, covered in white gravy
-steak, in general
-beer (I KNOW!)
-potato chips
-a bowl of cereal
-pasta
-a Pop Tart
-pancakes!!

...all of which make semi-regular to very-regular appearances in my weekly diet. This has not been easy. But I'm doing it, and I'm pretty fucking pleased with myself. I really didn't think I could do it. I am a lazy man, and a man used to having my way, but I suppose now that I can also say that I am a tenacious man, or (considering my food cost savings for the 10 days) a motivated cheapskate of a man. Either way, I did what I thought would be impossible. Now if I can parlay this into more healthy eating in general, I won't have to shock my colon like this ever again.

I wasn't perfect though. I had two moments of weakness, that I am not proud of, but that I will confess to nonetheless:
1. Had two glasses of Grey Goose on the rocks on Friday night (halfway through the cleanse celebration)
2. Ate one Wheat Thin, just one though (possibly while buzzed from the events of #1)

...which leads me to conclude that booze is off the cleanse regimen for two reasons:
1. It's bad for the cleanse process, and probably bad for your guts
2. When you're drinking, bar food (fries, nachos, wings) sounds delicious, and so does every bad restaurant you pass on the way home (Taco Cabana, Steak n Shake, Whataburger)

At any rate, I'm on the final stretch, and I can't wait to see how my first bad meal in 10 days sits in my stomach. Hopefully it's not a total shock. I've been frightened enough by my excrement lately.

***

I just got my third massive nosebleed of the week. Is this normal? I'm not snorting anything, or picking it. Could it be due to a lack of some terrible food that I should immediately resume eating? To be sure, I asked the cleanse organizer, Missie, about it. She replied:

"Surely you are drinking enough H20? Since you have bronchitis and you are on antibiotics it could have something to do with that? Not to mention it is VERY dry outside and the winds have been horrible contributing to lots of dry skin, allergy attacks, etc. I've never known a human to suffer from bloody noses due to lack of grease or alcohol in their diet?!!"

She has a good point. I used to get nosebleeds BAD as a kid, whenever the seasons changed. The last time I had a nosebleed was (deservedly) on the tail end of a terrible 72-hour drunk, and my recent nosebleeds are happening on the complete opposite end of the health spectrum, so I just wanted confirmation that it wasn't the fault of a good diet. Probably just an iron deficiency.

This shit is almost over.

WEDNESDAY

Off of work today, because I'm working Saturday. This will be an easy day.

Going putt-putt golfing with my friend Christian in a bit.

***

Holy shit. Pulled some crazy trick shots, got a lot on video, I'll put it on here soon. Almost done.

***

After a lunch of grilled tilapia and veggies, I go to get my hair cut. After the cut, I eat my first bad thing and it is oh so good: Gelato. Holy shit i missed sweets! Haven't had any dairy in 10 days. If my gas and bowel movements could possibly get any worse, the gelato will do it. It is a delicious treat, and well deserved.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The whole eating healthy thing is good, I feel fantastic and I can see the wisdom in eating lots of veggies and fruits. So I'm gonna do more of that. I saved a shitload of money by getting all of my food from the store, so I'm gonna do more of that, too. I need to eat fewer large meals, because spacing eating my times out made my energy last the whole day through. If I go back to my constant terrible food eating, I will feel like an idiot at this point, so that's a good thing too.
Being diet conscious is not a bad thing. But being a vegan is, though.

ALSO

Will be in San Diego on the 8th through the 12th. Friday night, dinner and booze! BBQ at Monica's on Saturday afternoon, where we will also be wecoming my father and his wife, who are celebrating birthdays. I head up to Palm Springs Sunday and Monday, and I'll be back Tuesady to fly out. Call me for more details! Hope to see you there!

ALSO

Still working on my massing post from last vacation to Oregon and Seattle. Soon!

Something Quick, and Dirty...

2008-01-09T00:02:00.000-08:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "The Sign" by Ace of Base

Okay, I'm working on a massive post-vacation post (remember that trip I took to Oregon/Washington and the post/video I promised...yeah), but something happened that needed mentioning.

As previously mentioned, I live in a house with a capital-F Family. Husband, wife, kids, dogs. I have my own room and bathroom, but when there's a bunch of kids running around (four kids total as of this post, but more orphans could be on the way) sometimes all the other bathrooms get used and mine becomes the overflow crapper. Telltale signs sometimes alerted me to the fact that my bathroom had been used (liquid soap dispenser slightly askew, toilet paper all gone, pee on the seat) and it's never been a problem.

Until last night.

"Problem" wouldn't be the best word either, since it's not technically MY bathroom. Really, the owners of the house could take shits and not flush and I'd be fine with it. But John and Kim are potty trained. Last night led me to believe that someone in the house missed a step.

Instead of describing the whole scene in gory detail, or showing you photographs of the mess that I found, I've opted to just show pictures of the sign I put up in the bathroom in response to the trajedy, henceforth known as "Brown Monday."

Here you go:

...and the panels, closer up:

That's all I have for now. Big post coming soon. I'll be in SD on February 8, through the 12th. More details on that later.
...until next time.

p.s. Though no one asked for it, really, but my only two friends in Dallas insisted upon it, here is the video of me watching the once-infamous, now-probably-boring-to-everyone video "2 girls 1 cup." If you've seen it, you know that it is terrible; if you have not seen it, let me assure you that if you think of the worst thing ever you'd still have to go two units of terrible PAST that to even be in the neighborhood. He're my reaction:

200,000

2008-01-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

Suggested soundtrack: "Sonata for Cello and Piano in F minor" by Mark Mothersbaugh

Is it possible to love something that is intimately connected to something you hate? Anyone in a failing relationship would say "yes," and say it quickly, but what about inanimate objects? To wit: I hate driving, but I love my car.
I don't think about my car too much, which is clearly evident to anyone who has ever seen it: seldom washed, barely maintained, interior strewn with old water bottles and fast-food napkins, exterior badly dented in places with the hood creased so badly in the middle that it gives the car "angry eyes." Despite all this, my tan 1993 BMW 325i very recently drove its 200,000th mile. As this happened, a rush of memories came flooding in, and I realized just how long the car had been with me, and how much we had been through together. I got the car late in 2001, when I was still pretty new to San Diego. Before I was able to give up the majority of my driving about two years ago (until I moved to this fucking place, that is), the car was my constant companion. In this car, over the years, I have eaten many meals, smoked much weed, drank much booze (usually while parked), seen lots of places, traveled with many people, sunk much money, and participated in quite a few sex acts. For those who care for or enjoy elaboration, I will go over some of my favorite moments in the history of my car.

Palm Springs Idea Drives: My Papa lives in Palm Springs, so visiting him involved a two-hour drive. I would usually do these drives late at night, after work. It was on these drives that I had the best ideas for writing or moviemaking. I would text myself these ideas so I wouldn't forget, as I was usually fighting for consciousness at about the same time. My little black and white movie "Revenge of the Chump" started as a brainfart on interstate 15 just north of Temecula.

The "Passenger and Driver" Shoot: Speaking of movies, there was a month in there where we used my car to shoot a movie (never finished) called "Passenger and Driver." It was a funny script, a good idea for a short film, but the talent (me) sucked, and Nick wasn't quite the gifted cinematographer then as he is now. The action revolved around me and another guy driving around town in a car. My car. The movie was shot two hours at a time over a few weeks, always first thing in the morning since at the time I was trying to make it in the mortgage business and had to be at work at noon. It was in these days, with Nick squeezed in the backseat trying to get a good angle, that our friendship was solidified.

Drunk Olympics in East County: Leaving East County's illustrious Flynn Springs Inn one night, I got pulled over by a cop. I had a head full of double-Crown-and-waters, and I hadn't slept in two days since it was finals week and I had written something like 40 pages worth of last-minute research papers. Tired and drunk, I was still able to pass the rigorous testing, insisting all the while that I was merely "tired from writing all night" and offering to show the cop my research papers. I'll never forget the frightened, intoxicated faces of my passengers as they stared at me through the back window of my car, and their stunned expressions as the officer let me go.

Beach trips with Mike: Just before my good friend Mike moved to Dallas, we spent his last San Diego summer at the beach almost every day. I was spending a lot of time sleeping on his couch, so we'd wake up, pile the chairs and cooler and boombox into my car, and hit the road. Windows down, sunroof open, music blasting: this was the life. He had quit Outback, but I was still working there, so drinking all day meant working drunk that night. I was late to work a lot of the time. The high point for me was pissing in a half full water bottle while going 80mph on Interstate 8. No spills!!

Fear and Loathing in Carlsbad: Speaking of being drunk with Mike, there's this legendary bender. I had just bought the "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" soundtrack, and it was playing whenever I was in the car. Headed to a party in Carlsbad, Mike and I stopped for Sushi, hot sake, beer and painkillers. We were out of our minds when we left the Sushi joint and got lost in the neighborhood of the party. We bought a map at a gas station, found the party, and got more polluted. We drank, ate vicodin, and danced. Hours passed in this manner. Later, after a sweaty bit of impromptu romance, I passed out in a guest bedroom. Some time later, Mike woke me up by repeatedly slapping me in the face. We had to leave RIGHT THEN, he said, so we made our way through the dark and empty house, heading downstairs and out the back door, taking most of the booze and a bread bowl filled with spinach-artichoke dip with us. At the car, I realized I left my shirt on the bedpost, so I snuck back in, up, and out, bumping into shit and cursing loudly the whole way. Mike and I tag-teamed the drive home, with him working the pedals and me steering. With "One Toke Over The Line" blaring out of the open windows and sunroof, and the car reaching speeds in excess of 100mph, I yelled to Mike (with breath that stank of whiskey, women and spinach-artichoke dip) that if a cop pulled us over, we should just get out and climb into the back of his car. We made it home without incident, further proof that my car is itself a magical charm that protects against DUIs.

Trips to LA with RC: When we lived together in San Diego, my friend RC and I would sometimes just pile into the car and drive north, stopping in Laguna Beach before heading into LA and getting up to no good. Most times we slept in the car by the beach. It felt so good waking up to frosty windows, the steering wheel in my lap, getting out and stretching in the misty beach air, and then hopping back in and setting off to find a place with good biscuits and gravy.

Last night out in SD: I don't remember much, but I know I made Nick drive home from downtown, and that I stood up out of the sunroof for the little stretch of Highway 163 and Richmond Ave that led home. Cold air, a good buzz, a great friend, and a hole in the top of the car I could climb through. Looking back, maybe not so safe, but it was a good last impression of the warm San Diego nights and of the carefree existence I enjoyed in those days.

Drive to Texas: See my July 29 entry for a full account of this Labor of Hercules.

***

Well, that's all for now. I still owe you all an update from my trip to the northwest, and now I've got some New Year's Eve crap, too. Look for that stuff here real soon.

Until next time...

Holiday post...

2007-12-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

Suggested soundtrack: "You're so cool" by Hans Zimmer (True Romance Soundtrack)

Today I write with a tiny white dog on my lap.

This is Gracie, and she belongs to Janet, my foster Grandmother. Gracie is kind of a little shit when she's loose, but put her in your lap and she becomes a decoration.

Speaking of my lap, check out what I just realized I'm growing:

Yup. Inactivity + Desk job = Gut. I need to get a gym membership. At this rate, I'll look pregnant before too long. Oh! Speaking of pregnant, my sister had her baby!!

This is Micah Nikolaus, my new nephew and godson. I'm going to go visit him later this week. I leave Friday and will be seeing my sis, her hubby, and my dad (who is flying up from Palm Springs). Then I'll be heading up to Portland and Seattle to see Shandra!!! Oh, good times!!! I think that I'll be shooting some video while I'm on my trip, and trying to turn it into something mildly entertaining when I get back. We'll see.
Really bummed that I won't be getting to go to SD for the holidays. I'll miss hanging out at Kendra's house (her family Christmas is always awesome) and doing the Drunken Christmas Carolling Hayride (2nd annual). I'll miss the mild weather (it is colder than a witch's tit out here, and Oregon's gonna kill me, I fucking know it), I'll miss all of my friends, and I'll miss the great tips that come with the crazy shifts at the Prado.

Hell, I even miss the Prado.

And I'm gonna write all about it. Later.

And mail it to you.

Listen: You've read this much, loyal reader, so I have something for you. I usually do a Christmas present for my friends (last year it was a bookmark if you remember)and this year I have something more better planned. All I need is your address. Anyone who reads my blog should get my gift, since I love you for reading this. So: email me your address, and I'll mail you something cool. Deal? Deal. My email addy is: niktionary@hotmail.com

I'll try and get the presents mailed out next Tuesday, so send your addresses post haste!!!

Until next time...

Quantitatively Nik...and other thoughts...

2007-11-26T10:54:00.000-08:00

Suggested soundtrack: "I woke up in a car" by Something Corporate

It's time for a new Quantitatively Nik. This collection of data was inspired by the fact that I'm spending more time in my car than ever before. So I logged the time spent in my car on a daily basis. Here you are:
Monday: 2 hours, 2 minutes (commute to/from work and a lunch trip)

Tuesday: 2 hours, 2 minutes (commute to/from work and a stop off at a friend's)

Wednesday: 2 hours (commute to/from work in slightly bad traffic)

Thursday: 16 minutes, 20 seconds (Thanksgiving day beer run)

Friday: 1 hour, 59 minutes (commute to work, then to bars, then to female's house)

Saturday: 52 minutes, 58 seconds (drive home with stops at store)

Sunday: 1 hour, 3 minutes (drive to friend's house to watch Charger game, drive home, drive to/from movie theatre)

Looking this over, I realize to my horror that I spend, on an average work day, two full hours in my car. Holy shit! That a major slice of my day!! That means that for every 12 days of work I spend a WHOLE DAY in my car! 24 hours! This is beyond me. Is this normal? That's a lot of fucking time to spend in a car. This list makes me long for San Diego, where I spent maybe two hours a week in my car. Holy shit. I'm picking a more uplifting list next time.

In other news...

My foster mom's out of the country again, picking up the new kid from the Ukraine, so the duty of doody collector falls again upon my thin shoulders.
Since I am going to talk about dog shit, again, I think I'll introduce the dogs this time.

BELLE

Belle the retriever, is a good girl. She listens, doesn't beg, and tolerates the stupidity of the other dog, who is younger yet larger then herself. Belle is not just a good girl, she is a considerate crapper who shits dainty, hard little tootsie-roll-type shits that rattle around on the shovel and don't smell bad.

MIA

Mia the mastiff (aka the "couch cuddler" since she always climbs up on the couch with me when I'm watching TV), who weighs as much as I do, is as dumb as a bag of hammers and produces extraordinarily large turds. Lots of them.
Mia's turds are the size of baguettes (but not the color).

They frequently have foreign objects sticking comically out of them. This is because Mia is the dog that will eat anything she can wrap her jaws around. She especially wants whatever it is that you're eating. For example, I was carrying a dirty plate out of the TV room that had bits of trash on it (I was tidying up, you see) and Mia was plodding along behind me, jamming her snout into my ass like she always does. A candy wrapper fell off of the plate and Mia, without a moment's hesitation, ate the wrapper. Just because it came off the plate and she figured it was probably people food and knew that she wasn't allowed to eat it, so she did so quickly.

Which brings us back to this morning, where I'm scooping up a giant turd partially covered in a bright orange Kit-Kat wrapper. I'm trying not to laugh, first because the I'm imagining what the neighbors would think when they see a grown man in a zebra-pattern robe with a shovelful of dog shit laughing like a maniac, second because laughing means breathing more and faster and the smell is already threatening to make me barf. Changes in wind direction can turn a foul odor upon me and make me gag fit to drop the shovel. I'm out here in the cold because I thought cold air reduced bad smells (the Vegas theory) but the rain of yesterday has softened everything up and recharged the stench. Another challenge this morning is the dead leaves that litter the backyard, some of which look like piles of shit (they're the "decoys") and some of which are covering piles of shit (aka the "disguise-a-dropping"). Because the "shit zones" are confined to certain compact areas of the yard, I start to wonder if the dogs ever step in their own shit. I mean, I walk gingerly here and there, seeking piles, while at the same time the dogs bounce around, never looking down. Then I see a large, tight pile of dog logs with a great big paw print in the middle of it. Ah-ha! Mia is never coming up on the couch with me ever again.

Until next time...

Dall-Ass

2007-11-24T12:59:00.001-08:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Use Me" by Bill Withers

Well, the wait is over. For me at least.

After nearly four months in Dallas - a record-breaking span of time in which I have been as celibate as a nun - I finally got some. This may not seem like a huge deal to many of you, so let me take a few moments of your time to point out the hurdles involved. Following the hurdles part, I'll share some details about the lovely (and lucky!) lady. Welcome aboard!!

Part 1: The Dallas scene.

As any regular reader knows, Dallas is very different from San Diego. The same goes for Dallas girls. While both cities have the same proportion of drop-dead gorgeous girls, the Dallas lifestyle (as exemplified by the term "The Beverly Hills of Texas") means more pretentiousness than this SD boy is used to. The guys are trying REALLY hard to appear wealthy (They're called "Thirty-thousand-dollar millionaires"), and the girls are used to the dividends that this kind of macho one-upsmanship pays. Well, I don't play that game. Just because a girl grabs my butt and smiles at me doesn't mean I'm buying her next round, especially because it is expected. Take for example, the folllowing exchange that happened two weeks ago, at an uptown club. The girl in question had been smiling flirtatiously at me me from across the room for a couple of minutes. I had turned my back to her to order another round for myself and a friend. Here we go:

GIRL: (Tapping NIK'S shoulder) Hey!
NIK: (Turning, surprised to see that GIRL had crossed the room so quickly) Hi!
GIRL: (Holds empty glass up) You got my next round?
NIK: (Smiling, nodding) Not at all.

See? This is the kinda thing that makes me want to drink at home (if, of course, I didn't live in a dry county and I could get booze in my area). There's this bizarre kind of qualification process that the girls have which involves What You Do, Where Else You Hang Out, and Whether Or Not You Got The Next Round. So I lie. But in a bad way. I'm: a postal carrier, a busboy, a maintenence man, an out-of-work writer, a boy scout troop leader, a forklift operator. She's: just on the way out of here, looking for the girl's room, not interested, glad to meet me and sure she'll see me around. It's my only form of entertainment some nights. I finally found some cooler places to hang out, so those kind of evenings are coming to an end.

Part 2: My personal struggle

First and foremost, I am not established here in Dallas. I came here with a carload of shit, and that's all I got. No apartment, no furniture, just a bunch of books and a bike. While to me this is the most free I've ever felt, others see this as "he doesn't have any stuff."

Also, my living situation is hard to explain: "Where do you live?" Up in Allen. "Why so far away?" Because the rent is free. "Why is the rent free?" I live with a family. "Your family?" No, A family. "Oh."

Another big deal for the Dallas girls is that I am poor right now and will not pretend otherwise. The whole point of coming here was to pay off debt, not live an extravagant lifestyle buying drinks for any girl who cares to wink at me. When I go out drinking here, it is a treat, as opposed to San Diego, where it was a habit.

Plus, I don't know where shit is. I have not heard of all the hip lounges and swanky bars where cool people go to see the Mavericks getting drunk. I know of maybe five places to get a drink, and I don't really like three of them. My ignorance is apparent to any Dallas local.

So any girl that I hook up with has to accept the fact that I own nothing more than books and DVDs and clothes and a beat-up car, that I live far away and with a family that is not mine, that I don't have any money in the bank, and that I have no idea about what is and isn't cool in this crazy city. I bring exactly me to the table. That always seemed to do me fine in San Diego.

It finally worked out for me in Dallas.

There's a bar called Vickery Park, which is as close to my kind of bar as is possible. Pubby, not Clubby, and the music is always great because the bartenders take turns playing their iPods. The girl in question is a friend of a friend. She reads the same books I do, likes the same movies, rides bikes, can hold a conversation and her liquor, and has an artsy streak (fashion design major). She also has her own place. Hooray!! Oh yeah, she's hot, too! Plus, it wasn't a one-time deal. So I'm pretty stoked. Now that I know there's cool girls out there, and I know where to find them, Dallas is looking a lot better.

San Diego still makes Dallas look like shit, though.

A new development...

2007-11-05T23:54:00.000-08:00

Suggested soundtrack: "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim

I sat down in front of the computer tonight, after a long day at the office, wondering what the hell, if anything, I should do. I had farted around on the internet all day, so more web surfing wasn't the direction I wanted to go. I felt like writing, but writing what I did not know.

Then, out of the blue, I noticed something that had been right in front of my face since I moved here. Something that, despite being in my direct line of sight, had failed to register with me. Well, here it is:

That's right!! A little web-cam!!!
Now every blog can have a picture of me and, if I can figure some shit out, I can start making movies!! I think I'm getting inspired...
But, first!! Look what I did! As mentioned in an earlier post, I am helping with childcare while my surrogate mother and father are away in the Eastern Bloc. One of the joys of this was helping the middle child with building a castle for extra credit. I tried to do as little as possible, and let little Hunter do the bulk of the work. Here's one shot of the castle:

...and here is a little detail of mine, the pipe-cleaner Dragon:

If she doesn't get an "A" the teacher and I are gonna have some words.

At any rate, it's getting kinda late, so I'll shove off.
Before I go, I present to you a short film I just made. If you have some pipe cleaners laying around, grab a couple. And find a cool song in your computer to accompany the show(I haven't figured out sound yet, sorry!).

...as you can see, I've got a ways to go.
Until next time...

Man of the house...and a trip in pictures...

2007-11-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "1963" by Rachael Yamagata (no real reason for this, I just discovered this artist and she's pretty chill)

Sorry for the long delay. I wanted to do an update regarding my California trip, but I've been super busy. For starters, it was the end of the month, and therefore "crunch time" for loans. I had to actually work for all eight hours at work, for almost a week and a half. Bad news was that I didn't get to write much, good news is that I bonused, meaning I'm gonna make a good amount of money. The other issue that is limiting my free time is this:

My "parents" have left town.

John and Kim, the wonderful couple who have taken me in and provided me with employment, have left the country for three weeks on a mission to get even more people into their home. That's right, they've decided to adopt an orphan from the Ukraine. This couple is kind and caring beyond belief. Besides my homeless ass and the three children they already have, John and Kim also have two dogs, one of which is a gigantic mastiff. That is six mouths to feed. But they want to help this young boy named Victor who they met a year ago when he and a group of other orphans were flown to the US as a kind of test run. Since they decided to pull the trigger on this thing the whole process has taken more than a year, cost who-knows-what, and required reams of paperwork, hours of interviews, and more than one inspection of the house. Tiresome, to say the least. There is so much that can go wrong with everything, and they have to fly halfway around the world and take a train still further in order to find out if they can bring Victor home...in another month. Yep, this is the first of two trips. Looking at the fact that any two idiots can bump uglies and produce a child that neither of them actually wants, the process to adopt that same child into a loving home almost seems too difficult. The kid wants help, the family wants the kid, only there is two massive bureaucracies and one annoying language barrier to muddy the proceedings. Not that they should just give orphans to whoever wants one. Not at all. It's just that the process could be off-putting for those without the tenacity of a cockroach(then again, maybe that is the point). So, moving on.The resolve shown by John and Kim is amazing to me, and I just wanted to tip my hat to them while bringing us to the point of the post, which is this: I now am the "man" of the house.
Not in a breadwinner sense. Oh, no. But I now share house-running duties with Kim's mom, Janet. Before we go on, let me just state that the life of the housewife is by no means easy. Kim is the queen, and her home is under control, despite the fact that three kids plus two dogs frequently adds up to pure chaos. I've asked for chores to do around the house, so I can help out, but I have been flat-out denied...until now. In her stead, Janet and I are doing our best. Admittedly, Janet does the lion's share of the work, and is pretty much directly responsible for the lives of the two youngest children (the oldest is currently living with friends, aka "on vacation"). My duties are paltry compared to hers,BUT DUTIES NONETHELESS!!! Janet has an item-by-item itenerary that tells her exactly what needs to be done, and exactly when. The packet sits on the counter when Janet is home, and browsing through it I see that Janet, bless her heart, has gone through and put little notes all over it with additional information. She is very serious about her task, and judging by the fact that the kids are eating regularly, and don't smell too bad, and no one has showed up to take them away, she is doing it well.

I, on the other hand, have a smaller list:

-Tuesday night: roll trash cans out
-Wednesday night: bring trash cans in
-Empty pool traps of leaves
-Dog mounds

...it's only the last one I'm not too stoked about. Basically, it amounts to me, in my robe, with a shovel, picking up shit.

Not that bad, really. Two rules for doing this, though:
1. Don't just scoop up the first turd you see, working your way to the back. Pass up all the poop, and work your way out . Shoveled crap still leaves a crap-stain, and crap-stains are harder to see than a full-on turd but still smell as bad when they're all over your slippers.
2. When toting 20 pounds of dog shit on a shovel, hold the shovel to one side.

I really am not complaining. Poop is never fun, but I've never felt quite so...domesticated. I wish I had chores when John and Kim are in town.

And now, a photo essay detailing some of the high points of my trip...

Soundtrack change: "Click click click click" by Bishop Allen

...I just saw these guys live at the Granada, where I saw Cat Power a while back. It was great.

Okay, the trip.

Right off the plane, I went to the Prado, for good times and good eats.

Following that, we went to see (the fantastic) Wrong Trousers at the Ken Club, where we remained for the rest of the evening, getting shit-housed.

The next day, after a delicious breakfast with some old-school Outbackers and other assorted friends, I headed up to LA with Monica. There we met RC and Stephanie, with plans to go to Knott's Scary Farm.
But first, we drank.

Once inside the park, we found that it was very scary.

The rides were running, and also quite scary.

After stopping to ask for directions...

...we were on our way to see the freakiest, yet sexiest monster in the park.

Later, we had the midnight buffet.

Sunday meant a trip to Palm Springs to see Papa and Martha. While there, we adopted a new kitten into Papa's house.

Monica and I were fed a great dinner, and the we played dominoes. It was an old-school kinda party, and we all we pretty giggly. It's always a blast at Papa's house.

Back to San Diego on Monday, where a couple of people came and had beers with me while I waited to see if the plane was gonna be able to fly out with the fires blazing and all.

And then, I flew away, in what was the freakiest takeoff ever. Massive turbulence, and the horrifying sight of San Diego county on fire. It looked like hell on earth.

...and now I'm back in fuckin' Dallas.
Got a speeding ticket to the tune of $225 last week. The policeman was trying to talk to me about the difference in cost of living between SD and DFW. Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood for a friendly chat. Seven years in San Diego without a single traffic offense, and I'm not in Dallas three months and I'm already running afoul of the law.

On the up side, the weather here has been gorgeous. Very San Diego-ish. I've actually been able to go on bike rides again.

Quantitatively Nik...

2007-11-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "1 2 3 4" by Feist

In the interest of posting more entries, I've come up with a new concept which is going to keep new material coming on a steady basis while at the same time not requiring too much extra writing. The concept is this: random lists. Doesn't sound like much, but I think it has potential. I can make these lists as I go about my day, and then when they are completed, I can throw them online. I already have 10 or so ideas, and as I fill those, I'll rely on you all to help me with new ones.So, without further ado, the first ever "Quantitatively Nik" list:

Food & Drink I Consumed During the Third Week of October

MONDAY:Apple-cinnamon Nutra-Grain bar; two unfrosted blueberry Pop Tarts; Faux-mocha (my own recipe which consists of 1 cup coffee, 2 tbsp non-dairy creamer, 1 packet Swiss Miss Hot Cocoa Mix); two cups water; Wendy's Chicken Filet Sandwich, medium fries, medium Dr. Pepper ("The number five"); two cups water; four Crown-and-waters ($2 each, happy hour); Sausage egg and cheese biscuit, hash brown sticks, medium Coke ("the number twenty-five") and a Big Texas Cheeseburger with mayo and tomato only, all from Jack in the Box (it was a late night snack. The next morning, in the shower, I burped and re-tasted it, which almost made me puke).

TUESDAY:Faux mocha; two apple strudel Pop Tarts; two cups water; six-inch Spicy Italian sub on parmesan oregano with pepper jack cheese, toasted, with tomato, green pepper, red onion, salt, pepper and creamy Italian dressing, a bag of Mrs. Vickle's jalapeno potato chips, medium Dr. Pepper, from Subway (I always get this sandwich and those side items); two cups water; faux mocha; one order of six cheesy breadsticks with marinara dipping sauce, six (of 10) traditional "bone-in" chicken wings flavored "medium buffalo" with ranch dipping sauce, from Pizza Hut; two cups water.

WEDNESDAY:Bowl of Quaker instant grits; glass of milk; cup of green tea (my preferred method of morning caffeine injection, I had just picked up a box of teabags that morning); cup of water; eggplant marinara sub and a medium Dr. Pepper from Joe's; cup of water; cup of green tea; three Amstel Lights; slice of pepperoni pizza, can of Dr. Pepper, chocolate fortune cookie ( "You will attend an unusual party").

THURSDAY:Cup of water; cup of green tea; cup of water; Big Texas Cinnamon Roll ( "2005, 2006 & 2007 Automatic Merchandiser Readers Choice Pastry of the Year!" the package said. I say, Sold!); meatloaf with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing with gravy, and a medium lemonade, all from Boston Market; cup of water; faux mocha; some sort of sandwich from Sonic Burger consisting of pita meat, bacon and melted cheese on an 8-inch hot dog bun (it was a gift); a handful of Wheat Thins Whole Grain Toasted Chips; Twix.

FRIDAY:Carnation Instant Breakfast, rich chocolate flavor, in skim milk; cup of water; cup of green tea; Apple-cinnamon Nutra-Grain bar; cup of green tea; cup of water; 20oz Dr. Pepper and a 1.75oz bag of Chex Mix traditional flavor; chocolate chip cookie and chocolate-chocolate chip cookie, both from Subway; Corona w/ lime; cup of Coke; one packet of honey roasted peanuts containing 10 whole nuts and 13 halves (making 16.5 nuts total, plus some salty dust); small bag of Ritz chips; two 50ml bottles of Jack Daniels whiskey, can of DejaBlue water; pint of Karl Strauss Red Trolley, some Crispy Calamari Fries, one piece of Kobe Beef Sushi Roll with garlic-ponzu dipping sauce, small chop of Pork Prime Rib(stolen from the kitchen), Braised Beef Short Rib with chocolate-espresso demi, mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus, a bite of Prime Cap Steak cooked medium, two more pints of Karl Strauss Red Trolley, glass of Charles Krug Cabernet (vintage? I forgot), bite of Vanilla Bean Cream Cheese Flan with bits of crushed lattice tuille globe, all from The Prado at Balboa Park; five Jack-and-Cokes; Black Velvet and water.

SATURDAY:Two mouthfuls of shower water; mimosa, bloody mary, three pancakes, three eggs over medium, potatoes, and two sausage patties from World Famous; raspberry Arizona iced tea (99 cents!); string cheese; two bottles of Miller High Life; bottle of Budweiser, chicken fried steak sandwich with tomato, lettuce, mayo and sides of French fries and cole slaw, all from Po' Folks; Orange Gatorade ($3.25 from the Knott's concession stand); bottle of water ($3.25 from the Knott's concession stand); breakfast buffet consisting of un-measurable amounts of scrambled "eggs," bacon, French toast, sausage, biscuits, various fried chicken pieces, and a coke, all from the Knott's after-haunt buffet; chocolate Nesquik.

SUNDAY:Half of a chocolate donut, sip of orange juice, chocolate Nesquik; two glasses of orange juice and the "Farm House Scramble" from Coco's, or maybe it was Carrow's; large Dr. Pepper from Jack in the Box; six Miller Lites, chicken salad with melba toast, New York strip steak, veggies, potato, burgundy sauce, bread and butter, one glass of merlot, neapolitan ice cream and a cookie at my parent's house; can of Coke; cup of water.

MONDAY:Maple oat nut scone and a grande chai latte from Starbucks; three pints of Blue Moon w/ orange slice, chicken finger dipped in ranch dressing, cheese stick dipped in marinara, slider dipped in au jus, two more pints of Blue Moon w/ orange slice, all from Maloney ,s; cup of Coke, cup of water, small bag of Ritz chips, one packet of honey roasted peanuts (I did not count them this time, the stewardess was cute and I didn't want to seem like a freak); cup of water.

ant farm and ancient relations...

2007-10-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Pets" by Prono for Pyros

Horrible news: My ant farm is dying. I knew this was gonna happen, I just didn't expect it to be so terrible to watch. When the first ant died, I was actually kinda stoked. This is because in the booklet that came with the ant farm it told me this would happen eventually and it told me what the ants would do when one of them died (the booklet had nailed every aspect of the ants' behavior up to this point - The way they dug, their shift-splitting so that some slept while some patrolled, the tiny specks of ant shit that they confined to one room of their home). But this time the booklet was wrong. They were supposed to carry the dead ant up to the surface. They were supposed to know, instinctively, that the rotting ant corpse might introduce pestilence to their habitat. I was supposed to take the corpse out of the ant farm once it was carried to the surface, which was supposed to happen almost immediately. Sadly, all the other ants did was push the body out of the way as they went about their business. Every so often, one would tug the body around a little bit, but there never seemed to be a team effort to get the recently departed to the surface.
The late ant had curled into a ball upon expiration, so I had the bright idea to tip the farm upside down and have him tumble out. No dice. He had one minuscule leg that stuck right out and stymied his rolling. In the meantime, though, I had panicked the rest of the ants. My rescue attempts were at an end, and I had to just sit back and see how things progressed from this point on.
After a few days, it seemed like the majority of the ants were relaxing in the bottom-most chamber, where they "slept" at night. One or two would be up top, moping about, but all new construction had stopped. Then another ant died. It seemed like she (all the ants are girls, just like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park) had had the courtesy to die in another room of the farm. Or had she gone for a walk and died halfway through? No way to know. Every day I'd come home from work to find one or two more dead, but always in a room away from the main sleeping chamber. Still the two up top, and the other survivors huddled together in the bottom.
This is when I started thinking. These are only insects, but it still sucks to see them die. There's no way to tell just how many "wild" ants have died from my actions, accidentally (day-to-day walking) or on purpose (magnifying glass, retaliatory attack for biting my leg). But these were my ants. When a stray dog dies that no one cares about, no one cries. When the family dog passes on, it is a tragedy of epic proportions. Was I falling prey to this same sort of thing, only over 25 harvester ants? I don't think so. I had no real attachment to the little guys (girls), but the pathetic existence they led and the way the slowly and sadly shuffled off this mortal coil was distressing. Now it's down to the last two ants, the hardy ones that stayed up top roaming while the rest gave up and shrivelled and died (the sleep chamber is now full of dead ants, as the last ten or so elected to stay put and die there rather than politely expire elsewhere). I look at the last two and wonder whether or not to set them free, and I think that that would be far crueler than keeping them in the farm. There is a good reason for me thinking this. For starters, these ants were born in captivity and in all actuality have no idea of the world beyond the curved plastic walls of their prison. So is it really a prison? Would a fish raised in a fish tank be happier released into the wild in the twilight of its life? Would I enjoy it if, when I was 80 or so, someone took me out of my house and put me in the forest and said, "There you go, buddy, you're free now!" or would my heart seize up in terror? So there's that to consider. My ants have lived an existence free of predators and exterminators and the elements. Their simple needs were met, and their environment catered to their instincts: they dug, and walked around. There was no queen for them to serve, but they would have lived no longer had she been there. So they lived their life and did their thing and didn't have the fear that the normal ant would have. So I can't really feel that bad for them. It's the circle of life, after all. It still sucked to see them go. I'll miss their pointless busywork and the way that whenever they met, their antennae would do a little handshake. I liked that whenever I would open the top, whoever was patrolling the upper level would rush down and rouse the others, who would then all swarm to the top to see was the fuss was about.

Now I look in at the last two survivors, creeping around the dead bodies of their sisters, and I see a life led toiling away at tunnels that went in circles, of pointless work for a queen who they never saw, labor that was never rewarded, and a world that had definite limits, and I think how lucky these ants are to be so very simple. So simple that they will never have moments like this, where they see something simpler than themselves and they realize that this simple thing they are seeing puts into perspective things that are much, much larger than themselves. Because every time I look in, I also see my own reflection looking back at me.

...and now for something completely different.

Soundtrack change: "Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" by Pearl Jam

Further evidence that I'm out of the shelter of my old Neverland, and that this strange place and new life is as much a shock to me as factory work would be for Peter Pan:

Went to my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana last weekend to see my elderly grandparents. It wasn't an easy visit. Communication with my grandparents is a nightmare. There are no commonalities. What should have been a stop-in for lunch became, due to my ignorance in planning, nearly two days in hell. I'm punishing myself. I must be - first the move to Dallas, and not this. They talk about friends and/or relations who are dead and/or dying. Each one of them holds a separate and unique conversation with me at exactly the same time, each one taking moments out of their own endless monologue to interrupt the other's monologue for clarification on something they had forgotten. Making matters worse, neither one can hear the other, so grandparent-to-grandparent interaction is a sad, loud and funny show of its own. They bitch and moan about the (n-words) who are "taking over the neighborhood." It's a sad, sad visit. Am I supposed to like these people just because they pitched in on my creation by performing an act of coitus 60 years ago? I mean, shit, I'm related to them through my mother, who I really have nothing in common with, who I have not spoken a civil word to in 10 years, or even heard from in two. I know I can't write my grandparents off, and I do respect my elders and all, but good god this hurts. Why hasn't my aunt or uncle put them in a home yet? After a few quiet hours staring at the carpet, I head off to bed which, if I'm not mistaken, consists only of a box spring with a sheet over it, no mattress.
Breakfast is "Oatmeal," which somehow means corn flakes with a bunch of Splenda at the bottom. Two hours later, we're off to the Piccadilly Cafeteria, where the post-church crowd and white-trash stereotypes go to eat. We got there early and lined up, and were the first ones in when the doors opened. I chose a seat which, for my own personal amusement, allowed me to see each and every person coming off the food line with their tray. My, oh, my. Let me just state for the record that I am aware that I was sitting in the same place as the people I was laughing at the expense of. I'm superior to them, of course, because I didn't leave the house in a yellow t-shirt that reads "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex machine." Oh, yeah, you bet that guy was there. With his family. Also present are "Mom" jeans, NASCAR hats worn without a trace of irony, missing teeth, patterned sun dresses from the 70's worn in a non-hippy fashion, sleeveless hair-band concert shirts, etc. All of these people were quiet and looked unhappy. Maybe it was because church just got out and they were still in the throes of reverence, but laughter was at an absolute minimum and enjoyment was not in the vicinity. The world is sometimes a very ugly place, full of sad people in unintentionally funny clothes, people for whom smiles are few and far between. At least it is that way in my hometown. It's a poor and backwards part of the world, the embarrassing older brother of American culture. It's worse than movies make it out to be. It is quite miserable. I am so happy that my parents moved us kids to California when we were young, and I called my father later and told him just that.
Next time you see Britney Spears on the TV driving on a suspended license while intoxicated and using her infant children as airbags, I want you to understand that she comes from Louisiana, and the statement that starts with, "You can take the girl out of the trailer park..." is absolutely true. I was happy, for once, to be heading back to Dallas.

A quick and wonderful visit...

2007-09-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "Award Tour" by A Tribe Called Quest

San Diego!!
I'm picked up at the airport by Nick and RC, and we drive downtown to start drinking (I would technically be continuing to drink, but I'm not going to go into flight details here). Basic bar is the destination, a place that serves alcohol and oversized (and overpriced) pizza. We eat a pizza, we drink some beer, we set off for the Padres game. Remembering back to the time when we got so housed at a game that we missed Peavy striking out 17 people to set some kind of record, Nick and I vow to "not get that drunk." Granted, this was a promise made while half-drunk, so it could only be expected to be half-enforced.

Despite the fact that a plastic bottle of Budweiser costs $7.50, Nick and I were able to advance our intoxication pretty handily. We had parked ourselves above the Western Metal Building, next to an avid Padres fan (avid!) with a broken collarbone whose love for the Padres was only equaled by his hatred of the Giants in general, and Barry Bonds in particular. His Barry hatin' bellowing was as scary as it was amusing ("BAAAAA-REEEEEE!!!!!!! YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!! NOBODY LIKES YOUUUUUUU!!!!!! and so on), and the little woman in the red ELITE security windbreaker did stop by from time to time for little warnings. It was far more fun for a person with a marginal interest in baseball (namely, me) and a good buzz going (me again) to simply turn and watch this screaming maniac do his thing. So I did. Since his exit coincided with the seventh inning stretch which also coincided with last call for alcohol in the stadium, we let it coincide with OUR exit as well.

After a quick stop at jBar to drink more and relieve our bladders, we headed to The Field to meet up with Jason and the rest of the crew. The only thing notable about our time at The Field was that Nick got kicked out for getting choked. Details are still sketchy, but after some post-choke interviews with some of the drunks at the scene, what we know is this: some Big Dude bumped into Nick while trying to make way through the crowded bar, and Nick didn't budge, so the Dude just totally started yelling in Nick's face, and Nick just like, laughed at the guy, so the Dude snapped and grabbed Nick's neck with one hand and his face with the other and tried to like, pull his head off. I was in the bathroom so I missed the incident, but came out in time to see Nick getting ejected. "Why are you kicking my friend out?" I ask. "He just got choked by another guy," says the bouncer. "Okaaaay. Why are you kicking my friend out?" was my next question, which almost got ME kicked out. I went upstairs to tell everyone else, and when I left with Trent, Nick was gone. He had said he was going to Henry's, but I was, at this point, trashed, and the night pretty much fades out at this point.
I wake up, confused and alone, in someone's apartment. They were nice enough to leave a key, some green, and a cup of water by the bed (and an "Alice in Wonderland"-esque note pointing out the items) and a clean towel in the bathroom. I knew where I was at this point. I tidied up, washed my face and brushed my teeth, and set out into the day with no idea where it would take me.

Hat shopping while figuring out what to do next, I hear from a friend who wants to meet for breakfast at a little cafe a couple of miles away. Great! So I head out, enjoying the beautiful San Diego weather and the music being pumped loudly into my head by my iPod. It's not long into the walk that I notice strange things happening all around me. I'm hung over, so it took a bit for this to dawn on me: people walking towards me all seem to have the most horrified expressions on their faces. Others just look down, or shake their heads in disbelief. Some actually step to one side, or duck into shops as I approach. What, I thought, the hell is going on? I had looked in the mirror before I left the apartment so I knew I didn't have anything written on my face (this stems from an incident a few months ago. I got home after passing out drunk and spending the night at a friend's house to discover a sharpie mustache and goatee on my face, which immediately answered the question of why the Starbucks guy was looking at me so funny). Hmm. A quick swipe of the forearm across my forehead allows me to stealthily sniff my armpits: nope, powder fresh. I use the side of my index finger to wipe below my nose: no snot, no blood. It was still happening, and peripherally, I could see people sitting in front of restaurants turning to look in my direction. Aha! Looking down to see if my pants were stained, I see that they are not. Meantime, a car has slowed down in the street next to me, and seems to be pacing me.
Then it hits me: there's a crazy person behind me, isn't there?
Sure enough, the song I'm listening to ends and I hear an unbroken string of profanities that would make a sailor blush being shouted out from right behind me. Presently, I turn around while quickening my pace and see that the source is a short blond guy in clean clothes wearing a backpack who is just angrily cussing up a blue streak. I'm wearing a backpack too. He's so close to me we could be traveling companions. I've got to get away. Though my music has started back up, I can see his lips and jaw working, and his chest heaving from the effort of saying "fuck" so loud that it can be heard in space (for the record, noise cancelling headphones WORK). I step into a used bookstore to get behind the loon. I notice that as an added crazy touch, he's holding a jamba juice cup that for some reason has a hole in the bottom and is dripping little orange blops every few feet or so. Though it zig-zags back and forth, his Hansel-and-Gretel-style smoothie trail shows that he's been following me for a very long time. Close call, I say to myself, and follow him at a safe distance until I get to breakfast.
After consuming a pancake 14 inches in diameter, I get a call from Jason, who got just as drunk as I did the night before and left his SUV with the valet downtown, and asked would I please go pick it up and drive it to him. Sure. Now I'll have some wheels.
Things did not go according to plan, and to make a long story short, I was not able to get into the SUV so Jason grabbed his spare keys and hopped in a cab. I could've waited for him, but I was getting impatient. So I rented a bike.

I rode off, happy because I was on a bike just like the old times and it was now only a 25 minute ride to the beach: where my buddy Todd was waiting for me on his boat; where beautiful women were walking around in swimsuits; where wave after salty wave of polluted blue ocean water was slamming onto the sandy shore; where I wanted to be more than anywhere else at that moment.
Unfortunately, fate hit me with the shit-hammer. For a guy who rode a bike everywhere in San Diego for more than two years, I had been remarkably lucky in that I have only had two flat tires. That's less than one flat a year. This day, though, I managed to have a violent hissing blowout before I had gone two miles. It was at this moment, walking the rented bike back to the shop, that I realized how stupid I was for not renting a car and for listening to the people who said they'd be driving me around. I try not to depend on others for much of anything, and consider myself an able traveler, but Saturday was not shaping up to be my day. I considered changing my flight and leaving early. I was down in the dumps, dear readers. Then, a thought: I'm not that guy, that miserable "why, me" guy. I'm not the guy that has a sharp downturn of luck and gives up!! As far as I knew, a hard-to-get SUV and a flat tire were all that life had to throw at me. There was nowhere to go but up. Plus, breakfast was great. Just as I got to the bike shop to have the tire replaced, Jason got his SUV, and I got a ride to the bay to meet Todd.
Parked the bike, waded out to the boat, kicked back a few beers and the day was 100% better.

That was easy.
Soundtrack Change: "Don't worry be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin

After a while, rode off to meet Adam out for drinks in PB. Watched the sun set over the ocean, shed a bitter tear, continued to drink.

Then Adam, Kristin and I went to In-n-out for a Double double, which was so wonderful I still can't properly explain it.

While there, I realized my phone was running out of charge. I had the charger, but no plug! This could be a problem. Not wanting to stop back at Kristin's place and wait for my phone, I had to find another way. Across the parking lot was a car wash. There was a covered outlet on the wall of the car wash!! So I knocked the cover off:

...and while we waited a few minutes for that to get going:

...and then we went back to PB, where Chelsea and Amorica and Tim and Tommy joined the crew, and the wonderful and lovely Eve provided shots of, shots of...hell, I don't remember. It was a good time. On a bathroom break I'm walking, head down, texting God-knows-who. I round the corner and go through the door, and realize that a girl just followed me in. I look up, smiling, ready to made a funny comment, but then I shut up and wonder why there's so many chicks in the men's room. That's when I knew I'd had enough to drink. So of course we went to another bar. How we got there I have no idea. I simply remember being somewhere else. Memories get sharper, though, when we got to the Ramen place.

It was a restaurant, open until 3am, that served ramen. Gourmet ramen. It was great, and it sat better in my guts than a California burrito would have.

Woke up a couch.
Off to breakfast. Good times. I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed Prado shop talk. I really miss the place. Scratch that. I really miss the people. Hearing all the same stories, all the same gripes, brought me right back to three months ago when I was spouting the same stuff. I was able to forget, for just a little while, that as soon as breakfast was over I had to go back to Dallas.

Soundtrack change: "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane

The flight back was odd. The first leg of the journey was to Atlanta. This was because I had purchased my ticket relatively last-minute and definitely as cheap as possible. I actually flew past Dallas on the way to Atlanta, and could almost see the skyline from the window. What a stupid way to go. It's like flying to London, via Tokyo. The drudge was made bearable by the little video screen that each passenger got that provided a GPS ("ooh, we're over Alabama now"), some movies available for purchase (each screen had a credit card swiper thing), 50 or so decent recent albums and the ability to create a little playlist for yourself (cool!), and my personal favorite, the trivia. It was like the bar trivia, but with all the passengers able to play. During the part where it shows everyone's score and their answer to the last question, it would also list the seat numbers. So when a hard question would come up, everyone who was playing would sit up in their seats and look around at the other players to try and see if they got it or not. It was cool. Since I was flying away from the sun, I also had the distinct pleasure of watching America turn her streetlights on. That was an awesome sight. Flying at night takes the sometimes ugly scenery of the flyover states away and just leaves the shiny pretty stuff. The Atlanta to Dallas portion only had one thing worth mentioning: the guy sitting next to me was an absolute mystery. While the flight was boarding, and as it taxied and took off and flew along, the guy was writing tiny notes in a full size notebook. Not the page-filling, serial-killer-from-that-movie-Seven kind of tiny notes, but more like islands of itty-bitty writing on a sea of paper. He'd put one near the top, another to one side, and then flip the page and start on the next one. I tried to peek while pretending to read, but I couldn't make a bit of sense out of it. No rhyme or reason whatsoever. I don't think he was scary-crazy like the screaming guy in SD, but more of a kooky-crazy, like he had a pointy tinfoil hat at his apartment and owned a ferret. I can't say what i wanted more: to read his notebook or to magically make him not smell as bad as he did.
At any rate, I'm "home" now, missing home already. I had a mini-epiphany the other day, and it will be the backbone of my next entry, so check back in soon.
Until next time...

Goin' back to Cali...

2007-09-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (from the "Once" soundtrack)

It's been a while, so this might run a bit long. Probably shouldn't tell you that. Don't tune out!! First of all, notice the quiet and heatfelt song I suggested. It doesn't fit the mood perfectly of this post (like other suggested songs attempt to do), but it does come from the best movie I've seen in a long time, "Once." Go see it. I cannot stress this enough. It is different from anything I've ever seen, plus it is good. Go! If you like it, I'll send you the soundtrack! For real! And the movie IS the soundtrack. You'll get it when you've seen it.

Now. Let's settle something that has been bugging me for the last six weeks. My dear friend Kendra, who recently moved to Vegas and is far closer than any of you to knowing how distanced I feel, recently sent me a letter. It does two things. First you read it, then I tell you the things it does. Kendra says, "Driving in Vegas is similar to driving in Mexico, only the drivers are less courteous and observant of traffic laws. There is no sense of order. You're lucky if there is a yellow line running down the street to keep people from running into each other head-on, even more lucky to find those white lines indicating lanes of traffic. Rather than create some semblance of order, people just drive wherever there is room to squeeze in. On freeways during high traffic hours, there are no lights to gate people onto the freeway. A pack of 15 cars will all merge at once, causing everyone else to come to a screeching halt. People also don't stop at red lights. Perhaps they are so used to seeing flashing lights everywhere, they no longer acknowledge lights in general. When coming to my house from the freeway, you have to cross into oncoming traffic to make the turn onto my street. There is no light, no stop sign, nothing except the knowledge that these people hate to apply their brakes. I can't take it!!" First of all, this letter proves that outside of California people do really drive like brain-dead crack addicts with cataracts, or like the Italians. Second, it tells me that I will no longer complain about drivers in Texas, and drivers in general. What more is there for me to bitch about that I havent bitched about already? The fact of the matter is that I avoided driving for two years, and I hate doing it, and most importantly, I may very well be a shitty driver myself. So until someone who has followed me in traffic chimes in, I'll just assume that I suck just as bad, and just as hard, as the Texas drivers.
End of story.

Since the music is kinda sad and all, or at least melancholy, let's talk briefly about work, before we move onto...The Fun Stuff!!! Every once and a while, as I sit at my desk, I'll get this wierd kinda flash, like out of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," and I want to say, "What the...what the FUCK am I doing out here in the middle of Texas? Help!! Somebody help!!!" I'll panic for a second, break into a sweat, flail wildly for a second or two, and then it passes. Just like that. I look around to see if any of my fellow cubicle-monkeys saw my insane twitchfest, then get back to work. That's my biggest question: What AM I doing here? Not enjoying myself very much, not making much money yet, and not getting over San Diego. I am writing more. Reading more. I've got a new friend named Amy who has similar tastes in music and film and booze, so the weekends aren't terrible anymore. I feel like I suck at my job. While trying to avoid excuses, this is somewhat understandable, since a) it's a tough market right now, and even some veterans are doing worse than me, b) I am doing a whole new job coming off of 10 years waiting tables, and I haven't sucked at waiting tables since 1997, so being terrible when starting a new job isn't something I'm used to, c) the nature of waiting tables requires, at most, two hours of follow-through and requires very little paperwork while mortgages require months of follow-through and mounds of paperwork, and d) waiting tables has no real gravity, and by "gravity" I mean that no matter how much restaurant management wants the waitstaff to take shit seriously, we're really, seriously, just bringing some fucking food to some fucking hungry person. That is it. Simplest thing in the world, made way more complicated than it should ever be by manaagement trying real hard to suppress the joy of their unruly alcoholic servers and at the same time justify their status. When I messed up a salad order, no one lost their home. This seriousness is something I've never had to deal with before. I hate it. The Peter Pan syndrome that was the backbone of my entire San Diego exsistence has been torn away in the most speedy and terrible way. I didn't even get to hold on to one little bit of it. It's no wonder that Mike, my buddy who moved out here three years ago, is now married. Holy Fucking Matrimony!!!. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

And now... (music change, no caption needed)

Yes sir!! (or ma'am)
In less than a week I'll be in Sandy Friggin' Eggo!!!! Whoo!!

My return from Texas also coincides with Nick coming back from his Mom's house in Minnesota (Ya know?), and since Jason never left SD, this makes a Trifecta of Roomies!! Join us for our rollicing reunion party time!!
Friday night: Padres game!!! Get a five dollar ticket, and steel yourself for some fucking drinking!!! Downtown rampage follows the game, with maybe a trip up to the Lamplighter if we're feeling froggy!! (I might need somewhere to crash.)
Saturday day: Bay party on Mission Bay! Bring beer, we provide watercraft and entertainment.
Saturday night: Drinking and so on, in PB! (I might need somewhere to crash.)
Sunday: Breakfast, then I'm off to the airport.
If you want to meet up, simply call me, and come out. I hope to spend time with everyone I can during this short (but really neccesary) visit. Help me get drunk enough to forget Texas for the weekend.
The next time you are privy to my thoughts, you might be standing right next to me, instead of sitting in front of a computer!
Until next time...

Dreams, and "dreams"

2007-08-28T18:27:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack, "Where is my mind?" by The Pixies

Things are plugging along here in Texas.
I'm all excited about my visit in September, can't wait to see everyone.
Since a typical weeks' schedule can be found in an earlier post, I won't bore anyone with those details. What I will do, though, is talk about some of the crap that's been going through my head lately as I wander the hot streets of Dallas, alone, with only my thoughts to keep me company.
I think about dreams. I haven't had any good ones lately, and to that I attribute a severe decline in the amount of alcohol and ilicit substances that I consume. At most, I can get drunk out here. And I have. But the best dreams, and pre-sleep thinking, came when I was stoned out of my mind. Since they execute people for marijuana possesion here, I won't even DARE mess with the green (okay, they don't execute potheads here, but jail time is required. They do announce executions proudly on the radio though, and describe the condemned [A recent profile: "...he was convicted two days after his 18th birthday, so the death penalty WAS available. Praise Jesus. Now back to Ultra-Conservative-Christian-Viewpoint, Gay-and-Black-Hating News Hour." Grim, huh?]. The Great State Of Texas recently executed it's 400th criminal since the reinstatement of the DP, and doesn't show any sign of stopping. But I digress...). So I can't smoke and go to bed while listening to music, which is, for want of a better term, a major bummer. But I remember an instancein San Diego when I was going to bed, and high as a kite, and I tried for the better part of an hour to have an out-of-body experience. Or at least get to the point where it didn't always feel like I was facing the way my eyes were oriented. Do you see what I'm saying? Am I making myself clear? It didn't make sense to me that when my eyes were closed, and it was dark, I still could only feel like I was facing forward. Why is that? Is our whole consciousness lined up with our eyeballs? If so, why? They are our windows to the world, granted, but should they determine the alignment of our soul? Close your eyes, relax, and try to feel like you are facing any direction exept the one you are facing. It's freakin' impossible!! But that night, I almost shifted it. I got close. I think. If we can die, and leave our body behind, why can't whatever it is that is making our body work for us move around without the body? I know I'm asking a lot of questions, and I still ask myself these questions. The answer, to me at least, would have something to do with out-of-body-experiences. Now I'm not one to believe in mystical crap, or crystal healing, or Sedona, or whatever, but I could get behind the out-of-body thing, if it could answer my questions. I recently read an article...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6960612.stm

...that talks about recreating out-of-body experiences with science, and contained the following quote, by one Dr Ehrsson: "This experiment suggests that the first-person visual perspective is critically important for the in-body experience. In other words, we feel that our self is located where the eyes are."
AHA!!! I'm right!! I sugggest an large government grant be given to me immediately, along with a laboratory, an apple PowerBook, a comfy bed, two incredibly hot female lab assistants, and three pounds of sticky California green. I'll crack this thing wide open. In a matter of weeks.
Moving on from the science and research portion of today's post...

...to the Heredity and Family portion.
So speaking of dreams, I got to thinking about mine. The figurative kind. The kind that brought me to Texas. I'm not here for anything more glamourous than money. As mentioned before, I want to one day own my own bar. Will that dream fall away if I stay here too long? I'm not sure this was such a bright idea sometimes, but I couldn't save money for my own business by socking away $100 a month waiting tables. On the family front, my dad couldn't be happier. There have always been lofty expectations set upon me by my father. Despite bad grades in everything but Art and English, and early signs of alcoholism, he believed in me even through high school. While I loafed around in community college he still had hope, especially after my brother got married, fathered a child, and got divorced in the space of a year. "You will be something someday," he said. Not many high expectations were placed on my sister who, in a shocking turn of events, married a good man and moved to a nice state and is living a happy and secure life and is having what will turm out to be a beautiful and well-cared-for baby. If she keeps it up, she will break all current Molitor relationship-longevity records. The great thing about this is that no one expected Susanna to turn out so well. I love my sister dearly, but for a while there the family was extrememly worried. The bad decisions that most teenage girls make seemed to be becoming her way of life, but then she turned it all around. Her sweet and caring side finally beat out her rebellious and stubborn side, and she has been justly rewarded with stable employment, good lodgings and a loving husband. I, on the other hand, have always been expected to do great things. Whenever I don't, I am reminded sarcastically by my father. I wonder, then, am I just doing this whole Texas move to prove that I can do the normal thing, and do it well, and make something of my life, using the most traditional path? If so, I might have to be disappointed in myself. I never considered myself traditional, and I wanted any success I ever got to be the result of my creativity, not my ability to work hard at menial tasks for long periods of time. But here I am. I still write, but my ability to make movies is hindered by the fact that I have nothing to make them with (though my first big purchase planned is a PowerBook and a digital video camera). So if I wanted to make it creatively, the fact that I'm writing loans instead of waiting tables should have nothing to do with it. I'm actually writing MORE out here, since I don't have anything else to do. So actually, instead of cursing my situation, I should be thankful for it (I am actually thankful for it). Maybe this is my great test. My exile. My "wilderness years." And when it's done, I'll be a better writer, a harder worker, a more patient father-figure, and a richer bastard. Then, I can be the best damn bar-owner in the country.
I feel better now. Thanks for listening.
Until next time...

Reviews of various things...

2007-08-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: Cat Powers, "Lived In Bars"

...or, if you like something a little more meloncholy, "The Greatest" (Live)

It's Saturday, and the family has left for "The Lake" for a weekend of lounging and wakeboarding and mosquitoes. I decided not to go, and consequently am bored beyond belief. After going to the outlet malls and stopping off for lunch, I'm back home running around in my underwear blasting music throughout the house. The dogs are going nuts. I've decided to to a "Review" post, to rate some of the stuff I've come across here in Texas. So, without further ado:

CAT POWER
I got a tip-off from my friend Brooke in California that a "Cat Power" show was coming to Dallas. I like cats, but empowering them and parading them in front of a paying audience is something I can't support. Realizing that Brooke wouldn't weigh me down with such inane bullshit , I googled "Cat Power" and found that it is the stage name of a popular indie musician who, besides having an adoring fan base and substantial credibility among critics, is also pretty hot. I was in. I ran my decision past Kelsea of The Wrong Trousers, who seconded my decision. The show was held at the (allegedly) famous Granada Theatre. I bought a ticket, convinced a co-worker to go with me, and headed out with high hopes. I had bought Cat Power's most recent album, "The Greatest," and was enjoying it immensely (kinda like a blues-y Feist with some Elliott Smith undertones and a lot of piano). The theatre was great.

Old, really old, with balconies and bars and all the seats taken out so there was terraced standing room. Beer in hand, I went upstairs to get a good view. Hot female musicians attract many hot female music fans, I discovered. After the opening act, the usual routine: lights go down, curtain comes up, everyone cheers; stage is revealed as empty, back to the beers; ten minutes later as stage is populated, everyone cheers; the people on stage turn out to be roadies, back to the beers; a solitary figure walks on stage and picks up a guitar, everyone cheers; he says "Check, check, one two" and leaves the stage, back to the beers. I hate this part of every show. Then she fianlly comes out, with a tiny terrier, and everyone (probably 400 people) goes freakin' nuts. What a great show. She kicked ass, her band (made up of semi-famous jazz and blues musicians, I heard) was on fire, and her dog made the occasional appearance. I had a powerful "Ah-HA!" moment as the hot female fans I had noticed earlier began pairing up and making out. I was at Lilith Fair Lite! But it was cool. Besides her stuff, she did three covers (New York, New York; Tracks of my Tears; Satisfaction) that were so different in music and cadence that it took a moment to figure out that I knew the song she was singing. After the show, Chan (Cat's real name, pronounced "Shawn," I was told) said goodnight and as people left, she told everyone that they were recording a live album during the show and that we all were welcome to stick around while they went through some of the songs again. So I did. Went right up front, since 60% of the people had left. Enjoyed another hour of music, and got to pet the dog, since she let him on stage. Great! Probably the best time I've had in Dallas so far. Hope to be able to share more good times in the future.

TRAFFIC
There is a peculiar custom here in Texas. This is in their terrible handling of traffic accidents. Namely, they leave them there. I've seen this a few times now. A car will rear-end another in the middle of the freeway, and officers arriving on scene will leave it sitting there. So a fender-bender can shut down a major freeway in rush hour traffic. You find yourself stopped on the interstate, late for work, and getting later, creeping slowly ahead. "If there isn't a dead body up there," you think, "if I don't see a dead human, in pieces, splayed across three lanes, I am gonna be PISSED." Sure enough, when you get to the bottleneck, you see flares shutting down a half mile of three lanes, a Jetta with minor front end damage sitting in the middle of it, and sixteen state troopers in cowboy hats with their thumbs looped into their belts, kicked back and chewin' the fat. "Stupid hicks!" you say. To yourself.

SUPERBAD

Go see it, or you are an idiot. If you go see it and you don't like it, I hate you. While we're there...

THE MOVIE THEATRE

I like the movie theatre because there is a five dollar early bird special and a staff that doesn't care how many movies I sneak into using that five dollar ticket. I don't like the movie theatre for the same reason I don't like most movie theatres, and that is becuse the urinals in the men's rooms never have partitions. A regular ticket costs ten bucks, popcorn costs six, and you can't install a five dollar piece of plywood between pissers so my penis can have a little privacy? Lame. To add insult to injury, Texas doesn't believe in paper towels. Yup, everywhere uses those terrible hand dryers. I wanna dry my hands, not move the water to my fingers and wrists.

CHICK-FIL-A

Wow. Californians are missing out. This was a pleasant surprise. I had asked a fellow trainee what to eat should I end up at Chick-Fil-A. I was told "You go in there and you get yerself a boxa the nuggets, and you get yerself the waffle fries, and a drink, and yer good." Cool. Coming back from shopping, I see a Chick-Fil-A, I remember JP's hot tip, and text Mike (my only friend here) for confirmation: "What do I get at chick-fil-a?" to which I recieve a prompt reply: "number 1." Okay. The number 1 is a chicken sandwich with waffle fries and a drink, so I got that AND the nuggets, and let me tell you, it was great. The nuggets especially. They're chunks of chicken, not the pieced together crap that McNuggets are made of, lightly battered and so on. Delicious. I know there's one in SD now, so go! and eat some nuggets. Not on Sundays, though. They've shunned the American economy by resting on the 7th day.

RESTROOMS AT WORK

As I voided my bladder the other day, I noticed something that had been in front of me since day one, right under my nose, that I had failed to see because it was so obvious. There is a shelf in front of the urinals. Why? you ask. I would ask the same thing. Until the aforementioned "other day" when I noticed the uncompleted brown ring of a coffee stain on the shelf, right under my nose. As it dawned on me that someone actually brought their coffee in to the pisser with them, mild disgust turned into outright horror when I heard the soft, strained grunt of a co-worker using the stall behind me (somebody's bakin' brownies!). How on earth could anyone enjoy coffee with the smell of fecal matter so stong in the air? I almost barfed, and I wasn't trying to consume a flavored beverage. Then, I remembered an old friend of mine who used to take his morning dump with a bowl of cereal in his lap. For him, it was the ultimate in time-saving. I'd rather be late. And I have a desk to set my coffee on, thanks anyway for the little ledge.

COMING HOME FOR A SPELL

YES!!! I just bought a ticket to visit!!! I'll be in San Diego from Friday, September 14th at 5:25pm through Sunday the 16th at 1:17pm. All I'm bringing is the clothes on my back and my board shorts. The reason for the visit is that I miss everyone terribly. Plus I'll be attending a party that's going on at the bay on Saturday. So, a rough schedule:

Friday night: Bar Hopping. You wanna go? Let me know!!

Saturday Day: Maybe breakfast (maybe) and the Bay Party goes from 11-4!! There will be booze and boats and maybe a waverunner!!!

Saturday Evening: Bars, then food, then bars

Sunday Morning: Church.

Sunday Morning, for real though: Breakfast (Eggery?), beach.

Sunday Afternoon: Bye Bye.

I hope that everyone will rearrange their schedules and cancel their appointments so that they can hang out with me. We'll see.

Until next time...

a slice of happy...

2007-08-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "Aquarius/Let the sunshine in" by The Fifth Dimension

I finally found something cool about the office where I work. It's the walk to lunch.
There's a Subway sandwich shop less than a mile from the office. I go there for lunch usually, and read a bit while I eat my Spicy Italian sub. Mmm. After the first couple of car trips, I realized that it might be better to walk.
The downside is, it's about 104 degrees here during the day. So I didn't expect the walk to be pleasant. But I had to give it a shot, for the following reasons:
- I'm used to a working environment where I am on my feet constantly, and this sedentary new venture is a (literal) pain in my ass. It might have something to do with the 22-hour car trip (see below) that I don't think I've fully recovered from: every time I sit for long periods of time, or more than a half hour in a car, my right leg starts to hurt real, real bad. It gets more pronounced and painful as time wears on, so at the office I'll simply stand up for a minute. In traffic, I go insane from it and turn into an asshole. Which is a roundabout way of saying that I am sick of sitting for four hours, then sitting in a car, then sitting and eating, then sitting in a car again, then sitting back down for another four hours. I gotta throw some actual movement in there.
-A man can only take fluorescent lighting, canned air, mindless chatter and no music for so long.
-The longer it takes to get to Subway, the more time I have to wind down and listen to music. The drive gets in one half of one song, max. If I were to walk, who knows how many songs I can listen to?
-My car's A/C takes a minute to get going. It takes one minute to drive to Subway. So I might as well be outside, right?

Off I went. I had my iPod going, my shirt untucked, and the sun in my eyes. The Subway was around the corner, across the street. The side of the street I work on has no sidewalk. I crossed the street, fully exposed to our closest star, in what was to become the only real hot portion of the walk. Because on the other side, there was a little sidewalk I had not noticed before. It ran between two twin rows of shade trees. The entire walk was shaded! I was cool as a cucumber, stretchin' my shit out, listening to Stevie Wonder and loving life. Thus began a tradition (if something I've done 6 times to date can be considered tradition).
I get alone time, which is nice. I see things that other people in the office never will. I see lots of bugs. My friends the fire ants pop up here and there. Of winged insects there are no shortage: butterflies galore, dragonflies, and the occasional yellowjacket, who tend to buzz around my ankles for a few yards before flying off to do whatever it is that yellowjackets do besides scaring the crap out of me. Huge mushrooms grow out low and flat in places the sun doesn't reach.One time, I got to see a little bird with a long beak nab a dragonfly out of the sky. He landed, set it down and gave it a peck, only to have it fly off. He quickly re-caught the fat green insect as it landed on a leaf, went back to the ground and pecked it twice. Problem solved. As I watched, singing "The Circle of Life" to myself, I realized that although I am not very happy with most of the aspects of my life right now, this walk is mine, and mine alone, and as long as I'm working here I'll have the walk to keep me the slightly sane and tolerably happy.
It's almost like being on my bike, which always made me feel like I was getting more out of travel than anyone in a car was. For instance yesterday, as I thought to myself that there are more and more dead leaves and acorns on the ground with each passing day, a brief but powerful wind kicked up in the middle of what had been a perfectly calm day. For close to a minute, all of the trees waved, letting loose a rain of leaves that poured out sideways and flew in circles, little tornadoes of leaves, as far as I could see, going up and down and around, getting in my hair, smacking into my face, while the leaves already on the ground skidded along like a moving carpet. It me want to spin in circles with my arms outstretched. Instead, I just took it all in, and when it was over, when all the leaves had settled on the ground and the road and the sidewalk, I smiled and looked at the cars driving by and thought: "Suckers."

Until next time...

The Routine...

2007-08-13T19:10:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "The Sound of Settling" by Death Cab For Cutie

Slipping into a routine...

Week three.
Still in training, done after this week. Hopefully I "hit the phones" soon after and can start to make some real money. Also, it'll really help to know whether this job is gonna rock, or suck, or where it falls on a scale from "rockin'" to "sucky." No mystery regarding training: It sucks the biggest boner ever. The only thing keeping me sane is the cool IM system that is company-wide, so I get to chat with friendly co-workers on the outside, and fellow suffering trainees on the inside. I get to make snide comments regarding the physical appearance and personal hygiene of the trainers, and watch the person I sent it to try and control their giggling. Then it's my turn to get an IM, and so on. For the record, my trainer bears an uncanny resemblance to:

...so the personal remarks aren't hard to come up with.

The routine I settled into (so far) goes like this:

MONDAY:
6am. Wake up
6:20am Wake up, for real this time, commence with the three "S"es
6:45am Start drive to work
7:45am Arrive at work, surf web
8:15am Training starts, surf web at every opportunity
12:15pm Lunch, read a few chapters of current book
1:15pm Back to work, resume surfing web at every opportunity
5:15pm All done, start drive home. Reflect upon how nice it was working in a restaurant: It wasn't like a real job, it was more like a place you stopped by for a few hours on your way to the bars in order to quickly and easily earn beer money with your friends. Then realizing: the office job is a place you spend half of your waking hours at where you are afraid to look at a girl's ass or say bad words or check your myspace, where you eat terrible fast food during your alotted lunch hour and return to more of the same, that is soul-crushing and music-less and repetitive, but pays much better than foodservice and is occasionally unintentionally hilarious. Realize that until I like my job or my town more, for now, my career change was lateral movement
6:30pm Arrive home, angry from traffic and thinking, also physically worn out. As I walk through the door, as a way of saying "welcome," Mia the 150lb mastiff jabs her nose into my balls and buttcrack. Good to see you, too
6:31pm JD asks if I wanna play videogames with him, I tell him I need to change and eat and do various other things
7:15pm I realize, to my horror, that although I changed slowly and put all my clothes away neatly, and fixed my own dinner, and read leisurely while I ate (stopping once or twice to tell JD that I wasn't quite ready to play videogames), and washed and put away the dishes, only 45 minutes have passed since I got home. Such is the nature of time, I realize with zen-like calm
7:25pm I have now changed, slowly, into my swimsuit. JD is knocking on the door to the bathroom asking if he can "come in," and asking if I'm ready to play videogames with him
7:26pm I am settling in with JD to play, as per my strict requirements, "only one level" of Lego Star Wars II. Despite my generosity, and probably in direct response to my surrender, JD "calls" player one, as well as the character he wants to be, meaning he gets to be whoever has a "lightsaver" and I get to be Princess Leia. Every time. "Dude," he shouts, "you have to be the girl. I called the lightsaver guy." Fine. One level only. Dude
7:45pm The one level has been played. I repeatedly assure JD that, yes, I'm positive that I don't want to play another level, and no, I don't have to explain myself to an 8-year-old. (JD isn't terrible, and I hope I don't give that impression. He's a cool kid. He is just stoked to have a friend installed in his house who plays video games, and can barely contain himself. When I was 8 I was probably the same way) I put music on outside and go into the pool
7:48-8:30pm I am in heaven. Or close to it. No people, no dogs, just music, and cool water, and fireflies, and stars
8:45pm Done drying off, I have a snack and read for a bit, maybe watch a movie
10:30pm Bedtime

TUESDAY: See above

WEDNESDAY: See above

THURSDAY: See above

Soundtrack change: "Beer" by Reel Big Fish (Couldn't find the song I wanted)

FRIDAY: See above, until 5:15pm...
5:15pm Change into street clothes in parking lot, drive to pick Mike up from mechanic, adjourn for beers
7:30pm Finally done with mechanic, we head to some random spot, drink two 32oz Shiner Bocks, eat painkillers
8:30pm Go get sushi, more beer, one carafe hot sake, one bottle cold unfiltered sake
9:30pm Sushi chef comes to table with some Shoju, we help him finish the bottle off with tonic
10:10ish Go to bar next door
10:45ish I apparently mass text everyone I know in SD. For the record, I have no idea what I said (my phone doesn't keep track of sent items), but the responses I saw the next day led me to believe that I was in a festive mood. Here's an approximation:

SATURDAY:
10:00am Wake up to the sound of many children yelling and playing
10:15am After peeing for a solid ten minutes, I head into the living room. The kids ask, "What time did YOU get home last light?" I think to myself: "Time? HOW did I get home last night?" but out loud I say, "Real late. Now, Uncle Nik needs some cereal." Eat and read quietly, drink water
4:30pm Head to Mike's for dinner and booze. We make a big batch of strong lemon-and-vodka drink, and drink it all. Then the two of us, plus another guy, finish off a bottle of Crown. "Finally, my hangover is gone," is the last thing I remember thinking

SUNDAY:
Chill at home, watch the Chargers lose

MONDAY:
See previous Monday

...and so on. I could get used to it. Thing is, Not drinking all week leaves me unprepared for the weekend. I'm not a big guy, but I can usually hold my liquor. So all of those years of practice are already out the door. The good thing is, drunk doesn't cost as much. The bad thing is, it doesn't take as long, so I got rocked hard on Friday. I'll try and take it easy on future Fridays.

So, all is getting better, as I've found a bit of relief from the beast of Boredom which looms large. Now, I need to solve the problem of human contact. In San Diego, in the restaurant business, I was in an environment that forced human contact and coworker interaction. None of that here. In San Diego, I got hugs, and kisses, and sometimes more, on a semi-regular basis. Here in Dallas, I haven't recieved so much as a hug. And that sucks. I knew I'd be bored, and that I'd miss friends and socializing on a nightly basis, but the lack of real contact is a terrible thing. Man, I sound whiny. But you miss the contact, trust me. So, I'll continue to bitch about that until I get a piece of Dall-ass. When that happens, you all will be the first to know.

Until then...

Oddities and invisibility...

2007-08-07T17:48:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Lonely Day" by Phantom Planet

The days at work are all the same. They lack the variety of the restaurant shift, with all its activity, and new challenges, and fun coworkers with whom constant interaction is a part of the job. My job, once training is done, will consist of me answering the phone and selling people loans. Not fun in a conventional sense, in any sense really, but potentially highly profitable. I have to remind myself that that is why I am here. I knew it would be tough, and maybe I'm a wimp for complaining so soon, but I'm good at complaining, and I've got some gripes, so I'll get 'em out. In a minute.

But first: Did anyone know that there is no law in Texas that specifically states which way your car should be facing when you park on the street?

It takes some getting used to. You drive down the street, and an oncoming car veers across your lane and stops, facing you, on YOUR shoulder. "Doop-de-do," this person is singing as they hop out, "another good parking job for ol' Randy. Wait a minnit. Why's that guy with California plates lookin' at me like that? Hey fuck you, faggot!"
Welcome to Texas.

One very good thing: Dr. Pepper EVERYWHERE. They make it here. I don't even think the Texans know who Mr. Pibb is.

The radio here isn't terrible. 'Humorous' would be a good word. Driving in to work, I heard an ad featuring a southern couple who were allegedly relaxing and enjoying the sunset, which started normal enough, then took a strange turn:
Husband: "Sure is beautiful out here, little lady."
Wife: "Honey, what's that you're smoking?"
Husband: "Why, it's a Black and Mild. It's got that big, rich, texas flavor."
Wife: "Really? Give me a taste."
(Sucking sound, dramatic pause)
Wife: "Mmmm!!"
...and so on. I almost laughed myself into a telephone pole. Hopefully there's more like this floating around.

In other, related, news, I'm still getting used to the "Smoking or non?" question at restaurants. Gets me every time.

Fireflies kick ass. 'Nuff said.

On getting around: I live about an hour north of Dallas proper, in an area of suburbs known as the "metroplex." There are no natural landmarks to help the newcomer with directional issues. At long last, I have figured out how to effectively navigate this flat and featureless expanse: Water Towers. Every city, town, or half-baked municipality has its very own water tower, complete with the name of said city, town, etc. painted on the side. They are the only thing, besides the random clusters of office towers, that break up the landscape. So: going from Parker to Frisco? Look up. There it is! A big water tower that says "Parker." Now, look around you. Within sight should be ten to twenty more water towers, ranging in distance from "close by" to "peeking over the curve of the earth." Locate the one that a) says "Frisco" explicitly, or b) has some kind of sylized "F" and an American Flag. Drive towards that tower. See how easy? No need for mapquest!

On religion: Churches are big here. Culturally and figuratively. Fucking HUGE. The buildings are massive, warehouse-sized things, that look about as much like a church as a Wal-mart does. Same size parking lot, too. I was invited to go this past Sunday, but I respectfully declined, so that I could do the...

Quadruple Feature!!!! Yes sirree, your movielovin' pal Nik saw four movies on Sunday, in a row. Sunshine, followed by Simpsons, followed by Die Hard, followed by Bourne. The plan was flawlessly executed, the timing was perfect, the price was five dollars. That's right, the first show of the day is only five bucks!! Hahaha! I'm gonna wait a month and do it again. This was a perfect Sunday for me because I love movies, I hate church, and can't ride my bike anymore (see previous post). Plus the weather is always crummy, so I might as well be inside. I would recommend any of the movies I saw. Simpsons was funny as hell, Sunshine was super intense if you're into sci-fi, Bourne was incredible and had the best fistfight ever in it, and Die Hard was, well, Die Hard. I can also proudly claim to have seen the preview for every movie being released for the next year and a half (some I saw twice). I thought I might catch SOME flack, but I moved about the theatre like a ghost. Which leads to my final topic...

The nobody factor. I am nobody here. It's an odd feeling. I'm not saying I was the King of San Diego or anything, but I felt liked in my community, at my job, and it felt nice to go out at random and see people I knew. It took seven years to get to that point, so I can't expect to be embraced immediately by all the cool people of Dallas. Really, do I even deserve anything at this point? I'm a guy, who's new to the area, who owns nothing, and doesn't have his own place, and is still in training for his job. I wasn't expecting to make great friends right away, I really don't even want any new friends. I want my old ones. But it was me who left, so I can't bitch. But is it gonna change me? Was the Nik I was in SD, the Nik of the Wrong Trousers song - happy, carefree, Nik - was he a result of the environment? A cool job, a cool city, great friends, popular with the ladies: is that why I was the way I was? Or did my personality get me those things? I guess the coming months will tell. In the meantime, I have all the time I need to work on my reading, or fitness, or whatever. Maybe I should just avoid all human contact and work work work? No fun there. But a sound financial plan, to be sure. Because as soon as I make friends, I'll start drinking, and partying, and blowing money, which we all know I can't control. What to do, what to do?
I feel isolated. The family I live with is cool, but conversation is limited. I'm missing out on talking to a ton of my friends on a daily basis, and they only lack one friend, easily replaced. Hardly anyone calls me, which is no big deal, because I've never been much of a phone talker. But now it seems that if I have anyone on the line I get out a few days' worth of missed conversation. I hope I'm not bugging anyone. I hope if I am, someone will let me know. Don't let that stop you from calling me. It's not as bad as it sounds. I mean, it's only been a week! Why am I whining? I've got Mike, who last Saturday came by for some grilling and pool swimming. We got to drinking, and I got ahold of some painkillers, and it was just like the good old days...

On the up side, I am getting a lot of reading done. A lot. I've finished four books since my arrival, and am well on my way into two more.

Next time: nothing depressing!!

The horror, the horror!

2007-08-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Sheep go to Heaven" by Cake

A full week in, and I have much to report.

Went on my first bike ride. It was a resounding failure that shook my nerves to the core and prepared me for other soul-crushing attempts to do like I did in San Diego. The Walgreens is a half-mile away and I decided to do an early evening ride to get some essentials. It was hot out, and sticky, but I kept a shirt on just to protect my God-fearing neighbors from the sight of my half-naked body. Good idea, as it turns out. The amount of bugs out here is unbelievable. I remember once, riding in SD, getting a bug in my mouth. Once. Flash back to Texas, where I had eaten three mosquitos before I even got out of the driveway. The faster I went, the more hit me, and the greater their velocity. It kinda stung. Furthermore, the layer of sticky sweat that built up on me after the first 30 seconds meant that the bugs didn't just hit, they stuck. Too late now, though. I had my iPod going and by golly I was gonna ride to the damn store! Head down, smacking my arms in a constant rythym to kill the bloodsuckers that adhered to my skin, I pushed on. Braving roads with drivers who, judging from their slack-jawed glances, had never even SEEN a bicycle before, I make it to the store to discover, but of course, there no bike rack. I have no idea why I didn't anticipate that. Well, I have one idea why: I am obviously a moron who is out of his element. I chain to a tree. Shopping is without incident. This Walgreens is almost exactly like a California Walgreens, except that everyone is slightly nicer, and they sound funny. Finished, I go unlock the bike. As I mount my bike, the unmistakable feeling of a bug stuck to my leg makes me pause to smack it. In doing so, I realize that both of my legs are covered in ants. One hundred ants. Red ones. What followed was probably pretty funny for spectators: I hop off the bike, dancing around the parking lot, slapping myself in the legs while letting out an unbroken stream of curse words that would make a sailor blush. All the while with cheery music from ELO piped into my head from the iPod. Once the slaugher was finished, I rode home (more of the same: pedal, pedal, smack, pedal, pedal, smack), went inside and relayed my story to the Martin family.

"Better hope those weren't fire ants."

But guess what?

They were. Not pictured here are the yellowish pustules that form during day two, which, if popped, can become infected. Good times!

Lesson learned: bike riding is for fair weather and friendly towns, which is to say, not anywhere around here.

Another one for the "Why doth Texas hate me so?" file:

Apparently my method of self-cleansing hasn't hit central america yet. When I came to visit in June, I brought my toiletries, including my loofah thing which, when teamed with body wash, provides me with squeaky clean skin that is soft to the touch and pleasantly aromatic. No one here had heard of it. There was only a few questions on that visit, nothing rude, you see. I found out that they were being nice so I would move out here. For as soon as I had arrived, the mother of the household asked, in a well-aren't-you-a-little-nancy-boy-tone, "Did you bring your LOOFAH?"

I replied, somewhat taken aback, that I had.

She just laughed.

Next day, same thing with my friend Mike's wife. "Did you bring your LOOFAH?"

And she laughed.

I still haven't figured out how they clean themselves here in Texas, and frankly, I don't care to. The fact is that two women insulted me for loofah use, and I am still recovering. Oh, loofah, scrub my pain away...

On the job front, I'm officially an employeee of Countrywide Financial Corporation (CMC), meaning I have been issued a cubicle, a computer and printer, some drawers, a phone with a nifty headset, an assortment of pens, one small and one large pad of paper, various useless handbooks telling me whose ass I am not to grab or even comment lewdly upon and, most exciting for me at least, my very own Employee Identification Badge.

It has a tiny little picture of me on it, distorted by the computer's printing process, and it allows me to access areas by holding it up to a card reader. I feel like James Bond, smartly dressed, going into headquarters. Except that I can't kick anyone's ass, I'm dressed in business casual, and "headquarters" here would refer to a room the size of a football field with cubicles stretching from wall to wall. But still pretty cool. Kinda. But not really.

I'm really nobody here. It's kinda weird. There's probably six people in the office that know me by name, half of those only because I work under them so they're required to. I walk around, and everyone just nods at me, if anything at all. It's not like I'm not trying to meet people. The setup here makes it difficult. My cube is adjacent to two others (I have a coveted corner cube), and my neighbors consist of one pretty cool guy and one mindless dolt who talks to himself ALL OF THE TIME. Really. A tiny little version of Milton from Office Space, right next door.

This is getting a bit wordy, so I'll go for now.

Next time I'll telk about more Texas oddities, and the effects of being invisible...

A Very Long Drive...

2007-07-29T19:53:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: You will have noticed the "Suggested Soundtrack" part of my posts. I will now attach a youtube video (when applicable) just below that part, just above the actual post, so that you can actually listen to the intended music without doing any work on your end. I love you all.

Suggested soundtrack: "Castaway" by Green Day

It's been a while, but I've been busy and I have limited internet access.

Anyhow.

You are probably aware that I drove to Texas. This is the story of that drive.

What was originally supposed to be a two day drive instead became a grueling all-nighter. To start, here's the trip by-the-numbers:

Total miles traveled: 1385

States traveled in: 4

Hours on the road: 22

Of that, hours spent napping at rest stops: 1 (two 30-minute naps)

Average speed, in mph, for the trip: 70

Torrential downpours featuring thunder and lightning driven through: 1

Average speed, in mph, for the duration of said downpour: 35

18-wheelers that sped past me during said downpour, going at least 80 and scaring me even more: 3

Fast food sandwiches consumed: 3 (1 burger, 2 breakfast)

Bottles of water consumed: 7

Cigarettes smoked: 18 (not proud of this, but it gave me something to do)

Red Bulls consumed: 3

Bizarre scary energy drinks consumed: 2 (more on those in a minute)

It was a long and sometimes surreal journey. I started in Palm Springs, at my dad's, waking up at 8am. At 10am, I left and drove to San Diego to pick up some crap that I left. Left San Diego at 2pm, determined to do the drive in one go, but unsure if I could or, for that matter, should. But then I figured: "Fuck it."

So I drove. I drove through desert, across rivers, up mountains, and down them. I drove past billboards for "The Thing?" which was "400 miles ahead," then "200 miles ahead," then "100 miles ahead," then "only 50 miles ahead," then was sped by at 75mph, then was forever behind me, thank goodness. I drove until I needed gas, or a bite, or to stretch, and then I'd stop, do whatever it was I needed to do, and then I'd drive some more. I drove past cops, and cows; through counties, and states; on good road, and bad; while singing, and silently; through good weather, and poor; with windows down, and windows up; while smoking, and eating; from sunset, to sunrise. Drive is what I did.

I was armed with Red Bulls, which I knew from past driving experiences would not be nearly enough. The sun set on me in Arizona, and I was starting to get tired as I crossed the continental divide. In El Paso, with a Red Bull coursing through my veins but doing no good, I found my solution:

I had seen an ad for this stuff on TV. Let me tell you: it works. It works like I assume meth works. Holy Shit. About as much caffeine as a cup of coffee, but it had other stuff in spades. 8333% of my recommended daily allowance of vitamin B12, for example. Only 2000% of my RDA for B6. And enough niacin to turn my whole body red for 30 minutes, but that was strangely exhilarating. After that, man, I was good to go. Singing, dancing, grooving (with a special shout out to those friends of mine that made CDs for me, they were all fantastic).

All was well until I hit the storm.

I had stopped in El Paso for a refuel and for energy, and while there I noted just how filthy the front of my car had become. My windshield had claimed the lives of more than 300 winged insects, ranging in size from "tiny" to "sparrow." It was pretty gross. The station I was at didn't have the squeegie thing, so I had to go on without it. Once on the road, I knew I was headed into trouble. I had seen the lightning from many miles away. It seemed like I was headed right for it. Then, it was all around me. But still no rain. I pulled into a rest stop to pee and stretch, and marveled at the situation. It looked like I was in hell. Or Mordor. It was 4am or so, and it would have been pitch black except that lightning was illuminating the clouds all around me. The air was full of static energy, the thunder was booming, and the wind was blowing hard from the east. It was coming my way. Amazingly, no rain. I stuck around for a half hour seeing if it would hit and I could wait it out in the car, but it stubbornly refused to come my way. Fine, I thought, I guess I'll have to drive right through the fucker.

So I did. When it hit, it hit hard. The raindrops must've been the size of golf balls, because that's what it sounded like was hitting my car. The only thing I could hear above that noise was the thunder, which boomed at such a volume I thought my teeth were gonna shake out. Lightning bolts were no longer visible - instead, the whole sky would just light up, super bright, kinda like being INSIDE a lightbulb. When this would happen I would not be able to see for a moment or two, which somehow made things even scarier. I was hydroplaning when I was going the speed limit so, white-knuckling the steering wheel, I slowed down to 35mph and moved into the slow lane. Visibility was about, I dunno, from my eyeballs to the inside of the windshield, occasionally the hood of the car. I had my eyes glued forward, frightened out of my wits, when WHOOSH, a semi rolled by going about 80, splashing even more water (if that's possible) onto my car and making my tiny vehicle shudder in its wake. Two more big trucks went by like this. Why, I thought, are they not worried? Granted, I never drive, much less in the rain, but holy hell, this is a shitstorm and a half!! Thirty minutes later, though, it ended. Quick as that. The good thing was, I noticed, is that my windshield had been hammered into crystal-cleanness, along with the rest of the car. Sweet! Plus, the sun was rising in a most dramatic fashion, letting me know that the worst was over: I had made it through the night, and through the fiercest of storms, and now only the bleak brown expanse that is central Texas stood in my way.

I still had three and a half hours of energy left, according to the bottle, so I got another one at the next refuel. To my surprise, Texas was no longer brown. What I found out was that there has been rain in the region for a record 35 days straight, lifting the state from the worst kind of drought possible and turning it into a kind of flat Ireland: Green as far as the eye could see, without any hills, so pretty far indeed. The trek through nothingness was actually quite beautiful. Plus I was a twitching mess from my third red bull, second 5-hour energy shot and my 16th cigarette.

I was close, but I was hurting. Immense alertness allowed me to fully appreciate the pain that had spread through the entire back side of my body. Anything that rested on anything else was sore. From ass cheeks to elbows, I was in agony. I knew that when (if) I got to sleep, it would be face down.

22 hours from when I started, I rolled into Dallas, triumphant, exhausted, but strangely alert. My new family greeted me warmly and fed me a delicious sandwich. After getting into my new room, and eating dinner, I swam for an hour or so and STILL couldn't get to sleep until midnight, meaning I was up for 38 f-ing hours. The 5-hour energy drink saved the day, but at what a cost! Let it be known, residents of the city of Dallas and the Dallas metroplex: I have arrived.

Until next time...

Next time: Where I live, where I work, and the ill-fated first bike ride.

Last Days and First Legs...

2007-07-26T01:25:00.000-07:00

Suggested Soundtrack: "Niktionary" by The Wrong Trousers (You kinda had to be there)
Zero hour is approaching. I am no longer a resident of San Diego. Really, now, I'm a resident of nowhere. I'm staying at my parents' place in Palm Springs and everything I own is either in my car or on the floor behind me.
"Isn't that depressing," Papa asked, "Being 28 and having only a carload to your name?"
"I think it's pretty exciting, actually," I replied.
...and it is. Exciting, I mean. Look to my previous post for my exact reasoning. He doesn't understand, I suppose, because he has worked hard many times to acquire loads of shit only to have it taken away in divorces. Three of them. So he's all about his shit. Understandably. He didn't have shit growing up, he worked hard for his shit, and has had it taken away, one-half at a time, by three fleeing women. If I were him I'd be holding onto my shit (and my current wife) as tightly as possible.
Moving on.
Last days in SD were at the same time wonderful and terrible. Let's get the shitty out of the way so I can tell you about the magic mushrooms.
It sucks to leave a place that you, a) love, b) have a lot of dear friends at, and c) don't have a super-fucking-cool reason for leaving: "Why are you leaving a paradise of sun and beach and relaxation and beautiful women who want to have sex with you? Did you get a job as a cabana boy at Hugh Hefner's Dallas Retreat?"
It sucks to have to say bye to every one of those people you love. They'll miss me. That's one person. I'm gonna miss dozens. Son of a bitch, this is gonna blow.
Finally, it sucks to move. The only real benefit is the "purge" aspect. You realize how much crap you have that you don't need. The downside is the stress, the selling of extra stuff, and the packing itself, which, if you are like me, is done at the last possible second the night before you are supposed to visit your folks in Palm Springs and which leads your father to get pissed because you didn't get there fast enough. But it's all done. The Roomies have been left with an epic mess to clean up, the mess itself about 20% moving mess and 80% going-away-party mess. More on the party later. Chronologically, there was funner stuff before the party.
On to the good times.
Sunday. Woke up really fucking early for a garage sale that was pretty much a failure. Thank goodness I was up at 7, since the best customer all day got there precisely at that time. Took a quick nap, took care of some business, ate a burger, blah, blah, and then!!! Jason got home from partying hard at Pride, and he, Nick and I set off for Windansea beach to eat some 'shrooms. We split an eighth three ways and went for a pitcher of beer at The Shack to wait it out. Then...
Holy Shit.
This was the first time for Nick and I (though I did a lot of acid in my early teens), and all I can say is that if you've not done 'shrooms before, hurry the fuck up and eat some. The setting is key, good company is crucial, and if that is settled competently, fun is most assuredly going to happen. Fascination, laughter, joy, and a little bit of confusion. We took a case of beer, a pipe, some nugs of reefer, a pack of cigarettes, and set off up the beach. It was like we were 10 years old, exploring a whole new world. We found some sort of phosphorescent glowing blue sand in these tide pools that we stuck to our faces so we were glowing blue (can anyone tell me what the fuck that shit was? I'm almost positive it was science of some kind, I'd hate to think we were all that high), we meandered, and talked and logged some serious Roomie bonding time. I will miss those guys. The few people we came across that night must have been startled to see three shirtless grown men with cuffed jeans and glowing noses wearing capes. Did I mention the capes? We had capes. All three of us. Like I said, it was a blast.
Then, the going away party. Many showed up. Many. There were some tears shed, there was laughter, there were two live music acts on the front lawn: The Wrong Trousers...

...seen here in Balboa Park, where I first fell in love with them, and Trent Hancock...

...seen here on the night of.
It was a fantastic evening, and the mood was jovial, and even the cops that moved the music indoors weren't total pricks. People brought CDs for my road trip, and I got a pop-up book of sex, and I even had a confessional booth set up with a camera so people could leave me a video bye-bye. Haven't watched those yet as they'll probably make me sad. Er. Sadder than I already am.
But it's a sadness tempered by the excitement of a new thing.

Final Countdown...

2007-07-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "Here we go" by Jon Brion

Well, last night was my last night at work, and now I sit unemployed on the front porch of my house, running a largely unsuccessful yard sale on an hour and a half of sleep. Most of the shit I'm taking with me is all packed, and the only issue now is the shit I'm not taking with me. It amounts to quite a lot of shit. Hopefully I can get a bit more cash for all of this crap so I don't have to trash it all or give it to needy children. It's wild to go through everything I've accumulated over the years and decide what makes the cut. Last night I found a box containing what appeared to be every goddamn piece of schoolwork I'd done since age 6. Crayon drawings of dinosaurs eating schoolbuses, collages, pages and pages of that triple-lined brown paper we all had to use to practice our printing. Cute, but now it's compost. For some reason I had also kept all of my notes and essays from senior year until college graduation. With a few exceptions, those went away too. What in the hell had possessed me? Did I think that someday down the line I'd actually want to relive my education? I don't even remember 1/100th of what I had in those pages. I'm not a terribly sentimental person, so why all the clutter?
The whole process is therapeutic. When I'm done, everything I own will fit into my small car. That, to me, is almost magical. Unemployment, minimal possessions, a tank full of gas: that is freedom. The crazy thing is, I don't actually have to go to Dallas. It is a wise decision, sure. But if on the day of my departure, I just decided to go north, or south, who would be there to tell me no? All of the possibilities...
In a side note, I'm currently rereading "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. I've read the book probably four times, and at this point I'm not reading for plot (of course) but just to spend time with characters that are like old friends to me. I've been doing a lot of reminiscing lately, doing things I did a lot of, you know, "one last time" and all that. In-n-out burger, bronx pizza, the zoo. I think I'm clinging to the familiar in the face of all this uncertainty. It makes sense to me, at least.
Until next time...

The situation...

2007-07-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

Suggested soundtrack: "My Old Ways" by Dr. Dog (pirate it, it's great)

Before I get started on this thing, let's take a moment to talk about things at this point. I'm a 28-year-old college grad (SDSU, Communications) living the easy life in sunny San Diego. I've got a rich and satisfying social life, and a job that pays the bills and leaves enough to allow me to get rip-roaring drunk on a nightly basis. Which is nice. But, really, I'm treading water financially. I say I want to open a bar or restaurant of my own, but there's not a chance in hell of me doing that on a waiter's wages. I need a better income, sure. But even if I were to double my income in San Diego, I've got a social network set up that gives me an excuse to party nightly, and like a Koi fish's growth rate relative to pond size, will grow as expensive as my income allows. So I gotta go.
Opportunity knocked in the form of my great friend Mike and his great family which, for some reason, seems to like me more than my own family. I've been given a job (Persoanl loan consultant) in a good company (Countrywide Home Loans) and a free place to stay in the meantime (with Mike's sister, brother -in-law, and their three kids). My job is performance based, so it is up to me to kick ass, income-wise, while I live for free and don't know anyone. I will have my own room and share a bathroom with JD, the 8-year-old son. I will go from sharing a house with Nick and Jason, where dinner is ramen and it is eaten from the pot and chased with a Miller High Life, to sharing a house with John (Dad) and Kim (Mom, soccer mom actually) and Hailey (15, girl, hardcore soccer player) and Hunter (10, girl, also an avid sportswoman) and JD (8, boy, aspiring scientist this week, changed from aspiring ninja last week), eating dinner around a table, and dropping the kids off at practice.

From Party Nik to Uncle Nik.

Can I do it?

I'm kinda curious about that myself.