An Evening of Oedipus, Wannabes, and Arms with Tourettes

Back in March I wrote about my encounters with the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. One of the specific encounters was seeing El Perro Del Mar and the two opening acts. Well, I have made another visit with the Great American Music Hall, and have a new set of encounters to describe: seeing Au Revoir Simone, the Sound Team, and Voxtrot in concert.

For this new round at the Great American Music Hall, my partner in crime was my friend Yumiko, who was not familiar with the bands mentioned. The show was mainly for Voxtrot because, I guess, they’re big. I had only recently heard about them via Pitchfork Media and some music blogs. The Sound Team I was not even aware until the concert was advertised. Au Revoir Simone was the band I knew about the most. I first heard of them when I was listening to David Byrne’s satellite radio station and more specifically, his June 2006 playlist, where he had a track playing called “Through the Backyards,” which I thought was an amazing song. I did my homework trying to find out more about them and there wasn’t much. They had a website where you could order their CD through it. It was not available in general stores nor sites like Amazon or iTunes. I received their album through Paypal, and it was a rotating disc of bliss.

This past month, their second album was released, which was a bit more polished. There was more dedication, it seemed, placed on this album. However, I still haven’t found the equivalent to their song “Through the Backyards” on the latest album.

There was quite the line outside the venue, which was more than what I saw at the El Perro Del Mar show. The line was mostly people in my age bracket, some older, some younger. There was one thing I kept noticing, in line and inside: there were all these dorky-goofy-looking white guys with cute Asian girls. This overwhelmed me, then this pain struck the middle of my forehead, and that was the physical sign of hypocrisy because there I was, a dorky-goofy-looking white guy with a cute Asian girl. I don’t know what this meant but it was apparent.

The concert opened with Au Revoir Simone, which was unfortunate because, as we all know, the opening band doesn’t get as much play time compared to the other bands. So, the band maybe played six songs and left the stage.

When reading about the band, I found out that it is three hip young women from Brooklyn who were all part of other bands at some point and decided to become something of their own. The main connection between the three of them is that they all use a keyboard. Seeing this in concert made me really realize this. All their songs have fun poppy jingles in them and various little beats and bumps, but I forgot to consider that these sounds can all come from a keyboard. For some reason, I found disappointment in this; the three women had made pre-recorded sounds and with a touch a button, that sound repeats itself over and over. I know they were doing more with the keyboards but for some reason, I wanted to imagine a backup band, or at least someone playing a set of drums, but I was completely wrong.

Three chicks with keyboards

After the first song was played, one of the members revealed to us that her keyboard was being lame and was doing some weird stuff. I didn’t know what was going to be at hand with this. She then announced that “the keyboard will make the music dirty.” Of course, she emphasized the word dirty and the crowd became giddy. Later on, that specific keyboard would suddenly blast random sounds during certain songs, so that was what she was talking about.

The band, like I said, is composed of three young women, and they all look very similar: they’re all white women with long brown hair, and were all at least 5’8”. Yumiko made the comment that it was like watching some cult: a cult of long brown hair women with keyboards.
Of course, as a heterosexual man I was checking them out, and the one who announced that her keyboard was dirty I thought was cute, but eventually something was troubling me. It finally came to me when Yumiko had asked me a question.

“So, which one is your favorite one?” she asked with a silly grin on her face.

“Well, I thought the one with glasses was but then I realized she looks like my mom when she was, you know, young, thin, not married, and didn’t give birth to three kids,” just laughter coming from Yumiko’s end.

This became a problem for me. Every time I looked at the singer I kept thinking of my mom from the pictures in her wedding album, her high school pictures, etc. I cannot find this musician attractive! At one point, she was getting into one of the rhythms of the songs and was making a sort of thrusting motion, and that killed me: ahhhhhhhh! my mind screamed. I cannot look at that singer anymore, so I rested my eyes on the other two musicians who were to her right.

So the music was overall good for Au Revoir Simone, but my Freudian/Oedipus bullshit was something that dampened my mood for the performance.

They left the stage after six songs (and they did play “Through the Backyards,” which was cool). Then came on the Sound Team about five minutes later. Since I didn’t know much about this band, I went to their myspace page and listened to one of the tracks, which seemed decent. When I was in LA a couple of weekends ago, I was in Amoeba Records and they had two Sound Team CDs in the used rack for $4.99 each, so I bought them. They were not good. Just a lot of guitar jamming and some singing, nothing really special. I figured this would be the disappointing part of the show, and I was dead on.

From a general standpoint, the Sound Team is not a bad band. A bad band would be a group of people on stage kicking a bunch of buckets and yelling “We’ve got the funk!” into a microphone. They do know how to play instruments quite well. However, there wasn’t really anything unique to the band. I felt we had heard this music before, and I think the band knew that too. The other factor was I think the Sound Team was trying to develop an ego for themselves. The lead singer was wishing he was part of the Strokes, I felt. Then he experimented with his singing capabilities and would try to sound like Robert Plant. There was a song that just happened to have the lyrics, “Ohhh, makes me wonder,” and the singer dove into that Plant-esque style of singing, and I thought, “no way is he trying to mimic Stairway.” Between songs they would reiterate that they were the Sound Team and that they are from Austin, Texas. They eventually left the stage.

Voxtrot was the last band, and the headliner. You could tell based on (not the marquee but) the crowd, it became insanely more packed once they hit the stage. Voxtrot is a very fun band to listen to, and therefore is a very fun band to watch. They are very easy listening, definitely not trying to make intense/ultra poetic pieces but just hip songs about infatuations and best friends. Nothing wrong with that.

There were five members to the band and they all had their own image. The lead singer and the lead guitarist were the ones who stood out the most. The lead singer was very mobile on stage, he would be at the microphone stand at one point and then grab the microphone and wander around, then migrate to the piano and act like a Ben Folds figure and then meander back to the microphone stand. While singing, I noticed his left arm had a mind of its own because it kept trying to leap off the body. During songs, he would hold the microphone and then, boom, the left arm is up in the air and then back down, and then up again, and then back down. Even on the piano the arm would jump up. I felt a net was needed to capture and tame that appendage. The lead guitarist was unique looking; he looked like a living form of a drawing of Paul McCartney illustrated by Garry Trudeau.

Voxtrot: maintaing left arms and cartoony Beatle looks

I was glad that I attended the show, but it wasn’t totally on the plus side. Au Revoir Simone was the burning reason why I wanted to go and to see them as the opening band was not as cool, plus the Oedipal complex and sole reliance on keyboards didn’t help the situation, the Sound Team I could have done without, and Voxtrot was decent, just next time I need to bring tranquilizers for the lead singer’s left arm.

Sociological Scar Tissue

It was Easter of 2005 and I was one of the few who could actually work that day at the video store. The day wasn’t too busy besides the random customers, who weren’t practicing Christians, that came in to find some cinematic pleasure since the television would be dominated with The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. As the day progressed, more people trickled in; they were probably done with their Sunday morning sermons, egg hunts, and brunch specials at the nearby Lyons. Many customers were surprised that we were open on Easter; I responded with the fact that we were also open on the day Jesus died.

There were the handful of my regulars; the ones I knew on a first name basis, the ones who came to me solely for reviews on the latest releases, and the ones who knew I was a sucker and would let them get away with not paying late fees. One of those regulars was Louise, who was a married woman and a proud mother. She came in by herself and went to the DVD action section; she probably spent a good five minutes there and then arrived to the counter.

“My husband and I are watching The Ten Commandments tonight, so I figured I would get my son something to watch,” Louise explained her proposed scenario. I looked at which DVD she had decided on for her son’s viewing experience.

“Scarface?” I’m sure I had a slightly bewildered look on my face.

“I know, great movie for Easter isn’t it?” I made a polite/fake laughter sound.

“How old is your son?”

“Sixteen. He just has no desire to watch Ten Commandments, which is too bad. It’s such a great movie. When I told him what we were watching, he thought I said Ten Things I Hate About You,” when this was said by Louise, I realized that there is a decline in motion picture history and appreciation, especially when someone hears Ten Commandments and assumes the person meant to say Ten Things I Hate About You. I wonder what the other “classics” would have been translated into:

Gone With the Wind – Gone in 60 Seconds
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – Mr. and Mrs. Smith
An American in Paris – An American Werewolf in Paris
Sunset Boulevard – After the Sunset
The Great Escape – an episode of Prison Break

After passing internal judgment, I rang up Louise and she went home happy knowing that the entire household is going to be pleased. Well, I assume as much, but maybe, deep down, Louise’s husband may have been wishing to see Scarface instead.

Knowing that our only DVD copy of Scarface just got rented out, it made me think a little bit about that specific movie. I had seen the movie twice, and both in different circumstances: once on TNT and once on DVD at a friend’s house. The former is probably the worst setting to see that movie because, as you know, TNT edits and censors their movies and Scarface is not a Disney film. So the latter was the piece in its full effect.

For the naïve readers, Scarface is an extremely violent and graphic film, hence the lack of appreciation for the TNT screening. When Louise revealed that her son was sixteen, I realized that this was the typical coming of age bracket for boys to enter their fully known appreciation of testosterone fueled action and nonsensical violent films.

Most Americans, but not all, have taken on this trend that if they shelter their children from extremely violent movies then they are going to develop into some of the brightest and most knowledgeable human beings to walk the earth. Never mind the fact that they’re playing Grand Theft Auto, listening to blasphemous music, and capturing all kinds of things off of Youtube.com, but dear god, those parents made a point of having their kids not being in the room when Training Day was on TV in order to guarantee no school shootings from their end.

However, I did not quite fall into this category. I remember when my parents were still together, they rented The Teminator and this was before third grade. In middle school, my father went through this phase of having my brothers and I watch certain movies that would make us truly a man. It was some kind of an initiation into manhood process, where the weekends we were at our dad’s house, we would watch such hits as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Exorcist, Pulp Fiction, Deliverance, and many many others. I recall watching Deliverance and viewing the scene where Ned Beatty is being raped by the crazy forest locals and I asked what exactly was going on. The most memorable part I think I encountered was having my dad explain to me that these men were having sex with him, and then there I was, confused on how a man can have sex with another man, and then making my dad even more uncomfortable with the question of how does a man have sex with another man. One of the best moments of my life is watching my father acting completely awkward trying to explain what anal sex is.

Suffice to say, I was extremely immune to the whole violent cinema world that many parents did their best to shield from their offspring. Yet somehow I came out to be a decent citizen with no motives of aggression. For my fellow friends and acquaintances, it wasn’t until freshmen or sophomore year in high school when they were finally exposed to many R rated films. Scarface was one of those that was welcoming them home.

When reaching out to the new found audience, the marketing of the movie has this voice that says, “Hey, kids! Do you want to see Al Pacino running around in a cool suit carrying a shotgun, or a machine gun, or a chainsaw, killing all kinds of people, and doing lots of lines of coke? It has a very young and a very hot Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, did we mention that the whole time, Pacino has a kickass Cuban accent?”

Then you have the newly arrived teenagers with their jaws dropped with the reply, “Dude, it’s like you’re reading my mind!” And then somewhere, someone says SOLD!

This is just the beginning of the cultivation of Scarface for teenage boys. Throughout high school, many guys will find ways to slip the masterful quotes that Pacino says. The worst part is hearing them reinforcing the mockery of the Cuban accent. I remember when one would apologize about something, you would hear a guy state, “Es okay, mon!” Or if any large object was within the hands of a high school boy, they would discover a moment where they can get everyone’s attention by yelling, “Say hello to my little friend!” Again with the accent being overlapped into that quote.

Unfortunately the craving for Scarface does not go away come high school graduation. It manages to seep into the college experience as well. In the dorm life, people will use the walls of their dormitories as ways to represent what they are or what they appreciate. In the world of stereotypes you will find specific things in a girl’s room and specific things in a boy’s room. For a girl’s dormitory room there will be a print of Gustav Klimt’s infamous painting “The Kiss,” a magazine photo of either Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, and a poster or album artwork of Ani DiFranco. For a boy’s dormitory room there will be some kind of series of magazine photos derived from Maxim or Stuff pinned along the walls of his desk, the poster of John Belushi with the “College” sweatshirt from Animal House, and of course, a poster of Scarface right by the bed.

The next part of the Scarface experience is when people start to get older and there is this unspoken expectation of maturity, many of these boys will start to find philosophical or theoretical elements within the movie.

“Dude, you don’t even understand! Scarface is all about the American Dream, man! Think about it, you got a foreigner coming to the States trying to find new opportunity; he pulls himself up from the bootstraps and gets to the top; he gets everything he wants; that’s what everyone is trying to do.”

Or…

“Actually, Scarface is a reflection/criticism of the Reagan era. Tony Montana (Pacino’s character, for those who don’t know) is a refugee dumped over from Cuba. Reagan dumped out many people from mental institutions in California when he was governor. Due to his economic practices, he made the middle class endangered by increasing the poor and the rich. Scarface is a juxtaposition of the rich class and the poor class, and how an individual struggles between these two. Plus, Reagan’s eighties saw the increase in drug culture which is clearly seen in the movie. That Brian DePalma is a genius.”

I would never had thought of Brian DePalma as a genius. Sad to say, this is the only film he can ride with due to its cult success among boys from the age of sixteen to twenty-five. What has DePalma got on his belt to show off? After Scarface, he had Dressed to Kill, which no one saw, the Untouchables, which is way cheesier when you watch it today, the Bonfire of the Vanities, which is still as bad as you remember it, Mission Impossible, which is the beginning of the downfall of Tom Cruise, Mission to Mars, which…raise your hand if you saw that one, and Femme Fatale, which was labeled with “From Brian DePalma, the inventor of the erotic thriller.” I am sorry, but I would not want to have that title associated with my name. What I hear from that is, “From Brian DePalma, the creator of the soft-core porn shown after midnight on Cinemax for middle-aged men to watch while their wives and children are in bed.”

Pacino is not to walk away being innocent either. Scarface marks the fall of Pacino. The movie was released in the beginning of the 1980s; prior to this, Pacino had some iconic roles as seen in The Godfather part I and II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. He then does Scarface, and what came after that? Revolution, Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, Godfather part III (which was totally unnecessary), and Frankie and Johnny. His big comeback was Scent of a Woman, which got him an Oscar. The only thing I remember from that flick is “Hoo-haw!” being said at least 182 times, which, funny enough, is how many times Pacino says the f-word in Scarface. Now, he pretty much does films with young hip actors: City Hall (John Cusack), Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp), The Devil’s Advocate (Keanu Reeves), The Recruit (Colin Farrell), Two For the Money (Matthew McConaughey), and Ocean’s Thirteen, which is filled with all kinds of hip people.

Aside from the pretentious interpretations of the movie and the superficial appreciations for DePalma and Pacino, Scarface still lurks around for a couple more years. In the college environment, boys will start taking some upper-division class where they read a book by Noam Chomsky and realize there are horrible things going on in the world. They then declare themselves as a liberal (although, prior to this, they probably referred to everything being gay), and will start to appreciate foreign films and documentaries. Sadly, Scarface is left behind in the dark as our boys are becoming men. This is probably around the age of twenty-two or so.

However, there is the slacker culture, or as I like to say, the Santa Cruz Local population. When working at the video store, many of the locals were proud advocates of this movie. The locals were always an amusing bunch. Their traits usually blossomed at age eighteen and died off by age thirty-three. They skateboard, drink forties, live at home until age thirty (and then move in with their best friends from high school or girlfriend), probably work at an autoshop, spend all their money on tattoos, wear some kind of ball cap with a skater brand logo, and they all absolutely hate UCSC students (except if they’re women and they’re hot, then it’s OK).

With this group, Scarface sticks around a little longer. Many of the locals probably own it, and you can find it on their shelf next to Sin City, Gladiator, Reservoir Dogs, Old School, a tin can full of weed, and their wallet that probably has a chain connected to it. However, there are a few who don’t own it because they spent all their money getting a tattoo of a surfer battling a shark on their upper arm. So those few will rent a copy.

“Anyone who doesn’t like this movie is a fucking faggot!” one local declared while I scanned the barcode of the DVD case. His fellow companion suggested that they buy a twelve pack and go watch it at Rich’s house. What I heard was that they all will go back to Rich’s house and have a good masturbation session while watching the major testosterone/ultra masculine film of all time.

The Slacker culture will usually simmer down with the Scarface appreciation roughly by the age of twenty-five because they will probably be in a relationship and the girlfriend will try to make the boy a bit more sensitive. He realizes that he if does not follow through with his sensitive transformation, he will not get any action. So, Scarface gets put away, the poster goes off the wall and up comes a poster of Led Zeppelin (which he will explain is poetry at its best) and he will go out and purchase Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers and explain how they’re extremely funny and reveal what true family values are. He has just won his girlfriend over.

With the college students owning Michael Moore documentaries and converting to vegetarianism, and the local slackers owning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because it’s art and action, they have one common thread that still reconnects their Scarface appreciation: the Scarface video game that was released last year. It picks up where the movie ended and you go around killing people with the same weapons Tony Montana had in the original. It’s a great escape for both groups because it’s not a commitment, you can leave at your will, and most likely, it’s a friend that owns it, not you, so es okay, mon.

We're on the Road to Nowhere

And when I say “nowhere” I mean oblivion.

It is a common thing for us humans to contemplate what the future has in store for us. Due to the advancement of technology and prediction modeling, many scientists can make an educational attempt at guessing what the future looks like for all of us.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as hip and cool as people in the mid 20th century had imagined; the Jetsons’ world is not looking too plausible right now. Everything from flying jetpacks to buying real estate on the moon are not in any set horizon right now (well, the flying jetpacks are probably something Lockheed-Martin is creating for the military as we speak).

Many scholars, futurists, writers, historians, and other well-educated people have studied the pre-Columbian Maya calendar and after much interpretation, it was revealed that 2012 was the date of the calendar ending its cycle. With the cycle ending, Maya mythology examines this as a transition from the current Creation world into the next. However, some religious scholars see this as a “global shift of consciousness,” which can be used as a fancy title for the end of time.

Why are we so hung up on this Maya calendar? Well, 2012 is not too far away and there are many things being presented to us. NASA has been studying sunspot cycles of the Sun and has come to a conclusion that by 2012 that the Sun will reverse its own magnetic poles. Various scientists believe this will amplify the effects of throwing off the magnetic fields on earth due to harmful charged particles blasting away from the Sun and penetrating the earth’s atmosphere.

Global Warming, or climate change, or liberal conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo, will be riding its effects into full throttle. The polar bear may be extinct by this point, and that means we won’t get those cute Coca-Cola commercials with the bears sliding around in the snow and then cracking open a bottle. I know this isn’t catastrophic but it will break many hearts.

There was a Nostradamus translation that mentioned about a natural disaster like a comet hitting the world in 2012. NASA reports that the asteroid 2004MN4 will come back into telescopic view again, in which scientists can calculate the odds of possible impact.

The silent one is the decline of the bee population we are currently experiencing. Germany’s national association of beekeepers was the first to make it aware to the public that there was a major decrease in bee colonies. After further investigation, the US equivalents did some studies, and found out that the east coast has lost 70% of its bee population and that the west coast is at a 60% loss. Furthermore, scientists put together a grid that explained that if bees become extinct, then the human population has approximately five years left of living. Why? Bees are responsible for pollination and if they go, then goes the plants, then the animals, then humans. It sounds too simple, but think about it. Why are bees going extinct? Look into GM’s direction; they like their products clean and genetically modified, and having bees on them with their residue from other plants causes some sloppy sex with the given plants and the desired products do not come out as wished, so GM spends time annihilating those little yellow striped creatures. There are other factors that involve genetic engineering conducted on bees that caused some unintentional deaths. So, seeing the five year window given to us and having bees over 50% gone, that leaves 2012 as the time when this possible conclusion can come about.

A few other things to realize…

In The X-Files, it was indicated that 2012 is when aliens will come and colonize the world. 24 currently takes place in 2012, and we all know how catastrophic the world is in that show. Plus, the Freedom Tower, which is what will replace the Twin Towers, will be finished in 2012, and we all know how 9/11 was a marker of the dark road our current society went into.

David Bowie’s song “Five Years” is somehow making a lot more sense…
“News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying…
…We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that’s all we’ve got”

However, I am still optimistic. I mean, according to Back to the Future Part II, we are supposed to be riding around on hover boards by 2015 and have floating cars that feed off of domestic waste products. That’s only three years later, we must have done something right.

No Gout About It

I was giving it some thought after recent discussions with friends. There are certain diseases, syndromes, whatever, that I do not want simply based on the name and the judgment that would pass. Of course, the actual symptoms and what you experience would be horrible too.

The following are the “Top Three” diseases I would not want in order to avoid awkward conversations.

3. Shingles: any kind of pathogen named after a piece of a house brings discomfort to me. Saying you have shingles just puts a weird image in my head. I just can’t imagine what to think when somebody tells me that they have a bad case of “Dry Board” or “Insulation.”

2. Gout: I know this is a very uncomfortable thing to have but the name sounds really white trash. The reason may be due to two sources. I remember an episode of “King of the Hill” where the son, Bobby gets diagnosed with Gout and that’s his excuse for why he can’t do things properly. In that young southern accent voice, “I got Gout!” just made me laugh. A few years back when I was still at the video store, I had a manager named Jeff who was this very large man from Georgia. One day we were in the storage room and he asked me to help him with some boxes because, “I tell you what, this gout just dings my day. Mmm hmmm, dang gout.” Yes, dang gout.

1. IBS: when people use acronyms or initials, it sounds pretty serious and many people know what IBS is and that there is no set cure for it. When it is revealed that someone has IBS there’s a lot of awkwardness created.

“You know Lisa over in purchasing? She’s got IBS,” one employee states. All the other colleagues respond with, “Ooooooooh!”

And then someone will say, “You know, that makes sense, she does go to the bathroom a lot.”

Then a random employee lacks the knowledge of what IBS stands for. A fellow friend will whisper, “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.”

“Ooooooooh! That sucks!”

The worst part is that no one will say anything to poor Lisa, but many jokes will be passed around and much assumption and judgment will take place.

Bottom of a Pellet Gun, and Where it will take you. Part 3

We arrived to Dominican Hospital and I realized I have never done the whole waiting room experience, especially on a Friday night (or Saturday morning). It was almost 2:00 am and there was quite the crowd. I sat down and Evan went to the front desk telling the nurse what had happened; that he had been shot and was losing circulation. To my left were two guys, probably teenage material who had the “thug” look going for them. One of them was in a wheelchair with his left leg propped up with an icepack on his ankle. The other was next to him. The two were tuning in to what Evan had to say. They heard “gunshot” and they knew Evan was talking their language. Once the nurse took down the information and Evan gave her his insurance information, he headed towards the seat next to me. The two thugs asked Evan about his encounter.

“You got shot?” the supporting thug asked with amazement.

“Yeah.”

“What did they shoot you with? A .45?”

“I don’t know guns. Some kind of pellet gun.”

“A PELLET GUN???” both thugs said simultaneously with disappointment and amusement. Evan sat down not realizing he was being ridiculed. I sat in shame due to the fact that I was a part of this party. To change the topic, I engaged with the thugs about their evening doings.

“What happened to you?” I asked to the wheelchair thug.

“Oh man, we was running from the cops and we were in this house. For me to get away, I had to jump out the window!”

“It was two stories,” the supporting thug chimed in.

“Yeah, so I landed on my ankle,” the wheelchair thug pulled off his icepack and his ankle was completely deformed and had major swelling. It made my stomach turn.

“Put that icepack back on!” I replied in disgust. They laughed at that but followed through with my demanding request. Eventually some nurse pulled the thugs away. A few minutes after their departure another nurse called for Evan and away he went. I looked at my surroundings and I quietly judged everything. There was a television on the other side of the waiting room. It was left on the channel TNT and the late night movie was being played. Mortal Kombat was my viewing pleasure. I have never really been a fan of this movie. When I say “really” I mean when I was ten I liked this movie, so I do not totally dismiss this movie. In order to distract myself from the modern classic, I decided to pry into the various magazines on the table to my right. Women’s World, Good Housekeeping, In Style, and a Medicare newsletter that was dated from 2000 were my choices.

While finding ways to amuse myself, I started looking around and noticed the crowd I was in. At one point, more “thug” people walked in. One thug had a rag to his face and it was smeared with blood.

“My eye is shot out!” the thug announced. Now that is a wound, I thought. Evan had nothing on this guy. Some point later, this typical “white trash” couple strolled in. They sat down in the chairs on the farther side of my right and all I heard was them bickering.

“I hate you!” the wife (I assumed as much) claimed.

“I hate you more!” the supposed husband returned. These statements flowed back and forth between the two. I figured one of the two injured the other and was obligated to drive the other to the hospital, but I was not aware of what type of injury occurred. At another point, I found myself reading one of the award-winning magazines and this man decided to sit next to me, although there were many vacant chairs around me.

He had blood all over himself and whispered to me, “Can I lay on your shoulder?” I was not ready to hear this and I sure did not want him and his blood on any part of my body. My reply was merely a gasp and I noticed myself slowly sliding away to the other chair on the opposite side of the table with the breakthrough magazines. The bloody man did not say anything so I figured I hadn’t hurt his feelings.

Upon my change of location, I noticed that Mortal Kombat had finished and now it was The Crow. This fit in the same category as the previous film; I couldn’t totally hate this film, since this was one I admired when I was thirteen. When I looked at my current surroundings, I developed this strange feeling that maybe I died. It was possible that I had actually been shot and this is what the afterlife was: a waiting room. Then I thought: this sucks for being the afterlife. I gave it some thought and I decided it was purgatory because it could have been better but it could have been a whole lot worse. If the afterlife was a waiting room then Heaven was a spotless room with the latest issues of Rollingstone, Wired, and The New Yorker. The people around me would be the most distinguished of humankind and on the television would be The Godfather Part I and Part II. Of course, Hell would be a complete dump with issues of Klan Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and random issues of TV Guide dated between 1979 and 1981. The television would be playing Bring it On and Scary Movie 2 and I do not want to even know whom I would be sharing the waiting room with.

After I was done imagining my postmortem lifestyles I saw that The Crow was near the end and then to my right I see Evan entering the waiting room. When I saw his arrival, I imagined him coming out in a wheelchair, or a sling, or maybe his arm completely amputated. He walked out all fine with this glowing strut as if he had just made love. I stood up with disappointment.

“Well…”

“You ready to go?” Evan asked in what seemed like slight amusement.

“Well…what happened?”

“Oh, they gave me a band-aid,” he pulled up his sleeve and there it was: this flesh colored band-aid. Based on how the evening went, I wanted to see some stitches or something dramatic.

“Let’s go,” I walked through the sliding doors with the experience of a huge let down. It was almost as if I wanted stitches, something to make up for the big amount of nothing that happened. We got back in my car and I roared out of the parking lot; my only thought at this point was to get Evan out of my sight and to get into bed. I glanced at my cell phone and noticed it was almost five in the morning. Fuck! Then Evan decided to speak; what nerve!

“You know, when I was waiting for the doctor there was this girl next to me. She was asking me what happened, so I explained my situation. She was telling me about the gangs here in Santa Cruz,” I knew this had to be good “she was saying there is this tiff between the eastsiders and the westsiders. And she also said that the eastsiders wear blue and the westsiders wear red. I noticed that my shirt is blue and maybe the people that shot us were westsiders and they were scoping out eastsiders that are on their turf.” My god, he was actually saying this. Plus, his shirt was more on the gray side and on Walnut Avenue there were not any lights to illuminate his shades of blue.

“We were victims of gang warfare!” he continued, “they were probably initiating a new member and that was his deed... to shoot at eastsiders on the Westside!” It was amusing to see how much sense this made to Evan.

“Yes, in their mom’s minivan and using a pellet gun to do superficial wounds to guys wearing gray shirts…” I decided to stop talking because I knew I would eventually do something I would regret.

“I don’t know, it makes sense to me. Plus the girl was saying that these gangs originated in Salinas and that their goal is to get to San Jose. So, we’re in a huge gang crossfire. This is dangerous territory. I don’t know if I feel safe walking outside anymore,” it was too late, Evan had convinced himself on this theory (now fact). I heard the audience laughter in my head again; this is coming from the guy whose mother was convinced that every Mexican in their small town carries a gun because they’re dangerous. Evan was the product of Bowling for Columbine.

I sat there in silence while Evan went on to continue about his gang related discussions and how he was going home and do more research on the Internet and figure out what he can do to stop all of this. I realized I had to give him credit for his motivation and eagerness to change things. But then that all left my head as it was polluted with the thoughts of what I had just experienced this evening. The night ended with a band-aid and the “fact” that Santa Cruz was a dangerous town. I went to bed thinking about if Mortal Kombat II was worth seeing.

Bottom of a Pellet Gun, and Where it will take you. Part 2

Five minutes almost passed and, sure enough, there were the black and white stripes. A police car pulled into the parking lot. When the officer got out of the car, I was expecting one of those really intimidating officers who wished they were part of the LAPD rather than Santa Cruz. This officer had a calm voice, no intense buzz cut, or square-jaw features; he had glasses, cute dimples…there was this look about him; he reminded me of the type of guy who would do the first reading from the Bible at Catholic mass. Definitely not a cop, but somehow he was.

“Hi, I’m Officer Reyes. I heard something about a shooting.” I laughed inside. A shooting made it sound so much more than what it was but Evan fed off of that. For the rest of the night, Evan used the term "a shooting" to sum up what had happened. After the officer introduced himself, Evan began describing what took place. It was the same information he had said on the phone with 911. Officer Reyes walked with us to the door of the police station and unlocked the building and as we walked in he unlocked a side room. He wanted to take a statement from Evan. We were in an interrogation room! I felt like we were in an episode of Law & Order. There was the bare table and the giant mirror on one side of the room. As the officer asked various questions to Evan, I kept imagining two detectives drinking coffee, judging us behind that mirror. The officer had a digital camera on him and took a picture of the pellet and then placed that into a little plastic bag with the label “Evidence.” This probably fed into Evan’s excitement again, just like “a shooting.” Then the officer took a picture of Evan’s wound and then his face. His questions were the typical type: where were you exactly? How many shots did you hear? Did you see the gun? Did you see who was firing the gun? Was there anybody in the passenger seat? Did you see any one else in the car? What type of car was it? Did you get a look at the driver? Did you see a license plate or anything distinguishable about the car? I realized if this was an exam, both of us had just failed because we could not supply the officer with anything. The only thing we could reply to was car information. The shooter(s) car was a white Mercury minivan that had a bumper that was a bit damaged and it was heading northbound on Walnut Avenue.

Officer Reyes started asking me questions, which were similar to the ones he had asked Evan. He wanted to know how many shots I had heard. I replied that I remembered hearing at least three before I felt one hit me. Then the excitement began.

“Hit you?” the officer asked in curiosity.

“Well, I mean, it hit me but it didn’t. I mean, it hit my wallet,” I replied with a desperate tone in my voice, as if I had just been caught doing something illegal.

“But you were hit. That means you’re part of this case as well,” I noticed the officer pulling out his camera again. Fuck! I wanted this to be over with and now it was becoming bigger.

“So, where were you hit again,” the officer was standing up now. I sat there becoming embarrassed because of the location of my wallet.

“Well, the pellet didn’t actually hit me, it hit my wallet. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Yes, so where was your wallet?”

“In my back pocket.”

“I’m going to need to take a picture of that,” after this was said, I stood up and felt completely weird. I had to bend over and have my butt facing the police officer as he took a picture of the pocket that was on the outside of my right cheek. He then took a picture of my face, like a criminal. I sat back down. The officer had his notepad and was jotting down some more notes after the series of questions he asked and after the very little bit of answers we gave him.

“Okay, well I think I got everything I need at this point. Let me put this out on dispatch,” he pulled his microphone that was on his shoulder and started describing a possible white minivan with a bad bumper that has been shooting people with a pellet gun. Once he had put that statement into the police domain, Evan had this anxious look on his face.

“I’ve gotta ask you… I mean… are you going to catch these guys or what?!” he asked this in pure rage, as if justice needed to be delivered. We had just experienced the next 9/11 in his eyes. I looked at the officer waiting for some release of hysterics and instead the Bible reader had this calm look and answered Evan’s demanding question.

“Well, it’s hard to say. I mean, I didn’t get a lot of information from you. We can’t just go and pull over every white minivan we see. Of course, the bad bumper is definitely a starting point. We’ll do our best; the other officers are now aware of this and we’ll be on the lookout.” The answer was not sufficient for Evan. He sat there wanting more.

I looked at him thinking, “What the hell were you expecting from that question?” He didn’t hear my thoughts. The officer walked us out of the building back to the parking lot. He gave us some words of wisdom as he was getting back in his car. Evan asked him if he thought the gunshot wound was needed of medical attention.

“Well, I’m not certified to give an answer to that. I can call an ambulance if you like.” I was waiting for Evan to jump for joy but no such luck.

“No, that’s alright. I’ll be fine,” that was the golden ticket I was waiting for. He’ll be fine, we can go home. We got back into my car and Evan asked me the question that made me want to really shoot him.

“Do you think you can still take me to the hospital?”

“Are you serious?” the thought that I had earlier about me not being the one injured came again and then I slapped myself. This is ridiculous!

“Yeah, I mean, my arm is still cold and it hasn’t stopped bleeding,” if this was the card game Bullshit I would be able to call out on Evan. His arm did not have any fresh blood coming out; it looked like a damn mosquito bite that was now scabbing up. But the good friend I am, or the sucker I am, I drove him to Dominican Hospital on the other side of town and I waited for my doom.

Bottom of a Pellet Gun, and Where it will take you. Part 1

When I surpassed the age of twenty-one, I noticed my creativity of socializing died down purely to the concept of drinking. You were really cool if you drank out in public. It was Friday night and the boys and I wanted to do something, so what do you do? Hit up a bar, of course! What made this Friday night special was that some of the old college friends were in town.

Of the crew, there was myself, Kyle, Eric, and John who were all now locals at this point, but Evan and Sean were ones who moved away. Having them in town was a treat. Earlier on this Friday, I was spending my time with Evan; we were doing the whole “catching up” thing. When the evening came upon us, I decided that I would drive to downtown since throughout college, Evan was the one that drove me around. Little did I know that this was going to bite me in the ass later this evening. After the usual rounds of drinks at the regular bars, Evan decided he had enough and, in a subtle way, demanded to go home. Knowing that I was driving, I took it easy with the drinking and felt absolutely fine to drive Evan back to the house he was staying at and then continue onward to my own habitat.

The rest of the crew went to one of those bars where there were other things to do beside sit and drink and listen to music that you didn’t want to hear. They found themselves at the local bar that had a pool table and shuffleboard. I was a bit jealous since they were still continuing a night of fun, and here I was driving Evan, the forty-five year old stuck in a twenty-four year old body, back home.

When our evening started, I parked in front of Kyle’s house, which was a matter of blocks away from the main downtown strip. This was due to the fact that parking in the downtown region was like playing the lottery: you’ll never win. Upon leaving, we walked down Walnut Avenue, which was the street that led straight to the side street that Kyle lived on.

Evan and I walked by the newspaper printing press building, which is not very illuminated on Walnut Avenue. As we were walking by the overwhelming brick walls that make up the printing building, I started hearing some popping noises. I honestly had no idea what these were until I looked slightly to my left and saw a van drive by slowly. It all clicked suddenly, that we were being shot at with something. My first thought was paintballs; I remember seeing specials on Dateline or some other late night journalism show where they showed a clip of teenagers who had video recorded their crazy night on the town as they shot paintballs at anyone that was walking about at night. As this processed in my head, all I could think of was "this sucks."

Fortunately out of all the shots that I heard, I managed not to be in any pain. I felt even luckier when the only impact I felt was something hitting the right side of my butt, which was where my wallet was. Talk about lucky; I felt like I should have enlisted in the army because I developed the idea that bullets would bounce off of me. However, that idea did not last very long in my head.

I was not quite sure what had tried to hit us, most likely a BB gun or something in that range. The van, that I noticed, was going about ten miles an hour as it unleashed its weapon on us and then increased to forty miles and continued onward down Walnut Avenue. We lost complete sight of the vehicle. After its departure I looked at Evan and said, “Well, that sucks.” It most certainly did for Evan once he pulled up his shirtsleeve. His upper arm had been hit, which made sense since he was the one closest to the street. When viewing his arm, the wound looked like somebody had been picking at a mosquito bite. There was a small crater in his arm and some blood coming out. For Evan, he would consider this a near death experience. When he tells this story, the blood was pouring out at a rapid rate and he was near unconsciousness. I laugh. Looking at the wound, I decided to shrug it off, keep walking to the car, and then pursue to drop Evan off at his place. I soon realized that this would not be the case.

The walk to Kyle’s street from where this evil act took place was maybe three more blocks. It felt like I was walking with somebody who really got shot. Evan was commenting on how it kept bleeding (again, the mosquito bite scenario) and how his arm was becoming cold and soon he was losing the feeling in his arm. We made it to the car, what seemed to be, in one piece. As I was starting the car, Evan asked me if I could take him to a hospital. “You’re kidding, right?” I asked in shock. Evan remained with the same pain stricken face, as if my question was rhetorical. For a slight moment, I felt bad thinking this way since I was the one who did not get shot. That somehow it was a lot easier for me to move on from this due to the fact that there was no pellet in my arm. But then that thought trailed out of my head like the thought of me in the army. I realized again that Evan had a mosquito bite with a small piece of metal inside, which he had pulled off.

As the car started moving, I was asking where to go. Dominican Hospital is the main hospital in Santa Cruz, but unfortunately it was on your way to Capitola and we were in the heart of the Westside of town. Evan mentioned there was that twenty-four hour med-clinic on the corner of Laurel Street and Mission Street. I agreed to that since it was only two streets away. When we got near the twenty-four hour med-clinic, we saw that it was closed. Interesting, I thought. We continued further down on Laurel Street and Evan started the topic of talking to the police. Suddenly I heard the typical audience laughter one hears when watching a sitcom. “The police?” I asked in the same tone as if he was kidding about going to the hospital. “Yeah, think about, we could talk to a police officer and report what just happened. And I’m sure he could take a look at my wound and decide whether or not it was hospital worthy!” Evan was very certain about this cause. I just drove in shame. The police station was, luckily, off of Laurel Street. We pulled into the parking lot and it was looking kind of bare. We walked up to the main doors and saw that there was not a single soul in the building. The police headquarter doors stated that it was closed. I was not quite sure what was going on; Friday night is probably the most energetic and interactive night for any police officer, and at this point it was 1:00 am. This is when the crazy ones are out. So, what was bewildering me was why was the police station closed? The twenty-four hour med-clinic that was closed seemed to make sense at this point.

Internally I was pleased to see that both destinations were not functioning, which meant that I would get to take Evan home. This would not be my luck though. By the door was a telephone with a sign on top that read FOR AN EMERGENCY PRESS 1 AND THAT WILL CONNECT YOU WITH 911. My first thought was that this phone, like the sign said, was for emergencies and our situation was just a band-aid away. From there I started walking back to my car and assuming that Evan was right behind me. I turned around and there was Evan with the phone receiver in his hand and pushing the button labeled “1.” Fuck! I stood in the parking lot hearing Evan describing to the 911 dispatch about what exactly happened. I should have known better at this point because as I was hearing him describe the events that occurred I realized that things are very serious in Evan’s eyes. Evan is an only child and no matter what ranking you are in birth there are always the stereotypes. For Evan, the stereotypes of being an only child were pretty much facts.

One time Evan was riding in John’s car and left his backpack in it. At some point John’s car was broken into and his stereo, CDs, remains in the glove compartment, and Evan’s backpack went missing. In Evan’s backpack was his $150 graphing calculator, which vanished with everything else. Upon seeing the car broken into, both John and Evan were upset. John was upset due to the fact that his car was broken into and that there was a sense of violation he had just experienced. Evan was irritated to the fact that his $150 graphing calculator was stolen. “Who does that?!” Evan asked in agony “who steals a graphing calculator?” John turned to him in disgust and asked, “Who breaks into a car and steals everything valuable in it?!” Life is very serious, dramatic and intense for Evan. This pellet gun incident was the equivalent of being stabbed severely and seeing your first-born child stripped from you right before your eyes.

As Evan was on the phone with 911 describing the five Ws, I decided to call the crew we were hanging out with earlier in the evening and comment on how ridiculous the situation was. They laughed at me and responded with, “Only Evan.” I hung up and saw Evan walking towards me with his right hand covering the battle wound. I looked at him with a face of curiosity mixed with disgust and he replied with stating that an officer will be here in the next five minutes. We stood in the lot with nothing being said; my thoughts were that this was ridiculous and I wanted to be in bed. I tried reading Evan’s thoughts; what I received were thoughts of revenge blurred with justice, a Purple Heart maybe, and the thought that his arm may have to be amputated. I might have been wrong.

Catastrophic Relief Efforts (in a pictorial sense)

Last night when I came home from work, I smelt something. That scent that aroused my nostrils was the smell of victory. What victory, one may ask. Well, it seems that the machines in my house have been defeated. A while back, I was worried that my life force would be drained because these "dehumidifiers" were sucking all the moisture in the house, and our will to live.

Sure the machines put up a good fight, I mean they did walk away with our carpet, much of the substance that makes up our walls, and our pride. But who is sleeping like a baby these days? Who gets to wake up with a moisturized throat. This guy! Imagine me with two thumbs pointing at myself.

Enjoy the photo diary of the Greatest Battle of the Twenty-First Century (photos courtesy of Ms. Rebecca via my camera).

Here is Ground Zero; just imagine a clothes hanger on this thing with a T-shirt on it.
The initial damages; notice the toilet's position. You can see the machines slowly taking over.
The black hole where all the water vanished into.
Eric's bedroom was the second battle to be lost.
The refugee camp: our living room, Eric's new bedroom.

The face of the enemy.

The Dehumidifiers spread like a virus (my room is to the left of this machine).
The machines reveal their powers: stripping everything that makes a house function.
You can see what the water did to the floors.
Like a mine field, you have to be careful where you step.
A defeated soldier: Eric (1979-2007)

A true survivor: Zero the Cat was here the whole time and made it out alive.