BEFORE & AFTER: Cinco De Mayo

So it's like, Siete de Mayo now, or however you spell it; and as it would turn out Cinco de Mayo was great. Most of my fears, proved unfounded; just a little anti-social jitters that's all. Some of the Brewhouse crew turned out to be quite interesting, while others -as expected- proved to be waitresses. And now, an abridged version of highlights.

6:00pm --At the Brewhouse, Madison won't look at me because I'm wearing a shirt with E.T. on it. A real vintage shirt, has E.T. smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer. It says, "E.T. Want to Party!" Apparently she thought she saw the Extraterrestrial in the bushes at her grandparents when she was a kid. Totally freaked her out. Like people with clowns, this girl and E.T., it was fucking hysterical.

6:15pm --Jim drops a case of Corona in the liquor store, busting a bottle and spraying beer all over.

6:30pm --We start drinking. The sun is still up.

6:45pm --I spot a bobcat prowling the edge of some woods. Further inspection reveals it to be a tremendous house cat.

7:ishpm --Jim asks if we know what whale puke is made of. I think probably plankton and sea water. He tells us, perfume. He means they make perfume out of whale puke. We question whether whales actually puke. If they did, it wouldn't be into a huge convenient bucket, it would be into the sea. And it would be like this milky cloud that dispersed and filtered away into the giant ocean. We discuss the process of collecting whale vomit.

8:/9:?pm --I bump into Nicole, the hostess with the mostess. The lone pothead in a sea of alcoholics. We smoke and shoot shit.

9:somethinpm --I find Christian outside on the phone. I pawn half a beer off on him because it's superfluous, I'm high. From the cold, his lips are purple the rest of the night. Sucking on a popsicle purple. Noticeably violet.

9:66pm --I make a crack about vegans, and Dorothy, the wispy witchy girl -who gets extra hot points for being a fourth grade teacher- turns on a dime from some other conversation, tucks a shock of red hair behind her ear and says "what was that about vegans? my mother is a vegan." I feel 11% bad, 42% awkward.

p.s. [the vegan crack was actually me repeating something Christian had said earlier in the week. He said, "There's always something wrong with the way a vegan looks." It's true.]

Now things get hazy, I remember this snipped of dialogue:
--Nicole (to Dorothy): You've got a dog right?
--Dorothy: I did, until he FUCKING DIED in January!

I can remember being a kid a feeling as though teachers had no lives. Teachers existed on a different plane, they may have even slept in the classrooms, or in goo pods in the teacher's lounge. Here I find myself talking to this very bright, new-agey girl, drunk and slumming in a hoodie sweatshirt. And she has to be up in 6 hours to teach class. 4th graders. 10 year olds. She's 26. She told me how she loved it, teaching. Told me about this verbal, almost Dungeons&Dragonsesque version of Oregon Trail that they play. She acted as though the old computer game didn't even exist. i.e.ing me with how the kids might have to decide whether to take new roads and stuff, and then they do, and they end up in the next town four days later than they would have. Crazy. I am definately not a kid anymore. I hung out with a teacher, as a peer.

Amy says, "Do you really think E.T. would drink Coors? I think he would drink something more Cosmic."

Amy reminds me of Natalie. She's goofy that way. Witty and intelligent. She talks well; quotes things, uses big words, makes funny faces. Those are good things, Amy is cool.

All the Mexicans from the kitchen at work show up. I mental note that I've never in my life done one shred of anything for Cinco de Mayo, and tonight I've eaten nachos. Drank Mexican beer. And chilled with genuine Mexicans. It's cheesy the way the I-Heart-NY shirts are. Stereotypical, yet oddly lovely.

It's midnight now and I'm watching the huge clock. I'm coming down and it sucks, but I've been fucked up for 6 hours. I start planning on being home for the repeat of Tough Crowd at 1:30. Penn Jillette is going to be on.

Jim is MegaKungFu drunk now. He's on his elevendieth beer, had at least as many tequila shots and some Mexican bourbon the gringos gave him that twisted his face all into hell when he drank it. He's obnoxiously close to my face with the sharp stick of a chicken kabob, murmuring something about music or something. He stabs Dorothy in the leg with it. I take it from him.

I start saying my goodbyes.

Allison follows us out the door and really lays the guilt on thick. It's after one now and she's just telling me how I never hang out. How I'm the only person who's ever worked the Brewhouse and not hung out. How she can't believe this. I tell her we've been here 7 hours. And she's all "why are you leaving?" Saying we should stay the night. Jimmy won't stop yell/asking her whether she likes Madonna or not. She tells him no, tells me we should stay. Jimmy starts screaming how he can't fucking believe she doesn't like Madonna. I'm trying to defend that I don't go out and get drunk six nights a week. She says, okay, as she walks away, says that we're just different. That she likes to get drunk and have fun, and I don't. I tell her have a good night and Jimmy just can't understand how she could not like Madonna.

1300 miles away, Ryan and Adam spend the entire night at Kinkos. Happy Kinkos de Mayo guys.

Mine was interesting.




"crack isn't good for you I don't think." --Dorothy, the teacher.

I am going to start something new here. A little recurring feature on my blog that I'm going to call Before & After. You may recognize the phrase from Jeopardy, or for all you lame asses, Wheel of Fortune. It may also sound a bit familiar if you happen to speak human. Now, where on game shows, Before & After would represent questions or puzzles where the answer is a mesh of two different answers with a common denominator in the middle. i.e. "Herman Melville's whale of a book about Survivor All-Star Boston Rob," the answer of course being, Moby Dickhead. Here I will use it to express feelings on an impending event. i.e., tonight's Cinco De Mayo celebration. I will first post on my trepidation or enthusiasm for whatever I am anticipating. Then immediately after said event, write a follow-up to show whether my jitters or jubilation was founded only hours earlier.

So without further ado, I give you...

B E F O R E & A F T E R 1: Cinco De Mayo.

I'm killing time until this Mexican fiesta. I'd rather be killing myself. I don't know why I don't want to go so bad, but I have a few guesses.

An off day squeezed in between two work days sucks ass. Sucks because the night before your day off, you work, which kills the night that bleeds into the off day. And then on your actual day off, you know you've got to get up and go to work the next day. Cinco De Mayo, falls on one of those 'tweener days. My tweener days up here have commonly been reserved for quiet Borders cafe days. I know, sounds both lame and gay. But I get iced tea, I get a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips in books and magazines. I get quiet interesting people. It makes for a nice few hours. Today, I have whiled away watching TV waiting to go to Kimmy's house for burgers and brewskies. But between the music videos, an episode of Hyperspace I've seen eight times and clips and pieces of The Rock, it has felt like the hours leading up to work. Just slumming through the channels until I have to go do something I don't want to. And that isn't exactly the feel you expect anticipating a big fat excuse to party.

Numero Uno, there's Jimmy. Jimmy is George's slightly alcoholic 45 year-old friend who lives in the basement. Jimmy is a totally cool guy. He helped get me the job I hate. He is usually the one with me when I go out on the town, and he always pays for everything. Cool dude. But tonight, I am his ride. So if we get there, and my fears are proved founded, its an ass thing to do to want to leave, especially considering Jim will no doubt be having a great time.

Numero Two. (Uno is as far as my Spanish flies) My fears. My fears are, be they nice and sweet and ripe to eat, the girls who work The Brewhouse are uninteresting. And that is for lack of a better, nicer, word. Not uninteresting in a cordial conversation way. Not uninteresting in even a chill at a bar, have a few drinks way. But the awkward factor ticks up a few notches once the envirnoment is no longer the common ground of a local watering hole. Tonight, it will be someone's house, someone's home turf. It seems easier to make up an excuse to leave a bar, than to jet out of someone's crib ya know? And even if an excuse could be made, there is still Mr. Jimmy.

So I have to find a way to keep the conversation rolling long enough that it is not only uninsulting to my coworkers, to Kimmy, that I bolt. But also long enough that Jimmy has had his fill.

I have only two ideas to make this work.

Numero Uno. Drag Christian along. Because any awkwardness in me will be reflected twice as bright in his big brown eyes.

And Numero Two. DRINK A LOT.

Who knows, I could have a fucking blast. That is what the AFTER part of this jive is for. So, until tonight. Eat tacos and drink safe.

Quote correction from the Wildboyz post on Sunday.

I misquoted Steve-O as saying, "Man, getting bit by a snake DOES hurt." The actual quote was...

"And it DOES hurt when you get bitten by a FUCKIN SNAKE!"

I know this, because I just watched the fucking episode again. Someone help me.

I apologize for the false words. Apologize to everyone at work, all the people in your family, the guy at Burger King, everyone you've bounced around town talking about Wildboyz to. Apologize to them for me. I know this has been a considerable inconvenience.

"'Eh buddy," It's one of my Mexican commrades. "How you say...see owside, the sun go down, how you say?"
"Huh?"
"You say, Night?"
"Nighttime?"
"Nigh-time? You say, iss dark?"
"It's dark out."
"Iss dark out?"
"Yeah. Nighttime. Or, it's dark out."
"Oh okay. Thank you buddy."
"No problem."

Today, I taught a Mexican man about the night. Then. He taught me about Cinco De Mayo.

"What is Cinco De Mayo? Is it like, Independence Day?"
"In Mehico, umm. The French, they fight the French out. They celebrate on September Sixteen."
"September 16th?"
"Iss, how you say? InDePenDence. Like July Fourth in America."
"What about Cinco De Mayo?"
"They no celebrate in Mehico."
"So what is Cinco De Mayo?"
"Iss, another day for Americans to party."

In fact, Cinco De Mayo is a day celebrated by both countries, with good reason. On the morning of May 5th, 1862, 4000 Mexican soldiers kicked the shit out of the French and traitor Mexican army of twice as many in the town of Peubla, 100 miles east of Mexico City. They did it because The French had recently landed in Mexico under the pretense of collecting old debts, and decided instead, to set up shop. They intended on taking out Mexico City, assuming that then, with their capitol demolished, the Mexicans would give up. Not gonna happen fuckers. The Mexican soldiers slashed them to bits in a driving rain before they ever got there; a victory that stopped Napoleon III from supplying the Confederate rebels for another year. Which in turn helped the U.S. build the greatest Army ever assembled, which then smashed the confederates just 14 months later, basically ending the Civil War.

So see. Mexico helped us out yo. May 5th is a good day for Mexicans. A good day for Americans. And in recognition of that, tomorrow Americans will eat tacos and drink cervezas, that are prepared in some restaurant kitchen...

by Mexicans.

Drink safe everyone.

Today was such an un-day. I felt almost supernaturally removed from everything. I sent my mother the just-scraped-up money to cover my insurance, then I nursed an iced tea and read every stupid little sidebar of Total Film Magazine. Lately I've become the most frustrating kind of writer; the writer overflowing with ideas who just.doesn't.write.anything. I've got two full books worth of story and character in my head, in notes and research all over the place. Two relatively fleshed-out script ideas even besides Orbiting Ethan Oort, and I just feel physically barricaded from starting any of them. I try maybe to avoid BEGINNING, since beginning is so important; I try to write out of context. Just to get a feel for the voice I'll decide to mess around at some undetermined point in one of the stories. I just end up writing a sentence. Highlighting it. Deleting it. And doing it again and again. What an absolute ass of a time I'm having.

I've got to get a new job. I've never been at a job this long and still felt like such an outsider. Even the sweet girls who try and take me out every night, I'd almost rather just be here, not writing. I am so disenchanted with restaurants. Its no wonder why every single person who works in one either a) chain smokes. b) drinks heavily. c) does drugs. or d) all of the aboves all the damn time. I've said it before, the process of finding out what you want to eat, cooking it, putting it on a plate, and getting it out to you; is a ridiculous complicated process that taxes everyone from the hostess to the dishwasher. When I stop to take in all the food, the employees, the walk-ins and freezers packed to the brim with all kinds of shit, fresh shit, old shit, shit that needs to be dated and rotated. The dry goods, the eighty different beers; the tables and chairs and scheduling and training and man-power. That everything has to be accounted for right down to the goddam wet-naps that only go out with rib racks; the sheer amount of money and stress involved in what is essentially... JUST A FUCKING BURGER JOINT... blows me away. And frankly I don't want to be a part of it anymore. I understand the magic behind making a movie, that is the kind of stress I want to be involved in. Now, I love a good burger and fries just like everybody else. I have nothing but respect for the people who lose their hair and scorch their lungs to keep restaurants successful, well-oiled machines. But eating is just an aspect of life I'd rather admire and enjoy than get yelled at for fucking up.

I don't think you have to wait tables to be an actor. I think you have to be an actor, to wait tables. So, as a career-conscious actor, for the time being, -Waiter- is a role I must turn down.

Saturday, Bob asked if I'd come in and be the parking lot guy. Parking Lot Guy is the guy who sits on a stool at the mouth of the parking lot all night not collecting parking fees, instead just making sure that everyone who turns in is actually going to be eating at The Brewhouse; not just using its convenient SoNo centralized parking lot to spend their beer dollars elsewhere. Parking Lot Guy is not such a bad gig. I made more sitting on a stool, alone with my thoughts, away from the fast-paced bullshit that is a Saturday night, than I ever have actually sweating on the inside of it. I just watched the tranquil seas of the moon, watched it get brighter as the sky around it got darker. Watched it creep across the sky. It was cool out, and quiet. I smiled at the ladies and made fifty cash in five hours.

I wish you could hear me sigh. I really do hate my job. Summer is not some distant time when I'll have things in full swing anymore, it's already fucking MAY. Summer starts Friday with Van Helsing, if you live by the Hollywood calendar like me. But June is just a hop and a skip from today, and June is Summer for sure. After June, the year is that deer halfway through the woods. It is on its way out.

It is time to cut the bullshit. I've got to get rolling.

Rachel startles me out of the glamorous life of Jennifer Anniston.
"We got something poisonous in our yard.," she warns. ? She pulls up her sleeves.
Her arms are covered in what look to be the defensive wounds of a cougar attack. All cut up and red and sore. She tells me how she wakes up scratching. How it spread up her arm, to her face. She shows me the creepy poisonous progression. Tells me how she bought some Benadryl cream and how she later saw that it said, "No more than 4 applications daily." How she checked the bottle of the ointment she had used all day the day before, and its dosage reccomendation was the same. 4 times. She said she had been slathering it on every hour.
Another thing she noticed in the fine print on the Benadryl cream was where it said not to use in conjunction with any other Benadryl products. Meaning the Benadryl tablets she had gobbled down BEFORE she coated her arms in the cream.
"So," she tells me with an amused giggle, "Now I'm overdosing on Benadryl."

I chopped all my hair off. Or rather, I paid someone to chop all my hair off in an attempt to begin embracing my forehead. The one that shields my hujungous brain. It was an inevitability. Besides, those wisps of hair all bunched together and swept across my brow weren't fooling anyone.

In my Actor's Dream Book I unceremoniously crossed off Have Tome Cruise's Hair.
. . .

While we're on the subject of masturbatory muses, I jerked off the other day fantasizing about a conversation with a girl. It never got past us both fully clothed, just sitting on the couch. Talking about animal documentaries and music and such. That is the way I craved her that day, so much so, that laughing and bullshitting the way we do best had reached fantastical new heights.
. . .

So Wildboyz is no longer a show I only enjoy when I'm cooked and I happen upon it in the cable guide. It has joined the ranks of the Plan-Around Shows.

10:30pm. MTV. In the Sunday Stew. The TV is on, and I'm grinning in front of it five minutes prior.

Tonight, the ambiguously gay duo Chris Pontius and Steve-O, went to Brazil. Alluding adulthood a little while longer.

They held hands in a tank of murky water, waiting for the six-foot electric eel that was leviathaning around in it to zap them with 650 volts. File that under, Things I Can Say I Did When I'm 60. / Steve-O got into a Suit of Lettuce and floated on his back, letting a manatee graze on his leafy ass from below. / As part of the rite of passage ceremony of some Amazonian tribe, they each stuck their hand into a woven mitt full of angry Brazilian fire ants. Then they proceeded to hop around screaming while the ants bit and bit and bit. Nearly passed out from the pain. They ended up in the emergency room with hands that looked like inflated rubber gloves. But to the Amazonian tribe people, they were MEN. That's all that mattered. / When a cantankerous constrictor killed a bit where Steve-O was to climb into a pit full of boas, he made the perfect observation when he yelped, "MAN, getting bit by a snake DOES hurt!"

I laughed for half an hour. I was jealous every minute. See you next Sunday, you Wildboyz you.