Thinking, Drinking, and Stinking

The Saints are Coming...

2010-02-08T19:57:00.000-08:00

I don't really like watching football. In general, I've always found it to be lacking in excitement. I don't have a favorite team, and I sure as sin don't like people like Brett Favre (will he or won't he? Who gives a fuck?!) and Tim "My Momma Didn't Abort Me and I LOOOOOOVE Jesus' Bible" Tebow. Plaxico Burress is a fucknut, to say nothing of Ochocinco / Ochouno / OchootIneedtopoop, and whoever the dog-killer was.

Just not my thing. If you like it, that's fine. I don't hate you for it; I get my kicks watching Invader Zim, Deadwood, kung-fu movies, comedy and wrestling.

We're just different, you and I.

That being said, I don't know what came over me yesterday at work, when the Superbowl was on. Maybe it was the fact that I only had two tables over the course of three hours. Maybe it was because the Saints are from Louisiana and I have a love of New Orleans culture and spicy food. Maybe it was just because it was a prime example of how awesome a football game really can be.

I don't know what it was, but by the time Tracy Porter intercepted that Peyton Manning pass and ran for 74 yards for the touchdown that sealed the game for the Saints, I was standing next to Ian (one of my regulars and an LSU alum) and cheering just as loudly as he was. I think I even teared up a little.

I loved watching Porter run that ball into the end zone. It was one of the boldest moves in the whole damn game. It was obvious he'd watched Manning make the play he'd made a hundred times before, and he just ran right up behind Reggie Wayne and pwned him by not only catching the ball, but running like a cheetah for 74 yards. As he got the 10 yard line, no one was even close to catching him. They knew he had it, and so did he. As he pranced into the end zone, he stopped, lifted his arms straight out, threw his head back and breathed it all in.

Sometimes, you just know you're bad, goddammit.

He did the impossible. He made the cleanest interception ever and ran for home like his momma had just called him for dinner.

Between that and the rest of the game, the Saints had one thing the Colts didn't: style. The Colts are the more technically proficient team; they should have beaten the Saints, by all rights. But you could clearly see the difference between the two teams styles with every play. Yeah, Manning made almost every shot he went for, but as soon as whatever Colt had caught that ball, the Saints were mostly right on his ass, slamming them into the ground and bouncing back up, talking tons of smack and screaming "WHO DAT?!" at their vanquished foe.

And how scary accurate is that Brees kid? I've watched football on and off over the years, but that kid's got an arm like a shotgun and the accuracy of a laser. I read that he hit 82 percent of his passes last night, which seems lower than what I saw, but apparently is crazy accurate.

The Saints had another thing I like in anyone I root for; underdog status. They're brash, cocky, and really passionate about what they do. They're not the prettiest team, all massive tattoos and more massive arms, but they talk shit and back it up.

Who Dat?!

And Jeremy Shockey may be strawberry blonde, but with his red beard, smack-talking and anger issues, I'm claiming him as a ginger. It always makes me happy to see one more of my kind gobbling fools like pac-man gobbles pellets.

The Saints came, they saw, and they kicked a ton of ass last night.

As my friend David James would say, "Breathe it in, people. Breathe it in."

Shit. I may have to watch football, now.

I'd forgotten these...

2009-09-15T17:01:00.001-07:00

I'd forgotten about this blog till I saw my friend Kristine had resurrected her pornclerk blog.

I'm back.

Maybe this time it will be for good.

Updates soon to come.

--Isaac:(:)

Poppin' the cherry...

2006-12-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

I popped my cherry in front of a live audience last night, and it didn't ooze nor leave a crater in my cock, unlike dougie.

I actually pulled a few minutes of comedy together, while drunk, and hosted the E3 playhouse's comedy night last night, after the poetry reading.

I'd talked myself into it a couple of weeks ago with the guy who runs the comedy night.

See, after we do the poetry thing (Thursdays, 6-8 pm and make yourself a new friend - myspace.com/2ndary), there's a comedy night.

Only problem has been that no one has really stayed for the comedy night. After we pack the place with the poetry reading, it empties pretty quick and pretty much stays that way through the comedy. Whereas poetry gets anywhere from 40-60 people in this tiny place, the comedy gets a dozen on a GOOD night.

So, I talked to Shawn, the comedy promoter, and told him I wanted to do both poetry and comedy. An added bonus would be the carryover from the poetry night (cuz those kids love to show support).

He said that's fine, cuz he wanted to stop hosting it anyways...

Add in that the owner of the club, Wes, has been kind enough to let any poetry readers stay for free instead of the $7 cover charge they usually get, and bam, I talked myself into my first comedy gig.

However, I didn't exchange numbers with Shawn, and had no idea last night whether or not he remembered our conversation (cuz I BARELY remembered it). I'd brought a couple of notebooks, in the vain hopes that there was something funny enough out of all the random shit I've written and said over the years.

My main goal was: DO NOT SUCK!!!

The poetry night went long (cuz comics were cancelling or something), and no sign of Shawn. The poetry night stops, and I go outside for a cigarette.

Shawn appears from nowhere and says, "Do you still wanna do it?"

"Yeah. How much time do I have?" I said, playing it cool.

"5 or 7 minutes. Can you do it?"

"Sure," I slurred through the two Irish coffees, two Jamisons on the rocks and 1 beer I'd drank over the course of two hours.

I ran outside and started telling people to stay cuz it was me and this could be good or I could bomb, but either way, it was going to be interesting.

And surprisingly, quite a few people stayed.

And even more surprisingly: I not only didn't suck, I actually got good words from both the comics and my fellow poets.

One guy asked me how long I'd been doing it.

"First time."

He got a look on his face like "Shit."

I'll have video up at some point. Nici, who's been taping the last week or two of shows, hung around and taped me going up first. I was surprised at how comfortable I was. I told the only three bits I could think of (and probably the only three bits I have, right now).

That first laugh was so goddamn good. Better than coke, better than the booze I was drinking. My first bit didn't go over so well, but the second bit (boobs, which is more visual), I heard people laughing pretty hard. My favorite joke (Cats & Ketamine, which I might post at some point) went over really well, and even though I lost the punch line, I didn't panic and instead talked my way out of it and back to laughter again.

I still can't believe I did it, and people laughed.

Tap that vein, fuckers, tap that vein.

Now that the cherry's popped, time to start the fuckin'...

in the drive thru.

--Meatsticks

PS Many thanks to those of you who stayed last night, and to all the funny fuckers I know and have learned from watching.

Taking a flying leap (or not)...

2006-11-27T13:49:00.000-08:00

I was 5 or six years old, living in Dam-B, TX. We lived at the tail end of a long dirt road.

Dam-B's a small town, population around 600 or so. One gas station with a restaurant, one more restaurant, a washeteria (laundromat to Yanks), and a post office, all surrounding the big intersection where cars drove to more interesting and populated places where cousins didn't fuck each other.

I was the youngest child in a family of seven. My oldest sister had gotten married earlier that year, the next oldest sister was shacking up with her boyfriend, so now there were five. My brothers and sisters were all in their teens, except Ann, who was 10 or 11.

Daddy wasn't there, then. Daddy was in a place called prison and wouldn't be back for a few more years.

So our caretakers were Mom and the church..

Mom was working a double that day as the cook in the restaurant at the gas station. Since it was Saturday, there was no church.

So the oldest were left in charge to keep the young'uns from getting in trouble.

My brothers, Charles and David, had gotten new mattresses a couple of days before. We'd taken the old ones out to the car port on the side of the house.

Yeah.

Cuz we were the troublemakers.

David or Chuck came up with the idea.

It seemed simple enough.

Pull the mattresses to the other side of the house, stack them up, put the ladder on the side, climb up to the roof, jump off, land on the mattresses, repeat.

I was 5 or 6. And this seemed like a really good idea.

I liked climbing. I've always been a climber. I am great at getting myself up to places.

Besides, how often would anyone let you play on the roof of a house?

Of course, I didn't think this all the way through.

To the jumping part.

I'd never jumped from anything higher than the roof of a Chevy four door station wagon.

And even that was on a dare.

Our house was a single story house with a low attic / crawlspace. Maybe 12 or 15 feet high. The ceilings were slightly slanted, with those cheap tar paper shingles with gravel. Crappy for the long term sealing of your house, but great for traction.

I liked the climbing up part.

I really liked scampering around the roof for a little while.

I watched David go off and scream with glee, like Goofy in the old Disney cartoons when he falls.

"WHAAAA HOO HOO HOOOOEEEEY!!"

And then I crept up slowly to the edge, and looked...

down.

When you're six, the roof of a car was really high. And that's only 4 feet or so.

When you're six and looking at 12 or 15 fifteen feet, staring down at two double bed sized mattresses that looked like postage stamps, well...

I panicked.

No.

I freaked the fuck out.

Suddenly, I didn't wanna do it.

Suddenly, I felt like a bad boy.

Suddenly, I really, really, really just needed my mommy.

And my brother Chuck grabbed me, looked me in the eyes and said, "Look, I'll go. You'll see. It'll be alright."

Chuck and I shared a bond, then. We were born ten years and nine days apart. We were also the only two that weren't born in the hospital. We were connected.

I trusted him above all others.

He was older.

And with Daddy in prison, Chuck was the man in the house.

He knew MORE than I did.

I crept back from the edge, any sense of fun I had disappearing and watched as Chuck winked, turned, spread his arms and leapt off the edge. I heard him yell all the way down, heard a "thoomp!"

and then something coming up the ladder.

Chuck's head pops over, and he creeps over to me.

"See?"

I wiped my tears away.

"You wanna do it?"

I shook my head, yes.

I walked to the edge with Chuck, looked down at the postage stamp, and took a deep breath.

"On the count of three, okay?" said Chuck.

I nodded.

"One, two..."

And Chuck pushed me hard in the back...

and for a second, I enjoyed the sensation of falling...

But the postage stamp was in the wrong place for the proper receipt.

Had I jumped, I could have made it safely into the middle.

Had I understood the concept of aiming a leap, I could have aimed.

Instead, I landed face down, with the lower half of my legs and feet off the mattress.

My legs snapped back, rubber band style, and my own feet kicked my own ass for being such a bad, sad little boy.

I rolled off the mattress, almost trying to catch my breath.

Chuck scrambled down the ladder after me.

"See, that wasn't so bad. Wanna do it again?"

--Meatsticks

Cuz you're working for the maaaa-aaaaan.....

2006-11-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

Jobs.

I fucking hate jobs.

So the nagging parent voice in me says, "So, find some job you like and do that."

There isn't one.

I've looked.

I've worked construction, a corporate office, a Taco Bell drive-thru at 2 a.m. in a small town in Texas on the local high school's homecoming night, convenience stores, video stores, waiting tables, bartending, DJing, bussing tables in a truck stop in the middle of no and where, Ohio, working as a trap loader at a gun club in a concrete bunker, a clerk at a bad store in a worse mall in a stupid fucking town, and slinging expensive shit to people with too much money and too much fucking time on their hands.

What's left? Whoring, being a caretaker for retarded people, owning an oil company and being rich enough to snort good blow off a fat free stripper tit on my private yacht in Cancun, Mehico, going in the Armed Forces, being a cop / sherriff / douchebadge, and working at Panamint Springs Resort in Death Valley.

So fuck the work force.

I'm working up to something and have no idea what.

Well, I have a couple of ideas, but I'm such a sponge that I have to wonder sometimes if my ideas are really my own or just the regurgitation of all the shit I've listened to over the years.

The poetry's been helping, but the past week, I've been blocked or something.

More like regressing, really.

Probably just a delayed aftermath of the depression that sets in after Panamint, but with Vegas.

But that's another story.

So, any suggestions?

Serial killing isn't really an option, though it's got its bonuses. My problem is I have a guilty conscience and would probably confess in a heartbeat to shit I didn't even do, but I'd thought about doing it, so obviously I had it in me to do something like that and felt that I'd better go ahead and get locked up before I finally snapped and became Meatsticks the Ripper, so yes, officer, I did it.

So, that's out.

I've thought about glass blowing, but that whole heat thing really bothers me. I'm pasty skinned, so I'm pretty flame-sensitive. But I'm sure I could make some cool shit if I just did it.

Oh, if only...

See how easy it is to talk yourself out of things?

I've got years of experience.

Learn how, ask me now, for only 14.95 per session!

Call RIGHT NOW!

You need to make me rich so I don't ever have to wake up and leave my bed or my woman before 3 pm EVER AGAIN!!!

CALL NOW!!!

But not in the drive thru...

--Meatsticks

Even a Dog Needs a Bone...

2006-11-25T23:46:00.000-08:00

(I've told this story a few times over the years. Working on the poetry night I've been a part of (www.myspace.com/2ndary), I finally wrote it down in a cohesive form. Thanks to Danny D for helping me see that I came too soon in the first draft...

so to speak.

--Meatsticks)

"It was like having a dog pee on your leg,"
she says, in her cutest voice ever.

Where we are is
the house she and her parents are moving out of.

What she's doing is
answering my question.

What I was doing,
until just THAT moment,
was basking in the glow of my first orgasm with her present.

This was then,
when I was 19 and she was 18.

We were in love
from across the two sides of the tracks.j

She, a virginal Jehovah's Witness from a middle class family
and I,
a poor white trash agnostic,
not sure of anything except
not being sure of anything.

We saw our love as the
BIG L
love.

The kind that crossed those boundaries
that religions, cultures, and creeds
set up to keep the non-believers,
the undesirables,
the Me's,
away from Them.

It didn't work.

We fell in love
and we sinned a glorious kind of sin for the both of us.

Well,
except for the S I N
of S E X.

That was still a no no,
can't pass go,
can't collect the prize
behind the zipper...

Oh, we fooled around,
'our young crotches dry humping against each other
giving our groins the worst case of denim burn that you've never felt.

Then came
that one night
when she came
for her first time.

Ever.

We were still strictly clothes on,
grinding away,
when she lets out an
"Oooooh,"
and a shake
and a shiver,
and she jumped away from me.

We talked for the rest of the night
about what we both knew it was.

After that,
things got
heated, heavier, grindier,
and she had another,
then another
and another
and well...

All from dry-humping.

We thought it was beautiful that we could do that without penetration.

And it was
beautiful.

But it was also...

Frustrating.j

She racked up big O after big O,
while I played the martyr,
my balls growing heavier,
my nethers getting rawer
with each
new grinding session.

Came the day I was helping her move out of her old house.
Her parents had gone to the new house that day,
in another town,
far away from where we were.

Us.

Alone.

It starts again.

We're grinding our young bodies away,
kissing furiously,
hands are going up shirts now,
nipples tweaked and pinched,
savaging each othe rin the most mediocre of ways that a 19 year old can imagine
when suddenly...

I felt something
I hadn't felt
in a long long time.

And I finally got mine.

Right into my boxers.

Of course,
she knew.

Kinda hard to hide it when you collapse shudderin gin a puddle on top of the woman you love.

I go into the bathroom and clean myself up
as best I can,
excited and embarrassed and somewhat
exhausted.

I go outside for a cigarette and she joins me to second hand smoke.j

We start talking,
y'know,
about that
Thing
that had just happened.

And I lookeda t the woman I loved,
and I asked her what
She
thought of it.

And she said,
"I don't want to tell you..."

And I said
"No, baby, it' s okay, tell me,"
my face and eyes still
post-coitally glowing.

And looked at me,
and said,
in her cutest voice ever...

Cut and paste...

2006-10-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-SC-GOP-Fear1.mov

Watch this.

Olbermann is THE man. Not one fucking person besides Stewart, Colbert, and Maher have dared say anything of this magnitude.

But Olbermann tops them out, because they can always hide behind the comedy aspect.

As in, "We're just kidding."

Olbermann, on the other hand, says it without a smile. And it doesn't look stupid.

Enjoy...

--Meatsticks

A Strange Confession...

2006-10-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

I used to write like an addict. I loved words flowing out of the head and into the pages in my notebooks, computers, whatever.

And then....

one night...

a few years ago...

We were in San Francisco. We'd driven up there in my car for a leather / vinyl ball at the DNA lounge. And we were planning on staying the night, so we'd brought my large black overnight back, and as usual, my backpack.

We parked on Bryant street, and went to the club about two blocks away.

My car, it was a 2-door Mazda MX-6, bright fuckin' red. I'd bought it for a pittance in Texas right after I moved back from LA. Lots of miles, but ran like a dream. It was how I moved out here to Santa Cruz from Texas.

I loved that car.

This was also when I carried a backpack with me everywhere. I always had writing equipment. 10 pens, 2-3 notebooks, a book to read in case I got bored and various pack-ratty things I'd picked up over the years.

Literally, anywhere I was, my bag was somewhere to be found around me.

Anyway...

We're at the club, havin' a ball at the Ball all night. Monkey and I had taken a half hit of ecstasy we'd had left over from a month before. Nothing spectacular, but enough to make you go....

Ohmmmmmmmm....

The club was closing and Monkey had to go to the car to get our change of clothes from the ridiculously hot and sweaty shit we'd been wearing.

She came back to me a few minutes later.

"How are you feeling?"

"Why?"

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. What's up?"

She took my hand.

"Your car was broken into. They got everything."

"Even my backpack?" I asked, hoping without a hope.

"Yes."

See, a Mazda MX-6, the '91 model in particular, had a convenient lever for everything you hate to do manually. You could pop the hood, the gas tank cover, and yes, the trunk. And all you had to do was break a window, open the door, and pull a little two inch lever.

And you, too, could have a big duffle bag full of clothes, a half-empty purse, and a backpack full of notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, a sketchpad, and a ton of fucking memories.

What upset me most was the whole idea of someone stealing the bag and just chucking it once they realized there was nothing of any value to THEM in it.

What upset me most was knowing they wouldn't appreciate any of it enough to read it.

What upset me most was some things I'd written about Monkey and never shared with her.

So I cried and kind of fell into her arms.

I can replace the shoes and clothes (well, not all of 'em).

But I can't get those words back. And some of them were really fuckin' good.

We closed the club, had a fun little afterhours party, and a couple of hours later, one of the girls mentioned the possibility of trying to look for my backpack.

And the few people who were left agreed and the next thing I know, we're all wandering out into the early morning light of San Francisco, with the most colorful people wearing the weirdest shit from the night before, looking desperately for a black backpack that may or may not have been in a trash-bin cuz it didn't have anything a crack head could really use.

We searched for blocks and blocks. The sun got higher, and finally, we just gave up.

After that, Barry and Casey took me and the girl to breakfast, where we ate well and I cried a little more, and they made me laugh...

But that was then.

And I've moped for a couple of years about it.

It's really hard, like someone got in and stole some things directly out of my head. Like a block you put in your mind to not deal with whatever horrible old memory is making you crazy.

Writing is my life. Has been for a long time.

And when I do it, it's lovely and I have a good time with it.

But I keep getting brain farty-about the whole thing.

However, I'm glad I shared. Maybe this'll help.

Either that, or I'm just a whining cunt who needs to get over it.

Either way...

drive thru, bitches.

--Meatsticks

Abort Mission!

2006-10-22T10:58:00.001-07:00

Side note: This piece is a mish mash of three different things I wrote. For those who don't know, on my 30th birthday my true love gave to me my first abortion. She took the RU-486 actually ON my b-day. Most of this comes from when we were sitting in the clinic a couple of days before that, with a few extra lines / ideas from a couple of other things I wrote. I actually read this at a poetry reading the other night, and am pretty proud of the piece itself.

Special thanks to Dave Perez, who helped me rearrage and get it to flow really well.

--Meatsticks)

Should we put it in a jar?
And if we do, should we name it?
Sitting in the planned parenthood clinic...
My eyes scanning the room...
You can tell the girls who are afraid they're preggers.
Arms crossed,
eyes with that distant
"Oh dear God,
No,
Please,
No.
Make the test be wrong, just this once."
No boyfriend, husband, job or hope,
except this one offered here,
for a fee...
Over there, in the corner,
2 girls, side by side, arms folded, girls who can't be much older than 17,
they've got that 100-yard abortion stare,
their eyes struggling to not see
that cute little four year old on her mommy's lap,
right there,
in front of them.
In the other corner, a mother and her 14 year old daughter...
the mom can't look at anything but that child.
da Monkey and I, we're here for a test,
the test,
to see if she is pregnant.
A few weeks ago, we had a rare slip, her pulling me in as I spurted out.
Now...
her boobs are swollen
she's getting chubby,
and she's two weeks late.
If she is, the hardest part is gonna be the waiting
to have the abortion.
The thing that should have been hardest about this,
THE conversation,
wasn't even a question.
No "Should we keep it?"
No "Well, honey, what do YOU think?"
No "We'd make GREAT parents?"
Just "How soon do we get it sucked out?"
And maybe, you think this is a little sociopathic.
After all, it is a "life."
So's the bacteria I scrub off when I shower.
So's the bacteria that forms in my urine when it's left my body.
The cancer forming in someone you may or may no know...
that's alive, too.
Doesn't change our dislike and disposal of those things.
Doesn't change how we feel about this.
I can see
how some would be queasy.
But they're not us.
And we're not them.
This
is
about
choice.
We choose, wholeheartedly,
to stop the growth of the thing inside her belly.
And my mother's voice,
and your mother's voice,
and all the parental voices I've ever heard,
they all crowd my mind.
"That's so selfish."
And MY voice says...
What's selfish is spamming the environment w/ carbon copy mini-you's in the vain hopes that your precious widdle child will make the world a better place than you did while you were here.
Cuz, y'see folks,
abortions are NOT the problem.
The people who aren't aborted ARE.

((a toilet flushes in the background))

Drive thru...

Meatsticks

Raping Fish In a Barrel...

2006-10-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

They just keep makin' it easier, don't they? Not a lot of creativity anymore, but when it bursts through, DAMN!!!

Amish schoolkids getting shot down by a random fucking guy with an arsenal.

Regular schools are so passe.

No, today's discerning killer KNOWS to go after the esteemed endangered species, the hard to reach kind, like...AMISH!

Amish are the most non-offensive religion you can get in this shitty, pushy world. They shun all the shit I like, and the kids get the chance to go into the world, and most of 'em turn around and go right back to their little old farm...cuz they can't think of anything better to do with the shit we've got out here.

But, then, one day...

along comes psycho guy, runnin' through the hillside...

And how long did he plan this? There's no WAY this was just random.

It's not like there's Amish schools in cities. This guy drove all the way out to BFAmish Paradise, just to gun down some mother fuckers.

Why the Amish? What the fuck have they ever done to anyone besides other Amish? They don't fight anyone, they're just closed off and probably a little repressed.

Why not take out a Scientology Sector, or a few Catholic churches, or the Crawford Ranch of our esteemed President?

Why the fuckin' Amish?

But the psycho gun-totin' school shooters aren't the only ones up to some new twists on old-shenanigans.

Our Congressmen are catching up to 'em.

Rep. Mark Foley and the Republican leadership who helped cover his ass are all up for "Three Card Pedophilia Monty Awards" this year, a much coveted title that has been dominated by the Catholic diocese for the past 23 years.

Granted, Foley was just a voyeur who liked to ask supple 16-year old boys for photos of themselves, ask 'em to measure their big guns with a ruler, and occasionally request a face to ass meeting.

But it got covered up. And unlike the weapons of mass destruction, these e-mails EXIST.

AND they've been authenticated. It isn't like these kids made this up (that we know of, with presuming innocence till bobloblaw gets 'em off).

Keeping in mind, these are the same guys trying to ban gay marriage, saying gays are all but unnatural beasts put upon this earth to be made fun of, just like the nigras, chinks, gooks, spics, and wetbacks before them...

This is also the party of "moral values," where a woman's not really really brain-dead till Bill Frist SAYS she is...

The party of tax relief, 500-mile Mexican fences that they hope doesn't interfere with their ability to have a cleaned mansion at a discount rate from the third worlder they forgot to give a tax ID number to, the anti-abortion-WE LOVE JESUS-and-ain't-America the Beautiful Under God just the GREATEST damn gift god has put on this Earth...

this...this Party of AAAAALLLL THAAAT IIIIISSS RIIIIIGHT!!!!

((echo, echo))

they

were

covering up for creepy uncle Mark writing dirty IM's and e-mails to underage boys in his no-pay employ.

Ahahahahaaaaa.....

how do you not just smile at that?

Yes, it's heart wrenching, yes, it's heart-breaking, yes, it's sad those kids had to go through that, and where the hell were the parents...?

Oh, right. They were complaining to the Repuplican leadership about Creepy Uncle Mark!

Creepiest thing about it all?

He's the co-chair of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children.

Oh....damn.

It just confirms what the Repub's motto would be if they were honest....

when you consider the war in Iraq, the national deficit, global warming, the assault on free speech, the debt, gas prices, medicine costing more than street drugs for half the effect, tax cuts while we're in debt, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, our relations with majority of the world, and Mark Foley...?

Vote Republican!!!

Cuz really...

FUCK YOUR KIDS!!!

--Meatsticks

Here we come a wafflin'....

2006-09-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

I blame Zack Galifanaikis.

We're on the 280, heading back to Santa Cruz. It's around 3 a.m. and da Monkey and I are just tired.

"Pull off here," she says. "Take a left and it should be about a mile down the road."

Waffles. That's what we want...

Galifanookis talked about waffles during his show a few times. As soon as he mentioned it the first time, our stoned brains looked at one another and said, "Waffles sound gooood..."

Driving down the road now, eyes scanning for a Lyon's, a Carrow's, a Denny's, any sort of diner that would have waffles. We drive for two more miles, only to discover closed car lots, a street sweeper and a couple of gas stations.

"Shit."

We turn around and head back towards the freeway...

After we'd gotten out of the show, Monkey asked me "You wanna find some waffles?"

"Hell yeah. It's all I can think about right now."

"We'll go to Sparky's."

"You know where it is?"

"Kinda...I'll get us there. I know I bought a hat in a shop that was a block from Sparky's."

So we started out onto the streets of San Francisco, with only a vague recollection of a lost Monkey and a deranged Meatstick behind the steering wheel.

Driving around, taking loops that went nowhere, driving down one-way streets, praying for a crossover that would allow us to get where we wanted to be.

And the only place that could be was where waffles were being made...

Back on the 280, 5 miles from the 17 exit to take us into Santa Cruz.

"Try the next exit."

We do. It's as empty as the previous one. Except, as we turn around, we realize there's no direct way back onto the freeway.

Fuckin' San Jose...

"Take Market," says da Monkey. I get on the longest street in the world and we drive down it, giggling to ourselves, as Emo Phillips says on our stereo...

"My Brother says hello...so...Hooraaaaaay for speech therapy." (laughter and appluase)

"Mel's Diner. Wanna stop there?"

"No, I know Sparky's is around here somewhere..."

Back on the 280, finally, after some creative sign following on my part. We're now merging onto the 17 and a fog bank is rolling in like some dragon's creeping smoke from it's nostrils. Like the smoke coming from my nostrils as I smoke another cigarette, trying desperately to stay awake and alert enough to get us...

somewhere with fuckin' waffles.

It's a full-fledged mission, at this point, kids...

Back on Market Street, passing intersection after never-ending intersection, I notice something I have to remark on. I'm at a stop light, in front of the 3rd Mel's Diner we've seen (or the same one three times - who knows?), and on the corner, are 4 girls.

4 girls in varying states of tube tops, tank tops, tight pants and high heels. Some with the body to wear it, some with too much body.

And I say to da Monkey, "Ya notice how hard it is to tell the difference between girls on a nite out and hookers?"

"Turn left here..."

By now, the fog is not only set in, it's starting to fog up my brain. 35 mph on the 17 at 3:30 a.m., unable to go faster because the fog is reflecting my headlights right back into my skull.

"We'll have waffles soon, baby," she says, cooing softly and lighting me another cigarette.

Now, Andrist is on the stereo, talking about how we don't take retards out drinking with us because we don't wanna see 'em when we're turnin' into em.

"Waffles..."

Back in SF, it's 2:00. Last call. Girls dressed inappropriately for cold weather, high heels on pot-hole filled streets, trying desperately to flag down a cab to get the countless puking friends back home safely. Praying that some god above will hear their plea that they'll never do this again, if only God would make the puking stop.

And Monkey says, "Let's get out of here. We'll find waffles on the way home..."

Almost over the 17, now, close so close to home. Pass through Scotts Valley, noting how every place is closed.

"Denny's it is," says I.

We pull into the Denny's parking lot at 4:30, the fog having taken up an hour of our precious waffle needing time.

We walk in, looking exhausted and feeling worse. The two guys at the counter I'd played pool with two days before at the Jury Room whose names I can't remember.

We sit, our waitress walks up, asking us what we want.

"Coffee," says I.

"Water," says da Monkey.

"Be right back," says the girl, who so obviously has gotten the shit shift and has had to clean out everything over the course of this boring ass evening.

She's gonna get tipped well for this.

We open the menu to find a glorious...

lack of waffles.

Not a fuckin' one anywhere on the menu.

We both collapse into our booths, laughing maniacally, as the overworked and tired ass people in Denny's at this hour kind of try not to stare.

"Fuckin' waffles," I giggle as I try to decide what to eat now...

fuckin' waffles....

in the drive thru.

--Meatsticks

Plan B(etter) DAMMIT!!!

2006-09-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

And the Injuns said, "Do not judge a man till you've walked a mile in his moccasins."

And then we killed them, scalped them and gave the rest some blankets with smallpox and didn't tell them about our whole "vaccine" thing we had going.

"Thanks for the words. Bye now..."

we seemed to say.

But we love judging. Especially the Christers. They're my favorite pack of people who believe in "judge not lest ye be judged" who pretend that if their preacher tells them God told him to tell them to fight something, then they can judge it all they want.

Like this whole flap over the "Plan B / Morning After / I KNEW I shouldn't have had that last shot of Tequila this guy bought me and my mom's gonna be so PISSED if I get knocked up like she did when she was my age" pill being available w/out a prescription....

Provided you're over 18, of course. Wouldn't want the kids to start fucking earlier than when we tell them, cuz those little bastards always listen, right?

Just like our examples' mother did to her mom, who'd been begat by her mom before her at the age of....

whatever age it is kids fucked back in those days.

Where was I...?

Hmmmm....

So, Plan B is now available so you don't have to pay an eternity for your one night / week / month of binging that led to your terrible, terrible misjudgment as to exactly how cute and / or rich that guy was when you saw him in the dark bar last night.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS, sayeth the Ringmaster.

And courstesy of CNBC, the clowns they are a-comin'.

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Donny-Deutsch-Pl.mov

What's amazing about this video (besides the whole "doctor's having moral qualms with passing out baby-killin' pills" issue) is that the girl was clearly, unequivocally, without a shadow of a fucking doubt RAPED!!

Isn't that the one exception they have on their whole abortion ban?

"I'm against abortion...except in cases of rape or incest, of course."

Here, we have a real, live rape victim who may or may not be preggers, and a doctor who has the power to have her not have a baby begat by violent means (cuz there's more than enough assholes in the world) and what does he do with his compassion?

He sits on it.

I guess God is anti-abortion and pro-rape.

Come on; according to their fucked up little view, if every (Christian) life is really that precious, it's because God meant it to happen. No more "she was asking for it with the way she was dressed." Now, rapists have a new defense:

"Well, your honor, I was starin' at her from across the room and I saw how hot she looked. And then, I feel this buzzin' in my ears, and I suddenly remembered that buzzin' in my ears back at the tent revivals we used to have 'round where I come from, and remembered that 'buzzin'' was actually the Lord tryin' to speak t'me. And when I listened real clear, it became obvious. The Lord said, an' I'm a-quotin' here, 'Jerry Lou, the lord commands you to take the rufee out of your pocket and slip it in that girl's drink. And then, you shall mate with her when she's passed out in order to further populate the world with people of a like mind to myself, the Lord Thy God, whose name is so hallow, you shall not speak it.'"

"And what happened then, Jerry Lou?"

"Well, I asked the Lord, 'Lord, isn't that illegal?' And the Lord, he spaketh back to me, 'What matter the laws of man when your GOD commands you? HELLOOOOO?!'"

"And then what, Jerry Lou?"

"Well, I thought about it for a second, and figgered, hell, since, y'know, it's the Lord talkin', who am I to judge what he's sayin'."

"So you did indeed slip the rufee in her drink and proceed to have sexual relations with her?"

"Yessir, I did. I'm real sorry, miss, but when the Lord speaks, I get a boner. Hell, I got one right now just thinkin' about it!"

Or something like that...

But are we really surprised that God's a rapist? Anyone out there remember the "Virgin" Mary and her "Immaculate Conception?"

I picture the scene as God getting hammered one night, and thinkin' about his divine plan for the sacrifice of his only child (cuz I don't imagine he was sober when he thought of this doozy.). Him pickin' Mary, who was still somehow, at the tender age of 16, married but still a virgin, and he starts starin' at her, little bits of drool comin' out of his mouth...

One thing leads to another and...

God wakes in the morning, "Holy ME!! What in the Jeckyll and Hyde have I done?"

Too late to stop the pregnancy (because after all, that'd be taking a life, which is way worse than rape as we've now established), Big G fixes her hymen, wipes her memory and sends down Gabriel, who is now tasked with damage control on an alcoholic God.

THERE is your immaculate conception, you sick freaks.

Just remember not to get raped on your way through...

the Drive Thru

--Meatsticks

PS To those who've posted messages / comments: I KNOW it was set on Private cuz I did it. My computer conked out on me a couple of weeks ago and it's still on and off in how well it's working. I hope that link still works.

Better Berfday Bureau...

2006-08-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'd love to give you a blow by blow of the funnest birthday I've had in two years.

I'd love to give you guys a peek into exactly how I got 6 bottles of Bush Mills, four of which are STILL sitting on my counter.

I'd love to tell you how the Venture Bros. Season One came into my possession, how Andrist autographed the four copies of his CD and the packaging and it arrived on my birthday so it was kind of technically a gift received on my berfday and thank you for remembering.

I'd love to tell you about my new shoes, new pants, my beloved Bush Mills Ten Year Malt Whiskey, Nord the Barbarian / Berserker's brother Danny Nord being at the party and allowing me to geek out for an hour on the fact that his brother is the freakin' BERZERKER!!!!!

I'd love to tell you about the giant tri-tip that was being cooked in the dark, the umpteen shots I had to do, the mess that is still our kitchen floor, the mess made up at the Poet by the Drunken Wonder Twins that made me fall down at the crescendo of a song, and how I dealt with the cops whilst trashed on the umpteen shots of whiskey I'd done.

I'd really like you to know all of that.

I'd love to tell you how awesomely amazing and lovely my woman is for pulling all of this together on short notice. And how great Amara and Amy Carter are for helping clean up as the cops walked away.

It'd be great if you guys could know all of that.

But instead, just know that I had a happy berfday and I'm sorry I missed you guys again this year.

Please leave a message at,....

the drive thru.

--Meatsticks

Drunk Thoughts at Taco Bell at 2:00 a.m....

2006-08-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

Immigration has to be cut off.

We need the border fence with snipers on 8-hour NoDoz fueled shifts every twenty yards because this whole Mexicans taking the jobs no American wants has gone too far.

Now they've finally taken over Taco Bell.

It used to be that Taco Bell late shifts were jobs that any white trash inbreeder or illiterate rapper wannabe could work.

Keep those construction jobs and strawberry field pickin' jobs and getting picked up at the lumberyard parking lot in the morning to go move some rich bitch in and out of her house jobs.

Just don't take our Taco Bell.

Cuz now you're fucking with OUR poor, hungry, meek and huddled masses, right here in the USA..

The crime rate is going to go up now, because the cranky meth-tweeker geniuses and the "I'm one welfare check away from a felony" crowd will have nothing better to do than start robbing people again.

And then we're back in a 70's blacksploitation movie that NOBODY wants to be in. Oh, sure, we like to watch it, but it's just like porn: everyone loves to watch, no one wants to really do it.

Cuz the reality of the situation is way worse than the finished product that dribbles off her chin and onto the sheets.

Wait...wrong movie.

So write your congressman, your senator, your governor, your local SPCA, get your church involved, stand on a street corner w/ a petition and lie to people about what they're signing so they'll support it, something, fucking ANYTHING!!!

SEND the message LOUD AND CLEAR!!!

You may pick our strawberries, but you can NOT serve us Taco Bell!!

We stole that shit FAIR AND SQUARE!!!

(Did you know they won't let you walk...

through the Drive Thru?)

--Meatsticks

And where...

2006-08-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

did he go?

I know where, but WHERE...?

Who knows....

You can write to someone all you want, but eventually, all you're doing is having a conversation with yourself with someone else.

But at least I give myself an answer...usually.

Maybe he didn't get them, says the girl. Maybe you should try again.

I do.

Maybe he didn't get them again, I think...

But I fuckin' doubt it.

I did (or didn't) do something, and now it's cost me someone and something I do consider precious.

I know you're out there, somewhere.

I stalk your words when I can, gleaning them for sustenance, for meaning, taking what's there, letting that little piece of comfort in the knowledge of your safety keep me going back....

and back...

A turn of your phrase hits me in the head, sometimes in the heart, but at least it still hits like the pot I'm not going to smoke for a while used to.

Good enough and hard enough to put you in a stupor of contemplation and spiraling thoughts, looking at the fractals in between the lines, the lies, the loops and the spots in front of your eyes.

I miss you.

I truly do.

And it hurts, in a way I have to shut off and not feel and not acknowledge right now, because I've got things to do.

I'm not angry so much as frustrated.

Maybe turnabout is fair play.

And if it is, great.

Point taken.

But I guess I'll never know.

After all...

Never apologize, never explain...

right?

--Meatsticks

That's right neighborly of ya...

2006-08-02T21:28:00.000-07:00

We live in a small place a couple of blocks from downtown Santa Cruz. We're back off the street, living in a cottage placed behind a quadplex apartment style thing, with our cottage facing two other cottages that look exactly like ours.

To our side is our garages, and behind our place there's a fence separating us from the other places in our area.

Adjacent to us, across the fence, there lives a family on the upper floor of a duplex.

They have children. Not only do they have children, they have noisy children.

Not noisy in that normal kid way. The hispanic family in the cottage facing have kids, too, but they don't interrupt my thoughts on a consistent basis.

No, this is a family of LOUD NOISES AT INOPPORTUNE MOMENTS!!

For instance...

This family's back porch (where they smoke in front of their kids and giggle and laugh and yell) faces our bathroom window. Sometimes, when there's things like drinking and hangovers involved, a shit I have to take can take a while.

Sometimes, it just requires concentration and relaxation (something I'm not the best at in the first place).

Sometimes, it's all goopy and I feel ashamed of what I did.

But either way, peace and quiet is welcome.

So imagine...

You're having a small bout of constipation because of all the Irish Coffees you drank last night, and you're finally into doing the crossword puzzle enough to where the sphincter relaxes....

aaaaah.....

almost there....

(and then)

"JACOB DON'T YOU PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH AFTER YOU PUT IT IN THAT ASHTRAY!!"

(kid is now screaming from having his drooly, ash-soaked lollipop taken away: imagine the screams of the mythical banshee mixed with a baby's squeal who is uncomfortable because of the giant load of a shit he just took in his diaper)

Some else mumbles something incoherent, to which hag lady screams (even louder) "But he PUT IT in the ASHTRAY!! DON'T YOU KNOW HOW GROSS THAT THING IS!??"

Or worse...

Jacking off, eyes closed, breathing hard, close, so close, then all I hear is a loud THUMP and a child's breath catching as it lets out a squeal in a range high enough to cause a thousand dogs to cover their now-bleeding ears with their paws, like in that "Scanners" movie.

And people want to criticize people for wanting to have abortions? Fucking PLEASE!!!

When was the last time your abortion nagged after you while you were perusing the aisles of your local super Wal-Mart, pestering you because he really really really REALLY NEEEEEEEEEEEEEDS that new X-box game that he's too young and unco-ordinated to play in the first fucking place?

When last did you hear oh-so-many news stories about an abortion dying today in a car because grandpa ran inside the Home Depot for a gallon of paint and didn't roll the window down?

And have you ever been bouncing your abortion up and down on your knee, only to have it projectile vomit partially-digested Gerber's baby food mixed with Similac right onto to your new jacket?

I only wish they served abortions...

in Drive Thrus!

--Meatsticks

Bully-shit!

2006-07-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Bullies.

Supposedly, everyone hates a bully. They're about two-steps above child molesters (only date rapists are lower than bullies).

But we're a nation full of bullies.

Oh, we love our underdog stories, like "Rocky," "Rudy," "Pretty Woman," where the bullies get their come-uppance at the end and all is right with the world. Yup, we love those stories.

Cuz they're just that: stories. Those stories are as false as the teeth of the ex-meth addict preaching at some school about the dangers of drugs somewhere out there.

Faker than a porn star's orgasms.

Faker than Puffy's marriage to J-Lo.

They don't exist. They're not real. They're a wish-fulfillment story, like super-heroes, winning one for the Gipper, and "Stranger in a Strange Land."

Great ideas, but we live in the real world and the wheels of fate do turn slow.

Till someone like North Korea launches 7 missiles to test 'em out.

Till someone like the Columbine Kids decide to get back at the bullies and bitches who made their lives miserable.

Till Iraq tells us to get the fuck out.

We're a nation of bullies, and this is our come-uppance. Except we're not the ones who get the great comeback story.

We're Apollo Creed, getting our asses handed to us on a platter by non-professionals because we just couldn't handle the fact that we beat 'em last time, but we didn't BEAT 'em.

What kind of bullies are we?

Well, let's see...

We'll invade a country that can't do shit to us and tell the world we mean business, but when a real threat (the aforementioned missile test) comes along, suddenly, diplomacy and multi-lateral talks seem like a good idea.

We'll tell some people "we ain't givin' you nuclear power for jack or shit, so shut up and sit down." And then give one to a registered terrorist state right next door to the guys we just told to fuck off.

We'll tell everyone we'll spread democracy through the barrel of a gun and be greeted with candy, kisses and blowjobs for doing it, and then blame everyone except ourselves when it goes off in our face like a Bukkake extreme video.

We'll hunt for weapons we know aren't there, but won't stop a real-deal genocide from happening. No, kids, cuz THAT takes "diplomacy, and diplomacy takes time."

And we'll give up all our freedoms in order to protect them and not even realize the ironic statement therein.

Cuz we're also stupid bullies.

And stupid bullies breed stupider bullies, and begets more stupider bullies, till finally, we're the super-duper-stupiderest bullies ever.

And then someone's gotta put a gun in our face for us to realize, "Oh shit. We have no idea what we're doing!"

We're peeing our pants right now.

We should be.

Our little show of strength has united the world against us like Panamint vs. Dr. Douchebag 2006.

We could have been nice about it. We could have used diplomacy 5 years ago when 9/11 was still fresh and the world was totally with us. We could have done a lot of things.

But a nation of bullies kinda-sorta-did-but-didn't elect a White House and Congress full of stupid, inbred, hillbilly eejits with puppet-master hands up their asses, and instead we got guys who looked at 1984 like a how-to manual instead of a cautionary tale.

Remember, kids...

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

Ignorance is Strength.

Sleep tight, douchebags...

I'm nappin in the drive-thru...

--Meatsticks

Top Ten List...

2006-06-20T19:07:00.000-07:00

I watched X3: The Last Stand the other day and had an epiphany.

Halle Berry ruins everything. Oscar winner or not, she ruins everything her insecure, pouty lips touch.

Every comic geek I knew growing up had the hots for Storm. Storm was a bad ass, locquacious and beautiful, a woman worthy of being called a goddess.

And then Halle Berry came along and has all but ruined that image.

As my anger grew as the movie went on filled with yet MORE screen time for this ridiculously overpaid, just one nervous breakdown shy of a heroin addiction bee-yotch, I came upon an idea...

An image, really...

the twin towers going down on that fateful day, and Halle Berry on Floor 92 of the South Tower at 9:19 a.m., waving sadly as she sacrificed herself for the greater good.

And then I started thinking about some other people...

and so, I give to you, my friends, my top ten list of people who should have been in the Twin Towers on 9/11...

and why.

10) Bill O'Reilly - He goes to Gitmo, and hours after he leaves, 3 inmates commit suicide. Coincidence? Who wouldn't have loved to have heard the words "3,000 people, including conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly, perished in the Twin Towers today?" Yeah, he goes.

9) Halle Berry - harbinger of doom for all things on celluloid / digital.

8) Ann Coulter - she likes raping the imagery of 9/11 while lambasting anyone else who does so, including the widows of those who died on that "fateful day." I can't wait for the day when it's revealed that this hateful coke-fueled ranting douchebag is actually a post-op tranny. Seriously, have you seen that fucking Adam's Apple she has? She's gotta be hung like a rhinoceros horn. She should make her words mean something: take all your money from your books, build a time machine, and go back in time to sacrifice yourself for the cause you supposedly love.

7) George W. Bush - the only failure in life who keeps falling UP the ladder. He's broken the country, made us more hated, and he can't even speak our fucking language! Oh my god, that means he's a TERRORIST!!! Goodbye white house, hellooooooo twin towers.

6) Dick Cheney - dark lord of the underworld, capable of shooting a slow moving old man while drunk on a quail farm, but unable to not talk out of the side of his mouth. As Lewis Black said, "I met Dick Cheney the other day. I've never stood THAT close to EVIL!"

5) Jay Leno - He's sucked for years, but gets all the "best" acts to come onto his homogenized, whiter than millquetoast show precisely because he sucks. He had Ann Coulter on the other night and didn't even try. And I'm blaming George Carlin (whose only joke was when he moved over on the couch, "I never thought I'd have to move to the right of Ann Coulter.") who had a primo opportunity. And no, being 67 years old with four triple bypasses is no excuse, George. I might forgive George for this trespass, but Jay needs to fly with the angels.

4) Avril Lavigne - One of our local bars is the Rush Inn. It's got one of those downloadable jukeboxes that are all the rage around these parts. And since some people are repetitive creatures by nature, you can usually tell who's in the bar by what songs are being played. There's a certain crew of people I like who have the most horrible fucking taste in music EVER! And they play the same 5 songs by Avril Lavigne every time they're at the bar. EVERY! FUCKING!! TIME!!! I don't know the girl and haven't heard her speak, but her songs suck and she should either get cancer and die or go back in time and join the other people on this list on floor 92 of the South Tower. Although if she started singing, I'd imagine she'd be thrown out the window and hit the ground faster than the towers did.

3) Condoleeza Rice - I read a thing recently online when I was bored that was celebrating "strong women public figures" or some other bullshit. Condi was on this list. Strong woman? She thinks she's married to George, for God's sakes. She's a sycophantic, double-talking, gap-toothed puppet in a power suit whose every word sounds like she's on the verge of tears. I'd rather listen to Halle Berry sing songs written by Avril Lavigne than listen or read another word that dropped out of this woman's mouth like the cum she wishes was running down her leg from her imaginary husband.

2) Osama bin Ladin - thanks, asshole. Cuz of you and your stupid fuckin "Jihad," I've had to put up with this bunch of schmucks for the past five years, and will have to deal with the repercussions of their actions for the rest of my life unless I can find some country that sucks less than this one does right now. You've won, for God's sakes. We're now invading countries, slashing civil rights, detaining people for years without any semblance of due process, and slowly trying to turn ourselves into a theocracy so we can battle YOUR vision of a theocracy! You're a bleeding, cancer infected rectum who deserved to be on those planes! Where's the courage of your convictions, ass!?

1) Carrot Top - You drippy, shit-stained piece of underwear hanging in the back of the closet. You're a ruiner of my fellow ginger people! You're our representative to the world, and look at you. You look like Joan Rivers' bastard child from when she dug a cum-loaded condom of Eric Stoltz' out of the garbage and had herself artificially inseminated. Gallagher wouldn't even tell your jokes, you ass! Why couldn't it have been YOU!? Dear God, man, WHYYYYYYYYY!!

Drive thru.

--Meatsticks

A Dream I Didn't Have...

2006-06-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

While at the Rush Inn the other evening, a friend we'll call Martha related a dream she'd had about me to me...

It goes like this...

Apparently, in the dreamy dream, we'd all (as in the tremendous amount of people we know in Santa Cruz) had a party at Martha's house.

Of course, the house was trashed like a rape-victim's panties by the end of the evening.

And of course, none of our drunk-to-the-point-of-mild-retardation friends were willing to stay and help, so they left as to absolve themselves of guilt.

Leaving just Martha and I...

alone...

drunk...

Martha (whose last name really should be "Stewart") had swept and gathered and collected all the shit that'd been strewn about by our revelry.

And she's starting to sort though this gigantic pile of fun-that-was and she looks up...

to see me with a giant John-Wayne-Gacy-Clown-with-a-Secret-type grin on my face, dancin' my way out the door.

And she says to me in her whiniest Please-God-HELP-ME!-voice, "Aren't you gonna stay and help?"

To which I just say, "You shouldn't have let me into your dream, motherfucker!"

And continue on my way into the ether of dreams...

I don't know if that says anything about me, her, our relationship as friends, or if it's just one of those...things that doesn't mean anything except what you want it to...

But I did laugh as I wrote this down to bring to you non-existent faithful weirdos...

In the drive-thru...

--Meatsticks

Can you spell...

2006-06-11T14:44:00.000-07:00

Spelling bees.

Where you give a child credit for being able to spell a word, and don't give a shit if he / she / it actually knows what the word means.

Pontificator - one who pontificates.

That's about the level most kids can deal with.

Stupid kids breed more stupid kids.

School - place where you learn social interaction, ostracization, and how to get up early to do something mindless and soul-crushing for the rest of your life, whether you like it or not.

School seems like a good idea, at first. A place where all the kids get together and "learn" about the world, history, math, science, dating, sex education....the important stuff.

By the time you get to 12th grade, you're probably learning how much booze you can shove down your throat in order to vomit it all back up later.

But you still get up for school in the morning, hungover, bleary eyed, and praying no one slams a door or yells too loudly.

Just like your shitty job.

Just like your shitty life.

Distractions are everywhere, and we pay damn good money for them.

Try staying informed, but the more you watch, the more numb you get. It gets in your head the way memories of the last evil bitch / dick who broke your heart and made you not trust anyone anymore, oh no that's the LAST fucking time that'll happen to ME...

And you get so pissed off, you think, "I gotta DO something!"

So you start writing letters to get your elected representative (who you didn't vote for in the first place) to try to get him / her / it to fucking DO something.

That doesn't work.

So write your senator, that OTHER elected official, and get HIM to do something about it. Isn't this the way democracy is supposed to work? They take the will of the people to heart, or at least try to do the right fucking thing, and vote against stupid shit and FOR good shit.

Nope...not happening.

Before you know it, you just start writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper in the vain hopes that SOMEONE is listening to anything anyone is saying.

But all you get there is some rotten douchebag who disagrees with you writing HIS letter to the editor in response to YOUR letter to the editor about how your letter to the congressman and the senator didn't work and how much that sucks. And this douchebag, he tells you that that's the way the REAL system SHOULD work, by ignoring minority-type people like you.

So.....

Oh, I know. I'll start an e-mail campaign. I'll send it out to everyone on my list and that'll get an online petition started and then we can REALLY show those bastards that WE mean BUSINESS!

But no, sadly, instead you keep getting that same fucking e-mail from that same princess in Bangladesh who has this incredible amount of money that they'll give you a percentage of if only you would help them by "storing" the money for them for a year.

Or yet another missing / possibly dead / last seen with her father / mostly mutilated when they find her child ALERT!

Or, of course, the one about how small and unsatisfying your penis is to your lover until you take VIRILEXECUTION!!!

Democracy in action...in a nation full of douchebags.

Politicians are just like bad relationships. The instant you have faith in them, they let you fucking down.

Oh, they talk really purty, and all. They spell "Accountability" for the bee-keepers at home, and they talk about "freedom," "democracy," "liberty," "defending marriage and America against godless gay terrorists."

But when it's time to do some shit, it's the same old excuse.

"Oh, we didn't have enough votes...."

"We had the votes, but, y'know, no one wants to make the other guys MAD or anything..."

"Oh, I slept in that day..."

These guys are on vacation every other month, so they have to be well-rested. But really, they don't do shit.

They talk about it. They'll tell you the check's in the mail, sure, we care about your children...

But instead of passing shit to take care of kids, they instead blame it on the entertainment, the violence, the violent entertainment that is at this very moment warping your child's mind beyond all recognition and turning him into a POD PERSON!!!

Your child will kill people if they play Grand Theft Auto.

Your child will kill itself if it listens to Nirvana backwards, at night, underwater in the fog of a moonlit swamp.

Seeing Janet Jackson's nipple will make your kid want to eat raped babies.

Or, best of all, they'll vote to keep a braindead woman hooked up to machines to keep her "alive" so they can look like they're doing something to their Christian Base.

They won't stop wars, they won't say no to a tax cut, they'll change the rules so that they can't be held "A C C O U N T A B L E, accountable, and they can't fucking protect us from airplanes, and because of that gigantic cluster-fuck of screaming falling people and buildings, now THEY want to KNOW about everything YOU do, because...what if...

oh god, it's too terrible to think about it...

What if someone you know is a terrorist?

What if..dear god, what if YOU are a terrorist and you don't know it!

Right now, you could think you're writing some shitty thing on your blog for the world to see, and secretly, you're using stolen flight vouchers to fly here and there to check up on the terror cells that you've helped create while you've been sleepwalking!

It could be you...

So, now, they need to know your e-mails, your phoneconversations, your sexual / pregnancy histories, what you watch, what you eat, where you go and where you are, right now...

cuz remember...

you could be sleepwalking instead of actually writing this...

YOU, dear reader, could think you're reading this, but really you're just remembering it from earlier to cover up the fact that, right now, you are ACTUALLY talking some pimple faced 15-year old boy into blowing himself up for virgins in heaven and praise from Allah...

And where does he blow himself up?

Of course.

In the Drive thru.

--Meatsticks

3 more things about Panamint...

2006-06-07T19:36:00.000-07:00

These are a couple of things I forgot to post about, and one gigantic shout-out that I missed.

===================================================

FagS!

So, there's an 8 guy sausagefest going in the room Monkey, Pringles and I had rented.

This was the night we were plotting murder.

It was one of those nights where someone would quote a song lyric and suddenly, everyone would start singing it.

Y'know, like...

"I don't practice Santeria..."

The whole crowd chimes in...

"Load up on guns..."

Everyone "Bring your friends..."

That kind of shit.

Glen, who was on extasy, starts singing Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown." He's really singing it, really feeling it, as only an E-tard can.

When suddenly, he trails off...

his eyes open wide...

he looks around the room and says...

"Wait! There's no girls in here!"

Runs out the door, slamming it behind him.

Opens it a split second later...

"FAGS!!!"

Good times...

===================================================

As Glen came back in the room a moment later...

So does James Inman. To describe Inman is to really lose the point. Inman is nothing short of an experience to be had, savored and forgotten about in a haze of narcotics and / or booze.

Inman's losing his shit at this point, and starts telling us this story about the lady he was with, and how she wanted to lay out under the stars in the desert, so he dragged the air mattress out there, but he forgot the pills and booze he'd left back in his room, so he went back to get them and...

"What's the point, James?" says someone...

"I left my girlfriend in the desert" he screams, his veins all but popping out of his bald head, "and I don't remember where she is!"

"So you need a flashlight?"

"YES!"

I hand him one, and he was off into the night, to not be spotted till the next morning, when he may or may not have found her.

===================================================

:Last but not least, I wanted to send a shout out to Chaille, who goes out of his way every year to make sure that party runs as smoothly as a freshly born baby's bottom. He's the invisible man, the clock-worker, the guy trying to make sure it all goes as according to plan as this weird shit does.

To Chaille; thank you for helping give me and the rest of us something to look forward to every year.

The Chaille moment that sticks out in my mind was him walking out of the sunrise last year and dousing Abe Lincoln (Brett Erickson) in dried horse manure that he'd found somewhere. Upon which Abe turned green for a few moments and froze like a skeleton in Pompeii.

I cannot tell a lie...

====================================================

For real, I'm done with this shit for this year.

Love you all.

....douchebags.

Drive thru, please...

--Meatsticks

Snatch!!!

2006-06-05T10:52:00.000-07:00

Final Panamint post. These are just a few things that happened on various days that made me laugh, made me pause, or just made me smile as I think about them.

====================================

On the second night of the party, as Monkey and I were walking out of the door of our hotel room, the first words we hear are "YOU, sir, are the guilty orgasm of a rape victim!"

We start walking quicker towards the stage on the Poor House, wondering if Dims had finally pissed someone off.

No, it was Glen Wool, doing one of his bits. What we'd just heard was the topper for his previous bit. Then he did a bit about getting caught by your brother jacking off to his porn and how your penis can be a weapon if it's hard, but not if it goes off.

We liked him right away.

=================================================

Good times...

About a week before Panamint, Monkey and I had drank some tea at the end of a long drunken evening with two friends of ours who run an art gallery downtown. Not "art gallery" like most Santa Cruzans mean (i.e., college trustafarian whose parents are paying for his / her rental space for a year until they finally get their career of the ground).

A real one. One you have to make an appointment to go in to buy. Real art.

Real EXPENSIVE art.

Anyway, Monkey and I had a great time. Monkey ran everywhere, while I sat in a chair feeling very Cheshire Cat-ish while one of the owners kept trying to get her trip under control.

"Hey," I said as I smiled my biggest grin, "what are you worried for? It's all just good times, right?"

"Yeah," she said through her tears and started smiling wider. "Good times."

Which became a mantra for the rest of the evening.

At Panamint, I told the story to Hack and Casey, and somehow, "good times" took on a second meaning, regarding dims' murder.

But remember kids: good times are only funny if you do them.

=================================================

Raindrops a fallin'....

Death Valley gets an annual rainfall of 6 inches per year, according to Darwin Dave. Dave said this after we'd been sprinkled on twice.

Then he says, "that was about a quarter inch. We are blessed."

And Dan, Ian, Hack and myself looked up at the sky, and with murder on our minds, said, "yes we are.'

==============================================

I haven't written much about Ian of Drinking with Ian because I don't remember a lot of what was said.

However...

The night of the murder plot was a subplot involving Dims' car. Ian was deadset on peeing on it. We just couldn't decide where to do so, since the party was still in full swing on the lawn and Dims' car was right next to it.

Ian checks the door handle on the drivers' side.

The door opens.

Ian turns around and calls out doug.

"dougie, this is gettin' out of hand."

Ian proceeds to explain the dilemma; we now have a sworn enemy's car at our disposal, but do not know exactly where the car has come from. We know said enemy had flown in to Vegas, and therefore it was either a rental or a borrowed car. If it was a rental, all was fair. If it was a borrowed car, Ian said, "it deserves to get fucked up even more for letting that doucehbag borrow it."

or something like that...

dougie gets all hushed with us and says, "hey, it's only second night. We're gonna need something to close with on Monday."

So, we peed on the bumper, and later, on the windshield. Someone out there has pictures of this.

===================================================

Darwin Dave, Messiah...

The night of the murderous plot, after everyone else had gone to bed, Darwin Dave stayed up with us. Dave is a masterful non-sequituriat and commentator. The one that made him my messiah was as follows...

I'd made a comment about something being "theoretical."

And Dave decrees, "In Darwin, everything is theoretical."

My eyes widened, the clouds parted, light shone down from heaven and landed directly on...Darwin Dave.

Bow, bitches. Just bow....

==================================================

Monkey Trails....

Anyone who read last year's proceedings on my blog may remember the Monkey story involving ritalin, a lack of sleep, and then a disappearing act by the love of my life.

Apparently, most of dougie's crew read it.

The morning after the trial, we were all wandering in the general area of the doug's RV campsite, and then further, usually in groups. I'm standing by the fire, trying to talk to HolLi between her shouting at Dims to die of death by a thousand cuts, when I notice that Gay Cousin Eric, Shawcroft, and a couple of others are yelling "MONKEY!!"

I look out into the distance, and sure enough, Monkey is walking by herself. I motion to her, she makes an "I'm okay" gesture and I walk up to the crowd yelling for her.

"Why are you yelling at my lady?"

"We don't want her to get lost or anything," answers Gay Cousin Eric.

"She's fine. But thanks for your concern."

As if to prove my point, as I turn my head to look back at her, I see her feet flinging through the air in a perfect cartwheel.

"Monkeys are agile," I say to no one in particular as I light my cigarette and walk out into the desert for a little bit.

=================================================

Pringle's Paws...

I don't remember if I told this story last year or not, but here goes.

Last year was Pringles' first time on shrooms. He ended up taking enough for three doses cuz he didn't feel it right away.

That'll learn him.

Monkey and I wandered around the desert for a while, in the dark, cuz the ground looked like it was glowing. Pringles tried to move around, but whenever he did, he'd end up on his back flailing his legs like a turtle.

Until he hit the nettles. Nettles suck. If you don't know what they are, go google them.

The following morning, as the sun is rising, we encounter dougie, who looks at Pringles (who was wrapped in a blanket with Panda Pajama bottoms and a 1000-yard death-stare straight into sunrise), and dougie says, "What is this absolute terror in your fucking eyes!?"

And all Pringles can say is..."Nettles."

And I chime in, "Nettles."

And dougie says, "What the fuck are nettles?"

Flash forward a year...

We were all wandering the desert at this point, the morning after the trial, just kind of laughing and playing the adult, drug-infested version of "Marco Polo: Desert Island Edition."

When hark, in the distance, we hear dougie's voice yell...

"PRINGLES!!!!! NETTLES!!!! I FOUND 'EM!!!!"

Cuz knowledge is power...

=================================================

This year was the first year I did not suck behind the mic...

On the last night, dougie makes EVERYONE get up behind the mic. Art brings the pickle juice (this year, mixed with Wild Turkey that Ian had swiped from Dims instead of vodka) and you step behind the mic, take a swig, and say whatever it is you have to say.

Of course, the hard part is not sucking or getting nervous in front of everyone. These are some modern gods of comedy that come to this party. If you like to laugh at everything, this is the place for you.

But that doesn't mean you can DO it.

Every year, I've gotten behind the mic, gotten nervous, and felt like a retard. It's the one thing I dread besides cumming too quickly.

Pringles felt the same way, as did Casey. So, throughout the day, you could see us randomly scratching things down in our pads.

Pringles' bit was brilliant. He let me read it over, I told him to shorten it, and he did, and it went over great.

And when I stepped up....I did not suck.

I wasn't great, but I did not suck and I even got some much desired laughs out of everyone.

And they weren't even sympathy laughs.

=================================================

Dims' Departure...

Dims left the final morning of the party. Hack, Pringles, Casey and myself were sitting around that afternoon, bullshitting, when Hack says, "You know, I kind of miss Dims. Without him, what else would we have talked about for the past two days?"

To which Pringles says, "I don't know, bringing about world peace? Solving homelessness? Seeing God? There's a million fucking things that we DIDN'T get to talk about because of that guy!"

===================================================

Have you seen my kitty?...

Just after Dims got pushed over, Bingo had a bit of a freak out. No, a big freak out. Her mental condition seemed to be getting the better of her and there wasn't a whole lot anyone else could do about it besides try to talk her down.

I had this red kitty

I wore it in all my breast pockets of my various suitjackets. It matched the color of the red hat I wear perfectly, and it really brought the suits together.

Bingo sees him sticking out of my pocket and screams "Kitty!"

She appeared to need it more than I did, at that point.

So, I gave him over to her. She rubbed him against her face for a second, and then jumped the fence to another subject and was off. I wandered away, trying not to think about it.

The next morning, though, I was wondering if she even remembered. Not being able to find bingo, I mentioned to dougie what it looked like. Monkey talked to Bingo and a search is on.

If any of you have seen him, he answers to "Kiwi." He's approximately 6 inches tall, and fits oh-so-perfectly into a suit jacket breast pocket. He's gentle, but can be dangerous when cornered.

==================================================

You take that speed?....

On the final night, those of us left were sitting around the final campfire of the party. One by one, people slowly died off. Glen handed two speed pills to Pringles, then wandered off.

After a time, Glen came back and returned to his chair. He looked over at Pringles and said, "Did you take that speed yet?"

"No, I still got 'em. You want 'em back?"

"No, no. I was just wantin' to steal your bed if you were gonna be up for a while."

==================================================

Viva Las Vegas....

We went to Vegas on Tuesday afternoon to see dougie and Andy perform that night at Tommy Rocker's.

We stayed, hung out with an old friend of mine, got drunk as shit, and then ate at a restaurant inside of the Hooter's hotel where Hack was staying.

Our meal came to an end, and we all kind of realized it was over when the bill arrived and we divvied up money to pay.

Hack stood up, and stared at us, not even knowing what to do.

"What do we do, now? I mean..."

Monkey spoke up.

"Just turn around and walk away."

"But..."

I looked at him, with tears in my eyes...

"We understand, man. Just go."

I didn't want to have to say anymore goodbyes.

Because they suck.

Till next year, fiends...

==================================================

The following are just random highlights that will only make sense to you if you were there, as there is just no way to accurately describe what can be summed in a phrase.

Emory & Inman's Debate About God, presided over by King of the Desert 2006, Glen Wool...

Shawcroft and Phillips dueting to "She's talking again!"

Art, Banjo, & Tommy Rocker tearing the fucking house down three separate times...

Golden Showers for a Saran Wrapped Lady...

Bingo's song that I missed because I had to poop (Just Jenn had tears in her eyes from the song, and I'm so sorry we missed it)...

Realizing how many people read my blog (thank you, guys)...

And now, the random, loving people this year that made it all worth it...

Hack Oddity, Lil' Mikey Coca, Ian, Dan Schlissel, Norm Wilkerson, Kristine, Casey, Banjo, Prinny, Art, Henry Phillips, Glen Wool, Ngaio, dougie, Matt & Becky (you're the coolest!), Costa Rica Kevin, Bill, Ben, Bingo, Darwin Dave & Jay / Ray, Tommy Rocker, Andrist, Monkey, Pringles, and whoever else I missed.

You're all phenomenal and I'm tired of writing about this shit!

Drivin' thru...

--Meatsticks

Trial of the century...

2006-06-01T17:50:00.000-07:00

This is the final chapter in this trilogy portion. Thanks for playing this far. I’ll have favorite memories up later.

Any and all quotes attributed to anyone are the best that my mind is capable of remembering and is subjective to the quantity of drugs in my system at the time the person was quoted.

Without further ado, I give you Part 3: Panamintrials and tribulations…

Of course, it had to happen.

Things can only go so far before things get pushed to that next level. On the third night, Sunday, that line got crossed, tap-danced on, peed on, rubbed in the dirt and left for dead in the middle of nowhere.

After a lovely evening of hanging out with Hack & Monkey in The Pig, the main party broke up and people scattered. After a while, it was just Banjo Randy, Monkey, Hack, Dan and someone else on the porch of the poor house, smoking a bowl.

When hark, across the road, a blaze of epic proportions catches our eyes.

“What the fuck is THAT?!”

“Let’s go check it out.”

According to a story I heard from Pringles, the trial was a spontaneous event. Dims was sitting next to Derrick, people were all around the campfire, and somehow dougie got it into his warped mind that we needed to have a trial, right then, right there, of Dims.

All I know is, by the time we showed up, the first witness had been called and things were underway at Panamint Court.

(cue music – dumdumdum –dumdumdumduh – dumdumdum)

The charge: being the biggest douchebag to ever come to Panamint (and that’s with four years worth of history to look back on).

The defendant: Dr. Dims, a man who seemed reasonable to some online and for some reason, was declared alternately reprehensible, unintelligible, and just plain unwanted after one short day at Panamint. In short, being a giant douchebag.

The defense attorney: Glen Wool, a formerly unknown to us comic who had endeared himself to all of us with the line, “You, sir, are the guilty orgasm of a rape victim.”

The prosecutor: founder of the feast and recovering douchebag, doug stanhope.

The judge: Derrick, a new man to the party who showed himself to be a truly kind and welcome spirit. A better judge could not have been chosen.

The jury: two Lakota Indians from the nearby town of Darwin.

Witnesses were called, one at a time. Every time a new one stepped up, someone threw some cardboard on the fire to make it puff up.

The star witness was the Devilled Egg, Mat Becker. Despite fervent hammering by Atty. Wool as to Becker’s perceived devilishness, Becker could not help but insist that he was, clearly, just an egg.

“But what are these,” asked Wool, grabbing Becker by the horns.

“Horns,” replied Becker.

“And what kind of animal has horns?”

“The Devil, sir.”

“And that would make you what?”

“Clearly, I’m an egg sir.”

“And this?” Wool pressed, grabbing Becker’s tail.

“A tail, sir.”

“What kind of animal has a tail with a point at the end?”

“A devil?” queried Becker, obviously confused and under the influence of some substance.

“And that would make you…”

“I’m clearly a deviled egg, sir.”

Many more witnesses were called, including two of Dims’ former defenders, Norm Wilkerson (who was not charged with the sin of convincing Dims to attend the party when he was ready to back out), and yours humble narrator.

I thought I’d be smart and ask the defense attorney where he’d been the previous evening while under the influence of a drug that we call extasy (and if you’d read part 2, you’d know the answer to that). However, Stanhope himself objected on grounds of the question being immaterial.

That and witnesses don’t get to ask questions, apparently.

Stupid Panamint justice system…

The turning point for the defense came about when Mr. Wool called as his final witness his own defendant, Dr. Dims.

Glen lobbed some soft balls at him, asking his name (Tom), how long he’d been at the party (two days), where he was from (Austin)…

And then Glen switched tactics, asking him about his previous relationships. The court room of trees fell silent as Dims, for the first time since anyone had met him, didn’t slur his words and answered questions directly.

No, “I’m a dick and everyone hates me for that…”

No bullshit posturing…

No stupid comments…

Just Glen asking about his last relationship, why it ended, and Dims emotionally responding.

And here we were, with the object of hatred so many of us had decried, made fun of, plotted the death of, laughed at, and put on trial for being a douchebag, and suddenly, he wasn’t pathetic, anymore.

Suddenly, the murder plot wasn’t so funny.

Suddenly, this guy had flesh, bones, memories, love, hate, and a ton of anger and potential untapped.

We were all silent, as Glen finished his line of questioning with a simple statement.

“Dude, if you look around, nobody hates you right now.”

And everyone goes, “aaaawwwww….”

And Dims mumbles something and even his own defense attorney has to tell him to shut the fuck up.

The defense and prosecution rest, and dougie looks at the two representative from Darwin and says, “Gentlemen of the jury; as the true natives of this land, it is your responsibility to judge the preceedings. How do you find the defendant?”

Red Crow, filled with fire water, stands up and decrees, “YOU ARE ALL GUILTY!!”

It’d be real nice if the story ended there and things were okay after that.

It’d be real nice if Dims chilled out, we stopped hating him, and everyone went to bed with a new friend or ten.

It’d be real nice to say that.

But we all know that ain’t what happened.

We all hung out around the fire for a long time. As the sun was coming up over the mountains, people were variously wandering around the desert, finding old vehicles left behind years ago and places to cartwheel.

Back at the campfire, HolLi & Dims wouldn’t leave one another alone. HolLi got aggravated enough by whatever to scream at him at one point, “I have a memory of my father dying on Christmas floating through my head right now, and I’d rather be back there than here with you for one more fucking minute.”

Ouch…

This kept going between the two. Dims got up at one point and said something to dougie, who ran away wild-eyed and screaming that he wasn’t going to waste his trip on this anymore.

Dims went back to the campfire, where HolLi still sat. Now, HolLi was telling him to kill himself.

At what point the words “arrogant cunt” came out of his mouth is known only to Kristine, HolLi and Dims.

But when those words came out, Kristine saw red, went right up to Dims and knocked him the fuck over.

At which point, dougie did have to waste his trip one more time because now he had to get Dims to leave. Dims went back to his room, presumably, leaving us with a naked and screaming Bingo, a shocked HolLi and a mildly freaked out Kristine, and the rest of us wondering what the fuck had just happened.

And lil’ Mikey Coca comforted Kristine and we all started to wonder where the party could go from here.

After a while, some of us went to the front porch of the restaurant, waiting for our coffee to be made and brought out. I had two cups then decided to pass out.

On my way to the room, I once again ran into Rosemary in one of our “Mornin’ Sam / Mornin’ Ralph” moments.

“What’d you guys do last night?”

“Oh, we had a trial of a guy to find out whether he was the biggest douchebag to ever come to this party. But it was funny.”

And Rosemary, without missing a single beat, say, “Oh, you mean Tom?”

Holy shit…

I’ll see you kids one more time…

In the drive thru…

--Johnny “GUILTY AS CHARGED” Meatsticks

If you wanna meet evil....

2006-05-29T15:56:00.000-07:00

It's always hardest to explain what we were doing, y'know? Some people who go have real jobs (like me), and therefore have to be careful what you talk about and what you don't.

But aaaah, fuck it.

So here's part 2: Panamentallo...

2nd day's breakfast consists of us cooking eggs, bacon, and hash together on our Coleman stove on the front porch. Order some coffee from the restaurant, and get the day started right.

We're already running lower on beer than we'd like, so it's time to switch to vodka.

Eat breakfast, offer some to others, break up and begin the day anew.

It was around this time that I officially met Dr. Dims.

I was sitting on the vista with Pringles, looking out at the desert road, when Hack walks up.

"I don't know what that guy's fuckin' problem is, but he needs to get it checked out."

"Who?" asks I, innocently.

"Fuckin' Dims." And he points to a guy with glasses, two unopened beers in his left arm, and the one he was drinking in his right.

"That's Dr. Dims?"

And I got excited. I'd been reading his posts and blogs and stories on the Writaholics site that BAJer started a while back. He'd taken a ton of shit from a couple of different people. He seemed reasonable, if not a little over the top.

I'd come to his aid a couple of times, and was stoked to finally meet him.

"Oh, he's alright," I said. "First day jitters." I proceeded to fill Hack in on what would later get me questioned by a prosecutor and a defense attorney.

Even after my brilliant explanation, Hack just stared at me. "Have you actually talked to him, yet?"

"No."

"Go talk to him."

And I went up to him and introduced myself.

"You're Dims. I'm Meatsticks."

"Hey, man, good to meet you," he said in the slur that would pretty quickly become the bane of everyone's existence at the party.

Within two minutes, I wished I hadn't started talking to him. He introduced himself as a dick, then proceeded to explain why he thought he was a dick, and then went further by giving examples of him being a dick like he says he is.

Telling other comics at the party that he's funnier than them, for example.

It's an unspoken rule at the party that you can talk shit about any comic you want to, as long as it's not one that's AT the party. And if you do talk shit, it'd better be funny shit talking.

Dims' was inane.

I did what would become a motif throughout the weekend; Dims would walk up, people would suddenly remember things they had to go do.

"Y'know, I gotta pee, I left the iron on, is that my child in the middle of the road I'd better go check, holy SHIT my ASS IS BLEEDING I gotta go..."

As Hack and I walked away from our lame excuse that hung in the air the way that bricks don't, I spoke my mind. "I'm sorry I defended that."

Once in the safety of the room, Hack says, "What is that guy's problem?"

"I have no fucking idea."

Pringles and Holli joined us shortly thereafter, followed soon by da Monkey. Holli was an interesting critter. The night before, she'd run around in nothing but a bra and a pair of Depends adult diapers. It disturbed me how many guys at the party thought that was the hottest thing since Jenna Jameson last fisted a girl on a porn video.

"Dude, diaper girl is HOT!!"

Sooo....fucking....creepy.

We smoked a bowl, and rejoined the party, only to meet the man who would become known as douchebag #2. It's hard to shock this crowd of people. We all willingly throw out ideas like date rape, eating babies and eating date raped babies (cuz look at the way they were dressed), but it's funny because no one actually does it.

Douchebag v. 2.0 (a grad from Duke University) topped all that with a real story, involving a 13-year old girl who liked to fuck, a roll of duct tape, and her nakedness duct-taped to the top of a U-Haul. I don't remember details; I just remember horror on Prinny's face.

"Is that real?"

"Hey, don't blame me, I'm just the guy who told the story."

Who's surprised he was from Duke? Not me.

But the party kept goin'...

Nightfall comes, and I'm waking up from a drunk nap. Monkey is inside, counting up the chocolates. We'd made up some treasure chests involving cigarette packs, and parts of a road map we'd cut up. We also had some plastic easter eggs crammed full.

We doled them out, four to a package, not knowing the strength of the chocolates themselves. I had 6, and then 6 caps of mushroom dust, before I really started getting off.

By this point in the evening, there were two conversations that you couldn't escape.

One was what a douchebag Dims was.

The other was how to kill him.

A crew of 6 of us (whose names shall not be mentioned; you know who you are) were the focal point of the second conversation, with various co-conspirators popping in, then out of the conversation when it got too rough for virgin ears.

At one point, about 8 of us were in room #1 when Ngaio walks in.

"Man, I done told you guys, I can't be here when you talk about this shit. I am not an accomplice."

Then Glen Wool (my new fucking hero, btw) shows up. He's rolling his nuts off on Extasy, and even HE got into the murder plot.

After a while, it got to be too much. After a couple of hours, Hack and others kept looking at each other and quoting stanhope...

"It's only funny if you do it. Right?"

I don't remember all the details. Suffice it to say, we made Agatha Christie's murder plots seem like a CBS movie of the week.

I have to pause and explain something at this juncture. This kind of shit has never happened before at the party. In years past, there was one or two guys that everyone just kind of avoided or didn't give drugs to. To understand the level of douchebaggery involved that got us to this point, think about the fact that Glen was on EXTASY and helping out with details!

At one point, I did feel bad about it. I kept hoping Dims would loosen up and join the rest of us. We could all have a good time together, I was sure.

Round about this time, I find Dims w/ Jessica and Jack&Dino. I try to talk to Dims, who's convinced (rightfully) that everyone there hates him. Granted, this wasn't a large change from when he first arrived, thinking everyone there would hate him for his honesty (read: douchebaggery).

Dims is frustrating; every time you think you've got him out from behind his paranoia and anger and got him dealing with you on a one on one basis, he blows it by opening his fucking mouth again.

J&D looks at me, smiling his big, toothy smile and says, "It's only funny if you do it."

To which Dims slurs, "Yeah, it is only funny if you do it. Whatever it is, if it's funny, do it, right?"

To which J&D jogs off screaming, "He did NOT just fucking say that to ME!"

And we laugh about it.

I met Jessica at that moment, and Dims trapped me. J&D and Hack are behind Dims, over his shoulder, waving bye bye to me as they make a clean getaway.

"I gotta take a shit!" I spurt, and run away, robe flowing in the wind.

This went on for hours.

Darwin Dave was hanging out with us as the night got longer. We mentioned Dims' murder plot to him, to which Dave (my new messiah) relates the following...

"Yeah, I met that guy. Y'know, I was a rodeo clown for 12 years and an undertaker for 17 years. And I didn't know which one of my skill sets would be best used on the guy."

This went on for more hours.

The sun started to rise. One by one, our ten little indians of Mayhem and Murder dozed off for the evening. Finally, it was myself, Monkey, Dan, Hack, and Darwin Dave.

At one point, Jessica comes out of the woodwork with a cup of some fluid.

"Watch" she says, and then splashes the cup's contents onto the dirt.

We watch for a second, then remember that there's nothing happening.

She did get us, though.

The sun was up, now, and morning workers at the restaurant were going in to work. Casey had long ago left our murder plot, sitting at the table around 6 a.m., waiting for coffee to start at 8. We finally joined him as the coffee got rolling.

Rosemary, head waitress at Panamint, comes up to me and says hi.

"So," she says, "what were YOU guys up to last night?"

"Nothing much," I said, "Nothing much at all."

More to come from...

the drive thru...

--Meatsticks

The Good Times are Killin' Me...

2006-05-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

It's been four days since we've been back, and nothing still seems real.

Apparently, I somehow grew some spikes in the desert and I'm not givin' 'em back, no way, no day.

So, here's part 1 of Panamental Chronicles:

This year, we had a room. The first year, I crashed out in the poor house (me without a car and all) and last year, with Monkey and Pringles in tow, we camped out on a bed that couldn't stand the heat.

So this year, a room with air conditioning was worth the price.

We took off on Thursday night, with only a map, a car full of booze, clothes and chocolates of a special variety, and trekked our way into the desert.

(sing along, now) I drove all niiiiiii-iight, to get to you....

I couldn't get the weirdness out of my head. Panamint is my finish line, every year since I started going. It's the thing I look forward to the most and the time I sleep the least. You always go forward at Panamint. Something always happens.

Sometimes, it's just beer and fuckers bein' funny.

Other times, it's just you and a rock and a road to stare at.

But I was also sad. No Padre, no Nay Nay.

Nay Nay was the one who made me feel the least douchey about the car wreck that first year. She made me drive The Pig around with her and Kerry in the back, waking everyone up for the windstorm that threatened to blow us all...away.

And Padre, well...

But breakups happen, people leave and things change.

Even at Panamint.

And then of course, the worry of the myspacers. People have an overwhelming need to be clique-ey. We can't resist ourselves. If we can find a way to separate us from them, we will find that fucking way.

So, of course, Panamint is no different. I've got best friends I've known for 10 years that I wouldn't invite to this party. As I've written before, it's an endurance trial. You will find what you are made of in the desert, at this party.

Are you live, or are you just Memorex?

We'll get back to you after day 4.

We pulled in at 8 a.m., finding ourselves to be the first arrived. Keith, now a proud co-owner of Panamint, told us of their good fortune in buying the place, and asked us not to go out back and to not smoke in the rooms. As we walked out on the porch to go to the room, I noticed the "closed for Private Party" sign, flapping above the road.

And I briefly flashed back to the previous year, as the sun rose on that most beautiful morning, when Pringles was high on shrooms for the first time in his life, on his way to the bathroom, fists pumping in the air, striding like a power walker at the mall, turning his head and projectile vomiting 2 paces apart, first right, then left, as some random campers awake in their sleeping bags and wonder just what the fuck animal is dying at this weird place in the middle of fucking nowhere...

And I looked at the sign and said to Keith, "Thanks for that."

And he said, "Yeah, we want to take care of you guys."

We checked in, passed out, and awoke to mostly newbies arriving. For the first two hours after noon when we woke up, I had no idea who most of these kids were.

Except Jack&Dino. If you don't follow Jack&Dino, you should. He's literally too much funny for one name. He's on my Friends list.

I introduced myself, we laughed about the lap dance he got the year before from the absent Nay Nay, and then we started introducing ourselves to the other people.

And only a few used their real names. You could tell the myspacers because they all had names like Hack Oddity, Jack&Dino, and of course, Dr. Dims.

More on him later.

Dougie arrived sick and not in the mood to do much of anything. The stage wasn't set up on the poor house, and no one had the energy to do it.

So we all drank. A lot.

My only goal was to not pass out. The first year, I had wrecked the car, so I was punch drunk on top of real drunk. Last year, I blame BAJer (Baby Arm Joe) because he gave me something that was supposed to be absinthe. I passed out in the middle of the first night party, as the Mattoid, Henry Phillips, and Satan knows who else played not ten feet from my unconscious head.

So this year, I took a nap. I was not gonna be that guy.

And I made it. We (being a bunch of new people) sat on the porch of the poor house and played whatever songs someone could play on their guitar (such as "Santeria," which faded into "One" by Metallica, which became something I don't remember).

People were tired, and feeling weird and awkward, for some reason.

Hack Oddity, Monkey and I hit it off great. Thank Buddha Hack was my neighbor. Apparently, Dr. Dims didn't think he could make it, so Hack took his room. Turned out Dims DID make it, but Hack kept the room.

And I'm glad he did.

But more on that later.

I went into the room, smoked a little green with Pringles, and we all drifted off to sleep.

It felt like the first day at college, feeling people out, trying (but not too hard) to figure out where you're going to spend the next few days while you're here. Who are you gonna tag along with? Do you feel safe enough to run around?

As Prinny said, "It was an odd one."

But oh, we had no idea...

More to come...

if you just go through the Drive Thru....

--Meatsticks

Days blur into nights...

2006-04-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

I've been so caught up in "I used to be" lately.

Like "I used to be cool."

Maybe the whole turning 30 thing is catching up to me.

"I used to be smart..."

No smarter than I am now, really. And I've always been kind of vaguely dumb. Let's face it; if I really wanted to prove how smart I was, I'd stop smoking, drinking, smoking pot, and taking mushrooms.

But I like my life the way it is (minus a few things I'm currently working on changing).

But I've always been a little dumb.

Like just now, I was doing a crossword puzzle and had to ask da Monkey if...if...the ocean six blocks from our house was the Pacific one.

And she laughed.

And then she told me it was and proceeded to give me shit for it.

However, she did have to ask me how to spell "insidious," so, we're even.

That's what a relationship is; between the two of you, you know enough shit to get by.

"I used to be funnier..."

This one kills me. I always wanted to be funny, and have written tons of jokes, one liners, and other things down in my head.

But I'm just a big vagina, really. I can't seem to make myself go to San Francisco and work comedy clubs in that 6-minute set thing. Fear of rejection is the biggest reason, followed closely by my panicking second, and coming in at a close third is low self-esteem and a reasonable fourth is I'm just not funny.

But then, I wrote a bit recently called "Abortions on Demand" for my show, and am in the process of trying to get the rest filmed and THAT is pretty fucking funny.

I really just need to write more. Comedy, writing, and writing comedy is like anything else; the more you do it, the more you're good at it.

Or the faster you realize how badly you suck at it.

Whichever comes and sticks first, y'know?

"I used to be handsome..."

Even if and when I was that mythical handsome, I never really thought I was and still don't. It's like the whole penis size...thing. I don't know how big my dick is because I've never measured. I don't want to know cuz if it's not as big as I want it to be, then you'll never get me to drop trousers again, even for a blowjob from a small chinese lady.

And if it IS as big (or bigger), well...I'd be introducing both myself and my huge penis to everyone I knew. You wouldn't be able to keep my penis out of the public eye.

"Look at it, it's HUGE!!!"

Cuz I know me...

So, being handsome is like that. I'd rather not know. I get told I'm handsome by people, but never take it seriously. For a brief period of time, I believed in my own press, round about my mid-20's.

Don't do that. You'll just become a douchebag and fuck a few chicks whose names you won't remember and it'll be awkward when you run into them five years from now, so you should just move out of state and never look back...:)

"I used to write more and better..."

Write more, yes. Many evenings were spent in small rooms, parking lots, porches, bedrooms and churches, scribbling on paper or typing into the wee hours of the morning, cranked out of my skull on the beautiful green nectar of the Gods, Mountain Dew.

And I wrote a lot. At one point, I had 60 pages of 3 different novels I was writing at the time going. Of course, they're lost to me now. I found a printout of one of them a while ago and...

well, it sucked. Good idea, but nothing too good.

But it's always great when you're writing it.

Write better? Well...

You ever look back at some of your pieces you've written and said, "Wow, I wrote that? How cool!" I've got a few of those.

Mostly, I've got "I wrote that?! Who the FUCK told me I could write?! If I had a big dick, I'd have to choke on it and die for writing crap like that."

So I just don't look at the old notebooks as much. Although I probably should try that and see what happens. Not all my ideas can be bad or full of shit.

But I'm willing to bet a lot of them are.

"I used to be thinner..."

This one I don't have as much trouble with. I fluctuate between a 34 and 36 pant, and I'm told that is not a problem. My minor beer belly that's always been with me is now a bit of a beer gut. I blame da Monkey's new position as a bartender at a beer bar as the reason for this happening. There's a lot of nothing in beer.

I might have to switch back to whiskey...

So long as I don't pee in the bedroom, I think I'm safe.

"I used to be younger and what the hell have I been doing with my life?"

Liking it, actually, and liking it more and more as time goes on. The only thing I don't like is our stationary existence at this point in time.

Jobs just seem to be there to suck the life out of you. They don't really serve you as much purpose as they do other people. I like the people I work with fine, and I get benefits and all that shit, but I'd rather we had more time to play than we do.

So, I get paranoid about "what if I lose this job?"

And I alwasy come back to the same thing. "Cat food and cardboard boxes."

It's something da Monkey would say to me when I first moved out here a few years ago.

"I don't care what it takes. Even if we have to live on cat food and sleep in a cardboard box, I'm not losing you."

And that's our philosophy. No matter what, we are there for each other. We don't need anyone to tell us that we need a license or a priest or a government authorization to say we're committed to one another.

Cat food and cardboard boxes.

"I used to be faster."

Yes, I used to be faster. Oh well.

I've learned in the past few years how being slothful once in a while can be good for you. Unfortunately, several times, I've hit the point of sloth that I don't like; the point where you can't really remember being anything but a sloth.

But I'm working on that.

"She and I used to do (insert whatever you want here) more..."

This one still kills me. Whether it's sex or adventures, yes, we did used to do a little bit more of it. Some of it indenpendent of one another, some of it side by side, grinnin' the whole damn way. There was a six month period a couple of years ago where I would come home and find her in various stages of drunk, stoned, and / or trippin' on mushrooms after I got off work.

And of course, I had to catch up. How do you not, with a face like that?

And so, that works on my paranoia, the not doing as much thing...

But I've realized more and more lately, something else.

da Monkey and I are always good with each other.

We've had screaming matches, sexual problems, times where we couldn't figure out why we were crying, anger, pain, the threat of punches being thrown...

But at the end of every day, the best feeling is the two of us in bed together, snuggling and snoring loudly as the night fades into the next day, where we have to get up, go to work and make some money, just so we have a bed to come home to and a reason to do it all over again...

I love her.

She loves me.

And that's about all there is to say about that.

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Many thanks to Scooze, who was born some time ago...

2006-04-06T01:43:00.001-07:00

So Scooze, whose birthday was today, rents a 15-passenger van, invites 30 people, of whom only 18 showed, and decides to drive to the Brookdale lodge.

Of those 18 people, many have booze and two have a secret stash of mushroom tea in a coffeepot.

And our designated driver, Pete, he drives us up into the mountains of Brookdale to hang at the Brookdale lodge.

The lodge is really fantastic for two fucking reasons.

One is the fact that the entire place is built around a brook running down from the mountains. The dining room is 3 stories high, and surrounds a real brook running through the center.

And the other reason is the bartender named Denny, whose only advice upon seeing the 17 of us who were drinking heavily by that point was...

"You can play whatever the hell you want on the jukebox...just don't play rap."

But then, he had a rat tail that he was going to grow into a mullet, so I'm not quite sure he was the best arbiter of what was tasteful and what was not.

And some of us drank booze, followed by the tea in that coffepot that so mysteriously appeared in so many of our hands...

And some of us just drank.

Most of us danced, and everybody laughed.

And as the evening progressed and we returned to the safe haven of our beloved Santa Cruz, to the cozy comfines of the Poet and the Patriot, we all sort of wandered off...

some of us more coherent than others...

some of us on the verge of pissing on ourselves...

but all of us with a smile on our faces, wherever the hell we were going (and hopefully with someone we enjoyed being with cuz otherwise, you're going to have a SHITTY evening...).

So thank you to Scooze, who was born on this day...

And thank you to those who were there this evening...

even though most of you will never read this...

And if you do, I hope you have the discretion to not talk about this, because what happened in the van STAYS in the van...

And special thanks to Molly, Amera, Chloe, Danielle, Jayson, Pete, Carmen and da Monkey...

Without you kids, tonight might have been intolerable...

Nah...you were just the ones I had the most fun with.

Much love to all my other honkies as I...

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Always hurt the ones you love

2006-04-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

Some people, I can talk on the phone with for hours at a time. My peeps back in Texas, whom I never see. I don't call them for weeks, sometimes months, and every time they pick up the phone and it's me, we carry on like it hasn't been that kind of time.

But it has.

And then there's the people I have a hard time with on the phone.

Some people, the phone isn't good enough.

Some people, you have to see and feel in the room with you to make sure it's really them.

Some people, electronics take out all the fun of the relationship.

And then, since you don't call or write...

Well, after a while, it's been too long.

And yet, you know, you just know, that when you do call, it'll be like they never forgot you. It'll be without disappointment. It'll be without fear.

I haven't talked to Padre but once since he has been in Fresno.

I'm a douchebag for that.

A rotting unwashed well used douchebag.

Apparently, I like to beat myself up about it.

Which makes it all the more fun.

I don't know at what point I became this sissified thing that I am.

Maybe I've always been this way and it hasn't annoyed me this much until now.

Looking back at a lot of the "drama" in my life, both of my doings and other's doings, I see that I froze a lot if conflict was involved.

Maybe it was because I used to hide under the covers when shouting matches would happen between my parents.

Maybe it was my dad's conspiracy theories about how us kids were trying to send him back to jail with the way we were acting or how we were trying to get him and mom to split up and we thought he was so stupid for not knowing cuz it was SO obvious...

I'd just pull the blanket up over my head and pretend it was bulletproof.

I really don't like conflict. Not in the real, emotional sense. To this day, I have a hard time dealing with it at all. I usually just shut down, and walk away.

But now, the things and people I'm involved with, I don't want to just shut down and walk away.

I don't want them to just walk away from me either.

I don't know where this sissy boy that is the me of now came from.

But I would really like to kick his ass.

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Why oh why...

2006-04-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

do I continue to read things that mystify me?

I understand some things when I read them. In fact, I would say I understand most things that I read. And even if something is difficult to read or watch, I try to get through to the end, just in the hope that it'll either be something good or at least that I'll understand why people like it.

But some things, I just can't do it...

Like the whole "DaVince Code"...thing that's been going on for the past couple of years. I know of maybe 4 people who haven't read that book.

Four.

I know a lot of people. Everyone else I know has read it.

"It's really good."

I tried reading one of that guy's other books, and it bored the shit out of me. I kept at it for 100 pages, and NOTHING grabbed me. It was one of those books that sucked the magic out of reading novels for a while, just because it was cliche after cliche and just...just done out of the love for money.

No ironic usage of stock characters in stock settings, thereby giving it some fun.

No real style or flair.

Just...

"He met her in the hallway. She had brown hair and a nose ring.

He knew right away this was no girl to mess with."

Like...that.

It was like watching a prostitute who's been at the game too long go through the motions with a fetishist whose fetish is liking old prostitutes who fake everything like an old prostitute.

Like the horror movie junkies who crank out a script like "Freddy vs. Jason" and get paid colon-loads of cash just to do it.

I don't get it.

It's not my fault. Or maybe it is. But realizing it's my fault doesn't make his book any fucking better.

But this feeling wasn't like that. There was no "I'm not enjoying this" kind of thing.

This thing I was reading was about marriage and its definitions and how they've changed over the years.

And the latest argument is that being in a polygamous relationship is usually disastrous and painful.

What???

I've never been in a polygamous relationship. I HAVE been in a menage a trois about deux times, but I've never been in a polygamous relationship.

No, thank you. I prefer one psychotic woman at a time, if you don't mind...

And guess what?

They were all painful.

Because...

All of them are. Even the good ones are. Even the best ones that we marry and say we're gonna keep forever, there are disasters and pain and misunderstood words and pain because of disasters that sprung from misunderstood words...

Why is that an argument against anything?

Shouldn't you be arguing against monogamous relationships, too?

So their argument is...

"Well, polygamous relationship always end with break-ups, and as we all know, break-ups affect you on both a psychic and emotional level which has been known to cause things we call 'pain' and 'hurtfulness.' And you don't want to go through those, now do you?"

Who

fucking

cares?!

If two girls and a guy or two guys and a girl or two girls and their golden retriever decide to explore their options in a most intimate of ways that may or may not involve lube, peanut butter, and a retarded midget, what the fuck do you care?

This is a problem that doesn't exist.

But at least polygamy used to be legal under church law, unlike the gays.

They've always hated the gays, but not just gays specifically. "Sodomite" has become euphemistic for "gay," but sodomy isn't just that; sodomy is any sex not intended for procreation.

Blowjobs, handjobs, analingus, it doesn't matter.

But it made sense, at one time. The people who wrote the bible were a desert people. And bathtubs and showers were only invented and widely used in the past 150 years. So cleanliness was not necessarily much of an option back then.

You fuck a strange woman in the ass, have sex with your wife, and then she has sex with her fuck buddy, and the next thing you know, you've wiped out a whole fucking village from gonhorrea.

It used to make sense.

But now, children, we have showers, bath gel, anti-bacterial soap, lube, condoms, dental dams...

Come on, people, now, come on your brother, sister, whatever you want.

As long as it's not a child, WHO CARES!?

Well, besides the Christians and the Muslims and the Congress and whoever still follows some old book to the letter that's been translated and ripped off by kings and plagiarized and rewritten and lost in translation and edited and used to justify a lot of slaughter and mayhem that was written two thousand years ago by people who also believed the sun revolved around the earth and the Earth was created in six days by something you can never know and can only "feel"...

Why do we even listen to these guys when it comes to this stuff?

If we are truly all God's children, AND each and every one of us is a sinner the instant we come out of the snatch, then what's the big deal?

What does it mean to "believe" and "have faith" in something?

Doesn't it really mean that those are the things you hang onto, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

After a while, wouldn't your viewpoint on things never be able to change?

And then, aren't you kind of...stuck and unable to function in this world?

Just because it's what sustains you doesn't make you right enough to go kill and oppress people over it.

And yes, it's fucking opression. Just because we've moved on from LOTS of lynchings to small isolated incidents that we don't talk about anymore and changed the subject to marriage, that doesn't mean it's not oppression.

And the Christers say THEY'RE oppressed because they can't pray in schools anymore? They oughta try being the gay kid who gets beaten up.

Here's the deal; if you're the majority if this country, as they so proudly proclaim, you're not up for any oppression awards.

Okay?!

And just because you dress it up in Jesus doesn't make your bigotry, intolerance, and utter stupidity any easier to tolerate. Saying "I'm Christian" means fuck-all to anyone with a brain. Hitler claimed Christianity, too; that didn't make what he did right, now did it?

People call themselves Christians and justify beating and / or fucking their kids bloody because they "made you do it" because the Bible says "spare the rod and spoil the child" and they took them there words LITERALLY!

That doesn't make those acts right, does it?

The only morality that should count is the morality we ALL agree on.

Murdering someone is wrong.

We all agree on that.

Smacking around your wife is wrong (unless she was askin' for it).

We can all agree on that.

Gays shouldn't marry...

Well, can't say we all agree on that. We'll do away with it.

Drugs are bad...

We don't all agree on that. Let's have some more and try it out.

Jobs are good and everyone should have one...

Eeeehhhh....

Polygamy is bad...

Under the right circumstances, I'm sure it could work.

But mostly, probably not.

But who

fucking

cares?

I don't have to pay their taxes, I don't have to watch their kids, I don't have jack or shit to do with anything in their lives.

It affects me and you and the priest who screams about it exactly ZERO.

"But you could say the same thing about child molesting..."

Oh, that one, I beg to differ. One day, while I'm sitting in a strange bar in a strange town, I might run into a person who seems funny, sardonic, a dark sense of humor. We hang out, we drink...

The night goes on, we drink some more...

Before you know it, I have to listen to her talk about how her uncle fucked her when she was 12 years old.

And any fun I may have had just went down the tubes and her night is gonna be way worse and that makes me sadder because I've drank too much and don't want to talk about shit like this...

So, while it doesn't affect me directly, the chance are greater that I WILL have to deal with it later than running into a polygamist who ruins my life.

I just don't fucking get it.

Someone shoot me...

in the Drive Thru...

Meatsticks

Babies MUST be born unless....

2006-03-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

The mother was a virgin who was raped and / or sodomized.

This is the real opinion of one of the douchebags in the South Dakota legislature, one Bill Napoli. I came upon this quote in a news clip about the Dakota legislature's decision. He was asked what would be a good example of when an abortion should be allowed.

And here's his answer, in full, pulled directly from the transcript...

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

But their argument for outlawing abortion is always what..?

"It's a living thing, and it's wrong to kill a living thing for your convenience."

So, it's a living thing worthy of saving unless the girl was a virgin saving herself until marriage who was assaulted in a way that even Wes Craven wouldn't show in a movie. So does going to a frat party and having GHB dropped in her drink count?

I'm sure it doesn't...

But if you're going to object on the grounds that it's a living thing and that's a life worth saving, then really, shouldn't we keep even the rape victim's kid? Whether she was raped or not is irrelevant; it's still a living thing growing in her belly, and if everything is a part of God's plan, then God meant for her to be raped so that child could come into the world and make it better, right...?

Cuz if it's meant to be, it's meant to be...right?

And if that's the case, then why is everyone up in arms about the whole molestation thing? If God has a plan and makes no mistakes, and everyone is involved in this plan, then shouldn't child molestation be considered as part of that great, ineffable plan? Considering how many kids did sue (not to mention the ones we don't know about) and the amount of priests that were involved, then surely this has to be some kind of divine edict aimed at bringing up the next generation with the proper amount of paranoia, phobias, and "respect" for a large unseen authority figure who knows everything and sees everyone.

Perhaps we shouldn't question God's judgment with this aspect of the plan. After all, we don't know all the details, and without knowing all the details, how the hell can we really make a judgment as to whether it is good or not?

God obviously loves children because he makes so many of them (when they're not aborted by evil-doers who didn't get the memo about his ineffable plan, of course). So it only stands to reason that he'd want his minions to have the choicest of the lot, right?

Really, how can we know?

We can't.

We just have to trust God, and barring that, trust his believers to do the right thing. They'd never lead us down the wrong path, now, would they?

Right?

Drivin' thru...

Meatsticks

Happy 3rd Anniversary...

2006-03-19T16:43:00.000-08:00

Today marks the third anniversary of the holy, God-blessed union between America and Iraq. Even though they've had their share of problems, they're not quitters and are sticking it out for the long haul.

Sure, there were lies and distortions and even a few casualties (RIP Tillman; you died well by being shot by your own guys), but through it all, they've perservered and found their place in this world.

So everyone raise your glasses and let us give thanks to this holiest of holy unions between the Father, the Son, and the holy oil on which Iraq sits.

Hip hip, HOORAY!!!

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Little Adventures

2006-03-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

So Monkey sez, "Asylum Street Spankers are in Santa Barbara." (If you don't know, click on my song on my main page; that's them)

And I say, "Let's go."

And so we drove the four hours to Santa Barbara, another front runner for whitest town in the world.

As an aside, for a place that celebrates "diversity" as much as California supposedly does, there are a lot of really rich, white towns where the only brown people are the ones hanging out in parking lots, looking for shit to unload for $20 a day. But only white people REALLY live there.

And every single building in Santa Barbara looks exactly like the others - an off-white Spanish Hacienda. Whether it's the McDonald's, the Starbucks, your local salon, or a used car dealership, the only difference is the sign and how much shit costs in there.

And to add to the misery, the place was a restaurant with a stage, up stairs and hidden in the back of an open air type mall in yet another of those hacienda-style buildings.

The only good thing was getting to see the Spankers. Monkey found them last week by accident, and became an immediate fan.

And really, how can you not? They're the latest in a rash of amalgam bands; bands that just mash up different styles and fuck with your head in all the right ways. Bands that give you credit for being smart.

In other words, bands you don't mind paying to see.

But there was no dance floor in this place. I don't get that; why have a band that plays music that was made to be swing-danced and two-stepped and box-stepped to play in a venue that has no floor? Instead it was this dinner theater mixture of people cheering when they were supposed to in the songs, clapping politely and some wooing when they're done, and then go for cocktails with Muffy and Biff at the bar afterwards.

Fortuantely, the band was cool off-stage, as well. We bought the violin player a shot, smoked out the drummer and bass player on the patio, did more shots with the bartender (who loved our flow of cash enough to double up our shots all night), and then said our goodbyes to wander into the evening of Santa Barbara, with only vague thoughts of finding a hotel because driving back was NOT an option.

We found a church building that wasn't Spanish rip-off architecture (cuz churches are suppsoed to be pure) that had a big, flat marble maze in its courtyard. And we played there for a while...

And about a block up, we found an opera house with a huge foyer that Monkey taught me how to box-step in. And since it was huge and dark, we decided we'd pee in there, too.

And Monkey got it on her shoes.

Fortunately, there was a fountain nearby, so...

Hey, it's more interesting than throwing pennies in, right?

We found the hella-expensive hotel, where we checked in around 2 a.m. The night clerk was really nice and patient with our drunken asses as we attempted to check in.

And glory of glories, they have smoking rooms at this place.

On our way to the room, we noticed the pool was steamy.

"Is that...heated?"

Monkey checked the water.

"IT IS HEATED!!"

We ran to the room, got down to our undies, and walked our freezing asses back out to the heated pool and swam around for a few minutes. As we were getting out because the pool wasn't heated enough for our pasty flesh, another clerk walked up to us.

"The pool is closed, guys."

We played stupid.

"Hey, no one told us and we're obviously drunk, sir..."

"Yeah, well, Chris should have told you it was closed."

"In his defense, we didn't really ask. We just decided to take a swim. Bye now."

And we walked away. That's not an exact transcript, but it's as close as my brain will remember.

This morning, the girl woke me up with coffee and croissants to help with the tremendous hangover that had me wall-eyed and spacy.

And we lay there together, naked and snuggling...

And da Monkey says, "Hey...want leave some dick tracks in a strange bed?"

"Hell yes!"

And we did...

Aaaaaah....little adventures

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

And the rain plays on...

2006-03-11T21:21:00.000-08:00

It's sleeting here in Santa Cruz.

Thunder pours down from the mountains...

Water pours down in frozen and liquid drops...

And we lay on our leather couches, snuggly and warm, as the night fades into infiinity...

Drive thru...

Meatsticks

Juice Squeezin's...

2006-03-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Poor Barry Bonds.

His career may go down the toilet because he probably lied about taking steroids.

Poor, poor, formerly little Barry...

But...but...

Why?

I don't even like baseball, and I sure as fuck don't feel sorry for Barry. He's got an even 50-50 shot of being inducted into the hall of fame with or without the mantle of "juicer" added after his name.

Look at Mark McGwire. It's not like they're going to place a disclaimer on McGwire's home run record after he pleaded the fifth in front of Congress on whether or not he shot something into his butt muscles to make himself biggerbetterstrongerfaster!

But why does anyone care? Steroids have been around for a long time. And for everyone you make illegal, there are a dozen that come out that balance on the fine line of legality.

So why not just legalize? Why is it considered cheating, anymore than taking Creatine to bulk up and get bigger muscles?

It's like finding out there's steroids in wrestling.

HOLY SHIT!!! You mean Hulk Hogan did....STEROIDS!?

NO!! Say it ain't so, Hulkster!! Say it ain't so!!!

Who gives a shit?

"Oh, well it's a shortcut and it undercuts all the guys who work hard and don't cheat to succeed! So it's BAD!!"

Y'know what else is a shortcut? Being beautiful. Look at Winona Rider. She's talentless and clueless, but I gave her a pass for years cuz she was hot. Why aren't we legislating that?

Oh, y'know what else is a shortcut? Having the last name of "Hilton" and having no talent other than the ability to tease. I've seen the porno, and she can't even suck a good dick. I don't see anyone trying to legislate having talent with being featured on magazine covers and TV shows.

"Yeah, but they were born that way. Barry cheated because he wasn't blessed with that body; he had to rely on something other than himself, and that's WRONG!?"

So what about Lance Armstrong's racing gear? It's been scientifically enhanced to cut down wind resistance and make him that extra millisecond faster. He wasn't born with that skin and didn't grow it himself. Why isn't THAT cheating?

"Cuz Barry took DRUGS!"

There's all kinds of legal performance enhancers that are out there on the market, from No-Doz (which is now being locked up behind the counters, kids) to synthetic human growth hormone. And those are....DRUGS!!

"Cuz steroids are BAD!!"

So? Who's gonna have to deal with that later in life? Not you. Barry's got a ton of money and doesn't really give a shit about you or anyone else. Once he's gone, he's retired and livin' large. What is all your crying and hand wringing really about?

"Cuz...cuz...he's a role model for the kids and kids shouldn't do steroids cuz they're BAD!"

Oooh, bring it back to the kids, right? The kids who are gonna do steroids are the kids who are gonna do steroids. And if a few more kids do them in the near future because they watched Barry succeed with them, then more power to them and I hope they enjoy shrunken testicles.

But it doesn't need to be regulated. Alcohol, cigarettes, and guns are way worse for you in the long and short term than steroids are, but those aren't illegal yet. So why steroids?

"Cuz it's wrong. He's a cheater!"

So's your president, Ken Lay, Fidel Castro, Dick Cheney, Phillip Morris...

Y'know, I used to hear that old saying that "cheaters never prosper." And I realized it's the same kinds of people who say "size doesn't matter" and "beauty is only skin deep:" they're the people who didn't succeed because they didn't cheat, never got laid cuz they got a small package, and tried to make themselves feel better about being ugly in a world where the ugly are made to feel bad about themselves.

Honest people don't really succeed all that much. Cheaters are EVERYWHERE!!!

And they've got all the money.

So leave Barry alone, stop bitching about steroids, and shut up and watch your game while you drink your piss-beer and wish your wife would touch you in that special way again. Whether or not anyone's juiced up, that ball is still gonna fly around a field full of douchebags who make more money than you when they're out injured than you will your whole life.

And you're paying to see THEM.

Then again, you really think they wanna come work at your shitty job?

Hell, do YOU want to work your shitty job?

Yeah, I thought not.

And let's face it; if doing steroids would get you out of work...wouldn't you do it?

Yeah...I thought so.

drive thru to left field, please

Meatsticks

There is no way of knowing which direction we are going...

2006-03-11T21:19:00.000-08:00

In order to face your enemy, you have to understand your enemy.

I don't know who said that. It could be an original of mine, but I doubt it. Most likely an amalgam of Sun-Tzu and Robert McNamara.

Regardless, it has that universal ring of truth...

I was just sitting on my front porch, smoking and reading the New York Times. In the "National Report" section, there was a story about an Iranian-born grad student who rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee last week and drove it into the lunch commons area of his local university at lunchtime.

And it wasn't a mistake.

This isn't a "Grandma thought she was in reverse and stepped on the gas and injured nine people at the local farmer's market" type story.

This isn't "I forgot my meds and had a panic attack and thought if I drove over EVERYONE, I'd be okay" kinda story.

He meant to do it.

Apparently, for two weeks, he planned. He scoped out the lunch commons, decided lunchtime would be the time to inflict the most possible damage on the most unsuspecting people in the world, rented a Cherokee, and drove it through the commons as fast as he could without losing control...so to speak.

After hitting 9 people, he drove down the block, pulled into an alleyway, got on his cell phone, and calmly dialed 9-1-1.

And then he turned himself in.

The 911 lady, the officers who arrested him and even the attorney filing charges have said nothing but nice things about his demeanor. He's been unfailingly polite in answering any questions they've had, and hasn't lied to them once.

He is just a lone nut, says he.

And his reason...?

He felt the US has been "killing his people across the sea," and that his actions reflected "an eye for an eye."

How...Christian of him.

So far, the only thing he's been remorseful about, according to the story, is the lack of damage he did. None of the 9 people he hit died or were injured too badly, and even the property damage was only in the low thousand dollar range.

Pussy...

Later in the short article, it describes the faculty and students as wondering whether to call it terrorism or blame it on one lone "disturbed person."

Well, considering terrorism is a tactic of inducing terror, then...yeah, I'd say it's terrorism.

Was it organized terrorism, like al-Quaida? Doubtful. Just because you come to the same conclusions doesn't mean you play on the same team. And so far, the kid has been nothing but forthcoming with all information, as opposed to a professional "terrorist" who would take at least a couple of hooded masturbation sequences to break down and squeal like a piggie.

But in using terrorism, the only goal is to instill terror. Spread fear like an STD on a college campus during Pledge Week.

And I'd say this guy accomplished his goal. No amount of going on with your life and shopping at the mall is going to be able to perk you back up after a case of a Jeep Grand Cherokee flying at you with a sadist behind the wheel.

But this does prove one thing; terrorism works as a weapon of warfare. Not necessarily the bombings or even the ministering. You keep bombing long enough and you run out of people to take over. And ministering only goes so far if your God doesn't bother to deliver (well, unless you're a TRUE believer, in which case, nothing will shake your faith in God unless God himself shakes you, and even then, you'd probably chalk it up as another test of your faith by your almighty prankster deity).

But instilling terror is .

Cuz fear never really goes away.

I'm not sympathizing with the terrorists; I'm trying to understand them.

When you do something, there's usually a reasoning behind why you do it.

You compulsively lie because you're secretly afraid you're not interesting enough without lies in order to get by. You like to beat up people because your mom didn't give you enough love, but your daddy gave you too much. You're president because of your last name and a penchant for sounding like you know what you're talking about when you read from a script (making you a news anchor, not good at anything).

So, if your goal is to instill terror...then why?

Why do you want people to be afraid of you?

Why do you want the respect so badly that killing people is the way to get it?

Is it really worth war to have the infidels out of your country? Are the infidels who come into your country any worse than the people who rule the lands who keep INVITING the infidels to come into your lands?

Who are you really mad at, Mr. Mohammed Reza "I'm gonna run you down with a shitty Jeep product" Taheri-azar? Did your dad take a belt to you a few too many times? Do you hate your mother for saddling you with that last name? Do you hate them both because your name is already long enough without the hyphenation?

What, damn you, WHAT?!

But, in a strange way, I also see his point.

Whenever unsanctioned violence happens in this country, like the OKC bombing or Waco or Columbine or 9/11, we always tune out what they're saying because people who do shit like that MUST have something wrong with them.

I mean, people killing innocent people and babies just to make a point...those guys are fucking crazy!

But support the fucking troops!

See, we only like random acts of violence when WE'RE the perpetrators. Even cops can get SOME kind of sympathy for committing random acts of violence.

Take the LAPD Rodney King beatings. I've met a lot of people who defended the cops' decision, because it's THEIR decision to know when to use violence. And since they kept beating him up, Rodney must have been violent.

But let's take it out of that context and place it in another.

Would those same people defend the cops if they weren't cops? What if it was just a random beatdown, four white guys with nightsticks and tazers stomping the spleen out of one black guy, all captured on bad Super-8 film?

The only real difference is one group has the badge. And when there's a badge involved, it's justified, or at least, justifiable to half the people.

And of course, the military. We have to believe our military is doing "the right thing," no matter the evidence to the contrary. We have to believe that our actions are the right actions, even if it involves kidnapping pregnant wives and dogpiling naked guys and smearing menstrual blood on a guy's face and bombing the shit out of buildings with reporters in them and lying about how a national hero really died and decapitation attacks and showing the gross pictures of Uday and Qusay on prime time television and white phosphorus and sending all women and children out of a city, but leaving all the men to die.

To believe otherwise just might make us realize that people die from our bullets, too.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I forgot it was 1984.

Those aren't bulltes our troops are shooting into people in faraway lands, splattering the innards of a few random people and a whole bunch of bad guys all over the countryside.

They're little nuggets of freedom, opening up the savages to a whole new meaningful relationship with their surroundings.

But that's no reason to not support the troops. Get your USO armband at your local 7-11 RIGHT NOW!!

Or, y'know, just drive through...

Meatsticks

PS This post is in no way intended to endorse the actions of Imam al Fuckhead described above. I simply thought about his reasoning and realized what voice does that guy have with an administration that won't even listen to people who KNOW what they're talking about.

PPS And we are killing his people abroad. Not that they aren't doing their fair share, but we are actually killing his people.

PPPS He's still a fuckhead.

PPPPS But how often have YOU wanted to do that? But, as Chris Rock said, "Ya just don't DO it!"

PPPPPS You may go....

Cleaning out the closet...

2006-03-11T21:18:00.000-08:00

Been reading too much online for too long.

Too..

Much...

Politics...

Must...stop...feed...

Cuz they're all fuckers at this point. A video gets released last week of Bush not asking questions and being told the levees would be topped and possibly cause some flooding. And he sits there, in a windowless room, doing his look of concern...thing.

And when everyone says, "Well, that's it. What do you think, Mr. President?"

To which he goes, "duurrrrrr...ummm....well, see, I'm on vacation, and I really can't be bothered with this right now, so I'll just trust you to do what you're doing, and if you need anything, I'll be back in next Saturday. And please leave a message at the beep."

(Pause...)

"Beeeeeeeep," says the titleholder of "most powerful man on earth."

And Brownie, he's talking some shit now that he's not on the payroll anymore.

"Look," says Brownie, "they didn't believe me, and you all saw it."

Yeah, but that don't mean you get off, fucker. You're still the guy who had an assistant e-mail back your guy at the Super Dome and say, "Not now, the director of Emergency Services is EATING, and you KNOW how long this is taking because of the influx of New Orleanites or whatever they call themselves, so please, write back later, okay? And how are you e-mailing if you're swimming? I mean, aren't you underwater or something?"

Okay, she didn't say that. But if she had, she'd have meant it.

But it doesn't matter.

Oh, and lest we forget, the spy thing, right? Isn't it illegal for him to do that? Shouldn't Congress at least look into the possibility of impeachment? I don't even like Clinton, but he lied about a blowjob and got impeached for it and all we heard for three fucking years was "He lied under oath, that's a crime, he should be impeached!"

And now, we have a guy who's broken the law, fucked up the government worse than it was, and is now spying on his own people just cuz he said so.

And what's happening...?

Not a fucking thing. It's gonna fade away...

And when the spy thing goes away, it's not long before "re-education" will enter our lexicon, but in that...GOOD way.

Y'know, the kind that helps us eliminate terrorists and their sympathizers and anyone else suffering from a "liberal disease."

And maybe then, I'll really make up my mind to leave this country.

My only problem is giving up citizenship, just cuz I like to hedge my bets with some things. If it ever gets good again, I might like to come back.

But I'm not so sure any kind of coolness I can live with is going to come back in my lifetime, again.

The problem is that these aren't turbulent times, really. Not as much as you'd think, anyway. If we have time to bitch about abortions (still) and drugs (still) and whether or not Crash beating Brokeback Mountain was somehow indicative of a homophobia inherent in the guys who vote for the Oscars (it isn't), then we are not living in turbulent enough times to justify the vitriol I hear.

How much of what goes on half-a-world away really makes two shits on whether you make it to work in the morning? Does knowing what's going on make your life any better or easier? Is it, in fact, a good idea to "stay informed?" Doesn't it really just make you feel small and unloved and impotent on a level that you haven't felt since that one time you came too quickly?

Does it even matter?

These are the questions on my mind...

But I do have some modicum of distance from it. Enough distance to know the whole thing smells worse than my underwear after a three day drinking binge where I accidentally shit my pants on the seccond day and didn't shower till the third.

Let's be honest, cuz as Brother Bill said, "Our lives depend on honesty..."

They're full of shit. They've mangled and finagled and stuck a finger up the ass of the language so much that every statement they make is either a misnomer or an oxymoron, and sometimes (if they're special), both.

Oh, they try to make it sound good. They pretend to keep their voices above the fray by speaking proper English and using a lot of "party of the first parts, hitherto and forthwith from this day shall it be recognized that all gays can be remade into our image of primped and proper gentlemen who fuck and beat their wives (not necessarily in that order)" when they write bills.

But they're full of shit, even on the most basic level of attack.

Listen to Republicans when Dems finally start to show the signs of life a beaten wife would make when she starts thinking she's had enough.

"This is nothing but partisan politics."

What's the root word of partisan?

Party.

What do we have two of in the national arena in politics?

Ummm...parties?

Yes. Parties. So, politics on a national level are always going to be partisan.

It's a bullshit argument.

"You're just being a partisan of your party, dammit!"

And what the hell are you, Mr. "If you talk shit about Mr. Bush, you're a sinner who supports terorrists and loves aborting babies on your weekend afternoons?"

And that's an argument, to them. As if saying, "You're a partisan of your party and that's wrong!"

Why?

"Well...ummm....see....cuz you're not in OUR party, so you're against us, and that means you're not like us and you're poopie and a terroristic traitor to your country! You're not even American!!!"

Yes, I am! I was born in this country!

"Were your parents born in this country?"

Yeah!

"What about your grandparents?"

Yeah!

"Great Grandparents?"

I don't know. I think one set came from Ireland...

"SEE!! You're not even AMERICAN, like ME!!!"

This is their version of debate.

And I'm tired of listening to it, reading about it, and looking shit up regarding it.

America doesn't give a fuck because to think about it is too scary. And the more you know, the worse you feel about knowing what no one else does. It's like a short term Cassandra Complex; able to see it coming, unable to warn anyone because they'll just YELL AT YOU TILL YOU GO AWAY OR SEE THINGS THEIR WAY GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DON'T YOU SAY ANOTHER FUCKING WORD ABOUT OUR LORD SAVIOR GEORGE W. BUSH!!!

Of course, I don't actually meet people like that in this town. Instead, the ones I meet who like George are the ones who are completely interested in what they get out of it.

"Hey, I get a tax break, my kid's too rich to have to worry about the military, and I live in a gated neighborhood with fourteen security guards and a bomb shelter built-in."

I want to hate that guy, but I understand his position.

I don't really want to be thinking about these things, mind you...

I'm just cleaning out my douchebag, right now. There will be better shit on the way soon, kids.

G'night and drive thru, please, I'm tired....

Meatsticks

Ro-Cham-Beaux...

2006-03-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

We always see dougie do his thing in weird places. A few weeks ago, he was in Graham Hill, CA, a city in the running for whitest town on earth, playing a part in a "sketchfest" comedy thing. After watching him apologize on stage for half an hour, he looks out into the crowd, stops whatever he was saying and says, "Meatsticks, is that you?"

And I waved.

"Yeah, I totally forgot you were coming."

And then he goes back to what he was saying.

After the show, we went to a froo-froo bar on the corner and had cocktails. Dougie bought the first round as we sat and talked about Padre, Panamint, and other things beginning with the letter "P."

We all finish our drinks around the same time, and the monkey looks at me and I look at her and dougie says, "Another?"

"One of us has to drive," says I.

Monkey holds out one paw flat, one paw fisted, in the universal symbol for Rochambeaux (or its American version, Paper-Rock-Scissors).

"On 3," says I.

She stares at me with that gleam in her eye, the one that says, "I got you, fucker."

I stare at her with the gleam in my eye that says, "Don't you wish?"

"One two three!"

I get rock & she gets...rock.

"Two out of three."

One two THREE!

Scissors...& scissors.

"Okay, one more time."

One two THREE!

Paper...& paper.

"Hold on," sez da Monkey. And she moves on to dougie's left to put him between us.

"Ready...?"

One two THREE!

I get scissors...& she gets rock.

Monkey pumps her arm and says, "YES!"

dougie looks at the bartender who's been looking at us.

"Another round for the lady."

Just drivin' thru...

Meatsticks

Plus ce change, plus ce meme chose...

2006-03-01T19:56:00.000-08:00

Translation:

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"This is about protecting the children's fragile little minds from the horrors of..."

In the 80's, it was the Parent's Music Resource Council getting pissed off about a Prince song that included incestual references and the Van Halen "Hot for Teacher" video (which I proudly used as wacking material years later).

In the 90's, it was C. Delores Tucker marching into the Interscope offices, throwing a copy of the lyrics to NIN's "Big Man With A Gun" in the face of the president and daring him to read the lyrics out loud to reporters (for the record they are..."I am a big man / yes I am / and I've got a big gun / Got me a big old dick / and I / I like to have fun / Hold it against your forehead / I'll make you suck it / Maybe I'll put a hole in your head y'know / just for the fuck of it / and I can reduce you if I want / well I've got the power..." or something like that).

Today, it's brave Senator Hilla-Rod, trying to protect those fucking children's minds from the violence in videogames.

What all three of these have in common is....whose fucking business is ANY of this besides the parents and friends of those kids? Hillary's kid is grown, married and probably well on her way to being an MBA or a knocked up Arkansas whore at this point. At least Tipper Gore had a kid at a young age at the time, so she could fake a vested interest in protecting the well-being of kids.

What's Hillary's angle?

Oh, right...she has to look tough for her 2008 presidential bid. I forgot.

My bad.

Fucking cunt...

It bothers me, it really bothers the fuck out of me that this shit never gets old. It's like the war on drugs; it's started because a bunch of old people are out of touch with the new shit out there, don't know how to deal with it, and lose their minds trying to figure out ways to not have the system adapt to this....

What, exactly?

What is so wrong about a videogame? When I was 17, it was Mortal Kombat that was going to cause the children to turn into homicidal maniacs, or worse, cause them to become autistic shut-ins, drooling mashed Fruit Loops from the corner of their mouths with their minds locked in a fugue state over the horror, OH, the HORROR, of seeing a VIDEOGAME CHARACTER'S SPINE BEING PULLED OUT!!!

There's one thing they always forget, that those of us who play such games don't forget...

It's a fucking GAME!!!

IT DOESN'T EXIST!!!

IT'S NOT REAL!!!

IT CAME FROM SOMEONE'S MIND!!!

Violence has been our entertainment for a long time. It's just evolved over the years from...

the Children of Israel annihilating the walls of Jericho...

to real Romans feeding real Christians to real Lions...

to real white Englishmen annihilating "native cultures" in "the New Land"...

drowning, burning and throwing stones on top of women to see if they were witches...

to mass produced "penny dreadfuls" delivering bloodsucking vampires hungry for virgin neck...

to mass produced detective fiction involving a hard boiled detective hunting down and killing a villain who kills...

to mass produced movies that did the same without showing blood...

to mass produced movies that show blood splattering across naked tits in slow motion (thanks, Hammer Studios)...

to vigilante revenge movies where the cops are ineffectual and the only thing left for a man with a dead wife and raped, traumatized daughter to do is get his own gun and kill the thugs himself (thanks, Charles Bronson)...

to kung-fu and karate masters fighting to the death and beyond using special powers and fatalities to pull out spines, beating hearts, and becoming dragons and biting your opponent in half...

to fake criminals (that's you, with the controller in your hand) sneaking around a digital area, looking for power-ups and weapons and sneaking up on digital bad guys and BREAKING THEIR FUCKING NECKS (thanks Grand Theft Auto)!!!

It's just the next generation of stupid people unable to deal with not understanding their kids as well as marketers do.

But y'know what the funniest thing in all of this is?

The kids who play those games and the people who make them are NOT KILLING PEOPLE!!!

But y'know who is?

The same types of people who think saying "I'm gon' stick dis dick up ya ass" is immoral and should be banned.

The same people who blow up abortion clinics to save lives and take over a helpless country to protect OUR freedoms.

The same people who think that games and drugs and music are the REAL problems with the world.

It's not that words can't hurt, and saying them can't cause pain. Words have a lot of power. Even the idiot that was yelling at Frank Zappa in that video I just watched had one good point; Hitler did what he did using the power of words.

Hitler didn't gain popularity by quoting rap lyrics. He quoted the Bible, talked about freedom and protection and glory and stopping them, the enemy, the other, the ones not quite like us. The ones that are causing our problems, y'know?

Jews, fags, artists, singers...THOSE are the real problem!!

And they must be STOPPED!!!

But Hitler wasn't telling the really real truth. He didn't call Jews "just another religion;" he called it a threat to freedom, a threat to the Fatherland, a threat to the people who were REALLY blessed and chosen to rule the world (that would be HIS people). He made up enemies within the people's ranks by telling people "this is BAD and should be GONE! Are you WITH ME?!"

And good little sheep that der German population was at the time, they said, "HEIL, YES, HEIL, PROTECT US, LORD HITLER!"

And after a while, it became "you say Heil Hitler when we tell you to...or else."

"Or else...what?"

"Or else, you get to take a shower with der Jews, Fags, niggers and artists."

"Oh (ahem) HEIL HITLER!"

"See, ja, dat make you feel better, ja?"

"Oh, ja....oh, ja...."

Danke and driven-thrugen...

Meatsticks

the Fecundity of King George...

2006-02-02T14:39:00.000-08:00

I watched it the other night.

And now I feel dirty.

I couldn't even write about it for two days.

I've had strange nightmares, involving broken credit cards, and people I know all going somewhere for an end of the world party, and somehow, it felt like...HIS presence was all over us, like we were covered in oil and drowning the drown of the damned.

But we kept going.

I blame his speech.

He freaked me out.

It took ten minutes for him to glad fist and tongue fuck his way through the crowd, and another two before they stopped clapping long enough for him to speak.

And he thanks Corretta Scott King for fucking the guy who made her public acknowledgment possible. When I see him thanking Kanye West for smacking him upside the head during Katrina, then I'll believe he's progressive.

And then he said..."The state of our nation is strong."

Sure.

Right.

Tell that to the growing number of homeless people I have to hurdle on my way to work and pretend I didn't hear them when they asked for change.

And then you said, "We need bipartisanship, but you're a communistic abortion worshipper if you question my authority on...

On...

well, anything. Don't ask for shit, and there won't BE no shit, y'hear?! You just hatin'! Don't you be a hater! Nothin' worse than a hater, right, Laura?"

And Laura's smiling face and clapping hands and vacant eyes appeared and she said..."Meow."

And I laughed, but in that...bad way.

I think I may have even died a little inside.

Or maybe it's just a tumor growing...

But you went on, didn't you, George?

Oh, yes you did.

"You don't need to know about my wiretaps, and anyway, I told, like, 12 of ya. Out of 357, that's a good single percentage. It wasn't THEIR fault they couldn't talk about it with the rest of you for fear of imprisonment.

Heck, no, that was me."

And he was proud of all of this, so far.

And he kept going...

"Y'know, there's some bad countries out there. Just to name a few, there's North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe (can I get a hell yeah!), and...ummmm....

Oh, Iran!

Y'all's goin' down, bitches.

Oh, and Hamas? Just cuz you got elected don't mean we won't take you out."

And he swings his elbow onto the podium, stares at the camera, and says...

"Do. NOT. Fuck. With. Israel. If you wanna know why, well...look to the east, as your father's did before you, and witness....Iraq.

Oh, don't think that just cus our troops are stretched we can't kick a motherfucker's ass. I got predator drones with cruise missiles, a microwave ray that makes you think your skin's on fire, and 10,600 nuclear warheads that are operational and can be launched with a thing called 'a football.'"

But he didn't want to just hit the rough stuff. That's just a softening blow, the quick punch to the gut that gets your attention.

But now, finally, he says something good...

"Louisiana, we love ya. Keep the hope alive, brothers and minions. Don't you worry about that money we said we was gonna send. It'll get here as soon as we cut welfare, student aid, childcare, WIC, and your health insurance plans in order to raise the funds.

But keep the hope alive, and one day, you too, will be 'free at last.'"

And the whole building erupts, and they show yet another standing shot of Laura, hands, smile, eyes.

"Meow."

New Orleans is going to take forever to get back to where it was. It was amazing when I read about Halliburton getting a contract to rebuild the Army bases around the area while New Orleans was still gurgling for air.

But there's still no movement on construction because the Feds haven't given up enough money and sent enough people there. And the people are scattered, and FEMA keeps 'em in the hotels month after month because nothing has been done.

And I have to wonder, just a little, as to whether that's part of the plan to just choke the shit out of New Orleans after we just pulled it out of the pool. As if the only reason we pulled it out of the pool was so WE could kill it.

Cuz nothing dies without our say so.

Just ask Michael Schiavo.

And speaking of genetic experiments in controlling ALL aspects of a population...

(and for once, I'll quote directly, because there' s no way I can make his words better...)

"Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos."

Embryos are already bought and sold. They're called "fertilization clinics." And for someone who is so into the free market, you sure are against a lot of shit. You love the war on drugs, you love wiretapping people, your "free speech zone" policies get people removed and arrested for wearing T-shirts, our tax dollars (of which churches pay NONE) now go to Christian organizations for a variety of measures, we subsidize everything American so they can still be competitive in the world market...

Why so afraid of the competition, Mr. Free Trade Agreements are the best thing for America?

Hmm?

I'm still waiting...

But no, he went on.

"We can cut the deficit in half (HAI-YAH!) by the time I get the fuck out of here. And we can do that by starving the government of more money that it needs to bloat itself. See, if I bankrupt it, the government will be cut in half. And with a half sized government, the COST is only half sized, so therefore, our deficit is cut...IN HALF!! Yes it's just that easy, dammit!!" (HAI-YAH!)

And the audience explodes into thunderous applause.

No wonder he ran 3 businesses into the ground before going into politics. It's as if he said,

"I wanna make a lot of money, but I don't really wanna do shit, anymore. Daddy, can you help?"

"Sure, Junior. Sure. Here's Texas."

And I digress again, and he keeps rambling on the TV...

"Now, about Iraq. You can disagree with me, but just don't say anything. I want anyone who's anti-war to pretend you're gay and just keep it in the back door, alright? I got shit to do, words to talk at people, and I don't need not time consuming whining defeatist pussies tellin' me how to do my job. I get to run this country, not YOU!!!

Just shut up, and no one gets extraordinarily rendered..."

And I marvel at the word usage. When Bush came in, he was the plain spoken, shoot from the hip, oh aren't I a funny guy.

Granted, that was to cover up for that fact that he's dyslexic.

I blame the cocaine.

But that's why we have a war on drugs.

I digress, again...

Laura just popped up again.

"Meow."

Anyway, word usage. For a plainspoken guy, a man proud to be uneducated, his writers have come up with the most tortured, twisted, gnarled phrases that make your brain do backflips to try and get to the meat of it.

But, of course, that's only when things are bad. Other memes they have put out are great.

Global War on Terror. That' s a good one. No one even questions this one.

Operation Iraqi Liberat-err...Freedom. Almost bad, but pulled it out.

Weapons of Mass Destruction. Okay, good imagery, but no one even really understands what you're talking about. Most people thinks it's anything non-traditional. But it's not. A WMD is a MOAB, a Flame-Air-Fuel, or a nuclear weapon.

That's it. That's why there's also a class called "chemical weapons." And chemical weapons are not a good tactic on a battlefield. They're better off used on civilians.

Just ask a Fallujan (if you can find one, anymore).

But then they didn't find jack or shit, and so it becomes, "Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Programs." Does that mean they had a textbook or a video of "Nukes for Dummies" stashed under their bedsheets?

Last summer, they were trying to change Coke (Global War On Terror, or GWOT) to Pepsi (Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism, or GSAVE).

And we all went Mountain Dew (WTF)?!

And he's at it again...

"Economy. Economy economy economics. Economical economic economies in the world economy with economic principles followed by light showers of economic proportional to the hypotenuse of economical ideas and thoughts and we gotta be economically competitive in the economies of ideas and thoughts and other things I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about but is anybody listening anymore okay I'll stop talking and let's see what happens."

And the audience breaks out in a standing ovation, and Laura shows her face and hands and vacant vacant eyes again...

"Meow."

Oh, it sounds like a wrap up is coming.

"We must finish well. In everything, we must finish well. If you come and she doesn't, that's not finishing well; that's half-assing the job. Unless you came in her ass, in which case, it would be a full ass job for her. But you still didn't finish well. No, we must finish well in all that we dip our pee-pees into, be it gold, frankincense or myrrh, as did our baby Jesus as a child. And as did his father before him, and Abe Lincoln and Truman and all the other great guys I can throw in this speech...finish well.

Like the mother who bears the child that I sent off to get killed in a war for reasons I'm not at liberty to discuss and who's here with us tonight, next to my wife (meow)...finish well.

Just like all those other people, and just like me...we must, absolutely MUST...

Finish well.

THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT, YOU'VE BEEN GREAT, LOOK FOR THIS CD IN STORES!!!"

I need a drink...

Sorry, the drive thru's closed, come back tomorrow...

Meatsticks

How do you justify this?

2006-01-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012706Q.shtml

Click this.

Go there.

Read this shit.

Imagine...

You're an Iraqi. You have a family.

Some motherfucker who isn't even your friend decides to take over your country.

Now, suddenly, all the bullshit the terrorist has been talking about the Great Satan is starting to sound like it might not be so far off base. Maybe Osama has a point, you think.

Or maybe not even that much. Maybe it's just because you don't want your neighborhood to have white people in it.

So you enlist in the fight.

They bombed you and all you can do is push back however you can.

Then you come home one day and realize that some motherfucker has kidnapped your wife.

And you're afraid.

Cuz you've already seen what they're capable of on a battlefield.

Fear is a motherfucker. It's a driving force.

Why kidnap a person's wife?

Make 'em afraid of never seeing her again.

What you actually do to her is irrelevant.

There's only one hope you have in kidnapping a man's nursing wife.

Make him fear you and your power.

Who he is is irrelevant. Even if he's Osama.

You don't kidnap someone's wife. If she's nursing a fucking baby, odds are, she's not goin' on a suicide bombing any time soon.

She isn't on the battlefield.

And then you hear the guy who is the reason your kidnapped and perhaps dead wife was taken, you hear him say...

"Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."

Well, not if you're in America, anyways...

and as you watch your friend's head blown off by a bullet or see him that last time before a suicide bomb, your muslim friend whom you have known from your mosque as a child, when you see that, you hear the guy who ordered it say...

"I think you can judge from somebody's actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there's a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve."

And as you come home to an empty house, your baby missing, your wife gone, other words of this leader rings in your head...

"Our Nation must defend the sanctity of marriage."

But then, he wasn't talking about YOUR nation, was he?

Sick

Mother

Fuckers

Drive thru and fuck you (only if you voted for this shitheel)...

Meatsticks

On Messy Houses...

2006-01-23T04:05:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever lived with anyone who developed similar habits as you.

It's how we stay in sync.

It's how we stay together.

No matter how far away we feel sometimes, how uncomfortable we get when we don't react the way we really want to, when don't quite get things done the way we want...

we're still here.

And that's everything.

But we're so weird.

We do the thing where we get really lazy and we sit around, getting stoned, watching Family Guy and Firefly and comedy and wrestling and play on the internet, and let the pizza boxes just stack up.

Together, we make a bachelor's pad from a bad 80's sitcom.

But it's somehow still our home.

We both look at it, and say, "I'm tired. Are you?"

"Yeah."

"We need to do dishes."

"Yeah...and laundry."

"...yeah."

"Wanna lay on the couch naked?"

"Abso-fuckin-lutely. Wanna rub my leg?"

"Sure. With oil or without?"

And the house stays messy and undealt with for another day, as we laugh and fade off into sleep...

Not because we're hungover, not because we're depressed, not because we're feeling bad about our lives...

but just because it's more fun to hang out with you than to clean our fucking home.

Drivin' thru, I love you...

--Meatsticks

For Padre...

2006-01-23T02:22:00.000-08:00

The Pigeon Coop sits empty, now.

Even if it's occupied by someone new, it's not the Coop anymore. The Padre flew the coop months ago, off to Bisbee, AZ for different and newer adventures.

Love him though we do, we understand why he's gone.

So now, as we walk in front of the El Palomar, where four stories up once resided the Padre in his Pigeon Coop, we all look up and miss him.

We can't stop by the pay phone on the street and call him down to come with us.

We can't call him up and ask to come over and wait in his room while he talks to himself while he cleans the Coop.

No more dinner invitations from us to make sure he eats.

As one of my favorite people has said, "Life is change, death is stagnation."

To stay may have made him become more static, more lost than he was.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss some of the things that were here when he was.

He appreciates da Monkey and I in a way that few others did. Being the relationship that people look up to because our endurance is annoying; people try to learn from it, and inevitably take away the wrong ideas because our love seems so ridden with all the most annoying cliches that any good cynic I know has passed over millions of times...

But Padre is different.

He gave me a 3x5 note card that quotes the Bible and said, "He who finds himself with a wife is blessed with all things that are good."

Or something like that.

If Monkey and I decide to get married, he will be the only person for the ceremony.

And I briefly think about the time when the Coop was my home for five days while he was away and the Monkey and I had some...issues. How homey it was to be there, and good to have something to distract me from the craziness in my head, and the safety I felt there. And when Padre found out I had stayed there, all he wrote to me was...

"Let's talk."

And we did.

But that was then...

And so, now, we walk past the window on the fourth floor of the Pigeon Coop, and we scream at the top of our lungs, "Padreeeee!!"

Just in the hopes of catching his eye while he feeds the fish parked by the window.

In the hopes that maybe, just maybe, he's really still there and not elsewhere.

It's futile, of course.

The Coop is no more.

But sometimes, you just miss someone.

Not in that painful way, the way those girls made you feel for oh so many years, or the friends who turned their backs on you because they could.

But in that good way, the one that sings...

"Wishing you were here..."

(and the guitar strums us along into the night...)

Meatsticks

Last night I had a dream about you...

2006-01-17T12:18:00.000-08:00

I only think of you occasionally, anymore.

Sometimes, it's remembering things we did while riding in your car, heading towards Louisiana at 80 on the freeway, smoking joint after joint, throwing cigarettes out the window, complaining about loves lost and a lack of desire for new ones.

Sometimes, it's remembering the bad times, the days or weeks without contact between us whenever what we were was weirder than we could handle.

Others, it's remembering things we never did, but always wanted to, together.

But last night, I had a dream about you.

I was saying goodbye to some friends I work on the show with at their car, on a street here in Santa Cruz, and I looked up and saw you, standing by a parking meter, the store light behind you lighting your hair as it bobbed back and forth while you talked on your cel-phone.

You looked like the picture I usually have of you in my head, the one frozen in 1997: green Bennigan's polo shirt, long dyed red hair with the two streaks of gold framing your face, that pale skin, that giant smile, your eyes and lips all fronting for that brain I loved that you mostly tried to keep buried.

And when I, looking like I do now, saw you, looking like you did then, standing in Santa Cruz, where I am now, it wasn't strange. It just seemed like you'd dropped in for a visit.

I put the last of my friends in their car and I wandered across the street to you.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," you said.

And we hugged, and kissed that soft little peck that I know means we're friends and only friends, but lips still meeting for that moment that sparks the both of us like a surprised shock when you're unplugging a lamp.

Something's still there.

But the hope for it isn't.

It's at this point that it's all fuzzy. I know we wandered for a few minutes or hours around Santa Cruz, me pointing out things to you and you laughing because every memory I mention includes da Monkey and I, and you laugh and say...

"I didn't think you'd ever get over me."

"You didn't want me to."

"Of course. But you did."

"Yeah. I did."

And we smile, and you lean up, cup my face with your one hand, and pull my cheek to your lips, pressing hard.

And you shake my face and say, "Good for you."

"Yeah...it is."

And we keep walking, talking about whatever it is we still talk about as we wander in the hallways of other people's dreams.

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Keep Going...

2005-12-27T19:54:00.000-08:00

I'd like to say I realized a lot of good things early on in my life that have helped me in this past year.

Mostly, I seem to realize the dark ones.

You can't stop life. There is no time out. You don't get a do-over.

This is it.

Wherever you are at any given moment, that is apparently the best you can do at that moment. But I always want to do better, or at least, different.

Grinds wear me the fuck out.

But I'll do them forever, and sometimes don't realize why.

But then, I always realize why.

It's cuz deep down inside, I'm just a big pussy. I'm scared I'm wrong about anything I say, that nothing I have to say is interesting, that there is no reason to keep torturing myself by writing about shit over which I have no control, and the things I do have control over I exert no control over.

It all just feels like it's out of your control.

Because there is no real time out.

Oh, sure, you get a week's vacation in a year (sometimes two, if you're lucky and saved up your Paid Time Off hours). And you get paid for it, and you can go anywhere you want within the budget you don't keep track of until you get to your last forty dollars.

So it just feels like a spiral out of control.

But it was only recently where I realized it's not a spiral at all. It's not even a circle of history repeating itself. It's just a curlicue that never ends, spinning you into the center.

Like when I was drinking a lot less often, but binged when I did, I'd get the swirls at one point.

You know them.

Don't play like you don't.

You're sitting in a chair, and your eyes close for a second and your head rolls back and you suddenly see this vortex that looks like the Milky Way Galaxy in your mind's eye and you feel the pull as you swirl around it.

And you always stop just before you go into the center, don't you? Snap yourself awake just before you fall forward or backward or whatever direction you were headed in.

I have a confession about that.

I went into the swirl.

And I haven't had a swirly moment since.

Now, I just don't remember shit.

The first time I drank so much I couldn't remember, it freaked me out. I couldn't remember how I'd gotten home, where my pants were, nor how much money I'd spent. I got up, reached for the ever present Mountain Dew by my couchside, and took a swig.

Then I took another and tried to piece things together.

I reached for my pants by the bedroom door, grabbed the wallet, and realized I was about $300 poorer than I'd been when I went to the show the night before.

Still no memory.

I had to throw up.

So I went to the bathroom and did.

But even that didn't jog the old memory banks.

I called a friend back in TX, confessing how weird it was to actually NOT remember something I knew I had done. And he asked what could I do about it?

And I said nothing.

But I did do something. I stayed in my bedroom for two days, staying stoned and trying not to think about what I was doing in LA in an old man's house, clothes and notebooks and Mountain Dew bottles piled around me, some empty, some full, some full of pee.

Because sometimes that's all you can do.

But I kept waiting for shit to happen. I didn't like where I was, didn't like what I was doing with my time (except for the writing), and was beginning to hate my job.

It took me a year to finally say goodbye. I was determined to make it work, but it wasn't what I wanted.

Problem was, I couldn't think of anything that I did want.

And why?

Because I'm afraid I'm wrong. I'm afraid of being stupid. I'm afraid of being a joke. I'm afraid that I don't really know what I'm talking about, even when I do.

Mostly, I'm just a big, drippy quivering clit of fear.

But isn't bravery being afraid and doing something anyway?

But do I want to think of myself as brave?

No, I don't. Too much responsibility.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about my life, because I've had assloads of fun with funny, amazing, sad, angry, homeless, and loving people who've come into my life.

But some days, it just feels like the only reasons I keep going are for her and because I don't have any choice. I don't want to kill myself, but I definitely want some more breathers where we get to go have fun in there.

I don't get to clock out when I want, and that pisses me off.

I don't say or write as much as I should, and that makes me wonder how much better I'd be if I did.

And besides abortion, I can't stop life from happening.

And that one just makes me wonder what the point of living is in the first place. And then I realize that maybe there isn't one.

We really do have to make this shit up as we go.

No directions, no instructions, just fuck up, fix it, fuck up again, try to fix it, and sometimes, you don't really have anything to fix, so you just start breaking shit so you can have something to distract yourself.

I really want to do big shit, more shit, and better shit. I want me and Monkey to get out of our bed more often (though that is fun).

But I'm always more afraid of fucking it up.

So, sometimes, I just don't do shit.

It's not a great way to live your life.

But you get used to it.

But maybe I need to find my inner pussy and stick in a pocket rocket and get it craving to fuck again.

Since I can't stop it, I may as well make it count.

Right?

Thanks and drive through...

Meatsticks

Pryor Convictions...

2005-12-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Richard Pryor is dead at 65.

He lasted a helluva lot longer than he ever thought he would.

One light went out tonight, but there's gonna be some others to take it. Richard had what few did; enough soul to get his point across.

Yes, he was an asshole, a drug abuser, a shit heel, a cheater, a weakling, and very very black.

But at least he had the balls to tell you all of this himself.

And for that, he is a hero.

You've been missed for a long time, Rich.

You're going to be missed now for even longer.

Here's to you...

(sip the whiskey)

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

"I seen you motherfuckers on the Tonight Show and shit, talkin' about.."

(he lights a match)

"What's this? Richard Pryor runnin' down the street."

Live on the Sunset Strip

On Missing Teeth...

2005-12-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

I once dated a girl who said to me, "You can tell how important a person thinks they are by how they take care of their teeth. It's one of the few things you can control, and if they have bad teeth, they obviously don't feel good about themselves."

I guess I was always just lucky. My bad teeth were in the back. Growing up poor white trash in several different trailer parks didn't allow for a lot of money to visit the dentist. My father couldn't work, living off disability for the last twenty years. My mom worked as a cook in various kitchens in Ohio, wherever we lived.

And considering I had a diet for the last ten years that consisted of Mountain Dew and whatever random bullshit I could put into my mouth to just keep going on in my life, let's just say that the bad ones were pretty fucking bad.

But I'd never visited the dentist. It had been too long, and I had this vision in my head that he'd have me open my mouth and he'd get a good long look and then he'd just start smacking me on the head, yelling "Didn't you listen to your mother!?"

Well, obviously, no.

Asshole.

So, I didn't go. Why bother?

About three years ago, I was in a mosh pit at a show here in Santa Cruz and had a piece of tooth in the back of my mouth get knocked out. It hurt like hell for a little while, but, y'know, you go through pain and come out the other side and you're okay.

Right?

Besides, I had teeth that I knew were way worse that had hurt before. This one didn't even qualify as bad.

Fast forward a year, and this one tooth, the one that had been cracked, starts bothering me while I'm down in Buttonwillow, CA, helping my friend Phylo with some photography at a motorbike racetrack. It's hot as hell in Buttonwillow, and since I'm a pale redhead, I don't do heat very well. After a while, I just felt like my whole body was throbbing. By the next day, my face is starting to swell. By the time we get home that night, my left eye had swollen shut.

So, the next day, we got to the clinic, the doc looks, tells me I have an abscess, but he doesn't want to lance it because he doesn't know where it is.

"It'll go on its own. Take these antibiotics and keep a hot pack on it. Ten minutes on, ten minutes off."

It burst the following day, inside my mouth, while I was brushing my teeth. I never wanted to know how gross my body could be, but I found out that day as that gooey fluid poured out and I kept pushing on my cheek to get it all out. Some of it was yellow, some was that weird coagulated blood red color, all of it was disgusting.

But at least it was gone.

And did I go visit the dentist?

Fast forward to two years later, this past April. Monkey's mom is in town and we had gone to Monterey to visit the Aquarium. While we were there, that tooth, that fucking tooth, just started throbbing. It started low, but eventually pulled me away from everything around me. The only thing I could feel was the pain and the only thing I heard was the pulsing in my ears.

I popped some aspirin, put an ice pack on it, prayed to a god I don't necessarily believe in anymore, rinsed my mouth with warm salt water, thought about having a child just so we could sacrifice our first born to appease the gods (this was before the abortion), but none of it worked...

So, around seven the next morning, as I lay there crying and pulsing and sweating, Monkey decides to call a dentist. We find one open on a Saturday, and try to get in.

At this point, there's no other word but suffering for what's going on. That kind of suffering that makes everything hurt, even when you laugh. And we're both funny people, so there was a lot of weeping and laughing as we waited our turn.

We finally get in, and here is one of the moments I've been dreading my entire fucking life.

A small Hispanic man walks in, asks me how I'm doing, introduces himself, and then asks me to open my mouth.

I do, all the way.

Fuck it, I think, I'm getting it over with, at least.

He asks me which side of the mouth it's on, I point it out, he moves the mirror, looking in the deep dark back of my caffeine and sugar soaked and destroyed teeth, and says...

"Your problem is that you don't have teeth back there, you have pieces of teeth. You're going to have to have a lot of work done. Today, your choices for your tooth is to pull it out or have a root canal. I cannot just give you drugs and send you out. Here's a video on root canals, I'll be back after it's over."

And he puts on the video and skirts out of the room.

Root canal? You mean I hit the jackpot on my first time out?

Root canals were always the worst things I'd heard about from people. They literally bore into your tooth to destroy all the inside, the nerves, the very things that make you feel your teeth. Not one person I've talked to has ever had a "good" story of a root canal.

I looked at Monkey, she looked at me.

"Well..." she says.

"I don't give a fuck. I just want this to stop."

"But you're going to need a lot of work done. If we can save it, we should."

"Okay. I don't care. Just make it stop."

And he walked back in and says, "Well?"

"Root Canal," says the girl.

And the doctor just shook his head.

"You don't want to do that. It's not guaranteed to work in this case because of the way the tooth is damaged. And if it doesn't take, you'll just have to have it pulled and you'll be out $1300, and another $300 for the extraction. I would recommend pulling it."

And Monkey looked at me and I looked at her then we both looked at the doctor and said, "OK."

And the told me he'd get me prepped for my novocaine shot and...

Have I mentioned I have a deathly fear of needles? I don't like them. The main reason I'd never be a heroin addict is because I have such a fear of needles. I don't like that piercing feeling, I don't like the sharpness of the pain, I don't like being stuck.

Period.

And now, I have to deal with a shot in my gums that are currently inflamed and sensitive to just about everything.

Joy. Rapture.

And he came back in a moment later, I closed my eyes, and he proceeded to tell the biggest lie I've ever heard.

"This will only be a prick."

Fuck you. It was like a hot poker going through the side of my face for a moment. And I screamed loud and hard for a split second.

And then it all started feeling better. And then the numbness took over, and I couldn't talk, but at least I didn't feel that shit.

And he left the room.

And he arrived a moment later, dressed for business. Mask over his face, tools on a tray, the mirror thingy on his head, assistant following him closely.

"Open."

"Wider."

And then he tells me the bigger than the biggest lie he'd previously told me.

"You're going to feel a tugging and that's it. What you're feeling is not pain, it's just me pulling."

Bull

Fucking

Shit

I almost screamed again, but then a funny thing happened.

I started to hum. Granted, I was squeezing the girl's hand harder than when he had spectacular orgasms together, and my feet did jolt for a second, but I started humming and for some reason, everything felt better.

Try it next time you're in pain. Hum a tune. Don't sing, because singing requires exertion. Just hum something.

And then what was left of my tooth came loose and I just felt exhausted. Oh, I was bleeding and it hurt, but I really just wanted to lay down and cry and be glad it was over.

And of course, things had to be paid for, so getting out of there took almost as long as getting in. And I'm standing there, pacing, and then I start feeling the pain again.

And that shit huuuurrrts...

Monkey and her mom took care of me over the next couple of days, feeding me mashed potatoes and keeping me doped up on Ibuprofen. I don't think I'd have made it without them.

Of course, there were other trips to the dentist after that.

But nothing beats your first time.

Thanks and drive thru...

Meatsticks

For some reason...

2005-12-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

All I want to do tonight is beat off.

Hm.

Drive Thru

Meatsticks

The real reason we can't pull out of Iraq...

2005-12-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

...is because they're pro-lifers.

Think about it for a moment.

These are people who believe abstinence until marriage is the only way to live. And why do they believe in that?

Because sex is something special between two people and their love of God and life. It's to be used for procreation, and therein shows you God's infinite wisdom in his intelligent design. Of course, he would make sex feel good, because in order to keep breeding more Christians, you have to want to do the thing that would make more Christians.

So, really, sex is all about procreation. Even taken from an evolutionary point of view, sex has to be stimulating to creatures of intelligence and rationality in order for them to want to engage in it and therefore propagate their species.

So, since you're supposed to abstain and masturbation is a sin, it is therefore a sin to deposit the sperm anywhere other than a vagina if one is, indeed, a Christian.

Therefore, to pull out is not only a sign of weakness, but is actually a sending-to-the-eternal-lake-of-fire-worthy sin.

And now you know....

And knowing is half the battle.

Thanks and drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

That's it, kids...

2005-11-19T09:57:00.000-08:00

We're off for the weekend to lovely downtown Bakersfield, CA, to see Henry Phillips.

You don't know Henry, you say?

Well, here you are.

www.henryphillips.com

The below posts are old ones I'm dragging over from another blog. I doubt you read the post I posted two days ago, so here's the explanation. I've been getting stifled by only being one blog. I have too many interests to keep them all in one.

So, I've split them up evenly.

To wit: Cancer Merchant is the socio-political id and the newest one. Flippoff the Klown is an older character I'm trying to breathe some life back into. He's the entertainment geek id (comics, movies, music, etc. and et al). And Meatsticks is somewhere in between. This blog will now be strictly for musings, road stories and just random asides.

I hope this isn't too confusing. So far, I've only dragged over Meatsticks-worthy posts. Flippoff and Cancer Merchant will be getting added to once we get back from Bakersfield. There's going to be a ton of old posts to the both of them, and then the new ones will start.

Driving thru, now...

Meatsticks

The First Time...(originally posted 6/8/04)

2005-11-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

On August 11, it'll have been 3 years since Monkey and I said our first "I love you's." 3 years and one hell of a ride later, we're still here, still together, still madly in love, and still liking one another.

Which is amazing, really.

Our first time saying "I love you"........

3 years ago today was when I drove back to Beaumont after spending a weekend with her in Santa Cruz. I knew I loved her then. She knew she loved me.

But I couldn't say "I love you" and then walk out the door, get in a truck, and drive for 42 hours to Beaumont Fucking Texas. I couldn't.

Instead, we lay there in her bed for a few minutes, my driving companion and best friend, Shawn, standing patiently outside. She began singing "Good bye, Ruby Tuesday."

I was laying in her arms, with her lightly stroking my hair. I felt tears slide onto my scalp from her cheek.

I was crying, too, staring into the distance of her body snuggled around me.

And I said, "No goodbyes. This is 'I'll see you later.'"

And she said, "I don't want you to leave and never have the chance to say goodbye to you."

And I said, "I just got you, I just found you. I won't lose you."

And we were quiet........

And I walked out of her life for the time being, not quite sure as to what was going to happen.......

We kept in constant contact through phone and e-mail. We were used to this part of it. We were used to being separated. Ours was a relationship built on words, written and spoken and unspoken and thought about, but sometimes, never said.

Like "I love you."

In August, for my birthday, my friends surprised me by having Monkey fly in from Santa Cruz. I was laying in my bedroom, struggling between consciousness and unconsciousness mixed with a lack of sleep and too much caffeine.

I heard the door open, and smelled vanilla.

Monkey smells of vanilla.

And I felt her laying next to me, snuggled against me, and it wasn't a dream, she was there, really there.

And I was tired, and she understood that, and she just lay there with me, letting me doze back off while she snuggled with me. Nary a word spoken, except a few essential ones.....

"So good to see you."

"You, too," I said as I lay with my back still to her.

I felt happy again.

The next few days were a whirlwind of drama with old friends, clashes with new ones, being ignored by some, and a random stain left in a place it shouldn't have been, seen by eyes that were sore from an all night ecstasy binge.

In short, Hell broke loose in my world.

By Monday morning, I was exhausted on more levels than I could ever remember. I'd never been so drained. And I still had to go to work while my friends drove Monkey to the airport. I wanted to be there, see her off.

But I didn't want to, really.

But then again, I did.

You know.

I woke to find her walking into the bedroom, laying down with me for a few moments. Face to face, forehead pressing into forehead, hands idly playing with one another.

"I have to go soon," she says.

"I know."

Pause.

"I love you." She locked my eyes as she said it.

"I love you."

And we kissed the kiss that people who admit they're in love kiss. Melting, swirling, and free. Like a slave from bondage, realizing he's a human being and not an animal. And in that is our strength.

Nothing we have done to be together since has been that easy. Our love for and with one another has always been easy.

I've driven a total of 4000 miles to be with her. I've driven 3000 miles with her by my side. We have fought the fights of the truly passionate, and collapse in one another's arms exhausted.

Best of all, we rub each other's feet.

No matter what, though, we remember the first promise we made to one
another upon my moving to Santa Cruz.

We go through everything together, no matter how poor, no matter how exhausted, no matter if we live in cardboard boxes and eat cat food. If we have to share a box of Friskies in a CostCo TV box in the rain, it's better than life without one another.

Whether we end up there or not, there's a comfort there, knowing that you don't need someone with a collar to tell you what your commitment should entail. No one should have to make you afraid of some big boogeyman in the sky who will smite you if you cheat. No reason to go to court if we decide to break up.

Cat food, cardboard boxes.

Is there any better way to say

I love you?

Drive thru, sir...

Meatsticks

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (originally posted 4/25/04)

2005-11-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

(Note: This was technically before the creation of Meatsticks; however, since I'm divvying up the voices in my head, it fits in with his nicely.)

The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret.........

Cue music, ready to roll.

I don't keep secrets well, sometimes. See, there are two types of secrets. The first is one wherein someone tells you something in the strictest of confidence and doesn't want anyone to know about it due to various neuroses, psychoses or it would just plain make people look at them weird. Like, for example, the fact that I shit my pants while in school. That's a secret I tell you in the greatest of confidence and I don't expect you to spread that.

It would ruin me. It really would. Who wants a clown showing up at the party with red and white striped pants with a brown streak in the back? Creepy.

And it smells. That's the worst.

The other kind is the kind wherein no personal, psychological, or physical harm will come from you spreading it; it will just ruin some event or something. Like getting drunk at the party and telling your friends how you really feel about them; it's just not a secret you share.

And the third kind (for those of you keeping track and can remember I said there were only two), which is of the surprise party variety. This is the one I want to talk about.

So, the Monkey, partner in crime, queen of my chariot, cream in my coffee, (*insert cute moniker here*) turned the big 3 0 last Friday. And I had a surprise birthday party planned for her. And damned if she didn't try her best to ruin it.

Two weeks before her birthday, Monkey had mentioned possibly wanting to go out of town for her birthday weekend. I had already tried to set things in motion for a surprise party, but wanting to go out of town caused a snag. Without us in town, no surprise party. However, it being her birthday, I was happy to fulfill her wish. So, I just shut up about the surprise party.

The following day, one of our partners in crime (Thomas) decided to move out of town with very little notice. The snag turned into loose threads that I could then pick up and try to darn together again (not that I know how to darn, but what else do you do with loose threads?).

So, I put the word out amongst her friends. I went to work all week, dutifully, but it was quite possibly the worst week I have had since I started working for the company I am still somehow employed with. I just wanted to start screaming at people, and I did. Probably not the most effective way to get your point across, but damn, do people pay attention.

And of course, trying to organize something as large as a surprise party for a woman who knows damn near everyone in the town we live in is beyond insane; but I was gonna give it that old college-I-didn't-attend try.

I got one of my friends to send out an e-vite, and spread the word to those who don't have the luxury of the internet via word of mouth. I had to keep everything low profile, which seemed difficult; turns out, our friends CAN keep a secret.

So, Friday night, her actual b-day, we went to a local eatery called Pearl Alley Bistro. Super expensive, but what the hell? It's her birthday.

Pearl Alley is one of those high end places that has an expensive and limited menu they change once a month based on some theme someone who gets paid more money than me gets to think of in a booze filled haze. In this case, I don't remember the theme. But they had a Mongolian BBQ, Hanger Steak, and all kinds of other good stuff. We perused the menu, looking for something interesting that one wouldn't eat every day.

And then she saw it.

Skate Wing.

You know what a "ray" is? The sea-faring, cartilage based life form that sang songs about the ocean in "Finding Nemo?" A skate is just a bit smaller. And they clipped his wings, poor guy. I felt bad.

We had to eat it. How can you not respect that kind of sacrifice? How dare we NOT eat it?

In some ancient cannibal cultures, sacrifice of that nature was a thing to be revered. You died so that we may eat. Amen.

Pass the pepper.

I ordered "Hanger" steak with a Roquefort demiglace. I didn't have any idea what the fuck a "hanger" steak was. I pictured steaks of cow meat, neatly lined up in someone's closet. Selected for ultimate freshness. Turns out it's a nice chunk of steak, cooked to your version of perfection, which is then sliced till it's hanging on by a few threads of meat. Hence, "hanger," I guess.

The food damn near put us into a coma, I swear. Ever had food that good? Not many people have. In Santa Cruz, they kind of take things for granted, sometimes.

Case in point; we were surrounded by tables full of people who couldn't seem to talk about anything other than their work. Some guy ALSO ordered the skate wing, but couldn't seem to shut up long enough to sit back and let his eyes roll back in his head. These are not people who will ever come out and play in the noon-day sun, but they're the ones who get the afternoon off. Recognize them, ostracize them, and make them go away. They're outbreeding us, anyway, and churning out new little latte sippin', SUV drivin', cel-phone-attached-to-their-ear-so-they-don't-have-to-look-you-in-the-eye bastard spawns of Satan who are gonna get burned with hot coffee one day by some vengeful waitress who had dreams once of being a writer and instead is slinging hot coffee and getting paid shit and talked shit to so much that she just wants to choke people. Just get 'em locked in the Cobra Clutch and choke 'em the fuck out.

Cut their nuts off while you're at it.

Where was I?

So, right; eyes rolling back in the head. Got it.

We ordered a chocolate souffle (my first!) that they lit on fire in front of us. I'm a big fan of things on fire being delivered to my table. I don't know why; there's something primal about it, I guess. But the primality is kind of dampened by the realization that it's a chocolate souffle that didn't fall that's getting lit on fire with 151.

That didn't stop us from devouring it, but it should have been some slab of beef felled by some aborigine or something, for the price we were paying.

We then went to a porn shop, realized we didn't need anything we couldn't create out of household appliances (although the life sized fist and arm were pretty cool options), and went back home and ........

I'm not telling you the rest.

Stop it.

Okay.

She moaned a lot. A couple of really good gasps, and I think one "oh, my god."

Yup. one "Oh my god."

I'm slipping in my old age.

So, Saturday morning. I roll out of bed and take her to work. Everyone knows their roles they are to play. I have housework to do (we're rearranging again), phone calls and a couple of stops to make when I can get out of the house long enough to do them.

The phone calls begin. I throw a load of laundry in, start organizing the front yard. Scarr (that's Captin Scarr to you) stopped by with his woman's 8 year old daughter, Bree, and helped me get the front yard set up.

The whole theme was "Monkey, Queen of all she surveys." We had a throne set up, an altar built by a friend (replete with 5 different airline size bottles of whiskey), a tub with water and volunteers to rub her feet, shoulders and get her cocktails. The whole point was, she wouldn't have to do shit.

The original idea was actually to do a roast, like those Friar's club things you see on Comedy Central occasionally. I had a few of her friends lined up to say stuff, but switched themes at the last minute, mainly due to logistical reasons. That, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't take 30 minutes.

Like THAT is a surprise.

Anyway, we had the altar built, a big comfy chair for a throne, and my woman's wife (don't ask) out on the prowl for goodies. Turns out the wife is great at finding random shit for a cobbled together birthday party. She found a 2 ft Tiki God for a pinata, a little raver crown that had plastic "jewels" in it that lit up in a circle, and some fun "prizes" from the dollar store to give to people for winning whatever games I thought I could have come up with.

Around 1 o'clock, I heard the phone ring. My spy in the restaurant (Ms. Q) had called to let me know that my woman, bless her little fucking heart, was trying to get off work early so that she could come HOME (y'know, the place I was currently trying to prepare for the party) and take a nap before the evening's festivities.

It was 1. I'd told people to start showing at 2:30, which meant between 3 and 3:30 Santa Cruz time, and 5 or 6 for a lot of our friends who don't have watches.

Shit.

I did the only respectable thing a man could do in this situation.

I screamed "WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING?!" Like I said, yelling isn't the best way to get your point across, but man, do people listen up.

Q and I were at a loss. Monkey was walking around the restaurant, asking people to close for her so she could come home and take a nap. Everyone in the restaurant at that point knew what was going on; but no one had the heart to tell her no because she was working the day after her birthday. Who would want to do that? All she wanted to do was go home and nap.

And it killed me to do it, but I sucked it up and said, "Let me see who I can get to run interference." The phone calls began; by the time it was all said and done, we had three plans in action, 4 people getting ahold of her within an hour of each other and offering to take her for a cocktail, and still, somehow, she didn't have a clue. She was just happy to see her friends.

She swears now that it was the skate wing that made her ride the stupid train.

We even had a back up plan, known as Plan B. It was simple; get her home, get her medicated, put her ass to bed, wake her up with the party later. Sounded simple enough. And I knew she was tired enough to do it. All we had to do was keep the noise outside to a dull roar and it would have been fine.

So, she called me before she walked out of the restaurant and said "meet me at the bar." People were just starting to arrive at the house. I'd spent the previous hour freaking out over what was going to happen. And of course, it was all okay.

But if I hadn't freaked out, I don't know that it would have been okay.

Regardless, I started greeting people and finishing setting things up. Laundry was done, her jammies were clean, I had everything for her laid out on the bed, people knew their places, and we had put little happy face spinners all over the front yard, all facing the throne. This was either gonna be great or horrible.

Bear had shown up a bit before, so we walked down to the bar together. Bear is an interesting critter. She's a genuine sweetheart with a mean streak a mile long if you cross her. Hard life, hard woman, but there's always a reason for the hardness. As a friend of mine says (okay, nobody but ME), "A cynic is nothing but a romantic who had his heart broken one too many times."

Bear and I wandered down to the bar, running into Father Luke on the way there. Of all the strange people I've met in SC in my two years here, I'd have to say the Padre is one of my favorites. A bona fide minister and former inhabitant of a monastery, he's a craggy 44 year old who looks like he's lived life twice over. And according to him, he's well on his way to that goal. I met him last year after watching doug stanhope perform.

I didn't actually get an opportunity to hang with Padre until a couple of months ago. Monkey was out of town, I didn' t want to go drinking that night, and had some stuff to do for a show I work on out here on Public Access. So, I called Father Luke and asked what he was doing.

He says, "I'm cleaning out my fish tank. You're welcome to join me, if you want to." So, I did. And he cleaned out his fish tank; didn't ask me to do shit. I wondered for a little bit if he was trying to guilt me into helping him, but I know shit about cleaning a fish tank so it wasn't happening.

Turns out, he didn't know shit about cleaning a fish tank either. He changed the water and hoped for the best.

We went for pizza, stayed up jacked on caffeine till 6 in the morning, looking for bizzare shit on the Internet to use for the show (politically based humor), and then it was sunrise and I realized hadn't drank anything all night except coffee and it felt good to be walking home when everyone else was getting up to go to work. I thanked the Padre on my way out his door, and it's been that easy ever since.

The following exchange sums up just about everything about the good Father Luke that I like. This was at the bar last Sunday night.

Bartender: "What're ya havin'?"

Father Luke: "Coffee."

"Whatcha want in it?"

"A spoon."

"We don't have any spoons."

"Oh, okay, I'll just take it plain then."

Love that guy.

So, walking down to the bar to meet Monkey and friends, whom do we run into but Father Luke, who'd left his house early enough just in case he got lost. I saw him and smiled.

"Shonda, Padre, Padre, Shonda."

And so we went to the bar. I peeked in the door, and didn't see the girl anywhere.

"Oh, I saw 'em still at the restuarant on my way past a couple of minutes ago," says the Padre. The restaurant is across the street and a half block down from there.

"Okay. Let's go get 'em."

We 3 merry wanderers got to the restaurant and asked the girl's whereabouts.

"Oh, she left for the bar about 10 minutes ago."

"What?" said I.

Father Luke did a little half turn, like he was remembering something and said, "Oh, THAT must have been where I saw them. Yeah, I saw 'em walking in."

Never take directions from a sober man, I guess is the moral.

We got to the bar and found them out back, with Monkey getting her neck and shoulders worked on by Julia. We ordered cocktails and me and Kenny (J's boy) went to go play pool and discuss the issues facing us, namely, how to get them from the bar to our place without them being seen. Since they were walking, they'd have to leave early.

We played a few pool games, all of us covertly scheming around the girl as to times, food, booze, what to grab, etc.

And she still didn't have a clue. Which was about the only thing that made the whole freakout earlier worth it; all of that meant she didn't have a clue. Not one. Couldn't have found it in a bargain basement bin for a fuckin' nickel. And fuckin' nickels are rare, lemme tell ya.

And so, as one group phased out to walk to our place, Vi and Chris show up and we have yet another round of cocktails. One of the explicit rules I'd set up with those in on the bar-time portion of the program was "DO NOT LET HER GET DRUNK! She gets drunk, she'll feel weird and we don't want that."

And here I was, drinking, too.

See the inherent dangers, children? Do not follow my lead.

At all.

After our 3rd cocktail since 3:15 (it was now 4:30), Vi and Chris had to go. Chris asked if we could help him push his car. He has an older model BMW that apparently decided it didn't want to start the normal way cars do anymore. So, he had to keep people to push it so it would start.

Our now merry band of 6 people walked out towards Chris' car. As we lined up along the back, Father Luke noticed the plethora of handprints on the lid of the trunk.

"I guess we're not the virgins here," says he. Much laughter and smattering of applause (from me).

We push start the car, waving them off, turned and began the trek home. Excuses for Padre and Amera came rather easily; Monkey had an article of Amera's clothing (which she'd worn the previous evening; a beautiful dress), and Father Luke and I were going to work on some comedy. So far, so good.

As we were walking towards our place, Amera came up beside me and whispered "is that Tim?" in my ear.

I looked. It was INDEED Tim, on of Monkey's co-workers. Not only that, he was walking to our place. We were across the street and about twenty yards behind him. Amera ran interference with Monkey, while Father and I slowed the pace from the front.

No, dude, seriously; by this point, if anything had gone wrong, I was going to hit someone very hard. I don't mean to make it sound like it was some Rainbow Six style covert op, but dammit, this woman knows EVERYONE!

Fortunately, there are two routes to our place. Tim chose the wiser (and more well shaded) one; we took the high road that is more direct and more sunny. We cut through our neighbors yard to come face to face with our parking lot, which at this point, was FULL! And directly in front of us as we came out of the yard was Chris' BMW. Which we had pushed not ten minutes before. I almost cpllapsed.

Monkey, god bless her, didn't have a clue; didn't even bat an eyelash. 100 more yards, and we were home free. I'm drunk, tired, and aggravated as all Hell at this point.

50 yards. And then Monkey sees the Wife's truck.

"Oh, she probably doesn't know we have new neighbors who need to park there. We might want to tell her."

And she still didn't have a damn clue. She went to the mailbox, and was walking between our buildings, almost in our front yard. I see everyone, Monkey doesn't see dick except the birthday card in her hands she'd just gotten from the mailbox. She was literally in the middle of saying, "Yay, I got a Birthday Card!" when they let her have it.

"SURPRISE!!"

Everyone was clapping and hoo-raa-ing and laughing. Monkey just stood there. Finally, she dropped her backpack, took off her jacket and dropped that, kicked off her shoes, stepped forward with one hand raised and yelled at not quite full volume, "I'll have a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke, please!"

And everyone stared for a second.

"Hey, Flippoff, who's got the Capt. Morgan?"

"SHIT!"

4 bottles appeared some time later like weeds, sprouting up under da Monkey. I was so nervous, I couldn't even drink the whole time I was there, except for one beer. I ate no food and hovered like a nervous bastard. I tried to make sure everyone was good, like a good host would, but instead, I didn't even want to deal with it. I was happy just to have the week over with and the weekend begin. And the best part of THAT was the look on her face.

She was really and truly surprised. At one point, many many drinks later, she started making pronouncements like, "Oh, my GOD, how could I NOT have KNOWN?! IT was all a-fuckin'-round me!"

And we laughed. Even the people with the biggest mouths who couldn't keep secrets if their life depended on it usually were tight lipped till the moment of absolute surprise.

If our relationship fell apart tomorrow, I would still be proud of that one perfect moment when she realized she'd been had by everyone she thought she knew. She screamed, she swore revenge, she kicked herself in the butt (metaphorically and physically), but she had to deal with one indisputable fact.

She'd been had.

As Hobbes said when he tricked Calvin into looking up so he could dump snow on him, "It's that moment of dawning comprehension that I live for."

Or, as Father Luke himself says regularly.......

"Have you been double crossed today?"

Drive thru (*and don't you sa

Some Things Just can't be told

2005-11-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

(From Panamint 2004)

I keep trying to figure out exactly how to get across how wonderful the vacation was, even with the car crash and money it just cost me. I keep thinking of how the hell can one explain what went on and somehow get across the point of how wonderful it all was and that it wasn't just a bunch of people getting together and engaging in debaucherous acts; that there was this insane sense of camraderie with 40 people, most of whom barely knew one another; and how accepting they were of the attempted murderer in their midst (me for those who can't scroll down and read).

So, instead of laying it out for you, detail by gory detail, I'll just tell you about a couple more things that have to be mentioned.

The Breath of God.

When we awoke on Monday morning, we found ourselves in the middle of a windstorm that was out of control. 55-65 mph winds, gusts of up to 75, sand clouds blocking out what had been a beautiful view of mountains the day before, shingles flying off roofs and hummingbirds flying backwards.

doug went and asked Keith, the manager of Panamint, how long this usually lasts. He told doug about an hour, but this was pretty bad. So, doug went about trying to recruit people to go to the "waterfalls" he'd been on about for most of the morning.

"Sure, as soon as it dies down," was the general response, as people ducked to avoid being hit by flying objects.

So another hour goes by, then another and another, all with no let up. Part of a tree out back was ripped from the trunk and flew a few feet on the ground. Shingles flew through a window and a door. Part of a cooling unit in the parking lot lost its metal siding; several people watched the metal siding get carried out front and across the road, as if it were a demonstration of the power of the Lord himself. One person tried to leave to go back to Vegas, but had to turn around because he couldn't see.

And of course, the backwards hummingbirds. I counted 3 or 4 as they whisked by.

Finally, doug relented on the idea and went to play tennis on the road with Andy.

In a sandstorm.

And yes, it was as ludicrously futile as it sounds.

The Tourist Math Problem

A family from Korea (mom, dad, two teenage girls) was on the 190 coming out of Las Vegas and got caught in the sandstorm. Travelling a few minutes behind them were two tourists from Canada on motorcycles.

Now, I know only what I've been taught after living in areas where blinding weather conditions are prone to happen; you pull off the side of the road so that other people may pass.

Apparently in Korea, they just stop. In the middle of the road.

Now, in Canada, they just keep going. I don't imagine they get many sandstorms in the Canadian wilderness, though. Sand won't stop a Canadian, anyway.

But an Aztec SUV parked in the MIDDLE of a sandstorm will.

So, one lost motorcycle and an hour or so later, (after God stopped breathing for a while), the parking lot of Panamint was filled with a Park Ranger, an ambulance, a sheriff and a CHP.

And all of us. We'd already had the chairs by the side of the road watching Marc sit in a kiddie wading pool in the oncoming traffic lane and people's reactions to that. We'd just pulled the pool out of the road when the cops arrived.

Five minutes earlier, and it would have been a completely different scene than it became. They thought we were fairly harmless for white trash.

So, we just moved the chairs to the parking lot and watched the festivities.

Gino, Scott, and Art (the Wisco boys and a travelling party unto themselves) broke out the homemade beer bong (those guys are genius) and we did hits in front of the cops. Cocktease Kelli became the only amongst us to get carded by the cops (I think he just wanted to watch her walk away and come back and walk away again, but I'm a perv). And Prell (whom Matt, Mark and I'd been belly flopping with most of the morning in the larger pools in the yard of doug's cabin, replete with double dong dildos) belly flopped into the kiddie wading pool to close the set.

It killed.

3....2....1....Launch (Pickle)!

We had these giant slingshots, the kind where two people hold the bands and one person launches. On Tuesday afternoon, Art (a giant of a man with a drinking habit to match) comes up to me as I'm sitting on the front porch of the restaurant, enjoying a cigarette and talking to Marc.

"Hey," in his distinctive Wisconsin staccato delivery, "we still got those slingshots?"

"Yeah," says Marc, he of teabag fame from the day before (don't ask him, cuz he doesn't remember).

"Well," says Art, "I've got this jar of pickles."

And with that, he produces a Costco/Sam's club size jar of Vlasic TM pickles.

A FULL jar of pickles.

"PICKLE LAUNCHER!"

We gather people and run over to the front yard of doug's cabin. There was a 3 foot drop from the driveway of the cabin to the yard itself. We placed the anchors (marc and I at first) above. The launcher stood below, so you got this insanely high arc and absolute control before the launch. At first, Prell, Cocktease, Prinny (the pickle QUEEN: she won for pure hangtime), even doug and Renee.

But, behold, from the cabin with the mysterious hole in the door wandered our knights in shining wifebeaters and shorts, beer soaked and desert wind tested: the Wisco Wonder Twins, Gino and Scott. Though not really twins, they are best friends, apparently, and of good midwestern stock; thick and tall, they were the best choices for, say, bodyguards or Secret Service or beer bongs.....

Or anchoring slingshots.

Our target (sort of) was an abandoned RV across the road at the end of the campsite. I'd like to say we were aware that it was abandoned BEFORE we started firing at it. I'd like to say that.

I really would.

But we found out later it was empty, had been for a couple of years. Panamint is a popular place for that sort of thing.

We fired pickles, water balloons and that most evil of concoctions (in my eyes), Diet Mountain Dew cans. FULL Diet Mountain Dew cans.

(side note: Really, Pepsi Co, what the fuck is the point? Why not caffeine FREE Diet Mt. Dew, you sick money grubbing freaks!?)

By the time it was all said and done, we'd only hit the RV twice with our last two Mountain Dew cans. The rest had sailed over.

But what a beautiful sight to see pickles flying, ever so high into the sky. Had Flo, the flirty waitress in the TV show Alice, been there, I'm sure she would have coined a new phrase.

"When pickles FLY!"

Post script: So, we're left with a huge jar of pickle juice. Ben (of Ben n' Prin) had just the thing; Skyy Peppered Vodka that he'd picked up in a $5 bin at a supermarket for $3. We all tried some and agreed; it was so disgusting it had to be shared.

At that night's "awards" show (when, as doug put it, "those who belonged here" gathered), the Skyy pickle juice became the award. Recipients of said award had to drink. Even the non drinker Father Luke swigged the shit twice (and promptly spat it out; I couldn't have even let it in my mouth without the alcohol buzz I knew would follow).

Sadly, in our re-enactment of the crash, the juice played the part of the 1/2 case of beer I lost in the crash.

RIP "Juice"

Legend of the Pig

I guess around a year ago, doug found a car on e-bay. 1970-something Dodge Aspen, convertible (w/ no roof), ugly green with two broad racing stripes up the center. That car was so pimp.

It was also a piece of shit, apparently. Bad electrical, weird noises, enough to keep a good shadetree mechanic busy for months.

doug is not a shadetree mechanic.

He just called it "The Pig."

Ironically, it was THAT car that people were worried about when we were in the caravan on the way out there. They ended up in front of us in LA and didn't realize it, so they hauled ass and beat us there by a good margin, trying to catch up to us the whole way.

And then, well........there was my little deviation.

The Pig was a thing of beauty to my white trash eyes. I admit it; I coveted it.

So, on Tuesday afternoon, caught in the midst of a pickle launching frenzy, doug called me over to him.

"So, I'm giving the Pig away, and it's down to you and Putnam for ownership of the Pig. Putnam doesn't need a ride, you do. Do you want it?"

"Hell YEAH!"

"You sure? It's a piece of shit; there's a very real possibility that it's gonna leave you stranded on the side of the road very quickly. But, if you make it back to Santa Cruz, you have to bring it back next year. Do you still want it?"

"Yes. YES! Thank you!"

I don't think I've been that excited since the first time I realized I was gonna get laid by something other than my hand.

That night, after getting my new Johnny's Meat Sticks uniform from Andrist, Gino, Scott, Steve, Marc and I took off down the road in the Pig. As we were pulling a bootleg turn about a mile out to go back to the cabins, the car rolled to a stop instead of peeling out.

So, Steve got out and hitched a ride back with some geriatric Christians who showed up seemingly from nowhere. Who says God doesn't work in mysterious ways?

One jump later, and we were back at camp, laughing our asses off. Who cared, we thought? It was my car now! What was doug going to do, scold us?

Nope; he just grinned that same sweet shit eating grin of his he'd been flashing all weekend.

Love that guy. What a host!

The next morning, as people were leaving, everyone gathered to see Johnny Meatstick leave in his Pig. I got in and slid in the keys, excited and scared.

What an adventure so far! I'd already flipped a car in the desert and spent 3 drunken days not worried about it. Father Luke would be fine. I'd had the time of my life, met tons of cool new people, and got everyone to drink the singular nastiest fucking concoction of alcohol and brine to ever grace this planet. I'd met one of my comedic heroes and found him to be a good human who had a penchant for bringing the right people together at the right time in the right place. Pickles had been launched, God had tried to smite us only to have us collectively flip him off, we'd done beer bongs in front of the cops, and the ONLY time the police had shown up had NOTHING to do with us.

Now, as if Providence was smiling on me one last time, I was about to leave the party with the coolest car I'd ever had the privilege of being able to call "mine."

And all because of the graciousness of stanhope to have this party and invite people just to see what happened. While I can't say we ever "hung out" and got to know one another, I did get to hang out with him for a while and talk. And it's nice to be able to meet someone you admire as an artist and have them be not only that cool, but that honest with you. It's a weird thing; doug simply doesn't have the star thing. He is what he is. And I can honestly say what he is is simply great.

Giving me the Pig certainly helped with that perception.

And here we were, 4 days later, parking lot full of people, and me about to embark on my dangerous journey back to Santa Cruz.

"Honey, I wrecked the V-dub, but wait'll you see what I GOT!"

Oh, the fantasies that flowed through my head as I imagined pimping around SC in that car of cars.

Except one problem; the car wouldn't start. It turned over, but never caught. Voltage regulator was shot, according to Putnam. Nearest parts store: 30 miles away.

We tried the car again with no success. 4 times later, I said "fuck it."

Keith was standing there with stanhope.

"We can fix it or you can leave it here" said stanhope.

I looked at stanhope, then Keith, then the Pig.

I looked at Keith.

"Want it?" I said, wincing.

"You serious?"

stanhope: "I'll mail ya the paperwork when I get back from Maui."

"You serious?"

"Just have it here next year," said I.

"No, really, guys, are you serious?"

I tossed him the keys.

"Next year." said I.

"Next year." said he.

I caught a ride into Hollywood with Ben n' Prin, hung with them for a couple of hours (watching an awesome series called "The Jam") till the bus was leaving for SC, and then went home on a Greyhound.

But only after my card didn't work and Prin had to pay for it to get me on the bus on time.

How fucking apropos!

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Sorry, baby, but I had to crash that car (originally posted 5/19/04)

2005-11-19T09:40:00.000-08:00

May 8, 2004

I took off with the Good Father Luke for a trip to a desert party hosted by doug stanhope. I was excited as all Hell! Not only do I get to hang out with stanhope (the best comedian working today, imo), I get to take a road trip with Father Luke. And I love road trips.

Our final destination: Panamint Springs, the middle of Death Valley, CA. Panamint Springs is a bunch of cabins with a camping area across the two-lane desert highway. I saw no cow skulls, but did see F-15's doing flyovers. And the breath of God paid a visit.

But I digress.....

We drove down on Saturday night, met up with stanhope's wife and some of their friends, and we went to dinner. I was a complete stranger to everyone there, being only Father Luke's chauffeur at that point. The people were loud, the beers were good, and we brought our own atmosphere wherever we went on Main Street in Santa Monica.

The next day, we were only waiting for stanhope to arrive for us to take off. As soon as he showed, we all packed up our cars, got our driving directions straightened out, and hauled ass for the 4 hour trip into Panamint Springs.

I was driving a white VW wabbit named "Alice" I'd recently acquired from a friend. Alice had been booted due to unpaid sums of money to the city of Santa Cruz, so Ms. Q told us whoever was willing to take that orange chastity belt for cars off with said money could have the damn thing. And so, Monkey and I brought Alice into our lives.

She was lovely, for a car with no radio, no A/C, made funny noises, and burned a bit more than the normal amount of oil. But fly, oh she could fly. We were doin' 85-90 the whole way out, sometimes having to crank it up to 115 to catch up. Cuz sometimes, Father Luke had me tearing up a little and we'd fall behind.

It's not that he's just a sweet man, though he is. No, the tears flowed because (unbeknownst to me), he'd had beans the day before to fill up for our trip to Santa Monica. And it wasn't the smell so much as the eyes burning that concerned me.

And this is a man with no insurance; so whatever is wrong with his intestinal tract would have to stay that way.

But hey; it’s not like I can criticize for the farts. And I don’t; fart if you feel comfortable. It’s a lot like masturbation, to me; everyone does it, so why feel bad about it?

Driving along in the caravan, Father Luke and I occasionally spoke, he would occasionally write, then read, then write, then talk. While still in LA, he put on his motorcycle helmet. doug had said to bring whatever would be fun; I had a giant clown PEZ dispenser, Father Luke had his helmet. He puts that thing on when he's at his computer, cigarette holder dangling from his mouth, odd half-grin, half-grimace of concentration and enjoyment on his face as he cruises the weird, wholly unreal world of the Internet.

I, as Father Luke's chauffeur, was doing pretty well, except for the hour I had to pee. Nothing but desert for miles, and we were struggling to catch up. My eyes teared up (for once, it wasn't the Padre), and finally, after not being able to take it, I whipped out the one skill no one else seems to have mastered or thought of (or at least, talked about); pissing in a bottle while driving.

Aaaaaah, relief. The Good Father Luke was kind enough to avert his eyes for a few minutes while it flowed. And the best part was, I'd taken vitamins that morning, so it was that neon green Mountain Dew colored urine. I thought briefly of giving it to someone, but then thought how mean that is.

Besides, I didn't have an empty Dew bottle in the car.

I'll be damned if we didn't stop five minutes after that at McDonald's for a piss break.

We got back on the road, hauling ass yet again. Turn here onto THIS two-lane road, turn here, keep going. It was long stretches of nothing, with old gas stations occasionally littering the highway with signs like "Fresh Jerky," which I'm sure in any other English speaking country, would be an oxymoron.

Father Luke was just closing his notebook after writing, I'm reaching behind the seat for a bottle of water, and well, we ran off the side of the road a little ways. Not much, just a little. We got back on the road only to swerve out of control, spinning like a little top, and chunked off the opposite side of the road.

Which wouldn't have been so bad, had it not been for that beautifully placed mound of sand off that side that we hit. Oh, and the fact that we were now backwards as we went off the road. And that we were doing around 85 mph.

So, we did what any good car would do in that situation; we went airborne.

That first flip was kinda fun, in that "I think I shit my pants" kind of way. Totally airborne, slow motion as the world went by, my mind saying "hey, wait! You're not right side up!"

It was the 2nd, 3rd and 4th flip that REALLY hurt. We came to a full and complete stop. Upright, all fingers and toes intact. Damn Germans are so good, the car was still running.

It wasn't going anywhere on the three flat tires it had, but it was still running.

"You ok?" says Padre.

"You ok?" says I.

"No, you first."

"Okay. Yeah."

"I'm okay."

We were at least 60-70 yards off the road, we'd been the ass end of the caravan, and apparently, no one had seen us go off the road. Father Luke looked for his cel phone, which was miraculously unharmed.

Excerpt from the conversation with stanhope and Father Luke.

"Hey, we crashed the car?"

"WHAT!?"

We inspect for damage on ourselves. He's got a trickle of blood coming from one side of his head, and he was still wearing his motorcycle helmet. His right arm wasn’t moving very well and he was definitely a little woozy. I didn’t feel anything that day (and wouldn’t till 3 days later), so I started looking for things. Unfortunately, some things were never found, such as the book the Father had been reading on and off during the trip. Oh, and the title to the car, which had been in the glove box which had flipped open during the flips.

A strange car pulled up a couple of minutes later. “Who the fuck are these looky-loos!?” I said to no one.

Ben n’ Prin was the answer. Two more partygoers who’d just so happened to be a few minutes behind us. They only stopped ‘cuz they saw Father Luke stumbling around in the desert next to a wrecked car.

Ben (a geek that only another geek could love) just so happened to have a gazillion cameras with him and got some shots of the crash site.

Crash Pics

I just fell down on my knees, laughing. What else could I do? It was either laugh or cry at that point, and water is a precious fluid in the desert, so crying was not an option.

We gathered everything we could get our hands on, crammed them into other people’s cars, and took off for Panamint Springs. About 10 miles down the road was another turnoff that took you into the Panamint Hills. Sheer drop offs, hundreds of feet down.

So, there are WORSE places to run off the road while trying to acquire a tasty beverage.

A few hours later, we were all assembled at Panamint Springs, laughing and drinking. Ben gave me the first of the bouncing beers that had survived the crash. I told the story at least a dozen times in a punch drunk and "Holy Shit I'm Alive!" kinda way.

Like I told Gay Cousin Eric: “Friends used to say I made a party memorable. But they'd never tell you why.”

It was while standing there that I got a sense of the reverence people had for the man whom I tried to kill.

Father Luke, spiritual advisor, Padre, Faddah.

These are a people who take their partying seriously. It’s not a job, but an art. And I’d almost taken out one of the most beloved figures there.

It’s like trying to kill the prom queen on the way to the prom.

And I had a lot more feeling bad to do, most notably in my phone calls back to Santa Cruz. Father Luke’s was the only cel phone with coverage, and even that was limited to where you were standing and possibly sacrificing a first-born child. I secretly hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with phone calls till later, like, the end of the week. Cel phones crap out all the time, right?

See, I had to call Scarr, who was to buy Alice back from me in a couple of months. I had to ask a favor and then tell him the car was toast.

So I hoped that cel-phones would live up to the lowest expectations I have of them.

Well, it didn’t.

"So, Scarr, I need you to get hold of Chuckles cuz he has a key, get into the house, look in our phone book, and get Monkey's mom's number. We had an accident. We're okay, but the car is totaled."

"What? The rabbit?"

"Yes, the rabbit. Flipped it 4 times and left it laying.”

“Nah-uh!”

“Everyone, did I or did I not flip the car and total it?”

(everyone on the lawn) “Sorry Scarr!”

Scarr comes to us from Arkansas; he’s got a certain thing he does, similar to Monkey’s twitch. It’s not nearly as malevolent, but it’s there. It’s a kind of way he says “Weeeeeeeell, shit.”

He said it.

“Sorry.”

And that was the only cel call we could make all week, about two minutes worth. And those were a really long two minutes.

The rest of the night is a smear like a bug that hits your windshield as 60 miles an hour and you try to wiper it away, to no avail. I hung out, laughed, laughed some more, drank a lot, and began getting to know these strange people who were so happy about the whole fucking scenario.

I mostly felt like a dick 3 times over. How do you not?

I think it was around 11 that I finally decided the only thing brooding was going to get me was a worse conscience than I already have.

People were still showing up throughout the night. One group from Florida had stopped and grabbed more things from the crash site and taken pictures of them posing on the car; the girl amongst them (kerry, I believe) had one of my favorite laughs and voices.

They explained to me that they watched the show “CSI” and had, through their two years of training in the art of forensic pathology and crime detecting at the school of CBS, reconstructed exactly what had happened and how we spun out of control. I sat there, and they told me everything that I’d remembered, plus a couple of details that had gotten knocked out of me. Much laughter and smattering of applause.

By midnite, the place was jammed with drunken loons from the world over. There were Devilled Egg costumes, A Big Pink Rabbit, the Clown, Andrist in his regular clothes.

And ooooh, the booze did flow.

A rave tried to start on the front lawn around 2 a.m., but by that point, everyone was splitting off to their own concentric circles as the ripples of sleep started to overtake some of us. The rest were just getting started. I was drunk beyond belief, puked in the toilet, gargled with beer, grabbed my blankie and pillow, and lay down on a bunk in stanhope’s cabin and drifted off to sleep.

All in all, a good day.

I might tell you about the next 3 days of fun that were had. I might not; that depends on how much I feel like sharing. Some things, you just had to see.

Thanks and drive thru (car MUST stay on all four wheels!)

Meatsticks

Postscript: We found out later the car was towed away that same night by some local authorities on a flat bed trailer.

RIP "Alice"

Postscript 2: Creepy, yet poignant moment:

About 2 seconds before we went off the road, Father Luke had put his notebook away after scribbling something. So, I'll let the Good Father's words speak for themselves.

"From alt.recovery.small-town one lone soul, apart from myself, ventured into an unknown weekend.

From what I can put together from my recollections of last year mytime at the stanhope/Morrison weekend changed my life. It meant enough to me to have the dates tattooed in my arm.

My life needed that.

I bring to the desert this year the same openness to explore what it means to be me. Just like an animal is drawn by raw instinct to another in heat, so too will I pursue that whiff of myself I now catch floating in the wind.

Alive or dead, I shall never be the same after this week.

Meatsticks, my "Chauffeur", is driving 'Alice' a white rag-top
Volkswagen Rabbit. I am in the passenger seat wearing a
WWII German Soldier Motorcycle helmet.

When this week is over one thing is certain:

None of us shall again be ever the same.

Father Luke"

F a t h e r L u k e . c o m

And then he looked up and, well.....

Running Down a Dream (Originally Posted 12/8/03)

2005-11-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Running down a dream......

Part 1: in which our young hero and heroine learn about life, love, understanding, patience, pain, sacrifice and how to make God laugh!

(names have been changed to protect all guilty parties from incarceration and ridicule)

And I quote comedian, Doug Stanhope.

“I think it was Confucius, either Confucius or me, who said, ‘Every journey of a thousand miles begins with a vicious ass raping at the airport security line.’”

For those of you who don’t know, I moved out here from Texas two years ago (here being Santa Cruz, CA). Before I left Texas, some massive bullshit happened between myself, my girl, and my longtime, longstanding (and some of them would say long suffering) friends in TX. I won’t go into details; suffice it to say it was a lot of drama that a lot of people got too wrapped up in, and feelings were hurt on all sides. Mistakes were made on all parts and in truth and some of us worked things out since I moved out here.

However, I hadn’t been back till a few weeks ago. I took Saturday through Tuesday off from work and we were going to have a whirlwind of a tour through Texas. Although, last time she'd left, Monkey swore "I am NOT going back to Beaumont Fucking Texas, ever." She it "Beaumont Fucking Texas" so much that that's how everyone here in Santa Cruz refers to it. Suffice it to say, some people were surprised that she was even agreeing to it; they were even more surprised to find it was HER idea.

Our itinerary was as follows (roughly, because we all know the only way to make God laugh, right? Make a plan).

Friday; fly out of San Jose at 6:28, drive to RennFest, set up camp, drink the night away.

Saturday; go IN to the RennFest (Monkey had never been), come out at sundown, go back to
camp, party the night away with whatever was available (more on that later)

Sunday: Drive from Renn Fest to Jasper, TX (approximately 4 hours of driving) for Monkey to meet my parents for the first time. Stay with parents/sister that night.

Monday: Drive back to Beaumont, get some of my stuff packed in our extra bags that I'd left behind, hang with A (old friend) and hang with Michelle later (a woman I referred to for years as the last evil bitch who'd broken my heart; we're better now). Hang with Owl (best friend of a decade) and whoever else.

Tuesday: Take off from Beaumont and drive back to Houston, drop off rental car, get on plane around 2 p.m., and fly back to San Jose, where we'll be picked up at the airport by a friend.

Wednesday: Get my ass back to work.

If you think I wasn’t paranoid (a 24-7 reality for me mostly), then you obviously haven’t been keeping up with this blog. Not only was Monkey going back into the Lion’s Den (possibly), she was going to meet my parents for the first time. Here’s how the whole thing happened (back story is important, kids).

See, many moons ago, a tradition started amongst our group of friends. Going to the Texas Rennaisance Festival outside of Conroe, TX. If you’ve never been, you should go and check it out. The place is legitimately about a mile wide and long, and it’s FULL of people constantly. Plus you can camp out. And the family campsite is on the OTHER side of the grounds, so being boisterous and drunk and inebriated is not only allowed, but encouraged. Provided you don’t start any shit with anyone.

So, our little ragtag “family” of rejects began going every year. It’s sort of become our reunion place. I haven’t been in two years, and last time I went was in the midst of the serious BS I mentioned above.

A few months ago, my friend Crackbat and I were talking on the phone. Somehow the subject of the RennFest came up. Crackbat mentioned he wanted to come in for Fest (he lives in NYC) and he wanted me and the Monkey to come in, too. I wasn’t sure, as last time, the monkey was spanked and rather than make a bad situation worse, she just kept her mouth shut. I didn’t know how things would turn out.

She, however, loved the idea. She pushed us into it, and the three of us made plans to meet up at Fest with the rest of our “family.”

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, Crackbat did not make it this year. We almost didn’t, till some friends of ours stepped in with the money to buy the plane tickets.
And so, the adventure begins………

It’s midnight on Thursday/Friday and we’ve decided that bed soon might be a good idea. We lay down together, knowing we have to be up at 4 a.m. Flight leaves at 6:25. Our friend Chuckles will pick us up around 4:30 and drive us to San Jose. From there, we fly to Phoenix, then to Houston (Bush Intercontinental). We have a rental car waiting on us there, and figure we’ll grab tickets to Renn Fest somewhere in Houston. Fest doesn’t open till Saturday, but you can get in Friday night to the camp grounds with tickets.

Or at least, that’s what we thought.

Chuckles arrives at 4:30; we load up and head out, him driving like a demon. Meat Loaf’s “Bat out of Hell” races through my skull at this mind numbingly early hour of the morning; Monkey and I had smoked our last bowl of herbs on the way out the door, so I'm a tad number than usual. I only know two things; one, I should have stayed awake. Two, waking up this early goes against every law of nature, or at least the ones my body adheres to. Still, when you’re in the water, may as well swim, right?

We arrive at the airport at 5:15. Check our luggage, grab our e-tickets, grab some food at BK.

Unfortunately, while standing in line, we notice how long the line for security is. In this post 9/11 world, there is nothing more important to the American people than the illusion of their safety.

And there’s a lot of deluded people in that line. And that line is really long. No, longer.

No, really, it was longer than that.

Yup, back by baggage claim.

I run to stand in line; Monkey follows with the food a few minutes later. Every person standing in line with us says they’re hoping the line moves quick, because we’re all leaving around the same time. As we stand in line, I’m munching on my sausage and egg and cheese biscuit and shoving the “hash browns (really, BK, they’re TATER TOTS! JUST ADMIT IT!!)” down my throat, trying to get my stomach full so I can maybe stay awake for a few more minutes.
6:08: (I know what time it is because there was a clock around at the time) Some people try to cut into the line in front of all of us. And suddenly, this passive bunch of Northern California business people turn into loudmouth New Yorkers.

“Hey, lady, we’re having to WAIT in line and OUR flight leaves in 5 minutes.”

“If you’d get in line instead of bothering that lady, we’d be THROUGH by now, you dumb……”

You get the picture. I was proud of them. Not your typical NorCal people, y’know?

We get into line, being corralled and herded like cattle. We get to the metal detector. I’ve learned my lesson after a few years of flying; I’m Mr. Efficiency at this game. Only gotten beeped ONCE in all my flying experiences. And that was because I forgot I had my lighter in my pocket.

Of course, that was also when they’d ask you to double check your person and let you walk back through. Not any more, kids. Now, you are a danger till they say otherwise; couldn’t possibly be because you’re HUMAN and make mistakes.

I fly through the metal detector. I put my shoes back on, my jacket and start making sure I get everything out of the little tub that I put all my shit in for the X-Ray. Monkey walked through behind me and set off the buzzer. She looks down at the same time I turn around. She was wearing her green belt with grommets through the entire length.

She realizes her mistake and starts trying to get the lady’s attention.

“Ma’am, it’s my belt. Can I take it off and go back through?”

“Last and FINAL call for flight 287 to Phoenix, boarding at gate 11A,” said the PA system.

“No; wait for me over there and I’ll get the wand,” said random female security guard.

“Baby, grab our stuff and get them to hold the plane,” said the now annoyed Monkey.

I grab our stuff. As I turn around, I see Monkey standing there, her shirt pulled up over her head, cleavage (and bright pink bra) exposed to the world, spinning in a circle, telling the lady,

“It’s my BELT, that’s ALL!”

I run for the gate. Thirty feet, twenty feet, I gotta quit smoking, ten feet, yeah, definitely quit smoking and drinking and….

What the fuck do you MEAN you can’t let us on NOW!?

Monkey arrived a second later. I collapsed in a chair, oblivious, pissed off and annoyed, not to mention feeling very stupid. Monkey, on the other hand, was livid, nothing more.

“But the plane is RIGHT THERE! I can see people getting ON!”

“Ma’am, we can’t board any more…”

“But why the fuck NOT! We have TICKETS!”

“But our flight is full, ma’am. We just did the head count and don’t have the room.”

“But we have TICKETS!”

This continued on for the next few minutes. I didn’t dare try to calm the girl down. What could I say? At that point, I think a punch to the jaw of that silly bitch behind the counter seemed like a good idea. And I definitely had an idea as to what EXACTLY the security woman could do with that magical metal detecting divining wand of hers. Not that I took pleasure in envisioning it, but I wouldn’t have been sad if it happened.

And don’t think I’m cruel; I know DAMN good and well most of you would have, too.

Monkey stood at the counter. The lady was trying to help us out.

“Ma’am, we may be able to get you on the next America West flight at 9, but that’s ONLY if there’s empty seats.”

Times like this is where the Monkey is invaluable. She has a certain…….twitch she gets in her being. It’s not JUST her voice, her manner, or her stance; it’s all of that and none of it. But what this “twitch” comes across as is the following.

“You have inconvenienced me. Severely. At this time, I’m very upset. You know that. I know you know that. You know I know you know that. You will do whatever it is I ask. Or you shall risk, not only hellfire and brimstone, your children and their children and yes, even their children, shall be tormented by my own progeny. I don’t even like children, but I would have them to spite you. To make sure each of your successive generations ends up as tormented and disturbed as you are about to be if you do NOT get me out of this airport.”

Something like that. I saw her do it once in a nice hotel in San Jose. The lady had booked us as a non-smoking room, when we’d requested a smoking room. They had no smoking rooms available in our price range. We ended up with a business suite at the same price. True story.
Good news. She got us on an 8 a.m. flight. Bad news; it was at the other terminal. So, we grabbed our bags, and were halfway outside, when we realized we were missing something. Monkey’s backpack. It was stuck at the security X-Ray point. I had to run back and get it.

We made it to the next plane on time, without incident. Although by this point, we knew we were screwed. However, we made the best of it. Instead of arriving at 2, we’d be arriving around 5. That was still time to take off and go to the Fest.

All’s going well as we land in Houston Intercontinental (now Bush Intercontinental, but don’t expect ME to pay tribute to that sanctimonious ignorant smiling chimp). We go get our car. Thankfully, they had held it. The guy walks us out to the car. We upgrade (because our compact had NO power steering, a must in this day and age) to a mid-size (slightly more than what we were paying). He then spends ten minutes trying to convince us to get insurance.

And I made the mistake of telling him how bad our day was to begin with. Lesson to all: NEVER tell someone trying to sell you something like insurance how BAD of a day you ACTUALLY are having.

Excerpt from our conversation:

“So, do you have insurance?” (No would be the correct answer, kids).

“Yes, we have AAA,” says the monkey.

“Will it cover this?” (Again, no would be the correct answer. I’m a horrible liar, always have been; I’m a GREAT embellisher, though)

“Yes, it will.”

“Well, y’know, if you get our insurance, you’re double covered and won’t have to pay for shit.”

I try the “I’m poor” approach. Please keep in mind, we weren’t trying to really DECEIVE the guy, we were just fucking tired and wanted to get away from him because we know, like most Americans, we are weak, born and bred consumers at heart. And if you don’t believe that, take a look at how much frivolous crap you find necessary in YOUR life. DVD’s, computers, etc. It’s SO fucking expensive to live that you really only have a job to support your HABITS, whether they be tootin’ your vein or buying the latest chromium-gold embossed variant cover from the last massive crossover Marvel comics did.

We’re all consumers, at heart. We believe we get what we pay for. If that’s the case, then why do we have so many government workers and so little done by government?

Okay, I’m back now. Sorry.

“This trip is already costing us. We’ll be FINE, I promise. I have an exceptional driving record….”

“I’m not worried about your driving, sir (yes, he actually called me sir, foolish mortal), but the driving of everyone else. Besides (keep in mind what I’d already told him), how’s your day been so far?”

And at that point, I was at a loss. I’m a SLAVE to logic, sometimes, especially in a battle of wills. He had me. I knew he had me. Kristen saw me get lost in my head and knew he had me. So she did what she always does.

She twitched.

“No, really, we’ll be fine. I’m not driving and we’re not driving THAT much.” (okay, that was an outright lie, but we didn’t realize that at the time, so like BushCo, it was a miscalculation based on bad or erroneous information and our supposition of the circumstances, which we knew very LITTLE about).

And we got in the car and drove off. We were good. RennFest was an hour’s drive away and all we needed to get in the grounds were tickets. Since it was an hour away, one would assume tickets were available SOMEWHERE, right?

Not in Houston Fucking Texas.

Two and a half hours later, we hadn’t found jack, shit or anyone we knew. Most of my friends were already at the Fest, I had no cel numbers, no nothing.

“Well, let’s ride to Beaumont and see who’s home, cuz I don’t think we can get in without the tickets.”

So, we drove to Beaumont. Stopped at my favorite Wendy’s (the only one in town, actually), where we composed ourselves. Aaaah, Billy and Kat. THEY can help. They have a new kid; no WAY they’re not at home.

Of course they weren’t at home, silly. Why would our day go in a GOOD way after it had already sucked so bad? Okay, leave a message with them and hope to get in touch with ‘em later.

Who else…….only one more number. And THAT number belongs to A (again, not her real name).

Quick back story here; I see A once every couple of years. We met years ago when she tried (successfully) to pick me up one night, back when I was much younger and much crazier than I am now. We’ve stayed friends since then, and have a really good relationship, considering we speak once every four or five months and see one another every couple of years (without exaggeration, we’re averaging once every two years). For the longest time (read: 5 years after we met), her husband didn’t WANT her to see me, at all.

Now, she had told me once that he’d gotten into her journal (which is private) early in their relationship. She writes for the same reasons I do; sanity and a good peace of mind. However, since NO ONE else looks at it regularly, she writes honestly about everything that she feels.
She’d told me once she’d written about me; I didn’t and don’t know what or how. However, knowing her as well as I do, I’m sure it was honest (whatever that means, I don’t wanna know; no blow to my ego is a good blow, y’know?). So, I always assumed that her hubby didn’t like me because of what she’d written about me.

However, he told her (two years into their marriage, mind you) that he didn’t like me nor trust her hanging out with me because (you ready?????????…….drum roll) HE THOUGHT I WAS GAY!

Okay; let’s examine that a little. Wait; let’s NOT. I don’t even wanna know what kind of a man thinks a GAY many isn’t the SAFEST for his wife to hang out with. Perhaps that was just a good excuse; I don’t fuckin’ know. However, it seemed awfully stupid to me and come to think of it, still does.

Oh, she left him earlier this year. She’s now single, and hot, and good in bed, and is currently looking. If you’re in Port Arthur, TX or thereabouts, her name is………

Sorry, darlin’.

So, I called A. Fortunately she was home. Unfortunately, she was……..about to be predisposed with a certain rendezvous which was both immoral and in some cases, probably illegal (or at least good grounds for a divorce). And he was on the way over to her place.

However, good friend that she is (after listening to me call her a “dirty slut” for a few minutes, all in good jest, I assure you; such is the nature of our friendship), she agreed to let Monkey and I have her place. Both her children (now in their teens) were pretty much gone for the evening and all I had to do was get to Pt Arthur and follow her (and him) to her house, where she would leave us.

So, Monkey and I drove to PA, stopping at a gas station and calling her to get her to come get us.

Why, you may ask?

For those who’ve never lived in an area like Port Arthur, it’s one of those “small towns” that’s actually spread out over a few miles outside of city limits. Turn down this road, go by that Market Basket, turn left next to the Sonic, go down past the electric plant, look for the house on the right with the civil war cannon in the yard, past the screaming kids, turn into that driveway…….you get the picture. Big cities and small towns aren’t really that different if you’re a foreigner to ‘em; one’s just bigger.

We get to A’s place, do the intros, and I pull out my trusty bottle of booze (Bush Mills Irish Whiskey; shoot me an e-mail if you’d like to send me some for a Christmas gift as I’ll NEVER turn that downJ). After a shot and a beer and some idle chit chat (boy toy wasn’t a BAD conversationalist, but did get lost if the conversation went outside of him. But then, I AM a judgmental prick), we called Bill & Kat again. Only to find out two things.

One; they had NO child for the evening (their child is named after me, if you can believe it; what kind of name is Meatsticks?). Two: the reason for no child was it was Billy’s birthday. I’ve known Billy for 7 or 8 years (debate rages on that one) and I don’t think I’ve EVER managed to be around for his birthday (except one drunken night that he doesn’t remember; it’s okay cuz I have photos ). This was too good to pass up.

“Come get us so A can get laid” was essentially how the conversation ended. A was intending to go elsewhere, but I figured why bother when she had a perfectly good HOUSE to use with no children in it?

Gave her love, gave her hugs and said goodbye. I was excited that Monkey had gotten to meet her and they’d apparently hit it off rather well. Well, as well as can be expected under the circumstances.

Good to see Billy boy again. We rode together over to their place, Kat and Monkey in our rental car (cuz I’d been drinking and Texas takes that shit SERIOUSLY). Billy and I did the usual “well, damn how are ya……well, fuck, damn, dude, really, you look so great…..nah, been doin’ stuff and bein’ a dad (something I cannot sympathize with in any REAL way cuz I DON’T WANNA DO IT!)….” You all know the conversation when you get to SEE someone vs. when you talk to them on the phone.

We get to their place (also in PA) and crack open the booze and it flowed. Now, Kat’s not much of a drinker; if anything, she’s a good example of a “cheap date.” However, I hadn’t smuggled a large bottle of Bush Mills into town to be told “I can’t drink whiskey cuz it makes me ill.” Oh, HELL NO! You will DRINK it, dammit, I don’t CARE if you like it or not.

So, Kat’s first shot was left her with a face that……have you ever seen an old heroin addicted bum on the street when they start hacking and coughing? Eyes all squinty and juicy from the tears they’re fighting back, stomach threatening to wretch on them, and a cough that feels like everything in your body stopped for a second…..yeah, that’s a fairly accurate description of her face. The rest of us did ours with nary a grimace (or at least, a practiced grimace). One beer chaser later, and we’re all sitting around, talking and catching up.

Second shot: same face, same reaction for Kat. Same for the rest of us, too. Drink the beer to calm the storm in the tummy, kids.

Third shot: Kat instigated this one, stating afterwards, “Y’know, this isn’t that bad.” More drinking of beer.

Fourth shot: Kat is now laughing, trying not to spit the whiskey through her nose after her shot. She has learned the art of “exhaling” to get rid of vapor lock.

Fifth shot: again, instigated by Kat, this time with a shit faced grin that was amusing, pathetic, drunk, and lovely, all at once.

Sixth shot (this is around 4 a.m. I think; we lost track of time and number of shots, but I'm estimating for the sake of the art of storytelling so stop reading this and move on to the fucking sentence, whydon'cha! Really!): Kat ends up on the floor, feet propped on a kitchen chair, laughing. Heartily. She asks us for help; we tell her, “nay, wench; get thine OWN self off the floor. You didst put yourself there, verily.” Sorry, we didn’t say it THAT way, but you get the idea.

By this point, Monkey and I spread out our sleeping bag and blankets on the living room floor, Kat and Billy were hammered and stumbling, and the bottle (of the large whiskey variety) was down quite a ways. It was about a quarter full (a small quarter), and we all moved to our respective sleeping areas and passed out, resting assured in a job well drunk.

Coming Soon:

Part two (Note: nope....)

Drive thru, you drunk bitches...

Meatsticks

There are Trips and then there are Trips (originally posted 11/20/04)

2005-11-19T09:24:00.000-08:00

It started at the airport. Not that we should have taken the airport incident as a bad omen, but definitely as a warning that things were not going to be simple.

9/11 made the American people retarded because we all looked to our government to do something that they obviously had botched in the first place. Now, it's just helping destroy us from the inside out. Considering the amount of stress and poking and prodding involved with getting to ANY destination (much less a final one), it's small wonder the airports have mostly just declared bankruptcy to be protected.

Fucking sissies.

So, there we were, about to embark on another misadventure. Into the belly of the beast, Austin. Two days after the election of 2004. One of the saddest days of my life. I'll explain why some other time when I won't cry while typing (because all that REALLY does is blur the screen and make my words more unintelligible than usual).

So, we get driven to San Jose Airport, that bastion of smooth transitions from ticket counter to bag check to airplane to final destination, oh JOY! We had packed everything military style in two small bags a piece to just carry on the plane. No checked bags. No problem.

Except that my blessed, beautiful monkey still didn't have her new driver's license. Oh, she had the paper that said she had one on the way. She even had two of her previous licenses. Oh, and 6 school ID cards from Glendora stretching back to her 5th grade year (and god DAMN if she wasn't cute?). And a birth certificate. She is who she says she is.

So, we hand our tickets to the lady at the ticket counter to magically be transformed into BOARDING PASSES!

(crowd oooooohs and aaaaaaaaaahs)

A small word of advice: if you do NOT have your current ID on your person when you give over your tickets to the lady at the ticket counter, look at your boarding pass. Just below the middle area, in highlighter (ours was yellowish green), will be the following:

SSSS

If you see that, just go ahead and don't even bother taking off your shoes. Just walk right through the line and hand the guy your pass and say, "I'm here to see a man about a frisk!"

Make sure you deliver that line with as much enthusiasm as you can muster, because it will be the last thing you really get to say until they're done wanding and frisking you.

Monkey was in line in front of me. We both dutifully took off our shoes, jackets, bags, and anything else that would make this session fairly painless and quick.

Before she could step through the metal detector, he was on his radio.

"We're gonna need a female search."

To Monkey, he says, "Ma'm, could you step to your left please and wait right there?"

A rather large black lady comes and takes Monkey away.

I look at my pass. 4 "S's." I glance behind me at the old Jewish couple's passes. No "S's."

Fuck.

I hand him my pass and don't even wait for him to say it.

He says it anyway.

"Sir, can you step to your left please and wait for me?"

There were a bunch of little rooms made up of plexiglass walls. I could still see Monkey, sitting there. Her face said, "What the fuck?"

Mine said, "I don't know. Shut up and we'll be okay."

Unlike last time, when we almost had a problem.

Now, all of this would have been okay, or at least justifiable in my mind, had they actually done anything that could have possibly prevented terrorism. I was expecting, honestly, to be searched extensively and invasively. I had already prepared my mind for having to repack my bags after they furiously tore them apart, searching for terrorism devices like a 3-days dry cokehead looking for residue on a mirror. I was prepared to be hustled, told what to do, and possibly even fondled against my will.

Maybe even detained.....

What happened, instead, was a wanding. A nice close wanding. They wanded my feet (those terrorist things!), my head, neck, chest, butt, nose, ears. And they did grope me a little, but I've had better gropings in a mosh pit. But it was my bags that really just floored me.

At this point, I'm putting my shoes back on, laughing at this (cuz if I can't laugh at it, I'm gonna be pissed). He tells me, calmly, he's going to check my bags. He then proceeds to unzip the bags slowly, slipping his fingers inside ever so slightly, nudging the clothes to the side, trying to find that.....spot.

Well, if it wasn't that, then what the hell else was he doing, because I can't for the life of me figure it out. You'd have to see it to truly appreciate it. But it was pretty much like when you're seventeen, it's your first time with your hand down a girl's pants, so you tread carefully and gingerly, not wanting to poke her too hard (but still wanting to poke her hard, y'know?). Yeah, it was like that.

Then came the Oxy Zit Pad / Magical Explosive Detecting Pad. You've all seen it. I used to think it was for drugs, but it turns out that it's actually testing for explosive residue. You've all seen them. The big make-up pads they swipe your things with and then put in a big thing that looks like an old-school Xerox mimeograph machine.

And that was it.

No strip search, no groping, no being bent over doubled with a nightstick to the chest, no gestapo tactics. Just poke, prod, wait over here, can you come with me, swipe, NO EXPLOSIVES DETECTED, and that's it. No "thank you," no "sorry for the inconvenience," no "we really know this isn't finding shit or terrorists, but we have to do it to make people think we're doing something cuz otherwise they'd figure out we don't have a fucking clue."

Just, "Go that way to get your boarding pass."

I meet up with the girl on the other side.

"She touched my vagina."

"WHAT!??!"

So, apparently, when the Monkey was being wanded by the large-ish lady, she was standing up, and was told to part her legs and lift her arms. And the lady told the Monkey "wider." And the Monkey spread wider.

And the lady brought the wand in an upwards motion rather......abruptly.

At this point, I'm livid. Not only did we get sub par scrutinizing, she got her gynie touched and I didn't get not one feel on my cock. They didn't even come CLOSE to my crotch with the wand. BASTARDS!?

We sat down, waiting for the airplane, and for the next twenty minutes, that was all we could talk about.

"THEY TOUCHED YOUR VAGINA AND DIDN'T TAPE IT!?"

Oh, we laughed. Heartily.

So, the lady TAKING our boarding passes to let us on the plane ends up being the same lady who GAVE us our boarding passes. Meaning this is the lady who printed them out. Meaning this was the lady who gave the BOTH of us 4 "S's." Meaning she just caused my girl's gynie to be touched by a strange woman with a large foreign object when not in my presence.

And I honestly believe if what the woman said next had not been said, Monkey could have held it together.

You have to understand. The touching of one's genitals is a precious thing that should only be done with loving, caring hands by trained professionals or someone who loves you. And if they do touch them in a rough way, it should be because you paid for it, not because it was forced on you.

Look, a woman's sex is hidden, private, a place you have to search for, really, to get in there. There are folds like a flower, and when touched just right, it's a lovely, slippery orchid, smelling of dew and musk, and tasting of a day's full of bitter sweetness. Fruit from the vine. Nectar of the gods.

A Metal DetectoTron 5000 has NO business being there!

And the lady said, "Oh, still the same number of bags?" As she said this, she leaned around Monkey, looking at the same bags she had seen not an hour before.

"Yes. Why wouldn't we have the same number of bags?"

"Oh, you know, sometimes, people pick up an extra one in the airport."

Now, I'm going to pause the narrative and give you a moment to think of that, about that, expand your thoughts until they are god size and wrap them around that idea.

"Sometimes, people pick up an extra one in the airport."

Now, I know that many people tune things out these days, but let's consider just ONE of the multitude of announcements that play at every airport in this fucking country of ours. Here's one.

"The white zone is for loading and unloading only."

We all know that one, right? OK, how 'bout THIS classic?

"If you see any unattended baggage, please notify airport security personnel. Do NOT pick the bag up."

Now, think......

take your time........

Got that?

Good.

So one would be inclined to understand what happened next.....

Monkey sez: "Oh, yeah, I'm sure that happens all the time."

the lady takes my ticket.

Monkey sez: "Yup still got the same baggage."

the lady checks my bags to make sure they're the same amount.

Monkey sez: "Yeah, oh and thanks for getting us through security so quickly."

Monkey is just inside the door. Outside the airplane looms, huge, engines whirring and kicking up a lot of noise.

Monkey spits out: "Oh, and did you know they touched my...."

I pushed her out the door into the noise. Hard.

"VAGINA!"

She looks back at me.

"Thank you."

"That's what I'm here for."

Fly thru, please...

Meatsticks

The Bruce Campbell Experience (originally posted 12/05/04)

2005-11-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

Deep down inside, we all want to be cool, don't we? We like it if we "get it" when it comes to a new TV show. Seinfeld is a great example. 8 years of nothing that was declared brilliant. I'm not saying it was bad; I'm just saying when you admit you're not saying anything and the people still call you brilliant, well, then, there's a problem.

I never got Seinfeld. I never will. I understood Kramer. But the rest of the show could eat a dick during halftime at the super bowl and I wouldn't notice.

Mostly because I don't watch TV. And if I did, I wouldn't watch Seinfeld or the Super Bowl.

I have this idea that the people we call "stars" should be judged on the same criteria as other people. Are they assholes? Do they tip well for good service? Can they be kind enough to walk outside when the cel phone rings?

Y'know, the important things.

Granted, there are exceptions. I've heard that Steve Martin doesn't sign autographs. He just hands you a business card that says "Congratulations, you've met Steve Martin!"

There's a lesson there. Somewhere.

I met Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit once. It's nice to know that people like him exist, because he makes me feel better about being me.

No, really. He does.

I recently almost met Bruce Campbell, he of the "Evil Dead Sort of a Trilogy except the Last Movie doesn't have 'Evil Dead' in the Title" fame. He had come to Santa Cruz for a signing, a Q & A, and then a midnite showing of "Army of Darkness." Santa Cruz is one of those odd towns where there live the RABID FANS! Everyone here is a RABID FAN of something. People like Bruce Campbell just make the RABID FAN drool all over themselves and be willing to sacrifice a first born child or two to meet him.

But since I've got connections, I had a free ticket. Fortunately, we were on the buddy system, so I wouldn't go alone.

Now, I'm a good sized fan of Bruce's movies, but I'm not necessarily a big fan of the man himself. He's got a good sense of humor and plays his status of cult hero well. But I don't worship at the altar of BC. I'm sure someone out there has written a "Tao of Bruce," but I am not that guy. When the prospect was mentioned, it was more, "Oh cool" than "HOLY SHIT WE GOTTA FUCKIN' GO!!!!" No vital parts of my anatomy were on the line or anything. Just a cool opportunity to meet an interesting "celebrity."

When Joey P. and I arrived at the theater, the line was already long. Since JoJo worked there, we slipped right in and headed for the snack bar. I had no idea what we were doing. I just knew Bruce Campbell was going to be there and that we'd eventually watch "Army of Darkness" with him somewhere in the dimly lit theatre. I had no clue as to any plans.

Mostly because of that one fatal mistake: I got too high to go in public, but I DID NOT REALIZE IT!

BAD, Meatstick, BAD!

So, after waiting for a few minutes, I went outside for a cigarette. And to admire the gynormous line that was now formed along one side of the sidewalk. Some were wearing their OG "Evil Dead" tees; some were wearing the newer versions from Hot Topic, and still others wearing a bootleg they made at home on their computer.

While I stood there smoking, I realized what I would do if I were in Bruce's situation.

Cuz I like to think about things like that.

The coolest entrance in the world for one of these shindigs: cut into your own line. Cut in front of people who are there because they paid to see you. I mean bump your way up from the back of the line to the front, apologizing the whole way, saying you're late for something and god, how embarrassing is this, you had to go back for your ID, and any other excuse you can muster. Just to get the satisfaction of cutting in front of people and them LIKING IT!

I went back inside and grabbed a Snicker's bar. Cuz a man's gotta eat.

And I stood there, eating my snickers bar, observing the snack area of the Del Mar theatre. It's one of those old theaters from the early 20th century that was renovated to accomodate films in the 50's. There's an upstairs mezzanine where they were setting up for Bruce's arrival. There was a giant stairway on either wall leading up to the mezzanine.

And I thought, "wow, this is gonna be fun."

And Joe leans over to me and says, "He's gonna be comin' through the back door in a minute."

And I thought, "My idea was funnier."

And everyone around was abuzz with excitement. They talked about the first time they saw Evil Dead like the first time they'd had sex. And the inevitable, "Oh my GAWD, we're gonna meet Bruce Campbell in a minute this is so EXCITING!"

And I go, "hey, this is cool. No Big Deal."

The back door opens and in walks Bruce....

and the air was sucked out of the room by everyone simultaneously inhaling....

and my THC addled brain went, "Oh shit.

This IS a very big fucking deal."

Bruce strolled through the lobby, casual and cool.

No big deal.

And the front doors were opened and the RABID FANS of hell were loosened. Chaos was abound and I found myself being herded like some fattened calf up stairs into some kind of chamber and I was oh so dizzy and where the hell was Joe and why am I standing in a line?

But of course, this is all an internal dialogue. I don't bother asking anyone in line with me what line I'm in. Because I'm in a line. And as long as you're in a line, you're going to get SOMETHING done. It might be fun, because Bruce Campbell is in the building and lines lead somewhere near Bruce. At this point, I'm sure of that much.

We're a pretty simple species once we're in groups. Put us in lines, and we'll follow you damn near anywhere. We don't even care about politics or colored flags; just put us in a line and watch us stand till you tell us you're closed and we have to go home.

Now we're at the top of the stairs, entering the mezzanine, turning left towards some strange fate. And I hear Bruce Campbell somewhere, laughing and joking. What is this line for?

And I figure since I don't know, maybe I should say it out loud.

So I say to the lad behind me, who has a backpack of Bruce's movies, "Excuse me, what is this line for, exactly?"

"Autographs."

And I nod and say a vague word of thanks. And then I realize one elemental fact of being in a line for autographs. Autographs are signatures. And signatures go on things, called "souvenirs," or "mementos," or "checks."

But, I realized, I had nothing for him to sign. Not even a pack of cigarettes.

And at this point, I was feeling so stupid, high and aggravated with myself, that I couldn't think of a damn thing that would be a funny alternative. I had no clue, whatsoever.

And I think to myself, "Way to go. Now what?"

And I look up and realize I know the girl who is coming this way. That girl who works here, who is putting post it notes with people's names on their items they want BRUCE to sign. That girl, Meridia, my savior, two people from me now.

Now one.

And finally, "Hey, baby."

"Hi, darlin'. I gotta get outta this line. Now."

"What?"

"You heard me. I gotta go. Now, preferably. Can you please, pretty please, escort me to the stairs so I can get the fuck out of here?"

"But why do you wanna go?"

"I have nothing for him to sign and I feel like a dick and I am way too high to be dealing witht his situation and having to explain it."

"Why not let him sign your hand?"

"cuz that's not funny, that's dumb and predictable."

And she said, "Why not borrow something from somebody else to have him sign?"

"No one will do that because if it was signed for me it wouldn't have their name on it? What's the point of that? Now, can I GO?!"

"Okay, give me a few minutes. I'll be right back."

At this point, around 15 people are between me and Bruce. The start of the line was 15 feet away from Bruce. In order to get to Bruce, you had to walk across the open space. They let 3 people go forward at a time.

Cuz the terrorist threat was orange that day.

At this point, I'm questioning where Meredia is, where my sanity is, why am I freaking out so badly, is it really that bad, where are my pants, are there ants in them and if so, why?!

I figured if I bolted, it would look suspicious. If I was escorted out, I could at least fake being sick or having menstrual cramps.

10 minutes later, and we were down to 3 people and 15 feet betwixt Bruce and my empty hands and paranoid head.

And Meridia finally returns.

And she grabs my hand, walking me towards the stairs on the opposite wall from where we were standing. Which meant crossing open space in plain view of Bruce. Which meant he saw someone being led out.

As I hit the first step, I heard a lady say, "Oh, he just doesn't want to participate."

And without looking back, I raised my hand above my head and extended my middle finger as I bounded down the stairs.

And as I hit the bottom of the stairs, I thought.....

"Oh, shit, did BRUCE see THAT?!"

I ran out the door, never to see Bruce again. It was not fated to happen that night. I ran into Joe later, thanked him and said I was off to the bar.

There, at the bar, I was broken, high, humiliated, and had flipped off Bruce Campbell. But what else could I have done? Stayed and done something even dumber? At least the flipping off thing could be misconstrued as my statement on the celebrity lifestyle and the people in it. If I hadn't flipped him off, I'd be just another unmemorable hand he shook in a two second time span.

So, though he didn't see my face, he'll remember me.

And that makes me feel.....good.:)

About me.

Post script:

As I was recounting the story to a group of people at the bar, one of them said, "Why didn't you just have him sign your tits?"

Son of a bitch. Sometimes, it really DOES take someone else to put things into perspective.

Drive thru, Bruce, your food's on me...

Meatsticks

Maybe it's me (originally posted 11/15/04)

2005-11-19T09:09:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's me.......

Maybe it's not the world.

Maybe it's not my job.

Maybe it's not the media, the Republicans, the Democrats, the stoners, the preachers, the neocons, and too many laws.

Maybe it's just me.

A few days ago, I found myself longing to bitch about Britney Spears again.

I wished mediocre television shows were what I was really concerned about.

I wished for days that never were, days that could be, days that might have been.

But not the days that are ahead.

Because I'm tired of them.

Since I've begun working on the show, I've had a sort of paralysis come over me. The world is not making sense right now, and it's not because of drugs or lack of sleep or too much television and caffeine affecting my vision of things. It's not because I'm not cool enough to get it.

Maybe I'm just wrong.

Maybe this world is what we need right now.

Maybe George W. Bush was anointed by God to help bring about Armageddon.

And really, I just can't give a shit anymore. It's too damn hard and they're doing too much.

Last night, I was talking with a friend at the bar, and yes, we were talking about the possibility of moving to Canada, or maybe learning a foreign language and going abroad. Maybe Dutch.

And I found myself reciting a Bill Hicks bit about whether or not he was proud to be an American.

"Well, I don't know. I mean, my parents fucked there but I don't know if that's something to be proud of."

And then...

"And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free...."

Yeah, at the VERY least.

But at this point, being free is almost a myth. We have an insane amount of laws for a society that prides itself on its freedom. Don't smoke here, don't drink here, don't jaywalk, wear a seatbelt, no butt fucking (not applicable in some areas), do NOT bring that skateboard downtown!

Laws don't create freedom. Laws are things you are not supposed to do. And the only way for a society to truly be just is if the law is blind to your color, your religion, your net worth, and who paid $2,000 a plate to hear you speak. And I think we can agree that's not the case in this country. Ask a black dude, someone from the Middle East, and the people in California who got fucked by Enron. Not only do they want all your money for a system that is lazy, bloated and too goddamn proud of itself; they also want to tell you what to do and how often you can do it.

The fact that two men fucking in the privacy of their own home were arrested and convicted on 100 year old sodomy laws in the 21st century tells me we're way behind schedule.

The fact that Ken Lay still walks free while Martha Stewart somehow embodies what's wrong with American business tells me there is no real justice in our society.

The fact that Janet Jackson's nipple caused such chaos and weeping amongst the general public is the sign of a stupid society.

And the fact that enough people voted Republican that they didn't have to cheat much to win tells me that at least half of us are okay with where we're heading.

It's not as if I had much hope. But when you're raised with the American Bullshit Story being fed to you, it takes you a while to vomit it back up and purge your system. Sometimes, you don't even realize how much hope you still have. But when even that, that tiny shimmer of hope that even the most devoutly hopeless maintain (otherwise they'd have killed themselves), when that disappears, well.....

America has done some amazing things in the world. But the dark side to what we've been doing all over the world is bearing some rancid fruit. The kind of rancid fruit that you can only use to make alcohol that'll blind you.

And I don't wanna go blind.

I have this problem with the holding up of our entire country as demi-god, as Prometheus, bringing the fire of freedom to the dark skinned savages of other nations. When the land you live on becomes deified to the point of it being this giant, all encompassing idea of something called "freedom," then you've crossed a line in the sand. When you hold up your society as the standard and say you'll teach the rest of the world down the barrel of a gun if you have to, then you've gone too goddamn far.

And yet, we're still of two minds, aren't we? It was a fairly close election, even with the cheating. There were still tens of millions who looked inside their hearts and said, "We'd rather have George than John." War is ok, but for God's sake, DO NOT CHANGE YOUR MIND!

Somehow, being able to change your mind is a bad thing.

Somehow, blowing other countries up is perfectly fine without a shred of proof.

Somehow, protecting freedoms means allowing the police and federal agents and airport security the right to do whatever they want to you and expect you to like it.

So, yes, I miss bitching about Britney Spears. (I don't even have words for her, really)

Yes, I miss talking about how truly useless Paris Hilton is (let's see: she can't act, she has no job but to look pretty, and I've seen the video and she can't even suck a good dick. She's the perfect gift for the man who has everything: a woman who can do nothing.)

I miss it because I'd rather have a society that wasn't interested in blowing up everybody else, therefore encouraging other countries to want to build up their arms faster so they can maybe blow some of us up before we blow them up. I miss it because I'd rather have a peaceful society where we were hammering out the details of life than broadcasting a narrow, bigoted version of morality and Jesus. I miss it because the now the people are not just misinformed; they're being lied to.

And some of them know that, and they're okay with that.

And my friend said last night, "I'm just worried all the smart democratic people are gonna move to Canada and where does that leave the US?"

And I said, "I really don't care, at this point. They're doing so much, so fast, and doing it in plain sight. People don't realize it."

See, I always remember one thing: Hitler was popular with the people, too. He made them feel good about being German. He made them proud, again. He seemed to help them at their lowest point.

"And then you meet me
and your whole world changes
because everything I say is everything you've ever wanted to hear
so you drop all your defenses
and you drop all your fears
and you trust me completely.
I'm perfect.
In every way.
Because I make you feel so strong and so powerful inside.
You feel so lucky.
But your ego obscures reality and you never bother to wonder why things
are going so well.
Do you wanna know why?

CUZ I'M A LIAR!"

Rollins Band, "Liar" - Weight

Sound like anyone we know?

Postscript:

See, I don't really want to move to Canada. It's cold up there. Really fucking cold. No, seriously, it's fucking COLD in Canada!

Not only that, but their culture is probably just as idiotic as ours, in its own unique way. I'm sure I'll get there and hate those good folks in no time.

Because it's not them.

It's most definitely me.

Drive thru, fuckers....

Meatsticks

A Footie Tale in Santa Cruz

2005-11-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

(Note: these are older posts I'm reposting from xanga to get rid of the fucking place. You'll be seeing a lot of posts coming in this manner. This was written last Christmas)

Our story begins almost two years ago......

(some names have been changed to protect the presumed innocent children who should be in bed right now instead of looking up things like "Meat Sticks" and seeing what comes up on Google!)

(Yeah, YOU!)

(GET TO BED!)

(NOW, MISTER!!!!!)

(Sorry....)

Ahem.....

Our story begins almost two years ago.....

The Girl, Da Monkey, love of my life, apple of my eye, is a waitress at a local eatery here in Santa Cruz. It's kind of a landmark.

There's lots of places like that in Santa Cruz. It's one of those towns where people still lament the old shops that were lost in the Loma Prieta Earthquake in '91. They pine for days gone by, before the days of the Gap downtown, before Borders moved in and closed bookstores, before, before before.....

This isn't about them.

Despite her meager station in life as a waitress (though in Santa Cruz, it is appreciated more than being a cop), I love the girl madly. Our first Christmas together, I'd gotten a piece of glass engraved with a piece of prose I'd written for her. The lettering circled inward and ended on an engraved cartoon monkey face. I even had it really specially gift wrapped just for her.

Pretty little bow n' everything.

She cried.

Then, she looked at me through her tears and said....

"I got you a sweater."

Of course, blowing your wad like that on your first Christmas is asking for trouble.

How the hell do you follow that up?

She CRIED!

So, the following year, I decided there was no way I was even going to bother trying to top it. I'd just get her something that meant a lot, but nothing that would blatantly say, "I'm trying to be just as cute and interesting as I was the FIRST year we spent Christmas together, love."

But what?

After some deliberation and ticking off of things in my head, I decided I'd buy her a pair of shoes for her Christmas present.

Y'see, she's not just a Monkey waitress.

No no no.

She's The Monkey Waitress! TM

See, Zachary's Restaurant is a small place with card-table sized tables that doesn't use new fangled contraptions like "trays" to bring out your food.

Nope. Not a tray in the place. Everything is authentically delivered to your table by a Monkey Waitress with literal arm loads of food all day in a small place with small tables and semi-large people-like substances.

Not only that, but your Monkey Waitress dances around the foul tempered loud mouthed leechspawns some peach fish popped out three years ago while said fruity fish talks on the cel phone.a

And did you know that The Monkey Waitress also picks up their droppings as they are done with them......5 times a week for most of the year.

So, due to those mitigating circumstances, the lady's feet have a tendency to hurt.

Just a little.

Mostly because she wears crappy shoes. If you're a waitress and need some work shoes and you have large, ungainly feet, you take what you can get. Which is usually $20 combat specials over at a sporting goods store. They always hurt her, and as a former waiter, I could not stand by and watch my brethren and sistren and slytheryn suffer.

So, I rubbed her feet. Frequently.

Don't laugh.

I'm good at it.

A good foot rub will get you VIP passes.

You can write that down if you want.

It'll come in handy.

But, alas, I got tired of rubbing them because......

well......

they stink.

Not just a little.

A lot.

Fills the room with vapors akin to mentholatum or Vapo-Rub.

Except it stinks like the stuff between your toes when you haven't washed them for a few days.

And this happened every day.

Don't go "oh, how can you say that?!"

Right now, she's laying in the next room, and guess what I can smell?

Her feet.

Deal with it.

If you ever meet her and I together, I'll try to get her shoes off and you can get a whiff your damn self.

They're Big & Smelly. TM

Try as I might, I can't pretend they're small and smell faintly of lavender or lilacs or something more pleasant than that nasty ass foot smell that they are.

They're big. They're smelly. She should be proud of that.

If they smelled good, I'd tell you about that.

But they don't, so I won't.

I'm not here to lie to you.

I love you.

But not as much as I love her and that's why she's got better shoes than you do.

So, the week after Christmas, I took her over to the mall to a chain shoe store that carries the nicer, industrial shoes. If shoes were cars, it would sell Hondas. Good, reliable, a little flashy, but not a Porsche by any stretch of the imagination.

But a new Honda is still a new fucking Honda.

I'm the guy who goes into stores and finds what he wants. The only times I ever look around a store and find something I really really want is when I'm with the Girl. Because she can shop. For a long, long time. Usually, after about an hour, she's already looked at everything she wanted to and is now making a purchase.

We were in the shoe store for over 2 hours.

I'd decided since she was getting new shoes, maybe I would get new shoes, too.

Cuz it was Christmas.

After 30 minutes or so, the manager of the store approached us and started helping us out. After we told him what we did for a living and some other basic information to help us with our podiatal predicament, he says, "Well, let's get you sized up."

Sized?

What is this sized?

(Well, kids, sizing for shoes involves a metal rack shaped like a large version of people's feet. It has a sliding ruler and size chart on the foot pads. You simply stand on the foot pads and the gentleman at your feet politely tells you what size shoes you should wear. Some places just have them in the store and don't offer to help you use them.)

It's amazing to me, considering how many pairs of shoes I've bought in my lifetime, that I'd never gotten sized before. I vaguely remembered being in a Payless or something once and stepped into one that was just sitting on the floor.

"Hmmm," I thought, "Looks like a 9 - 9 1/2."

So that's what I went with. I figured my feet had stopped growing. I never thought I'd realize that day, but it happened. My feet had stopped growing. The last sign that seals your fate. The final decree that states you are now a responsible, intelligent, rational, and not-stupid thinking adult type creature of the species homo sapien.

Cue the flash forward to me standing there in the thing, looking down at my feet and saying, "hmm, looks like a 9 - 9 1/2."

And Rich (that's his name: Rich. He works at Kent Shoes over at the Capitola Mall. Tell him Flippoff sent you. Not that he'll care nor remember me, but you can tell him. Y'know. If you want to.) looks up at me and says, "What size shoe were you asking for?"

"9 - 9 1/2."

"Are your feet always smelly and feel wet?" (What a gross question to ask someone in public!)

".....Yeah."

"Are your toes always tight in your shoes?"

"Yeah." Keep going. I'm curious.

"How long would you say you've been wearing a 9 1/2?"

"Wow, um....3 or 4 years?"

"Well, you should be wearing a 10 1/2 or an 11."

"You're shitting me!" Which is a fun thing to say in a room surrounded by strangers when discussing your feet.

"Nope. Not only that...."

And with that, he proceeded to list off the litany of things that were legitimately wrong with my feet. He pinpointed my pains (the ones I don't talk about) and guessed the warped way I was walking to compensate.

And as he listed off these things, I looked over at the Girl.

Who looked over at me, with that other look I've come to know so well over the past two years.....

"Poor little klowny guy..."

The shoes he recommended were cool (they have a rollbar in the heel so your feet don't wobble), and the insoles helped as soon as I put them in the shoes. Overall, Rich was kind and caring, everything you want from a person you spend two hours of your life with.

A good chunk of change later, we were famished and feeling good. We'd bought the exact same pair of shoes and insoles from the guy. We were really happy. Our feet were already feeling better.

As we were walking towards the car, I looked at Da Monkey, my beautiful Monkey....

"I guess I can't bitch about stupid people anymore."

(But isn't the rule generally if you are something you can call it something derogatory? Women calling one another bitches, sluts, etc., gays with fags, etc.?)

Hey, yeah.

Good point.

Thanks.

(My pleasure.)

Drive thru, please...

Meatsticks

Things you know end up knowing you......

2005-11-19T08:59:00.000-08:00

(originally posted at my other site on June 17, 2005)

I wake up, naked, laying on the living room floor with a blanket laid over me. I don't remember how I got here nor why I would be here when there's a bed in the bedroom that I could have been laying on, snuggled next to the Girl shaped space in the bed where my Girl was before she went to work.

And somehow, I know I did something bad.

At this point, I've had so many blackouts that I don't remember them anymore.

Not like I did much to begin with.

But it's a sign of.....something when you've lost count.

The first was one of the worst.

But that was then.

For now, my body is creaking as I force myself to get up and wander to the bathroom to go take an everlong piss.

And it keeps going and going, like the Energizer bunny, going and going, like that Austin Powers' bit that was ripped off from the Adam Sandler CD that was inspired by a possible true event like the piss I'm currently having.

And it finally stops. And I realize for someone who's so dehydrated, that sure was a lot of urine I just deposited.

Coffee. Considering how much coffee and booze I had last night (enough to not remember a lot of the night near the end parts), maybe coffee isn't the best thing.

Then again, when is it not?

So I struggle to make the coffee, trying hard to make sure that I don't spill the grounds everywhere or get water everywhere or do whatever it is that I do that makes me such a messy bastard.

Coffee now brewing, I head to the bedroom to piece together what I can of the bits of evening that I don't remember.

Clothes are everywhere, including mine. I see the trail of clothing I left on my way to bed. My shoes, then pants, then shirt, then boxers, the familiar trail of a frustrated drunkard wanting to climb into bed and snuggle with his Monkey. My hat is on the Girl's dresser. I notice one corner of the room looks cleaner than the others. I notice my clothes still laying there.

I hear the coffee maker starting to drip, drip, drip.

And I realize that somehow, I have to pee again.

Even after evacuating enough urine for a family of five, I still had to pee.

That couldn't be right, I thought. I mean, it has to be that phantom urge to pee that I get sometimes after peeing for so long that I don't remember when I wasn't peeing and wonder why more people aren't peeing as long as I do.

But this feels like a real pee, a really real pee.

So, I head to the bathroom to see if it's really real pee or just a fake wannabe pee.

And I pee again, though not for nearly as long. But it's a good solid pee, about a 7.5.

If I had to judge it.

And the coffee in the kitchen goes drip, drip, drip, in time with my pee.

And the pot is half full and the toilet is exhausted from taking so much fluid, and I even feel tired.

But then, that could just be the hangover talking.

And as I walk out of the bathroom, I see a garbage bag full of stuff on the kitchen floor that shouldn't be there. I just glance inside a little to see what it is.

A box for something that isn't in it, what looks like some clothes.

Nothing much.

But what is it doing in the kitchen? And why don't I remember anything last night after that last drink at last call? And why did I wake up on the living room floor instead of even the couch?

I go lay down on the couch, and I feel the paranoia I experienced in the desert trying to creep its way back into my head. And I realize, again, that it's just silly paranoid bullshit. Something may have happened, but she doesn't want to leave me for anyone else. Something may have happened, but you're not worthless and stupid and crazy. Something may have happened, but you haven't killed her and hidden the body. Something may have happened, but just because you can't remember it doesn't make it bad.

After all, if you'd killed her, you still have blood under your fingernails. Because you never scrub those very well.

I dress myself slowly, taking care not to upset the mild nausea in my head.

And the coffee goes drip, drip, drip.

And then, that familiar gurgling sound of a fresh, finished pot.

And I slip on my shoes and go to make my first cup. I fill the mug, grab it, and wander to the front porch. I check my pockets for cigarettes, lighter, wallet and keys.

I have two cigarettes left in my pack. I have three dollars left in my wallet. My keys are still there.

But my lighter seems to be missing.

But there, on the ground, is the Girl's purple lighter she never takes anywhere.

Such a lonely lighter.

I pick it up and put it to some good use on the end of my cigarette.

And then I put it in my pocket.

I ponder the paranoia and lost memory for a moment more and then exhale deeply. Half of why I freak out is because of shallow breathing.

Because sometimes, breathing is hard to remember how to do. You'd think it's such a natural reaction that you would never have any problems with it.

"Oh look, I'm breathing again."

But feel yourself get panicked and lose any semblance of rational thought, and then try and remember how to breathe. Everyone should try it at least once.

So I inhale deeply and let it all go. I decide I need to write and take the coffee with me. I grab the giant thermos, thankful that Kristen had pulled it out of the fridge where it had lived for the previous three months with Minute Maid Concentrate orange juice in it.

It didn't have mold, but it didn't smell good.

But now, it's going to be filled with coffee. I don't think about the microbes that could live inside the thermos now, after it's excursion to the darker side of concentrate orange juice. I don't wonder about what kind of symptoms I'd have if there were indeed, Dark Side OJ microbial free radicals running about in my lower intestine.

Because that would be weird.

So I put the coffee in the thermos, then pour in milk for coloring and grab my backpack and head out the door.

I allow myself to think again as I walk down the street, and wonder what happened last night that I don't remember. Such a complete blank is unusual unless nothing actually happened and I was just absolutely smashed and unconscious.

But I doubt it.

I have on the large version of Blues Brothers glasses. The big slightly oversized kind that can only fit a head as large as mine. I have on the red red redder than blood bowler with the jet black band and blue and yellow small feathers in the band that hasn't left my head much in the past eight or nine months. My long black trenchcoat flaps in the wind as I wince my way towards civilization. And my backpack, stuffed too full with the giant thermos of my lovely coffee, hangs open ever so slightly, throwing my caffeine addiction in their face.

I carry the powdered weed I have in my back pocket. When we'd taken it to the desert, it had been one bag of nice nuggets and another bag of accumulated shake. Within the first two days we were there, the nice nuggets turned first to tumbleweed and then to powder.

But the shake remained the same.

And I have the bowl that Shawn gave me years ago, the metal one that has now lost it's holey lid that allowed for loss-free rips on the bowl and the ultimate in serviceability.

And my keys and my wallet and the purple lighter because I honestly don't remember where the hell the other lighter is.

And why did I wake up on the living room floor?

And was I bad last night?

And am I just too.....?

Breathe, breathe.

And I stop at the Pipeline for smokes.

And I cross the street to the Girl's restaurant.

And it's busy here, with busy people hungover from the previous evening's festivities and families just out of church and lonely people and big people and just plain weird people and alcoholics nursing a hangover with a carafe of mimosa.

Aaaaaah.....my people.

And I find the girl at the back, near the kitchen, preparing an order to take out.

"You are so busted," she says as she darts to and fro, putting a scoop of butter on the toast and garnishing things.

"What'd I do?"

"You don't remember last night?" Butter, orange, garnish.

"Some of it. Not the end parts."

"About 4 o'clock in the morning, you going to go to the bathroom to go pee?"

Garnish.

"No."

Butter.

"You didn't see the garbage bag full of stuff in the kitchen? Didn't notice that it smelled like your pee?"

Ohdeargod.

"No."

"You said you were going to the bathroom and ended up pissing in the corner, all over the dresser, all over the wall."

"Did I get it on the bed?"

"No. Maybe a little."

I just kind of fall in my head for a moment.

No wonder I had to pee so bad.

"You're not allowed to have Irish whiskey if you want to come home with me."

"Okay."

And she walks off to deliver her food.

And I have a flashback to me as a child, having to wash out my own shitty underwear because I couldn't stop shitting my pants.

A fitting punishment, really. If you're gonna have a nervous tick, you may as well have to deal with the results.

And I wonder if I really am just stupid and not very smart and still just a five year old because I didn't ever wanna have to grow up and deal with anything because the world is a cold dark place that has hate and love and more of one than the other and you're never quite sure which one it is until it's too late.....

"Hey," she says.

"Yeah."

"It's okay. I was pissed last night, but now it's okay. You've got the next two days to clean it all up."

"I'm gonna go over to Andy and Char's."

"I'll be over there after work for a nap."

And I wandered over here, meeting up accidentally with Toddy and Hillary for the briefest of moments. I realize it's Father's Day and I'm a horrible son and the world is a cold dark place and I'm in that fearful place that I was in the desert on that last morning, curled up on a bed that is deflating and missing my monkey and wondering if she ran off with Hayle Satan or Joe or Renee and knowing that all of this is bullshit and it doesn't matter and that nothing really matters so if nothing really matters, then what the fuck does matter.....

And I came in here, and I wrote this just to get the feeling of emotional constipation out of my head for a while.

And I miss my friends.

And I'm too wasted right now to call my father.

And it really is all bad.

And they really are out to get you.

And they really are monitoring everything you do because they've got nothing better to do with their time.

And it doesn't fucking matter.

And hopeless is hopeless and it does no good.

But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

Thanks and drive thru...

Meatsticks

Some mild changes...

2005-11-17T19:02:00.000-08:00

Here's the deal.

I feel very limited by only posting here. Because sometimes, I feel like something other than a Meat Stick. Sometimes, I feel like a clown, sometimes I feel like a cranky chain smoking wanna be critic, and still others, I just feel like me.

I have a couple of blogs at different places, but so far, blogger.com has been the easiest place in the world to post.

So, there's going to be some content change a coming.

To wit: anytime I feel like venting about politics or something of a socio-political nature, I'll be posting as Cancer Merchant (check out the new link). I created the Cancer Merchant character a few months ago, but am just now starting to get into the personality.

Anytime I feel like bitching about Paris Hilton or Willy Wonka or something, I'll be over at Flippoff the Klown (again, check the link: it's spanking new).

And of course, there will always be the tweener, Meatsticks, wherein I vascillate between being silly old me and crazy fuckstick on a mushroom trip in the middle of the desert.

We'll see how this works.

Some of the old posts will be moved and the skin here is gonna change as well.

And why am I even writing this? Does anyone care?

I have no idea.

I'm going to pull out some old posts at the former xanga site and pull some switches and stuff and crap and poop and WHEE!!

Okay, getting excited again.

Don't worry, kids. Meatsticks is going nowhere fast.

Thank you and drive thru...

Meatsticks

Goin' down, 3rd floor, women's lingerie, women's shoes, perfume, and maternity clothes...

2005-10-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

Is it too soon to make sick jokes about dying elephants having their carcasses fucked by the pygmies like me, who've been waiting for this moment to come for the past few years?

I know they're not quite dead yet, and that's the only real reason I'm asking.

It's not that I think I'll be wrong, and am therefore, trying to hedge my bets. No, that's what the Democrats do. I'll have none of that Kool-Aid, thank you.

And it's not that I even feel, in some small way, responsible somehow. The only things I"ve really contributed to the campaign to end stupidity is in my individual dealings with people, my intermittent bloggings, and a TV show on nationally that no one watches. And since people that I know get a glaze in their eyes when I talk about it, I know that most don't agree with me.

No, I just don't want their feelings to get hurt before they die their horrible, sure to be highly publicized death.

Not a literal death, of course; the mere wishing of that upon our beloved president and / or vice president is, in fact, a crime in the land of the free, home of the brave (copyright 2005, BushCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of KBR).

No, I mean merely the squealing we're about to hear when whoever gets indicted by whatever grand jury. Tom DeLay beat out Rove and / or Libby and / or Cheney in the reality show of "BUSTED!"

Then came the Frister.

And now, um...well, no one yet, but dammit, it's getting there.

These are our elected leaders, sworn to uphold the law and play by the same rules we do in life. But they don't, and haven't for a long time. The beast is now being harpooned and wheezing, hanging on to every last breath it can. Soon, once the indictments are officially handed down, the now infected and bleeding elephant will begin to lash out at anyone that is stupid enough to come near to it; reporters, other elephants, biographers, little babies only expecting a kiss like always and finding their little baby arm in the mouth of the giant, infected, bleeding, puss-y (not pussy), stomping, snorting and pillaging elephant that said it was his friend.

How would that make you feel, if you were that baby?

I remember growing up in the 1980's. And the threats that seemed real were Russia, the threat of communism, and the vague feeling that there were traitors in our midst called "liberals."

Liberals could balance the budget if they weren't so set on helping out poor people that can be helped out nicely by our neighborhood churches.

If they'd kick people off welfare, the budget could be balanced.

If they'd stop aborting babies.

If they'd stop whining so damn much.

Never mind the massive deficits caused by both Congress and Reagan's fascination with making more weapons so we can sell the old ones to countries that we'll one day invade.

Never mind the scandal of giving weaponry to both sides of a war.

Never mind the S&L scandal that ACTUALLY put more people into debt.

Today, twenty years later, in 2005, it's a redux, the remix, the retro look.

For the new generation, I'll keep it simple.

S&L = Enron

Iraq & Iran begets Iraq & Afghanistan

Massive defecits because of rampant spending by Congress and President = Massive defecits because of rampant spending by Congress and President

Dude, it's like a time machine, right, and you go back in it and suddenly, saying "dude" is as "cool" as it was "back in the day, dude. How cool is that?"

That's not cool.

That's AWESOME!

So, when the pig-elephant-puss-y-infected-beast-thing dies its horrible death, forgive me if I do not share in the mourning.

Forgive me for toasting the television and taking a shot every time the words "Rove (and / or Libby and / or Cheney)" and "indicted" appear together or separately in the same segment of news.

But most of all, forgive me for the ear-splitting noise you will all hear feel on your eardrums when I screech the conquering cry of a man who sees his enemy laying broken at his feet with bones poking through the skin, blood forming little rivulets, pooling around the carcass of the once might elephant, now brought low from the weight of its own bullshit.

I apologize.

Profusely.

Drive through, please...

MeatSticks

Spreading the viruses...

2005-10-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

One of my girlfriends, many moons ago now, said that I was the most social anti-social person she knew.

"You hate people, but you like being around them."

I like being funny.

I like being noticed.

I like making a point while being funny and being noticed for it.

Who the fuck doesn't?

When we speak up to people, aren't we trying to be heard?

If you're not trying to be heard, then why bother saying anything at all?

If you really didn't want to say something, you fucking wouldn't.

But that's not what I want to say..

I've now lived in 5 different states (Ohio, Texas, California, Drunk, High), and have met a lot of people. I have mixed with the natives of different lands and found some good, some bad, and a lot just lacking. And those who are found lacking are usually left behind, or we lose touch, or I fucked their ex-wife not long after they broke up and they don't talk to me anymore (if you're reading this, sorry, chief).

But I lose track of my thoughts again.

Okay, hold on. Bear with me.

I'm in two of the above states right now.

Aaaha...there it is.

Knowing people. I get credit from some people I know for "knowing people," as in, "You'd be really good at sales because you know people. You seem to really get them."

No, actually, I don't get them. If opinion polls or test scores or any other mode of judgments about people en masse are correct, then I don't think I like them either. Because so far, the most any of them have done lately is bring down Bush's poll numbers. But even that took two fucking years for them to open up their minds to the possibility that they were being manipulated and lied to, cuz hey, that can't happen here!

Can it?

Other than that, they can all just eat a dick.

But even that was not what I wanted to say.

One of the lesser but still ball burstingly annoying reasons that I do not like the people is because the people who usually tell me that I "know people" are trying to sell me something, or more specifically, get me to sell their shit.

It's happened to me so many times over the years. Because really, at heart, I'm very much a Bugs Meany kinda guy. I'm a bit of ne'er-do-well, and if I could find a way to make a shitload of money in a very short period of time, I'd never fucking work again. I'd just travel and write shit with Da Monkey at my side. Just go somewhere, do wacky shit, and report back on it.

But after listening to 6 different pitches in my first 9 months of living in Beaumont Fucking Texas, I realized one thing: that kind of bullshit only exists for guys who stay in their room and invent something they can patent the fuck out of, or someone who gets more people to sell their shit that they couldn't sell in the first fucking place so they had to get more people.

I'm sure there are those out there who've made it and done that thing and climbed that ladder and now star in the infomercial and you know what? Those people are more fucking cynical than I am. Because there's no way you can get that far believing the kind of hype they sell.

But we're all trying to sell something, aren't we? I had my sister, earlier tonight on the phone, trying to get me to sell shit that she hasn't sold any of herself. The point is getting people to join. The more people who join, the better off you are because for every person you get in, you get to have them under you, and the person who brought you in did so with a group of other people she'd talked into because the....

It's a vicious cycle.

Is it a pyramid scheme? Probably. Just from what she said to me on the phone tonight, it has all the earmarks.

Strange "new" name that combines two old ones? Check.

Stranger product that's never been used before? Check.

Is it a product that they will only tell you about after you've agreed to "look at it?" Check.

Is it something they need to hear back on right away? Check.

Is it something that will make you tons of money? Check.

Does it almost seem like a secret? Check.

So far, she hasn't asked me for cash.

Then again, I'm still waiting for the e-mail I'm supposed to look at.

And I will. And I'll be fascinated by it for a few minutes, maybe hoping it's something new. And maybe it looks pretty, and maybe this IS something revolutionary that will change the way we look, the way you feel, the amount of money you make and indeed, the very nature of how we shop as human beings.

But I fucking doubt it.

My sis, the eldest, she's pretty smart. She's lived a life. She's 43, has 3 children, all growed up and with kids of their own, and a husband who works construction and travels a lot. She's been a working housewife for the past 24 years of her life and just wants to feel like she's doing something. She just wants to say she did something.

And I applaud her for that. I won't tell her no.

But I can't sell shit that I don't like, believe in, or create on my own. And I even have trouble selling those, most of the time.

But I'll look this shit over and grit my teeth and find a nice way to tell her no.

Because I know people.

And so does she.

I wish you luck, sis.

Thank you,
drive thru,
oh what a lovely tea party

Meatsticks

It's my own damn fault...

2005-10-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I performed an experiment on myself.

I quit reading the newspaper and just did the crossword puzzles. I would only get my information from the web and pay 50 cents a day to do crosswords.

Y'see, I was hating the world more than usual. I don't think the malaise I live in about the world's problems and issues and stupidities and inanities and idiocies and their makers is something that can be solved by a little blue, red, green, or polka-dotted pill inscribed with a Bible verse on it. I don't think talking to a shrink about this is going to solve the issue.

So, I decided to see if it really was me, or if it really was the world at large.

So I quit reading and just did crossword puzzles. It's nice to know I've still got brain cells enough to do them. Some are hard, some are puzzlers, some are just completely random and involve a deep knowledge of world history, art, music culture, the proper names for every animal on earth, the nicknames for orchestral instruments and their composers, alongside "Actress Jolie" as a twister. So, there's varying degrees of difficulty.

But at least it's not "being informed."

I get like this whenever we work on the show (a local community TV show that parodies the 24 news channels). I have to take a detox session for a couple of days, but usually I just read one or two articles and then switched to a book or writing something down in my notebook.

But this time would be different.

This time, it would be me holding the very information I loathed and yearned for in my hands, only to ignore it for the small box on back page of the Chronicle, then inside the "Classifieds" section.

This time, it would be like getting sober with two full bottles of Bush Mills Irish Whiskey, NyQuil, and rubbing alcohol laid on on a table in front of you next to the syringe of mexican brown heroin and Jenna Jameson spread eagle on your floor with a coke lined pussy.

Okay, maybe not THAT extreme.

But it does kind of feel like that.

Maybe I just haven't had enough experience.

Anyway, I smack down the urge, and honestly, after a couple of days, I stopped noticing. I got my fix at home on the computer, but with how much the girl tends to interrupt me if the door's open (because I'm always afraid of closing her out completely, y'see), I didn't get to see too much of it. If it was good enough, I'd call da Monkey in to watch, but mostly, I just cruised my wrestling websites, imdb.com, went to amazon and randomly searched for movies I liked just to see what people's reactions were to them. News took a back seat.

And that felt good.

Of course, over the past week, I've been recovering from a chest cold and found myself slipping into reading instead of crosswording because it takes less brainpower.

And I have just one fucking question...

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE??!!

And I don't mean that rhetorically, I don't mean that facetiously, and I sure as fuck am not going to take "Well, y'know, they're stupid" as a fucking excuse.

Seriously.

What the fuck is wrong with people!?

See, I just read a story and watched a video (gotta love the multimedia generation) of the Republicans failing to pass a bill during the 5 minutes allotted to pass a bill, and them proceeding to hold the floor open for another 45 fucking minutes until they conned just enough guys in the room to get a passing vote on this thing.

The bill was some thing that'll let polluters pollute more and pay less in taxes or some silly shit under the guise of that shameless whore, Hurricane Katrina.

But this isn't about the bill.

This is about our leaders, men that are supposed to be at the very least adults, breaking the rules because they didn't get their way. I can't even come up with a good analogy for just how childish, immoral, and retarded our supposed moralists in Congress were acting.

And all the Democrats could do was stand there, chanting "Shame! Shame! Shame!"

Someone go knock somebody the fuck out! Shut Pelosi up and just start throwing chairs at the stage until they're all fucking buried underneath it!

And what did they do this for? Why THIS bill?! This is as dumb, pointless and stupid as passing "emergency legislation" to "save" a woman who'd been brain dead for FIFTEEN COCKSUCKING YEARS!!

When they voted on giving G-dub power to invade Iraq and slaughters tens of thousands of not-body-counted bodies, they didn't hold the floor open for 5 more minutes of debate. You either voted or you fucking didn't, and if you didn't, you shut the fuck up because they'd beat you down to the floor with "REMEMBER 9/11!!"

How could we forget? Every time they (and this is STRICTLY Republicans!) get into any kind of shit or need something passed or want to make some kind of a fundraiser or invade another country of brown people who don't speak our language, they drag 9/11's bloated 3000 corpses out and fuck them all in public view.

But why does no one seem to get one simple fact: 9/11 was a failure.

Period.

On every level on 9/11, they (NORAD, FAA, DoD, CinC, VP, Reps, Congmn, and even yo mama) failed miserably. There was no defense ever offered for the poorest excuse for an emergency response in our nation's history except "Hey, no one could have seen THAT coming?"

But even THAT was a fucking lie. I really want all the information to be released to the public, just to show how they not only dropped the ball that day, they had no idea they were even playing a game with a ball in it.

But damn, after the dust settled, and Cheney and Rummy and everyone else really in charge were safe in undisclosed locations, they came out with guns blazin' like Yosemite Sam on four day meth binge.

But that doesn't change the fact that they failed.

They've failed and been wrong about everything they've said in the past five years, and not ONE fucking person in the mainstream media has had the audacity to say it like this.

They're a failure.

Complete failure.

Even on a Bell Curve, they're F- students.

Tax cuts stimulating the economy?

Wrong.

PATRIOT ACT protecting freedoms?

Wrong.

Iraq and WMD?

Wrong.

Iraq, al-Quaida, 9/11?

Wrong.

324 billion prescription health care plan?

Wrong (try 600 billion or so)

Iraq war would pay for itself, mission accomplished, last throes of insurgency, etc. and et al?

Wrong.

Levees being breached by a class 4 hurricane in New Orleans?

Wrong.

Not one person you work with smart enough to call you on your bullshit?

Priceless.

Drive thru and fuck you!

Meatsticks

The Five Deadly Fists of the Pooh Dynasty

2005-10-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

(The names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

It all started because of Pooh.

She'd been called that since childhood. In every house she ever lived in, there was a shrine of Pooh snowglobes and Pooh photo albums and Tao of Pooh and Towel of Pooh and Pooh crackers and just plain stuffed Pooh's.

So, of course, Tigger came next.

Tigger and I were friends who went out to clubs every weekend and danced like we were in our own private moshpits. At the time, I was mostly sober, except for the 3 to 4 liters of Mountain Dew I put in my system a day, with up to 6 on the weekends or during the occasional acid trip. I went out to dance. The soon to be Tigger and I danced similarly, and people cleared the fuck out of the way, lest they suffer shin bruises and knees to the knee and flying hair whip attacks from Tigger, who was bouncy, bouncy, trouncy trouncyfulloffunfunfun with a long pony tail on top of his head.

And for a moment, Pooh called us both Tiggers, or to be more precise, Crack Tiggers.

But alas, the wonderful thing about Tiggers is that there is only one.

So what else bounces?

Rabbit.

And that was how it started. I'd worshipped Bugs Bunny (and early Daffy Duck, skipping his feathered ass across a lake that was not frozen), and I was born in the year of the Rabbit and I'd helped my sister raise rabbits and rabbits popped up in general, so I was fine with Rabbit.

I didn't realize until a couple of years ago that I also tend to have "oh dear" moments pretty consistently. But that's another story.

And lo, came the Piglet.

The Owl had always been there, really. It just kind of became official.

So, we had Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and Rabbit and Owl, with Pooh's younger brother playing the occasional part of Christopher Robin, whom we would kidnap occasionally and bring into our world. And the five of us were inseparable, gloomy, fun, drunk, idiotic and very often brilliant.

But then, we all think that about our friends, don't we?

After all, that's why they're our friends in the first place. They're the few people you've found who seem to have a lack of epic suck on their souls. Sure, their souls are as black as yours, but at least you all agree on something.

And that something is....

People suck, unless they have my phone number.

Fuck you
This wasn't for you
Drive thru

Meatsticks

The storm that brewed...

2005-09-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I talked to my mother the other day. She and dad are fine. They live in Jasper, TX, which was fucked hard by Hurricane Rita. Their house is just outside of town, on a paved road with 4 other houses on it, surrounded by giant trees of oak and elm.

So when Rita hit, I worried.

When I couldn't get call through to Jasper on Friday due to the heavy traffic flow of calls, I worried some more.

On Saturday, she called my house in SC to let me know they were all right. Their place made it through without a scratch. Trees fell everywhere, except on their house.

My mom told me, "I got a few scratches on my car."

But that's it.

Her, my father, and my niece they have custody of spent the evening inside an RV inside their garage, praying for 10 hours. Branches large, small and in between kept smacking the top of the garage, and every time they did, my mother would jump and say, "There's another one," and then compose herself.

My father would just giggle whenever it happened.

So it's over and they're fine.

My two youngest sisters (both older than me by years and with children of their own) who live in Jasper weren't so lucky. While they all managed to take refuge in a couple of different schools on each side of town, their houses were trashed. My sister Mildred lost her house to a tree that went right through it, and my sister Ann's windows were blown out and everything soaked to the framework. With kids, sisters, and my parents, there are now 8 people living in my parents 2 bedroom house on the ouskirts of Vidor.

It's not like we don't know how to do that. Most of our lives as children were spent trying to fit as many of us into as many rooms as we could. I remember when my oldest brother Charles moved out, then David, and then I realized that I could have my own room for the first time in my life. I was 12, then.

You've never seen a happier 12-year-old.

But the storms over now, and my family will rebuild as best they know how. We midwest people excel at pulling together in a crisis and digging ourselves out of whatever shit God or the Devil or Fate put at our doorstep.

Da Monkey and I are going to send them something soon.

As soon as we find out what they need.

I have friends scattered throughout Beaumont, Port Arthur, Nederland, Vidor and Houston, all of whom made it through okay. As to their houses, well...

My friend, Owl, in Beaumont, lost his room and his garage to a tree with a split personality.

My friend Jan-Jan lost the house her husband had so lovingly built over the last couple of years.

Everyone else's damage was either minor or they hadn't made it back into town when I talked to them.

Everyone expects the worst in situations like hurricanes and earthquakes and fires and floods. That way, you're absolutely prepared for the worst if it's there for you to see, but you feel nothing but relief if it's good.

I call it "romantic realism;" hope for the best, expect the worst.

My friend, Kat, called me tonight in response to my phone message I'd left, checking on her and her family. I'm a horrible friend and a worse son, so it's been a good six months since we talked. Going on with life just happens sometimes, and it's difficult to make time when you try to keep busy or rather, lazy or worse, forgetful.

Of course, sometimes, I'm all three.

Her house in Nederland (just outside of Port Arthur, TX) made it through mostly intact, and her child (my namesake, and don't you DARE fucking laugh at a child named "Meatsticks") is staying with her mom up in Houston. I asked about her husband's whereabouts.

I knew her husband long before her. He's one of a few people I consider family outside of my blood family, and if anything, I kept him closer than I did all of my relatives. He's one of those friends I could not talk to for years, and suddenly, if I had a need, I could call him up and he'd listen, no matter the time of day, his state of mind, nor what he was doing at that time. He'd sit there, listen, we'd laugh, everything would be okay. Had he any money to give, I know I'd have it. No matter what I asked for, if he could give it, it would be there.

We'll call him Jed for the rest of this.

And she says, "Do you want me to be honest?"

And I said, "Always."

And she says, "Where should I start? With what he did to me, Baby Meatsticks, or Elise (his first child from his first marriage)?"

And I laughed at her, because there exists a certain no bullshit demeanor between the two of us. After all, I'd heard a ton of bad shit about Jed, some of which I'd said myself. How bad could it be?

So, I say, "Let's start with my namesake. That should be fun."

"Well, the first time was when he was hitting me while I was holding Baby Meatsticks..."

"Whoa, haha, hold on. Back up and let's start with what he did to you."

And the tale doesn't get any prettier from there. The things she told me after that took forty five minutes on the phone and two stiff shots on the rocks at once, of which I'm sipping slowly as I write this.

And no, it isn't any prettier.

This isn't a he said / she said type situation. There's no excuse for what I heard from her for anyone to do to anyone.

You don't hit a woman.

You don't hit a woman holding a baby.

You don't threaten said woman with a boxcutter after threatening to attempt suicide in front of your seven year old daughter.

And you do not blame her every time you do it.

The things I heard her saying were a bad caricature of a Stephen King abusive husband from "Rose Madder" or "Gerald's Game." Several times I had to say, "People really say that kind of stupid shit?"

It's your fault I hit you.

It's your fault I don't feel like a man.

It's your fault I'm fucking another woman and having her call you while I'm with her to tell you how lousy you are as a wife.

And that doesn't even begin to cover the lies he told to all of us about things. We'll all accept some bullshit and embellishments and victim role playing. I know I've done it, I'm sure there are plenty more who are doing it still. It's part of the growing process for some of it.

But eventually, the stories stop and reality has to happen.

You don't lie about your wife cheating on you when you were really beating her in private.

You don't lie about "taking care of your kid" when you're $12,000 backlogged in child support and really can't find the time to spend with your kid because you're doped up on Tranxene most of the time and getting bigger doses.

And you do not lie about being finger fucked by an uncle that doesn't exist to get sympathy from everyone you know.

I want to say I want to hear his side of it.

I want to say I want to hear what he has to say.

I want to know why he felt the need to do all of this.

I want answers that I can't take from him.

Because now, I don't know what I knew and what I didn't and what was real and what wasn't.

Lie about your taxes.

Lie about your sexual prowess.

Lie about how much money you make, the car you drive, how many women you've nailed at one time, whether or not you're gay or whatever the fuck.

But don't lie to me about hurting other people.

And don't lie about how much you've been hurt when you weren't.

Because there are a lot of people who do suffer this, some of them that we know, this friend I once thought I had.

I feel outraged, hurt, pissed, angry, scared, confused, and stupid. I feel like I should have known, because hey, I'm smart enough to pick up on it, right?

But this isn't about me.

This is what he did to someone else.

And this man, this friend of mine, I thought he got that. I thought he understood that. I thought he was my friend, my brother, a man I have called such for 10 years now.

But he doesn't get it.

One part of me wants to hear what he has to say.

Another part of me wants to hear his screams as I pound my fist into the back of his skull hard enough to break two of my fingers, like he did to her, but keep punching because the pain will make it that much more satisfying.

But the part of me that will most likely win is the one that says goodbye.

I got off the phone with Kat after 45 minutes because her battery ran out. I told her I loved her and we would talk soon.

Da Monkey had been asleep on the couch this whole time while I was outside pacing, listening, rambling, trying to make jokes out of everything and smoking all the half smoked butts in our ashtrays because I had no money to go to the store for cigarettes. I closed the door and saw her eyes sparkle as she smiled her loving smile at me.

"Hi, bun-man," she says, opening her arms for the snuggle that we hadn't had yet.

"Hi, monkeybone," I say as I kneel next to the couch and put my head on her buddha belly.

"I love you." I say.

"I love you, too." She says.

I close my eyes and breathe.

"What's wrong?"

I let out the breath.

"I'll tell you when you're more awake."

Her eyes pop open.

"Don't worry. No one's dead."

And she snuggled my head just that much more to let me know she was there.

And the night has gone on ever since.

Come again.

MeatSticks.

Never forget...

2005-09-22T03:23:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Katrina (easy, right?)...

9/11 (like they'd let us?)...

Johnny Cash (hard to do)...

Bill Hicks (if you don't know, learn)...

Clinton's Blowjob (cuz, y'know, THAT was evil!)...

No new taxes (cuz it was a lie)...

Tax cuts (cuz they're a swindle)...

The 2000 election (much as some would like to, including me)...

All 99 years of Seinfeld (is it still on?)...

Married...with children (cuz THAT was funny)...

Jackie Gleason (ditto)...

The Iran-Contra affair (not that any of us know that much about it)...

War (Iraq, Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, World War I & II, the Cold War, the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Revolutionary War, the War on Drugs, the War on Poverty, the war against civil rights, etc., and et al)...

General Smedley Butler - War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious (and he said that a long time ago)...

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel (HAHAHA!)...

Isaac Asimov - Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent (How prophetic...)...

The Holocausts(yeah, there's more than one)...

Mother loves you (even though you don't call)...

Father loves you (even though you were weird with each other growing up)...

Love hurts...

Love bites...

Love bleeds...

We're only here for a little while (stupid country song lyric that popped up for no reason)...

God is watching (it's the creepiest feeling I know, but millions of people supposedly believe it)...

the children are our future, so let's not leave them behind (or abort them before they get out)...

war is peace, freedom is slavery, and truth is lies (I'm paraphrasing, of course)...

...people suck...

your hopes (if you still have them)...

your dreams (if they're not too bad)...

drugs are bad for you (unless prescribed by the proper people and partially paid for by insurance companies)...

not all drugs are good; some of 'em are great (Thank you, Bill)...

dying is nature's second act (that could be an original, but I'm not sure)...

killing was one of man's first communal acts (hey, there had to be a first time and it was probably quicker than we think)...

and we'll all float on okay (unless you're not white)...

don't trust whitey...

don't trust anybody...

you're nobody till somebody loves you (void where prohibited)...

don't mistake lack of talent for genius...

Jim Henson (sorry; been watching a TON of the Muppet Show on DVD lately)...

Tae Bo...

life is bad for you (You know, cuz if you didn't live, you couldn't die; anyone YOU know of ever get out of life alive?)...

you're all gonna die someday (see above)...

beauty is only skin deep, but ugly is to the bone...

Damn. That's a lot of shit to remember.

Thank you, come again...

...

Shit, what was the last line?

Meatsticks

this is joe. can't get to my blog right now.

2005-09-20T00:07:00.000-07:00

none of your business, thank you.

yes. it's that. that, is what it is.

it is none of your business where i am unless you're my ride.

where i am, there is a heap of mushrooms.

where i am there is and there isn't. both.

in abundance.

also, you can be sure of this:

where i am, we miss you. I miss you. i think of you often, and i tell people how rad you are. i tell them that funny thing you said or did, or i tell them how cute your kid is.

where i am, it's cold at night if you didn't talk your way into someone's house. someone's couch.

where i'm at is none of your business, but know that where i'm at they love me.

and i love you.

so there.

hello,
-jkd-

A word of warning about what Paris is capable of...

2005-09-19T18:26:00.000-07:00

I was tooling around slate.msn.com and found myself seeing a headline with a link that said, "Paris Hilton: Secret Sex Fiend?"

And I thought, where's the secret? The only thing really fiendish about her sex life is the fact that she's bad at it.

I've seen the video. So have many people besides myself.

If you haven't seen it, don't believe anyone who tells you it's good or the lame "it's worth seeing once, y'know...cuz it' s Paris HILTON!"

As if she's some prize with her clothes on. She could be hot if she just stood there, but she doesn't.

She talks, and mopes and whines a lot about sucking his dick with the camera on. But when the camera's on, she can do nothing but stare directly into the camera, and not in that "turn it off" kinda way but that "Please think I'm pretty with my cock in your mouth in your viewfinder in night vision with my pupils so large you can easily see that they're a bottomless pit of nothingness that I can never fill with anything and I realize that's as deep as I'll ever be so please think I'm pretty" kinda way.

And even if you hadn't heard about the sex tape she made, let's face it. The only thing you'd think about doing with her is sticking your dick in her mouth to shut her up. Without knowing there's a sex tape out there, her one saving grace would be the fact that she's a complete pin-up doll with not a brain cell rattling around in her head so you don't feel bad about the naughty things you're going to do to her in your fantasies because you figure she'd be so good at it.

But she's not. Her one saving grace should have been her ability to suck a good dick. But she couldn't even get that right.

She's useless.

And this headline that made me think all of this was on Slate, for god's sakes. Right below a headline about how fucked up our government was during the Katrina debacle a few weeks ago. How is this any kind of news that I should devote any of my time or brain cells to?

Jesus.

I'm so glad we had an abortion.

I think we'll name it Paris.

Thank you, drive thru, y'all come back now, y'heah?

Meatsticks

On my 30th birthday, my true love gave to me...

2005-09-16T00:51:00.000-07:00

My first abortion.

A couple of years ago, when we'd been living with each other for only a couple of months, we had a period where she didn't have a period for about eight weeks.

And so we went to our opposite corners, both of us paranoid about it but not really saying anything. And one night, we sat down out side, smoking, and the subject came up about her lack of flow. We didn't say much about it, just kind of sat there and said, "Well, we'll deal when we know for sure."

She took a pregnancy test, and it was a no go.

A day or two later, she was bleeding again, and we were deliriously happy about it.

But of course, it led to a conversation...

My true love said, "Y'know, I've always been kind of curious as to how I'd react. It's one thing to talk shit about abortion being a choice, but once you're faced with that choice, what would I do then? And the only real thought I had about it was whether to tell you before or after I had the abortion."

And we giggled.

And I said, "The only real choice I faced was whether or not I'd be willing to drug you up and take you to the abortionist myself."

And we laughed some more. Because then, it was easy to be funny. We'd dodged the bullet we thought was heading straight for us.

We came to find out it was the birth control she was on. It happened over the course of the next year; six weeks without, then the "Manager" would suddenly appear, demanding rent in blood.

Sometimes it was two months, one time it was three, but the flow would eventually happen.

Eventually, and stupidly, she got off the birth control due to the various things it was doing to her body (weight gain, hormone changes at the drop of a hat, three months worth of cramping all packed into one week's worth of bleeding). The Manager's schedule returned to normal, and things were good more often.

We've been mostly safe, except for a couple of times.

But, it only takes one, right?

One of those not safe times happened 8 weeks ago. When it happened, we both kind of felt weird afterwards. But that was pretty typical; it's that sense of dread that comes from knowing you did something stupid. And usually, mostly, always in the past, that went away when the unmistakable sound of her cramping moans in the morning would summon the arrival of The Manager.

And then the manager took a 7 week vacation. And we noticed.

And there was no way it was the birth control.

Our conversation about it can be summed up in one sentence.

"How fast can we get it sucked out?"

We don't want children. At all. That overwhelming nesting urge that others talk about, that motherly thing that makes you want a kid because of your hormones raging, all the things I've heard my parents, friends, and loved ones say over the years, the "You'll feel different when it's yours" feeling, none of that occurred.

It was just, "How soon can we do this?"

Make no mistake; a part of it is that abortions are going to go the way of the dodo within our lifetime and hey, everyone's gotta have one. Abortions are like your first kiss, your first wedding, your first sexual experience; they're almost a rite of passage to that mythical adulthood. This is a real celebration of our freedom, here.

But really, the biggest part of it is the child. It's not because I don't like children, specifically; it's just that children are really just small versions people, and people ruin everything.

I don't like this world nor the way it is heading. And us having a child will not change that fact one iota. I have friends who have had their children because they thought, "Hey, we're smart, capable, loving people; if we raise a child just right, maybe we can infect the system with our child and others will follow his lead."

And I've watched those children turn into little selfish twits, just like the people those parents DIDN'T want their child to become.

Tragic irony, that.

And maybe this is selfish and we'll change our minds in a few years about it. Maybe this will injure us spiritually for feeling this way about it now.

I fucking doubt it.

The really sad fact that gets lost in the rhetoric and instability and bullshit on both sides of the whole abortion issue is one simple truth...

Abortions aren't the problem; the people who aren't aborted are.

Maybe everyone's looking at the wrong parts of the issue. If you have an unwanted child, that child will know it and grow up to be some of the worst kinds of asshole. It doesn't matter whether you have money as much as it matters whether you give the kid love or not. I know some wanted children who were planned for who feel unwanted. And if you keep it long enough to adopt it out to someone, you may as well just put the kid in a dog pound for all the good it'll do for him / her / it.

I refuse to put another Columbine Kid into this world. I refuse to put another kid who'll get suckered into soldiering for a living and having to justify killing someone in his mind. I refuse to put another kid into this world when there's more than enough people in the world who are already doing it. It's as much of an ego trip as putting yourself into a family cemetary plot in a coffin that costs as much as a car.

But...

If you have an aborted child, only you know. And whatever pain you have to deal with about it is yours, and there's therapists for that.

And we'll be able to go to the therapist, because we'll have time.

And do you know why we'll have time?

Cuz we won't have a fucking kid.

Here's to freedom.

Happy birthday to me.

Thanks, drive through, come again.

Meatsticks

**This post was originally written on the day of my birthday, August 11. The preceding has been published with full permission by Monkey and da Meatsticks enterprises.***