The sad lack of Reptiles

2009-06-30T23:43:00.002-04:00

The conversation I just excised from the script:

MICKEY
...Jassie. Jassie? Was it JAssie or JEssie?

BEN
Jassie. Jassie Jones.

MICKEY
Yeah. That’s a shame. That woulda been fun. I was circling that piece man...I was gonna eat.her.up.

BEN
(laughs)
Shit! You so much as blew a kiss in her direction her daddy’d a shot you in the fucking face.

MICKEY
No!

BEN
What!?

MICKEY
Really?

BEN
Man Mickey you’re so- you’re oblivious man. You only see what you wanna see... the rich bitch in the short shorts curling her fingers in the outfield fence. I see-

MICKEY
-Oh you don’t see that?

BEN
I see- that’s what I’m saying, of course I see that. Shit I still see it. Right now-

He clamps his eyes shut.

BEN (CONT'D)
-I can count the little blonde hairs ‘tween her belly button and her shorts band-

They laugh.

BEN (CONT'D)
-but what I also see, is fuckin lawyer daddy, lurkin in the stands watchin who’s watching her more than he’s watching the game. You ask anybody who played on the Cape before and they’d tell ya: Ain’t no fuckin Jassie fuckin Jones. Everybody knew that. ‘Cept you.

MICKEY
Well. Mighta been worth a bullet. I miss pussy, man. More than... baseball, and pizza, my family even. Shit, I can be kissing my grandma on the cheek and pussy pops in my head, but it ain’t ever the other way around.

BEN
I fuckin hope not.

MICKEY
(screaming)
I miss it! I MISS PUSSY!

To be replaced by...

BEN
Movies, I miss movies. And ice cubes. Pizza maybe...

MICKEY
I miss pussy. PUSSY. I MISS PUSSY!

2005-03-03T12:56:00.000-05:00

And you thought crashing into the fence was bad. One year to the day now after I drove the old teal Saturn up I-95 to here, she is dead. Fucking dead my car is. And it had nothing to do with the fence. Apparently, although I had a full tank of oil, it wasn't filtering through the engine, something busted and broke a rod off in the engine. Or something. Something like that. Bottom line: Junk it or get a new E N G I N E ! ! ! !

A fucking engine.

It's so insane that the word Engine seems made up, for this specific craziness. New engine Shmew Shmengine.

So, if you're keeping tabs at home that's 1 crashed Jaguar, 1 busted fence, and 1 fucked
E N G I N E ! ! ! !

I'm fucked.

2005-03-01T15:44:00.000-05:00

I got a cell phone the other day. Just in time to call Kelly the next day and tell her I couldn't pick her up for work. I had lost control in the snow and crashed into a fence. Somebody's fence. Cracked the shit out of my front end; buried myself in a snowbank.

Kelly and Nicole had to pick me up. AAA had to pull me out. I've got to fix the dude's fence.

I watched Raging Bull for the first time ever today.

It's so hard for me to write in this thing anymore.

2005-02-07T16:11:00.000-05:00

It was after months and weeks and days and with a complicated series of pulleys and nets that I finally trapped the Butterfly in the dark of a movie theater. It was countless bars and beers and finally she was watching a movie with me. And it was Alexander Payne's pitch-perfect Sideways, what flickered in her big eyes.

A mix of that a) she was actually there, and b) I had already seen the film, made it hard to pay attention. Just like a couch, just like lounging and being high, I wanted to touch her the whole time. Did in fact. And in a moment of life imitating art imitating life, just as Paul Giamatti's Miles makes a dating dud of himself --"Uh, I've been getting into Rieslings, rieslings...you like riesling."-- I old-school slung my arm around her shoulders. But before it got around her shoulders, its elbow stopped off at her eye. CRACK! And before I could kiss it and apologize I just wanted to laugh.

It was so cliche. My cracking her in the eye on our first trip to the cinema. It was so perfectly real.

Just like Sideways.

2005-02-03T16:39:00.000-05:00

Bob sat me down today to tell me about his livelihood, how the Brewhouse was it and that I wasn't taking his livelihood seriously. With my giving away shifts and having a bleach spot on my apron. Everytime they have to tell me to shave its like my saying "Fuck You" to them, a flick of my fingers under my chin. That way is the way I'm saying "Fuck You." Steak sauce, hot sauce, ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, advertising tents, candle globes, beer books, silverware; all soaked and scrubbed and emaculate. Napkins folded perfect, no overlapping edges. He shouldn't have to chase people down to tell them to fill ketchup bottles.

I shouldn't have to work at the Brewhouse.

Gosh man, why hasn't --insert any one of countless genius directors here-- knocked on my door yet?

2005-01-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

Last night, in the middle of white pizza with broccoli, greek salad and "serious conversation," Kelly with her cute new haircut, called and signed Ryan up to play open mic at the Acoustic Cafe in Fairfield. His first extra-Florida performance. The place was cool and cozy and the drinks went down smooth. A kid with the shaggiest head said: "This next song is an instrumental... it's called 'Knob'."
Kelly met three Steves in three minutes.
We talked about Duperglop, Maryland.
And sandwiches made For By elves.
Ryan was loud and crisp and good.

2005-01-24T15:16:00.000-05:00

It was one of my New Year's resolutions to write in this thing more. Again even. I'm not so good with resolutions. I even started a list of resolutions and didn't finish it. One of them was: Finish Things. See I'm not so good with resolutions. But here I am, and the Year is still New. And I have no idea how to start this thing again.

It's 2005. Old news I know but... It's 2005.

2004-11-23T15:27:00.000-05:00

The Mouse on the Barroom Floor

Some Guinness was spilt on the barroom floor,
When the pub was shut for the night.
Out of his hole crept a wee brown mouse
And stood in the pale moon light.
He lapped up the frothy brew from the floor,
Then back on haunches he sat
And all night long you could hear him roar:
"Bring on the God damn Cat!"

2004-11-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

There is this couch I've been going and sitting on where magic happens. A magic so magical that even the light and sound of Extreme Dodgeball being splashed all over it can do little to stop the swirling magicness. A magic so magical it can magically make the word magicness.

I love magic.

That place, that girl, is magical.

If only I were a magician.

2004-11-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

I didn't talk to a single person outside Connecticut yesterday on my birthday. And it was nobody's fault but my own. I was gone. Predisposed. And I only assume they'll all forgive me because, of all the days this year, or any year, the 14th of November is mine. And I split the day selfishly even between an upstate waterfall -my first waterfall- and K's couch. And I'm not sure which was lovelier.

It was a two-hour, beautiful, bowl-passing drive to Kent Falls, and not one of us brought a camera. It was snow everywhere when we got there, the longest stretch of it I've ever walked. I started to notice the sound it makes when it mushes and pushes away from your boot. That sound, is a cool one. The water came splashing down a quarter mile of mountain, which we walked to the top of, stopping randomly to watch the falls from different trail-sanctioned angles. The sound of it made me want to curl up and sleep.

I can't sufficiently describe the outdoors up here. The nature. It's the stuff I've always been familiar with because of movies and TV. People really have white Christmases up here. They rake leaves and scrape snow. I watched kids make a snowman yesterday. I've never seen that.

The other day I convinced Christian, in the cold pitch of night, to dart across the lawn and, our bodies torpedoes, slam headfirst into a pile of Autumn leaves. First time I've ever done that.

So I had a great birthday. And I love everyone at home who tried to call. I even love the people who didn't try to call. After the falls it was a birthday dinner of Chinese food from some hyped hole-in-the-wall in Westport. Then I went to K's to watch The Robert Cake and my already long birthday- which started in an Irish Pub at midnight, twenty-some hours earlier- only got better as it pressed toward the 15th.

I don't have so many great birthdays.

This one was.

2004-11-08T16:21:00.000-05:00

I haven't once mentioned The Fall. Which is a selfish disservice to this place. Connecticut. The North. Where I live now.

I watched out the window the other day as leaves of so many cuts and colors -reds and purples and greens and yellows and oranges- flipped and fluttered down like feathers for twenty minutes. They fell non-stop, like fruit-colored snowflakes.

I walked a park yesterday and could hardly hear voices over the shuffle and crunch of the leaves. They're on cars, and in cars, and in girls' hair. It's movie stuff, a place so pretty. A place where all the leaves fall.

2004-11-04T14:26:00.000-05:00

I guess I could go on and on about my Halloweekend, the people, the costumes, the refreshments. I could talk about the election party, that started with pizzazz and ended as somber as the election itself. Or I could just tell you about how it all caught up to me at work on Wednesday morning, where I dragged ass and then slammed my face into a door corner, shattering all of the glasses on a tray I was carrying and -I thought for a moment- the skull behind my cheek and eye as well.

But I won't. Tell you about all that.

I've got my eye on the future.

2004-10-26T13:42:00.000-04:00

Its definately mostly due to a lack of something special in my life. All the smoking. Last week I only smoked socially. Then would come home and write and read and listen to music and sleep. Last night I wanted to catch a buzz so bad Anthony and I drove to New York to beat the Connecticut beer curfew. Get smashed and splatter the panda was our plan. The Panda is a three-foot tall framed photo of a giant panda that my headlights splashed the other night coming home from I Heart Huckabees. It was propped against a garbage can on the side of Highway 1. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

So Christian and Anthony and I were going to get our drink on and then doodle and paint and write all over this panda. Of course I only got two beers in me before I accepted that I'm no drinker. That the queasy, nauseous, filling, buzz of beer is a poor substitute to the relaxing, mind-bending, buzz of weed. Which is in itself, a poor substitute to the heart-pumping, goosebumping buzz of a lover.

My fingers were black with tar time I was done furiously heating bowls and scraping resin with the bent pin of my old Papa John's nametag. Rolling up THC concentrate into a little bitty ball and re-smoking it, I managed to catch enough of a high to scrawl some obscure Thoreau quote onto the panda and then enjoy the chicken & corn chowder I stole from work. I got high enough I could sleep without Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind droning in the background, keeping me company. Misery loves it.

Then I dreamed one of my recurring dreams. This one I've had countless times, where I am half Jeremy, half Louis from Interview with the Vampire. The dream seems to last hours and hours and its all running. I'm running Natalie through the city, ducking into random shops and markets and apartments, keeping one step ahead of a maniacal Lestat. This time there were conrontations on a rooftop, snarls and evil laughter and superhuman jumping. Flashes of teeth. We cat-and-moused in someone's cluttered apartment that I slipped into from a fire escape. The dream always seems its going to build to some final showdown, that that is where all the running leads. I always inevitably lose Nat in the fray, and then spend the second half of the dream desperately trying to get her back. In the dream I really believe that I'll reach this showdown, where she'll be, and he'll be, seductive and evil; and we'll battle, zipping up into the sky, fighting in the air, and I'll win and rescue the girl. But the dream never ever goes that far. If I sleep 20 hours I'll just be running and searching and chasing and being chased for all of it. And then I just wake up. Nothing resolved. No battle, no rescue, nothing. It seems to me now, that the point of the dream is all the running. That there is never intended to be any closure. That I'm supposed to just keep chasing.

Oh why the mind picks the dreams it picks?

"I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house." --Thoreau

2004-10-23T22:10:00.000-04:00

I took my final test between shifts today and come four 'o' clock, I was a waiter. Not something most people celebrate, but for me it felt like a hurdle leapt that I'd only ever glared at with contempt, from a distance. What I used to equate with stepping into a bear trap, today felt like another step in the right direction. I had a training wheel section, but with only five tables in four hours I made 70 bucks. And I work a double tomorrow.

Roll in cash. Roll on in.

So here I sit, listening to the World Series in the other room. Another far cry from where I'd imagined I might be tonight. My patience is wearing thin. The unbelievable patience I have always shown with girls. Women. The female of the species. Of course, that its thinning in no way means I'll give up. Or demand anything. Just means after all this time, and with the leaves and temperature falling, its getting harder and harder to be lonely.

Especially when I know who I want.

ps. gobosox. yippee.

2004-10-21T22:21:00.000-04:00

a memento. of all the baseball and stuff.

2004-10-21T22:02:00.000-04:00

Every year I claim with you wait, bitch confidence that some baseball team will make history this time. The thing about sports is, if you don't give a shit, you aren't even aware that something like The Most Anticipated Game in Baseball History is being played. As it was yesterday. But if you do buy in, to the whole sports universe, then it is a place where magic happens all the time. As it did yesterday. When the Boston Red Sox capped an unprecidented comeback from an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS, to beat the New York Yankees in seven games, and advance to the Fall Classic.

Wow. You just never know.

Like I could never have known that after a such a surreal build-up to last night's game, I would end up watching Game 7 in the basement, dressed to the nines, with two gay guys who could give a gay shit.

To top it all off I got a call from my cousin, calling me out on what an asshole I am. How I never call when I say I will, and how it is just more proof that no one gives a shit about him.

I haven't been able to get ahold of him since.

2004-10-18T13:59:00.000-04:00

I've seen some great baseball games in my time. At least a shitload of intensely involving baseball games. Like the one last night. It may have been my chemical breakdown of the game itself, its chess-like stratagems. That the momentum can swing with each swing. That even down three games to none, staring elimination in the face, three outs away from a demoralizing end to another season, in baseball, it never is over until its truly over.

It may also have been the company. The couch. The cat. The fascinating feeling of awkward comfort. It may have been twelfth inning heroics. But it was mostly the girl. Great baseball is great, but last night it was gravy.

Here's to the greatest comeback in Sports History. And my selfish hope that it would allow me to watch a few more ball games with her.

2004-10-17T01:08:00.000-04:00

Just unbelievable loveliness, the last 48 hours.

An emoticon just won't cut it here.

2004-10-14T21:23:00.000-04:00

I've been training the last few days. Wearing black pants and a tiny apron, doing the exact opposite of everything I've done for seven months. My first two days were dead as a pancake and I was worried I wasn't learning enough for all the standing around, but tonight, I worked a little bit of a pop. At one point, under Beth's watchful eye, I was working five tables at once. It was scary, but still more fun than anything I've done in the place as a busser, or runner, or stoolbitch. I can tell I'm going to like it. It's all routine, and tonight the routine was ground into my head with repetition. Over and over and over. The more comfortable I got with the routine, the more comfortable I got where it matters. The people. I was selling Apple Strudels by describing them as "Extra Super Tasty." It was a relatively fuck-up free night, I left relieved and excited. Excited for the extra money this gig means, the schedule flexibility, the people. Of course neither Bob nor Lou have been around for any of my shifts on the floor yet, so I'm sure that when they dissect every tiny thing I do tomorrow I'll come back bitching about hating it all. Be sure to check back for that.

Last night I saw SpecialK again, she was at the bar to watch the baseball game. No, not at the bar with some guy who was watching the baseball game, SHE was eyes peeled, edge-of-her-seat, Go Boston. Which made her that much more sexy. I think I'll see her tomorrow night at some Oktoberfest/Birthday party. I hope I'll see her tommorrow night at an Oktoberfest/Birthday party. I hope I just see her. The Oktoberfest/Birthday party is optional.

So. If you haven't seen any episodes of the phenomenal new show LOST, Wednesdays on ABC, you should either a) buy someone's VHS recorded copies of them on Ebay, b) jump in next week and forget what you missed, or c) use a small trampoline to propel yourself headfirst into the spinning blades of a helicopter. It was created by J.J Abrams, genius/extraordinaire behind ALIAS, and after just four episodes, I'd be willing to say I love the show even more than the amazing Garner vehicle. And anyone who knows me knows I've not missed one second of any episode of Alias.

So. Watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST. watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST watch LOST

Also vote for Kerry. :)

ps. I've got three girls in my head. And none in my bed...

2004-10-13T17:21:00.000-04:00

I'm always waiting in airports for that girl. This time it was alone, alone with my thoughts, my tea, her ConnectiCat souvenir, at Bradley International Airport in Hartford. I sat far away from the expanse of greeting floor and watched people hug and kiss and cry. Sat back so I would see her before she, me.

Everyone arriving walked out in front of this huge window made white by the outside light. They were all backlit and blurry because of it and I was far away and worried I'd miss her. I knew I would recognize her shape, her gait, that stuff is stamped in me; but I knew also she'd cut all her hair off. That would be new. What else would be new?

Ultimately not much. Aside from the hair which was chopped up and sexy she was still my Nat. I wonder if that first embrace felt so good because it was her, or just that I was holding someone, that someone was clinging to me. I'll venture a guess though that it was in the familiarity. That she was that same perfect height, that beyond whatever new perfume it was, her skin still smelled like my first love; that I don't hesitate to explore her back or hair with my hands in a hug. And that she knows I hold my hugs a little longer, time for a few deep breaths and a grip on the moment.

Of course she still smokes enough for it to be a burden. Is still the same lazy glutton who will eat an entire bag of chips after asking someone to get them for her. But we love the good and bad in the people we love.

The drive back was beautiful, full of music I loved that she'd never heard, and changing leaves neither of us had ever seen. That first night I took her to The Brewhouse, we drank wine and listened to jazz and strangely enough ended up at Tweetum's smoking a blunt with Special K.

The next day we walked and rode around Manhattan, eating and shopping a bit, but mostly just walking. Drinking a bit, then walking some more, and eating McDonald's on the last train home. All we did was walk, but it was still amazing. Maybe the City. Maybe the Company. Probably both.

On Sunday we walked New Canaan, had the worst service and the best shrimp at Red Lobster, saw Garden State, slept, and in the morning I drove her back to Bradley International. She slept the whole way, I dropped her off at the curb, and she was gone. Back to Atlanta.

I passed an Atlanta Bread Company on the way home and bought the tuna sandwich I'd been craving since February. Then I came home and watched my Atlanta Braves get knocked from the playoffs for the twelfth time in thirteen years.

Then made the whole- Atlanta -connection.

8 months. Then just three quick days with her. And now the count begins again. She shows up in dreams that feel longer than this last weekend.

It was great to see her again though. In the wake of so much seclusion it was sensory overload, but still wonderful.

I'm long over my adolescent need to see her everyday, though now I just wish we lived in the same city. Same state even. So lunch or a movie off the cuff once a week wasn't such an impossible fantasy.

I wish all my friends lived near me. Natalie is one of my greatest friends.

2004-10-06T22:41:00.000-04:00

This morning I worked the Host stand, wearing "nice" clothes and seating people. All part of the process I've staved off for years, with pointy sticks and a cornered wild thing's fury - No! NO! I don't WANNABEAWAITER! scratch! Slash! foam through gritted teeth. Go AWAY! The process, of turning me into the waiter everyone has always said I should be. Could be. Would be great as.

The reason I have yet to double over and die at work as of late is Nat. That she will be here in two days. That I have something to look forward to, to drive me through double after double after double. I've been working six day weeks for weeks now, having just Mondays to sleep in, work out, pay bills, read, write, go to the movies, socialize.

Between shifts today I got to watch the first three innings of Game 1 of the NLDS, Braves vs. Astros. I knew it would be on at work, knew Johnny B. -who bet me 30 bucks on the 'Stros for the series- would be managing. I came in tomahawk blazing. Set it up on the big screen, had a shot of Jagy, and got to work.

If you could call it that. Maybe eight tables all night, in the whole joint. A lot of loopiness, DayDate stickers on people's backs, kickboxing, beers upstairs. The Braves lost 9-3.

Then, bussing one of the eight tables, I found a small red baseball bat someone had left behind to cheer me up. It turned into homerun derby with cellophane balls in the back parking lot. Smaller foil ball centers, just like baseballs. The wall across the lot is covered in Ivy, like Wrigley. And the magic of baseball is that even in a restaurant parking lot, with a dirty apron on, in the middle of a bussing shift, half drunk and tired, after my Braves lost a playoff game; I still felt big, like Sammy Sosa if only for a second, whenever I would really lay into a ball of Saran Wrap and watch it soar over the wall of Ivy. Baseball.

I didn't feel like I was working all night. I talked with Katie and Allison upstairs all night, for so long sometimes, I forgot I was on the clock. Johnny B. had to remind me I was at work.

Back downstairs watching the Yanks/Twins game I caught a fleeting glimpse of SpecialK at the bar. I felt like she saw me, but she hid it well. Of course I didn't go over and say "hi" either. I got nervous immediately. I'm far too finnicky with that girl, I always feel like she must feel some certain way, and then I overanalyze the way I feel she must feel.

i.e. They invited me to go hiking with them last Saturday. RocknRoll, I love hiking, how could I not love hiking with her? Friday rolls around and they bump into me on the stool, where they are oddly short with me and don't invite me out for a drink. Not that they should, just that, they ALWAYS do. That is what they were doing, just out drinking. They mention nothing of the next day's hike and then they skidaddle. I of course take this to mean that either a) hiking was a vague plan that has since disintegrated, like so many plans do up here. Or b) they don't want me to go.

I slept in on Saturday, slept right through a hiking invite call.

No calls from then to now and then tonight I heard Tweetum at the bar as well. When K and I are in the same room, it is usually because T has called and invited me. I feel much closer, less finnicky around Tweetum. Probably because I'm not smitten with her. She headed for the bathroom and I barked a Hello. And she was SUPER short with me. Just a "hey, what's up?" as she walked back by.

I plopped into a chair, defeated. The beer wasn't sitting well in my stomach. The Stella was bitter, the Hoegaarden was sour, the apparent cold shoulder was... cold. I was nauseous from blowing out all the candles on all the tables, putting all the chairs up, being drunk. There was one table in the restaurant, they kept ordering wine, refusing to let poor Vickie go home. Katie headed for the door, saw me, said I looked sad. I said tired, but in truth, a little sad. She went. I sat.

And then, a shape moving behind me. Blurred but pink, it put a soft hand on me, slid an arm over my shoulder, pecked my cheek. She heard I was here, wanted to say "hi," wanted to know why I didn't go hiking.

Invited me to go Apple picking on Saturday.

For years and years and years I have wanted just the simple act of plucking an apple from a tree.

It's been oranges oranges oranges for me forever.

She was so beautiful, and delicate, and sweet. She put both of her hands on the top of my head as she walked away.

Of course, Nat will be here Saturday.

2004-10-06T15:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday in TJ Maxx, buying slacks for work, I got hit up for a dollar for the children. Only, I had been hit up for a dollar for the children already, only a week or two before, same store. The children don't need two dollars. It wasn't the buck anyway, it was scrawling my name on one of those little leaf-shaped construction paper things that they paper all over the place; as if the children are going to come in and read the wall like a war memorial and thank us all individually for our dollar. Of course I gave again, I'm so giving. This time though I signed it:

Austin Stevens.

Austin had been on my mind for a while with the impending debut of his new series:

Austin Stevens: Snakemaster

on Animal Planet. I've spoken of Mr. Stevens here in the past. This is the long-haired, leathery Brittish guy who spent 100+ days in a box with dozens of cobras and mambas. The same photographer/snake enthusiast who was bitten by two of the 7 Deadly Strikes of Africa in one TV special.

At the height of my Animal Planet bashing -I have MANY suggestions for channel improvement- they have again introduced a snake-based series -Venom ER, being the other- to keep me at bay.

Austin is crazy, they shoot the show with cranes and movie music, rotoscoping Matrix-shots; they make him cinematic. Above all though, he is SOoooo passionate and he wrangles the most astounding, gorgeous creatures.
Tuesdays at 8 & 11.

Also, right now I'm listening to Still Naive's full, studio album, for those that know, that's a cool thing. It came in the mail today along with an "Important Delivery" letter from TV Guide, requesting a call from me to see if I won a million dollars in their Strike It Rich IV sweepstakes.

Also, T-Minus two minutes until the first pitch of Atlanta Braves postseason baseball. Vs. Clemens and the 'Stros.

Also. Ricky Williams wants to come back to the Dolphins. Maybe he feels responsible for the 0-4 start.

2004-10-02T02:51:00.000-04:00

With the Stella boys using the magic of flight and the money of their father at their disposal, floating to and from Florida and friends, I'm so glad that Natalie is coming up here next week. I'm more homesick than I even know now, I can't think about it all too much or it will all just be too much. I started crying on the phone with my mother last night. She was talking about my sisters and my nephews. I miss my sisters. I doubt my nephews even know who I am.
.
But Natalie is coming up in 6 days. Just out of the blue clear sky she's coming up. It's been seven months now, almost twice as long as the longest we've ever gone without seeing each other. I just can't wait to lounge around and smell and touch someone familiar and cozy. If anyone will lie around lazy and watch animal documentaries with me it's Nat. Of course I do have loftier plans than Animal Planet. Maybe the Bronx Zoo, who knows. Maybe MovieOke, but definately The Big Apple. Definately Garden State, which she hasn't seen.
.
Night before last I went to play Texas Hold'em with Tweetum and SpecialK. I got so high my whole body was shaking, I don't know how they function so fucked. I was inside my own head and my speeding heart so lost I can't fathom how I played cards. Can't believe I was still able to crack jokes. I felt like I could hear all of my insides, the flushing of blood through my veins, the Darth Vader hiss of my lungs expanding, things digesting in my stomach. I would reach for my glass of water and as soon as my fingertips touched it, the sound of my insides and organs would mute. Like in war movies after an explosion when everything is eery quiet, and then ringing, and then suddenly back to loud life. I was gone. Too gone. It was just four of us, the fourth was Mark, another handsome, charming, funny, and apparently creative -he plays guitar- guy. Without assuming a title for him -boyfriend?- I'll just say he is obviously closer to K than anyone else I've met through her. A setback if I felt I were actively pursuing the girl, but I'm not. I'm merely actively pursuing being able to talk to her without scratching my face or tugging my ear, or doing any other of the nervous things I know I do when I'm nervous. I'm far too patient with things like this. I'll probably mention to her that I had a bit of a crush on her when I bump into her in eleven years somewhere. At any rate, I left the table with the chip lead. Go me.
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Last night I decided the Feng Shui of my room was what had my brain all eggs whenever I sit down to write. On an index card I drew a blueprint. It looked simple enough. I have four major things in my room. Computer, TV, big bookshelf, and bed; all I needed was a simple shuffle. Of course in the process I nearly broke down three times. I screamed at a cat, huffed and puffed trying to pull a rug out from under shit, and broke not only my other bookshelf, which I had to stop to fix, but also a bottle of fake blood I've been moving from house to house for at least six years. It was so motherfucking gooey I thought about killing myself instead of cleaning it up. But then I figured that would mean Rachel would have to clean not only the fake blood, but my real blood and brains and head pieces, so, I just cleaned it up. I won't even get into the outlet fiasco that ensued after everything was in place. I'll just say that I have a lot of 3-pronged electrical equipment, in a room built in the 40s.
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Tonight I snuck my jukebox out onto the stool with me. It was cold so I could stowe it in my jacket pocket, and I just kept my hand on pause for whenever someone pulled in. It was nice, Damien Rice made an hour go by magic fast. Then after the stool I went to Stamford with Amy and Katie -and ultimately a lovely chap called "English John"- to see Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

It was wonderful.

2004-09-26T21:50:00.000-04:00

This is going to be bumpy and muddled this post. A forewarning.

. . .

I tell myself, to comfort myself, on days like today from time to time, that I shouldn't worry so much. That no matter if a thirteen-hour shift supersucksass, still surely it will end. This too shall pass. It puts things into perspective. And it helps. Of course it works both ways. You can't sleep swinging in some hammock, breathing the breath of the girl of your dreams forever either. That too shall pass. So do vacations, and professional pinnacles, and sex the length of three Tool albums, and life. It all comes and goes. Memento Mori.

Why do lovers have to leave? Even if for just a while? She's here three or four more days and already I'm slipping in Christian's drippy heart in the hallways. I feel for you friend.

My Atlanta Braves quietly clinched their 13th consecutive divisional title on Saturday. Every year they say it can't be done, and every year they do it. Of course every year I say they will win the World Series and every year they don't. Except this year. :)

It was my dad's birthday on Tuesday. I called him last on Opening Day of baseball this year. That's too fucking long in between. But we talked for almost four hours and it was great. God I miss my dad.

So Friday I met Tweetum and SpecialK at Oneill's, this Irish Pub, for someone's birthday. I swear I physically shook my head- the disbelief shake -three different times she was so sexy. Dancing and smiling in her homemade shirt. Partying with her parents. Trying to recall the night just now, in my head to write about it, I saw her again, and shook my head again. It's like a knee slap joke, nobody wants to slap their knee, but the joke is just that fucking (gorgeous) funny.
I knew going in I wanted to say more than ten words to her. And I knew that that would take some drinks. So I drank hard and fast. A shot of something off the bat, and then three Long Islands before Tweetum finished her one tiny rum drink. I was making liquor disappear like magic.

I simply place one end of the straw into the glass, the other into my mouth and VOILA!, the tea from Long Island is gone!

So, the irony of the night was that I did say more than ten words to her, and I hardly remember any of them. I know she commented on my tie, I know time I was bouncing around to some shitty cover-band rock song because my Inhibition Shield had been breached that she asked me to dance. And in my drunken hesitation she floated away somewhere. I know she put a confetti dick on my face and I know that she fascinates me.

I also know that I've said too much on this thing before, that it has gotten me into trouble before. And I'm sure even though this account is more vague than my already vague memories of it were, I have written no uncrackable mystery here.

All I know is that if I said goonight to her I don't remember doing so. And that makes me sad.

So when I woke up queasy and dead the next day I called in sick from the stool. Then later I drove to Stamford to see The Brown Bunny.

The Brown Bunny is being marketed something like this. And I'm paraphrasing. Vincent Gallo plays a motorcycle racer who is driving across country. At the end Chloe Sevigny gives him an honest-to-god, UNsimulated, choked and slobbery blowjob. This isn't some sleazy porn actress, this is Academy Award nominated (Boys Don't Cry) Chloe Sevigny. So I'm not ruining the film by telling you about the climax, if you were going to see the movie in the first place it was probably because you too had heard about the scene.

I've got to give it up to crazy Vincent Gallo. Tell everyone about the end, nothing about the beginning or middle, and then make them sit through an hour and a half of quiet driving scenes. He wrote, directed, produced, edited and starred in the film; and of course I knew it was about a man driving across the country all alone. I knew that he had CUT a half hour of quiet driving scenes already. Now let me say, of course I was curious about the blowjob, but I like weird movies where not a lot happens. I was intrigued by the road trip aspect of it, the loneliness and quiet of it. But the upper class, middle-aged people all around me would guffaw and pout everytime it cut to more moving roads. It was like when I watched Magnoila with Melon and just as the tears welled in my eyes, he groaned was the thing ever going to end. Only these were adults, all of them; who either a) knew about the hummer and just couldn't believe what they were having to sit through just to see it, or b) bought tickets just because of the vague title and the ambiguous poster. Let's go see an art film so we can talk about it at brunch tomorrow.

I don't know what I think about Vincent Gallo. He looks like the perfect blend of Billy Crudup and Daniel Dafoe. Sexy but Weird. He makes his mouth a line and squeezes out this tiny voice. I know this though, about Gallo, he has made, in The Brown Bunny, one of the most haunting little movies I've seen in a while. And it isn't the BJ, its the build-up. At least myself, knowing what was coming, I felt the whole time that Bud Clay was driving towards a graphic blowjob. And I was worried about it, worried that it would be a big gimmick. That it wouldn't fit. Entertainment Weekly loved the film, hated the scene. However as soon as that scene ended, his character opened up and broke down and let the audience in on what he was going through, finally. And the whole long trip before suddenly made sense, had a purpose. By letting the whole movie roll quietly along, he almost dares the viewer to forget why they're there, why they have watched him pump gas in real time and drive through Ohio, and drive through Missouri, and race off onto the salt flats until he's just a warbled mirage so far away. We know why in the end, we've stuck around, not because of a good dick sucking, but because Mr. Gallo has nailed emptiness and loss and sorrow, and how those feelings are amplified on a long quiet drive all alone.

There was a feeling throughout the film like everything was coming to a head. The blowjob wasn't the problem, in fact I thought the scene was actually quite powerful. The only problem really, was knowing about the scene in advance. It put sex on the brain and took away from a beautiful little movie.

Now. Chris Frommeyer. Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Dragonbreath, Happy Birthday to you.

I was watching Joey last Thursday -who always reminded me of you most- and while cleaning up a party, a guy offered to hold the trashbag so Joey could bounce cups and crumpled napkins off his backboard body. He lit up and I thought of you. Thought how I could never explain to anyone all the goddam games we have created and played at all hours of the night. I tried, I tried to explain to Anthony about Holy Ball, about the empty house on Mapleleaf and how we were just going to stay until they cut the power. I tried to tell him about our team names, and the rules, and the fact that we played on our knees and created players, and batted right or left depending on "who" was up. I told him about how I called every game, while I was playing, as two separate announcers. I really wanted to convey the drama of the Holy Ball World Series, and the rivalry that had sprung up between the Idaho P-Pickers, and the Vermont Champs.

But I guess you just had to be you to really get it. I wish I was playing some stupid game with you tonight friend. Be it CroKill, or Wiffle Ball, or just trying to be the first one to get a Frisbee to land on a little chair.

Happy Birthday LOF. I miss you.

PS- Sorry about your Lions. You knew it couldn't last forever. All Things Pass.

2004-09-23T19:53:00.000-04:00

I've been driving around with Allison's pipe crammed under candy bar wrappers and crumpled newspaper in an old soft drink cup in my backseat for almost two weeks. Somehow I ended up with it after the camping trip and have only been able to complete step one in giving it back to her. Bringing it along.

When I pulled in for my shit shift bussing tables on the patio today she was the first person I saw. Let me give you your pipe before I forget again, I said. And got it for her. Then I asked who was managing. Joe. Then I sought him out to make clear that there was no need for two busboys on a Thursday night. He felt the same way and wanted to run it by George (the other busser) before sending me home.

I started shooting shit out back with Ally and Amy waiting for the verdict when Joe snuck up behind and said, "Go Home." I patted my pockets -because I will put anything in any pocket- looking for keys. "Ladies," I started, which I always say before leaving multiple ladies, but stopped my goodnight when a full pat down revealed no lump of keys.

They were on the passenger seat of my locked, locked, locked, locked, 4x locked car. Where I for some reason dropped them when I retrieved Allison's pipe, and then casually locked the door not two seconds after.

Good thing about waiters and waitresses and busboys pre-dinner rush, they're bored. Allison shot downstairs for a wire hanger because she knew how to jimmy a door lock.

Saturn doors lock east to west however, horizontal instead of up and down we quickly discovered.

George, Colombia's Jean Reno in my eyes, lent a hand and eventually someone said... "Get Yimi," the pet name for Jimi, of Stella household basement fame, "He's got to know how to break into a car."

Yimi went to work. A short time later, someone noticed the passenger side door -we were working the driver's- was cracked just a millimeter. Enough to finagle the coat hanger inside the car, to fumble and scrape at a door lock that would take considerable pressure to click over. Three or four times the situation looked bleak. It was like trying to move a cinderblock with the tip of a cane pole.

Then, a lightbulb over Yimi's head. "Gimme your shoe lace," he demanded. First tell me why. "I'm gonna make a slipknot, and get it around the lock." I didn't rush to jerk my laces out.

At this point Allison was still performing a crude abortion on the driver's side with Amy looking on. Wiggling it around in the door womb, blindly hooking and clicking innards. Yimi, George and I were crowded around the slit of hope on the other side. It felt, momentarily, like a challenge on some reality show. Guys versus girls, first to unlock their door gets immunity.

Yimi, when he could no longer take the fruitless jimmying, jerked one of his shoe laces out, tied a slipknot, and eased the loop down into the car. Aiming for the wide, flat edge of the door lock. Except here the angle of the window kept the string an inch or so out from the lock, so with his other hand, he began coaxing the lasso onto the lock with one of the aforementioned coat hangers. It was not happening. Yimi had tables, so he flopped around the restaurant with a loose shoe for a while.

Then George, "Where are the keys at brrrrro?" On the seat, I said, and immediately got his lightbulb. In unison, "Hook The Keys!" We were overjoyed. It was straight out of a movie, hooking a key ring with some long flimsy thing. It was too good to be true we realized almost immediately. The fat black plastic on the key would never slip through the Slit of Hope.

But maybe it would? We had to try. Two or three times I hooked the pair of headphones that shared the seat, each time I tried to drop them out of the way but ended up bouncing them right back to the valley of the seat. Then Yimi was back, shoe relaced, he hooked the keys no problem, got them to the Slit of Hope, and then dropped them where they jingled into a crack and slipped into the floorboard in the backseat. With the sixteen visible water bottles -Amy counted- and countless cups.

This whole fiasco I didn't once doubt that human reasoning could figure it out. I was strangely optimistic the entire time. Then- BAM -I got a lightbulb. Hook the window crank, if we could pull it even a half a turn it would give us super breathing room, the space to slip in all kinds of things.

After a bit of this, George dropped the wire into the car. It was getting funny. I stormed the kitchen and found the spool of string used for wrapping meats and shit. We hacked off a length, tied it into another slipknot and I told Yimi to try and loop the knob on the window crank. Which he quickly did, and opened the window enough for a broom handle, which gave us the leverage to turn it another half crank, which gave us the space to fit an arm, which gave us the door lock.

Never has locking my keys in my car been such a fun and unifying experience. Cheers and high-fives abounded.

A great day at work.

2004-09-16T01:10:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about Ichiro, earlier, the baseball player. Thinking he must be so good because he has reduced the game of baseball to its complicated mathematic skeleton, the way only a Japanese person -or a robot- could. He looks out at the field from the batter's box and sees it only as numbers. The pitch, a fastball, coming from forty-five degrees, traveling sixty feet six inches, at ninety-four miles an hour, gives him about a tenth of a second to react. Plenty of time for his super Japanese brain to whittle away the mystery of the approaching leather sphere with equations and calculations so complex, I can't even fake-write about them.

Yeah, that's how he does it. How else do you explain how good he is? He's Japanese for Christ's sake.

Ahh, generalizations.

Ealier, Anthony and I got into a spat. One serious enough for a storm-off. It was over Ellen and Oprah, the spat was. I stormed off to Wal-Mart to buy a little trashcan for my room.

We missed our train to Manhattan on Monday because I couldn't find the parking lot at the train station. Well, we dilly-dallied at the house too long before leaving too, but still. So we drove. Egads! Took about 8,304 days -give or take, [I'm not Japanese]- but I drove my car to New York City. I remember taking back roads so I wouldn't have to drive on -Eeek!- 192. [Those unfamiliar with Kissimmee, Florida, insert your own hometown's main drag.]

We missed an exit somewhere and ended up in Jersey but eventually we found our way. To the West End -I think, [I'm not Japanese]- to my cousin Aaron's girlfriend Lucy's apartment. It was amazing. Just the way it twisted and turned and opened up and was old and looked nothing like the pre-fab stucco apartments of Florida. It felt authentic, like those girls would really make it feel like a home. Like there could be no better place to finally duck into after the longest, shittiest, snowiest day of your life, than that apartment; if it were yours. It made me swear I'm going to live there before I'm 25. Not with those girls, but in that city. Although, I certainly wouldn't mind living with those girls. Those girlS being -as well as Lucy- Candice and Karin, sisters, starting their post-college lives. They were painting and waiting for the cable guy when we got there so Aaron and Lucy and Anthony and I went out for a bite.

To this Indian restaurant where we were the only people in there. It was nice, our waiter seemed also to be the owner, he was nice. We all had wine and it was one of the best all around New York meal experiences I've had. [Although I haven't had many New York experiences, I've had three times as many New York meal experiences] It was great catching up with Aaron. Lucy proved to be a doll with this flashy sweet smile. We all got something different, beef, lamb, shrimp, chicken. When it came it was all exactly the same mustardy-orange color. The curry. It was great though. And we had this crispy bread that Aaron likened to licking a snake. And speaking of snakes, as I so often are, I couldn't help but ask the nice chatty Indian man about the cobras back home.

He launched into this smiley story and we all did the thing where you really want to listen but you can only understand every other word, so you end up looking over-interested and saying wow and yeah a lot. He said:

House...bamboo...pineapple blossoms...cobras.

It was something about the snakes hiding in the bamboo thickets and biting people when they picked the pineapple blossoms. I think, [I'm no Ichiro Suzuki]. He did this thing with his hand like he was doing a dinosaur shadow puppet. An internationally recognizable symbol for COBRA, made more unmistakeable by his accompanying hissing sounds. It was cool, I didn't get the words, but I got the energy. I thought about growing up with cobras in the grass like he did.

I didn't really want to write so much about this trip, I wanted to make clear that it was great. Eye opening. Inspiring. But, I have a tendency to do what I just did. Stretch shit out. And now it's three in the morning and I don't have time to watch Harold and Maude now because I have to work in the morning.

So I'll write more about the New York trip tomorrow. Maybe.

Probably not.

[I'm not Japanese or anything]

2004-09-12T22:35:00.000-04:00

I finally got tickets to Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, because it isn't enough to watch a bunch of comedians talk all over the place and disguise stand-up as talk/politics on TV. I need to see that mess of a show LIVE!

Of course I can't go though. I requested four tickets for a day when Anthony and Christian will be tied up all day in a photo shoot for Womens Ladies Better Home and Decorating Garden Food Magazine. What's worse planning still is that I work a double that day.

Tomorrow I'm going into the city to see my cousin Aaron. I can't wait. Who knows what we'll do, but I'm sure we'll be buzzing by the end of it.

I didn't even know my Fins' season started yesterday. Although some would say their season ended when Ricky Williams opted for Tibet and weed over being hit really hard all the time for the next ten years or so. They said the Fins are the worst team in the AFC East. They'll be lucky to win 6 games. They yanked Fiedler after three turnovers yesterday. This year is probably the last for Jay and Wannstedt. I really dig both those guys too.

This sucks.

Oh Well.

2004-09-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

The other day I saw members of the Liberian rebel army- very young rebels, maybe 16 years- dragging a body down the street and hooting and hollering about eating the heart. Then they did just that. Cut open the man's chest, tore his heart out, and ate it in the street.

Thank you Discovery Times channel.

Sometimes I really believe I'll always be the writer who never finished anything. And the actor who never started. I've got so many scripts and stories, and letters and posts to this thing started and stopped I should open a Beginning Store. Sell people opening lines like, Robin's son Crusoe never forgave his mother for letting him drown in the backyard swimming pool when he was nine...

In the same vein I'm the kind of actor who always believes his big break is right around the corner; and though I'm not nearly dense enough to believe that the more tables I bus, the faster I'll get around that corner, I still act that way. I still work and work and work, with no clear change in sight.

I never thought ending could be so hard. Never thought starting could be so scary.

2004-09-11T00:10:00.000-04:00

Shot in the Head

2004-09-05T03:01:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I saw this Ethiopian vulture pick clean a carcass, and then fly its bones up into the sky and let them drop onto the rocks below. It was cracking them open to get to the tasty marrow inside.

Not only do they learn this shit, they pass it on to their vulture-bird children.

Monday I went to Six Flags New England. My first Six Flags, it was the Brewhouse's annual employee appreciation day. Bob and Lou paid for all the tickets, thirty-some, and chartered a bus and made sandwiches. The girls put together this cooler full of rum & ice & fruit & for five bucks you could fill your red solo over and over on the two hour drive. And that's what I did. And boy was I ripped. I went on two roller coasters I hardly remember, and then I wandered the wave pool for the rest of the day in just a pair of soaked boxer briefs. I had never been in public with so little clothing on. I had a great time, the day seemed over before it began; and then I passed out on the bus trip back, while The Wedding Singer played on VHS.

Then on my two days off I hung out with Tweetum and a bunch of her friends and had a fabulous.fucking.time.

2004-08-29T23:56:00.000-04:00

Dead. ALL DEAD!

2004-08-29T22:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I watched sixty some-odd walruses die en masse. I'd never seen anything like that before. Actually I sorta have, with lemmings. But this was way sadder. First, I'd never seen anything like 500+ walruses in one spot before. On this island, where they all congregated to sun bathe. They were blobbing all over one another, clamoring for a spot. Barking and shaking their ridiculous teeth. There were so many of them that soon a few bulls had blobbed over a ridge high above the beach, and onto this plateau. And a shitload more of the blob cows -herd animals that they are- followed the males, where they all then realized- shit we're really high up on this mountain, we're sea creatures not mountain climbers! We need to get back down!

Never fear! barked the blobbiest and toothiest of the herd, I led you to the top of this mountain and I will lead you back to the good sea!

So, he shimmied over to the edge of the cliff and peered over. He tried to compute the degree of declination, scanned the crags below for the best flipperholds, thought to himself, This is extremely steep, perhaps to steep for something as blobby and cumbersome as myself or my fellow walruses to descend safely.

And then he kind of jumped. As much as a walrus could jump, he kind of scooched over the edge, and all of his 2000 pounds smashed into rocks -which knocked his huge blubbery hulk this way and that like a pinball- all the way down. Down to the flat hard ground below.

And then, herd animals that they are, they followed the leader.

One after another after another. Huge fat walruses coming over the edge one after another after another, smashing on top of the other stupid walruses below.

I saw something else on the National Geographic Channel a while back, where a bridge went out in Arkansas or somewhere and cars kept careening into the river because they didn't know the road was out. It was car after car after car.

Only here it was walrus after walrus after walrus. It was like the end of Tremors, where the big blobby graboid flies straight through a cliff face and explodes on the canyon floor below.

Only here it was walruses, breaking their bones and bursting their organs. It was kind of like, as I said before, the little lemmings who go out in search of new homes by the thousand and end up walking off a cliff into the ocean and drowning.

Only this was much sadder. These weren't little muskrat creatures. They were walruses. And they weren't splashing into the ocean (which they would have loved). They were humongous furry waterballoons popping on the rocks below.

60+ walruses died from internal organ damage. God bless you National Geographic.

For always keeping it graphic.

2004-08-28T15:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I watched both a raccoon and a largemouth bass, eat an alligator apiece. This was on Lords of the Everglades, a National Geographic show. The alligators here, of course, were babies; but it was both sad and strangely comforting to see an apex predator ravaged and swallowed up by its own easy prey. It reminded me of the Dingo and the Baby. It reminded me of sharks and bears and bees and snakes. And of how natural and balancing it is when a human is eaten by a grizzly bear or a jaguar, or a shark.

Natural and balancing of course until the hunting party with the rifles and shark hooks is assembled and deployed.

On the stool I finished Dave Eggers' fantastic book You Shall Know Our Velocity. It took me two hours to read the last 40 pages for all the fingermarking to look up and smile at assholes in cars; and when it was over I was sad. Sad the trip was over, sad I had to leave the characters. Simultaneously though, I was inspired and alive, and alas, stuck on the stool. As if the reality of my stasis weren't made apparent enough by the story, or by Norwalk, Connecticut; here I had to finish on my wooden ball&chain. They went to Africa, to Senegal and Morocco, they went to Estonia. They went to randomely dole out thirty-two thousand dollars, to change lives and be humbled and meet people. And I was on the stool.

So when Cancer Mike banged into the stool a little while later it seemed pre-destined. Maybe I couldn't tape packets of money to goats on African farms, but here was a man dying on the curb right next to me. Not a half a world away but an arm's length, telling me he didn't want any money. He was just so hungry and was there any way I could get him any food. I thought about breadsticks from the Brewhouse kitchen but I eventually just walked him across to Subway so he could sit and have a sandwich and something to drink.

It's become a bill I plan for now. My weekly Mike charity. After that book, it feels like the least I can do.

2004-08-25T01:14:00.000-04:00

Jesus, the last time I saw Juan Ortiz I still had puke on my breath, just up off my knees in a dirty Grand Central toilet where I was forcing up the milestone night before. Puking up my first New York City drinks. That was November. Yesterday he came to Norwalk, See-Tee.

So I took him to Stew Leonard's, ya know; which is this grocery store/Chuck E. Cheese hybrid with no pizza or games, heavy on the animatronics. I hadn't seen him in like ten months ya know, so I wanted to do something really cool. Give him a real taste of what it is to live in Norwalk, Connecticut. So I drove him to the outskirts of it in every direction. First to Westport where Martha Stewart lives, then to South Norwalk, where she ate at Pasta Nostra. Then to New Canaan for lunch, also Elm Street Books, another Martha hotspot. From there to Wilton and the Borders books & music. We wandered Zeytinia Gourmet Market for a while. He bought a Vanilla soda there. Then we cruised through a cemetery. Ya know just wild stuff man. Then all the way to the other end of town, to the Trader Joe's in Darien. Then home, where we sat around and finally made plans to do something after it was too late.

Okay so we're lame. But where wasn't the point. Just good friends good talks good times.

One of the greatest things about hanging out with film friends? If there is ever a lull in the conversation, all anyone has to do is say "Hey, did you see...?" And off it sparks in some crazy new direction.

2004-08-23T02:28:00.000-04:00

And so like the premise of some mediocre Brittany Murphy movie, well not some, but, Little Black Book in particular; someone who I've mentioned in a less than glowing light has read my blog and confronted me about it. And like a scene from said mediocre film, I had to defend myself and my words in the Rattlesnake bar tonight.

It's funny, I remember how the seal was broken. How the possibility that someone from the Brewhouse might read this thing became plausible. It was when Jimi got the shit smacked out of him. The girls wanted to see a picture, and boy did I want them to see the bloody Jimi. So, I brainlessly leaked the address to this here internet journal, and now it has come back to haunt me. To rattle chains in my attic and try to scare me into changing this address. I wanted only to be able to write straightforward and honest in this thing, because what's the point otherwise? And here now I've got to be conscious that what I feel or think one drunk night, what I assume or hypothesize in something as faulty and liable to change as a high school girl's diary, might segregate me from my coworkers. Girls I relish for refusing to let me feel like an outsider, for even a minute. Girls who have fought to make me social and amicable. Girls who have problems no more confusing than my own.

So here I am, apologizing in a medium that should be devoid of fault or blame or shame. Nevertheless, the apology is sincere. If I offended anyone at the Brewhouse, I am sorry.

You've got to know that I hate restaurants so much I'd be working in a bookstore right now were it not for all of you.

All the guilt aside though, tonight was really nice.

'Cept for maybe the crazy guy who spit chewed crayon all over the wall in the Brewhouse and was pushed forcibly out the door. And who later- apparently -stuffed someone's shirt down his pants and denied it till he was forced out of the Rattlesnake.

Aside from all that, tonight was really great. It made me forget about the shit shift I worked right before it.

ps. how odd I frequent a place called The Rattlesnake?

2004-08-21T22:20:00.000-04:00

Two things I'm unsure of. How much of my family knows I smoke weed? -and- How much of my family reads this blog? There are other things I'm unsure of also -how mirrors are made, where Latvia is- but now is not the time to worry where Latvia is. Or if it is still even a recognized country; or maybe it's a city?

I know my aunt and uncle, my cousins, touch base here now and again. I know my mother visits because she calls all the time for the address. A fact that shames me, because this outlet was to be where I would lay down my struggling actor story. One that would tell daily of all the asshole actors I met; of my pounding heart masked by the performance of cool confidence reading awkward sides in front of some casting director. It was to be a journal neglected by days away, on strange acting retreats in The City, so full of color and life that when I finally sat down to write about them only adjectives would come out. Amazing... beautiful... bizarre. This was where family could read about lonely subway rides and my small creeping progress in the big Big city. Instead they read random musings on random nothings, no doubt wondering with every word why I had to move a thousand miles away to write about the Wildboyz.

Anyhow. I wonder because I've never kept my smoking a secret. I drop it in on occasion, but its mention is always in passing. I say I was stoned, cooked, blazed, that I got high. I mention rolling Js and smoking bowls, but for some reason I always assume my verbal paraphernalia flits right by their eyes, like a typo in a book that somehow got through all the rewrites and the editor.

I've never specifically addressed my smoking here. Or that I have smoked at least four days weekly for nearly the last two years straight. Because of my stagnancy up here, my refusal to go the same bars and drink the same beers with the same people every night, I go to work, come home, smoke til I pass out, and then do it all over again the next day. That does something to you after a while. Anthony believes it's doing something because I believe it's doing something, he thinks it is all in my head. Well, it is in my head, and it's in my body and my bones and it fills me like a cloud. Leaves me in a haze. The problem isn't while I'm smoking, that's the good part, the problem is that I feel the more I smoke, the more gravity hates me. When I wake up in the morning I go back to sleep five more times, I set my clock for 10 and then reset it for 11, 12, 1, 2, 3 even. It feels like on my back in bed at night, everything in me with physical mass -all my organs and tubes and blood- settles like soda in the bottom of a bottle, and then Mad Dr. Gravity slips in --through the same cracks all the goddam bugs sneak in through-- and plops right down on my chest. When I search for a word I know I know, it's like bobbing for apples blindfolded; I know they're in there, I just can't quite grab them. When I try to remember something, it's like driving through fog.

Thing is, I like smoking weed. I love it. It opens my mind and makes the most mundane things amazing. What I have done, is smoked so much for so long, that my reality is that fog, is that haze, that sluggish cloudy existence. I need to get my reality back; clear, visceral, accessible, and make smoking a treat again. I need to smoke weed like I eat fried foods, in moderation. So, I have decided to go Marijuana celibate for a week. I decided this Thursday night and have officially been weed-free for one. whole. day. And I tell you, just that 24 hour reprieve has done wonders. I got up at 10:30 this morning, went to the bank, went shopping, tanned, paid some bills, came home, read some more of an amazing brilliant book, went to work, and here I am and the words won't stop coming.

Maybe it's all in my head.

I could really go for a big fat bong hit right now.

P.S. -- Latvia is on the Baltic Sea in Eastern Europe between Lithuania and Estonia. It became an independent country in 1991 after the break-up of The Soviet Union. I had to know.

2004-08-18T01:16:00.000-04:00

I slept out in the woods last week. It was the first time I had done that in about nine years. And it was the very day after I went into "the City" for the first time since moving up here nearly six months ago, to be closer to "the City."

It wasn't the people, what dragged me into the woods, but the woods themselves. The sounds, the trees, the prospect of wild critters. I was hoping for an epiphany, for the holes in trees to warp into mouths and tell me what to do. I wanted them to whisper, "We've always had the answers, you just never came into the woods." And maybe they did, maybe I just didn't hear them for all the fucking people.

It was so cliche, us driving out. Car after car after car of twentysomethings, straddling watermelons filled with vodka, nursing "roadies." Hooting and hollering over hip music. Everything but the opening credits. I kept waiting for a tire to blow, and for crazy mountain people to start slaughtering everyone. Starting with the most annoying people.

I dragged a cooler, chock full of beer and ice through a mile of half-paths; over rocks and logs, up and down hills in a journey so taxing, I would compare it to the moving of stones for the Pyramids at Giza. Yeah, that taxing. Then people started drinking and putting up tents, in that order.

It was a guy named Hawk who assumed the role of Alpha Male. Digging a fire pit and finding more reasons than there were to use his laughably giant Crocodile Dundee knife. With his name HAWK embossed on the handle.

I walked off into the woods as it got dark, it reminded me I don't know what dark is. Not really. Not the kind of dark that is alive all around you. It's not like the walls of a room. It was superb. When I got back to camp everyone was hammered and crammed on coolers and old chairs in a half moon around the fire. It was 9:30pm. And that is where everyone stayed for the rest of the night. Most of it in awkward silence. Some of it in riotous approval of some fourteen year-old break dancers. For all the drunk twenty-year-olds the lack of sexual tension was embarrassing. Luckily way back before I even dropped the pyramid block of beer I was getting high. And in that cloud I stayed all night. I feel like I go to all these things to be a spectator rather than participator.

The trip the day before the Taxing Boring Camping Trip, as I have dubbed it, was quite the opposite. Christian, honoring a long standing tradition of HandMeDown electronics, (including this very computer) gave me his jukebox. Which had been made obsolete by his sleek new iPod. I tell you it is quite extraordinary to have all your music readily available in a little box, wherever you go. For instance, a train into Manhattan.

Where I had not been since coming up in February to shoot George's show. Which, by the way, finally aired. If you missed it, I made my National television debut eating low-card food for a second and a half on The Food Network last Sunday. I felt my work was subtle, yet engaging.

So what finally drew me to the Big Apple after so many stupid months? A movie of course. For the first time in my life, instead of being wild with envy at people in New York and L.A., who get to see all the goddam movies first; I was one of the lucky sumbitches.

A lot of firsts recently. First night in the woods, first trip to "the City," In Times Square I had Olive Garden for the first time in half a year. Which was another thing that made the trip great, not having to rush a vacationing friend around to all the touristy spots; not having to eat at an authentic New York restaurant. Our only agenda was to see Garden State. Which I have since seen again, making it the first movie I have seen twice in the theater since Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace. Strange that it was another Natalie Portman movie, strange also that I HATED Phantom Menace both times I saw it. And maybe a little strange that the reason I saw that CGI dreck a second time was because of a different Natalie.

We hit a couple book stores and then decided- fuck it, let's see two movies. Open Water had been surfing a massive hype-wave since Sundance and I had been buying it just as long. Christian was more skeptical but, as he would say, "It had to be seen." When Owen Gleiberman says that it will chill you to the marrow, that it ACHIEVES A PRIMAL TERROR!, I give him the benefit of the doubt. After seeing it though I've got to tell you; the premise was phenomenal.

I've never related to a movie, in my life, the way I do Garden State. And it isn't just the obvious. STRUGGLING ACTOR finally goes home for his mother's funeral, is HOMESICK FOR A PLACE THAT DOESN'T REALLY EXIST, FEELS NUMB TO EVERYTHING AROUND HIM and TRIES TO MAKE SOME HEADWAY WITH HIS FATHER. It's in the whole feel of the film. In the beautiful shots and the fitting, inspirational soundtrack. It's in the grasp Zach Braff has on what it's like to be in your twenties and feel confused and disconnected. It's in the way he plays Largeman sitting back in a group, never all there, always on the fringe. It's in the familiar visuals. Smoking weed with cats. It's also in the hope; in Natalie Portman's character Sam. In her quirks and spunk and life, in her beauty and intelligence, and realness. In the way she changes him. It's nice to know that clarity might be just around the corner, in a doctor's office waiting room, listening to The Shins.

Thank you Mr. Braff, for my Reality Bites.

A couple more firsts. This is the first time I've slept in a real bed since moving up. I finally got rid of the raft. Also, this last weekend was the first time I've ever had to watch a hurricane tear through my home state and not be there. Ever.

Good Luck Florida.

2004-08-08T23:33:00.000-04:00

--Michael Pitt is the young sickly version of Leonardo Dicaprio. He was in Murder by Numbers, Bully, a few episodes of Dawson's Creek. Know who I'm talking about? Well, if you dig him, and you wanna know what his wang looks like super up close, rent Bernardo Bertolucci's new film The Dreamers. If you're not so into the wang, there are other highlights. A French girl, for instance.

--The only people who should have sat behind me are wheelchair people. Those two lonely seats in the way back with the space for a wheelchair to roll up beside. I was stoned and alone and I just wanted everyone in front of me. So naturally two chatty mcfatties took the wheelchair people seats, and two middle-aged people boxed me in in front; you know, the kind of people who don't laugh during Harold and Kumar go to White Castle... Harold and Kumar are smart stoners, who work all day and smoke in front of the TV set at night. Potheads that spark up and watch The Gift on HBO. Working class smokers. Many a high night I've followed my tastebuds to Krystal, the southern sister to White Castle. Small. Hot. Square. This movie is funny, a lot more people will probably realize that when it hits dvd.

--In Collateral, this time sober but still alone, a hot girl had to go and sit down in front of me. Put her purdy pedicured piggies up on the seat in front of her. My body tried to sneak around my mind and lean over and smell her hair. Of course it got caught, but God to have such a strong urge is sad. It's a good thing Michael Mann crafted a clever little thriller or I'd have been more aware of her movements the whole time. There are a surprising amount of laughs, a surprising amount of little surprises too. It is always good for the genre when a great director makes an entry, and Collateral is definately good for action/thrillers. The characters are just deep enough; Jamie Foxx is amazing, and I really think Tom Cruise is a much better actor than he is a Tom Cruise. He always comes off a little weird and awkward as Tom Cruise, but as Vincent the silver-haired assassin, or Lestat, or Frank TJ Mackey, or Jerry Maguire, he is all. fucking. there.

ps-- i know wheelchair people are just people in wheelchairs. But I like wheelchair people.

2004-08-02T22:32:00.000-04:00

f11

2004-08-02T21:58:00.000-04:00

Anthony moved up. Christian has decided to move back down. Natalie moved to Atlanta. Jimmy moved to the couch. Anthony moved into the basement. I saw Monster again. I saw King Arthur, and The Bourne Supremacy. I saw Before Sunset and The Village, and The Machurian Candidate. I had Indian food for the first time. I went to a reptile expo and a Finger Eleven concert. James Black recognized me from The Robert Cake. We talked for a spell about movies and about his desire to score a film some day. He gave us his personal email address because he likes the way we're out there, doing something about our dreams. He said he knows too many "actors" who seem to believe that someone is going to seek them out, like some director is going to knock on their door. You have to get out and do it he told us while I bit my tongue. I finally had my first unofficial drum lesson with George and Jimmy, and since have found myself loads more confident in front of a kit. The Braves have beaten odds and climbed up into first place. Ricky Williams retired at 27. My mother has moved in with my dad's best friend. My dad's girlfriend left him. My grandfather turned eighty. And I found out one of my best friends has been in love with me for nine years. So all that, plus a healthy heap of 'more of the same' to thicken in all the hours in between has been my three-week hiatus from this journalmajigger. In the shell of a nut.

2004-08-02T21:56:00.000-04:00

The Skittles were good.

The Village was better.

2004-07-30T16:13:00.000-04:00

I promised myself Skittles for The Village. My all-time favorite movie snack. I gave up refined sugars almost two years ago and it's been ages since I lasted tasted the rainbow. I told Anthony that I was going to treat myself to a regular sized bag of Skittles for the two or three movies I really anticipate every year. I think the euphoria of chomping on sweet Skittle flesh might be the only thing that could appease my wounded heart if The Village disappointed me somehow.

I'm going to itch and squirm on the stool all night I know it. Like waiting for the sun on Christmas morning.

Mr. M. Night,

P L E A S E D O N ' T L E T ME DOWN

2004-07-26T00:36:00.000-04:00

All right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right all right ALL RIGHT! Enough already. I've just got to do this thing. Post something. Shock start this thing alive again. And it doesn't have to be a seamless blend of all the things I did during my three-week hiatus. Doesn't have to sting with elegant prose and fluidity like some other blogger I know. It just has to be something. Like when a baseball player is in a massive slump and he finally drag bunts a five-foot basehit. Anything to end the drought. The elegance, the fluidity; all that will come again; writing gets better and easier the more you do it. But this stagnant blog has been hanging over my swimmy head like the sword of Damocles, day after endless day. I've started a few "high concept" back-with-a-bang entries that went belly-up short of my expectations. The power has gone out killing entries. TWICE! Finally I've time-crunched myself into doing this. Twelve minutes to a new episode of Entourage, then the superb Da Ali G Show. Six minutes now. So there. I'm back.

Hopefully.

p.s. -- Sometimes I brain fart on words I learned in first grade. Tonight that word was "All Right." That's two words I know; but suddenly I started wondering -alright? Is that right? Dictionary.com had an interesting answer: Usage Note: Despite the appearance of the form alright in works of such well-known writers as Langston Hughes and James Joyce, the single word spelling has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions such as already and altogether have never raised any objections. The difference may lie in the fact that already and altogether became single words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright has only been around for a little more than a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. Consequently, one who uses alright, especially in formal writing, runs the risk that readers may view it as an error or as the willful breaking of convention.

2004-07-03T15:49:00.000-04:00

I've got to start keeping track of the movies I see. I've tried this before, many times. I always start on January 1st with a simple list and the farthest I've made it was early August. In the last few days my 70's kick has continued. I watched Easy Rider, which I loved so much I bought it as soon as I sent Netflix's copy back. I saw Spiderman 2 last night which was really outstanding. My movie itch a few nights ago led me to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines; and last night I was able to knock another 70's flick off my Netflix queue by watching the dynamic Mr. Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail, on the Black Starz channel.

I just wanted to remind myself that I saw those films. Thanks Blog, for being here to remind me of shit.

There were eleventy-two commercials before the trailers before Spiderman 2 last night. This shit is getting ridiculous. There was even a commercial for Aqua fucking Velva. Not even some glitzy new product from Aqua Velva, just an ad to remind you that for all your skin needs, to turn to Aqua Velva. It looked so old and lame, I swore to God it was the clever start of some new movie preview.

Nope. Just... Ahhhhh Aqua Velva.

Also saw a trailer for The Aviator, the Howard Hughes movie starring Leo DiCaprio. Directed by Martin Scorcese.

Looked super good.

Also. Marlon Brando died yesterday.

2004-07-01T23:13:00.000-04:00

I made my first EVER purchase with a card that has a major credit card logo on it coupled with MY NAME. Not someone else's card. Mine. Babies have VISA check cards but here I am 22 years young popping my credit cherry. What did he buy you ask?

Three tickets to the July 21st Finger Eleven show in Hartford.

2004-06-29T23:52:00.000-04:00

Tonight on Tough Crowd they did Message Boards, where they reply to things people have said about them on the...well, message boards. One to Jim Norton was: I think Jim Norton has cancer. And he's hiding it so no one feels sorry for him. If I'm wrong I'm sorry, but he should get another haircut cos its confusing.

Jim's straight-faced reply: No sir, I don't have cancer. But a lot of people do. And I don't think it's a laughing matter. If I did have cancer I wouldn't try to hide it, I would try to help other people in my situation. I hope that no one in your family ever has to deal with cancer. But I do hope your grandmother goes to Africa, falls into a ditch and gets teabagged by a monkey.

Watch Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn people. It's like real life, a jumble of shit moments balanced with moments of pure genius.

2004-06-29T22:54:00.000-04:00

So here I am in the waning hours of two consecutive days off, and what did I do? Nothing. Oh I did stuff. I finally got that tire George gave me money for the day I got back from Boston. I put some money in the bank so's I can start saving, so the YMCA can subtract their tidy sum. I ate at two restaurants I've never been to, by myself. See even that has changed accordingly, my take on lonely eaters. Here I am, 12 hours from work again and I have been about as antisocial as possible. Here I am actually longing for people. Longing for the Brewgirls. And its not that I don't want to hang out, just that this whole Norwalkian fiasco has pushed me further and further into my shell to where, maybe for the second time in my life --the other was freshman year of high school-- I am thinking more than I'm talking. For the first time in my life, I feel truly selfish. And I'm not quite sure how to overcome it. I put so much time and effort --well, less effort-- into thinking about myself and the choices I've made and the direction I'm going and who I am and who I was and who I am becoming, that I leave no time, no room, for anyone else. Which is the exact opposite of who I am. Or maybe that's just who I was. Adam told me once that you are only who you are right now. Or something like that, I was high, but its muddled message stuck with me and I apply it to life all the time. It floats up and haunts me when I reminisce, when I long for the past. That all those fleeting moments we cherish in pictures and home videos and journal entries and our good old fashioned heads, just helped get us to here. Here is who we are. And this is who I am, not sure I'm happy with what I've become. An introvert. A book worm who only reads the first fifty pages of books. A person so overwhelmed with the future that thinking about takes up all of his present. I pray that the phone won't ring at night. And why? Because I want to be left alone to be... alone? I'm not writing, except here. Odds are I'm watching something I've seen before. My cousin has called a dozen times -here I am admitting I know this, there go any excuses I was planning- and I haven't called him back. And the thing I need people to understand, or try to understand is that I haven't NOT called him back because I don't want to talk to him, or I don't want him to come visit. I would LOVE for him to come visit. He drags me out of my shell. I miss my cuz. He's my only hint of brother in the blood sense, I love him. I just. don't. call. anyone. I call my mother, who fills me in on everything. Today when I got off the phone with her she asked that I call my cousin, my father and my grandmother. That was about six hours ago. I've called none of them. I just got done staring at the phone for five minutes contemplating calling Amy. And I didn't. NOT because I didn't want to talk to her, or see her. But because I just. don't. call. anyone. It's like I'd rather wallow in self pity, which is all this fucking rant is. More of me, just venting about ME. And who wants to read that fucking shit??? ME! I'll probably read this again and again before I publish it. And then again and again afterward. And I don't know why. I am consumed with myself. This is all just a long-winded admittance to that fact. That dad I haven't called you, Aaron I haven't called you, Grandma I haven't called you, Amy I don't call you, my beautiful sisters I haven't called you, Rye-dawg I haven't called you, Chris- my brother with a different mother I haven't called you because I am so self-obsessed it makes me sick.

I'm sorry. All is weird in the world. Know that I miss you painfully, and love you dearly, and think about you so much more than I let on in this rant.

Doesn't mean I'll ever call you though.

2004-06-27T14:44:00.000-04:00

I'm filled with a weird sadness today. A little of it is Johnny. The busser who got busted up. He is apparently still unconscious, they couldn't even transfer him to another hospital because the swelling was too bad. He was in surgery for five hours last night of a scheduled ten. They stopped halfway, presumably because of all the swelling.

I overhear people at work shaking their heads saying that he'll never be the same again.

Also I'm sad about Abraham Lincoln getting killed. I watched The Lincoln Assassination last night on the History Channel and it totally bummed me. I think I've just always felt too disconnected from Mr Lincoln because he's on the penny and the five. Too far removed to feel sad about a death that happened a long long time ago. His big hat and his beard have made him almost an American character like Paul Bunyan rather than an American hero. Legend. But this documentary really humanized it, with all these written accounts of the shooting; stark portraits of his powerful, gaunt face. How Lincoln's wife screamed and screamed and screamed. How these people carried the 6'4" president out of the theater and across the street into a house so he could die in a bed. How the Nation reacted. That the people who hated Lincoln in the north, the people who hated him in the south, all realized that, shit, they didn't hate him THAT much.

John Wilkes Booth got shot in the throat and choked on his own blood, paralyzed, for three hours before he died.

I'm glad about that.

God I need to learn more about this fucking country.

2004-06-26T21:54:00.000-04:00

Last night I get super stoned and leave the house to see an 8:45 showing of Napoleon Dynamite at 8:41. I can't believe my luck turning down the alley that the arthouse Garden Cinemas squats in back of, at exactly quarter of nine. Then reality sets in. It is fucking Disney World queues with cars. Standstill streams in every vein of the lot. Takes me but a second to realize my mistake.

Fucking Faren-fuckin-heit Nine E-fuckin-leven. Michael Fuckin Moore. Rich art fucks with pink sweaters tied around their necks and their homely wives tied around their arms. I've missed eight minutes of the movie time I find a spot, but have you seen the trailers for the film? I doubt I'll be mystified without the opening scene.

The sweaty bald guy behind the ticket glass squeezes out to tape a SOLD OUT sign to the window. Farenheit 911 is sold out, he yells to the lemmings outside. A man next to me in the sardine can lobby tells his wife, "that guy outside offered me a hundred bucks for our tickets." His wife lights up, "Really? You wanna do it?" "No, let's see it. I wanna see it," he says. And I smile on behalf of Mr. Moore. Then the guy's wife, "You know how much beer we can drink for a hundred bucks!?" And I smile on behalf of all the drunk people I know.

I walk in on Napoleon Dynamite as he boards the bus to school. He ambles to the very back seat where a kid pops up and asks, "So, what are you going to do today Napoleon?"

"WHATEVER I FLIPPIN FEEL LIKE, GOSH!" He snaps back. The whole crowd erupts and I duck into a dark corner seat. Napoleon quietly takes a He-Man action figure out of his backpack, ties a string around its neck and chucks it out the window. It bounces savagely behind the bus like an old cowboy dragged by a horse. THAT, is what Napoleon Dynamite felt like doing today. And if that's funny to you, if buck teeth, big glasses, retro-words like Flippin and Gosh are funny to you. Then Napoleon Dynamite is hilarious.

So I'm high as a bird, just enough distance between me and all the other theater attendees to feel comfortable laughing my ass off, when one of those cocksucking couples walks in. Those artsy fartsy fuckers who, even in all their artsy-fartsiness still probably don't know half the shit I do about artsy fartsy films. And I'm not even artsy fartsy. They are no doubt ill-prepared for the Bush-doc's explosive opening and I'm sure they just bought tickets to Napoleon because anything at the art house simply must be better than all that Hollywood shlock at the multiplex, Francis. They are also ill-prepared for a movie where attention spans need not apply. I try to muffle my constant laughter because they are just too close. And then finally, when the laughter of everyone else begins pounding them from all sides, they scamper out like pussies. What's going on Francis?! Why is everyone laughing at that stupid red-headed boy? I'm SCARED!

Napoleon Dynamite is funny as shit. It's also quite nostalgic for anyone who went to public schools in the last twenty years. Who hasn't hoarded food from the cafeteria to eat it later in some boring class? Who never had a Trapper Keeper? Who hasn't had a crush turn them down in a way that seems more harsh than a simple "sorry."?

"Where were you last year Napleon?"

"I TOLD YOU. I WAS IN ALASKA HUNTING WOLVERINES WITH MY UNCLE!"

And more and more and more of the same. Hysterical.

2004-06-26T21:33:00.000-04:00

Up from my Boston Globe crossword puzzle -where for the second week in a row the majority of the few answers I got were all related to movies- I could see Cancer Mike down the street, hunched and gesticulating in front of the Cold Stone Creamery, telling someone about his cancer. Asking for money. I backed my stool up to hide it behind a big brick pillar so he wouldn't see me.

No sooner had I celebrated that tomorrow would be my first Sunday brunch off since I started, did Bob waddle out to me on the stool and say, "Ja-ruh-ME, we got a problem."

Seems Johnny, the busboy who trained me had been run off the road by some hooligans who smashed his face in with baseball bats. He was in intensive care with massive structural damage to the bones in his face. Airlifted to Yale.

How in Christ's holy name do you hit someone in the face, repeatedly, with a baseball bat?

Not twenty minutes after that phone call did the Brewhouse recieve another saying Thoma, the beloved seventy-year old dishwasher, had been mugged on a train. This is where I live apparently, the goddam jungle.

So, I'm working now. Pulling doubles all week. Guess I can't really complain, my face is still intact.

Knock wood.

2004-06-25T19:20:00.000-04:00

I cut a swath through the Brewgirls on my way in today, smiling and Hi Darlin-ing them all as I filled my glass of ice water and curled my stool like a barbell. It was off to the parking lot where I prayed for rain. Well, really just prayed that Cancer Mike wouldn't hobble up and 'cap my head' with his 9mm. Prayed that he wouldn't show at all. I consciously left all my money at home so that when he did show I could pull my pockets out, flop them over my jeans like droopy dog ears and say sorry. No matter what sob story you wheeze into my face today doesn't change that all I've got in my pockets is lint.

My call for rain was not unfounded, I wasn't praying that The Nothing would roll over a perfect sky, tear open the sun and cry all over South Norwalk; just that the gloomy grey tease would stop sprinkling and really rain. Then I could go home.

So I thought.

The sky opened up and my smile opened up and I curled my stool and clomped inside. Only to get the runaround from Lou and the dryest of dry humor asking, "Don't you have an umbrella? What, you think it's just supposed to be sunny every day?" Then he disappeared without ever giving me any clear answer as to whether I could get the fuck out of the Brewhouse.

I find him downstairs and in a strange bonding moment we lightsaber joust like Luke and Darth with huge umbrellas. Then he hands me one, dead serious, and asks me to go back out there. So I do. Not one to complain, I'd rather the stark visual of me on a stool in a torrential downpour at the lonely end of the parking lot eat at Lou's mind until he calls me in, rather than whine like a bitch about the rain.

Then, a little help from the Heavens. Lightning. Sharp cracks of it followed by thunder only two Mississippis after. How pathetic I must look, like a sad clown under a one man tent. I've got Travis' "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" circling my mind and the big metal tip at the top of my umbrella begging the sky for a taste of electricity. The door swings open and Lou waves me in.

VICTORY!

He asks me to wait twenty minutes and if the rain doesn't let up- fuck it.

So I find myself in the employee bathroom downstairs sitting on a broken chair reading Chuck Klosterman's, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs where he goes on a tangent about how When Harry Met Sally fucked people up. He writes...

"...It implies that two platonic acquaintances are refusing to admit that they're deeply in love with each other. When Harry Met Sally cemented the plausability of that notion, and it gave a lot of desperare people hope. It made it realistic to suspect that your best friend may be your soul mate, and it made wanting such a scenario comfortably conventional. The problem is that the Harry-met-Sally situation is almost always tragically unbalanced.. Most of the time, the two involved parties are not really "best friends." Inevitably, one of the people has been in love with the other from the first day they met, while the other person is either (a) wracked with guilt and pressure, or (b) completely oblivious to the espoused attraction. Every relationship is fundamentally a power struggle, and the individual in power is whoever likes the other person less. But When Harry Met Sally gives the powerless, unrequited lover a reason to live. When this person gets drunk and tells his buddies he's in love with a woman who only sees him as a buddy, they will say, "You're wrong. You're perfect for each other. This is just like When Harry Met Sally! I'm sure she loves you- she just doesn't realize it yet." Nora Ephron accidentally ruined a lot of lives."

I'm going to see Napoleon Dynamite now.

2004-06-24T03:35:00.000-04:00

I saw my best good friend Christian on television today. Cooking Philly cheesteak salad with his dad. And though he didn't have that natural relationship with the camera the way I do; though the glow of him in that room probably didn't make the crew weep into their open palms -quietly, so as not to ruin the take- the way I do. He did look super pretty. Great hair great jaw.

Just leave the real magic to me brother.

2004-06-24T02:24:00.000-04:00

Christian is in Florida and so our Netflix queue has changed drastically. Top priority went from weed watchers like Along Came Polly and Bad Santa to a hodgepodge of 70's classics like Easy Rider, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Badlands, The Last Picture Show, Dog Day Afternoon, Harold and Maude, etc. The myelination process in my brain must be seriously kicking right now, insulating all the nerves with fatty white matter like an electrical cord. It happens about this time in life, 22, so I read. Helps the signals zing down the nerves quicker; they say you don't really make any clear decisions until about this age and suddenly- shit -I want to watch all the movies that seemed like a box full of boredom a year or two ago.

It started with Taxi Driver. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Taxi Driver. What a phenomenal fucking picture that is. What a phenomenal fucking actor Robert DeNiro is.

So, last night I bolt home after work and start scrolling the cable guide with new eyes. Like a man zapped back from the brink of death who sees everything more vivid and beautiful. And a title that would have normally flitted by unnoticed gets caught highlighted.

Dirty Harry.

Clint Eastwood. 1971. Definately a classic. I never saw a frame of it in my whole life and still I could muster a "Do you feel lucky, punk?" impression, just from the whisper of its phenomenon. So, I bake some new potatoes, heat up some gumbo, bake myself and sit down.

My first- well, 2nd -conscious foray into the films of the 70's. The time when movies said something. Stopped being glitz and glamour and started being real; and wouldn't you know it I'm fucking digging it. Clint was a bad ass. I cracked up watching Dirty Harry chew a bite of his hotdog throughout an entire gun battle in the street. And tell me, am I the only person who sees the resemblance between Hugh Jackman now, and Clint Eastwood in his hey?

So, right around the middle, right around the thickening plot and clues leading Harry to the Scorpio killer, in walks Jimmy and George. Plastered. And wouldn't you know it they plop down on either side of me frothing with tales of the city. This is my fault of course, I made the conscious decision to watch the film in the living room rather than my bedroom. Jimmy can't even contain his smile, he lets it pop all over the place while he tells me how "boss" they were in N Y C. I say that I'm watching Dirty Harry for the first time ever and try to give Jimmy the hint by staring straight past him to the TV screen. Well, Jimmy's not big on hints. You can yell into Jimmy's face that he's already told you a particular story five times and he'll chuckle, light a cigarette and tell you again.

So, I missed the middle.

After George passes out and Jimmy clomps downstairs stoned I look up to see Scorpio paying some black man two hundred bucks for something in some seedy old building. The black guy says, "Damn, you really want two hundred bucks worth huh?" And Scorpio says, "Every penny." So I'm thinking, all right, our serial killer's got a nasty drug habit, nothing unusual there. And then he sits down, the black man very calmly tells him to relax... and then starts beating the living shit out of him. Hard, real punches right upside his face. Dull smacks and cracks and screams.

Goddam killer paid the black dude to mash him up so's he could pin it on Harry.

All in all I dug the film. I use the timeless phrase "dug" in replace of "enjoyed" to keep the theme alive. I understand the success behind it the same way I understand the Lethal Weapon movies and Die Hard. Working class bad ass. Who can't get behind that?

2004-06-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

Like father like son. Happy father's Day Daddy-O

2004-06-20T01:42:00.000-04:00

I can remember when the concept of not feeding strays was introduced to me. I was baffled. But mom, that cat is fucking starving. That bag-of-bones dog is super hungry. It was explained to me -as we sat the tuna and water dish on the front stoop anyway- that feeding strays makes them hang around. Makes them come back for more. Well, the concept finally makes sense. But not in the animal kingdom. Nope, not to me. Dogs and cats don't decieve, they don't take advantage of generosity, they only rarely bite the hand that feeds them. People decieve.

Cancer Mike takes advantage.

I read somewhere that one in three Americans gets cancer. And that one in four dies from it. Nothing freaks me out like a good old fashioned cancer, and I've lost people to it as most everyone has. So before you read on; before you think I'm carcinogenically insensitive, understand that I understand what a devastating disease it really is.

Also understand that even cancer, with its voracious appetite for all things human, can't even eat the deception out of some of the bodies it takes over.

I've dubbed one of my stool regulars Cancer Mike, not because it is an easy association, but because week after week, as if I've forgotten, he likes to tell me that he is, "still dying of cancer." Likes to smoke cigarettes in my personal space and expect sympathy. The first time he ever ambled up to me he seemed amicable enough; said hello shook my hand sucked one last drag off a tiny butt, and as he squished it under his shoe he said, "I got cancer. I'll be dead in a month."

That was over two months ago. And it isn't just the cancer with this guy. It's suicide attempts, his daughter died, his sister gets beat up, his girl takes his money and burns him with cigarettes. Today, his brother died yesterday. And guess what? He is still dying of cancer. One week he asked that I take down his phone number, he watched over my shoulder as I wrote the number and the name Mike into my book. "Write down 'Cancer'," he said, "So you'll remember." I told him I'd remember. How could I fucking forget. And what kind of cancer, he has never let on. Why he needs train money all the time with beer on his breath is a fucking mystery. I guess they give free beers to people with cancer. Not train tickets though.

And still, as my mother and father's son, who am I to judge? Who am I to call a stranger a liar? Call me gullible, or a pushover, but whether or not he does have cancer -and looking at him, listening to him wheeze it's certainly possible- doesn't change that I know he is homeless. I know he is a stray. And I have a history of feeding strays.

Three bucks one week. After a teary-eyed "I'm scared" and a request for a hug it was ten bucks the next week. Then five. Then seven dollars. He is a mangy dog with one exception- he knows he has sad eyes. He knows it works. Dogs just know they're hungry.

And I don't play that shit. Not for eight straight weekends anyway.

Michael Salvino is a short thin man with chronic swollen hands. Every time I shake them I feel if I squeeze too hard the tips of his fingers will pop and spray me with blood. His eyes are half open, his teeth are half gone. His face is worn and weather cracked. One Saturday, with weekend well-offs strolling the streets smiling, Mike insisted on showing me the way he used to kickbox. A forty-six year-old man chopping and kicking the air while people stared. Huffing to catch his breath when the routine was over. He's got old faded tattoos, one that he says signifies that he was in 'Nam, it looked something like a knockoff Mickey Mouse. He can't get through one self-centered sentence without stopping to ask if he's bothering me. If I mind if he talks to me. But it never feels like a question. More an insinuation with a question mark at the end. And how much chemotherapy can a person go through before they start losing their hair? He swears the chemo is killing him and still he's got thick golden locks that even I'm jealous of. Today he wanted me to help pop his dislocated shoulder back into place. Dislocated in a car crash the night before. If I am to take him at his word, God is really pissing in Cancer Mike's mouth.

That's two family deaths, one suicide attempt, countless beefs with his girlfriend, who burns him and beats him, takes his "paycheck" and -lest I forget- he found out was pregnant today, which might not even be his. There's the car crash, the dislocated shoulder, the police problems. Some kids at the bus stop socked him in the jaw for no good reason and he is still. Dying. of Cancer. All in two months.

And recently he's been getting creepier. Giving me a rosary blessed by a priest because he loves me and I "saved his life," just before he asks for train money of course. He'll hold out a hand to shake and then kiss mine when I give it to him. Then tell me he's no queer. Tonight he went to steal a hug and kissed my neck. Scratchy and stubbly and a real invasion of my space. I've done nothing but listen and give to this guy, and I'm way fucking sick of it. He knows that on Friday and Saturday nights I am chained to that goddam stool, and now I dread what was once five hours of alone time and an easy fifty bucks.

Tonight he told me he has a 9mm and he wants to cap his head. All I could think -after thinking he might come kill me on my stool- is that he could sell that gun for at least a hundred bucks.

If he ever stops coming around maybe I'll scan the weekly obituaries. Maybe I'll find his name and maybe it'll say cancer. Maybe I'll sigh, relieved. Not relieved that he was dead, just that I wasn't the victim of a clever bum these last few months. Relieved that I won't have to worry about him the next few.

2004-06-20T01:17:00.000-04:00

There's a lot of land art up here in CT. Just huge abstract steel sculptures, curved and bent in artsy angles and jammed into the ground on the side of the road, in parks, on hilltops and in medians. From I-95 there's this one big piece of oval art that glares down from some distant mound of weeds and rocks; looks like a huge deformed Cheerio. Knobby and textured, like an old prop from Honey I Shrunk the Kids. We've seen it up there for months.

Last night I sat in the metal-lined middle of that big piece of stupid art. Had a great three-sixty view of Norwalk, great conversation with a great girl. There was wine and walking and talking all night. Goodnight.

Great night.

2004-06-18T04:12:00.000-04:00

Today is George's birthday. Tomorrow, my baby sister turns eighteen. Sunday is Father's Day.

George, Amy, Dad. If all you get from me is an acknowledgment, or a phone call, just know I'm feeling shitty for not doing more. If you don't even get that, know that I'm sitting around thinking how shitty it is that I didn't call. And not that it matters, but know how shitty I feel having no good excuse for it.

2004-06-15T06:40:00.000-04:00

Before I could even write about how strangely sad I was feeling about the season finale of Wildboyz, before I could explain that I felt I was being asked to grow up too quickly -eight fucking shows? That's not a season!- Before I could muse that if the coconut crab having to be pried off of Steve-O's ass with pliers, by three Indonesian guys, was the end of this bizarre amusement microphase of my life, that it was a good way to go...

they showed clips from Wildboyz: Season 3

EIGHT MORE, FUCKERS! Eight more episodes of dudes in Euro-holsters getting kicked, clawed, scratched, stung, and bitten, by animals all over the world.

I'll grow up in the Fall.

today was an eventful day. so I wrote about Wildboyz.

2004-06-14T05:20:00.000-04:00

House of Sand and Fog literally goops talent. Like some marvelous gooping magma vent or something, it just bubbles and is fucking hot. Jennifer Connelly has about as much talent and beauty as can be crammed into human skin. I think I might change my name to Jeremy Connelly and just walk around pretending I'm married to her, that I insisted on taking her last name so that when people introduced themselves I could say, "Hi, I'm Jeremy Connelly. Spelled like Jennifer Connelly, because that is who my wife is."

Then I would just clean the house all day, take intermittent showers and wait for her to just come home. Home to dinner and then a foot massage as she sips wine from deep in one of those humongous bean-bag chairs. The ones that look mutated, 5x their size. The ones that spread out in a room like a big tumor. We'll keep Jerry Maguire on soft in the background, stopping kissing only occasionally, to make fun of Rene Zelwegger and laugh, and then kiss more and more. I'll tell her how much better she is than Rene Zelwegger, and Laura Linney. Tell her not to worry about that hussy Naomi Watts. And then she'll get serious, and tell me I should really pursue acting, that it was my dream before I met her and I shouldn't be put off or intimidated by her career. I'll tell her don't be silly, that movies -House of Sand and Fog in particular- had made me realize my new true calling. To be Jennifer Connelly's loving housewife. She'll smile and let it go for now, (though it'll hardly be for good) and then she'll ask me what's for breakfast. I'll roll her panties down to her ankles and tell her fritters, "I'm making you fritters in the morning, Mrs. Connelly."

2004-06-13T21:11:00.000-04:00

We sleep like layers of lasagna, Amy, then myself, Allison, and Christian; like spoons in a drawer in Amy's bed; only plus arms and legs that don't fit so glovelike as simple spoons. We didn't even get here until eight in the a.m., with Jimmy passed out in a chair in the living room, arms crossed over his eyes. I remember beer, lots and lots of beer. I remember a beach. I remember people and a party, and then sometime later, quietude and the rising sun. How many more metaphors for 'squeezed'? Sardines, that's what we are; the girls, trying to catch two hours tops to be in to work at 10:30. Christian and I are both douchebags, sleeping in our fucking jackets. Mine is a windbreaker, so I wake up in a plastic bag full of sweat. My twisted limbs get better sleep than me, dreaming of pins and needles under my own weight. I'm breathing in Amy's exhales. Wild hairs on her head stick in the sweat of my forehead. It's hot.

And still it's surreal, this coziness.

This has been my week. Drink, drank, drunk. Boston is a muddled dream that I woke up from and drowned away in beer and wine and smoke and company and so very little sleep. Sometime in there I worked, and now I feel an official slave to the restaurant. Like so many other Brewhouse zombies I'm prepping food and running around on only imagined energy, promising my body sleep and instead giving it more things to process and process out.

Wonder what's next.

2004-06-11T00:20:00.000-04:00

So I went to Boston and I saw my good friend and we drank wine and smoked weed and watched Wildboyz and walked the Freedom Trail and sat in Faneuil Hall and it was rainy and freezing on June fucking 6th and I ate Papa John's pizza for the first time in months and I was drunk for two whole days and I had my first cup of clam chowder hot and filling, soaked wet and cold in historic fucking Beantown. And I saw Harvard and we watched Contact and we stayed in the city of Gardner, which, for those who don't know me or know only my first name -or maybe even only my supersexyselfassignedpseudonym, Snakeboy- is my surname. Gardner. The Chair City. The Furniture Capital of New England.

And the party was long and full of food and the family was hospitable and kind and its all so vague and fuzzy already but I know I had a hell of a fucking good time and I know I miss my good friend Adam. The hairy fucker.

There.

The Boston Post.

Fucking Done.

2004-06-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

I'm going to Boston tonight. Home of the Red Sox, the Tea Party, the Damon/Affleck success story & Godsmack.

Five hours on the stool immediately followed by three in the car. It's gonna be great to see Adam again.

But I'd really rather see Teddy. His cat.

2004-06-02T02:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I drove all over town pulling into drive-thrus, staring at the menus and then speeding off like a dick. I was feeling weird and homesick and taking it out on Norwalk's lack of late-night food options. Christian sat idly by while I vented quietly at first Subway, which was closed, KFC, which reminded me too much of the Boston Market I'd had the day before. Taco Bell, which was out of the Mexican Pizza. Domino's, which was a fuckin joke; and eventually -like some pissy girlfriend- I drove back home.

I ended up going back out three hours later to the Stop & Shop. I came back with some Boar's Head hotdogs, -lite hotdogs- a red onion, and these frozen, seasoned, red potatoes in a bag. Needless to say it was all fucking delicious.

Natalie lives in South Carolina now.

You smell that? It's baseball. I'm bringing it back real quick. Last night the Braves and Expos were gridlocked at 2-2 in the eighth. 2 on, 2 out, Rafael Furcal due up. The Expos opt to intentionally walk Furcal, to get to Nick Green, a rookie who was 0 for 3. Well, -and here's where baseball pace is nailbiting- when the count drawwwws out forever in a do or die situation... and then the rookie golfs a 3-run shot into the left-field bleachers. The crowd goes wild. The first home run of his career. Braves win 8-2.

And then I start thinking, how cool it must be, to hit a home run in the major leagues. Sure it's cool to hit six, seven hundred home runs. But, still, even just .one. Must be motherfucking awesome; to be part of that club. Think of how many people make the big leagues and don't ever smack one out. Think of forever being listed in the annals of baseball history, with a 1 under the HR.

Then tonight, Braves Expos again. 6-3 Expos in the bottom of the ninth. Two on. Two out. Nick Green to the plate. The announcers tell of his yesternight heroics over footage of it. A stat on the screen: Braves 1-21 (0.45) when trailing after the eighth inning. Back to the pitch at hand. One strike left in the ball game. Three runs down...

Nick Green launches one into the same section of left-field seats as the night before. The crowd goes wilder. Tie ball game. Before the furor has even begun to quiet, Mr. J.D. Drew whacks the very next pitch over the right-field wall. Braves win. 7-6.

I love baseball.

Recently I have seen a girl with a six-inch tongue, tuck it up behind her tonsils to tickle her nasal passages. To tell the truth, the six-inch tongue was enough. This wasn't on TV folks. This was in the driveway. She said of her. . endowment, "I can do so many nasty things..." laughing. drunk. "So nasty."

One of these offers on Gmailswap.com, where -in case you aren't aware- people are offering things for an invite to the new Gmail email service, says:

Bubblegum offers: I perfectly know where Elvis is.

When you click on the -might I say- very generous offer, her actual offer emerges.

I can introduce you to him if you want.

Because I'm an "active" blogger, I happen to be one of the lucky few who was offered one of these must-have accounts. On Christian's advice I snapped it up, and now have two invites that are relatively useless to me. So I think I can cough up one measly invite for the chance to finally...

Perfectly Know Where Elvis Is.

2004-05-29T03:31:00.000-04:00

For all the fuss I make and the facts I drop, the fucking shows I watch and the father I have; I caught my first wild snake ever just yesterday.

Some people don't know what I used to want to be when I grew up. In fourth grade I called it serpentology. In sixth I was a little smarter, then it was herpetology -the study of reptiles- with an emphasis on snakes. From seventh grade on I called it acting, but I never lost my love for the legless fuckers.

All dads have stories. Be them war stories, fishing stories; I-remember-one-time tales from their storied youths. A lot of my father's stories had snakes in them. A lot of the yellowed Polaroids in our family photo boxes have snakes in them.

So I love snakes.

My goal -spiritual refreshment aside- walking the twisting trails of the Devil's Den yesterday, was to see a snake. To catch a snake to hold a snake. It is a sensation I have been craving; brought on by the absence of reptiles, Florida and my father. Heightened by the recent kicking around of a SnakeBoy script, and the goddam Wildboyz. And it must have been the fifteenth big flat rock I'd lifted before I found that beautiful rat snake...

...nosing around the base of a tree five feet from Christian. From us both. Here I am bent over jacking up rocks looking for snakes, and there's two and a half feet of one, black on gold dead leaves, clear as day on the ground a step away.

Now, I pick up a lot of things in one day. So do you, -unless you're unfortunately armless- it's just not something one keeps track of. I pick up certain things more than others; G2 pens, a drinking glass, dinner plates, various remote controls. This day an unusual amount of big flat rocks. Along with an Oscar statuette with my name on it, a beautiful girl, and my first born child, a snake -especially a wild one- is on my list of coolest things to pick up.

It was amazing. I'm at quite a loss to describe it. Oh I could pretty-word you to death about the way it felt slipping down my arm and through my fingers, but it won't amount to anything more amazing than a dude holding a snake. Which is something not so amazing to most people, not even so rare. To me, it really was something else though. Symbolic. A sweet moment with nature.

Not the only time in my life I've felt privilaged, that something so beautiful was letting me hold it.

I lived in Snakeville, USA, for 22 years with a blue-collar-Crocodile Dundee dad.

I catch my first snake in fucking Connecticut.

2004-05-26T23:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at work I had about a dozen kiddy cups full of Stella Artois. The same fancy-shmancy beer I first met and got smashed on, at the Sarasota Film Festival VIP party last year. (They were free.) The Mexikitchen crew kept smiling and filling me up all night. I was carrying trays of people's dinners, hiding a big fat beer buzz. It wasn't necessarily the smartest decision, but approval outweighs intelligence. Anyone who's ever been privy to peer pressure should know that. You want to fit in at school, you smoke the cigarette. You want to be part of the Brewcrew, you drink the beer.

The truthjuice loosened my lips, that's for sure; got me to introduce myself to a new girl who I'd ignored in passing about twenty times. Christina. Which ultimately landed me at Donovan's, a local dive around the corner, where I was disappointed to be paying for the same Stella I'd drunk my fill of for free just an hour earlier. I ended up talking to Christina for a couple hours before her and Allison followed Jimmy and I back to the house for some herbal refreshments. By the time the beer and weed collided in my body, my head was all a fishbowl, sloshing and swimmy; I don't even remember them here but in clips and phrases. It was fun though. Just being social.

So today at work, Isidro, my beer buddy on the grill tosses a huge fucking steak on the fire. I'm checking the hanging tickets, and nowhere has anyone ordered, "Huge Fucking Steak." When it's flame-grilled to perfection I watch him chop it in two, split it between two plates, jazz it up with mashed potatoes and a bed of fresh snow peas... and hand one to me.

Dinner, he says.

How fucking cool is that? I felt like an amigo.

I'm glad I drank the beer.

2004-05-25T16:50:00.000-04:00

I've got to get some more people on the Wildboyz wagon with me. Christian has jumped on. Won't you come too?

See up until yesterday the only thing Chris Pontius and Steve-O, ever wasted of mine was my time -a rather unimportant commodity as of late- and even then it was only a half-hour on Sunday nights, the random late night half-hour repeat on weekdays. But yesterday, the Wildboyz bit me in a more sensitive spot, my wallet. Or more specifically, the left front pocket of my jeans. At the Trumbull mall in the teenybop-shop Hot Topic, I bought a Wildboyz t-shirt for eighteen bucks.

It was a monetary admittance of my love for the show. And with pride I will wear it.

I really struggle trying to champion this "Jackass meets The Crocodile Hunter" show to people who think that because they've got an above-average IQ, they can't enjoy two dimwits in leopard-skin bananahammocks getting frighteningly close to one another as they get dangerously close to wild animals. The Wildboyz are, neither of them, gay; still every episode is saturated with homoerotic gestures, situations and allusions, so grossly misplaced -a nature show- that it very quickly becomes a sliver of the Wildboyz Enjoyment Pie.

If you aren't familiar with the Wildboyz Enjoyment Pie, you'll want to look at the chart below, where I have Microsoft Exceled a convenient, horribly colored pie graph highlighting and comparing the elements of Wildboyz that make it so compelling.

You'll see that 11% of the enjoyment is in the animals alone. This is because animals are always at least 11% of the enjoyment in any situation in which animals are involved. Who's never gotten behind a good animal show in their lifetime?

Animal-inflicted pain has always been a secret thrill of mine. Shark Attacks, snake bites, bulls stomping on riders and goring matadors. Anytime an animal kicks the shit out of the King of the Food Chain, it's humbling to me. Who doesn't like When Animals Attack? Who can't get behind footage of an elephant rampaging a circus? Who didn't think it was kinda cool when Roy got chomped by his tiger?

So, everyone loves to see people attacked by animals. But, as creatures of conscience, we can't help but feel bad for the newswoman who is obviously about to deliver some cutesy-dootsy spiel to camera when she's suddenly mauled by the bear sitting on the stool next to her. On Wildboyz, that the animals are attacking suspecting victims makes the pain and the wounds and the screaming, hysterical. Here there is no guilt. The Wildboyz dump food in an open tent and crawl into the sleeping bags. So it's funny when a black bear takes a chunk out of Pontius's ass. They sream and jump around, and their eyes bulge out of their head. Then they chortle like Beavis and Butthead and flaunt their new scar to the camera.

Every time they scream in pain, take a drink.

It's the little things that make it lovely, like how Steve-O vomits constantly. When he puts musk-ox shit in his mouth. When he squeezes the eggs and sperm out of two dead salmon into his mouth. When he eats whale blubber. When he drinks a weird Amazonian tribal whiskey. When he smells a particularly gross fart. After a while, you're not sick of Steve-O heaving and glopping all over the place, you're rooting for it. I guarantee.

Every time Steve-O pukes, take a drink.

Though Chris Pontious has a slight advantage over Steve-O on the Wildboyz Enjoyment Pie, the dynamic wouldn't exist one without the other. One alone could never fill the Wildboyz gayness quota. Pontius's 1% edge could be any number of insignificant things. Not so afraid of venomous snakes. Less drug-ravaged voice. More attractive. Who cares.

Every time you see their asses, take a drink.

Every time they're bitten by something, take a drink.

Every time one slips behind the bent-over other, take a drink.

Every time you find yourself green with envy at anything they are doing, jumping into the water with a Great White Shark. Getting zapped by eels or racing on the backs of ostriches. Levitating an alligator, feeding Tasmanian Devils or swimming with grizzly bears... sigh, and take a drink.

And now that you're drunk as a skunk you should realize how interesting it is to watch two quasi-queer twenty-something nomads work the same dream job that has long been reserved for scientists and Boyd Matson. Hands-on wildlife TV show hosts. So if you're bored with National Geographic or tired of Jeff Corwin wearing clothes; if Steve Irwin is plenty crazy, but he just doesn't curse and puke enough for you. Tune it to MTV on Sundays at 10:30.

Because "Nobody's wilder than the Wildboyz."

2004-05-24T22:35:00.000-04:00

Troy, Super Size Me, Elephant, Wes Craven presents: They, May, Secretary, Insomnia, Matchstick Men, Man on Fire. Those are the movies I've seen in the last few weeks that I haven't mentioned. Some needn't be mentioned to be remembered, but others might only squeak out of my lips or fingertips this one time in my whole fat life.

So there.

Movies.

My viewing you has officially been documented.

2004-05-23T16:46:00.000-04:00

Today in the kitchen, in the thick of the Brewhouse Brunch Buffet my amigos sat a stuffed chicken on the salad window, a battery operated dancing chicken that shifted and wiggled to the Chicken Dance song. Of course, I thought it was funnier when I couldn't hear the Chicken Dance song. I thought it was funnier watching the chicken bop and wiggle to the Mexican music blaring from the boombox. I thought it was like the plastic flowers or Coca-cola cans that will dance to any sound that registers in their tiny servo brains. But no, the trumpets and guitars and, I don't know, whatever other instruments make all Mexican music sound the same -tambourines maybe?- drowned out the faint Chicken song. And then suddenly, at the zenith of the chicken dancing funniness, an egg to the ear wiped the shiteating grin right off my face.

Yes. Someone hit me right in the fucking ear with an egg. It felt like a golf ball had thwapped the side of my head, a golf ball that burst open and gooped unborn chicken sauce down my neck, into my shirt.

I demanded an answer. "Who just hit me in the face with a fucking egg?!"

One of them apologized. Seems the poutry-projectile was not intended for me, but for another Mexican head.

The ruined egg lay congealing on the kitchen floor for hours. No one claiming cleaning responsibility. I sure as hell wasn't about to take an egg to the face and then clean it up. So it sat there, sticky all day, looking oddly like a brain. On drugs.

2004-05-22T05:59:00.000-04:00

The beginning of Love Actually is stirring because it's home video of a bunch of real people greeting their loved ones in airport terminals. Real emotion, elation, relief, and love. Kissing and hugging that's sloppy and authentic. And Hugh Grant's Brittishtastical voice comes in over top talking about how everyone always talks about how bad the world is, how full of hate; but that if you look hard enough you'll find that

love, actually is all around us.

And then Jimmy comes home looking like this...

Jimmy doesn't normally look like this. That's what Jimmy looks like after getting jumped by three guys after closing time in downtown SoNo. And that's just his face, not even his jeans, that looked as though he'd fallen in a puddle of blood.

They asked him for a cigarette. He gave them a cigarette. They asked if he could spare a buck, he gave them a dollar. Then they said, "How bout you give us all your money?"

He said something like- fuck you cocksuckers -and one of them jacked him in the bridge of his nose. Layed it open like a fish. He must have had a ring on. That's when Jimmy started swinging. Coulda been thirty seconds, or five minutes, It was all a blur. When it was over he was dazed, buzzed and bloodied. They had taken off down the street.

"And those cocksuckers didn't get but a cigarette and a dollar from me." He was holding three, four hundred, because look at him, Jimmy is the kinda guy who would have three or four hundred dollars cash in his pocket. A pack of cigarettes in his sock. And still, "those fucking cocksuckers didn't get but a cigarette, and a dollar outta me."

And those guys really were cocksuckers. And I don't mean they suck cock, I mean they're fucking cocksuckers. And I honestly don't think that cocksuckers, should get to live. We're overcrowded anyway. If someone can punch someone they don't know, in the face, because taking someone's money would be easier than earning their own...I'm cool with killing that person. If Jonathon Swift were alive he'd agree. Population problem? Don't eat the babies, kill the cocksuckers. (Well, we can still eat some of the babies) If they could create a supertiny nano-bug that sought out and stung cocksuckers with a deadly poison, I would be willing to live in constant fear that the cutting edge nanotechnology had been rushed and could at any time go haywire and swarm down upon the land and the people, stinging indiscriminately and decimating not just the cocksucker population, but also the normal people population. The people who don't hurt people, to get stuff. That, to me, is a more noble fear than worrying if the guy ambling up to you on the street is going to sucker-punch your face or stab you or worse.

So I guess, Mr. Hugh Grant, that though I am with you, though I do believe that,

love, actually is all around us.

Hate, actually is all around us as well.

But those cocksuckers didn't get but a cigarette and a dollar out of him.

2004-05-22T01:25:00.000-04:00

I sit on my stool. I think my thoughts. How sad to be sad that it's Friday again. That it's Saturday tomorrow. How dreadful to have five hours alone with my own mind. Unintoxicated, forced to dawdle and dwell and daydream, sober. Tonight, when it finally got dark, and then finally got to nine, I half considered- in fact started -counting to 3,600. The total amount of time I had left on the stool, in seconds. I got into the thirties before I had to "hello" someone, had to "have a good night" them.

All night I was asking Snakeboy who he was. What about him was tortured. What does he do and why does he do it? Just an open conversation with an imaginary character. The way I remember from my childhood someone asking a piece of paper what it wanted written on it. The way Michelangelo's David was already in the block of marble, and he just chipped away the pieces that weren't part of him. Just how much of an antihero are you Snakeboy? How important are the snakes to you, outside of their use as a teenage aphrodisiac? Do you really make a mean Rattlesnake Chilli? How much does your family play a role in who you are now? Should we even dig that deep? Should the audience know what you're thinking via V.O.? Or is better that you're seen rather than heard? If you are relatively famous locally- what with your commercials and the 800 number -how do you get away with seducing high school girls all the time? Snakeboy wasn't much of a talker tonight, which ironically, is the direction I've been leaning with him. Make him more reserved, quiet. More introspective. I wish he would let me know. But, rather than be a civil fake person and talk to me, he instead flooded my subconscious with vivid frames from some future-finished-film. I could see the aquariums stacked to the ceiling. I knew every piece of flotsam and jetsam that was strewn around his trailer. The Snake Pit. I saw what he had in his refrigerator. Saw the genius work of carpentry that was the sliding system of wood boxes out back where he raises his own rats. Saw that he sleeps on a foldout couch-bed in the living room because the master bedroom was turned into a giant cobra enclosure. I can see what is tantalizing about it all. I know that the snakes make him sexy, the way wit or football or a guitar makes people sexy. I'm seeing this guy, his priorities, his passions. I'm just not hearing him yet.

Maybe he'll talk to me tomorrow. I've got five more hours on the stool.

2004-05-21T05:14:00.000-04:00

This picture proves one thing. That through the teachings of Christian Stella, anyone can put a picture on their blog.

It also proves how silly one can look at the exact moment a snake strikes their face.

p.s. --the blogadillo is back

p.p.s.-I'm the blogadillo.

2004-05-19T03:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight, Randy Johnson, the 6 foot 10 inch, 40 year-old, 100mph fireball hurling southpaw for the Arizona Diamondbacks pitched a perfect game. Became the oldest pitcher in history to do it. Only the 17th perfect game ever. Did I mention that it was against my Braves? First time the Atlanta Braves have ever been on the shit end of a perfect game. They haven't even been no-hit since '79. He K'd 13 batters and had the Atlanta crowd cheering for him by the ninth.

Congratulations Mr. Johnson.

p.s.-- Christian is a surgeon, his hands deep in the electronic organs of my computer. Something is way wrong with it, has been for days, which is why my posts and posting schedule have been scrambled eggs as of late.

I'll be back on track soon. I have much faith in the good doctor.

2004-05-17T03:21:00.000-04:00

Travis is this loopy gorilla of a man. A drunken tycoon with a straw hat, slip-on shoes and a flask in the pocket of his Bermuda shorts. He'll be 48 next Sunday. He scratches constantly at the salt&pepper scruff on his throat while he tells me his tales. How he used to know a waitress at a country club in Greensboro, North Carolina, and she used to steal tons of pick&peel shrimp and champagne for them. They would drive around in her boat of a buick, "nigger-lipping" a bottle of bubbly and chomping shrimp cocktails. One time, they ran out of gas on the way to Raleigh. They hitched a ride in an 18-wheeler, but his waitress friend had to gobble cock for the ride. That was his grabbing life by the balls, the way his grandma always told him to.

"Have you been to the Maritime Aquarium yet?," he asks. Not yet. "OHhhh. My favorite is the jellyfish tank. I popped three hits of ecstasy and went down there... I smoked a little weed too. And they've got this 48inch diameter tank that goes from the floor to the ceiling with at least 100 jellyfish in there. And I just watched them move around, it was awesome."

Travis's grandmother said, "Life is lived forward and understood backward. "

This guy is a drunkard strunkard. He has ended up at the Brewhouse because he walked out of Van Helsing ten minutes in. Got bored of it, decided he'd come over and work on his buzz. From my stool his buzz is good and worked on, and on top of oohing and ahhing every car that goes by --because he's auto shopping-- he also makes lewd remarks about every woman behind every wheel. Be her short tall skinny fat young or old, Travis, with his light fluffy voice and his big washed-up movie mogul-lookin head, has something to say about her. About what he'd like to do to her. He's kind enough, but an obnoxious drunk, which is the kind I'd like to flatten. He points and yells at everyone pulling in, talking over me doing my stupid job, confusing people and making an ass of himself. The cherry to top the ass-cake is when he goes to physically stop a car pulling into the parking lot, and clomps a huge leathery foot right down on top of my glass of tea, shattering it into a puddle and a thousand slivers underneath me.

He tells me he's thinking about getting a Vespa, because he drinks a lot and he doesn't want to drive drunk. He says he likes to be discreet about what he does for a living, and then tells me that he designs clothes for Elton John. For Prince, and some other people he can't really say. He says even their measurements are contractually top secret. He says Elton's a good friend, and that he'll be going out on a boat with him for his birthday next Sunday.

Happy Birthday Travis the Drunken Liar.

His grandmother always told him to go after something in life that he cared enough about to do for free.

Travis the Drunkard Strunkard Tycoon's grandma, was cool.

2004-05-15T03:00:00.000-04:00

Tonight I dropped Jimmy off in SoNo on my way in to work. This was 5pm he started drinking. At eight he wanders into my peripheral, up to me on my parking lot stool. I know he's drunk because he stands two steps closer than sober people stand to someone they're conversing with. You know, in the bubble. My bubble. And two steps closer means the alcohol molecules dancing in his breath don't have to travel so far to permeate my face. After he tells me one story three ways he ambles back down the street for two more hours of boozing. Two more hours til ten, when I'm off. At ten I decide I'll go have a few drinks with the girls. Jimmy's game.

In the Rattlesnake bar&grill, Jimmy shoulders his way deep into the people like a headstrong sperm. I don't go to bars to drink. I go to socialize, I drink to make the socializing easier. Allison, Jessie and I set up shop and start drinking. Start socializing. Allison is big on humbleness. Which basically means she'll cock her eyebrows at you if you say you're good at anything. Where most girls appreciate a little confidence, Allison tunes out the accomplishments of others. I'm no psychologist, but my connect-the-dots skills are fairly honed from years of Highlights magazine; and I'm willing to bet that it has something to do with the fact that she sees herself at The Brewhouse, "Forever." I don't conclusion-jump, this is over a month of conversations. Allison drinks more than all the other waitresses combined. She knows all the tenders at all the bars, and she stares like she's gazing through a wormhole at herself doing the same thing ten years in the future. It's sad. She's a smart, personable, attractive girl. All she offers by way of advice is, "What are you going to do if you're not an actor?" She smiles when she talks about her hollow future. Allison looks down on confidence because she has none. And I don't mean in herself, as a woman. In fact, she is attractive because of her confidence. She has an air about her, this soft, strong voice that almost makes her intimidating. As far as aspirations go though, she acts like my father. Like she's 47 and that's quitting time. Roll up the carpet, throw in the towel. It's ridiculous. And each time I go out with her, I leave with more of an edge for next time. What she doesn't know is she isn't changing me, or scaring me. Making me worry about my career. She's in fact, making me ecstatic that the least that I have are dreams. Dreams I have made steps to achieve.

One of the beer taps is a crystal ball with a rattlesnake head in it. Down the shaft it just says, VENOM. I tell the bartender I'll have "some of that VENOM shit." It's caramel color. Dark like strong tea. I hate dark beer. halfway through it Allison tells me that they don't make the Venom Ale anymore. That there used to be a string of Rattlesnake pubs, and that Venom Ale was their signature draft. Once the chain started dying they stopped making the beer. It's now just a fancy rattlesnake tap connected to a fat keg of Sam Adams. I don't like dark beer, but I could choke it down easier when it had venom in the name. You know, snakes and all.

Jimmy charges back up through the people, disappears outside. Allison darts out for a smoke and I'm left with a hostess I've seen a thousand times and never spoken to. I don't even have a guess at what her name is. She's very sweet though, so I chit and chat, buy her a drink. Some guy's girl spills wine on my leather jacket; I had it draped over a chair. I go to smile and say don't worry about it. But he offers to buy me a drink. So I take it. When it becomes clear Allison isn't coming back I say goodnight to go find Jimmy.

I head over to O'Neils, an Irish pub I think he may have gone to because of the live music. No Jimmy, but the place is nice. I should start going there. A good crowd. Good sized place.

A bum fakes interest in the book I'm holding so's he can scam a couple bucks. Don't ask why I'm carrying David Sedaris's, Holidays on Ice around on a bar hop. I decide to leave Jimmy. He knows I am his ride, why would he just take off without telling me?

In the dark of the parking lot I make out a weird mass on the hood of my car. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?" I scream at the corpse. No breath, no movement, no reaction. THEN, he suddenly starts to life. Looks every which way but at me to figure out where the voice came from, and then trips and stumbles around to get to the passenger door.

"I knew you'd show up here." He slurs.

"Of course I would, it's my car."

He throws up in the bushes.

2004-05-13T15:17:00.000-04:00

Van Helsing was a turd. A 200 million dollar turd. I forgive you Hugh Jackman. But that's it, NO ONE ELSE GETS MY FORGIVENESS! You all pissed in your 200 million dollar beds, now you can all go lie in them.

That's as meaty a review as I can muster. I am doing so little that I have nothing to write about. Nothing to say.

Just waiting to work.

2 hours, 15 minutes and counting.

2004-05-11T04:00:00.000-04:00

When my father was a kid, so many kids would show up at the sandlot after school to play baseball that they had to play two games simultaneously. Just too many kids. In stark contrast to that, my friends and I, over many years, honed and perfected the rules to a Tennisball baseball game that would retain the excitement, intelligence, and competitiveness of baseball, but could be played by a total of three people. Not because we were antisocial, but because thisday&age there are more fat kids sitting on couches playing baseball with their thumbs than there are kids willing to get sweaty and dirty. It was a game fashioned out of neccessity, one that could be scaled down to accomodate nearly any size arena. But it found its legacy in the three combined fenceless yards that came to be known as Shep Nation Field.

The game became a weird crux of our friendship. No matter time, distance, change, even feuds that seemed relationship crippling; we somehow always ended up back under the outfield oaks. Trying to curve a seamless Penn, or Dunlop. Swinging for the leaves. Because we smashed more roundtrippers than anyone ever privilaged to play the game with us, we dubbed ourselves The Bash Brothers. A wittingly egotistical title that somehow transcended its cheese and came to exemplify a large chunk of my young adult life. Before I moved away, we danced among the cacti one last time. And when the game was over, we buried a baseball bat under home plate. Baby Blue, we had called the aluminum Easton for so many years; she had finally lost her "POP," which resulted in a lot of lazy fly balls. A lot of doink basehits that felt nasty off the bat, in our hands. I ad libbed a eulogy as she was lowered into the long narrow pit that had been dug between the batter's boxes. We sang the George Strait song she was named after and each dropped a clod of dirt on her sad blue body before covering her up. It was comical, and strangely serious...

SO WHEN JOEY AND CHANDLER HAD TO DEMOLISH THEIR FOOSBALL TABLE IN THE SERIES FINALE OF FRIENDS, it provided yet another superlative example of why the show was so important to me. Relatability. They each took a moment, and with heavy hearts said some kind parting words; it was comical, yet strangely serious. It was the end of an era.

FRIENDS, like the grunge-rock movement of the early 90's, started a few years too early for me. Or I was born too late. The romantic fiascos of a bunch of twentysomethings was hardly so relatable at 12. Even 13, 14. 15 even. Then however, comes the symbiotic mesh of social intelligence, relationships with more weight than a recess together in the big cement tube, and syn-di-fuckin-cation .

I dove right into the middle, into non-linear reruns that muddled the storyline. One night Ross was gonna drink the fat for Rachel. The next he was planning a marriage to some weird-Brittish-Emily-girl. Monica was all up in Tom Selleck. Then the next week she was secretly fucking Chandler. There were all these weird boyfriends. There was Paolo. And Tag. There was, "I Ross, take thee Rachel..." There was, "WE WERE ON A BREAK!" It didn't matter the order, I became enthralled in their sensibilities. In their idiosyncrasies, in what made them people instead of joke spraying robots. Seinfeld, was fucking funny. But I couldn't have cared less whether any of those characters lived or died. Themselves, and all of their countless relationships were vehicles for Jerry Seinfeld's jokes. Walking punchlines. That's not to say that Seinfeld was not an absolutely brilliant show, it was. No doubt about it. But my gravitation to FRIENDS was in its heart. In its relatability. I use my humor as a means of fitting in, like Chandler. I invent overcomplicated games and put an inordinate amount of emotional stake in winning them, like Joey. I have been in love, and dedicated a great deal of my life to someone as perfect and strange for me as Rachel is for Ross. (Plus I've always been a dinosaur geek.) FRIENDS was a soap opera. A soap opera with talented actors, great characters and intelligent witty writing.

After a time, of 6 and 6:30pm on the WB, of 7 on TBS watching random episodes, I just had to know how they'd all gotten where they were. I dished out 65.95 for the complete first season of FRIENDS, and 70 bones don't come easy to J-Remmy. At a big fat lonely low point in my life, I watched all 11 hours in a weekend. Nothing outside of a movie theater had ever made me forget, or not worry, so much. Two days ago, in a moment of monetary weakness I bought Friends: Season 7. It was in response to a silly day before, Friday, when I moped around feeling strangely empty because of the day before that. Thursday.

The day the TV died.

I have -gay as it may be to admit- from the pilot on, over 150 consecutive episodes of FRIENDS. I've seen them all, in order. I know their pets and parents and pasts. The series finale was no more or less funny than any of the "serious" episodes. The ones with weddings or births. I laughed the way I do every Thursday night; every 26 seconds or so, give or take. It had its highlights, it had its problems. Monica got her baby(ies). And Rachel got off the plane. That was all we were owed after ten years. It needn't be any more spectacular than any episode before it. They were all pretty amazing. It just needed to wrap things up. There was never a worry that the friends would have to go away to college, that they would graduate and the show would change locations and suck. They weren't entangled in a complicated web of espionage that would have grown tiresome after five years. All they had to do, was grow up. The show followed a natural, predictable timeline, and ended exactly when it should have. When they all grew up. And it was a little sad. It reminds us that we will too. Grow up, get older. That you can't play fireball in the house or own a big white ceramic dog forever. FRIENDS built such an enviable reality. One where an incredible dynamic of people get one another through the ups and downs of their crazy fucking 20's. Through the muddled bullshit that is being twentysomething. So much bullshit has been written on the FRIENDS phenomenon in general, but especially of late, that there is no resource untapped. No angle un-covered. I am rambling, coming to grips with the fact I don't really have the words to explain it. I have put off writing this for days, expecting a revelation, a hook to my goodbye.

All I've got is that I truly loved all six characters, cared about them like they were real.

The show was perfectly relatable, endlessly funny. And hopelessly romantic.

So...

Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, Monica, Ross, Rachel...

Thanks. You really had an impact on my life.

P.S. --I've since caught up on all that grunge I missed too.

2004-05-07T04:15:00.000-04:00

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.

2004-05-05T17:28:00.000-04:00

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.

2004-05-04T23:35:00.000-04:00

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.

2004-05-04T23:21:00.000-04:00

"'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.

2004-05-04T01:31:00.000-04:00

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.

2004-05-04T00:23:00.000-04:00

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."

2004-05-03T03:23:00.000-04:00

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.

2004-05-01T16:14:00.000-04:00

Last night Natalie called me.
She had had a couple drinks in some club with James, Rick, and Rich.
From Finger Eleven.
James said, "Were you in The Robert Cake?"
"Yes! I was!"
"I thought I recognized your face."
Back at their bus she had a couple more beers.
The Robert Cake is in his dvd collection.
He loves movies like that.
His favorite scene was the cake-eating scene.
He fucking loves Adam Wekarski.
He wants to get ahold of a copy of The Bags.

All of this is 100% true.

My favorite band in the whole fat world has not only seen one of my movies, but keeps it in the collection, and- paid enough attention to recognize someone from it.

Sorry Gene Wilder. You were overshadowed.

2004-04-30T05:36:00.000-04:00

I think relating to Friends, the way I do, really laughing and crying with it, finding parallels to my life and assigning characters on the show to people I know is like believing that a Coldplay song, or a cut off the Jagged Little Pill record is 100% YOU. And what sucks is I don't know when or even why that became such a bad thing.

I am smart enough to know that being personally affected by something that sends the same shivers up 20 million other spines is frowned upon. I know, I giggle a little when a teenage girl weeps singing a Britney Spears song. Connecting with something so obviously marketed at the masses makes sheep of us. A majority for the pretentious minority to scoff at.

So what though. They took six charming twentysomethings, and filled their heads, hearts and mouths with the same trials and tribulations that twentysomethings have. Granted, they were caricatured conflicts, but that was to make sure we would laugh. And laugh I have. Wonder and hope and wish I have.

Bottom line. Friends is a FUNNY FUCKING SHOW. Friends is a show with a heart the size of a turkey. Bottom line -even below the previous bottom line- when I watch Friends... it makes me think of my friends. In every state in the union there are groups of weird people who have, from different places, somehow ended up close to one another.

And they watch the show.

And one of them is just soooo, Phoebe. And that's just how it is.

And fuck it I'm Ross. That doesn't mean I'm being spoonfed my thoughts or feelings. It doesn't mean I'm a paleontologist or that I'm thrice divorced. It means that there is a character on a really great show that I've become invested in. Because he does things, and says things, and enjoys things, and has to deal with things... that I do. And I don't care that there are a couple million other Rosses out there. Guys who do, and say, and enjoy, and have to deal with, the same. stupid. shit. BAAaaaaaaa goes the sheep.

Which Friend are you?

2004-04-28T19:31:00.000-04:00

The beach in Norwalk is sans sand. Replacing 50% of what makes a beach a beach is grass and rocks and crabs. Perfectly camouflaged crabs, twinkletoeing out of the sudden sun when you lift up their roof rock.

You have no idea how happy I was to see an animal that wasn't a dog or cat or bird.

Also there are huge welded steel sculptures.

Christian thought one looked like a dragon with its mouth agape, holding a cell phone.

Christian thinks that kind of art is garbage. Big metal litter.

I think before they start hauling car-sized hunks of metal from some doober's garage out to the beach, they should consider hauling in some fucking

S A N D ! ! !

2004-04-28T02:51:00.000-04:00

Every now and again, when Universal decides to drop a Cleveland Steamer onto the Tremors franchise in the form of another straight-to-video shlock-fest, I get an email with a bold subject line that says...

TREMORS FAN PAGE UPDATE!

I got one today. It speaks for itself...

Dear Tremors Fans,

Now that Tremors 4: The Legend Begins has been released in the UK it is time for one more special release; the release of the Tremors 4 bicycle. We have the actual bicycle ridden by Michael Gross in the film and it begins a 10 day eBay auction on Tuesday April 27th. Included is a 5x7 photo of Michael Gross riding the bicycle. This photo has been personally autographed by Michael Gross specifically for this auction.

This is a rare opportunity to own a high profile Tremors item that you would be proud to ride around the neighborhood for years to come.

The word Tremors now officially looks made up. I just stared at it for three minutes like it was ancient Sanskrit.

ps-- There is a Godzilla movie coming on called, Godzilla Vs. Space Godzilla. I swear.

2004-04-28T02:02:00.000-04:00

"GUYS love Philly Cheesesteak. GUYS love Domino's Pizza. THAT'S WHY Domino's created the new Philly Cheesesteak Pizza."

translation:

FUCK YOU WOMEN! You are a pizza-eating demographic we could give a fuck about.

Domino's: Thank you for calling Domino's Pizza, how can I help you?
Woman: Yes, do you have the new Philly Cheesesteak Pizza?
Domino's: We sure do, but not for you.
Woman: Excuse me?
Domino's: Look this is not Curves For Women, ma'am, this is not The Cheesecake Factory, this is a pizza place. We do not cater to the tragically dickless. So why don't you just go eat some fucking ice cream and cry about it. Cunt.
::CLICK::

Maybe that is why the Domino's Pizza chain has receded into dollar-store dominated strip malls and bat caves, they neglect nearly half of the pizza-eating country.

My suggestion... Salad Pizza. With a shitload of Ranch dressing-

OKAY -I just looked down, and one of those godforsakenfuckinspiders was hanging from my elbow, it swooped down at my feet on its silken cable and disappeared. Now I have the willies. See, I wasn't afraid when it was dangling from me; only when it vanished.

2004-04-28T00:13:00.000-04:00

Spiders don't want to bite me, what they really want is to be my exterminator. They want the dark hollows of my room that attract little bugs. And my insistence on not killing spiders has reached superstitious heights. I believe that the entire arachnid population knows me, knows I'll go out of my way to toss them outside rather than shoe-smash them or send them surfing into the sewer via toilet flush. And my respect has not fallen on deaf spider ears; I don't kill them, they don't bite me.

I do however have acute webophobia. Because when you walk through a spider web, that means there is an unaccounted for spider. I fear the absence of spiders. When you know they are close, but you don't see them. They could dance across my face while I'm asleep -and they probably do- and so long as I don't know, so long as I don't wake up with baby spiders erupting from one of my tear ducts, we're cool. Me and spiders.

One just scuttled across my computer and onto my pocket dinosaur book. I picked it up and hollered for Christian to come with his camera because I wanted to put an eight-eyed face to our eight legged roomies.

That little bugger sat still on the edge of that book through forty clicks of the shutter. Through location changes for better light, through flashes I can only imagine equate to a kaleidoscopic sun exploding in its face. He earned getting tossed out onto the back steps.

Of course I'm sure he slipping back inside as I write this.

2004-04-27T03:13:00.000-04:00

I really believe that if anyone reads this, that its just a spill over from Christian's blog. So you'd be surprised how much I battle with what I'm going to write, and how I'm going to write it. For instance, Christian and I get home today and it's unspoken, we both head for our blogs.

I mention nothing of the 60 mile there-and-back trip to Arby's.

He mention's nothing of the book sale.

Funny, since each was more important to the other.

So see if I am to write of the Arby's excursion, it has to be fresh. It has to be... Market Fresh, like their delicious sandwiches, or everyone's just gonna see the word Arby's and go "Bah!, Arby's is old hat."

The long and short of it is, Arby's was a staple of my diet for the last year, for a lot of years actually, but this last year in particular. It was a minute and a half from my bedroom and eleven seconds from my place of work. Now it's over thirty miles away. 30 miles of twisting roads peppered with brooks, and bogs, and Sleepy Hollow-old graveyards.

Today we went. Today I tasted my last year for the first time in two months.

It tasted real good.

I could fucking drink me some Arby's sauce.

2004-04-27T02:58:00.000-04:00

So I did see 13 Going on 30. And aside from the fact that I could have written it with my dick, it was cute. Being an Alias fan from episode numero uno I felt I owed it to Jennifer to watch her try and carry her first major motion picture. And she did, carried it around like a purse. Some accessory you don't even notice because you're blinded by her smile.

Every week, that girl kicks ass, gets her ass kicked, sheds some tears, gets bloodied and bruised and emotionally walloped.

And here she is being goofy and thirteen and clumsy and perfect.

Jennifer Garner SPRAYS talent.

ps- Mark Ruffalo is cool.

2004-04-26T19:01:00.000-04:00

Nine Stories --J.D. Salinger
Wuthering Heights --Emily Bronte
Les Miserables --Victor Hugo
The Crucible --Arthur Miller
Walden --Henry David Thoreau
Billy Budd --Herman Melville
Moby Dick --Herman Melville
Gulliver's Travels --Jonathon Swift
Pygmalion --Bernard Shaw
Long Day's Journey Into Night -- Eugene O'Neill
Beowulf
Animal Farm --George Orwell
A Tale of Two Cities --Charles Dickens
The Inferno --Dante
Romeo + Juliet --William Shakespeare
Hamlet --William Shakespeare
Justine --Marquis De Sade
Franny and Zooey --J.D. Salinger

Why do I list so many familiar titles from the annals of world literature? Because today was bag day at the Norwalk Public Library's annual book sale. I put every one of those books into a crumpled Wal-Mart bag, and paid an old man two dollars for all of them.

All of them. 2 Bucks.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's bookshelf-space consolidation time.

2004-04-25T20:04:00.001-04:00

Day Two: The Kinkage Continues.

I'm dealing with a weird kind of paralyzation. I have lost mobility from my head all the way down to... my shoulders. Which means to look in either direction, I need some fancy footwork. I've got to pivot on the balls of my feet, forty-five-degreeing my way around the world. And I can't dance to save Christmas.

This morning, I had to Frankenstein omelets and burgers out to people, walking like a tree if trees walked. All rigid and wooden. I wish I would have been allowed to act like a robot, making mechanical squeaking sounds when my elbows or knees bent; beeping, "Here. Is. Your. Western. Omelet. Ma'am," in my finest mathematical accent. At least then I could have played off the taut bundle of nerves that have my trapezius muscles scrunched into a perpetual state of shrug.

I was pirouetting around the kitchen all day, waffle-frying this, orange-slice & parsleying that, trying to get around explaining to my Mexican commrades what was wrong with me. Why I had no peripheral vision.

I am the exact opposite of a bobblehead doll.

2004-04-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

Having a kink in your neck is the exact opposite of being an owl. And I am the King of neck kinks. Also the Queen of cold sores. Those two shit-ass things I deal with chronically. If it's not one, then the other; monthly. Like a woman. Don't mess with me today, I am on my neck kink.

People whisper, wondering what's up with Jeremy, why is he walking like Frankenstein, turning his whole body to look at something.

In Walgreens a woman happened down to the end of an aisle and her eyes startled wide, flashed at me. I was twisting and stretching, trying to seperate the pinched nerve, the muscle, from the knobby bones of my spine. My arms were up and behind me, my bottom jaw was jutting out, jarred out of alignment. She probably thought I was turning into a werewolf.

Don't worry ma'am, it's just that time of the month again.

2004-04-23T21:24:00.000-04:00

So since Christian was throwing around comment engines I hollered, "Hey, throw me one of those bitches," in the hope that it would ingnite a comment engine fire in this little ring of blogs we have.

I'm tired of starting a conversation, "Did you know that- well wait, did you read my blog?" So now, everyone can tell me how much they love Wildboyz too. And if everyone follows suit, I can tell Anthony his attention to political detail flirts with frightening. I can tell Ryan to actually post something. I can leave cutesy comments on Adam's entries like a mother slipping a note into her kid's sack lunch.

Anyhoo, it's all about opening up the communication here. If even a little bit. I hope it catches on.

I miss all my friends.

2004-04-22T23:52:00.000-04:00

We went to Stew Leonard's today. You may have seen it on Ripley's Believe It...Or Not., believe it or not. I happen to NOT believe it, since it's just a grocery store with dancing, singing animatronic milk cartons and shit, but none-the-less it is known the world over.

Christian and his goddam coffee led me into the Coffee Cul-De-Sac. It was here, that the putrid scent of death permeated my nostrils. I don't know if it was a hybrid of some french hazelnut thing, the scented candles on an end cap, and the wiry pit hair of the black guy stocking the milk. It could have been the Kenyan vanilla roast, the sourdough rising in the bakery and all the milling shoppers' stinky assholes combined. Whatever smell it was, my nostrils are now saturated with it, and every dozen breaths or so, the dirt/coffee/shit smell fills my nose again...

and I want to wretch all over my own face to make it go away.

2004-04-22T19:45:00.000-04:00

Quentin Tarrantino loves Uma Thurman's feet. And Juliette Lewis'. Probably has a thing for female feet in general, which is a fetish I am not ashamed to be afflicted with as well. The cutaways of Uma's toes, the close-ups of her knobby footsies as she wills them awake in the first volume, the eyeball popping under her big toe in volume two. She wears open-toed sandals with her wedding dress. Uma is a tall drink of water, her arms and legs, the features of her face, her hair; her fingers and toes are all slightly exaggerated. She's long and wispy, she stands like a stretched shadow. She's gorgeous. And I believe every wince of pain, every huff of breath, every tear that kicks down her face. I can't think of another actress who could have pulled The Bride off the way Uma did, and I wouldn't have said that beforehand. I think Quentin Tarrantion is a little bit smitten with Uma Thurman. And after Kill Bill Vol. 2, I join him there as well.

My attention to Feetail aside, there is nothing I can say about the film that hasn't been said. The first one was Samurai. The Second was Spaghetti western. The first one was steeped with exploitative violence. The second was fueled by maternal instinct. The first was 96% build-up. The second, was what all the fuss was about.

If they had been cut together as one, I would have loved the film as a dual-genre epic. Separate, Volume 1 was fun; but Volume 2., was why I go to the movies. Volume 2., was funderful.

And that's not a mix of fun and wonderful.

That's Fucking Wonderful.

2004-04-21T00:40:00.000-04:00

Yo yo. Listen up. Later this year, Duncan, will release a $400 yo-yo.

A forged-magnesium-alloy, ultralong-spinning yo-yo with state-of-the-art axle and bearing technology. "Its balance is ensured with precision tooling to micrometer tolerances by a computer-controlled lathe." It will be called, The Freehand Mg.

2004-04-19T21:28:00.000-04:00

Rosehill, Virginia. On Easter Sunday one of them holier than thou idiot ministers who drink strychnine and dance with handfuls of vipers was bitten by a rattlesnake during the morning service. He refused medical treatment, instead relying on the Lord to protect him. Well he died.

Happy Easter, dead minister's family.

2004-04-19T21:11:00.000-04:00

This guy points at me, right at my chest in Stop&Shop, some middle-aged guy pushing a month's worth of groceries. He says, "You and I are the only people who have the balls to wear that shirt."

My shirt says...

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." --Groucho Marx.

A great quote, but requiring very little ball juice. I bring my balls along when I wear the shirt that has a soldier, eyes ablaze, rifle muzzle flaming. It says, "I'd rather be killing terrorists."