Mediocre Extraordinaire

9th Street Between B and C

2009-05-04T18:38:00.000-07:00

Cold wind coaxes out sheets of rainwater collected in the trappings of perpetually present scaffolding, shielding work not being done on a dilapidated, boarded-up and futureless former elementary school. The water softens the paper and weakens the glue behind advertisements upon posters upon notices upon graffiti, all clinging to and dragging down the blue-painted particle board covering up the street’s modern ruins.

The framework provides a roof over said board, which meets the cold gray walls of the building where Iggy Pop once lived, after he became famous. Today, there is a toilet, unconnected to any pipe or sewer, mostly clean, and neatly deposited in the corner, along with a pair of women’s pumps, black, size 6, and several layers of cardboard as bedding. The best shelter available, apparently.

Across 9th street, the Lutheran church doles out plates of hot food on Styrofoam once a day to a line of people that forms in front, runs down the stairs and towards Avenue B, where it breaks at the curb, and picks up across the street in the park where the older folks can sit on the benches and relax.

Back in the corner, a man wakes up and stretches out of his dusty black sleeping bag, while the man next to him snores. The last three days’ rain has subsided for the moment and it’s a good time for a stroll.

He walks east on 9th street, past a brand new apartment building nearly completed and designed in a sleek, modern style. Farther down the block is Louis 649, a modest little bar with a piano near the front bay window, where regularly, the man watches as people stumble out after drinking their 12-dollar martinis. Today, another door east, a specialty wine shop has a grease paint sandwich board out front, with a quote written on it about wine giving cowards the courage to charge the battlefield. He isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be a virtue or a condemnation.

Sockman

2009-02-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

In those days Sockman was just as much a part of Long Beach as the bus stop bench that he occupied. In a more endearing town, or place with a little more pride, or moxy, or whatever, he would have had a nickname, like the Mayor of Alamitos Beach, or the Pulpit Pauper or something. But nobody in Long Beach, California gave a fuck about much of anything in Long Beach, California.

Sockman, however, gave so much of a fuck that it all came gushing out of him all the time and at high volume. Sockman was a homeless guy, who called the bus stop bench across the street from my place home, who never wore shoes only, ever, socks. His wardrobe was a collection of white t-shirts (I’m not sure where he kept them), and a rotating series of sweatpants that changed color just about everyday (I’m not sure where he kept those either). He had, at least never worn shoes as long as I had been listening to him yell at the wind from my apartment, though one time I had the chance to ask him, “Hey man, why don’t you ever wear any shoes?”
He said, “I don’t like ‘em!”
“Fair enough,” I said, and then handed him a flask bottle of Jack Daniels, to which he said, “Fuck you,” twisted open, and took a swig from.

Sockman didn’t just talk about Long Beach, he talked about everything. He talked about politics, and hate, and love, and that malaise and teetering nothingness that I was feeling that was bad then, and worse now. He yelled and screamed and raged, but it never changed a damn thing. That morning it was:

“The people don’t want to fight and they won’t!” he screamed. “No blood on the faces of the new generation. There will be no hawk-eyed metrosexuals, friend! Beware the coming though, those space-suited tazer-ers! Body armored against Americans, locked and loaded, baby! Those cops got thin, blue balls and can’t wait to jizz all over ya’ll. All over everyone who ain’t silent. There is no lead, follow, or get outta the way, cause that time has come and gone. Your time came and went civilized bronco. That choice is gonzo. You voted, heiled, and slapped a sticker on your car. Now it’s follow, or they moved you outta the way. Pay no attention to the signs, work will not set you free. Them johns are about to bust, and then it’s gonna be brownshirt bukkae!”

If there is a way to be subtly kicked in the face, that was Sockman’s style. The bus stop bench was his pulpit and the street was his unconverted mass.

I had a front row seat from my apartment across the street. There was a big bay window on the street side of my bedroom with a desk pushed up against it. His sermons usually started up around the time the morning traffic did - drive by heathens, I guess – but he’d gotten a hair up his ass and started stoking the brimstone early that morning. Not a problem if you’re a fisherman. Devastating if you’re a drunk.

I always started out as highbrow as possible, whatever the drink, whatever fine selection of spirits was available at the Rite-Aid, I was all about it. Yes sir, nothing in plastic for me. Just a bottle of Wild Turkey and we’ll call it an evening alone in my apartment.
I was living in this shithole place. The second story of some building thrown up 90 years prior. It was the kind of place where you cut a check for the deposit, and then sign the asbestos waiver before you get the key. Sure, your apartment is full of the nastiest shit ever to cover millions of ceilings wall to wall, but just sign on the line, and it’s your problem. I would come home late at night and get to work on whatever bottle, or series of bottles I had brought home, sit at the desk and write the first sentence of a novel:

- I told her I loved her. She said she didn’t care.
- He was a looter in a riot, but I was just a common thief.
- Like chalk we are brushed away into great clouds of oh, what the fuck, this is total trash!

And then I would trash the pad of yellow paper and grab some fresh ice. The work had just begun. Kerouac was my hero, and if that miserable drunk could inspire millions then I could be a miserable drunk and at least inspire thousands. I was only 25. Plenty of time to get that masterpiece going.

9th Street Between C and D

2009-02-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

On the west end of the 9th Street Block hangs the thin, elegant branches of a giant Weeping Willow tree that scarcely seems to notice what’s going on around it. Follow the spiny fingers back to the truck, and you’ll find yourself in a community garden. Rows of little projects wind throughout, without much of a master plan. It’s quiet, and fragrant in the warmer months, and open on the weekends for people to stroll though. Sometimes the walk along the chain link fence that separates it from the concrete is a pleasant scene, and sometimes it’s a reminder of what the rest of city isn’t.

It’s the last frontier of the gentrifying East Village, or maybe the high water mark, if you prefer. Avenue C and Avenue D are worlds apart, with different feels, different smells, different people, different products available, both within stores, and without. Shitty Chinese food on D, along with confrontations at the bodega, where middle-aged men buy scratchers in the evening, and women buy single cans of beer in the early afternoon. Avenue C is where the restaurant from Rent is located.

But on west end of the 9th Street block, no one in the buildings is aged above 30, or paid less than 30 grand. Except for the unemployed, or the coffee shop employees, or the folks taking food stamps, and the supers who salt the sidewalks. Everyone is upwardly mobile, or spiraling downward. There are the alcoholics, and the not-yet-alcoholics, who have four bars, and four liquor stores within the same distance. Halfway down the block, a black, metal snake serves as the handrail for the steps to an apartment building, letting people know that that’a way is the hot, new hood – just ask your broker. That’a way is Section 8.

It is along this street where people stop being so self-congratulatory, and the cowards walk with their hands in the pockets, occasionally looking over their shoulders, until they can get back to the pleasant bustle. Back to plasma-screened bars, and cheap pizza. Back to antique furniture and independently owned clothing stores. Just make it to the Willow tree, and you’ll be alright.

On the east end of the 9th Street Block is a rehab center.

The S.S. America

2008-09-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

The SS. America sat a hundred yards offshore, motionlessly drifting, wearing, and salt-rotting-away with each wave the rolled across its decrepit, ancient body.

It was a headstone, a grave marker, slowly wasting away in the foreground while wisps of clouds swirled behind it. It was American in origin but had struck out into the world, been painted and repainted, de- and recommisioned, patriated and repatriated. The tub had served in war and in peace, had renamed, and reflagged, and dragged along through seas that swelled up and finally took her to where she finally rests, slowly dying, like an aging grandmother, forgotten and dissolving into the ocean.

On its last legs, a Greek man bought the rig, with the intention of turning it into a five-star luxury cruiser. He wanted to take this ancient horse of a boat, and make it haul rich folks through the park. It wasn't enough that it had served for decades in war and transport, serious work that had left it above the waterline, battered and flaky. It would now lead a life of service. Like a former soldier who buys a bar, and pours the drinks himself.

Unable to operate under its own power at this point, the new owner attempted to tow the America to another harbor where it was to be repaired just enough to make it float, and then put back to work. The pair of vessels sailed into a terrible storm where the swells proved too much for the meager ropes lashed around the masthead, and they snapped, allowing the America to bob into the distance, floating, and again forgotten.

It drifted to its current spot; the rocky coasts of the Canary Islands situated between the northern African shore, and southern Spain. Once it settled there, it was left. Occasionally people made it to the shore, where the hull had nestled up against the rocky outcroppings in the breakers, and gawked at it, or snapped a photo. But then they said their goodbyes, as if assuring the dying vessel that they would be back, but then never showed.

I stay after the others have gone, and tears welling, I feel betrayed by them all. I am the ship's only witness. The gawkers leave importance behind and shuck all their oaths like dirty clothes, and they laugh at me for remaining. Rage rises with the tide, and now I am seething through gritted teeth.

I will tow the dock ropes. Wrap them around my forearms and yank them taught, pull all the floundering ships that only need a hull patch and a compass, up and onto the soft, mossy, slick shore, where we will lay down roots. And they will all breathe because of me, they will all draw air into their lungs because I simply did what no one else would and hauled them up above the water line into the bright blue day, into the oxygen and into the air so that they may live, and breathe, and laugh, and create, and I will be the grandfather to all their wares.

Gone Cultin'

2008-05-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

I'm a secular person, by nature, I guess. My grandmother was a lifelong Catholic, and despite years of neglect and punishment from the church, she was loyal to her final hours. I was raised Catholic, basically at her insistence, but it just didn't take; somewhere between figuring out that Santa Claus was a sham, and when I started getting laid on a somewhat regular basis.

But all the news of hot teen girls in gingham, Intelligent Design debates in Florida, Papal visits from an ex-Nazi - and let's not forget those wacky Muslims! – it's enough to make a secular guy like myself feel a bit left out. I want some red shoes too.

Bottom line is, I've gotta start my own thing. No other holy pants have seemed to fit quite right, so I'm breaking out the sewing machine, and slapping together some slacks for myself – plenty of room in the crotch.

I'm laying out some basic rules for my own cult, and by all means, feel free to offer suggestions, just remember that as the cult founder and requisite leader, all suggestions are to be either rejected by me, or approved, and then promptly taken credit for – by me.

Rule #1
I need all your money. This is your standard cult boilerplate, but it's important to get everything in writing. Look, it's not like you won't see a piece of it, I'm just going to hold it for you, and distribute it as I see fit. Compounds don't pay for themselves, and spaceship parts are super expensive.

Rule #2
No kids. Sorry, no kids. Nothing brings in the tanks and tear gas faster than little kids around holy, aroused prophets holed up in compounds. Warren Jeffs probably had a good thing going down there in Texas with his little Joseph Smith Rodeo, until somebody started knocking up teenagers. That guy had a temple with a bed at the altar. I'll tell ya, I might be able to get to that service on Sunday. And then somebody fucks it up by tossing an underage girl in there, eyebrows get raised, one guy's doing it, then pretty much everybody's doing it. We all have that friend who's a little too interested in young girls, it looks like in this case, Warren was that guy, and managed to get a hold of the reins. I'm nipping this one in the bud. Nothing but trouble. Catholic Church….I'm looking in your direction….

In my cult, bottom line is no kids. If want to have kids, you gotta leave. Have them already? Don't bring them. Feel free to go visit them, just make sure you endorse that paycheck before you leave (see rule #1).

Rule #3
LSD Fridays. Just saying.

Rule #4
You must have a job. First, see rule number one. Second, who wants to fucking farm? This is not a commune; it's a cult, okay? Nobody wants to do any real work, least of all me – I'm the cult leader for Conor's sake! Get a job, hippie.

Rule #5
Orgy Saturdays. Also, just saying.

Rule #6
As a member of my cult, and full, monetary devotee to me, you will not be expected to go penniless. You will receive a monthly stipend. Since we're just starting out, it will be a small amount, but will grow along with our ranks. I will not, however, pay you in cash, but rather in one odd commodity or another that will vary from week to week. When the stipend reaches $1,000 a week, you receive $1,000 – worth of something. A $1,000 worth of, say, live bees. Or you will be paid in erasers, unprocessed cheese curd, or bat guano. Basically whatever I can get hands on that week. On payday, your task will be two-fold: first, if you want to actually collect the value of your pay in cash, you will need to find a buyer. Go ahead; find someone in the market for $1,000 in rotary telephones. Second, you will entertain me by doing so, and that's really what this cult thing is all about – me being entertained. Payday will be on Sundays to allow for LSD, and orgies (see rules three and five).

Rule #7
Red shoes for everyone! Hey when you're right, you're right. I'm not afraid to listen to a good idea, and I'll be damned if the Pope doesn't have this one spot on. $700 Italian, handmade loafers? In red?! I'm in. And so are you. Come on, Heaven's Gate, black Keds? When my comet comes, that's not how I'm going out.

Rule #8
No Mail. With very rare exceptions, nothing but bad news comes in the mail, and the remainder is usually stuff I have to throw away. There is a literally a man or woman, in blue shorts, who is paid to wheel a cart around my neighborhood, and deposit a handful of trash into my mail box, daily. And everyday, I open up the mailbox, and take the trash into my home, where I deposit it into a trashcan, until it is time to carry out to the recycling. Now that all bills can be paid online, we will be canceling the mail altogether, not out of an effort to cut you off from your family, but because its what-the-fuck factor has just become too great. No mail.

Rule #9
Nicolas Cage is the Devil. Every religion has its chief antagonist. Welcome to mine. NO films will be permitted that feature Nic Cage with the following exceptions: Coen Brothers films, and Charlie Kaufman films. This is a strict policy, as some of you already know, and will be strictly enforced. Violating this policy will result in the indefinite loss of your red loafers (see rule seven).

Rule #10
Lightning Round!
- Pro-spaceship.
- Dogs will be permitted to play all sports, as there is no rule specifically stating that they may not.
- No beer? Then no softball.
- Not now, honey, the playoffs are on.
- Battlestar Gallactica will be your new favorite show.
- Star Wars Episodes 1-3 are apocryphal, and will be considered heresy.
- No Kool-Aid.

All these rules are open to modification, and your input is of course, requested. What can my cult do for you? What odd commodity would you like to be paid in? What can I do to get you, in my cult, today?

Have Love, Will Travel

2008-03-16T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today was Selection Sunday. It's the day in college basketball that will essentially dictate my schedule for the next three weeks, and the true beginning of March Madness. The kind of decisions laid down today by the NCAA selection committee have decided the fates of the 64 teams in the NCAA Tournament, deeming some worthy, and some not, some high-seeded, some low, and that's what most of the coverage is all about.

There are, however, a million stories that will never be reported on. How did the painted man, come to be so? What awful, awful things did that broke college student do to get court-side seats? How far, exactly, did a group of hardcore basketball fans drive just to watch a 40-minute basketball game? Really, really far. This is just one of those stories. And a majority of the details are left out. You won't read about the trips up and down High Street, the stolen beer, the self-made pizzas at Pizza Pan (Home of the Free Pizza), or the St. Patrick's Day when Ryan Kobane tried his good-God-damnedest to put the front door of a house off its hinges. The time ZumMallen and I swore up and down that we were rich businessmen who chartered a private jet in from Malibu didn't make the cut. Neither did the five Irish Car Bombs that Kobane and I drank in the space of 30 minutes courtesy of the cougar at the Library, Katie's speeding ticket, or the last major stop we made in Vegas where I collected ten dollars from everyone in our party, put it on black, won, and walked away. No Sock Mike, No Savage Jones, no Xerxes Brian. Obviously you have no idea what I'm talking about, and all of it has all but been lost to the ether. And that's my point. There are great stories that play out on the basketball court, of course, but the greatest stories are the ones you will never hear, and the people involved will never forget.

I wrote this story about a year ago, and in retrospect, it leaves out so much. I didn't even get around to mentioning everyone who was on the trip. You know, maybe I should rewrite this. I may have left out the best parts. If any of the roadies would like to contribute to an appendix, I would gladly post it.

Anyway, this is the story of seven rabid Long Beach State basketball fans who one year ago, foolishly endeavored to support their team – even if the 49ers didn't stand a chance, even if the game was 2300 miles away. It’s not crazy, it’s just March Madness.

HAVE LOVE, WILL TRAVEL

“You’ll never make it.”
-Raphael Zepeda, CSULB English Professor.

We are traveling through Northern Texas at around hour 20 when Brian’s voice squelches over the radio: “I’ve got a little competition for us.”

Kobane asks, “Is that an individual or car competition?”

“That’s a car competition,” Brian returns.

“Go on,” responds Kobane.

“Here goes: Texas, is flatter, than blank. Whoever comes up with the best one wins.”

Kobane pauses, and then picks up the radio. “I’ve got one.”

“Go ahead.”

“Texas, is flatter, than, okay seriously, are we really driving 5000 miles for a 40-minute basketball game?”

Seriously. We are. So why the hell, would seven people travel a total of five thousand miles to watch a twelfth-seeded team in the first round of the 2007 NCAA tournament? You know that line from Animal House, when Eric Stratton is trying to talk the rest of Delta into action and he says, “I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.” We’re the guys to do it. That’s why.

“I think that it’s totally stupid and pointless. Did you expect me to be excited about this?”
-David Izzett, Conor’s Father.

The occupants of the two cars on this ill-conceived journey are a group of Long Beach State students who work on the weekly campus newspaper, the Union Weekly. At the beginning of the basketball season I was one of them but I graduated in December, so am officially no longer a staff member. Yes, I should be moving on and have a job by now, but since nothing else about this situation is well thought-out, why would my life be? Besides, I read a lot of Kerouac.

Four months earlier I was passing out fliers for the men’s basketball home opener in an attempt to give some sort of focal point for the students of LBSU’s notoriously scattered student body.

The team was picked to win the Big West, their division, which also included the Orange County teams from Irvine and Fullerton. The stands have been sparse over the last few years, partly because students at LBSU like to stay home and watch Lost on Saturday nights, partly because the team hasn’t been decent for about a decade. You pick why.

This year’s roster had eight seniors on it, including all five starters, so it was definitely all or nothing for these guys from the Big West, a mid-major division at best. The NBA invitations are rare.

Support picked up greatly after league MVP Aaron Nixon’s Irvine-defeating buzzer-beater in the 2006 Big West tournament. Fellow guard, Kejuan Johnson, who would be the number one man on any other Big West team, a sharp shooter from the three-point line, backed him up. They and the six other seniors ripped through the Big West, winning all home games, save one, and skated into the Big West tournament. Finishing first in the division earned them first and second round byes. The faced Irvine first, dispensing with them easily, and then faced Cal Poly, who gave Long Beach quite a run, but ultimately fell. The packed Long Beach student section rushed the court. People and equipment were trampled. It was thrilling if, admittedly, typical. This left only the tournament selection to be held the following day, before we knew for sure where they would be playing.

The team, boosters and fans gathered in the on-campus pub to watch the selection and the place was shoulder to shoulder. Everyone was still buzzing about the previous night’s tumultuous victory, and speculation was everywhere concerning the team’s assignment in the tournament. It was a foregone conclusion that we would be following the team wherever they ended up going, but no one wanted to go tearing across the country. Everyone was pulling for Sacramento, and failing that, Spokane. And then the announcement came down.

Ohio. Columbus, goddamn, Ohio.

The upside was that they were an unexpected twelve seed, sparing them from a first round demolition at the hands of a pseudo-NBA squad like Ohio State. Great for the team. Columbus is 2300 miles from Long Beach. Bad for us. But like I said, it was a foregone conclusion. Why would we be in the front row of every home game only to forego the first tournament appearance in a dozen years? Secretly we all took a little credit for the season’s success, and we weren’t about to choke in the big dance. Stupid and pointless was our specialty.

Round trip plane tickets were $700 a piece. We were driving. It was a 40-hour, nine state, 5000-mile round trip to Ohio. Shit.

“A basketball game? 5000 miles for a basketball game?”
-Trish O’Malley.

We leave Long Beach at 4p.m. in a blaze of glory, which is promptly doused by the LA traffic that really should have been foreseen.

The further East we travel the more alien the people look. It’s not just hairstyles and clothing, nothing obvious, it’s something in their general nature that seems off, as if they are all perpetually 15 years behind the outer edges of the country. It could be 15 years ahead for all I know. Being a West-Coaster, and admittedly kind of a snob about it, it’s easy to forget that little 2,800-mile strip of land in the middle of the country, but I’m trying to change that. This is my first foray into the nation’s interior and I am soaking it all in with wide eyes.

I take over driving in Holbrook, New Mexico. I stop at a gas station where three Indians are in down jackets and vests reading the Native Times. A white woman with nicotine skin and peroxide hair is behind the counter selling a lotto ticket. I buy an energy drink to keep myself from drifting of the road in a fiery blaze and killing three of my friends. She says, “That’ll keep you awake.” It is 3 O’clock in the morning. Something is off.

An hour later the headlights of oncoming traffic are dancing around like moths, and I’m having trouble focusing on the road. No one in the car is aware that they are in serious danger. The energy drink is working in the sense that my stomach hurts so bad from whatever that shit is made of that I couldn’t possibly fall asleep. Even this balance is a precarious one.

It is predawn, when the sky is that soothing and sickly color of black lavender that makes you regret whatever it is that caused you to be awake to see it in the first place. I am desperately tired. On the verge of tears, tired. We pull into Albuquerque, and I resign the driver’s seat. I’ve managed only 150 miles. We are one quarter of the way to Columbus.

“Be careful of those people in the Midwest. Son. They hate us.”
-David Izzett.

I wake up in Texas, after the best sleep in a cramped, loaded car on a cross-country road trip I’ve ever had. Texas is flat. Brutally flat. G Dub approval rating flat. The horizon all around us is at 90 degrees, punctuated exclusively by telephone poles and cows. We decide to stop in Amarillo, Texas for a good old-fashioned beer and indoor cigarette. We are not carded. There are peanut shells on the floor. There are no imported cars in the parking lot. There is a pair of shitty underpants in the stall of the men’s bathroom. A very pretty hostess says in a devastatingly attractive Texas twang, “Hello, how ya’ll doin’ today?” Wonderful. On the horizon is a 250-foot, white, fiberglass cross planted 25 feet into the ground next to the highway. This is America.

When we hit Oklahoma City I’m determined to prove myself in light of my last meager driving demonstration, eager to show that if tomorrow I decided to become a pro rally driver, I’d be a champ. I order a sandwich from the gas station Subway, and the gummy woman who makes it pours on about a half-gallon of mayo, otherwise known as an “Oklahoma-style sandwich.” It later stains my pants.

This Midwest feels like another country, not the America I’m used too. I’m feeling increasingly eye-balled wherever I go, and very suspect. Maybe I’m, being paranoid, maybe I’ve just been pulled over too many times for being Californian. Not sure yet. Maybe it’s the startlingly old white woman working the cash register at a gas station, maybe the startlingly old and fat white man working the toll road booth laughing at me for being from California and driving to Ohio, either way I’m uneasy, and very weary. I decide to get in the driver’s seat, stomp the pedal, and put at least a half-a-thousand miles of this land beneath me. I am on a mission through red state central. There is at least a thousand miles of Bush Country between me and sanity, and all I want is to get to Ohio, which was at least stolen away from reasonability.

While driving through the land of the moral majority there is something oddly unsettling, even to me, a blue state sodomite: 24 Hour Adult Video Arcade. There are dozens of them all along the moral Missouri highway, surely packed with overweight, truck stop hussies who vote red, and service Ted Haggart (yes, hussies can be male too). There must be a very intense trucker network all along the backwoods highways of the South and Midwest because there are a lot of 24 Hour Adult Video Arcades. Highway 44: The San Fernando Valley of the Midwest?

Even as sheeting rain begins to fall, I gas it up Interstate 44 towards St. Louis, Indianapolis, and beyond that, Columbus. The last thousand miles of our 2300-mile (one way) journey is covered only between JJ, Union Weekly sports editor, and myself – there is no time for stopping. Gas, coffee, road. Gas, coffee, road. I have no patience for anything else, and briefly consider picking up a pack of adult diapers to cut down on downtime at the gas stations.

In the closing miles we decide to stop at what will surely secure our arrival in the region: The Waffle House. I embrace its down-home, folksy atmosphere the moment that Dot, out waitress arrives and asks, “Now what can I get for you hun’?” She reminds me of my grandmother and she’s bringing me waffles.

Thirty minutes later I fall into bed in my smoking room at Motel 6, and pass into oblivion for several hours. It has taken just under 40 hours to get here, and it’s all seeming very stupid, and pointless. Where have I heard that before?

“Ya’ll shoulda flew here.”
-Young Aaron Nixon Relative.

So the buzzer sounds and backboard glows red. The ball falls along with the players’ heads, and the long, slow stroll back to the locker room begins. The janitors clear trash from the stands, the clock is reset, and the season is over.

Long Beach lost. It was their first true national exposure since their last trip to the NCAA Tournament in 1995 and it was a total trounce. The University of Tennessee murdered Long Beach State by 35 points, even hitting a long ball three with about three seconds left, just for good measure.

The commentators were right. Long Beach was probably over-seeded. Tennessee covered the spread, and the over/under was severely overed. I sit in the stands of Nationwide Arena, thanking the bevy of Aaron Nixon relatives as they file out, and they thank me in return; little children, middle-aged men, women who could be his sister, a woman who is most definitely his mother – she’s wearing a shirt with Nixon’s picture on it. The Johnsons leave, reluctantly. Kejuan’s mother looks very upset but I can picture her wrapping her arms around her son, assuring him that everything is okay, and that she is so proud, and he will undoubtedly believe her.

The adjectives that my friends, family and peers have used to describe their impressions of this road trip: pointless, stupid, doomed, idiotic, retarded, and at first I think they might be right. Why the fuck did I drive to Ohio for a 40-minute basketball game? Like Long Beach stood a chance anyway right? Everyone knows that upsets don’t happen, and yet we all hope for them incessantly.

I didn’t expect LBSU to do anything all that remarkable, I just don’t want the season to be over. The thing is, everyone said that the Beach would fail, with few exceptions, and they did. They played hard, and beat a few odds, only to have their season abruptly axed by a superior team, and for a split second the whole thing does seems pointless. But there is really no escaping the fact that it all seems worth it in the end. After we found out the team was going to Ohio, most people thought we were crazy to drive so far, and we were. But all we could think was, “how could we not?” We had collectively followed the team for the whole season, been to every home game and a few away games. I’d listened to some of the road games on Internet radio, which isn’t exactly a high quality broadcast, and there are no high quality broadcasters. Over the course of the season, I, and I know that the others felt the same, had started to feel that I was the sixth man on the court. Like I was somehow supporting the team, inching them over the hump on the hard games, giving them that extra boost in the second half. This was the championship tournament. This is when they needed me more than ever.

I already miss being a fan. There’s nothing quite like heckling a young man playing for the opposing team until he’s so shaken that he needs to be benched. Now that’s a sixth man. I’ve taken to thinking in four syllable chants, and shaking my keys in the air right before somebody leaves. What’s worse is that this is the final game for the players that I’ve grown to love over the season. No more Nixon, no more Ricks or Kejuan. I’ll have to start heckling volleyball players I guess.

I am told to leave by an usher at the arena, and I realize the worst part of this early defeat. I have to drive back to California. I really shoulda flew here.

“God bless you.”
-A CSULB Alumnus living in Columbus, Ohio

Lollipop

2008-03-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

I saw another one today. I can't drive anymore, and I damn sure won't ride in a car. It's just that I can't stand it, really, and not in the way you can't stand it when the mail comes late, or when your debit card won't scan at the coffee shop and the cashier gives you shit about having to type in the number. I'm jittery, my teeth rattle, and my hands shake. I can't grip the steering wheel, can't make a fist, I – piss myself. As far as car accidents go, I've seen just about everything over the last six months, because I've seen at least one car accident everyday for the last six months. Everyday.

You know when you hear some astounding figure, like, "a car accident occurs once every six seconds," or something? Well I have become the black hole of vehicular carnage. They are all drawn to me, and seem to be so at an ever increasing rate. Car accident are beginning to circle around me, skimming my event horizon, until all laws of likelihood and chance are null and meaningless, and any measure that drivers take to prevent an accident is as useless as trying to escape a worm hole in a canoe.

I saw this kid, 16 tops, rear-end a minivan right in front of the high school. The fenders of his shitty teenager starter-car were completely jammed into his two front tires, so when he tried to pull to the shoulder, the fiberglass just dug farther into the rubber, and the car made a chirp every time the wheel revolved, and the whole thing stuttered, and jumped like a spasmodic limper until the tires got so hot that they started pouring white, vulcanized smoke. This was all about five minutes after school let out, and was therefore, a reverse parade of jeering, pitiless teenagers, a group of people who humiliate their own with unrelenting brutality.

That was funny.

Another time I saw a big rig blow a few tires and swerve into oncoming traffic and plow into a 90s-something Geo Metro. The Metro driver's body was ripped away from just under his armpits, his white vertebrae somehow still poking out through his remaining upper torso like the spine of an orange after you tear away the fruit. He looked like a lollipop with arms, and not so many teeth.

That was funny in a much different way.

Perhaps we've all just been on one, lengthy run of good luck. Maybe it's a goddamned miracle that millions of cars charge at opposite and perpendicular directions everyday at dozens of miles and hour, carrying thousands upon thousands of pounds of force, and don't smash headlong into each other all the time. Maybe the streak is just beginning to run cold, and I'm the first one to bear witness to the imminent pulling of short straws. I see nothing but death, now, standing inches away from where we walk, and sit, and breathe. Walk on the sidewalk. Death is waiting just a few feet to your left in the middle of the street. Gas pours up a pipe that snakes through the wall that your couch is pushed up against. It's like his bony little fingers are fucking rapping on the wall, looking for a weak spot, waiting to eek out of a tiny little neglected crevice in the piece of steel tubing. Do you know how many meteors make it through the atmosphere everyday? Isn't ONE bound to smash someone into the ground like a thumbtack?

Today's was a simple one, nothing big. I was walking to the liquor store, something I've done often over the course of the last few months, when I stopped at a crosswalk. A pickup made a left hand turn through a yield into oncoming traffic, and of course, a the driver of a Jetta crammed his front end right into the wheel well of the truck, driving in backwards into a sedan waiting in the left turn lane behind it. Metal crunched, and shattered cracked and popped across the black top, settling at my feet. There weren't any representatives of the Lollipop Guild this time. I used to stick around for these things, now I run.

The people involved will feel sore tomorrow, even though they aren't seriously injured. And the way that they are left breathless and disoriented in the moments following impact is normal. They felt disoriented, and will later remark about how, "everything really did seem to slow down, just like they always say it does." But it will fade. My anxiety does not. It's constant now, as I fear a Dodge Ram will burst through my living room door shortly after airing its custom La Cucaracha horn. So really, I can't run. All I can do it wait for the day that doesn't bring a car accident. I cannot fucking wait for the one day that I don't see an SUV flip, or a truck hydroplane, or, you know, a little old lady back into something, or over someone. Maybe it won't come. Or maybe the day will finally come where I will be that innocent bystander, calmly observant as I am plastered all over the sidewalk by a runaway Karmann Ghia.

A Karmann Ghia? That would just be humiliating.

Notes From a Second Story Window: Two Sets of Eyes.

2008-03-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

Back at the window, and it’s been a while this time. Nothing doing, no cruisers from this vantage point, oh, oh, oh. Check the weather. It’s the same here as it was yesterday. Perfect. But elsewhere it’s perfecting.

It isn’t cold anymore in New York, that far-off country where the people speak the same words in a different language. A block is a mile and an island, the world… It’s hard to leave it, not that there’s much reason to. For what? Jersey?

There’s an appreciation of the high-50s and sunshine with a small chance of rain. The people are hard-packed ice, easily thawed, prone to cursing and well-wishing in the same breath, no dismissive sigh, just dismissals. Smack downs. Fuck yous. Horns. Horns. Hoooooooooorns!!!

But there’s love. Ooo-oo-oo-oo-ohh love, shaky, shimmying love. Sleepy-eyed, late-mornings-born-out-of-late-nights love packed between brick walls and stacked on hardwood floors, and shh, people are listening, or rather they can hear, so shhhh… we don’t want them to hear anything we don’t tell ‘em. This soft-sheet is ours to wrap up in, ours to while away in, ours to squeak around in like a couple of mice stacking up a little pile of lint to get cozy in, and blink asleep and awake in.

Anyway, let’s take a walk! It’s not like there’s another choice for leaving the house, is there? Everything’s a walk. Each trip out, a commitment to brave the four-story walk back up, but hey, that walk’s on credit and the payment ain’t due for a while now, babe. So let’s spend! Let’s buy the horns and the jaywalking, the dozen restaurants within throwing-distance that all serve incredible food, all stock cheeses with unpronounceable names, all whip up hummus, and shake martinis, and pour weird, apple-vodka and cranberry drinks, and hire jerk bartenders who slang booze and rely on the charity of people who leave a decent tip in the hopes of feeling like a big shot, even for just a second.

The tall buildings are the molehills, but watching the moles is where it’s at. It’s all happening down in the grime, in the gutters, and below that in the screeching subway stations that moan and scream and fill and empty out, with trains that arrive just before quickly departing, punching into those dark, filthy holes.

And it’s all so different with two sets of eyes taking it all in. Instead of the walls we can see the beams. Forget the feet, we see prints. A plain unnoticed store front becomes a photo op when activated by a third and fourth eye. Two sets of eyes make a higher-energy crowd, and the city performs for a bigger crowd. It’s all better when you’re shoulder to shoulder. Hold my hand, and we are doubled in number and infinified in every way else.

So the flurry blows and the weather is harsh, and in the sky there is loose, sloppy snow that hits the ground and turns to brown water cast to a spectrum by motor-oil, and frozen in an instant. The people here aren’t dressed up, they’re just dressed, and the scenesters are a little rarer when they need big coats, cause we all know they’re cool, not cold. Our breath is visible, and our skin is chapped. We’re trying our best not to slip on the ice, and trying to bundle up, and trying to be two. We’re warmed and drunk, well-rested and brilliant, and it isn’t cold anymore in New York.

No Cobblestones Back Home

2008-02-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

As is usually the case, I was awake before my alarm actually went off. This was it. The trip was all but over. I was probably by far, the earliest riser in the place, and the rest of the floppers were still sleeping off whatever outrages upon their own dignity they had committed upon themselves the night before. Such an odd feeling, that morning, on a creaky top bunk. I pushed open the window, and snapped a few pictures of the train station that sat across the canal that the building was on. I had looked forward to this trip for so long, long before I ever bought a plane ticket, or made the plans and decisions about going, and when, and how. As was the case with most of the amazing things that have happened for me, it all turned out much different than I had anticipated, but was somehow better than I had ever hoped. It was relief and regret, homesickness and revelry. It was, “fuck this, I’m going home,” and “ fuck that, I’m going to keep going!” I wanted to buy a ticket to anywhere, and I don’t know if it was reason and responsibility, or just cowardice that drove me to pack my things that morning, but packed they were, and I found myself trudging down the stairs toward the lobby, carrying everything I had lived in for the last month on my back.

I had a 9:40am flight out of Amsterdam back to London, where, with the time change, I would arrive at 10am, to catch my 12:40pm flight back to Calgary, and from there, home to Los Angeles. It was a 20-minute train ride to the Amsterdam airport, so I planned on walking out of the hostel door at 6am, leaving plenty of time to get to the airport to check in, and have a long, but relaxing flight back to the States. Yeah, heh, heh…heh.

The first sign that this trip was going to be one for the books came very early on. I slapped my keys on the counter and said I was checking out, and heading back home. The man behind the desk, said, “You know the clocks changed last night, right?”

No. I did not know that.

Now, the good news was that the clocks had rolled back, so while I was not an hour closer to missing my flight, I really could have used that extra hour of sleep. Yes, this may seem like a boon, and a funny, yet in the end, fortunate happening, but I should have recognized then that this was the beginning of the worst traveling experience I would ever go through. I’ve been on a 40-hour car ride, I’ve slept in a packed ‘88 Honda Civic at a highway rest stop, and I’ve been practically overcome with altitude sickness, and I will never forget the shittiest sequence of events that was about to befall me.

I took advantage of the extra time, and bought breakfast at the hostel. All the usual staples were present, except this place had an espresso machine. I had two, then made my way to the cobblestones.

Two blocks later I was standing in the train station, looking up at a departure schedule that listed no trains to the airport. These trains were supposed to be leaving every 20 minutes. None listed to the airport. None – listed – to the airport. I asked the woman at the information desk what the deal was.

“No trains today, they are working on the tracks.”

Okay.

Those going to the airport would have to take the train to another train station, where a bus would be waiting to shuttle passengers to Amsterdam airport. This of course would add time to the journey. Again I felt lucky about having the extra hour, and rode the damn bus, which actually was waiting.

I checked in, and got through airport security quickly. This would mark the final instance of things going smoothly.

I sat comfortably on my little hopper to London, waiting patiently. It was only a few minutes after our departure time, when we were still sitting at the gate, that the thought first seriously occurred to me, that this wasn’t going to work out. This is the “nervously eyeing my watch as the seconds tick unstoppably by” portion of my trip.

And the captain calmly explained that, they were having trouble locating a passenger. He explained that a gentleman had checked two bags, and then declined to get on board the plane. A somewhat irresponsible passenger had failed to make it aboard the plane, after stowing luggage in the cargo hold. Some motherfucker loaded his bags onto the goddamned plane, and then didn’t load his own stupid ass into a seat. This is of course an obvious security risk, and the captain informed us that the baggage handlers would now need to search the cargo hold for the man’s two bags, and remove them from the plane. Surely they would be marked, surely they would find the bags, and get them off the plane. Surely…

…two hours later, I was unashamedly hoping that this fucking sonofabitch was slowly bleeding out in an alley from a switchblade to the kidney, as that would be the one and only acceptable scenario for him to be in. Over the time that had passed, the captain said that they could not find either bag, and would have to completely unload all the luggage from the plane, then that one bag had been located but the other had not, and that they would have to once again sort through each and every bag, then eventually, that they were giving up all together, and fuck it, we were taking off anyway. Here’s what I don’t understand: If this is a security risk, as the captain stated that it was, I’m assuming that means the abandoned luggage is suspected of having explosives in it, right? So, wouldn’t the immediately obvious thing to do be to get us the hell off that plane? Furthermore, if a timed bomb had been placed on our flight, with a flight time of only one hour and 20 minutes, what the hell kind of sense does it make to sit on top of a potential bomb for more than two hours? By the time they gave up looking for that damn bag, we could have flown to London, and been a damn good ways back to Amsterdam!

I was doing the math in my head when we finally took off, and knew that I either wasn’t going to make my connecting flight, or it was going to be very, very close.

* * *

Yeah, that’s right, I missed my flight. And you know the story: took forever to get my bag, booked it across three terminals to try and check in at Air Canada, the women at the counter indicated how much they cared about my situation by briefly looking up from their fingernails, informing me that it was too late to check in, and then recommitting themselves to their self-examination. I was referred to the Air Canada customer service desk, where they would, “[sigh], see what they could do for me.” Behind the counter sat a short, pudgy Brit, whose job it was to see what he could do for me, and wore a tidy little smirk. Here we go.

So, clearly stressed, winded, and suffering from the stale air that seems to float around in every single airport, worldwide, I told him I missed my flight.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” he said, with a smirk, and in a very effeminate English accent, as if they come any other way. He then made sure to inform me that the airline wasn’t obligated to do anything to help me out. I had missed my flight, and any crumbs that they decided to sweep off the table for me was purely out of charity, and I should be happy with whatever I could get.

“For an extra 100 Pounds I can put you on the next flight to Toronto, where you can take a connecting flight to Los Angeles 14 hours later.” And I swear to God, he said this with a complete fuck-you smile all over his fat English face, and all in a London version of a Clay Aiken accent. I can scarcely imagine anything more infuriating, but I tried to remain calm, and explain my situation. That it wasn’t my fault that the other airline was late, and that I was running low on funds, and that I sure as hell didn’t want to spend 14 hours in the Toronto airport.

“Well it’s not our fault either, and if the 100 Pounds is too much for you, perhaps you’d like to try one of your American airlines instead.”

I am dropping my bag, and hopping the counter. I am beating this fat English fuck’s smirking little face in. I am kicking ribs, and asking if he could repeat once more what he said just a few moments before his teeth began rattling around in his mouth. I can see the headlines: “American Lad Delivers Savage Beating to Smirking Airline Twit; Acquitted On Justifiable Homicide.”

And then I reminded myself that I was in the one place that the customer is always wrong, and if I objected to that philosophy in a way anyone behind a counter didn't appreciate, I could very well be dragged off through an unmarked door, and “detained.” So instead of literally bending over, I did it figuratively, and then and there, quietly swore my revenge upon this little waste of carbon, if I spend my last breath obtaining it.

So I went through security, and headed for my gate. I had been placed in the very center of a five seat row, where I was seated next to a woman with a screaming baby on her lap. Seriously. Next, the controls built into my armrest weren’t working, so I couldn’t hear the movie, or even turn on a light to read – for the nine-hour flight to Toronto. I must say, however, that Spiderman 3 was not only understandable without audio, it was markedly better.

* * *

The Toronto airport was mostly deserted, partly because I was there in the dead of night, I suppose. I set about finding a decent place to post up. I found an outlet, charged up my camera and my iPod, pushed together some terminal furniture, aka the least comfortable furnishings ever created by Man, and oscillated between laughing and crying for the next half day. It’s a lonely night in the airport, cold floors and stale air. The shops and restaurants are all closed, and all the nearby hotels are too expensive. I tried to remind myself that this would soon be something to laugh at. I tried to sleep, and mostly failed. Took a few pictures of myself with the timer (I’m not proud, I was bored), I looked through pictures of the people I’d met, and the things I’d seen, the things I’d been longing to see for years. It felt like a dream, like it had all passed by so quickly, and once again, I found myself eyeing the ticket counter, wondering how much a ticket to Prague, or Melbourne, or Sao Paulo would be. Anywhere that wasn’t the malaise of real life and employment and utility bills and basic cable. Give me the hostels, and the bars, and the museums, and cobblestones. Why don’t they have cobblestones in California?

* * *

The flight back to L.A. wasn’t bad. Every seat had an interactive entertainment system in it. I watched Ocean’s 13 and Die Hard 4, and considering the last day and a half or so, that was pretty damn good. Total travel time from hostel door to my front door was 37 hours.

Bed. Sleep. Home.

The Crooked Buildings, and Windows of Amsterdam

2008-01-25T23:34:00.000-08:00

I’ll start by saying this: if Italian trains are Thunder Mountain Railroad, then German trains are fucking Star Tours. It was slick, smooth, stylish, and comfortable. And fast. I was finally on my way to Amsterdam, a place that, for obvious reasons, I had dreamed of for quite some time. I was still reeling from my time in Munich, and the miraculous turn-around that had happened. It was a strange feeling, being at the tail end of a trip I had been longing to take for years, an even mix of homesickness (only slightly at this point), and the notion that I should say to holy Hell with the flight home, I’m going to stay here and be a vagabond! What am I going to go home for? Strip malls and a job? I mean, goddamn, Amsterdam has legal pot!

So the train pulled into Centraal Station, and right away, this place was something different. Oh yeah. Out the main station, and BAM! It was like the Haight District, Venice Beach, and Vegas rolled into one. Actually, Vegas doesn’t even compare. Vegas might as well be Disneyland. I’ve got some great stories about some semi-serious shit going down in Vegas, but in Amsterdam, the potential for a totally out of control situation to wrap it’s black, scaly claws around you until you’re too bound up to scream seems much greater. In fact, you’re surrounded by people who are in that situation. Right off the bat I was offered coke, heroin, and ketamine. I’ll just say that if I wanted to drink a shot of snake’s blood, I probably could have done it, but this was the end of my trip, and I was low on cash. This visit was going to have to be simple and pretty honest.

My hostel was just inside the Red Light District. The first thing I noticed: the buildings are crazy. It doesn’t make any sense, the buildings are all crooked! It’s like the entire city hired the same shady unlicensed contractor who cashed the check and split. The don’t line up with each other, I don’t know how stuff doesn’t just slide right off the tables in some places. And that’s just side-to-side. They also lean forward. I stood at the entrance to the narrow street my hostel was on, and the tops of the building were literally, and noticeably, leaning in towards each other, like the opposing block were bowing to each other out of respect. I checked in, half-expecting to roll out of bed in the middle of the night – towards the street, of course.

This was the third place I had stayed in a row that had a bar in the lobby, which has its ups and downs. Ups: there’s a bar right there in lobby! Downs: dude, there’s a freakin’ bar right there in the lobby, ugh. It was actually difficult to book a room in advance in the city, being that it was a weekend, and people tend to flood the city. It’s only a train ride away from anywhere in Europe, and it’s relatively cheap. Plus, goddamn, Amsterdam has legal pot!

Anyway, once I was there I was able to book the weekend at the place I was already staying in. They’re required to keep a few beds open and available for walk-ins. So that was done. Three nights. Three nights then home.

I sat down at a table in the smoky bar, ordered a glass of wine, and relaxed for a bit, yellow pad in hand. I figured, the last time this thing was out, it really came in handy. A guy sat down and said hello. He introduced himself. And off we go.

His name was Fernando, and he was a soft-spoken Argentinean. He had long frizzy hair, a bit of "coffee," and he wanted to share. Well sit down, friend. Fernando hadn’t been home in months, and had been working in London, I didn’t catch as what. I’d never smoked hash before, never even really seen it. It’s sort of gummy, rolled up in a ball. He pulled out a bag of smoking tobacco, dropped a pinch in a paper, and then added a little "coffee" through the cig. Seriously, they smoke coffee there, can you believe that? He finished rolling and I ordered us round of drinks. You know, it’s funny, but I don’t remember too much about what we talked about. Huh.

Anyway, we finished up, and I invited him to come along to the coffee shop down the street. They definitely sold coffee – and also marijuana – of various varieties – in various quantities – in fact, as long as you're there, why don’t you just browse through the menu. The weed menu. There was a coffee shop (which is code for, place to by pot, by the way) just a few doors down the street – and then another a few doors after than – and one across the street from that too – get the point? Yeah.

Fernando and I just, hit the first one we came to, a place called Hill Street Blues, a scrubby, dark little place with graffiti and stickers all over the walls. Very reminiscent of more than a few punk venues I’ve played over the years. I thought about my friends, thought about how I had deliberately saved Amsterdam for last, thinking it would be the most insane part of the trip. Really, I just missed my friends. This was like being in Vegas by yourself, like cruising the strip in dirty clothes, and staying in a flophouse sort of place with a cloud of various kinds of smoke hanging out in the bar, and cats bolting out of the doors when you opened them. I kept thinking how I would have handled a trip like this had I done it a few years earlier, had I been 18, fresh out of high school. No answers.

Fernando had a tea, I had a coffee (actual coffee). Back at the hostel, he found some people he had met earlier in the day, but I wasn’t in a very social mood. I grabbed an extra sweatshirt, my scarf, and headed into the city. I wanted to see the red light district (I mean, come on, yeah?). Of course I had no plans on partaking, though it sure as hell would have been easy. For those of you reading, who aren’t familiar with the layout of this place, follow along. Close your eyes, and conjure up your vision of Pleasure Island, the crazy, kids’ party island from Pinocchio. It really is like what I imagine a real-life Pirates of the Caribbean world would be. Prostitutes in red windows, cracking the doors and beckoning you inside in some foreign language. It’s cold and dark, save the red haze, and perfect, white swans slowly glide down the canal that splits the street. It is titillating.

* * *

Let me tell you about the women in windows. It’s depressing. I mean, the people who line the streets, are essentially, window shopping for a person. They are just, propped up like mannequins. At night, in the dark, under a black light and red bulb combo, the 19-year-old from Ukraine, or wherever, looks pretty good. But that’s at night. Those are the A-listers. The women who occupy those windows in the daytime, under the harsh light of early afternoon are another story. A sad one. They look beaten. It’s devastating. And it’s there, all lit up to be seen, it’s all apparent, bruises and sad eyes and too much makeup. Too much time in those damned windows. Too much. That is the true story of what goes on that street. It’s all too much.

* * *

Outside of sex shows and live music, there wasn’t a lot happening at night, and I wasn’t particularly interested in the sec shows, not to mention, I was pretty much beyond budget. Like I said, this was a place to be enjoyed with good friends, but not so much solo. It’s lonely, solo. On my last day, I visited the Van Gogh museum, strolled through the city, gawked at the street performers, visited a coffee shop. My trip was over. This was the last day. I took it easy, and rested up for the journey home I would be taking the next morning. It was going to be a long one – much more fraught, demoralizing, and exhausting than I could have anticipated. The next day, was the long trip home.

Givitamee!

2008-01-25T00:56:00.000-08:00

Our plane is going down, and I goddamn knew it was going to happen.

We’re over the Atlantic, and about two minutes ago, the lights in the cabin blinked, there was a small lurch, a bigger one, and then everything turned off, the engines started winding down, and we began our long coast to the concrete water. These planes, these big jets, are surprisingly, not very aerodynamic. They’re too big, too heavy. That’s why the engines have to be so huge. They’ll force this huge monstrosity into the air if it’s the last thing they do, goddamnit, so any ideas of a skilled, harried, pilot, ex-military, flew three tours in ‘Nam, bringing us all in a little shook-up but still safe, for the often touted, “unlikely event of a water-landing,” is pretty much out of the question. His only job now, is to steward our large tube of people-filled metal into the water at just below Mach 1. I doubt we will be using the emergency floatation devices located beneath our seats. No, no, there will be no landing here today, just falling. The plane has been plucked out of the sky like a plumb by gravity’s strong, veiny hand, and flung towards the surface of the Earth. Soon the wings will be torn away from the fuselage. We are falling five miles.

I’m not scared, I’m just pissed. Okay, I’m shitting my pants, but I’m still angry about all this. I think immediately of her, the girl I left in New York, the girl who cried when I left, sobbed when I left, whose blue eyes choke me, whose blue eyes close off my wind pipe, blue eyes, blue eyes. The blue ocean will soon be cutting off my windpipe in a much less romantic fashion. Odds are I’ll be flung into the seat in front off me, or a long shard of aircraft aluminum will cut me in half.

But I don’t care about any of that, I don’t care. What’s to be done about it now? Doesn’t change the fact that all I can think is, what the fuck? I just figured out where I was going, where I wanted to be, was excited to figure out how to get there, couldn’t wait to get there, get there, get there, get there. Get to her. But there’s nothing to be done about it now. All I think now is, fuck, will her life be ruined? Will she ever get over me? If it was her ass in this seat, and my ass in New York, I think I would just go ahead and sign off. Shut down. Cash in, turn everything to liquid, flip the breakers, and sit in the dark. I think I would go ahead and just spin right off the planet. But then on some level, I actually like it, it makes me smile, makes me revel in the tragedy. Damn, I wish I could be at the funeral. Damn I wish I could hear the eulogies, and all the great stories people would tell about me. I don’t want to miss that party, you know? Let’s face it, it’s going to be one hell of a surprise party. People will probably be surprised, no? Sure I want an Irish wake, but I don’t want to miss it! There’s gonna be some great booze there. I wonder if the stewardess would bring me some booze right now. Look lady, fuck that cart, just leave the bottle. Well, bottles, cause I’m going to need more that one of those tiny little things. I want to be as drunk as Slim Pickens, and twice as crazy.

So bring it on, let’s do it. Give me the plunge God, Givitamee! At least these final minutes will test my metal. I will not cower, or sigh, or shatter, I won’t cry or moan – I’ll be like Slim, hat in the air, a whoopin’ and a hollerin’. And I’ll think about the girl, who cried when I left, and I cried when I left, but not crying now, no not now. No I won’t cry, cause I’m not sad – to mad to be sad, too mad. And dammit if I’m going to miss the best fucking roller coaster drop of my life. That’s what she taught me – take that plunge, go ahead, and stand up in the cart, with your hands in the air and know that the rails with even out and carry you straight on, straight on to the loops and turns and the other mini drops, and it’s all worth it, it’s all worth the ride if you can just get through that drop. And I’m not sure what lies hereafter, I just know that I took that goddamn drop, took it and laughed, and loved, made ‘em laugh, and made love. Fuck this, I’m putting my seat back, and I’m kicking the tray table right out of it’s upright and locked position. The captain can shove that seatbelt sign right up his ass.

The plane starts to howl, just like the movies, that long hollow howl, and we’re moaning through the air on rails, right for the capped ocean, into the current, food for the little ones. I’m standing, and my fists are in knots, nails in my palms, fire in my palms, and arms are steel, my biceps are exploding, and I say “Give it to me God! Gimme that inspiration! Strike me with that howl!” and I scream along with the plane as it plummets towards the sea, I scream and I howl as the people snivel and bellow all around me. “Givitamee! This is your last chance to strike me right in the flesh and blood, Lord! Givitamee.”

I’ve already got it though, the lightning blot has already struck, and my veins are on fire. I can save these people, and I’ve already got it. My feet are planted in the aisle, my fists wrapped around the seat, and the sun through the windows glints, reflected in the whites of my bared teeth as I lean into the inescapable momentum. Bring me that water, bring me what’s next, cause you don’t scare me. And I think of the wake. And I think of the city. I and think of those blue eyes, those blue eyes, those blue eyes.

The Story of Munich, Part II

2008-01-15T02:27:00.000-08:00

Half delirious, and without my glasses on, I looked up, incredulous, to see Josh peering over me.

“Noooooo.”

I glanced down to see Matt. I don’t know what the odds of this are, but it was Josh and Matt, the two Aussies I had met in Rome and celebrated the hell out of my birthday with. I responded quite eloquently with a, “No way!” I think, and shook his hand with the kind of joy you only find in a familiar face amongst a crowd of strangers. We spent a few minutes catching up; Josh and Matt had just come from Naples where it snowed and they were staying in a place without heating. They had no idea I was even coming to Munich, and yet here we were: same hostel, same room, neighboring beds. The only reason Josh had bothered to ask if it was me in the bed? The yellow pad. He recognized when he’d seen me writing in it in Rome. Without it I would have gotten up early while they slept, packed up and headed for the train station without any idea that they were even there at all. That pad was the only reason we were talking at that moment. Josh asked how long I would be in Munich.

“Aw, man! My train leaves for Berlin in the morning.”

“Cancel it! Stay in Munich with us!”

“Yeah alright….yeah, fuck Berlin!”

“Yeah!”

Josh and Matt said that they had been to a great, non-touristy beerhall just up the street, and planned on returning promptly the next day. I told how sick I had been for the previous few days, and that’s when Josh put my fears to rest with a few concise words: “Alcohol is a cough suppressant.”

Doctor’s orders, I guess.

* * *

My eyes blinked opened. As I was traveling around, I found that about half the time, there were a few solid seconds in the morning when I had absolutely no idea where I was, how I’d gotten there, or what the hell was going on in general. It was dark in the room, and this was one of those mornings. By the time I finally got my bearings, the heat of the room struck me. When you’re on the top bunk, in a fairly small room packed with 24 people, the body heat takes collects, floats to the ceiling, and hangs there like a thick cloud, reeking of a locker room, if said locker room happened to have a bar attached. Sort of a gym sock meets tavern toilet...only not that bad. But, and this was big, I wasn’t coughing. It was the first time in days that I hadn’t horked myself to consciousness, and on top of it, I wasn’t feeling like a sleepless, stuffed up, congested, sore-throated mess. I was rested. Refreshed. Oh yes, oh yes, this was going to be a good day.

The guys were sleeping off the night before, but I had a handful of things to take care of in light of my change of plans. First thing on the docket was to secure a room for the following night. So, jeans on, shoes tied, front desk. Of course they had availability for the following night! Things were going right. Now, on to the Internet. Going to need to cancel that reservation for the room in Berlin. I was just under the cut-off time to cancel a reservation without charge. Done and done. Since I was staying an extra day in Munich, I decided to just hit Amsterdam a day early and call it even. I had wanted to see Berlin, I did, but one should never ignore or walk away from instances of serendipity when they are blessed with them. Happy accidents happen even less than car accidents. It is not wise to ignore them. I walked up the street to the train station to cancel my train ticket for the morning, and to reserve a seat on one to Amsterdam the following day. Done and also done. I was practically skipping (wheeze free) down the street.

After breakfast (white roll, coffee, blah blah blah) I met up with the guys and we hit the town. It was cold and Josh and Matt wanted gloves so…we went shopping. I’m not proud of it but hey, it was fun, what do you want?

After Matt and I gave Josh a healthy dose of shit for thinking about purchasing a set of gloves that were black and puffy, and yet somehow feminine, we finally, finally, headed to the beer hall. The beer hall, the beer hall. The Bavarian beer hall; home of the beer maiden, the beer pretzel, the huge beer, and other beer related beer beer beer.

Ah, sorry. Anyway, the guys had been to the establishment the day before, and recommended what is possibly the finest piece of Bavarian fare. It sounds disgusting, looks formidable, is most certainly terrible for you, and absolutely delicious. I give you the pig knuckle.

It’s sort of a pig shank, roasted to a crisp, and just, dripping in it’s own fat. Splash on some gravy, throw in some sauerkraut and a dumpling, and good God you have got a meal. The three of us were seated at this huge, round table, half-filled with middle-aged, listless, sort of annoyed German men, drinking, and staring quietly into their beers. This is about two in the afternoon on a weekday, so I was a little confused as to what all these guys were doing there, but regardless, they were not happy that a few goddamn tourists were sitting at a table in their beer hall. When I took the pig knuckle picture one man, hunched over and tipsy, grumbled something in terse, sharp German, paid his bill, and walked out.

So we each put away a knuckle, ordered another round of beers and then started playing cards, which seemed to irritate the maiden, but then again, everyone there seemed to be irritated that we were there. I think that’s how you can tell that you’re in a legit place, and not a tourist trap: the people that frequent the place are pissed that you found it. Now, keep in mind that we weren’t gambling, just playing a friendly card game. And we weren’t loitering, we were ordering beers. Lot’s of them. And yet the maiden kept saying something about the cards. Finally, after a couple hours mind you, she sent over someone who spoke English, and she told us that playing cards wasn’t allowed. That it was “chef’s orders.” She said this and walked off. We were sort of baffled, and I have yet to come across any sort of social rule against card playing in beer halls, but what the hell?

We paid and took off for the BMW factory, which was sort of like a museum full of very beautiful objects, except you can actually buy the pieces, except not really you, because hey, these are 150,000 Euro sports cars, you know what I’m saying?

Exhausted, and still a little drunk, we hatched a plan. It was a simple plan really. The bullet points of the evening went like this: Go back to the hostel, relax, drink in the hostel bar until happy hour was over at 9, meet some people, and go back to conquer the beer hall that we had sort of been kicked out of a few hours earlier, and have dinner. All of these things came to fruition quite nicely, but it was to an extent that I didn’t come close to anticipating that night, and can scarcely believe as I write this today.

We got back to the hostel, and the guys decided that they wanted to go shower. I had already done so that morning, and decided to sit down at the bar. An American girl, Tina, I think, next to me started talking about the usual traveler’s stuff, and she was pleasant enough. So was I, and not to sound arrogant, but I wasn’t too interested. She talked very…loudly…and with lots of hands…and in a very Southern California, sort of Valley accent, which, after a month in Europe, is like a razor blade Q-Tip. What’s worse is that she talked like that, and was, somehow, from Pittsburgh. She had a friend. I made it a point to keep that in mind.

Josh and Matt came back into the bar, and for some reason, sat on the other side of the room, and gave me a smile and a wave. I called them over. I was going to help them out a bit.

“Hey guys, I want you meet someone. Tina? Tina’s friend? This is Josh and Matt, they’re from Australia, they’re both doctors.” The two American girls smiled, and did their best not to swoon right off their barstools, and just like that, the boys were set up for the night.

At a few minutes before nine, everyone in the bar made a mad rush to get a last round before the discount ended, and a few minutes after nine, I asked Josh if he and Matt were ready to go. We stood up to leave, and about a dozen people stood up to go with us. All in all it was at least 16 people. Somehow, over the last hour or so, we had organized more than a handful of people, and everyone was jovial. It’s a situation that I can’t picture arising in any other circumstance. Sixteen people, none of which have known each other for more than a couple of days, and in most cases, not more than just a few minutes. And yet, here we were, all of us talking and having fun, and now all going to dinner together. Why isn’t it always like this? Why can’t I walk into a bar, and walk out with enough friends to play flag football?

So up the street this drunken entourage rambled. I don’t know for sure if the maidens recognized Josh, Matt, and I, but just as it had been earlier, they were not too happy to see us arrive, only this time we had 13 extra friends with us.

Now, remember that this was a weekday. Yes, it’s a restaurant, but we all know what a beer hall is for: beer! And this place was packed. I don’t know exactly, but this hall had to have held 500 people, and place was bursting at the seams, everyone smoking. No stupid, video games, no fucking TVs, no fucking karaoke, just good old-fashioned drinking how it used to be, how it oughta be, goddammit. I could not have asked for anything more.

Beers all around! Damn, the conversation was raucous. In this loud, crowded hall we covered subjects from Quantum physics to the whores in Amsterdam (I was told that the mere sight of the women in the red windows would ruin my day, which is not exactly how it turned out, but was creepy nonetheless).

Somehow, the bill ended up paid, I guess, and we all boiled out of the hall, the guys and I feeling a little better about how we left the place this time.

A little dumbstruck at how much fun I had in the face of the fucking odds against it ever happening, I was, well let's say, thankful.

– Oh, and the rest is classified...

The Story of Munich, Part I

2008-01-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

Sorry to do this, folks, but I'm putting up Munich in two parts, because it's getting really long. And there's more to go still. And the average attention span, including my own, is waning by the minute, so....what was I saying?

The story of Munich begins in Rome and hinges on a yellow legal pad.

Since I was in high school, I’ve been writing on yellow legal pads. Never really knew why, I guess the extra length was nice, and something about the color was inspirational. Warm. Primary. Solar? Whatever.

I’d brought a single pad with me to Europe to do most of my writing in, and most days I would jot down a page or two in the evenings, just before I went to sleep, or I would bring the pad to breakfast and do some work before the day got started. Sometimes both. Anyway, yellow pad, remember that.

It was late in Munich when my train pulled in, and that morning (as well as several before it) I had woken up in a borderline-violent coughing fit, my lungs doing their damnedest to heave out the anvil of phlegm. This had been the case for several mornings but it was worsening. As cold as it was in Vienna, it had to have been colder in Munich that night. Luckily the hostel was two blocks from the station, and it had a bar. Nothing like a stiff drink on a cold night. Is it drown a cold and feed a fever? Or is it the other way around? Eh – I play it safe and just drown everything.

The hostel was very posh – plush couches, plasma TV, nice bar – and it was the cheapest place I’d stayed during the entire trip. The half-liters were 2 Euros, and there were grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches available as well. I’ve included the recipe below:

2 pieces white bread
2 slices white cheese
2 slices of ham, or otherwise sliced, pork product
1 pad margarine

Spread margarine on each slice of bread, pile meat and cheese slices on one slice, then place second slice of bread on top of meat and cheese pile. Place in a sandwich-style griller (Panini Press) for one (1) minute. Present on small Styrofoam plate. Serves one-half person.

After eating a “meal” that hearkened back to the culinary skills of my late teens, I settled into a beer and chatted with a couple of Australians (which are fucking everywhere, by the way, but in a very good way). Munich was their last European stop. They were headed to Egypt, sort of a notch up in the eyes of a backpacker. Sean and Mick. Sean was a foul-mouthed grizzled type, and Mick was a Jerod Leto look-alike, if Jerod Leto had bigger hair, less eye makeup and was backpacking through Europe instead of screaming awful, emotionally charged lyrics to the tune of crappy music. Needless to say, the Australian Jerod Leto had a drunken American girl, in a beret no less, hanging all over him, and she kept mentioning that she had a boyfriend back home, and she kept saying it in a defiant, insistent way that Mick seemed to take in stride. I believe the two of them retired to the showers in the men’s bathroom later that evening. Not to get ahead of myself – there was another girl in the mix, a friend of beret-girl, who was sober, also repeatedly volunteering her relationship status (no one was asking, in case you were wondering) and trying, but failing, to keep her friend from, say, fucking an Australian in a hostel shower. Nevertheless, the five of us went up the street to a beer hall. Despite the fact that that is was freezing, and I was sick, I grabbed a scarf and zipped up my jacket.

The beer maidens begrudgingly served us one round and told us they were closing. We stole some pretzels from the stale, left-over bin, and set about the task of finishing a full liter of beer in less than 10 minutes. We stepped out just as the snowflakes were beginning to fall; white specks in the frosty Bavarian night.

* * *

At 5am the coughing started. I pinged awake, lungs lurching, trying to hold back, trying not to infuriate the 23 other people blissfully asleep at that hour. I held and I held, and I tried to clear my chest without coughing, but finally gave up and ran to the bathroom, barefoot, burst through the door in a fit. Coughing. Hacking. Seeing red. Feet are frigid. I am exploding. Uncontrollable. Dying. Kill me. I hacked so hard that something had to give, and finally, I threw up. You know, it’s been a long time since I threw up and didn’t welcome it or sort of feel like I had it coming. This was bollocks. This sucked. I was in Europe, standing in a public restroom, barefoot, shivering, violently coughing, and now finally, puking. And so, two hands gripping either side of a porcelain sink, doubled-over and ill, I thought to myself, “fffuck.”

* * *

So as long I was up, and with some newly vacated real estate in my stomach, I thought I’d get some breakfast, and while I was at it, load up on some lunch. For some reason, the finer hostel breakfasts offered sliced lunch meat and cheese. This being the finest hostel I had stayed at yet, there were pickles available as well, putting them over the hump, and earning the establishment my Five Cubic Zirconium rating. Anyway, the crappy rolls that are everywhere are great for sandwiches. Butter up the roll, throw on the meat and cheese, and in this case pickles, wrap in a napkin and repeat. You just got yourself some free lunch. Throw a couple in your bag and be on your way.

I was still feeling ill to say the least, but as my time in Europe was waning, I headed out as planned. There is a company called New Europe that offers free walking tours of various European cities, you just show up at the meeting point and follow around whatever hip, young college student they have running the show. I know, I know, a guided tour is not what I had in mind when I envisioned my trip through Europe, but it’s a good way to get your bearings in a new city, figure out what it is you want to do later, and free is about what I was budgeted for at that point. I had taken this company’s tour in London, and it really was worth it. The guides just work for tips, and they really do earn it.

Here’s the thing: the tour lasts about three hours, and in drizzly yet moderately warm climate with a lunch break in the middle, that’s no problem at all. In Southern Germany, in late October, with no stops, and in jeans (IN JEANS!), that’s a problem. Look, our tour guide was great. He was from Liverpool, and despite the fact that I’m sure Liverpoolians hate this, I swear to God, every once in a while he channeled Paul McCartney in a way that made me swoon in a totally heterosexual way. But like I said, it was fucking freezing, and for some reason, it didn’t occur to this guy, that it was fucking freezing. No stops. We just trudged on. When he pointed out the Hofbrauhaus - world famous beer hall, warm, with oompah band, hot, glistening Bavarian sausages, and beer – golden, delicious beer – only to say, “Okay, let’s carry on then,” I was devastated. I really wanted to leave at the point. My toes were beady little flesh pops about to pop right off my feet. Remember when you were a kid, and you were stuck in the backseat during a road trip? You told your dad that you really had to pee, and you really had to pee, and later you spotted a gas station in the distance, and then your dad just zooms right past it as a feeling of dread grips you and hopelessness takes over? Yeah.

The thing is, it was a really interesting tour. We were seeing the home of Hitler’s Bier Hall Putsch, serious and devastating history of the 20th century. Munich was the beginning of the Nazis’ rise, and here I was walking the streets, thinking, goddammit, why didn’t one of those bullets hit him?! We finally, frigidly, got to the end of the tour, where our boy reiterated his plea for tips. I reached into my pocket, to find a couple of small change coins, and a 50 Euro note. Not wanting to insult the guy by giving him my pocket lint, and sure as hell not wanting to give him 50 Euros, I took off. Sorry, Paul. Give us a break for lunch next time, would’ja?

I booked it back to the hostel. This was probably the coldest I’d been in years, and on top of it, I was not feeling well (it had not been a good morning). This was a low. I stopped in a faux Pizza place around the corner from my hostel and gorged. I was starving for one, and cold for another, and so hearty meal was in order. I had a salad, lasagna, and lamented my situation. My condition was deteriorating, and I’m sure that several hours in freezing cold temperatures did nothing to help. I walked back to the hostel, decided to call it, got all booked up for Berlin the following day, grabbed my book, and posted up in the warm common area. I wasn’t that excited about Berlin, but Amsterdam was looming, and I had saved that for last on purpose. So, things didn’t exactly work out in Munich. I wasn’t exactly fine with it, but after a morning like the one I’d had that day, I decided that I really needed the rest, and I had an early train to Berlin the next day. I reluctantly went to bed. Damn I was sad. Sad that I was sick, sad that I was alone, sad that my trip was almost over, sad that I was sick, goddammit.

As I had done most nights on the trip, before going to sleep, I grabbed my pad and wrote a page or two. It was only about 10pm, and since this was a big dorm room, the lights were still on and people were still coming and going. I pulled the covers over my head, and tried to sleep. A few minutes later the door to the place opens again, and a couple sets of footsteps come in, one climbs the bunk directly next to mine. There’s some jostling, and then silence. And then I heard the words, “Conor, is that you?”

– To be continued –

Down and Out

2007-12-29T01:48:00.001-08:00

The sheriff finally had a major break in the most disturbingly violent case our little town’s deputies have ever dealt with.

Now, being an old man, and being of the age when I can accurately look back on the various stages of a male’s life, I feel I’m rightful in espousing my views on the subject of this heinous crime. This of course concerns the story of the poor mallard duck found paddling around the Central Park pond with a pocketknife sticking out of his back.

“Lucky,” so named by Dr. Suitor, the local veterinarian, was first seen with a knife stuck in his back last Thursday, and finally captured by some young kids in a raft, Sunday. The birds seemed fine, he continued swimming, and doing whatever it is ducks do, save flying. I would imagine that a bit difficult with a blade stuck between one’s shoulders. But anyway, no arrests have been made, and frankly I don’t know why, the Sheriff has announced that a 14-year-old boy is the prime suspect.

Now there was no need to announce this, or at least I didn’t require an explanation. Upon hearing this story I immediately knew the culprit was an adolescent male. I’m no detective, but the crime fits the profile, does it not? Who else but a 14-year-old boy would do something so profoundly stupid? For there is no lowlier creature, God bless him, than the 14-year-old male.

Now before you go calling for this boy’s head, consider for a moment the plight of the
14-year-old boy. He’s got no money, folding or otherwise, no job, no car, no prospects, and only a handful of comrades, at best, of equal or lesser social stature with which to commiserate. His, monumental level of sexual frustration is eclipsed only by his adolescent unsightliness. And even his 14-year-old female counterparts aren’t interested, as they are after his older, more physically robust, employed, and mobile senior competitors. The 14-year-old boy is at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy with years to wait before being able to climb it.

I feel bad for the mallard, I do, but I’ve just got to think that the poor boy was at the end of his 14-year-old rope. Hopeless and rejected. Broke and goofy. Pimpled and greasy – when he got quacked at – and just decided to stab that goddamn duck.

So, like I say, don’t call for his head. Call for his ass – and a switch of course.

Again

2007-12-27T02:23:00.000-08:00

She’s sitting in the airport – again.

There’s a kid underneath her chair – again – chasing a Nerf football, and as soon as he gets his filthy little hands on the ball, he brings his greasy little head, right up into the underside of her chair – again.

A woman’s shrill voice screeches over the PA – again – announcing the delay of a flight – her flight – again.

Thirty minutes later, she’s finally boarding the plane, and she’s stuck in the middle seat – again.

There’s a much older man with a ring talking her ear off – again – and she’s politely ignoring him.

Her plane finally lands and she’s off like a shot. She trots up the skywalk and skips out the gate. Past the newsstand she smiles, down the escalator, she steps. She gets to the bottom and sees him, crosses the lobby, short of breath, quick of step, oblivious to those around them, and she’s in his arms – again.

Izzy and the Lampshades

2007-12-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

This is an oldie, and my closest friends will recognize it and ridicule me, but at the behest of my newest, I am posting it. For your enjoyment [Opens briefcase, smiles and nods...].

They practiced in a leaky garage packed to the ceiling with junk. The band shared the space with a ’74 Buick, boxes labeled “Broccoli,” and a puddle that huddled in a corner.

The head was on top of the drier. The amp sat next to the paint. A cord was slung over a red plastic hummingbird feeder, and in the absence of a stand, the microphone hung from the rafters.

The bass pedal kicked on the Hefty Bag head of a garage sale set, and an explosion of pawn shop guitars stumbled in behind.

Their refrain:
Broccoli hummingbird explosion, baby!
Broccoli hummingbird explosion!

They would never make it.

Our House Used to be Blue, Part 3

2007-12-20T02:15:00.000-08:00

After my father disappeared, my mother went through some considerable changes. We no longer had any vegetables in the garden, and she stopped letting her hair down. She only kept it tied back. It was always greasy, and her complexion was bad from working in the cannery, a job she’d had to take to support us. Her shoulders sagged. She looked like the old barns. She kept that truck. Kept making the payments, even though we could hardly afford to eat. She kept that truck up herself for a while, washing it, and keeping it safe from the salt air, but she faltered, and the truck had fallen into disrepair. It didn’t run anymore. She’s long since given up the idea of my father coming home, but I could still feel him out there.

His body was never found, and so many rumors had developed amongst the people of our town. That he had killed himself, that he had fallen, that he just left, that he was a ghost and now haunted the cliffs. People were nice at first, but eventually they just stopped talking to us. Mom worked all day, and I was planning to drop out of high school after the year ended. I was going to work on the fishing boats. I wasn’t an idea man.

I was sitting on the porch of our house, which was by now, falling to pieces. I was practicing the knots I would have to tie, being a fisherman. I tried to remember some of the ones my father taught me, but could only remember a figure eight.

A stiff wind blew through me, cold and salty. I looked up, over our cliff. There were clouds forming way off in the distance. Ten miles out, maybe. Living on that cliff, it was easy to spot storms coming in, and I could see that this one was especially black, and especially ominous. I knew the storm would hit that night. It used to be my father and I would put our things away, close shutters, put away the chairs on the deck, but those things had long blown away, and the shutters didn’t close anymore.

The storm did hit that night, and hit hard. Great howls, bursting across the roof, shutters slamming against the walls like trucks. The waves crashed so hard against the cliffs I thought surely they would fall, and we would be taken into the ocean.

The fishermen were unprepared, and although their boats were tied down, the ropes were no match for the huge storm. It howled all through the night, and continued into the next day. Though morning had arrived, the storm showed no signs of slowing. Docks had been transformed into splinters, boats were thrown onto the beaches, phone lines were destroyed, and shorefront houses were gone as if they had never been on their foundations. Not one ship remained seaworthy in our entire town. It was as if the water had wanted us to leave, had wanted to wipe our tiny town off the face of the earth.

With everything old destroyed on the shore, the morning revealed something new. On the horizon, a mile or so out to sea, stood something new; a giant structure, built on a platform, many stories high, and gleaming brightly against the gray and black sky.

Two great towers rose out of the platform, topped by great golden spires. They framed a huge silver half circle, lined with pillars, and marble stairs running up to what looked like a mahogany castle door. Along the front of the platform ran a blue wall, and a long sloping ramp, running into the ocean. I knew right away, that my father had built his house. He’d found a way to manifest his idea. He’d found a way. He was right, all he needed was an idea. That was why he had been gone for so long. He was building.

I burst into my mother’s bedroom. She was asleep, head under the covers. I threw the covers back.

“Mom, mom, he’s back!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

“What are you talking about? Who?”

“Dad! Dad is back! He built his house! It’s out in the ocean, come look.” I grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out of bed to my bedroom window.

“Look,” I said. “Look at that. Isn’t it amazing?”

She muttered something about me being crazy, and left the room. I tried and tried to rouse her. I couldn’t belief she wasn’t ecstatic. I couldn’t believe that her smile hadn’t returned, what was wrong with her?

“Get out of bed!” I screamed at her. “We have to go! What the hell is your problem?” She sat up and slapped me right across the face.

“You little bastard. Your father is dead. He killed himself that night you know? He was a selfish sonofabitch, just like you. Now just forget about it because your father is never coming back, do you understand?”

I exploded out the front door as the thunder pounded above and the storm raged. I sprinted down our driveway and towards the docks, as fast as I could go. I was desperate to find a boat, desperate for something to carry me out to the palace, but could find nothing. Seething and breathless I walked across the beach, the salty spray of the surf, mixing with the rain. I reached the water where the waves surged up the shore and around my feet. I stared at the luminous house, beautiful and profound, steadfast against the waves. Tears and snot and rain all ran down my face. I decided that I was like my father. If he had gone to such desperate measures to complete such an extreme task, I would not let him down.

I took off my shoes, and my shirt, and charged into the furious surf, flailing my arms against the current, railing out to sea. I would not turn back.

– The end –

Our House Used to be Blue, Part 2

2007-12-19T01:46:00.001-08:00

That whole afternoon he talked about radio, and what a shame it was that we only had one station that even reached our small town.

“There’s just no competition,” he said. “Besides, that radio station is over a hundred miles away, it doesn’t have anything to do with our town.” I watched my mother listen to my father’s optimistic ramblings. She chewed her salami sandwich with a great smile on her face, her crimpy blonde hair blowing in the wind. She never said a word, just sat and listened to my father, soaking him all in. She really loved him.

“We could start our own weather reports, choose what music we wanted to play, you could choose what music to play,” he said to me. Pretty soon we were talking about meteorology, and pressure gradients, and then music, and jazz. Of course I believed that everything he said would happen. I would have followed him anywhere. I would have gone with him to start an ice company in Antarctica. I wanted to be just like him.

We went to the small library in town, and started looking into what it took to start a radio station from scratch. He started cataloging a list of the equipment required: transmitters, switchboards, microphones, headphones, telephones, not to mention a building, property, permits, and a million other things I can’t remember. He soon discovered that this would be his most ambitious project to date. The only man to go to was his boss, and owner of the fishing and canning company in town, Mr. Durban.

A few weeks later, my father scheduled to meet with Mr. Durban on a Saturday to discuss the proposal. I shined my father’s shoes for him while he was getting dressed. He was happy and confident.

“All it takes is an idea, son,” he told me. “It’s all this damn money that gets in the way of things, it’s too bad we can’t work without it. It’s too bad we can’t just make ideas manifest. It’s money that’s the key to so may locked doors and once you’ve got it, they can’t ever take it away.”

He picked up his shabby old briefcase, a brown leather, strapped leather bag he gotten from a thrift store.

“All it takes is an idea. When I get back, we’re going to be as rich as Mr. Durban.” He strode down the front walk towards our old brown Studebaker, bag under his arm, and drove off.

My father had left at around 8 O’clock that morning, and I nervously eyed the clock as it inched past five in the evening. My mother didn’t seem to worry. She was humming while she cooked dinner, her carrots were simmering in an iron pot, and a roast was on the stove.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked.

“I don’t know anymore than you do,” she said as she smiled.

I was kneeling on the couch, arms folded on the back of it, steaming up the window with my breath as I stared out of it, watching for our Studebaker, but it never came. Instead, a gleaming white, brand new Ford truck pulled into our driveway, and out stepped my father. I bolted out the door.

“What is this?” I cried.

“I traded in the Studebaker,” he said. “We can’t be seen driving around in that old thing anymore. We’re gonna be rich. He said yes! Durban wants me to get to work on Monday. He’s going to fund everything!.”

I jumped up and down, celebrating my father’s long deserved victory. My mother strolled down the walk towards my father, calm and happy. My father took her in his arms and kissed her. We walked into the house together and feasted. My parents drank red wine. I drank root beer. We stayed up late listening to my mother’s old records, and dancing.

The next morning, I woke up before my parents, and walked around to the back of our house, up to the edge of our cliff. There was a great wall of clouds rolling in. It was a storm, black, and thick. It would probably arrive that night.

The jovial mood continued through the morning and into the afternoon. My father was his high-times self. My mother made pancakes, and my dad made plans. He talked about what a great country this was, and all his ideas for programming. He talked about a comedy show he thought up, about two men, one dumb, and one even dumber, and all the exploits they would get into.

My mother started dinner that evening. The storm was beginning to arrive, and a drizzle was starting to hit the windows. The phone rang. My father answered it.

“Hello,” he said, still beaming. And then his smile faded. “I understand,” he said. He held the receiver to his ear for another few seconds before hanging up the phone. He didn’t say goodbye.

“That was Mr. Durban’s secretary. She said he’s had second thoughts, and doesn’t want to fund the station…doesn’t think it’s economical…no advertisers…said I can still come back to work on Monday...”

My father trailed off as he walked into the bedroom, and my mother followed. The door closed behind them. I was heart broken. I felt everything my father felt with the same intensity, at least I thought I did. A few minutes later, my mother came out.

“Let’s eat,” she said.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’ll be out in a few minutes.” We started eating alone. He never joined us.

That night, the storm hit. The shutters banged against the house and the wind howled and screamed as the waves crashed against out cliff. Thunder cracked and I sat up in bed. I noticed something out the window. It was a person – my father I thought, but I could hardly see, the rain was beating against the window so hard. The figure was standing at the edge of our cliff one second, and the next it was gone. Too terrified to get up, and unsure of what I had seen anyway, I laid back down, wide-awake and shivering. In the morning my father was gone. That was nine years ago. That was when our house was still blue.

– To be continued –

Our House Used to be Blue, Part 1

2007-12-18T01:10:00.000-08:00

I was born in a seaside town, a blustery, cold and grey place with ragged wire and post fences built by our great-grandfathers. They lined the two-lane highway that ran in and out of town, surrounding the pastures where a handful of cows still grazed, next to mossy gray barns, slack, and sagging.

It was a small town, but not a tight knit one, at least not anymore. The people were cold and suspicious, and didn’t really care for my mother or me.

On a tall cliff, rocky and covered in green ice plant, sat our house. It used to be beautiful in all the ways you might expect, but now was decaying. Once it had been blue, but that was a long time ago. Most of the paint had chipped away, and the house was beginning to look like the great sagging barns, sinking into the earth. The aging shutters over our windows used to be red, and there used to be a nice garden that my mother kept.

The sea air hung over us always, and had a great appetite for all the possessions of the people in our town. My father’s truck had great gaping holes in the hood, and wide patches of rust on the doors, in the bed, and running the length of both fenders. It no longer had a tailgate. It was a 1952 Ford half-ton pickup. It used to be white. I remember when my father had brought it home, shiny and new. I was six years old. That was when our shutters were still red.

My father was a fisherman like most of the men in our town. He had been there his entire life but my father was different than the rest. He was an idea man, and like most idea men, he had no money. He hated fishing, and longed for something grander, something that he could call his own. He used to talk about building a house. Of all the ideas he came up with only to abandon, he always came back to this one. He talked of tearing down our old house and building a great big one on the same spot, overlooking the ocean. My father had great highs, and bottomless lows. Sometimes greatly hopeful, other times desperately miserable.

He tried to start a farmer’s market once. The whole idea was that he would buy a plot of land, and then charge a small amount for people to come and set up a stand on the weekends. The people would come and sell whatever it was that they were growing, or making, and he would collect a small fee.

“It’ll be great for the community,”” he said. “Something to liven up this dismal little town!” The idea never took off. A man he had tried to make a deal with, a man with some money, said it would never work. He said people in this town were too busy relaxing on their weekends. He said nobody had anything to sell anyways, and so he backed out. I remember saying that my mother could sell the vegetables she grew in our yard, but my father told me that we couldn’t do it alone. He said that creativity was “not enough in this day and age.” He said, “you’ve got to be a millionaire just to get an idea off the ground, or else they smash you into the ground like a measly peasant.” For some time after that he was in a low, a mopey time when an intangible, soupy fog filled every corner of our house, and on the rare occasions that my father left the bedroom, it was with hunched shoulders and stubble. He went back to fishing.

My father was tall. 6’2”. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and a face that was weathered but not old. He had a full head of hair, none of it grey, and a deep rich voice. Probably a baritone.

I went with my father to the market one Saturday. My mother had decided that she wanted the three of us to picnic on the beach, and sent my father and I to the market to pick up bread, cheese, and salami. We walked inside to find the store empty. There was a small deli, and a counter to sit at. I eyed the big jar of pickles, and was jarred when my father’s hand came down hard on the bell.

“Hello there!” he said. “Anybody here?” voice booming. Mr. Marcus, the storeowner, came out of the back, taking small, quick steps.

“Morning Keith,” said my father.
“My, my,” said Mr. Marcus. “You’ve got an announcer’s voice. You oughta be on the radio or something.”

My father was holding my small hand in his. After Mr. Marcus said this he looked down at me, a small smile on his face, his blue eyes gleaming.

“You think so?” he asked.
“Oh you betcha,” Mr. Marcus said.
My father looked back down at me.
“Well how about that?” he said. I knew he had an idea.

– To be continued -

Vienna: Hulk Smash!

2007-12-17T01:58:00.000-08:00

Venice, while a bit of a bore, was quite beautiful, and the weather very pleasant. I finished Remains of the Day the day previous, and since my hostel was above a bookstore (quite convenient), I perused the English book section, and settled on How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby. So with a few hours to kill before my train to Vienna, I sat by the Canal Grandé, in a t-shirt and jeans, and basked in the sun, nose alternating back and forth between and espresso, and a good book. It was the last enjoyable weather I would, um, enjoy.

On the train, I was lucky enough to have an entire coach to myself for most of the ride. I know was supposed to be in this travel thing to meet people and experience new cultures, and blah, blah, but damn, after a month in dorms, it was nice to have a room to myself that didn’t have a toilet in it, you know?

The ride North through the mountains was beautiful to say the least, staggeringly humbling and gorgeous to be more accurate. The ride was really beautiful, and about half of it was through thick snow, which covered everything, all the trees, fields, and mountains.

There were twisting columns of smoke rising from the chimneys of little A-frame houses in the little valley towns that occasionally lined the train tracks, snuggled up against Alpine foothills. It was just like a Christmas card, a vintage one from the 1950s, when the Christmas ideal seemed sort of German, instead of now, when it's sort of Wal-Mart. As picturesque as it was, I really wasn’t prepared for the cold that awaited me in Vienna.

* * *

Okay, so it was no longer about enjoyment, or discovery, or even fun at this point, but endurance. It was two hours before the time just to start lining up for standing-room-only tickets to the Vienna State Opera House. I had been walking around the city for the previous two hours or so, looking for a Viennese coffeehaus where I could just cozy up and kick back in a warm café until show time, but unfortunately, everything in the immediate area looked very posh, and thus very snooty, and thus, not for me. It was bitterly, freezing cold outside for a southern Californian, which is to say, probably not that cold, however my hands and toes were numbing, so I picked a somewhat less than cozy, sort of cheap but still snooty coffee shop a little ways from St. Steven's Cathedral, where I sat down, and was immediately rousted, as the table was “reservatstischicken,” or some such awful Germanic monstrosity of a word meaning “reserved.” I would have left the place altogether but I really needed to get the hell out of the cold, if only for a bit.

What a stark, cold city this was in the fall. I can’t imagine the winter. Everything was so ominous and dark, and the people had a look on their face that connoted a strong suspicion. How this place went from the center of musical culture to what I had seen thus far, sitting in the coffee shop, was confusing, but then, I hadn’t been there long. To get an idea, just try to conjure up the feeling of walking barefoot on an extremely cold concrete floor, and then extrapolate from there as to my general impression.

The hostel, on the other hand, was the opposite. It was warm, new, very designer, and of course, packed with Americans, English, and Aussies, all around the age of 20, all of packed into the bar, which played all the hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s and today! KWORLD! All-American pop, all the time, all over the planet! Even then, as I wrote this account in a Viennese coffee shop, I was listening to American R&B, and not the good kind either.

At that point, I was about a week away from my trip home, and I had come to the conclusion that I was, essentially, an urban camper. I carried everything I had with me, I moved every couple of days, and my clothes and I were always kind of dirty, pretty much no matter what. More than anything else I was just tired – and cold. Really cold. In about 24 hours I would be heading for Munich, which I was really looking forward to because – and I don’t know if you know this – but they have entire HALLS of beer. After that I had two days to fill before my two days in Amsterdam, so I really needed to head North. I was having trouble deciding where to go. Belgium? Sure. Berlin? Why not? I was half-tempted to go back to Paris for a couple of days. The only place I knew I didn’t want to go was Amsterdam, because four days in that city would have probably killed me at that point. I’d been fighting off a chest cold for about three days, lots of coughing, and it was seriously wearing on me. 96 hours of splifs and sex-shows would have put me down the hard way.

Frankly, I’m not sure why I went to Vienna. I didn’t know much about the city, and due to a printing error, or perhaps because of some dispute with Archduke Ferdinand, the Let’s Go people left a 50-page chunk – the chunk containing Vienna – out of my guidebook, so I didn’t really have much to go on. The bright side of my current conflict with the Austro-Hungarians would be the formation of the League of Nations, however the Germans would suffer great economic hardships that would later lead to the unfortunate rise of fascism.

* * *

A few hours later I was back in the American embass – I mean the hostel. I was well fed, thanks to some very authentic, very cheap, Austrian-Chinese food. Not much to complain about, it had been a wonderful night. The wait in the cold had been worth it to see the ballet, Copplélia, a sort of light-hearted version of the Frankenstein tale. It was a comedy. The Vienna Opera House was gorgeous; red velvet everywhere, topped by a giant crystal chandelier. To sit in the hall where Mozart and Beethoven had conducted was a thrill to say the least, and the ballet had my attention continually. Remember, not all men are like Tim Allen, or the guys in the Bud Light commercial, ahem. I had been hoping for an opera but I guess they have to spice things up occasionally. Now, obviously the men in ballet have to be strong, what with all the lifting and leaping, but I was much more impressed by the ballerinas, and not just for the obvious reasons. To not just perform, but to hold the moves and positions that they do, they must be very strong. And toned. And limber. To hold a spotlight, and captivate an audience, all while beaming grace and skill, certainly requires a level of talent and dedication that is unreachable by most. That being said, the ballerinas also impressed me for the obvious reasons.

The Vienna Opera House performs daily, with the exception of a yearly, several-week hiatus in the late summer, and at every performance, there is standing-room-only seating in the back of the top balcony, only 2 Euro. Two Euro! It’s interesting how there always seemed to be something reserved for the poor at places of high culture in Europe. In America, there would be no problem getting 20 to 30 dollars for those seats (and they would definitely be seats, not standing room), and or course it would probably be, “Coppélia, Brought to you by Walt Disney,” and it would be performed at the Hewlett Packard Opera House.

So just when I was starting to feel like I was in a bastion of higher culture, one of the centers of Renaissance art, collecting point of musical genius, the stage cover came down, covering the thick velvet curtain, and painted on it, was this:

When I first noticed it, I squinted for a moment. Could it be? No, surely not in a place of higher, sophisticated culture such as this. Yes. Yes! It was Hulk. The Incredible Hulk appeared not once, but twice in the Vienna State Opera House. Incredible indeed.

No matter. Like I said, I was well fed, and surrounded by revelers, watching the Rugby World Cup Finals in the large, bottom-floor bar of the hostel. South Africa defeated England, making the whole endeavor, for an American such as myself, almost as anti-climactic as it could be.

Ah well. Auf Wiedersehen, ya? On to Munich. On to Bavaria, and God only knows what else.

Ahh, Venice

2007-12-04T03:38:00.000-08:00

The cold marble floor of the Roman train station was my home for about 90 minutes. I, posted up against a wall, was 25 years and one day old. I didn’t care to do a damn thing but sit.

Earlier I said goodbye to Josh and Matt, exchanged emails, thanked them for the drinks and birthday revelry, happy to have met them, and yet accepting of the distinct probability that I would never see them again. So long boys.

I was off to Venice, and it was an uneventful train ride. Besides my being very, very tired, it was raining most of the way there and the thick cloud cover didn’t make for much scenery.

When my train arrived I was greeted once again by the psycho, Judgment Day nurse, and of course, guys hawking umbrellas at the front doors. The station exits straight onto the Canal Grande complete with water taxis, mossy steps that lead into the water, and striped poles sticking out of the water here and there.

My hostel was a short walk. Past pastry shops, coffee shops, and course, bars. It was very touristy. I had been warned that Venice was quite expensive to stay in, but I had managed to find a hostel that was 20 Euro a night, not much more than the other hostels I had been staying for the previous couple of weeks. It wasn’t the greatest place. Clean? Yes. Totally sterile? Also yes. It called itself a hostel, but it was really a just a hotel that made you share a room with strangers. No common areas, no breakfast, no bar, no fun, no interaction. Hell, there was even a curfew.

I dropped my stuff, took a shower, took a walk, grabbed some pizza, and packed it in for the night.

DAY 2

I was a little more determined to make something of the day, what with a full night’s sleep, and an early rise. I couldn’t find much I was interested in doing that didn’t start before nightfall, or cost a lot of money, or both, so I thought I’d go meandering around the city for a while.

Venice is very much the city of smells. In the span of a few seconds I passed through the smell of pastries from a bakery, pizza baking in an oven, I walked over a bridge and caught a whiff of exhaust from an outboard motor, got slapped in the face with the smell of sewage, was slightly relieved by a fresh fish cart, and then fully so by a man selling an armful of roses.

Actually, scratch what I said earlier about the city of smells. In fact, Venice isn’t even the city of canals as much as it is the city of getting fucking lost. I generally think that I have a pretty good sense of direction. I’m pretty good with maps, and I even had a compass with me, but I might as well have been a mouse in a maze. I didn’t even have a specific place to go and I was lost. And when the streets are that small, the alleyways that narrow, and there is no horizon except the building towering above you, it can cause a bit of claustrophobia. I just, kept coming to dead ends, goddamn! If it weren’t for all the tiny little pizza shops I would have likely starved to death.

I finally found my way to a bar called the Café Blue (absinthe and free Internet). There was a bartender there that was a perfect personification of the city: beautiful but terrifying, thin, curvy, intense and black-haired Italian. At best, perturbed that I was there at all. Scary.

Venice, if you’re tired of church hopping, boils down to this: very beautiful, very expensive, and, well, boring. But you gotta go.

Phone Interview

2007-12-02T13:59:00.000-08:00

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The Laugh Lines of Rome

2007-12-01T02:46:00.000-08:00

In my waning hours in Nice, I sat in the courtyard of Hotel Belle Meuniere, sharing one final bottle of wine with my fellow travelers, bags packed, buzzing, smiling, laughing, happy that I’d stayed that extra day, however foolish it might have been. That had been the sort of experience I was looking for. Nice had been perfect, exactly what I needed. And as the clock ticked, and the bottle emptied out, I shook hands, exchanged emails, swapped hugs, said my goodbyes, and turned the corner out the gates and headed for the train station just up the street, thrilled to the bone to have been in this ancient, beachy little city…

…but my train was delayed 90 minutes so I grabbed another bottle of red and jumped back through the courtyard gates. For what happened after that, see the above paragraph.

After my brief reprieve, I caught the sleeper to Rome, which turned out to be a great idea: spares you from half a day spent on a train instead of in a new place, and saves a few bucks on the cost of a bed.

The Italian conductors were looser and friendlier that the French, insisted that I take a handful of free waters, waved their hands around to accentuate their broken English, and showed my to my cabin.

In the cabin were three others, a 29-year-old African man with lots of pictures of his wife and kids who remained back home in Africa. I didn’t catch a lot of his story, though I was curious. He spoke only French, which was translated to English by the middle-aged Italian couple sharing the room. They could not have been nicer. The gentleman insisted that I bring them up to speed on the events of my trip so far, smiling and laughing throughout. He was sharply dressed, distinguished-gray-haired, fine leather sandaled, and had exactly the sort of demeanor that I would expect from a well-off Italian, fresh off a vacation in the south of France. His wife was about his age, blonde and pretty, motherly and attentive to me (made sure I had food with me, would later help me make my bed). As I told them about the craziness of Temple Bar in Dublin, and the gregarious Belgians, she and her husband would laugh and look at each other, then back at me. She didn’t so much look at him, as upon him. They were still very much in love. After I was out of stories I asked about their trip, and later, how they met. This was obviously a favorite story of his. He breathed in slowly, through his nose, and grinned before beginning. He said that they were on a train, from Rome to Florence when they were both in their 20s. She was studying art, and he was just “riding around,” he said with a laugh. He said that he followed her around Florence for a few days, treating her to wine, and dancing with her. He said that he simply “could not leave her.” He said that she was engaged to be married to a man back in Rome, and though it was a fiasco when they returned, she was his ever since. That was 30 years ago. This would make for terrible fiction, wouldn’t it?

As he spoke about their two sons, and their travels, she sat next to him, hand through the bend of his arm, smiling and adding things like, “he wouldn’t leave me alone,” and “he was a very good dancer.” I sort of expected them to start dancing in the cabin.

After an hour or so of talking and story telling we all tired and turned in. I climbed into my top bunk, read Remains of the Day for a bit, and drifted off surprisingly easily, rocking back and forth to the rhythmic drone of the train as we headed towards Rome.

* * *

Upon arrival I was bombarded with images of this woman:

She was everywhere, and as far as I was concerned, may as well have been the face of the apocalypse. I guess it was part of some nationwide Italian advertising campaign that was exclusive to train stations. Posters hung on row after row of platforms, along walls, above doorways, on plasma screen TVs. The words translate to “bread, love, and sanitation,” referring of course to the ancient tradition of baking, romance, and disinfectant so synonymous with the notoriously neat and dapper Italians. Seriously, I have no idea what the hell these ads are for, or why the people in charge felt that the image of a rosy-cheeked, psychotic nurse would personify their message. Tell me that picture is not terrifying. Had it been a full-length portrait instead of just a headshot, it would show the blood-splattered, rusty bone saw she surely has in her hand. Ugh…

I was way too early to check into my hostel, just a couple blocks from the station, down via Cattaneo. So I paid for three nights, dropped my bags, and as I’d done in Paris, ran to the most obvious monument straight away: the Coliseum. To the Metro!

The Roman subway system is sort of a joke. In Paris and London, you can practically take the metro to your mailbox, get back on, and then get off again at your front door. Rome has two lines. Two. They intersect the city. The rest is up to you. They’ve got a lot of shit to dig through I guess, and in comparison to the LA subway, it might as well be a warp drive starship.

The line for the Coliseum was long, to say the least, and having just gotten into the city, I was in no mood to stand in it, so I walked through the Ancient Forum. I could write about how humbling it was to walk the same steps as Roman senators and Caesars, and how I marveled at the sheer history imbued into every carved stone and archway, and that to an American, particularly a West Coast American, I felt adolescent and miniscule, nationally speaking – but all that would be totally clichéd and redundant.

I wandered back to the Coliseum, dodged the greasy, slick Italians in plastic gladiator costumes selling photo ops for five Euro, braved the line, was denied the youth discount (because I am American), and finally, I was exactly where Russell Crowe, and Joaqu – what’s that? Huh? That was just a…oh. Nevermind.

Well anyway, I wasn’t surprised to learn that the main reason, among admittedly many, that the Coliseum is in such bad shape is because the Catholic Church – of course – had stripped much of the arena of it’s raw material for churches; molested it, if you will. Though amazing, I really expected a place that held 50,000 to be bigger, but then safety was something of a lesser issue back in the old days. Pack in that proletariat! Keep ‘em distracted!

I spent much of the day just wandering. Rome was a little twistier, narrower than Paris or Dublin, stacked a little higher. It felt older. It is older. The city had signs of age, but they were less liver spot and more laugh line; a charming and endearing indicator of a rich life well lived.

Later, I found my way back to Palatine Hill, an area that is gated off. My ticket to the Coliseum was good for Palatine as well. The area was home to the first permanent settlements of Rome; the first city center. And while I was very much enthralled with the Forum and the Coliseum, it was the crumbling, red brick structures, clinging to formation that really grabbed me. It was so small compared with the soaring white marble that is normally associated with Ancient Rome. These were modest, hopeful, entrepreneurial efforts, carved out, willed out of the ground. They would have been far from anything, the middle of nowhere. I set my camera on a small ledge and set the timer. In the picture I look humbled and respectful, quiet. Like I was taking a picture at a cemetery, and I guess that’s what it was. Crumbling, slouching, piles marking the efforts of lives passed on.

DAY 2

In the morning I grabbed my yellow writing pad and walked downstairs to the common areas for breakfast. I was writing about some of the people I had met in the hostel the night before. There was the American soldier on leave from Iraq going back to Fallujah the following day. The young couple from the University of Miami spending the month traveling. And then there were Matt and Josh, two doctors from Australia, traveling together for the better part of a year I think. As I was recounting them, Josh walked in with a tray of food.

“Hey mate, “ said Josh. Fucking love Australians. We got to talking about our respective travels, what we’d planned on doing in Rome. I mentioned that it was my birthday the next day, and Josh stopped – eyes wide – spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth.

“Its your birthday tomorrow?!” He was much more excited about it than I was. Matt came in a minute later and Josh relayed the happy news.

“Alright, we’ll show you a good time,” and then guaranteed a night of, well, booze mainly. It was going to be my 25th, and as I said before, was not so excited about it, so I was happy to at least have something to do. The guys had plans, and I thought I would devote the day to the Vatican anyway, so we agreed to meet up the next morning. That agreement was the beginning…

* * *

So Vatican city was amazing, and the Sistine Chapel was breathtaking, and St. Peter’s Basilica was astoundingly, offensively grand and ornate, and yadda yadda yadda, you’ve heard it all before, refer to the pictures.

The truly great moment came at lunch that day at a nearby sidewalk café. Sitting at a table on the street, I ordered a Pizza Margerita (cause I was in a perpetual state of not just penny pinching, but penny conversion, Euro to U.S.) and the cheapest glass of wine available. The café was just outside the Vatican and so it was pretty touristy. There were two cafes right next to each other, one with blue tablecloths, the other red and white checkered. The competing tables really were right next to each other, no more than a foot’s distance. Now, there were two employees, one for each restaurant, in different uniforms, on the sidewalk trying to get people to come inside, Of course, they started arguing, waving their hands and wailing in Italian. Between them, the pizza, the street Accordion player, I was starting to feel like I was being put on. I sat back in my chair, drank my wine, and smiled, soaking it all in.

DAY 3

I woke on my 25th birthday, in Rome, fresh off the arrogance of the sickeningly extravagant Catholic Church. Mid twenties, woo fucking hoo. Thirty here we come. Met up with the boys in the morning, and we meandered to the Pantheon, an ancient, ancient temple, the oldest surviving architecture of it’s kind. We followed the smoothed cobblestones, worn down underfoot, to a centuries-old square occupied by artist vendors, then later to a market, fresh with the aroma of produce, pumpkins, garlic, flowers, small dogs, and pizza baking in the corners of the open plaza.

Josh and Matt wanted to see the Vatican that day, so after lunch we split, and I went looking for an Internet café in order to book a hostel or two for the coming cities, and square away some trains tickets. There was a free dinner at the hostel at seven that night, so we said we’d meet up then.

The hostel, the Downtown Alessandro, was a pretty good place to lay your head. It was a bit pricey, but breakfast was free, and unlike any of the places I had stayed at before, so was dinner. And it was cooked by a large, short, Italian woman who did not speak much English, and was the mother of someone who worked at the hostel. I think you get the idea. At around six the Aussies showed up, and we walked a block or so to a liquor store to get the festivities started: red wine. Josh and Matt were into a couple of other Aussie girls that were staying in the same building, so they said they’d grab them some wine as well. After procuring their finest, cheapest wine (seriously, really cheap, one Euro, 95 cents, I think), we got back in time for dinner, and quickly put the first bottle away. It wasn’t terrible, but then this was the finer of the two bottles, ringing in at three Euros even. The cheapo was a screw off top, a bad sign from the get-go. We filled up our fine, plastic stemware, raised our glasses, brought the nectar to our lips and – and whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This stuff was truly, truly bad. It was as close as one could get to vinegar without actually being vinegar. This was the photo finish of wine. Now, while my taste in wine is better than most, that’s not to say that I am above putting away a really shoddy bottle, even all to myself. I am a good friend with the famous Two Buck Chuck, and in the old days, the two-for-five deal on bottles of Andre Champagne at Rite-Aid was a surefire standby. But this? This was beyond even my cheapest of tendencies. The three of us looked at each other as the girls looked on, sipping their drinks, and we whole heartedly agreed to spare ourselves an ironclad-guarantee of a hangover, and dump that shite. Back to the liquor store we went. And this time we bought beer too.

There was a very strict policy concerning dinner: ONE PLATE PER GUEST!!!, as detailed by a sign in the kitchen, complete with multiple exclamation marks. The dinner was pasta, and it was so damn good, I just had to have another plate. The people we were eating with warned me that the night before, they had tried to score extra, and had been duly denied. They said they doubted I could get any extra.

"Oh yeah?" I said. "Watch this." I walked into the kitchen, empty plate in hand, rubbing my belly and groaning. I walked up to the large Italian mama, put my hand on her shoulder. "Oh, oh, that was so good, so good! Thank you so much." She paused for half a beat...

"OH! Take more, more! Eat, eat, eat."

"Ah, for my friends too?"

I walked back into the dining room with not just one plate, but three. Don't tell me I can't sweet talk a woman into giving me more food.

Later on, the lot of us went to another hostel owned by the same people, this one with a bar in it – hey listen, the drinks were super cheap, and we had already sacrificed so much on that poison rotgut. It was shots of tequila, lots of beer, and for some reason, I bought everyone in our little temporary tribe a shot of Sambuca, which in retrospect is a little puzzling.

It wasn’t a long walk back to the hostel – not really a short one either, but never mind. We were thick in the cloud of alcohol. Josh wandered off with one of the girls, and Matt and I managed to get into talking American politics – he wasn’t fond of George Bush, and I couldn’t wait to get him impeached. It was a debate rife with subtlety.

Back to the hostel. Happy birthday. Drunk. Happy. Roma.

POST SCRIPT

Remember the young couple from the University of Miami? The guy asked his girlfriend to marry him that night. She said yes.

Specificity

2007-11-27T20:36:00.001-08:00

“Be more specific,” the restaurant manager said to the waiter. “I need to know exactly what you want me to do on this check! There is a process to all this you know!” George looked at his superior with a grin, one that was subtle and he knew she would never catch.

The manger’s name was Tanya, as in Harding, being of course, the most famous and prominent Tanya that springs to mind, though Manager Tanya was certainly no Tanya Harding.

George was a waiter. He hated his job mostly because he had to wait on people. George was in the wrong line of work.

It was turning out to be a trying day at so far. George had been getting bad tips his entire shift, and working very hard for them. His current problem was that a customer had ordered a Mojito, and was pissed when it didn’t consist champagne and orange juice. Of course you can see where George had been mistaken. In any case, he needed the drink promptly removed from the tab. Not in the mood to relay the story of his misguided guest, he simply asked Manager Tanya to remove the item.

“Why, what’s wrong?” she pried.
“He just didn’t like the drink I guess. He wants something else.”
“Well I need to know these things so that I can tell me boss why I need to have alcohol wasted. For all I know you ordered the drink, polished it off and don’t want to pay for it. Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“Ah, no” he replied. “But as long as you’re buying I guess I could use a beer.”
“Oh I don’t think so. I just need you to tell me why I need to comp this drink. You need to be more specific.”
“More specific?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“I need to specify?”
“Yes.”
“Would you go so far as to say that I needed to respond with an increased level of specificity?” he mused.

She did not immediately respond as she attempted to work this out in her feeble middle-managerial brain.

“Spefi…specifical…specifit…what did you say?” she asked, her brow furrowing. With precise enunciation, he repeated the word in question.

“Specificity” he said, grinning slyly.
“That’s not a word,” she said. George glanced at her with a cocked eyebrow, and having lured her firmly into his territory asked, “Would you like to bet on that?” She was somewhat taken aback by this, as she had never been asked this by one of her underlings before. She knew that something was wrong here, but she didn’t know what. George now thought to himself, “what a clever way to call her an idiot and get away with it.” George was a pompous asshole.

“Alright,” she said, responding confidently just as the set of motivational audiotapes she purchased one week earlier had instructed her to when faced with confrontation. “What do you want to bet?”

George thought for a moment, and said, “Well if I’m right, you buy me dinner after my shift, and if you’re right I’ll pay for this gentleman’s drink so you won’t have to comp it.” Immediately seeing this as an opportunity to both put an underling in his place, and avoid looking incompetent to her superior, Manager Tanya seized it. A deal was struck and they raced to the back office for a dictionary, to be opened for perhaps the first time.

She raced through the Qs, skipped the Rs altogether, and flipped through the Ss one page at a time until she came to it: specificity: "spe-s&-'fi-s&-tE: noun: the quality or condition of being specific.

“I’ll have the sirloin, medium rare.”

Tanya sat in her office and burned for a short time before shrugging it off. She had no intention of buying him dinner anyway

Beer v. Wine

2007-11-26T02:47:00.000-08:00

It was the day before my 23rd birthday, just a few weeks before my mother’s wedding to a new man, that my mother threw a dinner party. She invited all the people and relatives that had been around before my father died, and they were all very congenial toward her new man, smiling, and laughing at his jokes, the way they had all laughed at my father’s jokes when he had still been alive. My two sisters were there, both younger than me, and they just tittered around like the idiots that they were, oblivious that this used to be our house, and now belonged to this new man. My mother wore a party dress that she had gotten on sale at some discount department store, the kind where everything is too big or small, or had a wayward seam, or something wrong that they couldn’t sell them for full price. My mother tooled around the house refilling people’s wine glasses with chardonnay or whatever the hell it was, and talked about the wedding, and what would be served for dinner, and how easy it had been getting the American Legion hall for the reception since Hank was a veteran. That was his name by the way, Hank Harden. Hank had been in the Navy in the Korean War, but all he had done was peel potatoes or something like that. He wasn’t really a veteran.

Anyway, we all sat down at my father’s table to eat dinner. Hank brought out this glass carafe of white wine, like he thought it was a classy move, but the truth was he just filled it with that awful boxed shit. So he fills one, and finishes one, and fills one, and finishes one, and he gets to eyeballing me. Started taking little jabs at me, mostly about going to college, and not to war.

He’d say something like, “You’re just damn lucky that you didn’t get drafted," and "He thinks he’s hot shit ‘cause he’s in college,” stuff like that, called me a pussy, and all that shit. I mostly kept quiet. Every time Hank would say something to me my mother would flash me a look. Man, she didn’t stick up for me one bit. She tried to give me stern eyes, but I knew she just didn’t want me to piss off Hank, and so I didn’t.

Then he starts in saying “these damn college kids think they fuckin’ know everything. This fuckin’ kid does, don’t ‘cha? Genius? Huh?” you know. I just looked at him, didn’t answer. My mother’s friends were uncomfortable, but none of those biddies said anything. They didn’t want to upset my mother and so they would change the subject back to the wedding, or whatever those damn hens squawk about.

Hank wasn’t the only drinking. Back in those days I was still at it, and it was one of the things I did best. I only really drank beer though, I was never into hard alcohol too much, except maybe tequila. I had brought over a case of Coors, and was getting towards the end of it. Whenever Hank would take a drink I would too, and whenever he finished a glass, I would finish my beer. Hank noticed this, and called attention to it. “What do you think you’re trying to do, out-drink me? I don’t think so college boy.” Then he starts in saying “I could still kick your ass,” and “we should go outside, I’ll kick your ass” blah blah blah. I was silent, just drinking but he was still going. “Look at this kid, just because you’re some fuckin’ scholar doesn’t mean you could knock me down you fuckin’ fairy,” and I mean, he’s laying into me at this point.

He poured the last of the carafe into his glass, points at me, and says, “I know I could kick your ass,” and I tell ya, I don’t know what it was, but I reached across the table, grabbed Hank by his tie with one hand and that goddamned carafe with the other, cocked back, and smashed that sonofabitch right across the face with it.

He fell over, out of his chair and onto the floor. My mother shrieked, the whole table gasped, and that was that.

Hank was out cold, and the party was over.

I wasn’t invited to dinner too much after that.

Notes From a Second Story Window: Don't You See?

2007-11-23T14:54:00.000-08:00

Here we are again, my glassy reflection superimposed on the world, all sights through my face, my image buzzing with vibrations cast from the street. The snare in the corner hums as a truck goes by, the stars are still out but the sun is coming on. I’ve been up all night and asleep for a month, I blink and the haze doesn’t clear, I’m wrapped in a fucking straight jacket and I am with dwindling options. I, I, I, I, I, I fucking hate that word, It’s on this page entirely too much.

I’m not the only one up. There’s a couple on the sidewalk below my window.

They might be somewhere else, they might not be at all, they might be separated by a few years and a couple thousand miles, and a different class of aspirations. He is drunk but honest, she’s in tears but there is sublime happiness behind her eyes. His is worship. Hers is helplessness. His is veneration. Hers is reluctant abandon. She’s trying to pull away and he’s trying not to pull back. They’re both failing.

He says: Don’t you see? Don’t you already know how this all turns out? Close your eyes and imagine what your decision is going to be at the end of all this.

She says: I know, but you don’t know what it’s like to walk away from something like that, it’s all I’ve known for practically forever, but now all I want to know is you.

He says: Forget about me! You are going to live in a high-rise masterpiece on Fifth Fucking Avenue and fly to Paris on a whim, and wear red lipstick, and look fabulous.

She laughs.

He says: This is the sort of story that Shakespeare wrote plays about; complicated love stories where the characters are kept apart by circumstances that seem out of their control – star-crossed my ass – these problems are well within our control – and dammit, I want this to be a comedy!

She laughs, and he chokes but smiles because he knows it makes her laugh. I don’t know what after this, because they are now both just standing there like they wish they are concealed, like they wish they were alone again. As they talk I begin to know them better and better and from they street they tell me their story. He is a sincere destroyer and a blind fucking idiot waving his hands around in the dark. She’s realizing that she’s been in the dark for years and together they might have a chance at a little fore and hindsight but whether or not they will acquire that vision remains to be seen, so to speak.

She says: I don’t know what to do.

He knows what to do but doesn’t want to say it. He feels guilty and IS guilty. He is screwing with things he knows nothing about. He wants to say that she should leave her old life behind. He wants to say that they are both in a place where the past looks better than the future and he hates that. He wants to stretch out his arms and smile and say that she’s the bright spot on an otherwise dark horizon. He wants to tell her that these sorts of stories don’t happen every lifetime, and he wants to say that this experience has changed him and that with or without her there’s no going back, and that he’s happy beyond all measure that this has happened, and that despite the fact that he’s plagued with doubt he has no choice but to go forward, and now the tears are pouring down her face and she’s covering her mouth and nose with her hands.

She says:……………. she can’t say anything. She just wants to dive into him. She’s furious at him for saying and being the things that are tearing her apart and a part of her hates him. She hates him for destroying her well-laid plans, and she’s sobbing now. She wants him to vanish, she wants her old life to vanish, she wants to be back where they met, she wants to have never gone there at all, she pictures two alternate futures, and only wants one, and doesn’t want to want that one. She recovers for a moment –

– and then she’s gone. And then he’s a million other places. And then he’s gone too. And their shadows slowly fade like drifting smoke, like two clouds of dust mingling, finally indistinguishable from each other, finally together. I’m pressed against the window, breathless, desperate for them to come back, and for a second I think they might –

– and then another truck rolls by, buzzing the snare drum in the corner, and I lose the vision. There’s a man across the street now, sitting cross armed and legged at the bus stop, screaming at the gutter. The sun glints off the Jameson bottle on my desk and I’m back at the second story window looking for all the same things if just from a different angle.

They're all just a half a day away, a million miles from home, and that’s exactly where I want to be.

I, I, I, I, I, I.

The Whirlwind

2007-11-22T01:50:00.000-08:00

The sun rose early over the desert ground, angry and persistent. A small dot on a vast cracked plain: a wagon. Leaning against the wagon is a wheel, propped up by its splintered and now defunct axel. Underneath the tilted frame huddle three small children, and a woman, staring desperate and wide-eyed at a man as he mutters over the broken wagon.

In the distance billows a tuft of dust.

The white sun glares over the man’s shoulder, coaxing sweat out of the back of his neck. His flesh is already starting to sear.

The tuft in the distance grows closer.

“Mama, a dust devil!” cries the smallest girl, and she points. There is no wind.

The family is from Pennsylvania, and the man has no knowledge of wagons. In his haste for cheap land, he did not bother to learn the finer points of wagon repair. He didn’t think he would need to. He won’t.

A salty ball of sweat oozes out of his pink scalp, rolls across the furrows of his forehead, and along the underside of his eyebrow, settling into the white of an eye. The sting of the salt burns, but is cast aside by a sudden shrill scream from the void.

And the tuft in the distance grows closer, only it is not a tuft, and it is not a dust devil. The mother looks up, and can’t bear to scream, but elicits only a whimper, and she wraps her sallow arms around her daughters head in their final embrace. The other two girls swallow hard gulps, and pile on the now sobbing mass as it huddles underneath the broken wagon.

A whirlwind of men is running at full speed toward them; a pack of forty or fifty. Their clothes are tattered, hanging on as an afterthought, or of no thought at all, just the remnants of what the bodies used to be. Their lips have rotted away, and the long, spindly teeth protrude out of their wearing gums. Shinbones poke through skin, and the mother at the base of their fingernails has retreated, gangrenous and green. The souls of these men are long gone, and only their hunger remains. They are ravenous and rife with the desperation and rage of a famished animal. They are the undead.

The father does nothing but crumple his hat in his hands, and stare knowingly at the oncoming hoard. He makes no attempt to escape. There is nowhere to go.

And as the wave of rotting flesh crashes toward them like a wave, he turns his back to them, and looks upon his wife and daughters, and says, “I’m sorry,” just before they are awash in a sea of their own blood. Even the vultures stay away.

Thank You For This Moment

2007-11-20T21:03:00.000-08:00

I close my eyes and feel the spray of the Teahupoo surf.

I taste the frosty, wrenching smack of Russian vodka on a night in St. Petersburg.

I can smell the wafting scent of hash as it traipses endlessly across the hard wooden tables of a nameless European coffee house.

The carousing din of a Dublin pub, hospitable Irish toasts, warm beer and drinking songs, unchanged for centuries.

The touch of a young woman entices me further into a cold Munich night, freckled with beauty.

The windswept chop slaps at the barnacled hull of a fishing boat as I lean over the rail of the bow. We are traveling west.

My window is rolled down as far as it will go and I revel, elbow hanging out triumphantly, the beats of the reflectors thumping methodically.

Unbound by deadlines, unrestricted by timetables I move, pursuing the world, as time blurs into irrelevance.

Nice is...Well You Know.

2007-11-19T22:30:00.001-08:00

Before I delve into Nice, there is the unfortunate travel to Orleans, that really doesn’t even deserve mention, but in my attempt to remain faithful to the timeline, should at least be mentioned, and so,

ORLEANS: A SIDE NOTE

On a few recommendations, I made it a point to visit the Loire Valley, mainly because I really wanted to see the…the, ah…actually I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. It’s supposed to be very beautiful, and dotted with vineyards and Chateaux, and I was told that it is considered the “garden of France,” which in retrospect sounds suspiciously like the “heartland of America.” Taking into account that I have almost zero interest in loading onto tour busses with polo-shirt clad American tourists and shelling out precious cash to go sip, and then spit out wine, it makes perfect sense why I hauled my sorry ass out of freaking PARIS, and into a bunch of farmland. I picked Orleans.

I’ll get straight to the point. The hostel I had booked had been closed, and subsequently abandoned (though they chose to keep the phone number apparently). Creaky, rusted gate, brown leaves covered the courtyard, a cold breeze came through – everything you might expect from an abandoned hostel. A hour’s walk later I was at the tourism office, asking where the hell this damned hostel was.

“Oh they moved.”

“Oh did they?”

Yes, they had. They had moved into a somewhat remote location several kilometers from the center of anything going on, and I could take the tram to get there. Last stop.

The last stop is basically the suburbs. And the hostel is now located in a soccer stadium. And there was nobody there. Oh sure there was the reception guy, but he headed home at about 7pm, and then I was alone. In a soccer stadium. It was sort of like traveling to France, and then hunkering down in your high school’s football stadium. By yourself. I had an early morning train to Nice the next morning, I had never had a greater desire to get to the south of France.

So after the disastrously lonely night in Orleans, I shot out of bed for the free breakfast, what was rapidly becoming a staple of my travels through Europe. White roll? Check. Corn flakes? Check. Weird, flavorless yogurt that tastes and feels suspiciously like snot? Roger that.

The gentleman who seemed to be in charge of the soccer stadium hostel was kind enough to sit with me and asked me about the trip. He spoke labored English in a thick French accent and I felt stupid and ignorant about my total lack of any French acuity. After finding out that I was, and would be traveling alone for four weeks he commented that I was crazy, a trend that I would come to find common in the coming days.

I finished up and headed out. That’s the end of the story because there’s no more to tell. Side note over.

It was a quick train back to Paris, Gare du Nord followed by a short walk to Gare de Lyon for the train to Nice.

While the train to Orleans was a quaint little regional clanker, the train to Nice, a trip that was practically the length of the country was an ass-kicking, double-decker, rocket through the baguette and cheese countryside. Holy shit! This beast moved so fast that to blink was to strobe, in so much that to focus on say, a windmill or a telephone pole, blink, and then, open again was to see the object jump unnaturally far, as if a few frames of reality had been removed while your eyes were closed.

I was seated facing backwards, in front of a table. Across from me was an elderly French couple dressed modestly, and may as well have been a set of American grandparents. They never talked, but just sitting there they spoke volumes. She knitted, he stared out the window, they glanced at each other, smiled, then she went back to knitting, he went back to staring. They both continued smiling.

I raced through most of Dharma Bums that day, dangerously close to running out of books to read on my trip. I was just coming to the end, “…because I knew that shack and that mountain would understand what that meant…” when I knew I was in the south of France. How? White letters on a blue sign reading “Cannes” should have been enough, but the gaggle of gaudily-dressed, middle-aged women wearing way too much make up and talking loudly in foreign accents confirmed the notion.

It was after dark when the train finally pulled into Nice, and I began my search for the Hotel Belle Meuniere, the hostel I booked on av. Durante, only a few minutes from the station. The Nice train station is in a scummy part of town, so it was sex shops and liquor stores, Internet stations framed by pink neon, and bathed in red light. One shop promised English keyboards, another promised naked girls. Under normal circumstances it would hardly seem like much of a choice, but having dealt with the heinous clusterfuck that is a French keyboard, I made a mental note of the Internet station.

A few minutes later I arrived at the hostel, a converted former mansion with a quiet, gated court yard, tables, and plenty of trees. It was very secluded and a quiet. It had the detailed molding around the windows, a wrought iron rail guarding the balcony, and a soulfully creepy air about it that only an old house that has had many people come and go can possess. This is where the “French” in the French Quarter comes from. Se Bon.

I checked in, and walked to my room, a four-bed with an attached bathroom, therefore, tre chic, as it were in the hostel world. There were two girls, friends, maybe 21 or so, who were giggling in German. I walked in, the giggling stopped. Both girls looked at me with half smiles, paused for a beat. I smiled, set my bag down on the bed, and said hello before they went back to giggling, broken up with bouts of terse, and yet somehow bubbly German. Eventually they regained some semblance of control, and managed to eek out a few sentences in English. They were Swiss, and heading back home the following morning. Eh.

The really interesting resident was a woman named Ellen. She was older, years beyond my own mother, which was odd considering that I was starting to feel a bit on the older side myself for the hostel set. She blasted me with questions. Where was I from, where was I going, where had I gone, what did I do back home, what had I seen in Nice? Once she had exhausted her query supply, she began offering assistance in almost everything imaginable. Where to go in the city, good places to eat, what to do, see, taste, where to walk, swim, drink, dance. At first she was all about me and what I was up to. So eager to help. Finally, after I managed to get a word in, I asked where she was from. It was a key sliding into a lock, and she released all that she had been waiting to say. She told me that she was from Minnesota, and that she hated it. Her husband had died a number of years ago, and so she set out to make a living on her own to support her children. She was in real estate, and as she spent years setting up her business contacts and connections, her children grew, and moved, and now never came back to Minnesota. She said that she wanted to move to California or Hawaii to be with her children, and their children, but felt that the time had simply passed, that she had probably been presented with an opportunity to move, but it had gone. After she said this, she paused, looking at the ground, her mouth just barely open, her stained teeth biting her thin lower lip, and the wrinkles around her eyes curving along with her sagging shoulders, towards the ground. And so she traveled when she could, it wasn’t too late for that, she said. It wasn’t too late for that.

* * *

The next morning, I dropped my laundry off at reception, grabbed a towel and headed to the beach. The weather was perfect, or in other words, it was exactly like California: cool in the morning, hot in the day, balmy and warm in the evening.

I walked down the broad boulevard that runs through the center of town, straight to the fountain in the city square, and onto the coast. The beach…well let’s just say that while the weather is like California, the beach, is not. As a lifelong Californian and a surfer, there are two main criteria that I apply to a beach, in order of importance. First: waves. Not much to do on a surfboard without them. Second: sand. I guess I don’t usually apply this as a criteria, because it seems like sort of a given, in the same way that I generally expect water to be at the beach as well. I was somewhat surprised to find that instead of sand, the beach was covered in a larger version of sand. Rocks. Stones really. Smooth stones, mostly the size of deformed softballs. Hmm. Well the weather was beautiful, the water was devastatingly blue, and terracotta villas and upscale hotels dotted the curved coastline. I thought, “darn, the south of France. I’ll just have to make do, I suppose.” Plus the beach was topless, and I’m a stupid American male, so there’s that. By the way, topless French beaches have their upsides, as well as their downs, believe me.

That was pretty much the day. Sun. Beach. Water. The south of France.

On my way back to the beach I started to form a strategy. A strategy to meet some people at the hostel, hit the bars, and make it a night to remember, or even better, a night to forget. What better way to accomplish any of those things than alcohol! I grabbed a bottle of red wine. That ran me about 2 Euro. I went back to my room, showered, shaved, put on my freshly laundered clothes, and I was new man.

Out in the courtyard, I sat down at one of the tables with my bottle, a yellow pad, a corkscrew and a glass. I poured some wine and hadn’t written more than a sentence when an Australian sat down, and introduced himself as Daniel Carpenter. Dan had not been home in over 18 months. He was a chef by trade, and earlier that afternoon, had made the decision to settle in Nice for a while, he liked it so much, and get a job, if only for a few months. I offered a glass of wine, he accepted, called over a couple of people he had met earlier that day, they called over a couple in turn, and so on, and so on, and pretty soon about ten of us were making dinner plans. A half hour later we were all getting back from the grocery store with everything we’d needed for a full spread. Bread, cheese, meats, tomatoes, crackers, and of course, more wine. Six bottles of wine actually, which we handled readily.

The group headed out that night to a bar called Thor, a sort of simulated cave, where for some reason, people kept handing me beers, or insisting that I take shots of Jager with them. And for some reason, I kept accepting. There was a great band and plenty of booze, but the kicker, the best part of the evening, was a street vendor. The crepe guy! A banana and Nutella crepe was a steal and a half at only 4 Euro. At three in the morning, after an ungodly amount of booze? I would have paid double.

* * *

The next morning was…hazy…wobbly…spinny…is a word? It’s not? Well anyway is was another beach day. I met up with Dan (Australia), Abi (England), Sarah and Andrea (Canada) in the courtyard, and all thick-headed and hung over, we headed for the water, where we stayed, literally, for the next 8 hours. Before we reached the beach, however, we saw the below.

Yes, that is the handicapped section…of the beach. Isn’t that just that saddest, most depressing/hilarious thing you’ve ever seen? Why not just paint a giant blue square on a dance floor, stamp a handicapped sign in the middle of it, and wheel in the disabled, where they can have a front row view of people doing exactly what it is that they can’t do? What asshole thought this up?

I was supposed to take a sleeper to Florence that evening, and I was dreading it. I was having such a great time with these wonderful people I had met. We were drinking wine, eating great food for cheap, sunning, swimming, drinking wine, laughing, drinking wine. Goddamn I didn’t want to leave. Not to mention, the Rugby World Cup Quarter Finals were that night, France was playing England, and there was a huge screen set up in the city square that would be showing the match for anyone that cared to show up. “Damn,” I said, “I can’t believe I’m going to miss this, but I already have my ticket to Florence!” And then I thought, “Hey wait…fuck it! I’m staying…and watching the Rugby match…and drinking more French wine!" So I did. I booked another night at the hostel, canceled the ticket to Florence, booked a new sleeper to Rome, relaxed on the beach for the rest of the day, and come nightfall, headed for the square with the hostel crowd in the hopes of watching France deliver a crushing blow to England. I wanted to see that square erupt. I wanted to hear the French national anthem sung in excess. I wanted to drink more French wine!

Alas, it was not to be. Although the square was packed, and for a while it looked like France would have its victory, England, goddamned England, pulled it out towards the end. The French flags didn’t wave, the square did not erupt, but I left blissful and boisterous, happy that I had stayed, sunned, tanned, relaxed, and refreshed. I was halfway through my trip, and it was finally starting to come together. I had met strangers and made them friends. The next day I sat on the beach – again, and reluctantly, but happily boarded the train to Rome that evening. Nice was good to me, and leaving France was bittersweet. Still, I had the feeling that better awaited me. And it most definitely did.

The Sunlight of Midafternoon

2007-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

The sunlight of mid-afternoon woke me. I reached to the side of my bed, looking for my cell phone. The time read: 2:15 PM, and the date read: JUNE 13. My head pulsed with my heartbeat and my head ached. The events of the previous evening began to stream across my mind. “Four drinks. Ten?” I thought. My wallet was in the back pocket of my jeans, which I happened to be wearing. I checked the contents. Driver’s license, credit card (maxed), ATM card, community college ID expired two semesters ago, no pictures, no money. It was a Wednesday.

I sat on the edge on my bed for a minute, holding my head in my hands and trying to cope with the coming day. I looked up and eyed a black case with gold keys sitting in the corner underneath some dirty clothes. It was very dusty, and hadn’t been opened for quite some time now. At one point its contents had played quite a prominent role. I used to open it all the time but now, never. I swallowed a lump in my throat and walked out of my bedroom.
My kitchen was dirty, equipped with a hodgepodge of stolen restaurant dishware, and never stocked with any real food. On the floor was linoleum; a reminder of the days when yellow and brown were a fashionable color combination. It was peeling away from the floor in several places and there were inexplicable brown spots that seemed to be getting bigger, and were simply never going to come off. Walking through the kitchen without shoes was like walking through a movie theatre barefoot. I stopped caring long ago.

Outside on the balcony of my second story apartment sat a bottle of lighter fluid, a few bags of trash, and a bicycle. Probably some well-intentioned step towards exercise or self-improvement. The gears were rusting.
There was a makeshift ashtray sitting on the banister, packed with cigarette butts. It was really just a flowerpot big enough to hold at least a couple hundred butts and was usually packed to the brim. Above it actually. Anyway, it used to catch fire every once in a while. I’d see a plume of smoke out the window and would run outside and dump a glass of water on it and then dump whatever would fall out into the trash.

I was sprawled out on the couch with a cigarette and a vodka, smoking away my morning/afternoon, which would soon turn into evening and see me sleeping away the night. I finished the cig, packing the butt into a beer bottle cap sitting on the coffee table. The television blared like a strobe.

A few hours passed, and nothing had become of the day. I’d done the usual: television and depressants. I thought I’d break up the day, and step outside for a smoke this time. Opening the door, I received the first blast of fresh air yet that day, and noticed the sun dropping behind the apartment across from my own. I was still in the clothes I’d slept in the night before.

I lived in a shabby part of town, dirty and dilapidated. Our apartment complex was very aged. There was supposed to be a pool but it had been half empty since I’d moved in over a year ago. I lit the cigarette and took a long drag, closing my eyes and running my fingers through my greasy hair, when I heard a loud clucking sound. In front of the apartment next to mine was a little boy. The balcony ran the length of the apartment building, four of five units, and a short metal fence separated each apartment’s balcony. There, with his chubby face squeezed between the metal bars was a little kid, maybe four of five, making a clucking sound with his tongue, staring up at me. I looked back, and took another drag.

“Watchya dooin?” the little boy asked.
“Hanging out.” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Cluckin,’” he said.
“Where’d you learn that?” I asked.
“I figured it out on my own,” he said. “Can you do it?”
“CLUCK CLUCK” I clucked. He didn’t reply, just kept clicking. I took another drag of my cigarette.
“Now watcha doin?” asked the little boy.
“Smoking a cigarette,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because that’s what big people do kid, they smoke.”
“Can I have one?” he asked.
“Are you a big person?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t have one.”
“Do they taste good?” he asked.
“Ahh, not really, you probably wouldn’t like it very much.”
“Then how come you like em?” he asked.
“Ahh, I’m not really sure,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. He just stared up at me, his cheeks pressed against the metal bars, eyes pegged on mine. I looked away and took another drag, looked back and he was still looking at me. I put out the cigarette into the pile and turned to walk inside.

“See you later kid.” I said. He didn’t say anything, just watched me like he expected something to happen. I think he was disappointed, and rightly so. He hadn’t gotten much information out of me.

I plopped back onto the couch and turned on the TV again. More game shows showcasing the stupid, so I turned off the TV, and just sat in silence, staring at my reflection in the blank screen. I felt so wretched and empty. I felt, nothing. I had no ideas, no ambition or energy. Just a flat-lined existence measured in packs of cigarettes.

I walked to the end of the hall and into my bedroom. I knelt down before the long unopened black case, brushed away the clothes and a handful of gray dust, and clicked open the hinges. I reached in and removed a large bronze object from inside: my saxophone. It was a Selmer tenor sax I’d paid for myself when I was sixteen years old. I’d started out playing in grade school but I didn’t really get into it until I was about 15, and found the jazz club downtown. Ever since then it was Coltraine, Bird, Miles Davis, Monk, Brubeck, even Shaw sometimes. But I’d stopped listening to that stuff over a year ago, about the time I moved into my apartment I guess. About the time…nevermind.

I pulled out the polishing rag and the body of the horn, grabbed a fresh reed and started sucking on it. I polished the bell and oiled the corks. I twisted in the neck and screwed on the ligature and reed. I walked into the living room and squeaked out a few notes, the first in a long time. My chops had all but vanished, but they were coming. I managed to work out a few blues scales, and then tripped through the melody of Blue Rondo. It didn’t go well but it went. I was starting to remember what I’d been about when I noticed a familiar smell, and then a familiar cloud of smoke. The ashtray was on fire again.

I calmly dropped the horn on the couch and filled a tall glass of water. There seemed to be more smoke than usual. I opened the door and the ashtray was on fire, along with the rest of the balcony. A solid yellow flame had spread across the twelve feet or so of deck in front of my apartment, and was beginning to climb up the banister. I dumped the glass I had and ran back in for more. This had come as something of a surprise. I grabbed a bucket from under the sink and ran into the bathroom. I started filling up the bucket in the bathtub, and frantically ran back to the kitchen for more glasses of water.
I managed to get the banister put out by the time the bucket was full. I muscled the now heavy five-gallon bucket across the living room and out onto the deck just as the neighbor had run out with a fire extinguisher. The deck was a little charred but it didn’t seem to be burned badly at all. I expected the whole deck to be destroyed but I seemed to have gotten it in time.

“CLUCK.” I heard that familiar sound and looked down to see the little boy, chubby face pressed against the metal bars, holding my bottle of lighter fluid.

“CLUCK.”
“What the hell are you doing kid, don’t you have parents?”

“CLUCK,” he replied.
“Give me that bottle,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I said so you little shit! You almost burned the whole building down!” I snatched the lighter fluid out of his hands. “Now get the hell out of here!” He scampered off, and I walked back inside. I put the bottle under the sink, inside the bucket. “Jesus.”

I walked to the living room to get my horn. I took it apart and put all the pieces away, grabbed a towel and dusted off the case. I put on a vinyl record, Birth of the Cool, and sat down at the kitchen table, just listening.

Form 29-30

2007-11-13T00:50:00.000-08:00

Window 17:

“I’m sorry but you’re going to need to fill out Form 29-30 before I can clear this.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go to window 34 and request Form 29-30
“Well what is that?”
“I’m sorry but people are waiting. Window 34, Form 29-30, fill it out, bring it back here. Next.” I am brushed off his shoulder like dandruff. He has utter contempt for me.

Window 34:
“It’s past the due date for Form 29-30 request.”
“I need that form so I can file to graduate.”
“The due date has passed.”
“But I need to file by tomorrow.”
“The due date has passed.”
“When was the due date?”
“April 15th.”
“That’s today. Can’t I still request one?”
“A request has to be filed before the 15th.”
“Wouldn’t that make the due date April 14th?”
“It’s past the due date for Form 29-30 request.”
“I need that form so I can graduate.”
“You’ll need to file an extension. Next.”
“How do I file an extension?”
“Third floor, the rack under the sign that says, ‘forms.’ It’s a yellow form. Next.”

Rack Under Sign That Says Forms: Seventeen columns wide, eight rows high. 93% yellow. It takes ten minutes or so but I find it. It requires the usual. Last name, first, middle initial, student I.D. number, address, street name, but this one has a box labeled: “Reason For Deadline Extension,” asking for a reason, or an excuse as to why an error so egregious was made. Stories of tragedy and heartbreak begin popping up:

While in Mexico building houses for the homeless I broke both my legs saving infant twins from a terrorist/drug smuggling ring. Had I not intervened, the men involved would have gutted those babies, stuffed them with cocaine and shipped them across the border to America. Unfortunately I was unable to request Form 29-30 in time, as I was healing, and then later accepting accolades and awards.

After my vehicle swerved off a mountain road because of a malfunction due to an error in manufacturing, I was trapped inside for several weeks. The little food I had with me lasted for a couple of days, peanuts and pineapple juice, but after those ran out I was forced to eat my own hair. I managed to free myself by amputating my right arm with my pocketknife, whereupon doing so, I came straight to school, and began filling out my Form 29-30 Request Extension Form. Please excuse the handwriting, as I am currently learning to write with my left hand. Thank you.

I have been away attending the funerals of all four grandparents, three aunts, my uncle Marty, 13 cousins, a half-dozen friends, mother, step-father, and girlfriend. Fiancée actually. All separate incidents. I actually made the arrangements for all the services myself, making sure to leave time allotted to fill out a Form 29-30 Request Form, as I know how important they are, but wouldn’t you know it, my chemotherapy session ran long, and, well, I guess you probably don’t want to hear any excuses. I’ll understand if you deny this request, and thus prevent me from graduating, subjecting me to a life of slave labor and sexual servitude. I appreciate your taking the time to reject this request.

I complete the form, both printing and signing my name, dating it at the bottom, and I return to my good friend at window 34. There is a line now. I clench my teeth. I breathe deeply. Why is it taking so long for these people at the window? Why was I so callously cast away while these people are being nurtured so gingerly along the halls of bureaucracy like infants flopping through their first steps?

I arrive at the window.
“Can I help you?” She is indifferent if not borderline scornful.
“Form 29-30 Extension Request Form?” I am furious.
“––“
“I filled it out.” I want to bash my forehead against her window.
“Okay.”
“Here you go.” I slide it across the metal trough that separates us. She picks it up, glaring down her nose at the yellow form.
“Mr. Youngman?”
“That’s me.” I am gnawing off my own tongue.
“You need to fill in your zip code.”
“Oh, sorry.” I am screaming at 150,000 decibels. I scribble in my zip code.
“That’ll be 42 dollars.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Form 29-30 Extension Request Form filing fee is 42 dollars.” I open my wallet. Twelve dollars.
“You take credit cards?”
“Cash only.” I am detonating atomic bombs.
“Is there an ATM around here?”
“Bottom floor. Next.”

I am walking the yellow linoleum floors of the first floor. I have encircled the interior of the building, explored each and every tributary of each and every hallway. There is no ATM. I ask the first man I see with a nametag. It says,

‘HELLO, MY NAME IS Rupert’

“Excuse me, is there an ATM on this floor?
“No, there isn’t,” he says, and continues on his way. I stammer after him but he is gone. I turn to the next nametag, a middle-aged woman with a French braid. This time I rephrase the question. “Excuse me, can you tell me where the nearest ATM is?”
“There’s one on the bottom floor.”
“Isn’t that this floor?
“No this is the first floor. The bottom floor is the basement,” she says, and continues on her way. I stomp down the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator, sure that it will breakdown, trapping me inside for several hours, probably with someone named

‘HELLO MY NAME IS Dolores’

I reach the ATM at long last, retrieving 40 dollars from it without frustration, this time taking the elevator up to see my friend at Window 34. Maybe this time she’ll be glad to see me. We can have a good chuckle at all the running around I’m having to do. We will connect along the common denominator of a good old fashioned airy laugh, and she’ll gladly accept my request for extension, handing me my Form 29-30, and then I’ll travel over to Window 17, where I’ll see my other good friend, and we’ll share a similar sentiment, after which he’ll stamp my form, I’ll graduate, and move on to a life of upper-middle class success. “Phew,” we’ll say, “That was a close one,” and then we’ll part ways, happy to have known each other.

The elevator doors open, and I walk towards window 34, where I am greeted not by the knowing and shared nodding headed chortle of window 34, but a now longer line. And it’s not moving. I stand, glancing back and forth from the front, to elsewhere in the room. Why is this line not moving? When I was at the window I was shooed away. Dismissed. I was a fly swatted off the cantaloupe. Why is this formally unsympathetic window woman being so kind and patient to whoever it is in need of form-stamping? I glaze over. Five minutes. The two twenty-dollar bills are sweaty in my hand. Ten minutes. Another person is now at the front. I begin reading the grey, block-lettered signs all around me:

ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE FILLED OUT IN BLUE OR BLACK INK.
BEGINNING MARCH 31 CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTED.
THIS LINE IS FOR STUDENT LOAN PAYMENTS ONLY.
WINDOW HOURS ARE MON–FRI, 8AM– 5PM.
WE ARE SOULLESS AND INDIFFERENT TO YOUR PLIGHT. BEGINNING JAN. 1 NO EMOTIONAL APPEALS WILL BE HEARD. THANK YOU.

Fifteen minutes. There is one guy in front of me and the girl in front of the window is having a laugh with the woman behind the window. The guy in front of me is talking loudly on his cell phone. I am a boiling cauldron.

I imagine myself as a samurai warrior, strong and decisive, one who deals with the world in an objective and direct manner. I strike straight into the enemy, do not go the long way around, do not jump hurdles but slice through them without the slightest hesitation or mercy, destroying all enemies in the most brutal and appropriate manner. I am dressed in the finest of silk robes, red and black, and I have the blackest of hair pulled back into a tight topknot, the sides hanging like knives along my cheeks. I brandish a merciless katana that I have bonded with my soul. We are one being, one force of inseparable essences. It is impossible to tell where I end and the sword begins. We are an unstoppable force of justice, wisdom, and terror. We operate in a forceful, explosive, and precise manner. The metal of this implement was mined from an exploding volcano and forged in the belly of a dragon, folded and pounded down a million times by the finest swordsmith’s master, blessed by the holiest man, and pulled from a magic rock, by me; the only warrior worthy or capable of wielding such a powerful weapon. I am a sinewy, massively muscled rock. I am brutish, yet refined. I am form-follows-function. My calves are like bowling balls, my arms like anchor chains, veins like dock rope, and a chest like a mountain. My eyes are glaciers. I stand eight feet tall and cast a shadow a half-mile long at noon. My mind is as sharp as a razor and will ride over you like a fucking cavalry. I will not negotiate, nor will I tolerate your misunderstanding. Do not ask me to explain, for I do not cowtow to mere mortals such as you. I hand down judgment like a hammer, like meteors pounding into the planet, pinching off a chunk of earth and casting it off into orbit. I am wise and justified, reasonable and noble, unquestionable and sympathetic to those who deserve it. I am without mercy and yet forgiving. I am granting of clemency and vengeful of the unpardonable. I am Bruce Lee. I am Socrates. I am Thor. I am He-Man.

Guy in front of me has completed his transaction and is stacking a few papers, a few yellow forms. I walk the four or five steps up to the window, where I am greeted by the dropping of mini-blinds, and a very grey, very blunt, very block-lettered sign that reads
CLOSED.
I look at my watch.
5:01 PM
Fuck.

* * *

I go to my girlfriend’s house and blow off my homework. I pull into her driveway and she meets me at the door, bouncy and smiling. I am happy to see her but lately I have been thinking that she is not pretty enough for me. I haven’t cheated on her but I can’t wait for the chance to do so. The plan is to find a girl who is idealistically beautiful, get drunk, and fuck up the only patently good thing that has happened to me in years.
“How was your day?” she asks.
“Great. I got fucked by the system.”
“Ooh, was it the Man that fucked you over?” She giggles and kisses me on the cheek.
“I have some news,” she says, before laying out the entire story of an email and ensuing phone call from a managing editor of the Village Voice in New York saying something along the lines of “ Sara, we love your work, we admire your resume, we are reminded of ourselves when we were in college, we think you would make a great addition to our team, why don’t you come and take part in the internship program you applied for this summer, and did I mention that I am a strapping handsome young and yet older man who knows New York and could show you around the city and maybe get you an apartment?” She will be gone for three months. I am jealous though I have no intentions of trying to find an internship any time soon, let alone a job.
“That’s so great. New York.” I am looking at a small mole on her shoulder. It bothers me.

She is an art major, and although she creates the most brain-tingling of art in her garage, she is marketing her graphic design skills. She is quite talented, and kicks my ass on any Apple computer. She works three jobs. One at a pre-school, where she is covered in finger paint, kids, and the occasional vomit, but doesn’t seems to mind. She interns for BV Design(one of only two interns accepted each year), a graphic design company downtown, and as a private English tutor. She is well-rounded, hard working, and completely deserving of everything she has. We talk about how amazing New York will be. She opens her laptop and begins scanning apartment listings for Manhattan.
“You know Devon’s mom used to live in New York.”
“Who’s Devon?”
“One of the kids I tutor. She says that Manhattan is good, and whatever you do stay away from the Bronx.” I of course have no idea if this is true or not because New York is nothing but an elaborate mythology for me, a distant city in a distant land, something to think about and sigh over, never to actually live there. Sara is moving there without a second thought. Without the slightest flitting of a ‘maybe I can’t do this.’

I admire her, and tell her I love her all the time and wish I could be more like her. I start to think that maybe I could be with this girl forever, but as she is sitting on the floor, hunched over the computer, the slightest bit of belly fat pokes over the waist of her jeans. It bothers me, and the thoughts are derailed.
She types her preferences in the search box of an apartment listings website, and begins reading through some of the results.
“There are actually some one bedrooms in here that aren’t that outrageous.”
“In Manhattan?”
“There’s one here for 1200, one for 1275.”
“Yeah but it’s Manhattan. For that price they’re probably the shittiest apartments in the world.” I have no idea what I am talking about.
“Well how bad could it be? It’s still in New York City. It’s the center of the world, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah. Well that’s still a lot for a one-bedroom apartment. Does this internship pay?”
“500 dollar monthly stipend.”
“How are you going to make the rent? How are you going to eat?”
“I don’t know, I’ll have to get a job while I’m out there.”
“Jobs are hard to find in that city you know.” How the fuck would I know?
“Well, maybe. You know it would be a lot easier to make the rent if there were two people splitting it.”
“––“
“You should come with me.”
“––Well yeah, maybe.”
“Well what else are you going to do all summer?”
“I don’t know. Look for a job.”
“––“
“I’ll think about it okay?”
“Okay.” She smiles and hugs me. I love her, but it occurs to me that her legs are a little hairier than I’d like them to be today.

* * *

I am at window 34. It is 8 AM. The mini-blinds lift, and the very grey, very blunt, very block-lettered sign is removed from its station. It is my old friend behind the glass.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I need to fill out Form 29-30.”
“The due date has passed.”
“Yes I know, I have a Form 29-30 Extension Request Form, and I have exactly 42 dollars.” I slide the paperwork and the cash across the metal trough between us, and she glares down her nose at the yellow form.
“Mr. Youngman?”
“That’s me.” My sword is beginning to hum.
“You need to fill in your phone number.”
“Oh sorry.” I’m preparing to dispatch her with the utmost honor. I scribble in my phone number.
“That’ll be 42 dollars.”
“Here you go.” She takes my money, prints me a receipt.
“When would you like to make your appointment?”
“I’m sorry?”
“In order to have a Form 29-30 Extension Request Form approved, you have to meet with an extension officer and have him approve your request.”
“An extension officer?”
“When would you like to make your appointment?”
“–– When’s the next one available?”
“4:30 this afternoon.” My mighty blade is unsheathed, and I am preparing to perform a roundhouse kick.
“I’ll take it.”
“Next.”

4:30 PM
“Youngman?”
“That’s me.” I pick up my backpack and walk into a pudgy man’s office. He is very short, and very bald. He is wearing glasses that are much too large for his face, and is decked out in green pants, and a generally blue Hawaiian shirt. He asks me to sit down, and I do.
“So you have the signature I need right?
“Yes I do, but I must say, I’m not sure why they sent you to my office today. These things usually take a few weeks to review.”
“Why can’t you just take care of this today?”
“Well it just doesn’t work that way, I’m sorry.”
“I need this form signed so I get can get a Form 29-30 right?”
“Yes”
“And I need a Form 29-30 in order to file to graduate right?”
“Yes.”
“And I need to file to graduate by today right?”
“Yes.”
“And you still won’t sign this form today?
“Well I’m sorry but you should have had that form in weeks ago. It’s your responsibility, not mine.” I am clothed in my black and deathly robes. My hair is pulled to perfection. I am surging to my full height of eight feet. The look on his face is that of unadulterated terror. He is white, and shaking. I inform him that he is living a worthless life. He is hampering the extraordinary, and he is not worthy of taking another breath. I inform him that I will be dispatching his pathetic, forgettable little soul, and ending his dishonorable little life. He begs for clemency but I have none to offer. I raise my 10-foot, 2000-pound katana over my head, both hands clamped around the handle, nostrils flared and eyes burning as he quivers and screams and blubbers, snot running down his bloated pink face. I bring down my sword like lightning; swift, calculated, and deliberate, cleaving his skull in two, splitting the length of his body like a plump watermelon, blood filling every crevice of the room, until I’m standing knee deep in what’s left of this sad little man. I am unmerciful.

“You’re sure there’s no way you can just cut me a break and sign the form today? I really need this.”
“Sorry but I’ve got a lot of these forms to get through before the day is out.”
“Thanks.” I walk outside and sign the form myself. I walk to window 34, and pick up Form 29-30. Several weeks later I will graduate.

Later that evening, I am with my girlfriend. I give her belly fat a pinch, and we look through apartment listings.

Never Forget Paris

2007-11-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

I hopped a Ryanair flight, cheapest in the land for better or worse, and took it to what they said was a Parisian airport; Beauvais. Well it was certainly an airport in the sense that there were planes landing there and it was marked with a long stretch of tarmac, but a Parisian airport it was not. Turns out the damn thing is 85km outside if the city, and they offer convenient shuttle trips for only 13 Euro, which is about half what the plane ticket cost. Oh well, it was better than the ferry from Dublin, which while free with my Eurail pass, would have taken about 18 hours and landed only on the coast instead of Beauvais Airport, which was at least a couple hundred km inland.

So the bus dropped off near a Metro station, and I found my way to the hostel I had reserved for the three nights I planned to be in Paris. Now, when I read about the place online, it said that the rooms had only three beds, which sounded considerably better than the 16 in London, or the 24 in Dublin, and that there was a bar in the hostel, which made for a very warm and commiseration-friendly atmosphere. “Peace and Love,” the place was called. After getting off at my stop, looking around and spotting the it, I walked into the bar, which opened up onto the street, and asked where reception was – and the bartender whipped out the reception book. When the website said that the hostel had a bar, it didn’t mention that the hostel WAS the bar. That’s it. No couches, no quiet, a kitchen in the basement, a door to the staircase, and a shit ton of drunk English backpackers smoking and drinking at 11am. Three nights. That’ll be 100 Euros. Welcome to Paris.

Seventy stairs later I was in my room, 12 x 8, triple-bunk bed, and only one key per room, to either be left at reception (the bar), or kept in the room by its occupier. I dropped my stuff, and headed for the Eiffel Tower, straight away. Got off at the Trocadero Metro stop, walked up the stairs expecting to burst into sunlight and behold the greatest symbol of France – but only saw a building. It was impressive, but not a tower. I looked around, and seeing no tower, began to walk around the marble, official-looking building, turned the corner, and there it was. It was maybe 70 degrees outside, no clouds, and – and I think I could have just stared at it all day. It was the moment when I realized that I was really there, when my ambitions of just getting there were realized, and I was totally in the present, happy, and content to – stare at it all day. It was the first sun I had seen since I left Los Angeles, warm, and bustling, and all the loneliness and uncertainty I had been feeling just broke away. Perfect.

I don’t know what it is about that city, it’s like it exists in a slightly different color spectrum than the rest of the world, one that is much better and more refined. I had big plans for the tower, and they went flawlessly: I grabbed a hotdog on a baguette with Dijon mustard from a vendor, lounged around on the lawn, south of the tower, and stayed there for about an hour – yeah. Later I headed north on the Seine, and then east towards the Arch de Triomphe. As I was crossing a bridge over the river I looked west, towards the Tower and over the Left Bank, and the late-afternoon sun was just beginning to descend, and I think it was about the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. This was by no means a razor’s edge trip. I was not covering any ground that had not been tread by a million young men with dreams of Europe, or backpacking, or traveling alone, or the adventure of a rail pass and the unexpected, but I felt such a thrill at that moment; the thrill not of having made it, but that of being on my way. It was the first half-hour of a road trip, the night of a first kiss, or a quarterfinals playoff win, when optimism forces a welcome smile, and the lump in your throat makes you laugh instead of cry.

There are parts of Paris, like any city, that are dirty, dingy, graffitied, but in my admittedly limited experience, Paris is the most beautiful city in the world.

Day Two and Three

The next two days were a blur. Notre Dame, Pont Neuf, Hotel de Ville, Pompidue, the Lourve, Bastille, Sacre Cuere, Cathedral Montremare. I basically walked everywhere, save a few Metro rides, and the train to Versailles.

The gardens of Versailles are so expansively huge, it’s a tad offensive. It’s really no wonder the French cut all those people’s heads off. If I were starving while the folks in charge were building city-sized parks for themselves I’d be drawing up my own plans for a neck splicer.

My Final Night in Paris

On my last night in Paris, I decided to head out for a place that a friend of my mother’s had recommended. She said the food was great, and they brought barrels of wine to the table – barrels – until you told them to stop. Now, before I begin, I had a feeling that things would turn out the way that they did, so I won’t play the part of shocked, hapless traveler.

Anyway, the place was called Nos Ancetres les Gaulois, and it is on the same island in the Seine that the Notre Dame sits. I asked the concierge (the bar tender) if he knew the Metro stop, and he did, and said how great the place was, and that I would surely love it. I ran upstairs to put on some nicer clothes – a shirt with buttons, pants without holes – grabbed my credit cards, train tickets, and Eurail pass, dropped them in my small canvas pouch with the intention of leaving them in the safety deposit box behind the front desk (the bar). On my way down the stairs I stopped in the bathroom, and set my pouch on the ledge above the toilet. It wasn’t a ledge.

It was an open shaft. Maybe 50 percent bigger than a loaf of bread, it dropped several stories and I had just taken several thousand dollars worth of credit, my ticket out of town, and my Eurail pass, and deposited them neatly inside, sending them plummeting into what I feared were the ancient catacombs of Barbarian Gaul, or perhaps only slightly worse, Hell.

In a panic I leaped up onto the toilet seat, peering down Satan’s laundry chute, and could see the pouch three or four floors down, behind another toilet with a similarly deceptive, ledge-looking shaft. From that toilet, it was maybe five feet down, and out of my reach. I figured out which floor the thing was on, and with a broom, a sweaty brow, and about 15 minutes of grunting and swearing, I managed to wrestle the pouch back to the surface, the back smeared with white powder, surely a combination of asbestos and brimstone. Into the safety deposit box you go.

So into the night, buttoned shirted and solid jeaned, I headed. It was just drizzling then.

A Metro station was just across the street, so I walked to the map on the wall and plotted my course. The 2 line to Beuche-Rouchcart (or something) and the 5 to Cite’, the stop I had taken the day before to get to the Notre Dame. Since the train has to run under the Seine, that particular station is very deep, so I took the elevator up. It opened on the top floor, and feeling hopeful and happy about my last night in Paris, giddy at the prospects such a last night combined with barrels – barrels – of wine could bring, I took the stairs to the street, two at a time, reaching the top, and landing in a puddle. It was raining. Hard. I had no umbrella.

I didn’t know exactly where this place was, only that it was on a relatively small island, so I went back into the station, feeling a little apprehensive, to consult my map, but couldn’t really locate the street. It was a free map, and so is just kind of an overview, and not in any kind of detail. I hit the rain, and ran into a café and asked a waiter if he knew the street. “Comment peut-on aller a rue Saint-Louis?” He was kind enough to ask if things were better in English, I said yes, and he told me where to go. At this point I felt half-soaked, though it was worse, but pushed on, determined to prove to myself that I could at least find this place.

I ran across the cobblestone square in front of Notre Dame, almost side by side with another man in a similar situation, found the street, and ducked under a café overhang for a break. I stood next to an old man with a white beard, smoking a cigarette, and holding an umbrella. He gave a chuckle of dry wisdom, and I gave a laugh of wet inexperience, then plunged back into the fray. It was a narrow cobblestone lane, lined with shops, and restaurant, and apartments above, snaking left and right in the manner of old-world streets. I found the place at last, and the menu hanging in the window listed the price of dinner, without wine, at 39 Euros, which I think is about 60 bucks. I figured by the time the wine rang up I’d be looking at an 80 or 90 dollar bill, which is almost what I paid for my room for three nights. Having just made the trek, I had to at least go inside and check it out. The host gave me a skeptical look, and dispensing with my resolution to at least start off speaking French while in France, I just asked if he spoke English. He did, so I explained that a friend had recommended the place, and that I was alone, and could I please use the restroom to make myself look more presentable. He didn’t seem happy.

He led me through the place, which looked like a legit Blue Bayou, and was filled with a middle-aged crowd, all speaking French, and all very engaged in whatever it was they were talking about. I was way out of my league. He pointed to my table, next to a party of what looked like my parents’ friends, and then to the bathroom. I walked in, and holy, shit. It was much worse than I had expected. Drowned Rat comes to mind. Faced with the prospect of looking a wreck, sitting next to a happy crowd of Parisians of means, eating alone, and paying 90 bucks for the privilege, I dried off a bit, and slinked out the door. Twenty minutes later I was at a café a block from my hostel where I ate hearty and drank wine for about 15 Euro. I sat, alone, dry, and content.

Oh, and Stairway to Heaven was playing in the restaurant. Cez’t La Vie. Au Revoir, Paris.

Dear Old Dublin, Part Two

2007-10-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks to those goddamn Belgians I was enjoying my first European hang over. I welcomed it as the price paid for a good night. I was awakened by the sounds of my only dorm mate, Chris, a 50-something, bald, upstate New York college professor who was exceedingly pleasant in a friendly Christian backpacker/the-guy-who-paints-happy-little-trees-on-PBS kind of way, except maybe minus the Christian part – maybe, we didn’t get into that. He was very excited, albeit subdued, about my traveling, and shared with me that he was on vacation, “without my wife. She says she’s too old to go on these hiking trips.” He said this with a hearty, broad smile, and then proceeded to blow dry the half ring of hair that curled around the back of his head. Uh-huh.

There as a 4:30pm bus back to Dublin, which I had to take. Being bitter towards Dublin’s inhospitality towards me, I would have preferred to stay in Glendalough for another night, but a 7:30am flight the following morning to Paris made that impossible. So back to dear old Dublin I went, one lane to two, and so on, where I had a bed booked at Barnacle’s for 33 fucking Euros, and would be there for all of about 10 hours. The place was located in Temple Bar, which is comparable to what I imagine the French Quarter is (or was) like in New Orleans: a little tourist, a little street performer, and aaaaaaaalll booze. This is where the all the Trinity College students go out, it was Saturday night, Sting was in town, and have I mentioned that the Rugby World Cup was in full swing during all this? Ahem.

THE RUGBY WORLD CUP: A SIDE NOTE.

Rugby is one of the biggest sports in the world, which means that Americans have no fucking clue that that’s the case, or how the game is played, or that rugby is a game. It is. A great game. The Cup was being held in Paris this time around, so there were a lot of people about, even in nearby countries that were very, very interested in what was going on with it. Fans of a team don’t refer to themselves as fans, they are called supporters, which I like because it is sort of a better description of what European sports fans go through for their team. A fan sort of denotes a passive observer or admirer, whereas Europeans are part, of, the, team, whether or not the teams actually want it that way. It’s sort of like the friend, or uncle that invites himself over and then never leaves and eats all the food, but at least he’s always there for you, and always will be. There seemed to be a big French contingent in Dublin that night, or at least a bunch of French supporters among the Irish. That night the French were playing New Zealand, a fierce, terrifying team that I think was picked to win, and does a killer tribal war dance called the Haka before the game to psyche out opponents. It is of great cultural significance to the indigenous people of New Zealand, so it is generally treated with respect from the other players. Now, I suspect that the Irish were rooting for the French out of national proximity, but part of me thinks that it was just a fuck you to the English. By the way, Rugby is a rougher sport than football, and the players don’t wear pads or helmets, and occasionally tape their ears down – to keep them from getting ripped off. So there’s that. Side note over, for now.

The French beat NZ in an upset and suddenly the streets were filled with French flags and people wearing red, white, and blue face paint, all dancing and singing.

At home in Long Beach, there is a very popular, great pub called the Auld Dubliner. When it isn't packed it's great, one of my favorites in the city. What did I come across in Temple Bar but the legit Auld Dubliner. I was more than a little excited about it.

Lots of street musicians and other performers. One man was dressed a bit like Willy Wonka, though I’d bet he didn’t know it, and had a bicycle rigged so that the handle bars turned the wheel in the opposite direction that is usually does. This was no secret, it was a game. Simple. Ride the bike from one line to the other, maybe 20 feet away, just a straight line, get 20 Euro. Five Euro bought you 5 tries. Okay, hang on, let me clarify. There was one dash on the street, and another dash 20 feet away. All one had to do was get from one dash to the other, and though man after woman tried, no one could do it. Willy could do it. Willy could do figure-eights, circles, but I didn’t witness one other complete the journey, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to try it. I had witnessed enough drunk Englishman brag that they could do it to realize that it was not as easy as it looked. Besides, the cobblestone avenue looked very hard, I’d had a few, and ever since I had my face broken, I’ve developed an acute fear of having my face broken. Having your face broken will do that to you. Money well earned, Willy.

Street performers were everywhere, buzzing, stomping, tooting, pouring their hearts out and hustling the gawking, stingy public. From the frail old man singling Dylan tunes, to the white, drum circle dreadlocked (who kinda sucked), to the frozen statue who only jumped when you gave him money. He was my favorite. A young guy, a little Goth but mostly punk. He wore a spiked collar and had pure white contact lenses, and stood perfectly, statuesquely still – for hours – seriously. I walked into Temple Bar at 6 in the evening and at midnight he was still at it. He stood on a crate, and had a dish in front of him on the street for change. The catch was that his shoes were attached to the crate, and whenever anyone would put money in the dish he would jump, slamming the crate hard onto the street, causing the donor to shit in his or her pants, and then he would hold whatever new position he found himself in until some other some poor sucker came along to donate to the cause. For hours, he did this.

My least favorite performer of the night was the asshole with the baritone (a baritone is sort of like a trumpet, but about four times bigger, or like a tuba but about four times smaller). He was less a performer and more a drunken asshole with a horn. At 3am, when I was in bed, getting up at 5am, he was still at it. Kudos, you motherfucker.

So at five I hit the street to catch my bus to the airport – still people stumbling around the streets of Dublin. I passed an alley, down which were a young couple, the girl working very diligently at removing her lover’s belt. Ahh, love. Farewell, Dublin. May you be in heaven a half and hour before the Devil knows you’re dead. Cheers.

Glendalough International: The Belgian-Wicklow Connection

2007-10-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

Up bright and early for a free hostel breakfast, a chat with the Guru, back in time to checkout, pick up a few groceries for the road, and an before an 11 o’clock bus to Wicklow. Things to do, things to do.

So with the clock ticking I threw my stuff in my locker and headed up Dame Street which turns into something else, which turns into something else, which turns into College. The streets are entirely unpredictable here as they were in London, not like in America where say, Santa Monica Boulevard runs from Santa Monica and ends somewhere in South Florida. A right at the Starbucks (now there’s consistency for you) led to the tourist office, and to the Guru, a young man named Declan, a soft-voiced Irishman who found me a room for the following night at a place called Barnacle’s, an upscale hostel (by all rights those words should never go together) for 33 Euro, a rip off but out of the weather. Checked out of Kinlay House, grabbed the travelers cuisine – baguette, banana, apple and water – caught the bus to Wicklow, feeling good and bidding good riddance to Dublin, and the city’s affinity for such hits as “Message in a Bottle.”

There was only a small window of t-shirt weather during the day at the time in Dublin and this was it. From the bus window I saw just a bit of the emerald green that Ireland in known for. Hedgerows went snaking through the hillsides, marking lots agreed to long ago. A highway turned to a two lane road, which turned to a one-lane with a soft shoulder, and our fast pace slowed until the bus was passing post card houses, smoke drifting out of the chimneys, and the occasional pub promising Guinness. Finally we turned left into a visitor’s center, a former monastery and an outpost for the Wicklow Mountains hikers. The woman on the phone when I called the hostel said to look for the signs though I saw none, so went to the center and asked a short, balding old man with frazzled white hair where the place was. He spoke to me in the softest, most charming accent I’ve heard. It was like a pinch on the cheek.

“You’re staying at the youth hostel?” He asked. I nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“Oh, just go back up the road, turn left and walk for about five minutes, it’s on your left hand side.” I wanted to give him a kiss on his big bald Irish head.

It really was just a bit up the road, a short walk, duffle bag on my shoulders, and shoulder bag around my neck. I was glad I brought the shoulder bag instead of the backpack, but at this point it had given me an awful knot in my back that was sending pain shooting through it when I wasn’t gulping handfuls of Tylenol. I was strolling past a short rock wall with St. Kevin’s monastery on my left, marked by a tower and a cemetery, and a cow pasture on my right marked by, ah, cows. A couple of great big ones, chewing, and checking me out before getting back to chewing.

The Glendalough International Hostel appeared on my left, a quiet place that was pretty big for its location. It bordered right onto the opening of the valley, which sloped right up into the mountains, lakes on either side. The place was basically empty which I was glad for. The lady informed me to read the house rules when I got to my room, which spelled out a very concise alcohol policy: “No drinking on or around the premises.” A nap and a shower later I was a new man.

I grabbed a book and headed for the trails. Before long I was far from the road and deep within an eerily beautiful forest, densely packed with thin trees, streams, and little bunches of grass that popped up all over the forest floor in individual bundts, covered in spiderwebs and drops of dew. It’s easy to see why the Irish believe in fairies – cause you feel like you’re being watched. I stepped off the path, walked into the forest, found a good spot and read for a while. And damned it I didn’t try, but I just couldn’t find a four-leafed clover.

I got back to the hostel a few hours later and started boiling the pasta I had bought in Dublin, when I heard two trucks roar into the gravel and dirt driveway at high speed. From the kitchen, the back area – big open grassy area and picnic table – was visible in part, and though I could see a few people, I could tell there were many more out of sight, especially when one man, a huge man, dressed in hiking boots, shorts, a too-tight shirt, and a green knit cap, flashed in front of the window carrying a giant case of Stella Artois. I continued cooking, now thinking about the bottle of wine hidden away in my pack. The din coming from the back steadily grew into a roar, and before long they were just chanting, broken up by one man saying something in language I didn’t understand, followed by a huge roar, and laughter, then more singing and chanting. By now I was eager to finish with dinner.

Trying my damnedest to figure out the language they were speaking, it still eluded me. I thought German, heard some English, something else. I was having Welsh flashbacks. As my pasta sauce was warming three giant men in hiking gear stormed into the kitchen in long strides across the floor.

“Excuse us!” they proclaimed, grabbed the biggest pot in the place, filled it, and poured pack after pack of pasta into the cold water. Whatever they had been doing, they were starving. I sat down to eat, watching these 30 or so men revel in the back yard putting away beer after beer. I finished my dinner, noticed a man rolling a cigarette and recognized my way into this party. I asked him if I could have one. “Of course!” he yelled. “You are American, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you from, American?”

“California.”

“Ah! Surf’s up dude!” to which everyone roared. Oh shit. Turns out they were Belgians, which explains the Stella, and were a group of guys who used to be in the boy scouts that still got together once a year to go hiking and drinking, this being the first year that they had left the continent.

“No women!” They were very insistent. Despite my introducing myself, most of them just referred to me as “American.” It’s really underreported, but nobody drinks like the Belgians, a trait that they are most proud of. Sure, the Irish are the darlings of the alcohol world, but I think the Belgians could give them a serious run. Anyway, these guys had finished a 23km hike, were ready to party, and being Belgian, proceeded to take the hostel’s no drinking policy, and cram a tightly laced hiking boot right through its teeth. None of the management objected, I imagine much to their benefit.

They asked me about my trip and kept handing me fresh beers before I could even finish the one I was holding. Very friendly, very jovial. This was a celebration that arrived right at my back door. One guy in particular, Jon, maybe mid-30s asked me if I was traveling alone. I told him I was, and he asked a different question than anyone had asked me so far. He asked why. I told him that none of my friends could really go at the time, and it was sort of a good time for me to go, being between jobs, but he pushed the question. “But why, WHY are you traveling alone? Why did you really choose to do this?” I thought for a second.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I felt like I wanted to be alone for the reflection, to prove to myself that I could manage a venture like this, that I could handle being alone and still make my way. I wanted to see, even just a little bit, what I was made of.”

He smiled, softly, and as the rest of the Belgians started filing in to eat dinner, he just stood there, and looked off into the distance.

“I took a trip alone when I was about your age,” he said, and looked at me as though he were looking at himself, younger and less knowledgeable, and a look of nostalgia spread across his face. He didn’t want to talk much about his experiences, but he wished me luck and insisted I keep a diary. He said then that it would be a hard journey, and that loneliness would be inevitable, but that it was all worth it, and to write it down, look back on it later and appreciate it all the more. After that he invited me in to dinner. I thanked him, but I told him I’d already eaten.

Later all of us ambled down the dark one lane to a tiny village pub that must have been a half-mile down the road. All were buzzed, and it was totally black out. Jon knocked on the door of a tiny little house and asked if we were going the right way to the pub, and the man who answered said we were, not seeming to find it too strange that three-dozen men were at his door asking for directions to a bar at 9 o’clock at night. Five minutes later 30 thirsty Belgians and I barged inside and celebrated. Great times with those Belgians, and more than a little too much to drink.

Jon and a couple of others negotiated a ride, somehow, back to the hostel which was probably for the best seeing as a how a pitch dark one lane road was really no place for a pack of drunken Belgians and one American tag-along. The driver was a young and pleasant man with a young and pleasant wife, and he was kind enough to let six or seven of us pile into the back of his old, beat up Land Rover.

I was, at that time, so happy to be in Wicklow, boozy and fraternal in the land of my ancestors, oblivious for just a while, that I would be alone again the following day, but less so that I had been the day before. Thanks Jon.

Dear Old Dublin, Part One

2007-10-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

The ferry docked just before dawn. I was dog-tired, droopy-eyed and hung-over. The people at the hostel had told me to take the wrong bus, so the only one that still bothers with the ferry port left without me on it. I waited for a cab.

I stood in the cold and watched the morning arrive, turning a brilliant purple and dark crystal blue to orange around diamond stars and streaks of white clouds blurred by my breath, racked with self-doubt and loathing. I was scared, and at this point, alone on the sidewalk. I thought, “I should have planned better, is this seat-of-your-pants stuff for me? Is it even real, plausible, and if so enjoyable, rewarding, or fucking worth it?” Not sure, not sure. Seventeen Euros poorer and I was at my hostel, the Kinlay House, too early to check in. I sat in the common room, finally sitting, finally warm, contacts out, and stole breakfast from the kitchen. I never counted on the loneliness I would feel doing all this solo, the vision of packs of young people gathered around hot coffee together, laughing and talking made me feel the distance from home.

Breakfast and a short rest had lifted my spirits so I decided to be a tourist, and get on a tour bus. It was a hop on, hop off deal, a fleet of buses and all ten minutes apart with planned stops all around the city. Get off when you want, get on the next one. First stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral and I just sat in the park. I swear the sky seems lower in Dublin, as if the whole region, even its atmosphere, is somehow cozier and more intimate.

Next stop: Guinness Brewery, where I wasn’t a tourist, I was a pilgrim – thank you, and God bless. Not much to tell, really. Take the tour. Get a free Guinness. My first of the trip.

So the tour around Dublin was nice, but I was really looking forward to the evening. Went back to the hostel, and still hadn’t slept at that point. When I booked the place from London, they said that they only had availability for one night, and were booked for the time I had planned to stay in the city, but I was in a hurry and figured that something would open up in the hostel, of I would have no problem finding a room elsewhere. What? Sting is plating in Dublin this weekend? Bollocks.

Everything in Dublin was booked, it seemed, even the hostels online. The guy at the front desk pointed me to the tourism office to talk to the resident “hostel-booking guru.” Slightly panicked at thoroughly displeased with Dublin at this point, I thought I’d head out of town the following day, Friday, and come back Saturday for the night in time to catch the Ryanair cheapo to Paris early Sunday morning. Sitting in the common room, I opened up a map, picked a town that was a good distance from the city but not so far that I would spend all day on a bus. I settled on the Wicklow mountains, which was mentioned in my guidebook, and found a hostel in a small village called Glendaloch.

Since I secured a roof over my head for the following night, that left only a chat with the hostel guru, which I chose to leave for morning. Temple Bar, the city bar district, not that there is any particular part of the city that is wanting for a bar, was pretty quiet that night, so, having toured most of Dublin all day, fended off homelessness, and endured without sleep for close to 40 hours, I went to my room, a large 24-bed dorm. It had very high ceilings decorated with wrought iron, arched beams crossing perpendicular across the room. It was an old building, and I wondered what it was before it was this trendy little bastion for young travelers. I was not in very good spirits. I was low, tired, unsure and uneasy, but after slipping into bed, one of the finer pleasures after a long day, it was warm, and quiet, and perfect for just then. I thanked God for Glendaloch and drifted off, thinking of my passport tucked away tight – my ticket home.

The Overnight Ferry from Holyhead

2007-10-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

After a terribly long night of travel (see below to my train ride), I arrived in Wales to catch a ferry to Dublin. The ferry wasn’t set to depart until 2:30 AM and it would be several hours waiting in the train/bus/ferry/horse-buggy terminal - the hub of Welsh cosmopolitanism – until then. I noticed a sort of striking woman with coarse, dark hair. She looked strong and serious. She was wiry. She looked like an extra from Braveheart dressed in regular clothes, which is an awfully insensitive thing to think, I know, but was my impression nonetheless. She had a baby with her and two empty Budweisers on the table in front of her. She knocked back the remains of a third, picked up the baby out of the stroller, and removed her breast for feeding. Anyway, it was time for a beer! The curt, fat woman behind the counter said, in Welsh, which sounds like what I imagine Lilliputian might, that it was too late for beers. Orange juice it would be then.

Halfway through the bottle, about 2 million Liverpool football fans started pouring through the door, all speaking in an Irish accent, which puzzled me seeing as how Liverpool is in England, and all heading to Ireland on my ferry. Liverpool had apparently lost. Booze and camaraderie combined are a funny thing, especially in the face of failure, especially among the Irish.

After all the boarding passes had been taken, and the Irishmen were in stages ranging from laughing to slumber, the lot of us was herded into a dim room to wait for boarding. After 20 minutes or so, a man walked through a door at the far end of the room and said, “Scuse me, I’m your captain,” followed by a run of gibberish lasting a couple of sentences. He stopped and then calmly folded his hands, seeming to be waiting for some sort of response from the mob of red-clad men. As everyone looked at each other, puzzled, I was a little relieved to know that I wasn’t the only one confused. After a few beats of silence, a man behind me piped up, in a most Colin Farrelesque, perfectly smart-assed Irish accent, “We don’t speak Welsh!” and the whole room of two or three hundred erupted into laughter, which sustained for clearly longer than the captain was comfortable with, as he turned around and left the room, letting the heavy metal door slam behind him.

I had no idea what was said, but two minutes later we were boarding the ferry, which was proud to feature its full-service bar – greeted warmly by the herd of Irishmen – and all was well on the Irish Sea.

Erin Go Braugh, Friends.

2007-10-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

On my way to Dublin right now, currently suffering from the erroneously romantic notion that a train ride would be lovely, and it might have been, if it was not a night train. It's dark outside, rendering our half of the glass a mirror, providing those we pass with a crystal clear, if brief, view inside the train. I can't stop looking out the window, trying to see past the haggard, double-vision view of myself and out onto the English countryside - or maybe it's Welsh by now. All that makes it through the reflection are the pinpoints of light passing in the distance like stars poking through the Earth's atmosphere, all else obscurred, leaving us frustrated and desperate. We know(I know) that's there's something out there, a LOT out there, and we (I) just can't quite see it. No wonder we (I) hate our (my) neighbor. That and he's listening to DragonForce on his iPod so loud that I can hear it too.

I am happy to be out of London, so far anyway. We'll see go things go in there and beyond. As of now, I only have lodging secured for tomorrow, and plan on staying in Dublin for at least another night. Maybe the countryside will offer me a little shelter. After London I could really stand a little fresher air, and a litter slower pace. Killarney maybe.

London was an endurance test. I walked more in three days than I have in a very long time. My hamstrings are killing me. I met a few people, but most seemed pretty closed off, self-protective, and unwilling to venture outside their little groups. On Monday night I had drinks and watched a soccer match with an Aussie heading home the following day after a three-month tour of debauchery, and a Brit who was fairly angry about being a Brit, so much so that he was readying his paperwork to emigrate to Australia. Stewart, his name, was stationed in my room, a 16-bed dorm stocked with 8 bunk beds. He wasn't on holiday, but working, operating a heavy digger, something he's independently contracted to do all over the world, according to his telling. Although he is required to wear protective clothing and a breathing aparatus on his current job, he rufuses to wear either. He had a terrible cough.

I was eager to get to the Globe today, heading out deliberately early in order to catch what I thought was a matinee performance of the "Merchant of Venice." The company was performing two plays, "Merchant," and "We, the People," a dramatization of the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Yeah right, like I'm going to travel all the way to London for a U.S. history lesson. Yesterday, Bill's play was the matinee, ans silly me, I thought it would be the same today. Nope! Philly was in. I watched the play anyway. They signed it in the end.

I was surprised at how well dressed everyone in the city was - there were some dapper fucking gentlemen there. I know that the word "dapper" is an English word, but from what I've seen, the English must have invented dapper.

I went all over London, and any given day in Long Beach yields a higher number of beautiful women.

Englishmen are severly pained - pained - when things go wrong for their team on the football pitch.

The may never set on the British Empire, but it never fucking rises in it's capitol. Today was the first day I've seen sun since L.A.

Fuck the British Pound. It beat the shit out of my dollar. And fuck the damned coins! I want some paper!

It's true. The food sucks. Best thing I've eaten so far was a sandwich at the train station.

Erin Go Braugh. Ireland's next. Until then.

It was only Canada and I was facing a language barrier.

2007-10-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

I feel as though I've lost my voice, like I'm afraid to speak because I might offend, or paint myself as ignorant, which, I guess, I am.

I'm already starting to grate at the changes and I'm not even off the continent. I reach for my phone to call a friend and share some already jarring observation before it dawns on me that there is no phone. There is essentially no friend, not to be found on the phone, anyway.

I am in Montreal, Quebec - French Canada - at the time of this Moleskin scribbling. It's the home of the only people in the world who actually want to BE French, instead of just fantasizing about their sidewalk cafe's, upwardly mobile red balloons, and their naked women.

The thing that struck me most about them was the way they spoke. Americans and other colloquial English speakers just run through the words, combining them into an ill-defined mass, a la President Arbusto. "Salright" "Whattya gonna do?" Germans can be similar - we germanic based languages stick together, mind you - those hessian dialouges built of four letter words and two syllable sentence populations. Even Spanish, a romance language tends to be sprinted across in everyday conversation. But the Canadian French speakers take their time, chewing the words, kneading them, like an artist grabbing a fistfull of the raw materials of speech and molding them like clay, smoothing the curves with his thumbs until every last word is formed to fully realized expression. And these are just the French CANADIANS! Canadians are slow just because their from Canada, eh? The French are slow like they're holding a grudge, because zey don give a sheet about yu, or yuur timetabellz! I can't wait to hear the French speak French, jeez.

Anyway, I'm in London currently, and after I checked in to my hostel, made my bed, realized that I'm in fucking London with no reservations anywhere, no friends, no solid plan and no experience - I had a little panic attack - and then it passed and I brushed my teeth. And I thought it might make me feel better if I did a little writing so here I am. I have an all day Metro pass, so I'm off to mind the gap, and some other things. Oh, and I was already searched by the police on my way out of the subway, and it was by far, the most pleasent encounter I've ever had with a law enforcement officer. I even got a receipt for my search...a receipt. More on that later.

Cheerio.

First Ever ME Short Story Contest!

2007-09-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, or, as long as I’m speaking to my actual readers, hello everytwo.

I have a couple of announcements, one which calls on you to act and produce, and the other which doesn’t, but certainly implies that you should shower me with praises, well-wishes, and of course, lavish, lavish gifts. I’ll go with the later first (if that makes any sense at all).

I am leaving for Europe, which undoubtedly, both of you are aware of by now. I will only be there for four short weeks, but nonetheless, it is a trip that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.

Anyway, in an effort to get a few freakin’ posts up before I leave (I’m very busy in preparation for my departure), I am announcing the first ever Mediocre Extraordinaire short story contest! That’s right. The rules are simple, and first prize is even simpler: lunch on me. The first steadfast rule is that it must be inspired by, or attempt to elaborate on the picture at the heading of this post, entitled, “Offices, Gorilla World.” The second requirement is that it must be at least 50 words long, so no smart-assed one liner quips about a million Microsoft programming monkeys, in a million years…I’m sure you get the point.

I will be submitting my own story shortly, however, it will not be in consideration for first prize, since I buy myself lunch on pretty much a daily basis as it is. Honestly what’s the point? Not that I would win anyway.

A special thanks to Mike Guardabascio (NO I didn’t have to cut and paste his name in, YES, I thought about doing so) for A) totally showing me, and pretty much everyone else I know, what is up when it comes to blogging, and B) popularizing the idea of literary contests, at least in my circles anyway.

So. Quick recap. Must be about, inspired by, or an attempt to explain the photograph at the top of this posting, must be fiction, must be at least 50 words, and must be submitted before 11:59 and 59 seconds on October 31st, 2007. I will judge this contest alone, and since I don’t have an assistant as lovely as Shar, submissions will not be judged anonymously, but I promise you that I will judge fairly and faithfully. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Submissions will be posted in the comments section as they come in, pictures, photos, and multimedia will be considered. Send all material to coizzett@gmail.com. Thanks.

P.S. All former and present-EICs of the Long Beach Union Weekly are hereby disqualified, cause fuck them.

P.P.S. Just kidding. But still, fuck them.

How McSweeney's Cut Out My Heart, and Cut Off My Hand

2007-09-05T22:30:00.000-07:00

On January 21st, 2007, I was punched in the face, and as a result, several bones in said face were broken, requiring surgery, patience, money, and time. While on my back, I signed up for a Gmail account, and the very first email I sent from that address was to McSweeney's, the greatest literary concern this side of George Plimpton, who is dead. I sent, what I felt at the time, was the greatest piece of fiction I had written up to that point. I had been published, and paid, on a website just days before that, and I was feeling confident. The following is an exact transcript of the email I sent off to McSweeney's in a totally non-Dave-Eggers-fan-boy-fashion:

Febuary 12, 2007

To the folks at McSweeney's,

I am submitting this humble short story for consideration in the quarterly. I am an admirer of your organization's various efforts, and would like to be a part of it, if only in some small way. Please enjoy.

Conor Izzett

Six months and two weeks later, I received this:

Hi Conor--thanks for your submission, and sorry it's taken us so long to respond. We rely on stories like yours, since a good portion of what we publish comes to us unsolicited. Unfortunately, we can't find a place for this piece in our next few issues. But please feel free to submit more work in the future--our tastes change, and we're always looking.

Thanks again for your efforts and for letting us see your work, and thanks too for the kind words, we really appreciate 'em,

Jordan

Awww, even a little "'em" at the end, just to let me know that they'd taken the time to alter the standard boilerplate rejection they send all the losers (am I right, Mike?).

Anyway, before this posting spirals violently out of control, I submit to you, my humble reader, the exact submission. I await your judgment. I hope YOU enjoy...damn McSweeney's.

True Inspiration
By Conor Izzett

There was once a man who was very lazy. Although he had high aspirations for himself, he rarely began anything, though he was quite good at finishing tasks that had been assigned to him. If he had been instructed to do something, he would most likely do it very well. He dreamed of writing a book, or recording an album. He wanted to be important and well respected, and probably had the talent to be so. But, as was the case, he was very lazy, and had little inclination to become otherwise.

One day he thought, perhaps he could play into his own apparent nature, which seemed to be that of a task-handed drone. Instead of taking assignments to completion as handed to him by others, he would simply give them to himself. He thought, perhaps he could carve out a second consciousness from his composite one, which could assign him things to do. Perhaps he could carve, quite literally, a chunk of flesh from his body. From his side, or from his hand. Or maybe his hand altogether. The thought quite powerfully occurred to him that he could separate his left hand from his body and fill it with all his madness, his inspiration, his work ethic, while the rest of him submitted to the new, sole possessor of his dominant and productive traits.

And so, with a recently purchased hacksaw, he removed his left hand from his left arm, and endowed it with his more admirable qualities.

He adorned it with crown shaped rings and henna tattoos, painted fingernails and a single piercing in the fleshy triangle between the thumb and forefinger; a gold and platinum ring with a five and a half carat diamond.

The initial run of its commands yielded high productivity. The works were tremendous critical and financial windfalls, blockbusters even. Although his former hand deserved all the credit, it accepted none, and thrust all of the accolades onto its former body.

The man was happy to receive the credit, and the hand was pleased with the man’s obedience. To show his appreciation, the man built a gilded chair for the hand to sit on. It was decorated with the finest jewels and the softest furs. Occasionally he would purchase fine meats to place at the foot of the throne as an offering. The hand was partial to abalone.

The hand commanded the man to write a novel. It was to be about a young woman who becomes the world’s savior. She is worshipped and shows the human race the path to world peace and true harmony. It was hailed as the defining work of its generation. He completed a novel every nine months that garnered the same reaction for the following ten years.

The hand never grew weary. It never submitted. It was the embodiment of insanity; the kind of genius that is reckless and unapproachable. If the hand were a famous writer, it would have been Kerouac. It would drink too much red wine and have unprotected sex, causing it to contract genital warts. It was original and incomparable. It was everything the man wanted to be, minus the genital warts, and the lack of genitals.

It did not allow the man to speak to the press, and eventually forbade him from leaving the house altogether. People assumed that the man was the possessor of such amazing and eccentric qualities, and knew nothing of the hand. For years the hand went on commanding, and the man went on laboring. Despite total exhaustion, the man never refused the hand’s wishes.

Ten years and thirteen novels into this process, the man had grown extremely rich acting as the medium for the hand. He never left the house, however, and so spent most of his earnings trying to please the hand, which at this point, sat atop a large pile of extremely rare Spanish doubloons, and occasionally went for a trot on its prize-winning, million dollar thoroughbred stallion. The hand began dictating a novel every six months. People wrote articles comparing the man to Howard Hughes, or Syd Barret, or Rasputin. They said he was clearly insane.

By the fortieth anniversary of their separation, the man was regarded as superior to Shakespeare and more important that Socrates. J.D. Salinger and James Joyce were but a footnote in comparison. He had become the preeminent, most important writer in human history, though no one had ever heard him speak, or seen him in person.

One day, in his extreme old age, the hand addressed the man in the usual manner. It told him that it had grown weary of being the power behind the crown, and that it wanted its just due. It wanted the man to address the world, and introduce the true source of the material that was so revered by everyone. In accordance with the hand’s wishes, the man contacted every major media source and told them of his plans, in two weeks time, to speak on the steps of his estate. He would not reveal the subject until that time.

On the day of his announcement, millions of people had gathered in front of the man’s house. It was by all accounts, the largest gathering of people in history. The man, by way of the hand, had ordered a very powerful public address system constructed, with speakers and cables reaching for several miles, all connected to a single microphone set up on the steps of the man’s house. The crowd brimmed with excitement and all manner of people had gathered there. The religious, the intellectual, the drunkard, the diseased, the homeless, the wealthy, the stupid, and the vain.

The man, thin, white-bearded, and long-finger-nailed, approached the microphone, and a wave of rabid fanfare and adulation rolled over him for several minutes. He cleared his throat, sending a booming grumble through the speakers, and a vacuous hush spread across the gathering. The man’s voice cracked from years of disuse, but he managed to speak, and finally, to the hopeful and anticipatory crowd, said, “It was not me, it was my hand.” He thrust the adorned and shriveled appendage into the air for all to see. With that, he gasped as his heart stopped, and collapsed, dead on the steps.

The crowd stood in silence until the sun passed below the horizon. After everyone was as confused as they could possibly be, a young man standing somewhere towards the middle of the crowd pulled out a pocketknife, gritted his teeth, and began sawing away at his own left hand. The people around him backed away in horror as he sliced through the thin layer of skin and into bone, but none looked away. The muscles in his arm tensed, and pain and determination spread across his face as he frantically tore through his own flesh. The pop of bone and cartilage was audible to all nearby as the knife finally severed the appendage, and dropped he hand to the ground. The young man knelt down before his former hand and picked it up, nuzzling it and softly crying.

A nearby woman approached the boy, picked up the bloodied knife, and began doing the same. And then another, and then another. Soon the crowd was a frenzy of people in some stage of removing a hand. After they had succeeded in amputation, they cheered and screamed and applauded until the manic tone of a profoundly rapturous roar blanketed the entire population.

It was forever known, as the sound of one hand clapping.

Notes From a Second Story Window: A Million People

2007-08-31T02:01:00.000-07:00

God damn, there’s just a million people out there looking, ain’t there? Sucking on cigarettes, glancing around, trying to keep their collars popped, refusing to believe that the sun has gone down, that their chance to make the day has gone. They walk fast to avoid mugging, slow to get some loving, they zoom by in cabs, far too drunk to realistically hope for either, they park their cars against the law to get that yellow-signed liquor store’s last sale, cheap wine, cigarettes and who knows what else. Probably just end up jerking it anyway.

But hope springs, as they say, the skinny-jeaned girl races across the street, dodging traffic, forgot to buy, whatever, who knows? Bubble gum and condoms maybe.

A black man in a blue shirt on a red bench gets into a white car on a velvet night and now there’s no going back, is there?

A getting-older young man sits at a second-hand desk getting drunk on cheap read wine wondering what it means, what it all means. He wonders if he drinks too much (he does), he wonders if he should start smoking again (he should but probably won’t), he wonders where he’ll be in six months (but wished he didn’t care), he wonders if the love of his life will come around and realize that if there ever was a love-at-first sight moment for either of them, it was years ago when they were both teenagers. He’s almost positive he’s in love with her, but can’t be sure until all the data has come in.

Back to the window.

Less and less people stroll by as the night darkens, but a gay man on a cell phone tries to make sure the other side of his bed ain’t cold before it’s too late. “I’ll walk to your place,” he says, but the voice on the other end of the line comes across as cold even from way across the street. The gay man hangs up, looks at his laces for a beat and spins on his heel, back into the bar, the lispy din bubbling for the moment that the heavy wooden door remains open.

More people on cell phones.

The clerk for the sex/bondage shop rolls up the American flag, less an act of honor and more an obligation. It’s the least he can do, which is more that those who claim to rep the flag can say that they did on his part. The store is called The Crypt, and in the window stand three polymer keepers, one male and in fantastic shape sporting a green t-shirt with a black peace sign on the front and a white undershirt beneath it (he must be worried about sweat stains). The other two are female, both extremely well endowed. One is in black patent leather, the other has a purple wig on (no way that’s natural), and she’s got matching striped thigh highs.

I wonder if I should join the wanderers, leave all my stuff, let it all rot and just walk the streets, the highways, the open fields, the runways, grow a beard, beg for change, get a dog, serve God, win a million dollars, give it all away, renounce Him, be foolish, declare my love, go down to the river and sit, sit till I’m a skinny man with a long beard, cultivating my lucid dream abilities and waiting for the man to come by with the too tight/too loose string lesson, sitting there until I save all mankind (and boy do they need saving, don’t they?).

Another bus, another giggle, another U-turning cab, another turned-away reader: “Goddammit I hate this stream-of-consciousness crap.”

The black man in the blue shirt on the red bench is back, and now he has a newspaper. He’s looking for the answers that we all are, and that none of us will find, not above the fold anyway, not from the front page, or from a pretty girl, or from a second story window above a busy street in a busy part of town. Maybe we’re all just looking to get laid, and that yellow-signed liquor store is closing soon.

Roads Inside Envelopes

2007-08-28T00:28:00.000-07:00

She came home with an arm full of groceries; two brown paper bags in her arms, to find a white envelope had been slipped under her door, and was waiting patiently at her feet. Her front door opened into the stairwell, which led directly to her front door, and she was in no mood to climb the stairs twice. Shifting the weight of the bags onto one arm, she managed to bend down, fingering the letter into her grasp. She quickly exhaled. She was a bit cross.

The glass pasta sauce jars clanked when she set the bags down on her kitchen counter, and she tossed the letter onto the coffee table in the living room. Dry goods in the cupboard above the silverware, cheese in the meats drawer, broccoli in the crisper, and milk in the refrigerator door.

The letter wasn’t sealed, just tucked into itself, and she opened it with her thumb, and removed the neatly tri-folded letter, upon which was written her name. She knew it was from him. His handwriting was terse, but flowing block letters, constructed in an efficient and elegant manner. She especially liked the way he wrote the K in her name. She unfolded the letter.

“If there is any chance, any chance at all, that you’d blow off all your plans and steal away with me down the highway for a spontaneous escape that you will one day sigh and look back on as an unforgettable, rapturous liaison that burned bright and quick, but left you with a memory that will bring a smile to your face even when the skin on your hands is old and thin like paper, your hair white, and the days when silly boys were writing you silly letters are long passed, just say so, and we’ll go – or I could just cook you dinner.”

She hadn’t noticed the smile growing on her face, or the heat rushing to her cheeks until she reached the final word, and looked off into the distance of the room. The knowledge that this was one of those romantic moments in her life that would always be hers, and never be marred by tragedy or heartbreak. This was a moment that would never leave, and she held onto its first impressions for just a bit – and then picked up the envelope, inserted the letter, and made her way down the stairs.

The tips and heels of her feet whispered over the seams in the concrete, and all the lights were with her: WALK.

She turned the final corner to face his blue apartment building, skipped the second step and landed, two feet on the brick stoop. She knocked two times on the blue wooden door.

The door flung open, and there he was, sleepy eyed, pajama-bottomed, and toothbrush in mouth. He looked – surprised.

“Dinner sounds very nice,” she said, “but I think I’d prefer the rapturous liaison.”

He spit, pulled on a pair of jeans, and off they went.

And the road spilled out like ribbon, lush and lustrous, long and winding, into a pair of arms opened, then closing like petals, snaking around his head, fingers through his hair, fingernails on his scalp, and he finally exhaled.

The milk in the refrigerator door would have to go sour.

Three Girls at a Bus Stop

2007-08-26T22:24:00.001-07:00

Three teenaged girls sit at a bus stop on a refreshing night in the waning days of summer. It’s still very hot during the day in Southern California and likely will be for another month or so, but the sense that another summer has peaked is tangible, sensory, audible, pungent. The sun doesn’t set at 8:25 anymore, it sets at 8:05. Tomorrow it will set at 8:04.

The three girls start school in a few days, the beginning of regimented days that they all rail against in public conversation but secretly find comforting, knowing that the high-pitched reward will sound when the second hand crosses the 12; just one of so many marks of certainty in their lives, so many things to count on.

Their days are divided into classes, their weeks into school days and weekends, months are punctuated by recently arrived menstruations, years are divided into semesters and accentuated by thick, long, starry-nighted summers, when the best reason to take off your shoes is to feel the warmth of the concrete just after dusk.

Three girls sitting at a bus stop after dark on a weekday, happily uncaring or simply unaware of the danger and death that everyone else fears is closing in around them. Shorter shorts than last year creep away from blotchy, smooth knees, and still painted fingernails scratch itches on their shins, irritated by grass from the soccer field in the nearby park. They giggle and twitter, carrying on about the blissful nothingness of their day, none ill-intentioned in their ways, no ulterior motives, no underlying notions, just camaraderie that will soon deteriorate with age, wane like the summer, and simply vanish.

But tonight three girls are sitting at a bus stop, and the air wraps them up like a crisply wrinkled and very expensive white sheet. They are unappreciative of these careless days, not in a spoiled or entitled way, but rather in an innocent ignorance borne out of inexperience, unaware that the sour stalks the sweet, that their 8:27 sundowns will soon become 5:01 darkenings.

They hold hands, sitting on the back on the bench; an act of sweet rebellion. Soon the bus rides will be over all together, replaced by rides with boys in cars, who posses almost no driving ability whatsoever, and the bus stop will not be missed. Soon the bell ringing will be gone, scarcely remembered, and the summer will serve as notice of nothing more than another hot spell, another half a year gone, one fewer priceless, limited edition, baby oil night. May the bus never come at all.

The Great Ones Never Die

2007-07-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

What do you do on a lonely night? What is a man to make of the tasks ahead? In this day when artistry is in high demand, but artists are not, what is an artist supposed to do? It used to be easy, or at least, easier. Every town needed actors, writers, singers, playwrights. Every town needed every kind of everything. And now one man, chosen by providence, be it rightful or not is expected to fill the demand of a thousand towns. And the same goes for most crafts. One supplier fulfills the needs of a million. Why? Because in today’s world in can be done.

So in the last one hundred years, the traditions of the lifetime of our species have been cast aside in favor of the reptiles that have taken over; cold hard heartless unforgiving driving creatures that neither sway with the wind nor bend to the force of a wave. They are metallic. Cold and strong they stand against everything natural, ruining the ways of the world that have satisfied man and woman. Rarely does the average man actually feel the fruits of his labor, no longer does the average woman feel the grit of dirt burrowing into the grooves of her fingerprints. Instead she must struggle to find satisfaction in the abstract. The abstract. The curse of our time. We can no longer take things literally, or live a deliberate life, but rather file into a line where we fight the closing of eyelids, and wade through a sweaty sea of miserable bodies each with heavier eyelids than the last. Hours and hours of heartbreaking labor in exchange for a piece of paper, with shapes written on it, that we all pretend to honor, we all play the game, we all give it value. I say I’d rather man a hoe than deal with that bullshit but I don’t mean it, cause I too do the 40 hour shuffle, sit in an office and avoid eye contact. It is deathly quiet most of the day, and I ride out the clock, watching the minutes of my life tick by me and descend into Hades.

I am not a great man, I will likely never be so, but in a past life, in centuries gone I would have at least had the opportunity to be happy and respected doing that which I find satisfying, and though I never would have made a lavish living doing it, perhaps I would have been fulfilled. But now I am subject to the greater writer, the funnier man, the fellow with the business degree, willing to sell his existence for said piece of paper, his dream job perhaps. Not mine. I have extraordinary aspirations that are extraordinarily undervalued, and maybe rightly so. It is likely that had I lived in times gone, that my name would have been forgotten, never to be retrieved by later men, men with degrees and tangible, profitable training. If that’s the case, then maybe nothing has changed, because in all likelihood, my name will be forgotten now too, and thus my remains will be returned to the silo, having left the ether unchanged.

I am not extraordinary, just a normal man with lofty expectations, and a lousy work ethic. Although I have the hope of every man, to simply be remembered, it is quite likely that I will be unknown just a few decades after my heart stops beating, and all my hopes will have been nothing more than delusions. I am mediocre, and so deserve to be left behind. Great men don’t die. Great women live on. And the mediocre pass away like dust, perhaps to become the building blocks for later immortals, but more likely, just more fodder for the damned. I am a mediocre extraordinaire.