No, YOU’RE on Notice!

6/30/06

A grave injustice has this day been done, ladies and gentlemen. Your intrepid man about town yours truly has been accosted. Oh not by physical means, never think it. Who would be foolhardy enough to try and lay hands upon my imposing 5’5”, slightly pale physique? No, dear readers, this was an injustice visited upon me in written form.

I came out of work today to find the following slapped under the windshield wiper of my vehicle:

What the devil is going on here? Leaving the sort of sad, dollar-store nature of leaving a pre-printed rant that wasn’t even funny when it was invented forty years ago, the accusation was wholly unwarranted! Any of you who know me are aware that I am a very conscientious and considerate driver, even when it comes to parking. After reading this libel I even got out of my vehicle and inspected my placement in the space. Perhaps I made some error when I pulled into work this morning, I posited. Perhaps I was driving to work with my eyes closed and therefore missed the giant yellow lines painted on the sidewalk. Perhaps I parked on top of a human being. Who knew what could have happened?

Nothing of the sort. As per usual, I was well within the lines on either side, offering hundreds of gallons of open space for someone pulling in alongside. Now I was confused. What the devil was going on here? I can only come up with a few explanations, and I’m not really satisfied with any of them.

1. Whoever left the note was insane. Having just escaped from a minimum security booby hatch, they stole someone’s wallet, bought a shitty stocking-stuffer gift from Spencer’s Gifts, and just went hog wild papering the cars of innocent human beings.

2. While at work, someone hotwired my car, parked it like an asshole, got “ticketed”, then moved the car back. I must say this is the least likely scenario.

3. Someone who works in my office and knows me is fucking with me. Possessing no actual original thought or talent, they merely took the curiously inapplicable action of complaining about my parking in the most passive-aggressive, ass way possible. This one is the most likely, in my mind.

4. The person really believed I had parked in an unacceptable manner. Maybe they were on LSD, I dunno.

It’s fairly obvious from the bubbly, looping handwriting that a woman was responsible for this heinous act; either that or the most effeminate male on the planet. Perhaps Carson from Queer Eye ticketed my car. This doesn’t go a long way toward narrowing down the suspects, but at least if worse comes to worse I can spare the males from a desperate, blanket-revenge on all the females in the office.

Oh, and don’t think it didn’t escape my attention that she wrote “Crappy” under the model of car. Nice. Not only is some loony broad giving out erroneous fake tickets, but she’s insulting the aesthetics of my primary mode of transport as well. Actually, that was the only kinda funny part of the whole debacle.

Mexican Tricks of the Trade

6/28/06

I just thought I’d take this opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to throw out some random information for those of you who have never been, or might be thinking of, visiting our Mexican brothers and sisters to the south. Also, there’s some just plain funny crap that happened to me while I was down there with my girlfriend, her roommate and her friend. You’re welcome.

None of us spoke Spanish, of course, since most English-speaking people view learning a foreign tongue somewhat like buying volcano insurance in Massachusetts. Two languages? Why on earth would anyone want that filling up their head? Everyone speaks English, right? – is I guess what we’re thinking. Fortunately, in Cancun this is pretty much the truth. I took French in high school, don’t ask me why; there are a limited number of Frenchmen on the ground here in the States. But it’s not as if Spanish is the hardest language to pick up; even accidentally it’s almost impossible not to pick up six or seven phrases.

By the end of the trip I was rattling off gracias and de nada and uno mas like…well, like a white guy very pleased with the way he can pronounce 5 words of Spanish. Incidentally, did you know that the best way to learn to say “gracias” (thank you) properly is to pronounce the “c” like a “th”? Give it a try. Oh, and another good tip for faking another language, slur your words just a touch. It gives you the air of casualness while mildly masking the fact that you gleaned the information by flipping through a guidebook in the lavatory.

If you’re going to exchange your dollars for pesos, wait until you’re in-country to do it. Believe it or not the best exchange rate can be found in the little kiosk-like things dotting the landscape of the streets. Most everyone will take American cash, and the street vendors usually prefer it. As one fellow with a staggeringly amazing grasp of the English language put it, “Eh, pesos are fine, but I’d rather have In God We Trust.” Good stuff. The only places that may not take dollars are the convenience stores. I don’t know this for sure, but I had exchanged a few hundred dollars into pesos because the money is colorful and it made me feel like I had more than I did due to the exchange rate. Said exchange rate is a nice one; approximately 10 pesos for every dollar, which makes it easy to figure out how much stuff costs when listed in pesos; you just move the decimal one jump to the left and bingo!

I hardly think the simple fact that a person leaves their ocean-wet swim trunks in a plastic bag for the better part of an entire day is cause for ridicule. Was it foolhardy? Sure. Did I end up throwing the trunks away because they smelled like a catfish’s vagina? Yes. Even so, I do not believe the simple fact that it did not occur to me that my trunks would mildew at alarming speed in the heat and humidity of a tropical region is cause for one’s girlfriend to mock and laugh at them. Even the smartest individual has idiotic lapses sometimes. I once saw her take upwards of twenty minutes to dice a medium-sized tomato with a paring knife. Take that, Ms. Your-trunks-make-me-want-to-projectile-vomit!

Near our hotel was a bar which had live music from a Mexican band every night. The band was Mexican in ethnicity only; they played the same contemporary play list for Baby Boomers that you can hear at any wedding. There’s something decidedly surreal about going for ice and hearing “Hard Day’s Night” sung with a Spanish accent in front of a large, orange edifice with “Tom Cruise’s Cocktail Was Filmed Here” emblazoned on the front.

Just across the street from the bar was a wide corridor which led to the next street over and more clubs and bars. This alley, fronted on both sides by bars, restaurants, tattoo parlors, hair braiding and tourist merchandise, was a main pedestrian thoroughfare and was always kicking, no matter the time of day or night. Anytime I walked down this street I was invariably offered drugs in a very amusing way. Some dude with a big smile would walk directly up to me and say, “Hey, you need drugs?” They’re very to the point down there, I find. Sometimes the pitch was more specific: “Hey, you want some smoke (pot/weed) or coke?” I have since heard anecdotal evidence that the blow in Cancun is really primo stuff, so perhaps I should have had a sampler, but the idea of either getting baking soda up my nose or being incarcerated in a Mexican hooskow didn’t seem worth the risk. Remember, kids, always know your dealer.

The strangest thing about this was that the girls were never offered drugs. Yet anytime I was more than ten feet away from them I would turn around to find a grinning man willing to light up the pleasure center of my brain with illicit substances. Do I just look like I am desperately in need of narcotics? Maybe it’s just the fact that I was a white male in my twenties; bread-n-butter for partying in Cancun. Maybe the machismo of the culture figures women don’t have any interest in that kind of thing, or they simply don’t wish to deal with them; I dunno. All I do know is that if you want drugs, just be white, male and young and go walk around for awhile.
There was one incident in particular that deviated slightly from the norm. One of the times I was wandering about alone a guy came up and offered me drugs, as per usual, and I responded “No, gracias.” I was getting quite good at that by that point, having said the damn phrase no less than seventy times a day to maybe the most savagely aggressive vendors in the world. Seriously, these guys should work telemarketing. At any rate, I refused and he nodded and then said, “You want to go to a strip club? I’ve got a coupon, get you in 20% off; VIP!”

“Oh, no thanks,” I said. “I’m here with my girlfriend, so…”

Without missing a beat he said, “Yeah, but you can get away, right?” and gave me a little wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Somehow I managed to keep from soiling myself at the hilariousness of this response, kindly thanked him no, and wandered back to the hotel.

On the way back I was propositioned by a lady of the evening. I turned that down, too. In relationship parlance, if a strip club is a firecracker, fucking a Mexican hooker is the goddamn hydrogen bomb.

Cancun Clipper Club - 6/8/06 - 11:52 pm

As Anthony Bourdain has said, “be a traveler, not a tourist.” The latter puts one in mind of a 1960’s dad, clad in tiny little shorts, sporting a huge camera and sun block on his bald spot, bellowing that everyone has to pile into the station wagon (sans A/C) because if they don’t get going right now they’ll miss seeing The World’s Largest Ball of Twine or some other piece of roadside kitsch on the way to WallyWorld.

Sitting there on the couch, toasting my television with whatever random poison I happened to be sipping on, I wholeheartedly agreed and joined my surly TV personality friend in heaping distain and pity upon those unenlightened fools who pony up to a counter and purchase tickets in order to see their vacation of choice from the window of a tour bus. So imagine my surprise whenever I found myself suggesting that we take an all-inclusive tour to natural aquarium and park Xel-Ha (pronounced SHELL-ha) and the Mayan ruins of Tulum. I blame the sun, cigarettes and tequila.

It seemed like a good idea; I challenge anyone to o to the Xel-Ha website and not come away thinking “free booze, snorkeling and site-seeing at the Tulum coastal ruins? What god did I please?” The advantages of taking a tour bus are that you can drink as much as you want without worry about driving, you don’t have to brave the slalom-like lane changes of Mexican traffic, and no worries about getting lost. Sure, there’s not much chance of anything surprising or interesting happening, but you’ve also got the safety factor. As a lone, rather unimpressive member of the male species traveling with 3 females, this was not an insignificant factor. Oh, and should your bus be modern enough to be outfitted with video equipment, you get the delight of watching quality films such as Sky High. Kurt Russell was a delight. (On a side note did Russell sign like a lifetime contract with Disney? Seriously, the dude has been doing their pictures since he was like 8 years old. . . .)

The disadvantages? Well, aside from the negative bragging rights about how you braved the great unknown and nonexistent possibility for getting off the beaten path, there’s the fact that you’re shackled to the tour’s schedule if you expect to avoid hitchhiking back, and you sort of feel like you have to do everything possible in order to get your money’s worth.

For example, we boarded our very comfortable, air-conditioned super bus at 8 a.m. for the 1 ½ hour ride to Xel-Ha. However, after road delays and time schedule instructions, we actually got into the park proper around 10:45. Not too bad, except that we had to be back on the bus at 2:50. Having 4 hours at this place is something akin to cruising past the Grand Canyon in a turbo-charged golf cart driven by a coked-up madman, just screaming and holding on for dear life as rocks and sky whizzes by at dizzying speeds. As you might imagine, it’s difficult to enjoy the sheer pleasure of the place with a clock ticking like some psychotic game show countdown.

Our main point of interest at Xel-Ha was the snorkeling which boasts such cool aspects as swimming into an aquatic cave and sticking yourself smack in the middle of a swarm of fish the size of motorcycles as people stand up on a bridge throwing food just to make sure the fish stay at peak frenzy.That was pretty cool. The snorkeling took at least two hours, not counting the wait in line for the gear and a valiant attempt by yours truly to make the proprietors sorry for the “alcohol included” portion of the admission price. The rest of the time was taken up with racing across the jungle portion of the park at a breakneck pace before toweling off and being herded back on the bus for Tulum.

Why I feel the need to not offend perfect strangers is beyond me, but after about 10 minutes of listening to the tour guide at Tulum say the same thing three different ways, none of which had anything to do with the actual history of the site, I was ready to detach myself and just go off wandering around. I wagered I could glean about as much information by consulting one of the local trees as this fellow was dishing out (why was he obsessed with describing the 2 seasons?) but I stuck in there for a full half hour, until I could tell he was winding down the “lesson” before I finally relented and went exploring with Hanni. For some reason, I guess I imagined our guide perhaps lying in bed at night, wide awake wondering “Why didn’t the short American with the unbuttoned shirt like my story?” Seriously, this is a sickness.

But the site was pretty damned amazing, even with the truncated archeology lesson. It’s not a big city, which is good considering our tour running down like a time clock in a game show, but it is the only Mayan city on a coastline, and just being around something that’s existed for some 800-1000 years from a mysteriously disappeared culture is pretty spectacular.

My recommendation? Take a sober friend and rent a car.

The Irritation of Little Man

6/23/06

What are the words I’m looking for? Let’s see…“horrified beyond all reason” seems to just about crystallize it correctly. Yes, yes, I think I am horrified beyond all reason at the movie trailer I have just seen. I’d seen it before, you understand, and sort of rolled my eyes and muttered something bitter to anyone who had the misfortune of being in the room at the time, but on this occasion the commercial triggered loose some new response in yours truly in much the same way that swallowing a quart of diarrhea would trigger a vomit response. By a show of hands, who has seen the trailer for this steaming pile of fresh hell called Little Man?

Proving that malicious idiocy is often rewarded and that, if not dead, God is indeed in a prolonged coma, the Wayans brothers have made another movie. I am reminded of the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words,” because there aren’t enough curses in the whole of human vocabulary to express my utter disgust for all involved in this project. Just imagine Shawn and Marlon Wayans gagged and bound with their own intestines, smeared with honey and placed on busy railroad tracks near a fire ant hill while a blind madman administers paper cuts and jet fuel enemas to their prone bodies. That comes close to expressing it, I feel. Oh, but perhaps you’d like to know what the movie is about....

Marlon Wayans is a midget jewel thief who, in order to escape the law, poses as a baby left on the doorstep of Shawn Wayans. Forgetting for the fact that Looney Tunes did this several decades ago (Baby Finster), I’ll let the fall-down retardedness of that plot sink in. The three of you out there who went to see White Chicks should enjoy it. Perhaps Sony Pictures has finally just thrown up their hands and breathed a collective “fuck it!”

On a deeper, more bizarrely sinister note, what the hell is 6’2” Marlon doing playing a midget? As I understand it, they strapped his no-talent black ass to a chair and just filmed him from the neck up, then CGI-ed it to fit onto a 3-foot body. Does anyone else find this even mildly psychotic? What was wrong with saving a truckload of money and morality and just hiring a midget who, you know, fit the role? You are never going to get me to believe that Marlon Wayans is such a big star that his box office gravity simply would not allow them to hire a little person. In fact, I would wager that for anyone with more than seven functioning brain cells, D-list celebrity Marlon is actually a modest strain of ticket sales poison. This is sort of like, if the role called for an effeminate African-American actor, and instead the studio threw Andy Dick into a dress and painted him in black-face. It just seems strangely offensive, as if there aren’t any midget actors looking for work out there.

Leaving aside the bargain basement sense of humor necessary to enjoy this film, it just reminds me of another type of movie I hate which is offensive in the same calm, sorta stupid way. Namely, films where they either have a white person playing an ethnic role, or some Caucasian dude who assimilates into another culture and mystically becomes a really kick-ass member of the group. I’m thinking Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, Last of the Mohicans, etc. I find it hilarious that batshit-crazy Tom Cruise, playing a Civil War vet in Last Samurai is able to pick up the art of wielding a sword so well over the course of a few months that he can fight to a draw a Japanese warrior who has studied this stuff his whole life. Is there anything white people can’t do better than the various mud races?!
Yeah, so, in closing…uhm…don’t go see Little Man. Have a mojito instead.

Cancun Clipper Club - 6/7/06 - 11:14 am

6/7/06


I haven’t had a chance to update until now, as I’ve been having too much fun spending massive amounts of colorful money which looks just different enough to make me forget that it represents a rapidly reducing stack of greenbacks in my bank account.

Hanni and the other two girls just went out to the salon or spa or one of those other things that women enjoy doing. For some reason Hanni was annoyed whenever I expressed no desire to get a pedicure, and I’m still scratching my head over that one. I don’t object to the practice in principle, or because of some inflated machismo, I just find the thought of sitting in a chair while strange women who don’t speak English subject my feet to salves and balms and other strange liquids about as appealing an idea as having a phrenologist divine my future from the bumps on my casaba.

It’s a little too early to start drinking, I think. We have two bottles of tequila, one magnum of champagne, one bottle of wine and a liter of rum inside the fridge in the other room, but it might be just a touch too far before noon for imbibing.

Yesterday the girls and I went, by way of a really rather comfortable bus, to Playa de Carmen, about an hour or so out of Cancun. It’s essentially a tourist town with what I can only assume are infinite stalls holding everything from canvas bags to a disturbing number of different pipes shaped like wieners.

Interlude: Okay, I’m down next to the pool now underneath a delightful straw hut-thing complete with hammocks. I am not using said hammock, as I find the idea of suddenly flipping over and landing on top of my computer distasteful. Also, I might spill the beer that I’m drinking. Oh, I forgot to mention we have a case of Corona. End interlude.

We’ve now hit three separate beaches, the first of which was around 9 pm on the first night we got here. We were nearly the only ones on the beach and it’s difficult to find darkness quite so complete and powerful as that which settles over the beach at night. There was just enough light to see a path away from the three rather large Mexican gentlemen I led us away from under a barrage of hoots and cat-calls and “hey babies.” Thankfully, Hanni was sufficiently inebriated to have not noticed. There’s nothing like traveling along a dark, deserted beach with three women to make you keenly aware of just how unintimidating you are as a 5’5”, 140 lb white dude. But, I was hauling around a fifth of Bacardi and a bag of ice, so maybe I could have plied them with drinks to keep everyone’s chastity (including my own) intact.

The other two beaches were varying degrees of spectacular; white sands and azure water within a 10 minute walk of our hotel. To date, I only have mild skin cancer on my shoulders.

I made a hole in the sand. It was an impressive hole, if I do say so myself.

On a sadder note, Cancun and the surrounding areas seems to have a powerful aversion to American whiskey. Bourbon, as well. The cheapest I can find (and finding it is no easy task) is $26 for a fifth of Jack, and $7 for a 7&7. Yikes. I find this terrifying on a whole lot of levels, and have had to satisfy myself with rum and cokes. For one so terminally fond of Seagram’s, it’s rather like the difference between 3-way sex with bisexual nymphos and getting a hand job in the walk-in cooler from an octogenarian cafeteria worker. But never fear, dear readers, I shall muddle through.


Other than that it’s been like a dream here. Tomorrow we’re going to Xel-Ha by way of the Tulum ruins for snorkeling, among other things. One other point I’m only slightly worried about; after Playa de Carmen yesterday we stopped by a Mexican supermarket to procure foodstuffs in order to save money on eating out, taking advantage of the fact that we have a full kitchen and my hard-on for cooking. I think I may have gone a bit nuts; we spent $70. It was a combination of my “kid in a candy store” glee at grocery stores, and the foreign curse of “it’s only $3 American!” (Seriously, though, beef is like weed prices in Jamaica!) Last night I made shrimp and Chorizo sausage with pasta in a spicy tomato sauce. We’re going to have to do a whole lot of eating in order to avoid meat slowly souring inside my suitcase in the belly of a big, steel bird somewhere over Oklahoma.

See? I'm a Good Sport

6/21/06

I wrote the following while in the Cancun Airport waiting for my return flight to the states, and happened to be near a television broadcasting what I discovered to be a "sporting event." Enjoy dear readers.

___________________________________


6/10/06



I've never been a big fan of sports (though I do like to listen to women's tennis) due, in part, I'm sure to the fact that I have zero athletic ability and engaging in anything more strenuous than bocce, shuffleboard or crochet is public humiliation on the scale of paying strangers to urinate on me. It was especially bad in school, when it was goddamn mandatory in P.E. and my male peers took the shit way, way too seriously. Any minor error was treated as if I'd just shown them a picture of their mother being violated by a walrus. I mean, who the shit cares if I got missed a catch in kick-ball simply because I was more interested in the topography of my navel? I thought this was a game, right? Well, no, not really, I quickly discovered.

Perhaps it makes me a poor male, but I even loathe televised sports. Cant stand 'em; I can think of few things more pointless and boring than spending hours (sometimes four or five at a time!) staring at grown men (most of them juiced so full of hormones they can only be considered "human" in the loosest sense of the word) who are doing things which seem to me to be ultimately pointless and sort of crazy. Why does an adult male wish to watch another male hit a sphere with a cudgel? What's the point? I find it odd and somewhat comical that so many humans attach their egos to these events, and, should their team lose, actually become upset over it. Clearly I'm missing something.

I've just returned from one of the many bars in the departure area; one of the smoking ports in the calm storm after going through security. (Stick with me, I'm tying it together!) But you can't merely stand there smoking, no, no. You have to buy something. They're like disgruntled 7-11 owners. So, sure, 9:15 is a little early in the morning for a rum and coke, but technically I'm still on vacation. And an alcoholic, so...

At any rate I found myself engrossed in the football (soccer for us Americans) game on TV; it's the World Cup outta Germany, don't you know. I've never actually watched a game, mostly due to the reasons listed above, but this was kinda neat. It's never really caught on here, but I don't know why: It's simple, (I don't have to memorize an instruction book or know bizarre numerical stats about the players to understand the game) and I don't know why anyone would say it's boring; it's low-scoring, but at least the players are constantly doing something.

You know whats boring? Football and baseball. I'll wait while the country finishes loading its collective shotguns and looking up my address. Ready? Okay.

Essentially these American sports are seconds of frenzied excitement punctuated by looooong stretches of time where nothing really happens. Either dudes are lining up for something called a "Double-Loop Nickel-back Fiery Douche" play, or a man with a large ass is rubbing a small spheroid and shaking his head "no," at another man who just wants him to play catch. That, my friends, is fucking boring. But soccer/football? That was pretty cool. And it has a time limit! Dig that? We all know when its going to end! Because, maybe, you know, we don't have indefinite chunks of our lives to devote to sitting on our asses watching steroid-addled lunatics. Maybe some of us want to go home and, oh I dunno, fuck or something.

Boring? Not this. They're constantly running up and down the field, pulling off moves so astounding and graceful they seem to be playing in significantly lowered gravity, and exhibiting an endurance of which hurricanes would be envious. Yeah, big deal, sometimes games end in a 0-0 score, which I suppose has many American sports fans struggling to keep their intestines from exploding with indignation, but for me, I found the score to be incidental. If you're watching a game for the score and not the athleticism and excitement of it why not just skip a step and check the scores tomorrow to find out how much you owe the bookie?

I have to say I was intrigued and impressed by the simple, enjoyable nature of the event. I doubt I'll find myself settling in to watch an entire game anytime soon, but I have found myself watching for five or ten minutes whenever it's on in the lunchroom at work. I like it; it's neat...except that the American team sucks out loud. To date our only scoring goal was made by the other team accidentally. Wow.

As for the game I watched while sipping island liquors, I dont remember who won.


P.S.- I do find some of the things they televise on ESPN and its hoard of spin-offs interesting, but none of them can even loosely be considered sports: Poker, Blackjack, Dominoes, and imagine my delight when I ran across an honest-to-God "Paper, Rock, Scissors" (also known as Ro-Sham-Bo) tournament on ESPN 2 one night around 2 a.m.! Now that is fucking entertainment!

Cancun Airport - 6/3/06 - 1:57 pm

6/3/06

I’m sitting in “Restaurant Bar” inside the Cancun airport in Mexico. I’ve just ordered a Canadian Club and Sprite of which I am in dire need. Approximately an hour and a half ago I disembarked from my flight, which was supposed to leave St. Louis at 7 a.m., but actually departed at 10, due to a fractured-ass plane. I’m not complaining, as my girlfriend Hanni and her roommate are coming in on a separate flight in some twenty minutes or so, and I would have had just to sit here on my ass longer and probably become tanked out of my gourd on $8 drinks. And I’ve just realized that due to the fact they they’re out of Canadian Club, I have inadvertently ordered Passport scotch and Sprite. Dammit. I am a dufus.

I’m hoping they can find me whenever they get in. I left a message on Hanni’s voicemail which, I admit, might have been a little rambling and frantic, and she may or may not have understood my instructions. You see, I’m no longer in the arrival terminal, as, unbeknownst to yours truly, after you leave the structure you’re not allowed back inside. So my choices were: Stand out in the heat and sopping humidity for upwards of 2 hours while they arrive and make their way through customs, or hike the thousand or so yards over to the departure terminal with my 3 not un-heavy bags in a desperate attempt to procure whiskey and a pay phone.

Incidentally, there must be a phrase to describe the opposite of “technophobia,” because I think I’m afflicted with it. I would rather speak to or use a machine any day if it meant I could avoid actually asking a human being for assistance. It’s almost always faster and indefinitely more pleasant to the senses, as you always know if a machine isn’t working it’s your fault, and not some deep personal defect of the individual. Near as I can figure, the main requirement for the porters at the bus and taxi area outside the departure terminal is to swoop down on you like vultures to carrion, and to not tell you where you can find a payphone.

I asked no less than 3 people (not counting the guard who kindly informed me I would not be reentering the region) where I could find a payphone. Seems like a simple question, yes? Well no, apparently, and this is why I loathe humanity. Perhaps it’s a problem of the language barrier, but my “where could I find a payphone?” was invariably answered with the question “what group are you with?” referring to the thousands of taxi and bus companies loading passengers by the throngs as if en route to the rendering plant in Soylent Green.

Interlude: My drink has just arrived and it’s not that bad. It’s an extra 3 bucks, but I think I might have a Crown Royal next. End interlude.

Anyway, when I attempted to explain that I was waiting for some other people who were coming in on a later flight and just needed to call and leave a message on their voicemail, they very nicely informed me that I “could wait right over here, sir,” and gestured to an outcropping of nice cement upon which I could squat. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to explain that,

“I just need a payphone, thanks. Do you know if there’s one up this way?”

They invariably told me that I could wait here for my party, or that I could go ahead and get on the correct transport to my hotel. Getting into the whole story of how I didn’t know the name or location of my hotel (Hanni’s roommate Rene had that information, and no matter how many times I attempted to procure it somehow it slipped through my fingers like water) just seemed like too much trouble to bother.

I finally decided to just wander up toward the airport proper and fend for myself in phone location. (Incidentally, as hard as I have harangued against it, I am starting to see the advantages of owning a cell phone…don’t rub it in.)

Interlude: I have just ordered another Passport and Sprite. No matter how many times I practice simple Spanish phrases such as “uno mas,” I always panic at the last minute and revert to “one more.” What the fuck is wrong with me? End interlude.

Success! Telephones! And they had credit card readers and everything! Only fifteen minutes later I finally figured out how to make an international credit card call (with all the fumbling around in the system, it could have cost me between $3 and $30; time will tell) and, at the beep, I informed my girlfriend

“Hi, darlin’, I’m in the departure terminal because I left the airport after customs and wasn’t allowed back in, so if you come out the area where all the buses and taxis are and make a right, you’ll see the departure part of the airport. Come in and take a left, I’m all the way down at the Restaurant Bar. Sorry you guys have to actually come collect me, but I couldn’t stand out there in the heat anymore. I love you, bye.”

And I did just that. So here I sit, typing furiously away and wondering how much battery power is left on my laptop because it has taken it upon itself to spirit away the little icon informing me of such things. I think it’s become self-aware like Skynet.

Hanni’s plane should have landed by now, and if I’m not mistaken they’ll be yanking their luggage off the turnstile at this very moment. I estimate another 20-30 minutes before I start to worry whether my message was too vague or if they got stopped in customs because she was smuggling uncut heroin in her vagina. Adios for now.

What Are You, Blind?

6/15/06


This isn't really a rag on President Bush; this is just a funny thing that happened. I give the guy enough crap and this thing was just one of those foot-in-mouth deals where you're trying to be funny only to discover you're inadvertently being a real cock.

Yesterday at a press conference in the Rose Garden (in front of more American flags than a V.A. lounge) after Bush returned from his wild, spontaneous 6-hour trip to Baghdad, the POTUS* was doing his affable, freewheeling Texan with a sense of humor routine with the reporters, ducking and jiving and just generally showing some "good ol' boy" levity. Now, I think Bush is probably a pretty likable guy in person, and probably kinda funny, but in impromptu, public forums his humor strikes me as a little desperate and forced. So it was only a little weird when he called on Peter Wallsten of the LA Times and said,

"Are you going to ask that question with the shades on?"

Wallsten, who was, in fact, wearing shades, replied with a grin, "I can take them off."

Bush still being jokey, not a prick, said, "I'm interested in the shade look. Seriously."

"All right, I'll keep it, then," said Wallsten.

Bush, addressing the cameras, said, "For the viewers, there is no sun." That was actually pretty funny.

"I guess it depends on your perspective," said Wallsten, still smiling, though clearly a touch uncomfortable.

"Touché," finished Bush, ending the banter and listening to Wallstens question about über-demon and staggeringly un-indicted Karl Rove.

So no big deal, right? A little creepy and not terribly funny but hey, the Prez was in high spirits. Well, the foot-in-mouth part comes when you take into account that Wallsten is legally blind. Ha-ha! Now that is funny! Wallsten has a retinal disease (Stargardt's Disease) for which he wears sunglasses to slow the progress of degeneration.

Like I said, not Bush's fault, but pretty damn funny. As a person who has, on more than one occasion, inserted my pied directly into my bouche, I can relate, and since it's Bush, who is so woefully awful at off-the-cuff banter, it's doubly hilarious.

Bush apologized today and there were no hard feelings from Wallsten, but whenever the President was informed of the gaffe, I'll wager he felt a little like I did when, at a family gathering, my father took me aside and explained precisely why it was inappropriate to go around tickling people in their crotch underneath the dinner table. But, to be fair, I was like 6.

I still enjoy tickling privates, but I mostly stick to those outside my family now.



*that's President Of The United States, to you and me, pard!

"To Be or Not To Oh SNAP!"

6/14/06



How dumb and attention-deficient are kids in merry old England? Coordination Group Publications, a major publisher of educational material, seems to believe this generation's intelligence ranks somewhere between "sea sponge" and "Jerry Falwell." (Which is a pretty narrow gap) CGP has caught a great deal of flack recently because of new dumbed-down versions of Shakespeare plays they've churned out. They're translated from Shakespearean English into something you might expect to come out of the drunken maw of Andy Capp. Apparently todays kids are incapable of digesting anything that was written prior to invention of the phrase "Wuddup, bi-atch?!" Without any further ado, would you care for a solid raping of a few famous scenes from Romeo and Juliet?


Act Two, Scene Two - balcony scene

Shakespeare:

Romeo: But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? Is it the
east and Juliet is the sun! (...)

Juliet: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo? Deny thy father and
refuse thy name.

CGP:

Romeo: What's on your mind?

Juliet: Oh, just moons and spoons in June.

Romeo: Cool - let's get hitched then.

Act Three, Scene Five bedroom

Shakespeare:

Juliet: Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day. It was the nightingale, and not the lark That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear. Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree. Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

CGP:

Juliet: Well that was nice. You'd best be off now.

Sickening, yes? Here we see the joy of poetic language reduced to the phrasing of a mildly retarded scullery maid. Just reading this is something like the oral equivalent of a molten lava enima. And am I insane or did the translation completely change the point of her speech? In Shakespeare's version, Juliet is sort of tongue-in-cheek saying that the morning can't possibly be here yet; (it was the nightingale, not the lark) it's too soon, even though she knows full well that it's day. She is trying to convince him for just a little more time together. She seems to be saying just the opposite now.

Not enough for you? Perhaps Macbeth is more your fancy:

Act Two, Scene One - Macbeth sees a blood-covered dagger

Shakespeare:

Macbeth: Is this a dagger, which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: - I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.



CGP:

Macbeth: Oooh! Would you look at that.

More examples can be found here.

It's not as if this is aimed at elementary students, you understand; these books are geared toward 14-16 year olds preparing to take the GCSEs. (General Certificate of Secondary Education) CDP has sold over 126,000 of these lowest-common-denominator tragedies.

Simon Cook, a spokesman for this den of idiocy, claimed they were only trying to recapture the children's interest, and

"it's very important to make it accessible. We are stopping people being afraid of it."

Hey, fuck you, buddy. You get an "A" for effort but "F" for "fuckwit jerk-water encouraging kids to shortcut their way to knowledge." You know what? It's hard, yeah; it was written five hundred goddamn years ago, douche-bag! Some kids simply wont get it, okay? So what? Even the "developmentally challenged" can grasp the context and emotion of a play written in an obscure vernacular without having it scrawled out in some perverse cartoon which has as much to do with teaching Shakespeare as my masturbation has to do with raising children.

This stuff is just for lazy kids who don't want to put forth any effort and want all their learning handed to them already chewed. In short, large bags of lethargy with the attention spans of protoplasm and an academic aptitude which can only be measured in fractions. This sort of material encourages the attitude that everything should be easy and if something is difficult or can't be printed on a T-shirt, it isn't worth knowing. Unless, of course, the point is to raise a generation of kids who couldn't point out a noun in a lineup, much less compose a coherent letter or finish a sentence without taking a hatchet to the last remaining tatters of our bastardized language.

I thought America was the only country taking radically stupid and impotent steps to shore up our drain-circling education system. (No Child Left Behind my ass!) Egh, I need a drink....



Sources:

Google groups

The Daily Mail

Tweaked Over Cirrhosis

6/13/06



Good news for us alcoholics! A study done by the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California has concluded that drinking coffee dramatically reduces the chances of developing cirrhosis of the liver!

The study, conducted from 1978 to 1985 involved over 125,000 patients and found that in those with a heavy drinking habit (3 or more alcoholic drinks per day) drinking 4 or more cups of coffee per day reduced their odds of getting cirrhosis by 80%. In fact, the study found that the risk goes down 20% for every cup of coffee you drink every day.

They're not sure what it is in this most disgusting, brown, river water of beverages that causes the reduction; it's most likely not the caffeine, as tea drinkers did not benefit from the same result.

Now if we can just find a way of sidestepping those other landmines of alcoholism such as dementia, heart disease, alcohol poisoning and questionable sexual hookups. Maybe by drinking urine? That's probably not going to do it, but just in case I've been saving mine in jars underneath my bed like Howard Hughes. Its available for sale at a low, introductory price of just $2.00 per liter! Available in Clear, Yellow, and Hangover Orange! Get yours now!



Sources: NPR Morning Edition

Canadian Readers Digest

Nutra Ingredients USA

Crunched Metal and Psycho Women

6/2/06



It was a dark and stormy night, and I was in a car wreck. Oh yes, dear readers, last night your intrepid reporter was involved in what can only be described as a vehicular cluster-fuck. This is one messed up story. I'm not privy to all the facts yet, but I think Hanni and I may have been hit by a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, spiral-eyed lunatic.

Hanni was driving and the two of us were headed down National Ave on the way to subject our bodies to savage amounts of ultraviolet radiation via tanning bed, when out of the moist gloom burst a careening specter of a white car speeding merrily out of control as if piloted by demonic imps. The truck in front and beside us in the left lane had to swerve into the turning lane as this madman (it would turn out to be a mad woman) shot down his side of the street in the wrong direction. Apparently coming out of her diabetic coma, this Ahab of the internal combustion vehicle cut to the left to avoid the truck, squirted across both lanes and plowed directly into the front side portion of our car at better than 35 mph before rocketing away in a new and interesting direction like a psychotic pinball, leaving large chunks of her vehicle falling off in her wake like a perverse trail of breadcrumbs. There was no way we could have avoided being T-boned by this dizzy broad; it was as if she were a heat-seeking missile and we the broadside of a burning barn.

I believe my thoughts, as bright, white light filled the windscreen were, "oh crap, were going to be here forever. And I dont think were going to make it tanning." It was either that, or "OH FUCK!" I can't remember which, precisely.

Hanni's car was fucked. I mean "rode hard and put away wet" fucked. The entire front quarter-panel was rendered into Play-doh and her left front tire is now at a curious 45-degree angle into the car.

Neither of us was seriously injured, but Hanni's back and neck hurt like the dickens, considering the car impacted on her side. I got out and saw the white car who hit us was probably a block down the street, somewhat entangled in a throng of vehicles attempting to get around the carnage. We later discovered that this woman, who may or may not have procured her operator's license from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, had been involved in a hit-and-run only a few minutes ago up by MSU campus. Not only that, after she hit us she, most likely in a further attempt to elude capture, hit a third car further down the street, which was the entanglement I saw as rain ran into my eyes and flashing emergency lights and sirens crested the hill.

All told the accident garnered three cop cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck, (I'd like points for not making an 'and a partridge in a pear tree' joke here) and all arrived in record time given that the whole fiasco occurred within throwing distance of St. John's Hospital. Hanni ended up going to the Emergency Room, which will probably end up being a nice $500 charge to transport her all of 100 yards. They even loaded her onto one of those comfortable as all hell back-board things, complete with neck brace, popularly seen being sported by accident con-artists on television. She ended up being alright, though she's pretty sore and stiff this morning. A quarter-ton of metal crunching into you at speed will do that, it seems.

The cops had a DWI and drug agent of the SPD come down and check the offending dame (whom I never actually laid eyes on, she had driven that far away from the accident) out and the biggest shock of the night came when we were told that Ms. Leadfoot was sober as a judge. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the woman with the driving skills of a blind turnip was unimpaired when crashing into one vehicle, leaving the scene of the crime, plowing into another vehicle (us) several miles down the road, and attempting to escape before rendered immobile by crashing into a third fucking car.

There has to be more to this story. I cannot accept that this person is simply this nuts. She had to have some fit or emotional breakdown or maybe psychotic religious epiphany while behind the wheel because short of having the BAC of Ernest Hemingway on a bender, I can't fathom how its physically possible to accomplish such a feat.

We never did make it to the tanning place.

On an up note, in less than 24 hours she and I will be winging our way westward toward sunny Cancun, Mexico, in a valiant attempt to drain the place of powerfully alcoholic fruity island drinks. We were going to take her car to catch our flight in St. Louis, but now it appears we might have to go by camel.

On a side note, yours truly will be out of the country until Sunday the 11th, so the blogs might be a little light next week. Do try to cope, gentle readers. I might post a few from down Mexico way, but don't count on it. Also, they might be incoherent, tequila-fueled stream-of-consciousness madness.

Adios, America! They sell Oxycontin down there, right?

24

5/31/06



Twenty-four Iraqi civilians were killed on November 19th, 2005 in the western town of Haditha. Initially this story was reported as 15 citizens and one US Marine killed in an insurgent bomb, but recently it's come to light that maybe, just maybe, a group of Marines went full-tilt, Apocalypse Now-insane and slaughtered a bunch of innocent people.

The conflict began when Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, was killed by a roadside bomb while driving the last Humvee in a line of four inside Haditha. After that, the story gets a little fuzzy. Numerous Iraqi survivors report that immediately following the explosion, Marines went door-to-door executing any men, women or children found inside the houses even as they pleaded for their lives. Inside the house of Younis Salim Khafif girls aged 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1 were shot and killed, confirmed by death certificates.

But stick with me, the story gets better! It seems that after the bloodbath, the Marines huddled up and decided that hey, maybe it's not such a good idea people know about what happened out here, and out came the story about the deaths by insurgent attack. That might have been the end of it, had local journalist Taher Thabet not gone through the homes and city the next day with a video camera, interviewing survivors of the attack and filming damage that was clearly not done by an insurgent bomb.

But it gets better! Not only are the Marines involved being investigated for murder, dereliction of duty, and a whole grab-bag full of other sundry horrors, it seems as though their superiors tried to cover-up the cover-up!

The military routinely pays out money to family of civilians killed or injured erroneously due to US soldiers, and in this instance that amounted to about $38,000 altogether in a sort of "sorry we murdered a bunch of people; our bad" prize, I guess. But that was back in December, when the military was still claiming that the deaths were due to insurgent action, which would not have been subject to payment. It remains to be seen how far up the chain of command this knowledge went.

The Senate is already gearing up to hold hearings on the massacre, and those members already briefed on the situation say it looks pretty abysmal. Rep. John Murtha, (D-PA) a former Marine colonel and Vietnam vet said,

"there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

I would say that this gives our presence in Iraq an even darker black eye, but the really fucked up part (well, not as fucked up as US soldiers killing helpless human beings, but...) is that the debacle has caused barely a ripple of scandal in Iraq. Our profile in that country is so far in the gutter that most Iraqis are just shaking their heads in a kind of sad, "well, what did you expect?" kind of way! They're not even pissed! They just all expected this sort of thing to happen. God, that's horrifying.

I understand being on the verge of being forcibly separated from your organs by high-velocity explosives everyday is a terrible, stressful situation, and far-and-away most soldiers are there to do their job honorably, but fuck you, you child-murdering assholes.





Sources:

Washington Post
BBC News
NPR
MSNBC

We Got Crazy Down-Pat

5/30/06


Sometimes it's amazing how you can be shocked and yet not really surprised at just how goofy a person can be. I doubt very many of you out there would disagree with me were I to claim that Pat Robertson, host of the 700 Club, is a bit of a religious wing-nut loony, in the same way a black hole has a bit of a gravitational pull. Even President Bush, not known for his even-handed logic, seems to suspect Pat might have a head full of venomous, rabid weasels. Yet, every time I turn around Pat's pulling some new, insane shit out of his ass and we all act flabbergasted. Sometimes I really get the feeling that he doesn't believe any of the things he says, and is just pulling a huge, elaborate joke on the rest of the country. "I told 'em fags cause earthquakes! And they still haven't taken my crazy ass off the air!"

Before I tell you of his most outlandish claim to date, let's take a look at some of Pat's greatest hits, shall we?

Nuking the US Department of State HQ

Pat thought that perhaps our nation would be a bit better off if we rendered a vital part of it into a smoldering, radioactive crater.

"What we need is for somebody to place a small nuke at Foggy Bottom,"[1]

World Leaders Who Piss Pat Off

Pat called for the "wacking" of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez:

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do itIt's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability." [2]

He also lovingly suggested that maybe God smote Israel's Ariel Sharon with stroke after Sharon withdrew troops from Gaza and the West Bank.

"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,

"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone,'" [2]

Among these gems, Pat has also warned citizens of Dover, PA not to dare ask for God's help, since they voted out 7 members of the school board who supported "intelligent design." He has called the religion of Islam and Hinduism more or less full of hate and demonically-inspired, respectively. But the best, the all-time killer has to be Pat's lunatic tirade over Hurricane Katrina, for which he has blamed everything from feminism, to legalized abortion, to the fact that Ellen Degeneres (a homosexual!) was hosting the Emmy Awards. That, my friends, is a special breed of crazy.

And just when I thought my good, frothing-at-the-mouth friend Pat could no longer surprise me, he shows just how foolish I am and ups the ante to cosmic levels of crazy. Pat Robertson--76-year-old Pat Robertson--claims he can literally leg press a ton. 2,000 pounds. Just to put that into perspective, Dan Kendra, a football player in the prime of his life at Florida State University managed to get a paltry 1,335 pounds up for the world record, bursting the capillaries in both his eyes in the process. But no, yeah, I'm sure a septuagenarian windbag totally bested him by over 600 pounds.

This is just 20-degrees of fucked-up, ladies and gentlemen. Want to see for yourself? Here's a link to a story and video on his website of Pat supposedly pressing 1,000 pounds back in 2003. This sort of claim is right up there with the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old and hurricanes slam coastlines because of gay award show hosts. (Pat also blames Ellen, among countless other entities, for 9/11 I'm not joking.)

To what does Pat owe his Samson-esque strength and vigor? A health shake. Well, a health shake and Jesus, I suppose; maybe Christ is spotting him. I copied the recipe off CBN.com (Christian Broadcasting Network) and reprinted it here for you, just in case, you know, you need to bench press a bulldozer for God or something. What a fruit-loop.


Age-Defying Shake


1) 6-8 ounces OJ (other fruit juice, water, low-fat or skim milk may be substituted)

2) 5 Tbsp soy protein isolate

3) 5 Tbsp whey protein isolate

4) 2 Tbsp natural apple cider vinegar

5) 1 Tbsp flaxseed oil

6) 1 Tbsp safflower oil

7) 2 Tbsp soy lecithin

8) 1 tsp MSM powder

9) 1 tsp glutamine powder

10) 5-6 frozen strawberries, a peach or apple or whatever type of fruit you like (for taste)

11) Non-caloric sweetener (Pat recommends Sweet'N Low)


References

[1] http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35036

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/05/robertson.sharon/

Flash Dance

5/30/06


There is something singularly horrifying about getting home from the convenience store and realizing your shorts had the fly unzipped the entire time. Also, you're not wearing underwear. Crap.

Sugar Water & Beef Jerky

5/27/06


Does anyone else think that The Macho Man and The Kool Aid Man are maybe the same person?


They're never seen at the same parties

Both dubious heroes to kids

Same "Oh Yeah!" catch phrase

Both hawk food-stuffs (jerky and sugar water, respectively)

Both burst through walls

Both are terrifying in a very distrubing, sort of indefinable way



Need I go on? These are the sorts of things that prevent me from actually doing anything with my life.