A Fish out of Water

I wandered into the Mission-style terminal at Santa Barbara International and took a seat, waiting for an old associate to appear from the crowd of disembarking passengers. He stood out like a sore thumb. Looking nothing like the almost-uniform mass of fahionistas and faux-jetsetters, Clyde emerged from the scrum wearing a grease-stained Ditch Witch trucker’s hat and a faded green shirt with “Rapelje Rockets” emblazoned across it.

Clyde was quite possibly the walking antithesis of Santa Barbara. A six-foot-five walking, talking beanpole, he was a rough-around-the-edges-Jesus Freak-gun-nut-type, raised in a rural hovel on the outskirts of nowhere in Eastern Montana, and this was his first trip anywhere west of Spokane.

He walked up to me looking paranoid, and without so much as a hand-shake, he started rambling. “Got-damn, it’s good to see a familiar face. Let’s go get something to drink.”

We wandered out to my vehicle while he filled me in on his trip. This marked the first time he’d been on a plane before. He was of a man of means now. Clyde had recently taken up work in the Bakken formation of North Dakota and made “assloads of money,” as he so eloquently put it. It was a definite step-up from the previous position he’d held with the Stillwater County Sheriff’s Office. When he worked there he had told me he was “in the posse”, but I think he was really mopping bathrooms.

Now that he had “assloads of money”, he was getting serious about his bowling game. “I’m gonna make it big in Reno this year,” he said. In fact, the whole point of this trip was so he could come to Santa Barbara and test his mettle against the best Zodo Lanes had to offer.

“I’m gonna show ‘em howwits done in Big Sky Country!” He enthusiastically told me prior to his visit.

I drove us out of airport parking. Clyde rolled his window down and hung his arm out the side. He lit up a Camel and took in the scenery. This peace didn’t last long, as he soon grew agitated by the traffic.

“Where in the hell are all these cars from? Where do they all come from!?”

Before I could explain to him that we were on the edge of one of the world’s great metropolitan areas, he became near-psychotic.  He looked like an out-of-water Garibaldi flopping about the sand. He began screaming wildly while he hid his head under the glove box, cupping his ears.  

“I can’t take all these cars! They’re everywhere, EV-REE-WARE!” He rambled on, becoming despondent and increasingly incoherent.

Why was he acting like this? I guess he probably hadn’t been in a city that had more than one stoplight in a long time, but man-alive, he was going stark-raving mad. It must be the lack of alcohol, I figured. He had mentioned that “they wouldn’t take my good money” when he tried to buy a cocktail en-route from Denver.

I turned off into the lot at Calle Real and swung into a remote parking spot. Inside, the place was a total zoo. It looked like the frenzied floor of a stock exchange. We stood in line waiting to see about getting a lane. 

Clyde looked like a bitter refugee.

“I’m not good around people,” he said, clearly agitated. “I don’t like ‘em.”

Before he could totally snap, we made our way to the front of the line.

“What’s it gonna be?” A starry-eyed brunette behind the counter asked us.

“We need a lane,” I said.

“Yeah,” Clyde added. “I’m gonna whup some ass! Woo Boy!” No longer feeble from traffic apparently, he let out a little yelp and strutted around as if he were the proudest man at the nudist colony.

“Um, ok,” the cashier said. “Well, you’re going to have to wait.”

“How long?” I asked.

“About 90 minutes. There’s some kind of Jr. High party going on tonight.”

I looked around. The place did have a certain awkward teenage bend to it.

“Well shit,” Clyde said. “Let’s go get somethin’ to drink. I’m gonna lose it soon with all these bastard kids runnin’ around.”

I obliged. We went over to The Nugget. If there’s one thing that can make a homesick Montanan lost in the wilds of the American Riviera feel comforted, it’s mounted animal heads.

We headed in and took a seat. Clyde eased up for a change. The killer tension he’d been holding in finally seemed to subside. While I maintained an even pace, he began guzzling drinks like a madman. He started flashing his “oil money” and ranting about Class C Basketball, and before I knew it, he was totally smoked.

“Clyde,” I told him, “you’re going to be too drunk to roll.”

“Nonsense,” he said, taking a drag off yet-another Whiskey Sour. “I’m just gettin’ where I wanna be. You’ll see.”

We paid the tab and left, staggering back into the bowling lanes, still thronged with adolescents. Our lane was ready.

Clyde swaggered over to the juke box in the bar and put on the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider”. His juices flowing from “his jam”, he taunted the incandescent adolescents savagely. After each strike, he’d let out a war cry and dance a little jig. The kids surrounding us looked at him as if he were Attila the Hun reincarnated.

He levied a savage crusade on the lanes that night, the likes of which I’d previously not thought possible in the game of bowling.

Not a day after that, he had me drive him back to the airport, and he rebooked himself on the first flight back to Montana. He didn’t even want to partake in Nisei Open League Night, or College Wednesday. As we sat on Sands Beach, he, in an unusually rattled tone told me “it was all too much” for him, and that if I wanted to kick it again, I was going to have to go to a real city, like Billings. 

Christmas Ain't What it Used to Be

I’ve never liked the holidays at all but I loathe them now more than ever. And it’s not as if I’m some militant Volcano worshipper angry at the fact that Jesus’ birthday is a public holiday either. I’ve just never been a fan because the holidays usually have meant for me at least, trips to awkward family gatherings. Most years my family would make a pilgrimage to a soiree produced by a pretentious and condescending red buffalo in an abode off Canon Perdido,

This meant encountering a cavalcade of obscure non-relatives who also happened to be celebrating at the same locale. Running into these characters was as traditional as the CBS “Frosty the Snowman” special.

There was Jiminy who would always put on a slideshow about his recurring trips to Nauru.

And Rodger, a stocky aloof type who would annually enthrall the crowd with tales of gambling trips to Elko. His demeanor suggested he’d been permastoned on Quaaludes since the Johnson Administration, his face looked as if it were composed of White Castle hamburger patties, his pompadour caked by mountainous gobs of grease; all cobbled together to resemble a sun-dried version of Lenin’s corpse.

And Maggie, she of the strong, silent androgynous type, the offspring of a cackling hyena and a Canadian janitor.

There was also always what resembled a revolving door Model United Nations of hipsters, wannabe jocks, failed record executives, roid-ragin’ MMA washouts, and rowdy, Black Country leprechauns. Too numerous, too fleeting to name.

One year, I broke tradition and went to a relative’s house in a far corner of rural Montana where I encountered a mob of Rummy-playing troglodytes who had consumed too much Animal beer. My lasting memory of that particular solstice was a drunken yahoo starting an impromptu firework show, the other sauced revelers whooping it up, cheering him on. In the midst of this drunken sky-show, he managed to knock the tube over that was firing the blazing bulbs into the sky, sending a bright mortar exploding mere inches from my head.

The best Christmas I ever had was barhopping around Santa Cruz with a couple of miscreant pals of mine one year when I was nearly broke; I ended up sleeping overnight in a gas station parking lot. It was the essence of the “Holiday Spirit”; quality experiences with close friends.

I feel the meaning of the Holidays has been adulterated in recent years. In fact, I think Santa set up shop in La Cumbre Plaza this year the day after the Back-to-School sale ended.

This time of the year no longer comes to mean a time of togetherness and of too much eggnog. No, anymore it’s all about buying, with no iota of care given to seeing loved ones or even having depraved reunions with obscure souls.

Just the other day I saw a vivacious, intensely wild-eyed girl of about ten ranting to her youthful and attractive, but increasingly disinterested mother her thoughts on the Christmas holiday. I didn’t get the entire gist of her views, but they sounded a bit like “Money! Buy! Buy! Presents? Presents! Buy! Buy! Buy!” And it’s not just this Jr. Wall Streeter; I’ve seen countless others maintaining a similar view, from twenty-something airheads mindlessly rambling in vain at their permatanned, plastic-looking, phone-stoned mothers, to middle-aged balding men leaning on their leased Porsches, bragging to their broods of batchildren about the new Titleist their old lady is getting them.

Stores are now opening on Thanksgiving Day. And it’s getting crazy out there. A near-stampede occurred at the Paseo Victoria’s Secret, perpetrated by patrons that resembled greedy, bucket-trapped crustaceans clawing over and suffocating one another in a violent lust for cheap panties.

Will stores in coming years start offering to host holiday gatherings at their outlets, promising priority access to all the sales?

Probably. But I won’t be there. I’ll still be driving around trying to find someone with a slideshow about their sojourn to the Peshawar Smuggler’s Bazaar. 

"Duck Dynasty": Serious Business

The other day I was at the Shark Bar assuaging a gut full of fish tacos with a Bloody Mary. Though the establishment seemed a bit dead, there was a strange buzz about the dark atmosphere. People were livid.

“Did you see that Phil from Duck Dynasty got kicked off the show?” An unkempt, bearded, and garrulous drunk shouted incredulously while smacking his fist on the bar’s smooth surface. “It ain’t right I tell ya! Used to be something called Freedom of Speech in this country!”

“He had it coming!” A half-buzzed, horn-rimmed haranguer interrupted from a table away, looking around, smiling smugly at his clique of friends who were undoubtedly hanging out here before it was cool to do so. “You can’t trash a whole community and expect to keep your job!”

This was all in reference to reality TV “star” Phil Robertson getting fired from his show, “Duck Dynasty” for making some decidedly un-PC remarks in a recent GQ interview.

“You insolent little douchebag!” The drunk shouted. “This is America, go back to Cuba or wherever you’re from if you don’t like it.” He threw a cup of ice in protest.

 His bespectacled adversary let out a high-pitched yelp of some kind and lunged at him, clawing at his face. The drunk retaliated by unleashing a few guttural shrieks of his own and running wildly into battle as if he were some kind of peyote-mad Aztec shaman. Before things could get too out of hand, though, the two reality TV critics were separated.

“Phil’s a hero you son-of-a-bitch!” The drunk thrashed wildly about, struggling to be restrained. He resembled an orangutan who’d just mainlined a speedball.

The two combatants were excommunicated after little struggle and a smattering of profanities. Things went back to normal in a pretty quick-like fashion. I ordered another cocktail and pondered the weirdness.

There were two actual people, outraged to the point of a physical altercation, over the goings-on of a low-end Reality TV show.

I’m not sure what’s worse, the fact that such a show exists, or the fact that someone would actually watch it. But it is a smash hit, and this wasn’t even the first example of outrage over this I’d experienced. Earlier in the day I had visited Facebook, where I found my entire newsfeed ablaze with anger. I counted at least two dozen “Boycott A&E” posts, and a dozen or so more indicating a person’s desire to “#standwithphil”.

People came across as if they were personally affected by this turn of events. Like they were haunted by this monstrous move. It’s as if one’s father just got laid off at the steel mill, his job outsourced to Turkmenistan. The lasting image of your old man becomes a fist shaking and a voice quaking, “Goddamn you Niyazov!”

I didn’t quite understand it. Shouldn’t I be pissed too, at least a little bit, if these blustering blowhards were on the verge of killing each other over the whole thing? Maybe, but I wasn’t. I must’ve had it all wrong, I figured. Here, I’d been outraged over the wrong things, like the NSA spying on us like a latter-day KGB, or the fact that the streets of this seaside hamlet rivaled Bogota, rife with hit and runs. I was missing the big picture, I was missing the big issue that haunted everything. The fact that Phil got fired. A move so huge that it had potential to become a modern day JFK moment. “Where were you when you found out Phil got fired?”

I finished my beverage and stepped outside, walking past a straw-haired beach hag wrapped in a rug as I headed down State Street nowhere in particular that clear and mild night. A bluehair nearly ran me over as I crossed the street, grazing my leg and speeding away. I found a cop to voice my complaint to, but he told me there was more important business at hand than erratic seniors, like Phil getting fired from Duck Dynasty, before telling me to “move along,” for there was “nothing to see here.”

Of Relationships and Fast Food

Not long ago, on a cold and windswept evening, I staggered into a fast food outlet in a haze of inebriation. This wasn’t anything out of the ordinary; most times I find myself in this sort of establishment, I’m impaired in some fashion or another. They go hand in hand together, really, fast food and being smashed. A marriage of lust; hunger pangs often cravings to the point of madness. A lust for 99 cent breakfast sandwiches can’t fill itself, you know.  On this evening, I found myself in a state of euphoria, brought on by the combination by both a heater blowing at full boar and the aroma of greasy food stuffs being cooked.

As I stood at the counter in amazement pondering the rainbow of possibilities, I was overcome with a sensory overload; there was definitely too much good stuff going on. Did I want the promotional over-the-top burger special? A greasy breakfast concoction? Some sort of sourdough delicacy? I couldn’t decide.

Eventually, I settled on about four burgers and a mountain of French fries with several cups of Buffalo sauce on the side. As I greedily wolfed down the contents of my nocturnal feast, I wondered why I didn’t do this more often. It was so ridiculously good. After consuming the last of my scrumptious morsels, I managed to wander back home with a gut satisfaction about me, visions of similar encounters dancing through my head.

This was the start of a beautiful thing.

The next day, after braving a stormy morning hangover, I went back to the site of the previous evening’s spread. If it made me feel that awesome the night before, I thought, it’d do the same trick today as well. I wandered in and ordered a double bacon cheeseburger that looked impeccable going by the picture behind the counter. My number was soon called and I retreated to a corner booth to scarf this grub down. This was going to be great!

The whole event was a letdown. The bacon cheeseburger was greasy and sloppy; one of the patties even had a green twinge about it, and the fries tasted as if the batter was composed of ninety-five percent pure salt. I left the place as dejected as I was excited previously. I guess I should just be stoned on something all the time.

In many ways, the whole narrative about a fast food experience is analogous to something seemingly unrelated; ill-fated relationships. On the surface, these topics seem totally estranged from one another, polar opposites. But digging a little deeper, the two are closer than one might first think.

Because it seems that bad relationships between people are as ubiquitous as fast-food eateries in any civilized society. And like fast food, some relationships are best enjoyed whilst being totally and utterly fucked up.

We all know one. We may have even been in them ourselves; they’re everywhere after all. Studies show that over half of all marriages end in divorce. Let’s face it, fast food style relationships are more American than obese, paranoid Jesus Freak gun nuts.

Certainly I’m not immune from this phenomenon. I once found myself totally engrossed in a girl whose common interest was chasing dragons. And it was fun for a while. But it also was corrosive. I withdrew from my obligations and did things I normally wouldn’t have done. My partner in crime was no better off, and became increasingly dependent on the Pamiri delicacy, in progress becoming increasingly erratic and unpredictable. I would wake up some nights with her, wild-eyed and topless, lording over me clutching a Bedouin dagger in one hand, staring into my soul like a Great White Shark. I was a bit freaked out, I admit, but it felt so good. 

Of course, if one were to have looked at us from outside our cocoon and dug a little under the surface, they’d have seen how utterly depraved everything was in actuality. It was a bad deal, but when you’re flying, you don’t think that. All you think about is the next high, whatever it may be, and the sweet goodness you are wolfing down in the midst of it. Very similar, I might add, to a fast food outlet while under the influence.

Fast food, like lusty Eskimo goddesses with a proclivity for painkillers, possesses its own set of perils. For one, you’re never quite sure where the food comes from. So God knows where that burger you’re about to chow down originated from. That’s a higher class item too, what about staples like chicken nuggets? No doubt rejects from the Chicken Head factory. Not to mention all the vermin and bugs that have taken residence in the annals of the eatery you’re in, and the galaxy of chemicals, hormones, and other gnarly items that they load your meal up with during production to ensure maximum profits.

But when you’re riding high and swaggering into one of the many outlets that dot the landscape, you’re not thinking about that. You’re thinking about how great that Sausage Biscuit looks. Or how insatiable that double burger with secret sauce appears. Or how those nachos are calling out to you, like a personal message from Allah, Shiva, Yahweh, God, or whatever other deity you worship. No matter how bad for you the foodstuffs are, no matter how nasty the conditions of the place you’re eating them in is, no matter how filthy the production of the food is, none of that matters. All that matters is satisfying the undying lust in your inebriated state that opines for this toxic elixir.

So no matter the toxicity, you carry on, health and sanity be damned, because you’re hooked. You love it. You lust for it. You crave it. And if someone else is telling you it’s bad for you, well, fuck them. They’re just jealous of the righteous wave you’re carving down right now.

And it’s not until something bad happens that you call your motives and situation into question. Maybe it’s catching e.coli from too many late night fast food runs. It could be sitting and listening to your significant other ramble incoherently about a conspiracy that ties together Captain Crunch, a couple of obscure bagmen from Overtown, and the Iranian Quds Force. Perhaps your arteries have become clogged and hard, or you’ve started growing female breasts.  It could be waking up with your stereo system gone, stolen, sold in the smuggler’s bazaar of the dope world.

In any case, something traumatic almost has to happen before you realize that it’s time to change your ways. Maybe you won’t; there’s certainly a sizeable subset of the population that continues to chase fast food and bad relationships even though they are bombarded with problems, either out of just not caring or acceptance. But if it’s unhealthy now, chances are, it’ll be unhealthy going forward. 

RIP Lou Reed

RIP

Feast: A Novel. Check it out.

A wild trip. check it out. This M. L'Hommedieu character is a great writer if I don't say so myself. Check it out...you won't be disappointed.

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I'm going to start being Trendy. I'm getting a Tattoo.

Lately, I’ve been made aware of a growing craze in society; there’s been a deluge of tattoos, everywhere. It’s not that tattoos are a new flavor of the week; obviously, they’ve been an option for pimping your cosmic ride for years. I can think of a relative who had a tattoo of some black warrior or something done during his days as a male nurse in the 1950s military that, by the time I first saw it some thirty-plus years later, was so wrinkled that it resembled a scurvy-ridden survivor of an isolated, ancient South Pacific air disaster. Not great. And that was a little blue ink figure; what is to become of the people with the entire Fritz the Cat anthology tattooed on their arm, a “sleeve” if you will? I’m guessing that as the years pass, such “artwork” will probably come to degrade, and your bitchin’ rendition of Fritz, Winston, and Duke the Crow end up resembling splotchy, ancient war paint instead of an R. Crumb creation; perhaps careers as aged western battle re-enactors lie in store for such people.

Years ago, I knew an aficionado of this “ink”, as he called it, his lust so intense he spent all his spare earnings on new graphics. That’s great and all for that time period. People all around were dropping cash on ostentations and bizarre things, so a little tattoo action isn’t that odd, I suppose. Problem is, these days, though, he looks and lives like something out of “American Gothic” and runs a number of family-friendly frozen dairy outlets across suburban Detroit. Despite the third-world nature of that town, he still has to wear long sleeves and hide all those masterpieces. His father-in-law hits him with newspapers like a disobedient dog when he tries in vain to stand up for his wife during arguments.  

Well, I guess I can always tell myself that things can always be worse. That said, my New Year’s resolution was to become trendier. It’s time to get with the times, dawg. For too long I have lived on the margins of society, an out of touch Luddite, far removed from the prying nature of trends and being trendy. But what is the joy in that? I need to get with it, man. So I am. I’m joining the tattoo craze.

First things first, I’ve got to choose location. I don’t want something visible, so getting a Maori facial tattoo is somewhat out of the equation. Damn. I’d been wanting one of those too. And getting dueling, red-eyed, fire-breathing cobras down the length of my arms is probably out of the question as well. And, I could get fat at some point, so something across my back could make for shitty days at the beach later on. It leaves only one option.

My buttocks! Ingenious. It’d only be seen by people it should be seen by, and even if it got hideous, I’d be old anyway. Fuck it. If all you have to complain about is a hideous tattoo on your ass by the time you’re old and ripe, I’d say you have life pretty good. And if you have worse things to complain about, well, I guess you can take solace in that your hideous “body art”, way past its prime, is probably the least of the lady wiping your ass’ concerns at this point.

But what to get? An ornate dragon would be wild and always provide surprising moments, but after the first time seen, it’d be old news, and would definitely make the social rounds should anything in the relationship go sour.  And the State of Jefferson seal might be making a statement, but could be misconstrued as disrespectful. And something foreign could spell something dangerous…as righteous as it’d be to have “Hakika” in Arabic script scrawled out (“the truth” translated), I might find myself in Lebanon sometime and, while bedding some muse from the streets of Gemmayzeh, have her become enraged at its site due to her own militant political leanings, and have me and my bloody entrails spilled unceremoniously down Gouraud Street. That wouldn’t be good.

My thoughts are interrupted by an advertisement of some corporate fiefdom hawking some totally un-necessary electronic good on TV. Every attractive person on this screen has this, thing. I too must have it. I’m sure that with a few phone calls to the City I could procure one of these on the vast black market that exists for such things.  

Logos. That’s it! I’ll get corporate logos on my ass cheek in a running tally. I’ll get an annual tattoo, with the most popular or newsworthy corporate logo of that year, tattooed, in full color (no cutting corners, go big or go home, something of that nature), in a running total down my ass. So maybe I’ll have “2013: (Apple Logo)” or “2010: (British Petroleum logo)”. Yes, I might even start back a few years and crown such champions of industry ex post facto. Why not? They create the jobs, they’re the real America. With this new body art installation, not only am I saluting the powerbrokers who I’m sure always have my best interests in mind, I’m keeping with the times, man. I’m keeping with it.

I’m not a square. 

DC is Decadent and Depraved

Boredom. Repetitiveness. While cancer and the plague wipe out people everywhere, I swear that someday these two things are going to be my undoing.

The days of nonstop parties had come to a temporary close. The excessive lifestyle coupled with excess units mostly to stick it to the doubting Thomas's that pervaded my life had burned me out. I felt I was over the hill, gassed, and I found myself working as a bellhop at a Nevada casino. On its surface, this job seemed like it'd be somewhat entertaining. Talk with guests who flocked to this neon oasis in the middle of the desert for the sole purpose of throwing their money away, drinking themselves into a stupor, and unplugging themselves from the harsh reality of their boring, flaccid everyday existence. But that was never the case.

The job wasn't all bad. One time I found myself seduced by two thirty-somethings that were out here to hide from their repressive controlling father-husbands, and another I got well tipped by the guy who played Harry Reid in “Casino”. Times like those were enjoyable, they made the job pretty good. But it was still boring. Most of my job consisted of sitting around a chair in a blue monkey suit, waiting. Getting paid to wait wasn't the worst thing in the world, but when they assume tips and take that out of your salary, it's a problem, especially considering there usually aren't any tips. The octogenarian who's out here on his death trip probably isn't going to give much more than the typical Depression stipend for hauling his oxygen tanks up to his room.

It's not like I was the only one. SPH had found himself stuck at a gig as a night auditor for a hotel with two tyrannical obese sweathogs as bosses. That had to be a living hell. Hell, you might find yourself stuck between two pieces of bread one night if one rolled in with a mad case of the munchies if you weren't lucky. I shudder thinking about it. Here, my bosses were kind of odd. I dealt with an aloof blonde who got the job undoubtedly based on her fellatio prowess as well as a combustible ex-con who had several children and several dings with the law. He obviously had something going on in his life I didn't want to know about.

I had become bored and depressed. It was too snowy to wander through the desert, and all I had in this god-forsaken shithole was this job. I needed to do something, anything to get out of here.

Before I had really known it, the change had come. SPH and I were invited by an old friend of ours, Lamar Cheeserock, to come see a Miami Hurricanes game in Maryland. The Canes were having a bad year, but it was never a bad idea to attend a game. On the road or in the Orange Bowl, it was always at the least entertaining. And it gave a chance to hang out with Lamar as well.

Lamar could definitely be classified as crazy. Rumor has it he was banned off of every college campus in Boston, his picture still plastered on every security wall, and his midget-tossing prowess around the halcyon days of Wall Street is legendary.

I'd never been to that part of the country, and I'd never had any real desire to go. Why would I want to go pal around with politicians and crackheads? It never seemed like a palatable mix. But, this opportunity arose at a time where I'd go anywhere, even some hellhole like Great Falls, or even Orange County, just to get out of here.

There was a need to get out of work for the weekend. I concocted some story up about a dying relative and an urgent need to get back east to see them. It worked. For future reference, the dead/dying relative excuse is good for getting out of some engagement at least once or twice per employer. More than that, and you'll have to convince them you're a really outgoing type, which is hard when at work you'd rather stare at the cascading images adorning the walls than actually help people.

Soon we were on a plane descending into Baltimore/Washington Airport shrouded in darkness.

The airport was glassy and most things were closed up, making the hour seem a lot later than it was. It seemed as if we'd gotten off a Vegas party flight at 4 AM, but it was in reality about 6:30 PM. We were to meet Lamar at a Metro Station, and to get there, we needed to hop on the bus. Trying to find that was almost as impossible as trying to find comedy in a room full of teachers, trying to get blood from a turnip. Finally, out of the corner of my eye, the bus was located and we barely made it aboard, narrowly avoiding being left at the altar of the pick-up/drop-off zone.

We looked entirely out of place. The bus was full of sour looking airport workers, many looking to be janitors off their nightly shift, and all had the look of apathetic disgust. Nobody was happy. I suppose it'd be rather unnatural for someone to be happy riding a bus through the outskirts of Baltimore; these people were making no bones about that.

The bus eventually rumbled into the Greenbelt stop. A short walk under a bridge and past the tunnel gave us a glimpse of the man of the hour. Perched on the 2^nd or 3^rd floor of the car park was Mr. Cheeserock himself. We made our way over to where he was.

“Hey, boys, nice to see you,” he greeted us. “How about we get the night started right?”

Lamar pulled out a bottle of Crown and opened it. He took a huge swig, and passed it to SPH, who did the same, passing it to me. All in all, the bottle made the rounds a few times as we caught up and talked about the usual depravities of a domestic flight post-9/11. Whiskey tends to flow and it always makes the night pretty raucous, which usually leads to chaos or enjoyment, or both, so it definitely set the table for a nocturnal feast to take place in the near future of the evening.

We were flying pretty high by the time we made it onto the Metro station. We were heading into Washington, DC to have dinner at a restaurant a stone's throw from the Treasury, an establishment for the establishment if there ever was one. We went in and the place had the aristocratic aura one would expect at such a place. The ambiance was dark and classy, the wait staff all adorned in suspenders, wealthy, connected types fiddling while Rome burned, the dates may change, the characters too, but the song has remained the same since the inception of government.

We took our seats. All feeling a bit buzzed, we laughed as Lamar started referring to the waiter, a large, hulking black man who looked like he spent the last season playing for the Redskins as “Charlie Suspenders.” I don't think Charlie appreciated it much, but we found it hilarious. It became like standup at the Apollo or something, and we were rolling. The booze was giving way to being loud too, and soon the whole section was in on it. The gallery included the table next to us, where a man who's head resembled a dick with ears was roaring with laughter.

“That's funny!” Dick-with-Ears exclaimed in a drawl, “I'll tell you what, that's damn funny!”

We were rolling. The night was getting great!

Lamar hadn't stopped there though. He started a new, highly dangerous activity; he started snapping the suspenders of the workers! As they'd walk by, he'd reach out, grab the suspenders, and snap them. Most kind of played it off as if it were accepted that “drunken revelers gon' drunken revel”, but Lamar . Once or twice may have slid, but when you're doing it to everyone, it's probably going to incite something.

Charlie walked by. Lamar grabbed his suspenders and pulled them way back, and snapped them so that they flew up and over Charlie's huge head. He stopped in mid-step, and pivoted around.

He looked at Lamar.

“Hey man, I don't play that fuckin' game,” he growled.

“What game are we talking about, monopoly?” Lamar retorted.

“Hey, I...I..what the fuck? Suspenders man, I don't play games with the fuckin' suspenders!”

Lamar then channeled his inner Schwab and paraphrased Iverson, “Suspenders, we're talking about Suspenders?”

Charlie was about to lose it. We may have been sitting here on the edge of watching Lamar being ripped apart by a fuming banshee. Never had I seen such potential carnage so close, the tension was exploding!

And then, it got diffused. A short Chinese or something girl all of about 4 foot 2 and 55 pounds came over and squeaked, “Sir, sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

He'd become a fallen star, collapsing epically; nebulizing. Lamar's Commodus, a drunken Hercules, had found himself slain on the Colosseum floor by a 4'2 Asian. Was nothing sacred in this world?

They let us finish though. We were about as loaded as he was, but us just kind of laughing along with it didn't do much. We didn't snap any suspenders, after all. The service was definitely cold though. The food was good, probably a bit overpriced, but we paid and left.

Using some sort of back channels of communication, we located Lamar's place of exile, a dark cigar bar a few streets over. Walking through the streets of DC was somewhat filthy, even worse than San Francisco. The homeless were scattered about in droves, and carts full of cans were docked in every doorway and nook around the streets. The cigar bar was an oasis of light amidst the grey, drab decay and despair that adorned the streets around it.

Going inside, it was clear Lamar was here without even looking.

“SUSPENDERS!,” a loud voice boomed. “WE'RE TALKIN' ABOUT SUSPENDERS!”

And for a good five to ten minutes, that's what continued. We'd say something like “Can you fuckin' believe it man, suspenders, really?” and he'd retort with his loud bellowing roar. It was hilarious, drunken fun. It seemed that way anyway.

We got to talking with Lamar about his exile.

“Man, you got tossed out by that little Asian, what's up with that?”

“Yeah, that was shitty,” he said, “but I got those pricks back.”

“How man, you got thrown out of the restaurant, you hella went out with a whimper, dude.” SPH said.

“You didn't see the whole thing.”

“I didn't see the whole thing? Explain, man.”

Lamar elaborated, “Yeah, well, once I had gotten 86'd, I was on my way out when I asked if I could use the bathroom one last time. For some dumb fuckin' reason they let me. I still have no idea how, or why they were that idiotic to do something like that. So I went downstairs, into the bathroom, and did a piss pinwheel.”

“A piss pinwheel,” I said, “what in the hell is a piss pinwheel?”

“Simple,” he said, “its where you stand and start pissing and turn in a circle and piss all over the room you're in. It's great at getting back at bosses, exes, and well, I guess pissed off restauranteurs. I came out, and some fruit with glasses was looking at me and said, 'Have a nice evening, SIR' and I left.”.

He let off with another laugh. The dude was out of control. Which made this trip all the more enjoyable.

I always found it amazing that if you hung out with a group of crazy people and went into bars, you wouldn't get carded. It wouldn't matter if they just caught you the night before sneaking in, they're not going to make a stink since you're in a party of the plastered, and plastered people tend to pay well. So despite being under 21, I was ordering and pounding back Kamikazes, SPH was knocking back Harvey Wallbangers, and Lamar whatever sounded good whenever.

We were smashed by the time closing time came along. We spilled out into the streets, looking for the Metro station to take us back out to the Maryland suburbs. As we scavenged the streets for the stop, we came upon a homeless encampment against a building. There were audible noises coming out of this “tent”, which was a tarp slumped over two shopping carts making a little encampment. These two homeless were definitely making love under a tarp in the cold streets of Washington.

We all started laughing coming onto this. Lamar took initiative, and walked and grabbed one of the shopping carts, pushing it down the street, and collapsing the tarp on the two lovebirds inside. We walked off, laughing as we heard the homeless scream obscenities at us. The male one stuck his bearded trustafarian head out and shouted, “The cans man, you're stealing my fuckin' cans! I'll kill you!”

Cans were valuable on the streets of DC apparently. What drugs are worth in prison, and stone money on Yap, cans are on the alleyways and avenues of our Nation's capital. A shopping cart full of cans here are worth at least the equivalent of a few grams of heroin smuggled in your ass into the big house. At least that. We were lucky we weren't maimed and mauled by the grizzly bear looking homeless who's cart we “stole”.

This voyage of the damned continued deeper into the jungle of DC. We eventually found the beckoning sign of the Metro, and headed downstairs. We were able to get through the gates of the station of the DC Metro, which strongly resembled an east coast doppelganger of the BART system. Once on the platform, we saw we had a bit of a wait. The game had just gotten over at the MCI Center, people were heading home from drinking, and there were all sorts of creatures slinking along the surface of the platform.

One such one, a chick who apparently liked GI Jane so much she shaved her head, approached us. This was kind of bizarre, as we don't really look like the type that would associate with skinhead chicks. Or interest them anyway.

“Where are you guys from?” she inquired, “are you from Miami?”

It probably had something to do with the fact we all had Hurricanes sweatshirts or jackets on. We were here for a game after all.

“Well, yeah, I guess you could say that.” All of us had taken refuge there at one point or another in our lives, so it wasn't totally untrue.

“Well,” she replied, “the Metro doesn't go all the way to Miami.”

“No shit, who would have guessed that,” Lamar was allowed to retort, “who'd have guessed the Washington Metro doesn't go to fucking Miami?”

SPH interjected, “Hey, what the fuck's wrong with your head anyway? It looks, off.”

The fuming shaved head stormed off, probably to ride off the roofie high she was on in some seclusion.

It wasn't another minute before the next contestant showed up, this time it was a kid who looked like he'd spent all of his time in a sterile box. A bowl-cut, sweatervest wearing preppy type. He started raving on and on about how terrible Miami was, and what thugs they were, and we started making fun of his sweater vest and his appearance. He ran to the other side of the platform where we couldn't get him and yelled, “Fuck you assholes!” over and over. Real tough guy, that dude.

We finally got our train. We had to connect once, but this would take us to our spot. We settled into our chairs. What a bizarre night. Crazy metro riders, restaurant hijinks, Crown, and, a loud booming voice cut the reminiscence.

“I AM THE ONLY HETEROSEXUAL MAN ON THIS TRAIN!”

It stated with authority. I turned around. Here, walking down the aisle of the metro car, was a dissheveled black man with a patchy afro, wearing tattered rags and carrying a sack of cans. He continued to make his statement emphatically over and over. He got to the front of the car, where we were, turned around and shouted,

“THE REST OF Y'ALL IS....TUTTI FRUTTI!” he started shaking his hand in a back and forth motion, “TUTTI FRUTTI”

He saw our Miami stuff.

“FUCK MIAMI!” he yelled.

Our stop appeared. We got off the train, the crazed homeless stayed on to preach his sermon to those headed home.

We walked down an escalator onto the lower platform where our train would take us out of this place. This particular spot was a real shitshow. There were starving-artist types cavorting around with their junkie looking girlfriends and just acting really, well, odd. I had to piss so I just went on the side of an escalator, and looked up to see one of them getting physical with his old lady. It was really miserable. They stopped before too long and came back down. Then, they all started to just leave at once. The new Bon Iver album must have dropped.

As they were leaving, I shouted, “Hey, you look like the Hanson brothers!”

They all started screaming obscenities from above. They went wild. It was like a bunch of rabid monkeys jumping up and down, waving their arms and shrieking all sorts of things. They were livid, but not livid enough to come back downstairs. They melted away.

We waited. And we waited. And it seemed like 2 hours had gone by, though it probably wasn't that long. Finally, some lady came over and said, “Hey, what train are you guys waiting for?”

“Greenbelt”

“Oh, well, um, you know it's been coming over there the whole time?” she pointed to the other side of the platform.

“Oh yeah, of course we knew that, we were just, enjoying the uh, scenery, that's right, scenery.”

“Well, ok, but if you want to get on the train, it's there.”

We walked over to the other side, and got on the train. It took us back to the station without incident. Soon, we were there. And soon we were walking back to the garage to Lamar's auto. For normal people on a normal trip, this'd be where we'd laugh about some of the stuff, not talk about other stuff, and get ready to call it a night. Not here, not with this group.

“You boys up for some more shots?”

Of course we were. The trusty bottle of crown was busted out one more time and we started pounding it Really pounding it. The garage was somewhat empty, so it wasn't as if we were making too big of a ruckus. Noticeable? Of course, but it was a big city, and people tended to ignore noticeable more than acknowledge it and interact with it. It was easier.

I was exceptionally warm, nearly hysterical with laughter, and excited to be a part of this craziness. SPH was beaming, and Lamar was yucking it up. We got in the car and started to drive out, we needed to find an exit. It proved elusive though. Why would they build a place like this without an exit?

I looked off to the side, there was a gap, it looked like it could be an exit.

“Hey, I think that's the exit over there,” I pointed and said.

Lamar turned the wheel and gunned it and we went out. It worked as an exit, to be sure, and we were most definitely out of the garage, but it wasn't really an officially sanctioned exit. You see, this was really the pedestrian entrance into the garage. We were heading down the sidewalk, hurtling toward a huge crowd of at least 75 spooked and confused onlookers. We turned at the last second. They lept back almost in unison, screaming hysterically. We were peeling down a roadway, but the roadway was the wrong way on a one-way bus entrance. It was very apparent that we definitely could be on the verge of ending up as flat as smashed mailboxes, reduced pathetically to a pile of mush under a commuter bus' undercarriage.

But that wasn't to be today and we sped out onto the streets. We were lost, and driving around in circles somewhere in Maryland. I knew some dudes from Maryland and they had some really crazy stories about this place. Surely we could end up engulfed by the pure viciousness, the pure evil that permeates places like this. But given our antics, it should have happened already at least once. We continued trying to navigate the dark straights of this foreign waterway, seeking to find our way out of the labyrinth.

We finally made a breakthrough and found a landmark Lamar recognized. He wasn't clear to go left or right, so we went left. He should have taken the advice of the Merry Pranksters, “No left turn unstoned.” We weren't stoned, definitely decimated in capacity, but not stoned. We shouldn't have gone left. As we went down the road, we passed by what looked like a sea of police cars, their lights all flashing. Paranoia set in. My ass puckered up. This could be a disaster. Nobody said a word. We rolled by. Nothing happened.

“Hey man, we avoided the cops, that was...”

“Don't fucking jinx it man!”

We rolled on indefinitely, and we ended up realizing that we'd gone the wrong way down this street. We had to go back, and by all those cops again! Whatever deity there is that governs this place really hates us.

We turned around, and when we got to the spot of the Great Sea of Police, there were none there. And within minutes we'd found our hotel, our refuge from this barrage of insanity we'd been mired in. It was if something had shone down on us. What kind of message is that meant to say? That being an asshole will most certainly pay?

It did settle one thing for me. When I grow up, I want to be a politician.

Happy Hour in the City of Thieves

Highway 101 from Santa Rosa to San Rafael is an unholy mish-mash of construction zones, bad drivers, and pockmarked, poorly marked pavement. The road is at least as rough as a somewhat maintained gravel road one might find outside of Rapelje or Absarokee in Montana. I was headed to The City for a day of aimless wandering with SP. Sonoma County was too dull and uptight to subsist on, and Baghdad by the Bay was the elixir that kept my spirit alive during my somewhat dull Wine Country encampment.

“Hey,” I said, motioning toward a bag on the passenger seat floor, “give me one of those.”

SP pulled out a can of PBR from a box inside the bag. He cracked it open and handed it over to me. I started swilling; the watery-barleyey taste caressed my parched, cottony lips. As I learned in Montana as a youth, there wasn't a better way to pass a trip along a god-awful stretch of road than by pounding brews along the way. It wasn't like I was impaired or anything.

Eventually, we navigated the harrowing straits of the 101, and ended up in quaint, wealthy Marin County, in the hamlet of Larkspur. We drove in off the freeway, under a bridge that resembled Dirty Harry's showdown spot with the Scorpio, and rolled past the ferry terminal, which showed we had 90 minutes to wait until the next boat.

“Aw shit,” I bemoaned this turn of events, “an hour and a half? This blows.”

SP shrugged and replied, “Why? There's a brewery over there...let's get something to drink.”

We parked in a box store parking lot and walked to the Marin Brewery. Though both of us had managed to kill a 6 pack of PBR on the ride down, what else were we going to do for the next 90 minutes, stare at the flat bay?

The small beer buzz from earlier had me in a state of near-euphoria as we wandered into the brew house. It was sunny out, a perfect day by all standards, and there was a mass of Marinites sitting around outside. It looked crowded. However, once inside, the place was half-empty. We took stools at the bar.

A moderately attractive blonde who looked like an R. Crumb girl came up to us, “Can I get you guys anything?”

“I'll have the Pale Ale.” SP retorted.

I was caught in a moment of indecision. So many choices.

“Um, I'll have the Porter.”

She didn't even card. I guess we looked as if we had just spent the night on O'Farrell Street and it wasn't worth carding types like us. Within a couple of minutes, our freshly poured, finely crafted brews were sitting in front of us.

We tapped our glasses together in a toasting fashion. “This is a little better than the PBR,” SP said right before taking a big swig of beer.

It was, it was like night and day really. PBR is like a flavored water beverage while this, well this porter was so thick one could almost chew it. It was like a meal-to-go. Outstanding. I was a fan of cheap beer, I grew up guzzling Oly after all, but you just couldn't pass up good brew when you have the chance.

The bar itself was pretty dead. The A's were being clubbed by Texas on TV and nobody seemed to care. The patrons were scattered about in an unscientific way. There were a lot of empty tables, but we did have company. On my left was a Bob Weir lookalike, and on the other side of SP was a banker-looking fellow who was mindlessly indulging himself with an iPad. He barely touched his beer.

We paid up and left the stillness of the bar behind. We walked and toked over the walkway and into the ferry building. It wasn't much of a building, though. It consisted of a covered sitting area, some glass, and ramps to the various boats. A solitary green yucca tree sat at the edge of the “building” over the water, watching over the operations of this transport hub. Off a little further rose the spectre of San Quentin, which loomed a stone's throw away to the south.

A disinterested, heavy-set black woman stood at the gate watching us scan our Clipper cards and making sure we didn't jump fare. Not that she would have been hard to outrun, but where would one run to here? Out the gate and into the parking lot? We sat waiting for the boat. Around us were a sea of aging, wealthy hippies, complete with their expensive bicycles, granola bars, and extreme self-righteousness.

It was kind of awkward, really. They were all just hovering about in their smugness.

“He's a communist!” SP blurted out of nowhere.

“Who? The President?” I inquired.

“Yeah, the president.” He said.

The pious hippies gawked, SP continued.

“Like not in a economic way, but in a paranoid, police state way.”

“Yeah,” I piped in, “dude is downright Nixonian!”

Their wealthy, perma-stoned faces turned to a look of aghast anger. Almost in unison, their eyebrows connected, their faces turned red, and right before any of them could unleash a harangue from the bowels of Xanadu, we were saved by the gate to the boat opening. We scampered up the deck into the boat.

“Their looks were priceless!” I said, “That was hilarious!”

“It's always fun to get those middle-aged assholes uncomfortable,” SP replied in a sinister fashion.

We found our way to the lower galley and rode out the dull, yet calm trip across the bay. We were headed into the belly of the beast. This rust bucket connected two totally alien worlds; the lush, calm greenery of Marin County, to the concrete jungle of insanity that was the San Francisco Financial District, all in a rather timely 30 minutes.

We emerged from the fog, and our aged, decrepit watercraft dropped us off at an aged, decrepit dock, which led past throngs of gape-mouthed granola eaters waiting for their turn to embark on the high seas.

“Dude,” a quasi-intoxicated SP said, “I'm starved, like totally starved, let's get some grub.”

“Yeah dude, me too,” I said as my stomach let out a loud growl in what seemed almost reactionary. “Wanna hit up Orgasmica? That place is always good.”

“Man, we always go there,” SP said, “besides, it's like 3, the lunch deal is off already.”

“True, and I'm not high enough for all-you-can-eat slices anyway.” I replied.

SP laughed, “Yeah, but hey, we're down this way already, let's go hit Red's.”

“Yeah, yeah!” Red's sounded downright magical at this point.

Red's was one of those greasy-spoon places every city had, from San Francisco to Sundance. Those places that fill your stomach with filling, wholesome comfort food while at the same time drizzling your head in a syrup of sweet nostalgia.

We began our trek down that way. We wandered past sculptures, seagulls, and a sea of destitution on this sunny, seaside saunter. Past huge industrial piers, dying palm trees, and under the Bay Bridge's artery of traffic that hung over head. Finally, we arrived to our destination.

It was a tarpaper sentinel that sat on the water, a gatekeeper to the abandoned, decaying Pier 30. Inside, this place resembled something like Wade's Drive In in Harlowton. The difference, though, was instead of the other patrons being bloated, ex-athlete boozeheads reminiscing about the good old days, there were three white-speaking Asian banking types neurotically and nervously arguing about the parking job one of them had done outside.

“Am I going to get towed? I can't get towed!” a balding, mouth-agape freaked out soul who resembled a sucker fish babbled over and over.

“It's fine, no problem! Enjoy the food!,” another replied in a terse, annoyed tone. “I've done this....a million times. You should be fine!”

“I have accounts to close! I can't afford to base things on maybes!”

This carried on for a short while. Abruptly, the lunch break by the day-traders broke up. The cordial, collegeial meeting devolved hurridly into a Tong War of insane arguments over the merits and nuances of parking on the waterfront. I guess they should have walked instead.

My food was called; a juicy burger on sourdough with a shitton of fries. It was like an oasis of flavor in my day that had been devoid of food to this point. The burger was like Valhalla itself; I savored each bite.

With lunch done, we began our trek into the Financial District. It was Happy Hour in the FiDi (as the locals call it), and Happy Hour down here was a spectacle that rivaled the high feast days in Imperial Rome. Dionysian excess personified. On our way in, we crossed the Embarcadero. On the fording of this river of cars, I glanced at the people in their respective vessels. Everyone was going somewhere, they all had someplace to be, everywhere but here. I looked in a parked Subaru that was along the white line of the crosswalk. Inside, an ugly yip-yip dog stared out the window, glaring at me with a menacing scowl. It's owner, a rather homely rug-muncher, looked at me in the exact same fashion. It was uncanny how much dog and owner looked alike.

While passing in front of it, I walked close to the passenger side door, where the little mongrel was, and started making barking noises, yelling, and waving my arms wildly. The little shit inside went nuts and began barking loudly and running about. The owner became incensed, enraged, and began yelling out her window, “You little fucker! You dirty little fucker!” at me as I walked away from the site of the gristly carnage. I laughed. I was 24 and still, I was a “Dirty Little fucker”.

After navigating the alleys, streets and hidden passages of the Financial District, we ended up at the Royal Exchange, a faux British pub on Sacramento Street. It had an insane happy hour that usually involved practically giving drinks away. They always had a cheap Belgian beer on tap, and cheap Belgian beer was about as hard to come by in this town as a meeting of Grover Norquist supporters. Strangely, this saloon was heavily stocked with both, however. Besides us, the place was chock full of financial types. Each looking more coked out than the next, the worker bees here having some nectar to assuage the pain and agony of another day slaving away at the Montgomery hive, the heart of Wall Street West. On my left was a coked-out, wild eyed, 40-something fellow who looked just like Pat Sajak. Really, though, the whole bar kind of resembled that description.

Still, it was hard to beat cheap Belgian beer, nectar of the gods if there were such a thing. I began downing the second, or possibly the third Palm of the afternoon, a haggard, bearded fellow clad in a tattered suit, briefcase and 1980s Gordon Gekko cellphone burst in through the front door. He pushed his way through the growing weekday crowd, looking determined.

“MANAGER! MANAGER!” He screamed in a distinctly homeless twang. He kept waving his Miami Vice phone around.

“I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR THE MANAGER!” Now he was shuffling and pacing violently.

A large bald guy who looked like Steve Ballmer's doppelganger stood up. This spectacle captivated the bar in the same way a magically appearing mountain of blow would. Ballmer-san grabbed The Messenger by his tattered coat and, without saying anything, threw him out the side door.

For a brief moment, everything went back to normal. The blow disappeared. And then it happened, The Messenger flew back into the watering hole in a rage.

“YOU COCKSUCKER! YOU DIRTY ASSHOLE!” he pointed at Ballmer-san. “I WANT THE MANAGER!”

Ballmer-san stood up.

“Hey, asshole, I AM the manager!” And as with the first time, Ballmer-san quickly doused the flames of this growing dumpster fire. He tossed the still-ranting Messenger out onto his ass, on the cold, impersonal curb of Sacramento Street.

There was a still silence.

“Another satisfied customer,” SP retorted in between drinks on his Anchor Steam. Laughter erupted.

The Sajak character next to me thought it to be the funniest thing he'd heard. He kept laughing.

“That was damn funny!” he said.

He continued, “You boys look like you've been around a bit.”

“Yeah, we have,” I said.

“You ever do that internet dating thing?”

This was certainly odd.

“Nah, can't say that I have.”

He took a draw on his Vodka-tonic. “It's the greatest; it's fabulous,” he said. “You meet a chick at a place like this, you get a drink in her,”then motioning at his pocket, “get some blow in her, and then you get your penis in her! It never fails!”

“That's great dude.”

“I'll say! Got to be careful, you might end up with a clingy one though, and that's not good for anyone!”

I'll say. “No, man, definitely not. That's almost enough to swear it off right there.”

“But you can't, kid! There's prizes!”

SPH was now interested, “What kind of prizes?”

“Well, I've ended up with a rich broad in Marin who had a car-elevator.”

“What? No shit? A Car elevator?”

“Kid,” Sajak said after another draw, “she shopped at Tiffany's like you or I shop at the Target.”

Damn.

Not too long after, a ditzy blonde came in and bee-lined right to Sajak.

“Are you, um, Roy?” she said in a Midwestern twang to Sajak.

“Yes, yes I am,” he said setting his drink down, “You must be Courtney.” He kissed her hand. “You look even more beautiful in real life!”

So it began.

We finished our brews and spilled out into the streets, looking for more. As we wandered we stumbled through the darkened, still and silent canyons of the FiDi, we managed to stagger into the Elephant. This was some kind of Canadian chain that had an outlet in this obscure part of the District. It always had more than its share of characters and inexplicably, Happy Hour was still going on.

Taking a seat at the end of the bar, I scoured the place. I knew everyone who worked in here. Many a night of drunken shenanigans in this town had wound up passing through here.

“The usual?” Pamela, the pleasant, young, bartenderess inquired. It had been about a month since I'd been in here and she still remembered our order.

“You have a good memory,” I said.

“Like anyone could forget you guys.”

We sat drinking our respective drinks. An Anchor Steam for SP, a White Russian for me. Off to the side, around the corner of the bar from us, sat a disheveled, bloated, sweaty, morose sharp-dressed toa person. He was mumbling to himself.

“What's his deal?” SP wondered out loud.

“I don't know, maybe he can't shit.” I said.

“Hah! Maybe. He looks like Uncle Mike.”

I looked close; he sure did.

“I'll be damned! He looks just like him.”

We sat drinking our drinks and flirting with Pamela. She was telling us how happy she was to be living in the city after spending her younger years in Petaluma.

“People up there are weird,” she said.

“It's like they don't know whether to shit or go blind,” SP said.

“Yes! Exactly!” she exclaimed. “That's a perfect way of putting it!”

Our conversation was rudely interrupted by a new spectacle unfolding. The toad-man had gotten a phone call and all hell had broken loose. His face had turned a shade of deep crimson, his brows knitted, and he started slamming his fist on the bar.

“Listen here you son of a bitch!” he exclaimed loudly to the person on the phone, “You have hell on your hands to deal with! I built that fucking company, from fucking nothing, and I'll be god damned if some mealy mouthed faggot like you, or any of those other fuckheads on the board take it from me!”

He paused for a moment. “You'll what? You'll fucking what? Try me! I'll sue the piss out of you. I'll take your asses down to Chinatown!”

He kept yelling into the phone, and in a huff, staggered out of the bar without paying. Outside, a black Lincoln Town Car was waiting for him, and his Asian manservant in a black monkey suit opened the door for him, shutting it as the Ranter sat inside. It sped off.

“Aren't you going to do something about that?” I said, “He didn't pay.”

“Hey, did you see how he was screaming at that dude he worked with on the phone? If he does that to him, I want no part of that shit,” Maria said. “He's probably have shot me or stabbed me with a pen if I'd have asked him for his money. He might have even gone all Chimpanzee and ripped my arm out!”.

Good point, I suppose. This seemed to be the Way of the West in this town,  a city of vagrants, where being a vagrant didn't pay unless you were a rich one. Where as the poorer dwellers of these streets get beat up and pissed on and thrown out into the streets, the wealthy denizens live like they have American Passports in Third World Countries, and get free drinks wherever they go.

We paid and left. The last ferry of the day was going to leave soon. But why ought we leave? Sure, there was somewhere we probably had to be tomorrow, but North Beach was just up the hill and there was still another 5 hours of drinking left to do. Who knows what other crazy people we might run into.  The night was young. Very young.

The 101 could wait.

A Day At the Races

Ah, another beautiful day on the island of thieves! The mellow tropical sun's rays caress mother Earth in the afternoon's radiant glow. An aroma of tropical decay hangs in the sultry morning air. The whispy coconut palms dance to the relaxing serenade of the sensual tropical breeze. And here, but a mere hundred or so yards from a massive government office mecca, I sit in a tranquil isolation, alone amidst the whitewashed sand, trailing vines of morning glories and the denizens of the crashing surf near my feet.

Getting lost in the trance of the breaking waves is easy to do, and time in the traditional sense disappears. First on the edge of the barrier reef, then lapping innocently aboard the terrestrial shores of our world, it is incessant. At some point, however, the scene has to change, and I have to leave this idyllic island of isolation that serves as  a sanctuary when compared to the mad and chaotic nature of the world. 

I sauntered back to my chariot to carry me home. It's quick and looks fabulous. It hugs the curves like no other, and weaves through the furious island traffic listlessly. Where am I on my way to I wonder? It's a life of spontaneity so I have no real direction in mind, however north seems like a good idea. Making my decision, I hop in my trusty steed to carry me forward on my dawning journey into the ferocity of the future. The local station belts out “Love Me Two Times”--what luck! My jam; a hazy, heavy batch of nostalgic euphoria drifts into my head hearing this melodic genius tenuously flowing through my speakers. It charges me to the point that I feel empowered somewhat amidst the seemingly untamed, uncontrollable world in which I reside in. 

Turning onto the ribbon of pavement before me, I start to unleash the powerful innards of my vehicle, and the distinct roar of the engine growls angrily and confidently. Despite the super performance, something seems amiss. I start looking for answers. I notice in my rear-view mirror something coming up fast, gaining on me.

This rambling wreck, this rust bucket, catching up on me and my mean machine? How incredulous! He draws near me as I am slowing down to the upcoming red light. What could this be about? I chalk it up to a speed demon of another sort; a scofflaw endemic to this day and age, disenfranchised from the modern material world, a soul burned from looking for meaning for meaning in a meaningless place. 

Deep into this near-meditatition, the red light turned to green, and I peeled out of my sauntering pace. Unfazed, the rust bucket next to me maintained its breakneck speed as well, defying the laws of gravity, however numerous they may be. 

I was stunned; clearly, to be risking this much by driving like that in a condition like that, he must be out for vengeance of some sort; surely a blood lust was coming my way. I had undoubtedly incurred the wrath of some sort of village vendetta due to incessant flaunting of my automobile!

This is it. I'm going to have to fight someone over this...race. I didn't even want to race. The light ahead turned red. The Bronco or Blazer or whatever heap of should-be scrap metal from the late 80s was coming up next to me. I came to a standstill. I looked over; the guy in the car had his window ajar, motioning for me to roll mine down as well. This is it. I'm staring death in his round, mustachioed, bespectacled face.

“Nice car,” the corpulent driver yelled jovially, “follow me to my house, I want to race you in my Camaro.”

All I need is to have my car destroyed racing some yahoo in his Camaro. I have much to lose, and little to gain.

“No.” I replied laughingly.

The signal turned to green, I sped away. The rust bucket stalled. Victory was mine for another day.

Bad Craziness in Boston

Late one night, several moons ago, I found myself on the cold, barren expanses of the Syria-Lebanon border, in the middle of a decrepit, cinderblock shack without windows. On this particular instance, the “immigration” lanes were crowded with armed troops, disinterested looking military types stamping passports, and the queues were overflowing with cross-border travelers, mostly Syrian workers going back to make their bones in Lebanon, a tradition in this part of the world.

In the middle of this bureaucratic ritual, I encountered a somewhat bizarre sight; a 6'4ish Ginger standing amongst the generally shorter, and darker complected crowd. This character looked like someone you'd run into having hashbrowns and whiskey at the Oxford Saloon in Missoula, Mont., not someone you'd expect to see out here. Thinking it was another American, I started up a conversation. Being in Syria, it had been a long time since I had run into someone who spoke good English.

“Hey man, how in the hell did you get here?” I inquired in my road wearied state.

My greeting was returned with a blank stare, like one who has no idea whether or not to shit or go blind, followed by rants in Arabic. Clearly, he wasn't at the Oxford last Friday. It turned out he was from Jordan, spoke little English, and was on his way to manage an internet cafe in Beirut.

Though my diatribe may seem as if it has no point, it does. We can't always judge people by what they look like. This was illustrated with my experience on the Syrian Frontier. Just because someone looks like something, doesn't mean that they necessarily are. Hell, here I thought the guy was someone I could swap stories about drinking Oly and being cat-called at by drunken, sloppy women. Instead, he was a complete foreigner, someone who had little in common with the bar denizens of Higgins Street, even though he looked like he could definitely play the part.

This may seem simplistic, but nowhere was this more prevalent than the aftermath of this past week's Boston Marathon bombings. The blood was still fresh on Boylston Street, the explosions and chaos still freshly ringing in Bostonian ears, and already, people were jumping to conclusions about who did it, and why they did it. Within minutes of the bombings, the armchair Defense ministers set the Twittersphere ablaze with rampant speculation. It was a gun nut, protesting tax day! It was Al-Qaeda! These theories and myriad more set the tone. On websites like Reddit, would-be gumshoes had a field day looking for suspicious looking brown people within the crowd, doing pen drawings on pictures that would have made John Madden proud, and creating suspects, based solely on the fact they looked Middle Eastern or South Asian.

A Saudi national was arrested. He was deported rather suddenly. Evidence, conspiracy theorists maintain, that this was part of a government plot and his deportation part of the cover up.

The mainstream news was no better than this array of crackpots, perhaps even worse, on many occasions putting on ranting talking heads on the various opinion shows, talking heads who asserted it had to be some sort of Iranian plot, or how it was the Al-Qaeda's Malian arm, trying to exact revenge for US support of France in the Mali Campaign.

And now, in the end, it looks to have been the work of two Kyrgyz-Chechen immigrant hatchetmen who by all accounts were pretty normal people who led pretty normal lives. Just regular looking white kids. One was an aspiring boxer, the other, an apparent pothead who was good at wrestling. Ordinary people, who, for some reason snapped.

Everybody had the perpetrators of this whole terrible incident fingered long before there was any evidence. And everybody was wrong. Worse, people wrongly fingered by the internet “sleuths” remain threatened by violence by would-be vigilantes. It wasn't some international plot, it wasn't some deranged crackpot who was angry about his guns being taken away, it was just a couple of suburbanites who lost their marbles.

The world isn't always what it seems.

Digital Insanity.

Though I'm not a particular fan of Facebook, I can't deny that it's part of my life. In a few short years its gone from internet backwater to global trendsetter and hub of activity. Truly bizarre. I find myself drawn to check it though, and I'm generally unsatisfied by what I find on it, and wonder why I come to it in the first place.

And it's not as if I visit this rest stop on the information superhighway for enlightenment; Virtually of the place is seemingly updates about how their Trix were at breakfast, political memes with cookie-cutter messages like “Freedom Ain't Free”, “or “Obama's a Kenyan Marxist!”, or something that has to do with guns and how the various government brown-shirts are coming for them because some obscure talk show host said so.

Lately though, I've encountered a barrage of other sorts, this time the “equality” moniker that so many users seem to have adopted in the last week. You've all seen it, because I'd gather unscientifically that somewhere around 88% of Facebook users have switched to this symbol as their avatar, done so under the guise of supporting “equal rights” in the ongoing row at the US Supreme Court over Prop 8, same-sex marriages, and the DOMA act. So in place of a duck-lipping female posing in her flash-stained, dorm room mirror or a guy dressed in a warrior-Viking costume he fashioned out of empty boxes of Olympia Beer, you instead have what amounts to a simple picture, of an equal sign.

What is this madness, and where are the duck-lips I lust over? Is nothing sacred anymore? God damn it, some things deserve answers! No, minimalism hasn't swept across the US in a great fervor. From what I've gathered, the movement's point is apparently that, having your moniker be a colored version of an equal sign in a pink hue makes you a champion of individual rights and freedom, an individual who is sensitive, and caring, and a hell of a great person and all around snappy dresser.

But are you really? Or are you just someone who has adopted this as your flavor-of-the-week cause du jour, you doing it because everyone else is and it seems trendy? Because that seems to be what a lot of the US is anymore, trendiness, in everything. And it's kind of a sad state of affairs. Instead of people actually being engaged on issues, actually being involved, they feel that simply joining the trend, and switching their Facebook avatar to an equals sign makes them seem as if they are above the fray.

Because amidst all the hullabaloo and avatar changing and general fervor, things have still gone on. The government's still continued to pull shenanigans, all with citizens foisting nary an outrage, too busy changing their avatars to compete with their Facebook friends for the title of “most tolerant”.

In the last week, the “Monsanto Protection Act” was jammed through our legislative body, without an expansive avatar campaign and signed into law by the President on Tuesday. The act, which was an anonymous rider on a spending bill, wasn't debated by anyone or objected to, and as a result of being signed into law, Monsanto and other giant agricultural monoliths are shielded from federal court prosecution or lawsuits in the event something harmful is found in their genetically-modified seeds. I suppose getting poisoned by corporate barons in the name of profits isn't that important anyway. What could possibly go wrong with Flounder-infused tomatoes? Yes. They exist.

The bottom line is, you changing your avatar isn't going to change anything. The 9 justices aren't going to take note of someone's Facebook avatar being changed when they pen their decision, and you changing your avatar isn't going to help someone's plight in anyway. It's just another trend, like skinny jeans and yelling “Yolo!” after doing something completely asinine. Something to make you feel great about yourself without actually doing anything.

Midnight in Samarkand

Recently, while waiting between flights at the San Francisco Airport, I found myself sitting at the airport bar, as I normally do, imbibing a Harvey Wallbanger as I normally do, watching the action on the tarmac and admiring the strangieties of the surrounding venue. In many ways, this place is a present-day remembrance of a Silk Road outpost, a crossroads and exchange of foreign ideas and peoples.

The airport has always sort of been that kind of place, an odd place populated by odd travelers of myriad trips, all randomly converged in one spot at a given time. I have spent entirely too much time in these huge transit hubs in my life to this point, and despite the overpriced drinks and generally disinterested employees, one of the redeeming qualities of the experience has always been to meet different people, and have random conversations that went on about random things, in the process gaining a perspective on life I never otherwise probably would have.

How often in your everyday existence, for example, have you encountered a Hungarian Freedom Fighter, some dirt farmer named Joe from Lusk who struck it rich because of the vast petroleum deposits on his land, or a girl named Anemone from the Netherlands who was out of the Old World for the first time, let alone have an actual conversation with them? Some of the strangest conversations I have ever had occurred at airports, yet this veritable mosaic of multicolored views seems to be slowly but surely going the way of the buffalo.

SFO, itself somewhat of a modern-day Samarkand, once a buzzing hub of communication, has like so many other institutions succumbed to the perils of modern technology and devolved into yet another example of the “alone together” society that seems to unfortunately be one of the hallmarks of the 21^st Century. Looking around, I noticed virtually everyone to be stoned on some sort of digital opiate. Everyday people reduced to the stupor of Haight Street junkies, strung out on the marvels of modern communication devices, chasing dragons on their iPods.

In a way, this experience is indicative of the direction our society as a whole has shifted toward in the recent past. Gone are the days of spontaneity, and in its place, a dull feasting on information, an increasingly voracious lust satisfied only by the frenetic pace of living that modern-day technology provides. This constant craving is further stoked by the peddlers of technological smack. Each year, the pushers put out some new product that is deemed “must have”, which is followed by a tsunami of junkies scurrying to their respective local brownstones to get a sweet taste of it, and enjoy that one until the new, even more bitchin' stuff shows up a year or so down the road.

People live for the junk. People constantly have to update where they are, who they are with and what they are doing on the 36 different social media platforms they use all for approval of their digital minions. I can think of multiple incidences in my own past where something totally ludicrous and zany would happen, and the first reaction of those around me isn't awe of the spectacle, it's a usually rather abrupt chorkle of “I gotta post about this on Facebook!” People more excited about what someone else will say about what happened to them, rather than enjoying the raw insanity of what just actually happened.

It's a different world nowadays. With innovations such as the Google Glass coming online, a set of digitized glasses which allow the wearer to essentially “live” with their profiles, where does it all end?

After a couple drinks, I sifted my way through the sea of digital dope fiends, the absence of a stale-piss aroma the only thing making me totally sure I wasn't in the Civic Center MUNI station at midnight.