One Proud Gemini

Back By Popular Demand!

2007-10-09T22:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, before I get into things, I need to state something. For all you driving with broken headlights… knock it off! For the love of god, having someone behind you or someone driving the lane opposite you without a headlight is annoying. However, I think the more annoying scenario is when the driver decides to replace that headlight with the goddamn high beam. When I see those cars, I suddenly want something bad to happen to them. Not death, but more like when they get home they see that their dog has crapped all over the house due to its sensing of a soon-to-come earthquake. And yes, when that earthquake comes, Mr. One High-beam will lose everything except for the box of memories of his ex-girlfriend who he absolutely hates but for some reason cannot let go of the memories.

Now, on to lighter things; I have been away. My laptop was down due to a corruption in the internal colonel. Not my language, but that seemed to be the problem. Due to the magic and mojo of my uncle Tim, he was able to fix it without my spending of lots of money since it was out of warranty. By the way, Microsoft Word did not recognize mojo as a word; I had to add it in my dictionary. Can you believe that?

Anyway, while my hiatus took place with my personal laptop and the lack of an overall connection to the general Internet world, I found myself in some crazy and perplexing situations.

The catalyst to my crazy life was that I joined a band. They call themselves A Clever Salutation. They originally were called Deflowered in Chicago, then they went with The Progressive Libido, after that it was The Nap-Takers and the singer thought that was “gay.” The lead singer then left and the remaining band decided to be called The Beach Boys Grew Up but that didn’t look good on posters, so they went with A Clever Salutation because the bassist used to write thank you letters for a community foundation and said she came up with “a clever salutation” that later got her fired. She never explained what that clever salutation was but the rest of the band seemed pleased with it. I don’t think much of the title.

With the lead singer leaving the band, they recruited a new person who goes by the name Deirdre and that’s it. She said she wanted the band to be as if Patti Smith had founded the Cure and wrote lyrics that were compared to Don Henley (but early post-Eagles break up). It all sounded ambitious but they managed to pull it off.

I was at a coffee shop and the drummer and guitarist were sitting at a table behind me and they liked the percussions of my fingers banging against the table. They asked me if I had played any instruments and I said “No, but I’ve seen The Sound of Music, like a million times.” They handed me a tambourine and there I was, at band practice for A Clever Salutation.

By the time I had joined, they released one full-length album called The Children of Ted Kennedy. I am not sure what Ted Kennedy had to do with the title, but the band explained it was an inside joke with them and the lead singer who left. But they still haven’t actually gone into detail about what the inside joke was specifically. So, by the time I joined, they were working on another album that was supposed to “put Charles Dickens to shame” as Deirdre put it.

While I was playing a mean tambourine, I noticed something odd about the songs that were being played. They were covers of 50 Cent songs with choruses from New Edition. I called Deirdre on this but she “just had no idea.” She then came back with new songs, but all the words were text from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Again, I called her on this, but the rest of the band thought that this was pretty cool. We all decided that the album would be based on the book. However, Deirdre wanted the album to be called “The Best of Times, the Worst of Times” so we “could give Dickens a run for his money.” It made no sense but, of course, I did nothing about it.

By the end of September, we were able to get a gig in some town I didn’t know existed. It was somewhere between Los Gatos and Stockton. We opened for a band called Splendor 460. I asked the singer what that meant, and he said, “If you have to ask, you’re better off not knowing.”

The crowd was pretty decent; for a small venue, there were about sixty people there. Deirdre passed around the set list for all of us. The first song on the list was “Joan Haverty was a Lesbian.” Charming, I know. However, when we actually started, Deirdre began singing “Keep Holding On” by the Thompson Twins. The rest of the band went along with it. I had no idea what was happening!

I managed to slip off stage without anyone noticing (this goes well with my self esteem). I went to the bar and met a guy named Harold. He just got back from his weekly meeting with the “Next Dark Side” club. Harold and his friends gather every Thursday evening and take a random album and a random movie and synch the album with the movie to see if there is anything that connects (as in seen in Wizard of Oz mixed with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon). When I met him at the bar, he said they just tried the soundtrack to Phenomenon (the Travolta movie) with Minority Report. Harold explained they were hoping for a Scientology connection. But no such luck.

So, then last weekend my computer was fixed. I told Deirdre that I just couldn’t be a part of the band. I wished them luck and, now, here I am: back with the Internet world.

Like Ripley, I will let you choose to believe it or not.

Enron on my shoulders makes me happy

2007-09-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Dream time... Randomly, I had a dream last night that I chose the lovely "E" symbol from Enron (you know, the old oil and energy company that defines corporate corruption) and had it tattooed on my right shoulder. Everyone thought it was cool.

I got to thinking...

What does it all mean? According to dreammoods.com, I found some explanations.

For shoulder we have:
"To see your shoulders in your dream, symbolizes strength, responsibility and burdens. It indicates that you feel that you have had too much responsibility to bear and is overburdened by circumstances in your life."

For tattoo we have:
"To dream that you have tattoos, represents individuality and the desire to stand out in a crowd. You want to be unique and different from everybody else, particularly if you do not have any tattoos in real life. Consider also what the tattoo is."

So then I tried looking into the image of the E, but I couldn't find anything. I explored some more and decided to go with what Enron stood for. The dream site didn't have anything about energy, so I went with oil instead.

For oil we have:
"To see oil in your dream, suggests a need to have things run more smoothly. You may need to show more love and compassion in your life."

I could do the cliche thing and relate this all to work, but then I would feel really pathetic that everything in my life revolves around work. Damn, I need to find some new hobbies, or get a dog or something.

Sad times, I say.

An Individual in Crisis

2007-09-12T10:18:00.001-07:00

A man stands in the middle of the park; he makes statements that everyone can hear.

“Everyone who is smarter than me is a nerd! Everyone that is dumber than me is an idiot!”

He turns around so the people to his back can hear him more clearly.

“Everyone older than me is a geezer! Everyone younger than me is a kid!”

Another turn takes place.

“Everyone less promiscuous than me is a prude! Everyone more promiscuous than me is a slut!”

Then one of his listeners comes closer to the man and responds to his exclamations.

“Hey, what do you think about people louder and more annoying than you?”

The man tries to respond.

“I think they’re-“

“TRICK QUESTION! NO SUCH THING!”

The Eumenides of Pacific Ave

2007-09-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

I saw no problem in leaving work an hour early today. I justified it by not taking a lunch break; and no, eating my tuna sandwich while uploading an automated call center manual onto an IT collaboration website and reviewing a power-point slide on what our donation website would look like does not count as a lunch break. Besides, I had to rush that sandwich since I had a conference call in less than a half an hour.

So, to get work off my mind, I decided to take advantage of the somewhat early evening and get a coffee and just read (and when I say read, I mean people watch).

The table outside of Lulu’s was looking desirable. I sat there with my latte and my latest reading material: The Time Traveler’s Wife. Many pages were turning; the story was so fragmented as I was learning about the relationship between Harry and Clare: the two protagonists of my book. The main plot driving point of this story is that Harry is born with a genetic disorder called chrono-impairment, which means he naturally slips out of time, but within his own timeline existence. This causes a slight problem for his wife, Clare. It’s a fascinating spin on the traditional romance story.

However, my reading endurance was slightly shattered as I heard these archaic voices coming from behind me.

“He doesn’t need to cry!”

“Yes he does! Yes he does!”

“Are we going to find him?”

“Where do you think we’re going?”

I lifted my head from the aura of my book and I saw three women who were launching these questions and answers. These were three extremely old and extremely obese individuals who were all in motorized wheelchairs; they were blasting down Pacific Avenue. Where I saw them, they were crossing the street and passing Jamba Juice and continued towards where the post office is. I apologize to those not situated in Santa Cruz and the lack of geographic distinction.

Their wheelchairs were decorated with all kinds of hippie style blankets and various little ornaments dangling from the back end of the chairs. After hearing that brief segment of their conversation, I figured they were looking for someone. But due to the leader of the pack (they were moving in a line, front to back) and her raging words “Yes he does! Yes he does!’ and “Where do you think we’re going?” they were looking for someone who had spilt blood (but not his own).

I give you mad credit if you were putting together the same pieces I was. These three women were indeed the Furies, or the Erinyes, or the Eumenides (it's your call). Derived from Greek mythology; they were the personification of vengeance; there they were: Tisiphone in the front, Alecto in the middle, and Megaera in the back. I pray for the individual they were looking for. From what I gathered, the threesome aren’t the most forgiving type; well, unless you’re Orestes, but I’m going to make you read the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus in order to get that reference.

“Somebody threw a Kuala at me…”

2007-09-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

Those were the words of Jenny Lewis, lead singer of Rilo Kiley, when she was talking to the audience at the Warfield in San Francisco, last Thursday night. While talking between songs, somebody threw a little stuffed Kuala at her; after making her statement, she replied with the rhetorical question: What the fuck?

I drove up to San Francisco that evening to see Rilo Kiley and met up with my uncle Tim and his friend Dave. The opening bands were Grande Ole Party and Jonathan Rice.

After some intense traffic on Highway 101 and some excruciating confusion with the street structure of San Francisco, I found myself at the Warfield. As I walked in to find my seat and my uncle, I ran into my friend Anna there. By the way, you should check out the music zine she works for: treblezine. You can find out about some cool stuff in the indie music scene.

With some confusion and hysteria of trying to find my seat, I managed to settle into it and eventually Tim and Dave met up as well. The first band was Grande Ole Party. It’s rare to see a lead singer take on the drummer role. I mean, I’ve never seen Genesis or the Eagles in concert so I wouldn’t be able to measure Phil Collins’s or Don Henley’s magic with singing and drumming at the same time. However, for Grande Ole Party I was able to see that skill. The band was all right, overall. The singer seemed to be a fan of Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, to which her voice and singing style was very reminiscent of hers. Plus, I had trouble making the songs somewhat distinguishable. But then again I wasn’t familiar with their music.

The second performance was Jonathan Rice. It was himself and his backup band. What I got from this guy was that he was some egotistical LA hipster who grew up listening to Neil Young. I found it amusing when he talked to the crowd between songs. For certain songs, he would give an introduction like:

“Where I’m from, in LA, there are a lot of coyotes. They’re scary animals. Well, just imagine coyotes storming into the office of the governor. Think of the stuff that those coyotes can do to the governor. Well, this song is about that.”

So, of course, you think that the song would be a bit more metaphorical from that. However, once the chorus kicks in for the song, we all hear:

“There are coyotes in the governor’s office, doing things that you can only imagine about…”

Did you really need to give us that literal introduction about your song?

As his performance continued, I figured the guy must be a real prick, and really full of himself. I imagined him at some “cool” bar in LA talking to some attractive woman:

“I’m Jonathan motherfucking Rice. I’m a goddamn singer and I can play the guitar. Having sex with me is like making love to a pile of gold.”

The woman then replies with, “A pile of gold? I don’t see the pleasure in that. It’s a pile of rocks; who would want to have sex with a pile of rocks? Also, are you using gold as some concept of value? Because gold doesn’t have the same impact that it did, lets say, in the 1800s. I mean, if you were to say, ‘Having sex with me is like making love to a pile of great stock options’ then you would be a bit more appealing. I’d say you should get with the times.”

Then you would see a blank stare on Rice’s face.

“… I’m Jonathan motherfucking Rice. I can write you a song about the flowers along the side of the 405 Freeway. I’ll call it ‘The Flowers Along the 405 Freeway.’ The chorus will be ‘have you seen the flowers along the side of the 405 Freeway? They look like really pretty flowers, they look like you.’”

Suddenly Jonathan Rice realizes that the lady is no longer there.

“Well, I’m Jonathan motherfucking Rice.”

To further enhance his ego, his last song (called “We’re All in a Desert and We’re All Going to Die”) was accompanied by Ben Gibbard (the lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie and the mastermind behind the Postal Service… not the government mailing system), who provided backup vocals and tambourine sounds. Just as a side note, Ben Gibbard is really good friends with Jenny Lewis (who provided backup vocals for the Postal Service album).

Finally Rilo Kiley came on. They have a new album out entitled Under the Black Light. Hence why they are on tour. I thought it was interesting that they opened up with “It’s a Hit,” which is the first track off of their previous album More Adventurous. Overall, the performance was a strong combination of both of their latest albums.

Our seats were in the balcony area of the venue. Some of the balconies had everyone standing up; ours was one where there wasn’t much standing, mostly sitting. In the beginning of Rilo Kiley’s performance, many of the people in the front part of our balcony stood up. After the second song, it was mostly sitting for everyone. However, one prick decided to stand up randomly during the show, and that prick was the person who was sitting in front of me. I looked around and not a single soul in my balcony was standing. And, of course, the prick had to be tall. I didn’t want to stand up because the person behind me wouldn’t see and then that person would have to stand, and then a whole domino effect would take place. The prick didn’t have a pattern; he would stand for one song and then sit down for two or three, then stand again for the next. And he wasn’t even dancing. I wished him seven years of bad luck.

The reason this was such a big deal for me was that I wasn’t able to see Jenny Lewis. Besides the band being very talented, it’s a side bonus that the Jenny Lewis is… pretty. I’ll keep it simple; I don’t want to be an obnoxious heterosexual guy. So, here I am trying to see:
I end up seeing this:
The performance by Rilo Kiley was quite enjoyable. I enjoyed the mixture of the two most recent albums from them. They did a cover but I had no idea what the cover was. Jenny Lewis introduced the song with, “This is a cover song.” Then they went right into it. About three lines in, the crowd began cheering. I had no idea what they were cheering about.

Overall, a very satisfying night, even though getting to the place was a bit hectic and I got to be behind the one person who decided to stand in my section. I’d see them again. Fo sho.

A Poser in the Mist

2007-09-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

The goal was simply not to be in my house. Something about the lack of windows in my bedroom impacts me in the psychological sense. When I got off work last night, I thought to myself that I should just go somewhere. I swung by the house, changed my shoes, grabbed my iPod (did I mention it’s working again?), and went for a walk towards downtown. I had my man-purse with me in case I wound up somewhere that would entail me to read.

While walking from my near West Cliff Drive house to the strip we all call Pacific Avenue, I had this random experience with individuals I could not identify. At three different points of my walk to downtown, I had three different people wave and say hi to me as if we were once friends or acquaintances. I know people will do the typical friendly wave and/or smile acknowledgement, but these three moments were a bit more involved. A blonde woman on a bike was on her cell phone and consistently waved at me while I was walking down Woodrow Avenue; I was caught off guard and didn’t really wave back, I basically tilted my head in some obtuse angle. A man was walking toward me and said, “Hey! What’s up?!” I replied with a what’s up back, and he then asked me how I was doing; I said fine but that I am in a hurry. He said he would talk to me later. I had no clue who that person was. Then when I hit the downtown area, I found a spot at Café Pergelosi (a hipster coffee joint) and a woman walked by and asked, “How’s it going?” Again, these could all have been random friendly encounters, but there was something in their energy that made it seem that I had some previous experience with them; I just didn’t know what that experience was.

As I mentioned, I stopped at Café Pergelosi (I don’t know if I am spelling that correctly), and bought myself a latte and found a spot outside. I had a book and decided to read it. While sitting there outside, I couldn’t help but just people watch. I looked around the culture of the coffee shop and noticed these themes. Anyone who was sitting by himself, had a book and a notepad. These were obviously the academic type; however, I decided to grab my notepad and placed that on the table just to sort of fit in. Then there were the clusters of people and their general themes or motifs. There were the punk rockers, the Harley Davidson types, the intellectual hipsters, and high schoolers who thought they were changing the world. I eventually left when I realized there were no more individuals and I could not be placed in any of the given groups.

I continued my little odyssey down Pacific Avenue and found myself at Bookshop Santa Cruz. I grabbed a copy of Sarte’s play No Exit; a coworker was talking about it and I had read most of it when I was in college. When browsing through it, something seemed odd to me. Here I was, sitting on some random chair at a local independent bookstore, reading No Exit by Jean-Paul Sarte, still wearing my preppy work clothes; I felt that all I was missing was a cappuccino or something strongly related. After dawning my pretentious state of mind, I decided to leave the book due to its reflections of my own living situation. For those who don’t know, No Exit deals with people being stuck in a room with no windows and one door; the characters all think they’re in Hell. I found an exit.

At that point I was near the end of Pacific Avenue and decided to get one more cup of coffee. I was near Lulu’s, which is a more frequent spot for me when it comes to coffee consumption. Of course, as I approached the entrance of the joint, out comes the bar tender lady whose number I received back in July. Many of you readers were probably wondering whatever came about from that. You may recall, I called her and left a message before I left for Virginia, never heard from her, so I called her again when I got back and had a brief conversation with her. Unfortunately, I was not able to make any positive conclusion with her (in terms of going out) because she was able to control the conversation to her advantage. I believe she knew where I was going with this and she managed to end it before I could get to my destination. The next visit to the Red, she was giving me the cold shoulder, and this was verified by the friends I went with. Over the next course of time, I ran into her at different parts of town, and she wouldn’t really say hi to me, it was more of a nod and a walk away. One of my last visits to the Red, I approached the counter and she mysteriously left the bar and then reappeared once I turned my back to it. I found it strange, the whole thing. I didn’t even get to make an ass out of myself yet. A couple of friends indicated that I should just move on, that she’s not worth my time. That may be wise.

Going back to the second coffee shop visit, I saw her and she gave me the generic nod and continued walking. I felt that somewhere, there is a parallel universe and that a totally different situation took place. In that pocketed universe, I would confront her about not talking to me. She would explain that she knew that I liked her and that she just saw me as a polite bar customer.

“But you didn’t even give me a chance.”

“I was doing my best not to lead you on.”

“Well, you clearly didn’t know this, but I am a great kisser. And I can tell you don’t listen to the BBC or follow the research that comes out of NYU. Once you experienced my talent, your expectations of me will go in a complete direction.”

“Research on kissing? Out of NYU? Where would I begin to look into that?”

“Maybe their biology department, possibly the sociology department. Not quite sure.”

“Interesting.”

“Come on, we can at least try something. Why the cold shoulder? Maybe we can go and try to do something. I bet you’re great at playing Jacks!”

“I do kick ass at the Jacks.”

“Are you good at getting threesies?”

“I’ve gotten foursies once.”

“Get out!”

“It’s true.”

The conversation would then trail off somewhere and the two of us, in this parallel pocketed universe, would enjoy each other’s company and find some activity to do.

However, this never happened in our current state of reality. I bought my cup of coffee to go, walked outside and saw her with two of her friends at one of the nearby tables, but I didn’t want to waste my time. I figured this would be the moment, that if I went up to the table, then I would be making an ass out of myself and that would make me feel a tad more complete. I refrained from doing that; wasn’t in the mood.

The headphones went back on and my odyssey continued; this time, I went in the direction of my house. I placed my music on shuffle and I was curious to see what kind of soundtrack I would get from my walk home. Nothing came up that seemed fitting.

A Revival of the Somewhat Unexpected Kind

2007-09-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend brought some bliss towards my end. But I need to backtrack a bit in order to describe my current setting.

June of 2006, a couple of my friends pitched in and bought me an iPod for my birthday. It was a fourth generation 20GB version and it was bought used. Over time, the device started acting up on me; it would sometimes freeze and I would have to let it simply run out of juice and then once the battery was dead, I would recharge it and then it was back in business.

This became a trend for a while and then finally in the winter time (maybe it was fall) the iPod just stopped working. I would turn it on and the Apple icon would show and then it would disappear and then reappear, and that would just function would just keep repeating.

Many eyes were on it; everyone had a different opinion on what was wrong with the device. I gave up on it. During the rest of my time at the house with Eric and Kyle, I basically forgot that I even had an iPod. When I visited my friends Steph and Vic in Virginia (they were the main ones who bought me the iPod), they asked how it was doing and I explained the situation. Vic offered to simply resell it on ebay.

My last Sacramento visit, I briefly explained what went wrong with my musical item and my uncle explained that I needed to buy a whole new battery. I went online and bought an iPod battery and removal kit. When I got back to Santa Cruz, it eventually came in the mail. Of course, I had no idea how to open the iPod with this kit (even though it gave clear instructions, I still couldn’t do it).

This past weekend I made another Sacramento visit and I brought both the iPod and the kit and battery. My uncle used his magic and managed to get the battery in. However, the iPod was still doing the same thing it was doing back in the fall: the Apple icon would appear and then disappear. My uncle then explained that it seemed that the hard drive was disconnected, that you could feel the device trying to make the connection but nothing would go through. Well, it seemed that I was destined to get a new iPod.

I went to the Apple store at the nearby mall and there was a major lack of customer service. There were so many people there. Maybe I could have tried harder getting help, but maybe I was just overwhelmed by the gigantic population rate in this tiny little store that I just had to get the hell out of there. When I got back to my uncle’s place, I figured I would just buy one online.

That evening, though, I was sitting at the computer desk and I just glanced at my old iPod and pressed the little wheel and the screen turned on and there was the main menu, something I hadn’t seen in many moons. It seemed that all my data was lost but I was able to navigate through the iPod like nothing had happened. I then connected it to the battery charger and once that was ready, I hooked it to my laptop and restored all my music to it. It was divine.

When I returned to Santa Cruz, I immediately went for a walk and had all sorts of fun with the playlists I made on there.

Wasn’t this a great story? Aren’t you glad you spent all this time reading about my iPod’s great comeback? Can you believe that I was able to save over $200 by not buying a new one?

Crazy!

Return to the Freudian Evening

2007-08-25T18:53:00.001-07:00

For those who were keeping track, back in the end of May, my partner-in-crime Yumiko and I attended a show at the Great American Music Hall. That concert had three bands performing and the main headliner was Voxtrot. Well, of course, the band that I wanted to see (and encouraged Yumiko to see as well) was Au Revoir Simone, and they were the first opening band. With that, they played six, if not, five songs. A tad bit of a let down.

Well, in the end of July I received an email from Yumiko notifying me that Au Revoir Simone is playing again in San Francisco. This time, at a venue named Bottom of the Hill. The lineup was them along with Oh No Oh My and the Morning Benders. Due to the wording on the website, it was hard to tell if Au Revoir Simone would have been the opening band or not. After some research, Morning Benders are a local San Francisco band, and Pitchfork Media mentioned Au Revoir Simone going on tour with Oh No Oh My (and they’re based out of Austin, Texas). So, it came down to either of these two being the headliner. When we got there, we discovered Au Revoir Simone was the headliner.

Bottom of the Hill is basically a dive bar that happens to have a stage. It reminded me of Sacramento’s Blue Lamp, for those who know what I am talking about. We didn’t really pay attention to the Morning Benders or Oh No Oh My; we got drinks and sat in the outside portion of the bar. We realized that this evening was going to be a late one because the website said doors open at 8:30pm and the show started at 10:00pm, and there were two bands (as mentioned) to lead up to Au Revoir Simone.

We walked inside when Oh No Oh My were wrapping up their last song and they closed up shop. It took a while for Au Revoir Simone to start, which I thought was weird since they rely solely on three keyboards and a small xylophone. It was about 12:20am when Au Revoir Simone began playing their music.

With having the main spotlight, they could (and did) play a lot of their music, unlike the unfortunate experience of six songs like last time. Of course, their latest album The Bird of Music, was what they played the most of. However, their first album, Verses of Comfort, Assurance, and Salvation, was touched on a couple times. I was really excited when they played my two favorite songs from that specific album: “Through the Backyards” and “Stay Golden,” which also happen to be the first and last song on the album. Kind of weird.

Their performance went for about an hour, and I think they played pretty much everything of their latest album. My only concerns about their performance dealt with technical issues. For such a small amount of things to work with (keyboards and speakers), they had to keep telling their roadie to tune things or crank something up or turn something down between each song.

Since Bottom of the Hill is such a small venue, I was able to see the band up much closer. I wasn’t as freaked out this time by seeing the one member who reminded me of my mother when she was young and not married with children. This person looked like somebody else. So, I calmed down.

Bourne Out of My Mind

2007-08-20T22:30:00.001-07:00

Kyle and I just finished watching the latest installment of the Jason Bourne series: The Bourne Ultimatum. I decided that this is my favorite cinematic trilogy. Now I know the Lord of the Rings fans have their pitchforks ready and the Star Wars freaks have their nooses ready as well, but I can take them on; I just got done watching Jason Bourne flee out of probably twenty-five scenes where he should’ve died (and keep in mind, no force or silly rings were needed to make these happen) so, I am ready to take on anything that moves!

Last Friday we prepared ourselves by watching Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy back to back. I must say, I am pretty pleased I did that because not only were there so many details that spawned from the first one that bled into the second one, but the third movie took on so many plot points from the first two; they were all fresh in my mind.

What is really interesting to note is the major differences between the films and the novels they are based on. Now, I know that many adaptations tend to become extremely altered where readers become absolutely disgusted by the movie. The screenwriters, from what I gathered, did their best to put the Jason Bourne character in a modern setting; a post Gulf War (I) scenario. The original trilogy, written by Robert Ludlum, had the protagonist living in Cambodia with a wife and two children; a fighter jet blazes through and bombs the village that he and his family live in. You can probably predict it, but the wife and children die; the protagonist wants revenge and signs up in some top secret US military project called Medusa and becomes a killer. Jason Bourne is another assassin who gets killed in action and the protagonist ends up taking his name. The rest of the story deals with Bourne finding out the clues to the village bombing, recovering from amnesia, taking on Carlos the Jackal, and other government paranoia induced situations. And, of course, all of this takes place in the 1980s.

Quite the difference, but I like the approach that the screenwriters took with Jason Bourne. They were very smart about how to put him in a post-9/11 world. The Bourne Identity (the first to be released) came out the summer after September 11, 2001, and the story did its best to not tread into that territory. As the rest of the trilogy unfolded, there wasn’t much holding back on current topics. The Bourne Ultimatum, they put it right out there that the CIA is out of control with their power and how they will not hold back at all in order to preserve American freedom (even if that means sacrificing American liberties… and American lives).

That’s what I have for now. Next movie stop: Superbad.

I Wiki the Fool!

2007-08-19T21:32:00.001-07:00

The concept of proper citations and appropriate bibliographies is something that will never go away for any form of non-fictional writing (or fictional in some cases). I remember in my high school and university days, understanding and fulfilling the works cited format was something everyone needed to do.

For the past few years something has been created that has brought up debate for academia professionals and writers: Wikipedia. I will not go into an introduction about what Wikipedia is because I know everyone who has ready my site has probably visited Wikipedia on more than one occasion. The revolutionary thought behind this site is that anyone and everyone can contribute and edit entries onto it.

Breakthrough? Yes. The main downfall of this idea is that it creates a sense of discredit, according to scholars and professors. Their thought is that Joe Schmoe can log in and write what he thinks is the truth and then everyone will read that and take it in. There could be a Tucker T. Washington, from Smalltown, Alabama, who dislikes John Kerry and therefore logs onto Wikipedia and edits the entry about Kerry and says he is a pansy and lost his virginity to a head of lettuce. Some high school student will then write that in his politics paper. And many problems will arise.

I remember when Eric and I lived together, he would mention that Wikipedia was a constant debate amongst his fellow faculty members on whether or not they would allow students use it for providing information on essays. It came down to individual decisions; simply, it was up to you to decide if you want your students to use it.

My friend’s sister told me that she read an article that said that 75% of everything on Wikipedia was bullshit; of course, she wasn’t able to provide the source of the article. I asked if she read that on Wikipedia; she gave me dirty look.

Aside from the idea that everything on the site can be challenged, some conservatives believe that Wikipedia is too liberal. Yes, the site that defines true democracy, that is, anyone can contribute to this overwhelming source of information, is too liberal. So, conservatives have made conservapedia.com, which is too serve as the true source of knowledge. One can be enlightened or one can be amused by reading this site. I will allow you to decide. Here is an excerpt from the entry on George W. Bush and the topic of Economic Issues:

“Though the liberal media continues to disparage Bush's handling of the economy, they often neglect to report the many aspects of the economy that Bush has improved. For example, during his term Exxon Mobil has posted the largest profit of any company in a single year, and executive salaries have greatly increased as well. This is due to changes in the stock market that lead to a record high in 2006. Corporations show profits growing by double digits growth.”

And on Family, the writer of the Bush entry wrote:

“George W. Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church, and many people feel that George W. Bush's faith is sincere and profound. The Faith of George W. Bush, a non-political book by author Stephen Strang, made the New York Times best-sellers list.”

Of course, the page doesn’t layout that the Faith of George W. Bush was published the same year as Fahrenheit 9/11 and a documentary was made of it and released the same week as Moore’s film was released for rent.

Going back to Wikipedia, many people realize that its credibility may be open to debate and its credibility can be unsteady. Well, the university I work for has created a program (via the computer engineering department) that can track its trustworthiness. Basically it tracks entries by who wrote them and then monitors how many edits it encounters. So, the less edits the more credibility that contributor has, and the more edits, than, obviously, the lesser credit you obtain. The program then does color-coding based on the hits the site receives, and the amount of changes involved.

So, now it may seem that Wikipedia could develop reputation. And the reason I say this is because this weekend I read this article about Wikipedia being edited by some notable sources. The Independent wrote:

“The chance to rewrite history in flattering and uncritical terms has proved too much of a temptation for scores of multinational companies, political parties and well-known organisations across the world.

If a misdemeanour from a politician's colourful past becomes an inconvenient fact at election time then why not just strike it from the Wikipedia record? Or if a public company is embarking on a sensitive takeover why should its investors know of the target business's human rights abuses?”

The article unravels that a website has the capabilities of screening all the editorial changes on Wikipedia and can trace it back to their original sources. Many of these sources were the CIA, FBI, churches, and corporations. Here is a brief list of what this new site found:

Exxon Mobil and the giant oil slick

An IP address that belongs to ExxonMobil, the oil giant, is linked to sweeping changes to an entry on the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989. An allegation that the company "has not yet paid the $5 billion in spill damages it owes to the 32,000 Alaskan fishermen" was replaced with references to the funds the company has paid out.

The Republican Party and Iraq

The Republican Party edited Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party entry so it made it clear that the US-led invasion was not a "US-led occupation" but a "US-led liberation."

The CIA and casualties of war

A computer with a CIA IP address was used to change a graphic on casualties of the Iraq war by adding the warning that many of the figures were estimated and not broken down by class. Another entry on former CIA chief William Colby was edited to expand his cv.

Diebold and the dubious voting machines

Voting-machine company Diebold apparently excised long paragraphs detailing the US security industry's concerns over the integrity of their voting machines, and information about the company's chief executive's fundraising for President Bush. The text, deleted in November 2005, was very rapidly restored by another Wikipedia contributor, who advised the anonymous editor, "Please stop removing content from Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism."

The Israeli government and the West Bank wall

A computer linked to the Israeli government twice tried to delete an entire article about the West Bank wall that was critical of the policy. An edit from the same address also modified the entry for Hizbollah describing all its operations as being "mostly military in nature".

It seems that Wikipedia may hold more power than one thinks, Oh, 75% of Wikipedia is pure bullshit. Apparently that is true now since many powerful entities are erasing content as we speak to better themselves and those they represent.

They Come in 3s

2007-08-15T18:08:00.001-07:00

It’s only Wednesday, and already, three important people have left my life. Monday morning I found out that my head head head boss UC President Bob Dynes is resigning. Then I went onto Google news and the first article listed was about Karl Rove resigning. Then the Internet Movie Database announced that Merv Griffin died at age 82.

I felt this void inside of me. I mean, how am I going to get my fix of California tax dollars being spent on some scandalous action, or the typical Republican spin and how Democrats in office mean terrorists will win, or the next best thing after the Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy?

It is truly a week of mourning.

Getting a Master's in Moving

2007-08-06T12:33:00.000-07:00

You wouldn’t believe it. Last week I somehow pulled myself out of reality (hence my absence from writing). Where did you go, some might ask. Well, it was the world of moving that I went into. And my god, that was a long visit, and I hope I won’t have to visit that little realm again for quite some time.

I will save you the details on the hell I went through, especially it being a one-man show for most of the week (my housemates had already moved out by the time I arrived back from DC). But I will focus on the weekend after my return from the capital.

So, I returned from DC a week ago Thursday and came home to an empty house… literally. There wasn’t much left except for my belongings (and secretly some stuff left by my other housemate). Friday I went to work and was suffering from jet lag and overall exhaustion. I went home and began to pack what I could. I received a notice that my landlord wanted to have the carpets cleaned Monday at some point, which meant that I had to have my items out by the end of the weekend. I realized that I had to at least get my large items (bookcase, couch, desk, etc.) out; my smaller things could just be boxed up and placed in my car or the garage. Come Saturday, I came to the realization that I would need to obtain a truck of some kind.

When I was in college, I felt that I knew many individuals that owned a truck. However, times have changed and now I don’t know anyone personally that has one. Saturday morning I got on the phone with the local rental services: Enterprise, Hertz, and Budget. I struck out with Enterprise and Budget since they closed by 2pm that day and were closed on Sundays (and they didn’t have any trucks at the given moment). Budget had trucks but they were reserved (and that didn’t help me). Then I thought of my grandpa because he has a truck. The only catch is that he and the rest of my family live in Sacramento. I called him and told him the situation. He said it was fine but the only catch was that he and my grandmother were leaving for a wedding anniversary party at 3:30pm. At that point it was barely 11am. I told them I would hit the road right now!

I made it to Sacramento at about 2pm or so and stepped in to chat it up with my grandparents. I felt that I couldn’t just grab the keys from them and dash. I was there for maybe a half an hour before they kicked me out.

I love my grandparents to pieces; they have helped me out in various times of my life but there’s a catch to all of this. They sometimes do things that will either drive you crazy or will simply amuse you. The conversation I had was more on the amusing side.

Aside from the usual “what’s going on in your life right now” conversation one would have with somebody, my grandparents tread into two topics with me. They either want to know how I’m coming along with graduate school and having a girlfriend. I call these the “g-spots.” They tend to switch up these topics where one conversation will be about graduate school and then the next time I talk to them will be about a girlfriend. Well, this visit revolved around the ladder.

“So, Peter, are you engaged these days?” my grandpa asked me this absurd question. I was slightly perplexed. Usually there’s a whole preamble that leads to an engagement; there are certain requirements to have an engagement happen like being in an actual relationship. You don’t get engaged like it’s buying a house. There’s work involved. Plus, the attachment of “these days” made it sound so topical. These days is usually used to follow such questions as “where are you working…” or “where are you living…” but “are you engaged these days” just left me a bit confused,

“Uh…no, I am not engaged these days.” After my response, my grandma did her part for the conversation.

“What was the name of that girl you dated in high school?” I just rolled my eyes when I heard this. We have had this conversation (at least three times now), but, nonetheless, I said her name “oh yeah. What’s she doing these days?”

“She’s going to grad school at UC Davis.”

“Oooh! Grad school? How come you didn’t go to grad school with her?” look how sly my grandma is. She managed to combine both g-spots into the same conversation.

“Well, she’s doing her thesis on health and nutrition of minorities in California. And I don’t really know anything about that.”

“I see. She was really cute. Have you talked to at all her these days?”

“No.” Actually that’s a lie; I bailed out on a visit from her back in late June.

“Is she dating anyone now?”

“Um… I don’t know.” Eventually the conversation digressed elsewhere. I later talked about moving and how when I get back to Santa Cruz I will need to find someone to help me move my large items. My grandpa chimed in at this point.

“You should get a pretty girl to help you move!”

“Why would I need a pretty girl to help me move? All I need is someone who has legs, hands, a pulse, and maybe a mouth.”

“Oh, I don’t know. It would make the move more fun.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do.” I left shortly after that.

I got back on the road and hauled ass to Santa Cruz. When I arrived, it was already the early evening. I began calling people to see who could help me move. I wasn’t experiencing the best of luck since it was Saturday evening and apparently people have lives. Most people were either out of town, already committed to something, or just didn’t pick up. Since I had the truck I went ahead and started moving my smaller items to the new place. I also managed to get my full size bed moved out by myself. I eventually called it a night.

Sunday morning arrived and I knew that day was the day that I had to get my stuff out. Monday was the carpet cleaning day. So, I went through the phone list again and see who could help. Still no response. In the meantime, I did what I could. I had my long couch that I was going to give to my friends Ryan and Ben, who live in Sacramento. This operation made sense since I had to take the truck back to Sac, I would swing by their apartment and drop off the couch as well. With the couch, I thought I would be able to move the couch out of the house by myself. I slid it out of the living room and got it down the stairwell, but when it came to the doorway, it became not so maneuverable. The ceiling was at an angle and therefore the couch wouldn’t budge when I tried flipping vertically. It’s hard to describe the operation but lets say it just simply did not work. All I could think was that we got the couch upstairs. But how?

Knowing that I had other stuff to move, I had to get the couch out of the entryway and back up the stairs. This became a major problem. Due to gravity, the couch really wanted to go back to the entryway. I tried pulling the couch up, and it would somehow start slipping down the steps. I would then pull it back up and try to get it at a resting stop so I could flip it vertically and therefore move it back in the living room, but it would still slip down. I felt like Sisyphus (from Greek mythology) who had to push the rock up the hill in the underworld but by the time he would get it to the top, it would slide back down and he would do this over and over for eternity. At one point, I had my back against the couch (to prevent it from sliding) and I was on the phone calling people asking for their help with the couch. No such luck was provided. Long story short, I got the couch up eventually and made some goodwill runs.

I tried round two with the calling people for help moving, but this time I tried my friends in the bay area. No responses for a while, but then my friend Yumiko picked up. She agreed but then followed it with:

“But I don’t have my car.”

“…I’ll pick you up.” Much hesitation but I needed to get someone to help. I drove like a madman over highway 17 and made it to her place in just under an hour. She lives in Oakland. We got back to Santa Cruz and we were pros at moving my desk and bookcase out. I bought her lunch and then we did the couch. I will save you the details on how we got it out, but it truly was a two-person job. The truck was loaded with rope and bungee cords, so the couch was going nowhere.

Yumiko volunteered to come along with me to Sacramento (the second trip in 24 hours), so it was nice to have someone to talk to. We met up with Ryan and Ben first, obviously, so we could get rid of the couch. We then got dinner with them and then we trekked over to my grandparents’ house. On the way over, I told Yumiko the conversation I had with my grandparents and especially the part about having a pretty girl help me move. Yumiko mentioned that it was a good thing I brought her along so I could please them. We arrived with the truck and went inside. I introduced Yumiko to the grandparents and I could just see them light up. We had a brief conversation but it was already after 9pm and I still had to get Yumiko back to Oakland and myself to Santa Cruz. We left and my grandma followed us out.

“Goodbye Peter, come back again so we talk some more, and be sure to bring your lady friend too.” Both Yumiko and I just laughed at that “Yumiko, be sure to keep my boy safe!”

We all got home safely. I was incredibly happy to get the larger things out of my house, and I was grateful for having Yumiko help me. I thought it was funny that we ended up spending almost seven hours in a vehicle together, so there was a lot of talking. I spoke with my grandparents later in the week and they kept asking me about Yumiko.

“So, did you and your lady friend make it back safely?”

“That was nice of your lady friend to help you with moving.”

I figured that they couldn’t remember her name and, at the same time, they convinced themselves that Yumiko was my “lady friend,” although I never introduced her in that way. But knowing my grandparents, they’re convinced and are probably spreading rumors. This will benefit them since they sometimes go into the other g-spot topic about me: is he gay? That topic, I’ve heard through the grapevine, comes up every once in a while, but of course, never to me.

For Your Amusement

2007-07-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

This is something I read a little earlier today.

Enjoy.

David: Hey, Bart! Did you have a good weekend? Get a lot done, like you wanted to?

Bart: Yeah, it was great! You?

David: Well, let's see... I outlined my next couple projects, set up a filing system for my notes, and downloaded a productivity program... then I read an article about time management and filed it away in the new system. Then brainstormed over instant-messaging for a while, while watching Youtube clips for "inspiration." I spent so much time being creative, I forgot to be productive.

Bart: I took some meth and cleaned my kitchen for three days!

The Days of DC - Part 7: Home

2007-07-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided that I will go on holiday for a little while from traveling. Of course, when people say “go on holiday,” they (aside from being British) mean that they will travel somewhere. I am traveling away from traveling, which translates into being not mobile.

Thursday around noon was my closing time with my work conference. I checked out and mingled for a little bit in the lobby before I had to leave for the airport. I sat down with a person from a school in Kentucky. I met him earlier, probably the second or third day. He knew I was from California, and of course, figured that the entire state was Hollywood.

“So what kind of theaters do you have in Santa Cruz?”

“Uh…we have two mainstream theaters—“

“No, I’m not talking that mainstream bullshit. I mean, good artsy shit that liberals just eat up.”

“Oh, well, we have two. There’s the Del Mar and the Nickelodeon. They’re our two art-house theaters.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. I bet you get a lot of celebrities coming out of those places.”

“Well, Santa Cruz isn’t very ‘filmy.’ More of that happens in Southern California. More in the Hollywood area. We’re in Northern California—"

“I know that. But you got to have something! I mean, come on, you’re California! I mean, look at who your governor is!”

“True, but it’s a very large state. A lot of that movie industry stuff mostly exists in the Southern—"

“No, I’m sure you get your share of celebrities; you probably just don’t know it.”

I let him end it with that. He was right, I was wrong. My small beach town; I just don’t know anything.

Shortly after, I wound up at National Airport (I refuse to call it what it is actually named) and saw that my plane to Dallas was delayed due to bad weather from the gunslinging state. They reworked my arrangements because of the delay, I would then miss my Dallas flight to San Jose. I found my gate and continued reading my Dave Eggers book.

Finally the plane was ready to board.

I was in the middle seat. The person to my left had a small dog that she brought onto the plane. She had it in a very small and cube shaped suitcase. It was placed right by her feet. When I approached the seats, I told her I was in the middle. She wouldn’t budge.

“I have a dog,” in a very low whisper “if I move my feet, he’ll bark.” All I could think was how the hell do you expect me to get over. But, like most people, she didn’t hear my thoughts and therefore didn’t move or do any sort of action to help me in my situation. So, I placed my bag in my seat (reached over her). And since I have very elongated legs, I pulled a Mr. Fantastic and simply stretched over her. I think my butt skinned her face, but I didn’t care.

Once I sat down, the person to my right (the window seat) then arrived. The same lecture came from Ms. Dog. He looked a bit awkward from that. I probably had the same look on my face. He did a similar move. He was shorter though; I did my best to make his maneuver and smooth landing. When he sat down, he wanted to talk to Ms. Dog.

“Do you travel a lot with your dog?”

“I can’t talk; if he hears my voice he’ll get really excited and will bark.”

“Oh, my wife and I travel a lot with our dogs.”

“I can’t talk; if he hears my voice he’ll get really excited and will bark.”

“Oh, yeah, my dogs have done that. Usually what we do—“

“I can’t talk; if he hears my voice he’ll get really excited and will bark.”

I wanted to slap both of them. Ms. Dog was a goddamn automated message with that same damn response, and Mr. Magoo over here won’t shut up about his dog travels, and won’t even listen to Ms. Dog.

The plane landed and I was in Dallas.

Dallas is a place I will never ever visit. Probably all of Texas too, although Austin I may, if needed, visit. I spent too much time in the Dallas airport. The airport is huge; probably the biggest one I’ve been to yet. When I landed, we arrived in Terminal C, my connecting flight was in Terminal A. Terminal A is on the other side of the lot, which requires using their monorail system.

I arrive in Terminal A and I see that my plane is even further delayed due to the storm that Dallas was currently experiencing. I was expected to linger for at least three hours in the airport. What a boy to do? I bought dinner. Although I know it’s incredibly horrible for you, but I figured it was the lesser evil of the options provided. I found a Panda Express and got myself a plate of greasy, MSG induced food. My other options were all topics from Fast Food Nation. I couldn’t get over how popular McDonalds was. There were many little McDonald stands at various gates.

Knowing that I was only twenty pages from finishing my book, I thought it wise to buy some new reading material. The first bookstore only had three books for sale: Harry Potter, The Secret, and a Bill O’Reilly book. Plus there were many gossip magazines and about a dozen newspapers. I figured this airport could do better. I went further down the stretch of airport wonders and saw leather shops, belt buckle kiosks, Dallas Cowboys souvenir shops (although souvenir was spelled “sue v. near.” I don’t know if they were trying to be cute or what.), and the greatest one I saw was an army recruitment stand.

I came across a bookstore that had a wider variety. I saw Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which I had been intrigued with when I first read about it coming out a while back. I purchased that and went to my gate.

Sitting there, I looked out the window and was witnessing the doom-ridden storm. All I could think was that I am in Dallas, and I am stuck here.

I am in Dallas and it is raining.
I am in Dallas and they misspelled souvenir.
I am in Dallas and there are people solely selling cowboy hats.
I am in Dallas and everyone is eating McDonalds.
I am in Dallas and there are army recruiters.
I am in Dallas and the man next to me is wearing a shirt without any sleeves, and he has not seen a dermatologist.
I am in Dallas and it is raining, and I am stuck here.

An announcement came from above discussing the flight to San Jose. The woman indicated that flight number #### will now be departing from gate C17. I was at gate A20. I have to go back on that monorail.

I am in Dallas and this is becoming hell.

I make myself comfortable at C17. I finished my book. I still have another forty minutes until the expected boarding time.

Now, I am on board. I sit next to an older man who is from Livermore (east bay area). He was really fun to talk to. The passengers across the aisle from me were crazy. I couldn’t place the language they were speaking; I thought Spanish, but there was something alternative about it, then I thought Portuguese or maybe Italian. Either way, they were not silent at all. And the family (they all looked the same) was huge. There were at least four of them in my area, and three more in the front end. The way I knew this was that they decided to move around and talk to each other when the seatbelt sign was still lit. We just left the runway and they were in wandering mode. The flight attendants had to keep forwarding them back to their seats. The one right next to me from the aisle whipped out his cell-phone a couple times (during the same time when all electronic items are to be turned off). It was never a dull moment with this family.

We all arrived safely in San Jose. I made a decent eighty-page dent in my new book. I waited for my airport shuttle. I got to my car and still had to do my highway 17 excursion. I was at my house at about 12:20 am. What a long day. And to think that I gain hours since I was traveling west bound. Going to sleep was rough since I could still feel the airplane motions in my body.

I lost count on how many Harry Potter readers there were.

The Days of DC - Part 6: The District by Gaslight

2007-07-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

It was dark, but I found light.

The Days of DC - Part 5: Climate Control and Meaningless Rings

2007-07-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

From my last visit to the DC/Virginia area, I remember it being incredibly hot and incredibly humid. This was something everybody warned me about and I took those warnings and became prepared. Of course, visiting this area a matter of weeks later, I figured this would still be the case. My suitcase is full of t-shirts, collared shirts, a few pants, and a pair of shorts. I brought one long sleeve shirt that is actually pretty thin, so not too warm. The problem I am encountering is that since most of my days are in the hotel (due to the various seminars, receptions, and mingling), I am walking around in a climate controlled environment; it’s sixty degrees where ever you walk. It’s freezing here. And I only have one long sleeve shirt.

Today is the last full day; tomorrow there is a morning session, lunch, and a closing part. Then everybody flies off to their merry homes. Right now I am in my little hour break post-lunch, pre-next-seminar. Yesterday was the first day of the second conference, so now I am alone. My colleague flew back yesterday early afternoon so now I really have to make a point of representing my institution. At the different sessions, I am constantly chiming in, providing insight on what my department does for solicitations and other areas.

The University of Washington, Seattle has taken me under their wing. It’s a fun little bunch. One of their assistant directors, Kim, is usually in the same sessions with me. When she found out that we were on the same floor, this got her really excited. Now, she tends to come by to see if I’m there, and if so, she wants to know what I am up to, or if she can check her email. I decided that she is secretly in love with me. So what if she has one of those little metallic circular items on her ring finger? She keeps talking about some individual named Dave, who, apparently, is her husband. I realized that Dave is just an acronym for “Doesn’t Appear Valid, Eh?” So, I will let her have her fun with me.

Throughout the conference there are various sponsors located outside of the conference rooms. One of them was a mail vendor that one of my superiors mentioned before I left. I went and made a point of talking to the representative. After his description on how great the company is, he then asked about the university I worked for.

“Hey, aren’t you guys the number one party school?” you know, you’re not making a great impression with me right now.

“Well, apparently if you work for Rollingstone and interview one person who smokes a lot of weed and happens to go to school here, then you can make it sound like that that school is a party school,” he laughed at that. Then I went on a giant tirade of the numerous accomplishments that my university has offered; everything from better understandings of the universe, enhancement of the human genome project, disease prevention, internationally known farming programs, and outstanding arts and lecture series. But apparently weed and parties is all people can think about. Too bad Chico State left yesterday.

Anyway, I will continue my adventures here. I am thoroughly amused by the amount of schools from the South that are here. It’s interesting how some schools will focus all their solicitation efforts on football, fraternities, and Jesus. Weird shit.

Tonight, people are planning a twilight tour of DC. I think I’ll try to attend that. I’ll be sure to have my camera handy for that one.

The Days of DC - Part 4: Anticipating Upcoming Sports Seasons

2007-07-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

Over the past year and a half since I’ve been with this job, I’ve been sent to at least three conferences (this one being the third). The appealing part about doing these functions is meeting new people. My first conference was in San Francisco and it was represented by various non-profit institutions in Northern California. The second one was in Pomona, California, which had a lot of universities from Southern California, but some from the northern area. Now, with this one, mostly everyone is from the east of the Mississippi River. Aside from me, the only other California school is Chico State. For west coast schools, University of Washington, Seattle is here also.

Everyone at these types of things know that they are on a limited amount of time, so they might as well make the most of it. So, people tend to try to make friends with you fast. Every little seminar, that “friend” will ask to sit next to you; come lunch time you all sit at the same table, and what ever the event for the evening is, you will all cling together. I don’t mind this. I appreciate the new faces. Since mostly everyone is from some drastically different area of the nation, it’s fun to get alternative perspectives on random topics and discussions.

I do my best, with these conferences, to do as much mingling and networking as possible. I like to hear people’s stories. This evening I had a gentleman ask me how my night was going. I told him it was going just fine. He then asked me what school I was with. I realized that I was in foreign territory and not everyone knows the layout of California, so Santa Cruz may not be known to all. I said a school in Northern California. I asked him the same question.

“University of Alabama!” in the thickest southern accent possible “can’t wait for football season to start!” of course you can’t.

I sat at a table with some random folks. One was from University of Southern Illinois, one was from Saint Louis University, and the other from the University of William & Mary. As I spoke some more, the one from Illinois asked me something that I have been asked in the past.

“Are you British?”

I was always curious on why I was asked this, but then over time, it all clicked. So I responded back.

“Why do you ask? Is it because I talk fast, have pale skin, blonde hair, and bad teeth?”

“Uh…I…uh...I…mean, no…I…just thought…I” then some laughter came from the other persons at the table. I hadn’t made somebody uncomfortable in a while so this was my quota for the day. He didn’t really talk to me after that.

Anyway, here’s some more pictures to feast your eyes on.

My money was on the woman in pink. She came in a close second.

When asked about the downsizing of torture, President Bush said there will be less spikes involved, less fire usage, and less screenings of Pauly Shore movies.

Home of true celtic pride: FBI headquarters (FBI: Full Blooded Irish. Get it? Ha!)

Boo!

Scientists have proven that politcians evolved from dinosaurs.

Apparently there's a large beastiality problem on capital hill.

And a pedophile problem too.

This is where Ronald Reagan was shot; he was attending a special viewing of Tootsie, and a man named Boutros Boutros Ghali shot him, saying he was trying to impress Sissy Spacek.

When in doubt...waffles.

The Days of DC - Part 3: Hate, Jerks, and Odd Noises

2007-07-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

Many may remember that I was actually in this neck of the woods about three weeks ago. I was visiting my friends Steph and Vic who I had attended college with and worked with as well. I figured since I was in their neighborhood again, it wouldn’t hurt to visit them one more time.

We made contact last night and contemplation was made on where to go for dinner. When I was on the phone with Vic, he mentioned that their friends Alex and Liz were coming along too. I then asked, “Wait, Alex and Liz? But don’t they hate me?”

Now, the reason I asked this question was due to something stupid I did when I last visited them. The weekend of my visit, I met this couple that are friends with Steph and Vic named Alex and Liz. They came over to the apartment on Sunday evening (the night before we all took off). We were all enjoying each other’s company, playing some games and enjoying mixed beverages. This is the same night that Steph and Vic’s dog, Cokey, drank alcohol and soda, which led it to the veterinarian’s office the next morning. After some drinks, of course, I transitioned into a different state. At one point, Alex went outside to smoke a cigarette and Liz followed him. Once they left, I simply stated (some may say yelled), “She’s hot!” That’s all.

Well, once they came back from their cigarette excursion, Liz had a slightly snappy tone to her; she said, “We’re going to leave.” All of us were slightly shocked. It was sort of a 180 from what we were experiencing earlier. They grabbed their things and left a couple of minutes after that. Victor followed them out. Once he returned he said that they left due to what I said. We all gasped at this. I asked if he was kidding but he said no. I kept asking that over and over, I didn’t want to take Vic seriously, but he was remaining serious. My stupid comment on saying that Liz was hot made them leave? Boy, I am jerk, was all I could think. Right after all this settled in, I became immediately depressed and absolutely quiet. Everyone kept asking me what was wrong and all I could say was that I ruined their night by some ridiculous comment.

Going back to last night, Vic mentioned that Liz and Alex were coming to dinner as well. I asked if they knew I was coming and Vic said yes. When I asked Vic about them hating me, he said they didn’t. I guess it was all a joke from the last visit. I think there was something else going between the two and Vic used my comment as the excuse. I must say I felt better once I realized that I wasn’t the result of their end to that Sunday evening.

We met for dinner at a nearby Mexican/Peruvian/Guatemalan restaurant that was a few blocks from my hotel. It was fun but the night ended somewhat early since Vic was starting his new job tomorrow (my Vic is all grown up!).

I retired to my bedroom once everyone left. I was plowing through my book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I had a mixed playlist on the computer going as background music. While I was reading, I heard some commotion from the hotel room next to mine (you know how every hotel room has a door connected to the next one, but they’re usually locked?). I got close to the door and all I could hear were the sounds of, well, sex (or working out, you never know). Once this all connected, I thought two things: either my neighbor is watching porn or two people are having some fun.

I turned my music up a little and then continued my reading. Maybe a half an hour later and forty pages plus, I received a knock on my door. It was a slightly older man. He asked me if I could turn my music down because he was trying to go to bed. I thought it was amusing that I needed to turn my music down when it wasn’t that loud (it was R.E.M.’s “Electrolyte” at that moment). The man then indicated that he was next door to me. I asked which side and he said the left one, which is the one I shared my door with. I then asked if he was by himself and he replied, “Yes.” Ha ha! I got my answer on what the noises were. He walked away and I bit my lip from asking him to turn his porn down but I didn’t because that’s not me.

The Days of DC - Part 2: All this and I still haven't worked yet.

2007-07-22T10:33:00.001-07:00

Today is the first day of my work related conference. The cool thing is that it doesn't start until 2:45pm on the second floor lobby. As I write this, it's only 1:45pm, so I still have an hour to kill.

This morning I woke up and went for a walk around the district. My hotel is on the corner of K Street and 16 Avenue, which therefore puts me in walking distance of many recognizable things.

The nation's very first cannon. You can really notice the evolution of cameras.

John Wayne's ancestor.They call it the House of Secrets.That's actually a quote from Donald Trump.The nation's very first Barnes & Noble Bookstore.A statue of the nation's first UFC team.Right after this picture was taken, a large foot came down on the monument. The person may have to get a tetanus shot.

The Days of DC - Part 1: Harry Potter was in the seat next to me.

2007-07-21T20:21:00.000-07:00

Knowing that the entire world, save myself and maybe eighteen other people I know, was in line last night buying the final book of Harry Potter, I knew I was going to have some major encounters with him today.

This morning I woke up to go to the San Jose airport so I could start my travels. My boss has sent me to Washington DC for two conferences that are back to back, both in the Capital Hilton (and guess where I am staying?). So, I created a game this morning as I was driving to San Jose: How many times will I see somebody reading the new book?

I woke up somewhat early this morning in order to wrap up my packing. I also wanted to go somewhere and get breakfast (and not buying a muffin at a coffee shop). However, all the restaurants in downtown Santa Cruz where one consumes breakfast were not open at seven in the morning. Nonetheless, I bought a damn muffin at a coffee shop. Lame. There was at least an hour that I saved so I went and took some odds and ends from my house and dropped them off at the Salvation Army store (although they weren’t open yet, shhhh). After that, I was on my way to San Jose.

When I got to the airport, my game was in full effect. While in line at the security checkpoint, many of the bins had Harry Potter in them. When I arrived to my gate, every other chair had an individual reading the book.

To distract me from my observations, a random man asked if the seat next to me was being used. I replied no. The man began talking to me about flying to Dallas (this is where my layover was). He then told his story: his son was part of a motorbike derby contest and he was flying to Dallas where he then would fly to Oklahoma City and then drive to Kansas where the derby is being held. He began going into much greater detail about the motorbikes involved. I knew he had mechanic experience due to his choice of terminology. And, of course, he assumed I knew what he was talking about. I was hoping he wouldn’t ask me any questions because I am known for having a blank stare on my face when someone is talking about something I don’t know. While he spoke I kept thinking of that woman Yuriko from the wedding who asked me if I knew what music therapy was and Nikki, my gravity angel, asking if I knew what gravitational waves were. However, this man with the auto-mechanic language did not ask me if I knew what he was talking about (and besides, I wasn’t attracted to him like I was to the two described, so I guess I was in the clear).

This man continued talking about motorbikes, and then went into greater detail about the differences between Hondas and Kawasakis; then there was the discussion of cylinders, usage of oil, RPM numbers, and many many more things. At first, I was hoping that he would find something else to do (like go to the bathroom), or that our flight was ready for us to board, or that I would run into somebody I knew from UCSC. None of those happened (well, we eventually board the airplane). However, my attitude changed about him. He went into further length about the motorbikes and his son’s admiration of them. He then noted how expensive they were to maintain and use, but he mentioned how if that was what he had to commit to in order to make sure his son wasn’t on the streets, or caught up in drugs, or hanging out with the wrong people, then so be it. I really admired his efforts with this.

We eventually board the plane. I sat next to an elderly woman who was connecting to Houston from Dallas and then meeting her family near the gulf for a week long cruise. She seemed excited about this, but about eight minutes after this conversation, she passed out for the entire flight. At that point I began my test; I combed around the plane with my eyes to see where Harry Potter was. The row across the aisle from me had three people seated (all probably related). All three of them had their Harry Potter books open. I glanced behind me and there was a mother and daughter, both with Potter. I leaned over the chair in front of me, and sure enough, the Harry and the Potter were in two of the three seats.

In order to keep myself distinct from the rest of the plane, I read my copy of Dave Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. From my last flying excursion, I was looking forward to my addiction of cheese/crackers and ginger ale. This was my first time flying American Airlines, and I must say I was a little disappointed. They came around with their beverage cart, and they lacked the ginger ale. Plus, they don’t give out snacks. You had to buy them! Never mind that the airline tickets were over two hundred dollars. Three dollars for a bag of chips, four dollars and fifty cents for a candy bar! I had a cup of orange juice and held onto my pride.

We landed in Dallas and there wasn’t much time between this flight and my next one. I rode one of the transit devices that looped around the airport to get to my desired terminal. In front of me was a family, who were probably uber Christians. The daughter wore a t-shirt that had the typical smiley face and the quote below it was “Smile. God loves you.” Her conversation to her parents dealt with time.

“Dad, the future is now!”

“That’s nice, dear.”

”No, Dad, you see all this, this monorail we’re on. This is what the future is going to be. The future is now!” she continued to talk and her little brother started doing things that would question his mental stability.

The next plane was a bit more compact. I sat in the middle seat. I was in quite the contrasting situation. The person to the right of me (the window seat) was a very large man, who was bald and wore thick lens glasses and therefore I only saw little dots for eyes. The person to the left of me was a young woman; very blonde, very fit, very short black dress. What I found even more amusing was that I knew all three of us were going to some kind of conference. Blondie had a binder that displayed “Climbing the ladder you want to climb. How to be your own CEO.” Baldie had a binder and a book. I couldn’t see the binder at first, only the spine, which said “Conference Services by HK.com.” There was a label at the bottom that had his name and then “Department of the Navy.” Finally I saw the cover and it said, “HK.com presents ‘The Future is Now.’” No shit. That’s what that smiling god girl was trying to say to her dad. Maybe she was on the HK.com site. For those who don’t know (and I didn’t know either), HK.com is a site for weaponry. Apparently that’s what the future is all about, and it’s now for that matter. I was going to get my book entitled 10 Innovative Ways to Enhance Annual Giving, but decided to continue my Heartbreaking Work.

Since this plane was more packed than the previous one, there were more children and therefore, more Potters!

I landed in Washington DC/Ronald Reagan airport. I passed many families; all with Harry Potter books in their hands. I arrived to my hotel. At the check-in desk, there was a family of six in front of me. You guessed it. Each of the kids had a copy in their hands. I was amazed.

Alright, so here I am, in my bedroom, sitting on my king sized bed using my laptop. I am currently online and this is the first hotel I’ve stayed in where they are charging you for using the Internet. Luckily, I’m not paying for this. But still, $15 a day for using the World Wide Web. Seems sort of ridiculous since its $199 a night. I’m going to try to get through more of Eggers’s book; then read about the spoilers of the new Harry Potter novel. I heard in one of the airports that Potter comes out of the closet.

56, by the way. There were 56 individuals I counted with Book 7 in their hands.

Harry Potter is a Tool (and other blasphemous stories)

2007-07-21T00:29:00.001-07:00

When the only story that the evening news can cover is the release of the new Harry Potter novel, you know life must be pretty good right now.

Throughout my bus ride experiences, which pretty much started back in fall of 2000, I have only gotten off the bus (due to something else rather than my destination arriving) three times. Two of those being a panic attack I experienced due to overcrowding. The third time was Thursday evening when I was going home from work. My reason was due to Harry Potter fans behind me.

The moment they step foot on the bus, I knew I was going to be annoyed by them. I think it was due to the sounds of their laughter and that they looked like they attended Crown College (UCSC graduates will probably get this). I will save you the details of their conversation but basically it revolved around their experience of waiting in line for “Book Six.” Knowing that the conversation was nowhere near an end (nor their laughter), I immediately pulled the cord and found myself at the Science Hill stop (I was hoping for my gravitational angel to save me but no such luck). I patiently waited for the next bus.

Fan bases are probably one of the most amusing things to analyze and critique. I’m sure sociologists have a field day with these kinds of people. The quintessential fan base is probably the trekkies. Of course, Star Trek is sort of at a halt right now, and has been for some time now, so the trekkies cult is more of a historical aspect now.

However, the fan base cults that linger in the shadows of contemporary society are broken down into a few: Star Wars zealots, Lord of the Rings fascists, and Harry Potter extremists.

The Star Wars zealots are intriguing because they remind me of some kind of terrorist cell unit. They seem like ordinary people, just like you and me, but when the release of the latest Star Wars movie comes, suddenly this average person you knew becomes some kind of monster, he becomes… a geek! Gasp! You see him do things you never knew a human being could do like swirl a stick around and make high pitch noises, or breakout in some deep Kermit the Frog voice and have the syntax of the English language go completely out of order. The even more amusing part is to watch Star Wars zealots try to tell you that the most recent trilogy isn’t all that bad.

The Lord of the Rings fascists came out of nowhere. I call this group the surprise attack. Prior to the fall of 2001, I don’t think I knew a single person who had read anything by JRR Tolkien. However, by winter time, many people suddenly went out and bought the entire LOTR trilogy and plowed through them. Everyone lined up for the first feature and then halfway through the following year, friends of mine are telling me that they can’t wait for the next LOTR because it’s a tradition for their family to see the LOTR movies. Um, there’s only been one, how’s that a tradition?

The LOTR fascists become really insane about the overall story. When one says that he did not like the movies then the fascists will ask if he read the books to which he replies with a confident no then the follow up from the fascists is, “oh god, well, of course, you just wouldn’t understand because you never read the books.” Although, secretly the LOTR fascists didn’t understand 75% of the writing of the books and skipped about 60% of what they actually understood, and they slept through 40% of each of the films, but when they bought the original DVDs, they only slept through 30% of them , but when they wasted their money and bought the Extended Editions, they gained an extra 20% of slumber due to the countless hours of footage that they claimed they liked but deep down, actually despised.

There are many debates in life that will never have a final answer like abortion, stem cell research, and the existence of God. But the one that takes the cake is “which trilogy is better: the original Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings?” Below is a clip from Clerks II where this discussion takes place.

So, in the late 90s some pre-pubic English boy named Harry Potter won the hearts of many people: young children, adolescents, middle-aged women, and mid-life crisis men. By the time book four (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) was released, this is when the Harry Potter series was like a widespread zombie epidemic. One would get bit by a Harry Potter novel and then that person would go bite somebody else and that person would become infected, and so forth.

Harry Potter fans became incredibly in-your-face about reading the novels. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine from college about the books (at this point, there were only four).

Friend: Come on, when I was home for Christmas break, I read all four in a week.

Me: Why should I read those when I got a whole shelf of books that I either haven’t read or haven’t finished?

Friend: They’re really easy books and actually really good stories.

Me: Well, maybe my books are good and really easy to read.

Friend: No, seriously, these are good and incredibly easy to read.

Me: Aren’t they in some kind of series. Why don’t I wait until the seventh book comes out and then I’ll read all of them.

Friend: Oh, I don’t know, that’s a lot of reading.

Me: According to you, they’re an easy read. Four of them took you a week.

All I got was a middle finger back at me.

Every other summer, a book gets released and everyone gathers in line the night before the release and patiently awaits their book. I find the whole midnight release event highly amusing. Someone I know decided to completely rearrange her Friday evening tonight so she can wait in line for book 7. I told her that the book will be the same book tomorrow. She responded back with two responses: one was that she will need a new book to read when she arrives home. I noted that she will probably go asleep when she arrives home. Her second response was that if she doesn’t read it first thing then she will somehow find out about the ending before she finishes it. I told her to go into hiding until she finishes it.

The hype leading up to book seven is pretty insane. The nightly news has been showing countless features on people taking work off, leaving their loved ones, and killing others to take their spot in line so they can be sure to get their hands on those deathly hallows. I love reading about the person who got his hands on a copy and took a picture of each page and put them on the Internet to download. Authorities are doing their best to find out who did it. I’ve got money that this person will be taken in as a terrorist and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

I’m sure by Sunday morning, nearly half the world will have finished the book and there will be countless Internet forums where people will talk about who dies and what they predicted or what they did not see coming. The big debate is on who dies: Harry or Voldemort? I’m anticipating some kind of twist ending.

Here are some predictions:

Harry Potter is actually a woman.

Hogwartz is an imaginary place Harry Potter escapes in order to avoid a beating from his crazy stepfather.

Harry Potter is Keyser Soze

All the students of Hogwartz are just personalities in some serial killer’s mind, and they all will have to kill each other off and the survivor will be the dominant personality.

Harry Potter is helping his fellow students who encounter supernatural things, little behold, Harry Potter is dead all along.

Voldemort is Harry Potter’s father.

Voldemort is actually the sled that Dumbledorf loved as a child.

I got my money that one of these conclusions will be in the newest book, so you Harry Potter extremists, keep your eyes open.

So, now I wonder what will happen to all the Harry Potter extremists now that the series is at an end. Will they wind up like the Matrix fans who held strong while the movies were being released, but knew deep down that the films truly got shittier as they came, and therefore vanished off the face of the earth. Or will they transition into something else like fans of the new upcoming series Harold Clay, Boy Republican, the adventures of a poor conservative who has to survive in a liberal media dominated society and fight off feminists, atheists, terrorists, and animal rights activists. Of course, his entire buildup is to a showdown between himself and Hilary Clinton. Yeah… that will be the next craze.

For future reading:

Harold Clay and the Demons of Planned Parenthood

Harold Clay and the American Muslims

Harold Clay and the Prisoners of Guantanamo

Harold Clay and the Global Warmers

Harold Clay and the Giant Wall for Immigration

Harold Clay and the Destruction of the Constitution

Harold Clay and the Feminazis of Tomorrow

A Disturbing Dreamscape

2007-07-15T10:51:00.001-07:00

I had to sort of shake my head this morning when I awoke due to a long dream. I know dreams can sometimes be pretty ridiculous, especially when you start describing them to people. You may hear conversations like, “Dude, so it was you, me, and my grandpa, who died five years ago, and we were on this boat but the river wasn’t water but some kind of pudding. Don’t ask me why. And my grandpa had this giant spoon and there were all these birds trying to fly away with the spoon…” and then it just goes on and on into more absurd details.

I will do my best to save you from that type of description. Basically, the dream was almost in grayscale (something that I am not sure I have encountered before). For some reason I was enrolled in some kind of class and I had to follow through with a research paper that required me to interview former President Bush, who now was an elementary school teacher. However, none of this is really relevant, so forgive me.

The main part of the dream that did some damage to me was at one point I received a card in the mail. Inside, it had a picture of a really adorable child (a girl to be specific). The card then asked (via two checkboxes) on whether or not you wanted this child to be killed. The words weren’t that literal, but I just can’t remember the text involved (and I know that dreams you’re not allowed to read due to which part of the brain is functioning). The concept of the card was that the government was conducting population control, and this was their new method: allowing general democratic practices to control the growing population of the world. Basically, do you want this child to live or not? If majority say yes, then the child lives and if the majority vote no, then away the child goes.

Obviously there are many flaws with this idea. One being that I cannot imagine people actually voting on the life of a child; especially how anti-abortion people are. But nonetheless, the general concept was disturbing enough. I think I take too much in from my waking life surroundings. I re-watched Children of Men again the other day, and a couple of months ago I read this article from the Guardian Unlimited that described a disturbing path we are taking for the future. I wish I had the links available, but after reading the article mentioned, I was on some blogs that had commentary on it. In them they provided links to actual interviews and documents that both the British and American government had about population control. There were actual quotes from military officials and congressmen that said that we need to wipe out at least 450,000 people a day and we will not have an over-population crisis come the near future. Other officials were supporters of this since they felt that this would help cure global warming.

I’ll go onto my work computer and look at its Internet history to find those links; that way, you don’t think I am too crazy. Anyway, lets hope those cards do not come to our doorstep.

Confessions of a Dormitory Survivor

2007-07-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

As we all know, I have a set routine when it comes to the social life that I lead. Friday evening, surprise surprise, I was at the Red with the same crew as usual. Aside from some odd encounters like two men in the bathroom discussing how it is okay to take steroids (or ‘roids as they said) as long as they keep a decent protein diet going, I had an interaction that I wasn’t ready for: I ran into my first roommate from college.

His name is unique (he’s of Persian and Pakistani background), so I will refrain from actually typing his name due to the power of Google, but his name is pronounced like Honest but without the t. However, as I write this entry I am going to call him Meat-head.

Last night I was at the counter trying to get a couple of drinks and then I heard, “Yo, Pete Dog!” I turned around and there was Meat-head, my freshmen year roommate from the fourth floor of building B. The last time I saw him was sometime from senior year.

“Hey, Meat-head,” I politely greeted him “why are you wearing sunglasses inside?” For anyone who has been to the Red, it’s a barely lit room with red lights coming from the other side of the bar (also it was 10pm). Meat-head did not really answer my question about the sunglasses. He did introduce me to his friend who was probably twenty years older than both of us. What he was doing with Meat-head, I still wonder.

Living with Meat-head was quite the experience for someone who just moved away from home and was living his first year of college. He was very much about his image, especially his body. Many of the conversations he conducted revolved around enhancing his pecks, making his arms look like melons, and that he will have little wings connecting his triceps to his chest. Of course, the timeline kept extending.

“Yeah, by December I’ll have these giant melons on my arms.”
“Yeah, by March, I’ll have little basketballs… no, big basketballs on my arms.”
“Oh yeah, by May, you’ll see my arms become so huge. Like a basketball that ate a melon.”

When he wasn’t at the gym making melons grow on his arms, he also obsessed over the world of protein; mainly protein shakes. Of course, he thought that just having protein shakes, and not a sensible diet, would be good enough to make his spherical arms happen and create wings to connect all his muscle together. Keep in mind, that he made these protein shakes at about 2am (note that a blender is involved and there are people on the floor asleep).

Besides the body, his own face was something that he admired as well. He pretty much declared that he was God’s gift to the world, and if a woman wasn’t interested in him then that woman was probably a man.

I was always amused by the superficial world he lived in. Transportation was one thing. It drove him crazy that he didn’t have a car here (freshmen are not permitted to have cars on campus), but riding a bus was something bums and old people do (and he wasn’t either of those). So, he spent time on the Internet trying to network with people who had cars. He found himself talking to some seventeen-year-old girl who went to the local high school. I remember one weekend my friends Ryan and Ben were visiting me and we came back to my room and the door was locked. Please note that our door was never locked because Meat-head thought it wasn’t fashionable to carry keys. So, I knocked because I thought, maybe, Meat-head was up to something. No response, so I began unlocking the door, and then I heard, “Pete-dog!” As I opened it, there he was, in bed, with the seventeen-year old girl.

He managed to get a chauffer out of this “deal.”

Meat-head also came up with some of the most random thoughts. It might’ve been the same weekend that my friends and I walked in on him, but Meat-head came back from a party and was pretty wasted. As we were all in our room, he asked, “Hey, Peter. Have you ever wanted to just piss on a bitch?” I think I responded with that I could not even possibly think of such an action.

Ramadan was a great time to live with him. Most of you may know, but during this week, Muslims fast during daylight. So, Meat-head would eat massive amounts of food early in the morning. However, his non-English speaking mother would call every morning at 4:55am to make sure Meat-head was eating his food.

When his mother called was also another pleasurable experience.

“Hello?”

“Meat-head?” his mother asked in a thick accent.

“No, Meat-head isn’t here,” I hated being the bearer of bad news.

“…” silence from the other end “where… is… Meat-head?”

“He’s not here.”

“Meat-head?”

“NOT HERE!” then I heard some commotion.

“Hello? Hi, I’m Meat-head’s sister. Is Meat-head around?” this was something I had to constantly deal with whenever he wasn’t present.

Another factor was the computer. For a high school graduation present, my grandparents bought me a computer to take to college. Well, Meat-head did not come to college with a computer (but he came with a small set of weights to lift). I was nice enough to let him have access to the computer, along with the printer and my scanner. I regretted that decision. I constantly found new software on it, all kinds of downloads, and AOL. I am not the biggest fan of America Online and I sure as hell did not want it on my computer. Every so often, I had to “cleanup” my computer. The worst part was that Meat-head was a pretty sociable guy and made many friends (I don’t know if friends is the right word). I would be in my room and then some random individual would come by and say something like, “Hi, Meat-head said I could use his computer to print something.”

“Oh did he?” my computer became a technological whore; everyone had a ride with it at some point.

The next factor that made up his life was marijuana. He obsessed over this. It came to points where he would smoke out just to get an appetite (with the door open too). He would sometimes go off on his "pro-weed" arguments and describe how marijuana cures cancer. There were times where I was writing a research paper and he would walk in with maybe seven to eight people, and then announce that they were all going to smoke out.

“Fuck, Meat-head! I’m in the middle of writing my paper!”

“When’s it due?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Go do that somewhere else!”

“Where? Besides, there’s a majority here. And this is my room too!” so, the loser I am, I end up saving my document and emailed it to myself and went to the computer lab while my room became a habitat for Cheech and Chong fans.

I was so baffled by how he managed to make friends with so many people (although, these friends weren’t the best of society either). Plus, he somehow managed to attract so many women. “Ohhh, Meat-head is so cute,” I would sometimes hear in the dining hall. One time, he told me a story of when he was in high school, he was having sex with a woman in the back of his car, and during the whole time, he was eating a Burger King fish sandwich. And I’m the one with women trouble.

By the end of winter quarter, my friend Darren (who lived on the other side of the dorm hall) put a proposition in front of me. Darren and his roommate weren’t getting along, and he knew my situation. The funny thing was that Darren’s roommate and Meat-head actually hung out, so this would be an ideal switch. The beginning of spring quarter, we did the swap, I moved in with Darren and his roommate moved in with Meat-head. However, Meat-head did not tell about my moving out. I was the one who paid for the phone line so I took that with me. His mother would still call, and it took numerous times to get it through that I did not live with Meat-head anymore.

Meat-head definitely became a legend around the university. When ever his name was dropped, somebody would always have a story about him.

“That guy?! He tried selling me weed once.”
“He just showed up in my room one time and wanted to watch TV with my roommate and I.”
“All he did was try to hit on my sister.”
“He just opened my door one day and wanted to know if I wanted to go swimming with him.”
“That guy was ridiculous!”

Then when I revealed that he and I were roommates, I always received laughter.

“Talk about true opposites!”

When freshmen year ended, I moved back to Sacramento for the summer. I was using my portable stereo and noticed there was a cassette in the tape deck. I pressed play due to my curiosity. I heard a bunch of rapping or flowing (if that’s the appropriate word). I recognized Meat-head’s voice and there were some other voices involved too. It was typical shitty rap.

“We be boozin’ and drinkin’… tearing up things that have the face of Lincoln!”
“We doin’ nothin’ but fuckin’ honies… robbing banks and stealing their monies!”

Wow, I was glad to see the beginning of a college education come into effect. I still let the tape play due to my pure amusement. However, as the songs progressed, I heard one that mentioned Pete-dog.

“Yo, Pete-dog! All your friends are fools… you got a big nose… and you don’t get the hoes,” then there were the backup vocals.

“Yeah, fuck you, faggot! Yeah, fuck you, Pete-dog!”

I was slightly dumbfounded. I figured I was the ideal roommate for him since I vacated whenever he smoked out, I pretty much gave him my computer, and I listened to his thoughts and rants (and never objected). I was the biggest pushover, yet somehow he still needed to rap a song about me.

So, last night, Meat-head decided that we had to be friends. He wanted to know what I was up to. He mentioned that he was back home in Fresno. I asked him what he is doing now and he said he was a marketing director for a large advertising firm. I knew this was pure bullshit. He asked the same to me. I said I was working as a digital text engineer (I figured this was comfortable territory for me). Two can play this game. He then asked me if “I was fucking anyone these days?” I was so glad to see that he has matured over the years. Thank god my drinks came; that was my exit cue.

From the Aloha State

2007-07-13T00:43:00.000-07:00

Back in the end of June, my friend Yumiko went to Hawaii with her mother for a little vacation of some sort. While she spent her time there, all she could think about was what would she bring back to me as a gift.

I got my answer.

A lovely shot glass that simply states "Aloha" with a vibrant guitar illustrated on it.
A little Hula Girl for the dashboard of my car; since I got a CD stuck in my stereo, this will be my new source of entertainment for the rides in the vehicle.

Look as this magnificent little piece of plastic changes into a small writing utensil. Look at its transformations, it's out of this world!

Hope you don't mind the censorship. I don't want the HR people to spend days trying to find ways to incriminate me.

Can't Spell 'Discarded Photos' Without DC

2007-07-11T23:03:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Stephanie's camera and her facebook page, I was able to steal pictures from her.

Remember, there is no "I" in memorial.

Representing the California heritage.

I've got something phallic on my mind.

Some dude who did something.

The Korean War Memorial; can you believe these guys pose like that all day.

A salute to the Boy Scouts of America.
"Timmy, have you ever seen a grown man naked?"

A New Welcome Mat

2007-07-11T16:23:00.001-07:00

Moving is one of those things that I absolutely dread. But then again, I do not think I know anyone who jumps through hoops when it comes to moving. Since the fall of 2000 when I first came to Santa Cruz, I have moved every single year. In the beginning, it was due to the academic school year ending (keep in mind that I lived on campus all four years), so for the summer I would have to find a location and then move out for the next fall quarter. By the time college had ended, there was a handful of places: the Capitola apartment with Christy, the room I rented from the single father and his ten year old son, the River Street condo with Kyle and now the “Watering Hole” with Eric (Kyle is only honorary). But yet again, we are all moving.

As most of you know, Kyle moved out last month to be with his man, and Eric wants to be out by the end of this month to move back to the Los Angeles area (originally it was the bay area, but things changed). So, therefore that leaves me with nowhere to go.

Due to the wonderful world of Craig’s List and the many things it offers (excluding the list of fetishes that people are looking for: i.e. Sex in spacesuits… swear to god), I browsed through the postings about rentals. First I was looking for one-bedroom apartments and studios. Unfortunately many of these postings either were absolutely lame or had some kind of catch (“be wiling to share room with a lawnmower”).

Then I ventured into the “room in a household for rent” area. I was a bit stand-offish at first because I worried about the worst case scenarios like a house full of druggies, or house full of drama, or worst, a house full of college students (and I know I’m being hypocritical since I was once a college student, but if you walk into a house that is entirely inhabited by undergraduates you will know what I mean). Luckily, there were a few listings that resembled some promise.

Out of the three that I responded to, only one actually gave me a reply back. We arranged for a visit to take place yesterday. The household is three people, two men and a woman, two of them are 27 and one is 29. One is a waiter and surfs on the side, one is a waitress and teaches yoga part time and the other runs an after school junior sports program. Oh, and there’s a dog named Ramses too.

They emailed me the address and yesterday afternoon I checked it out. I was little worried when I got there because they didn’t realize which one I was. “You’re…Todd?” They shortly revealed that they have had about 18 or so responses to the posting, so I figured there was going to be a fat chance of getting this place. While I was there I decided to put on the charming hat, along with the witty hat, plus the “feel sorry for me” hat as I described the flooding incident and the landlord who hates our guts. I figured if I can spend eight hours a day strategizing on ways to get money out of people, then I could convince three people on getting a room out of them. They shook my hand and I left.

This morning at about 9:05am I received a phone call from a number I did not recognize and it was the woman from the mentioned household and she and the rest of the crew wanted me as their new housemate. July 20 is the move-in date they wanted.

I am looking forward to this for various reasons (some being very obvious). Knowing that I have somewhere to go by the end of the month is exciting, plus the location is pretty sweet. For people who have experienced Santa Cruz, it’s off of Woodrow, and is a block away from West Cliff Drive, so I am literally a thousand feet or so from a giant blue wall people call the Pacific Ocean. Also, in September, our department is moving off campus and the new location is about a five-minute bike ride from this given house. Oh yeah, and it’s not in a parking enforced zone, so no parking permits to buy or forty dollar parking citations. Cha-ching!

Why does the Universe function this way?

2007-07-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, I have a lot to write down from my weekend away.

So, many of you read the entry entitled “Mission Accomplished” where I describe my efforts and achievements on getting my favorite bartender’s phone number. Well, here is the stance as of now.

Last Thursday afternoon I called her (I tried following those rules about when to call). When I called I received her voice message and I left a jolly little message; I mentioned in it that I was going to be out of town but don’t be discouraged to call me back. I concluded with trying to go do something the following Tuesday or Wednesday (so we’re talking about the present). I left my phone number in the message just so there was no confusion on what my number is (usually it would show up on the screen of the cell phone, but I wanted to cover all my tracks).

The rest of Thursday went by and no phone call. Friday morning and beyond I was in Virginia as you read. I was acting pretty pathetic during the trip when it came to my phone. If I was away from it I would see if I had any missed calls, or when the phone was turned off during the flights, I just kept hoping that I had a message waiting for me. No such luck.

On Saturday when we were all in DC, I was sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking at the Washington Monument in front of me. While doing this I felt my phone vibrate and I got all 2nd grade giddy but then I looked at who it was calling; my old infatuation from the end of last year who I will call Coffee Shop Girl. I wasn’t ready to answer the phone.

Some of you may remember my entanglement with Coffee Shop Girl back in the fall and winter. She was in a similar situation like the bartender; I visited that coffee shop everyday and began a customer friendship with this particular barista. Now, I thought there might had been flirtation but if flirting was a certain music pitch, I would be tone deaf. Well, eventually, one Thursday morning I asked if she wanted to do something on the following Friday and she agreed. A lot of walking on cloud nine took place until Friday morning when she said to me:

“Now, Peter, I want to make sure on that what we do tonight we do it as friends because I have an amazing boyfriend,” this took me by surprise. Out of all the random conversations we had in the past couple of months, she never mentioned the B-word. I knew about her deceased father, her nieces and nephews, her obsession with cooking, her practicing Judaism, and many other things but not once did that come up (and believe me, I would have noticed that). I responded with something about looking for new people to socialize with (which isn’t entirely false). She liked my answer and wrote her cell number down. I left like Charlie Brown when he’s depressed (you know that specific tune that always played in the cartoons).

The week following the boyfriend discovery, I met up with her at a concert (a small one at the Attic, a venue in Santa Cruz). We went for a walk while a crappy band was playing and we got to talking. I basically explained to her that I was harmless and she shouldn’t have anything to worry about when hanging out with me (I didn’t want to give her the impression that I was going to try to steal her from her boyfriend, because I used to be notorious for doing that (for those who cannot read that, that was sarcasm)). She then went into some detail about how happy she and her boyfriend are right now, but about four weeks prior to this they had some problems and were on the verge of breaking up (obviously they patched things together). She then said that if I had asked her out at that time, she would have totally considered this a date. Although I still was the loser in this situation, that made my night; knowing that I wasn’t crazy. Yes, this girl did like me.

The following months led to a weird trail. We went and did many things together; saw art exhibits, did dinner runs, window shopped, went for drives along the beach, all seeming like dates one may think. During all this, I would randomly ask her where was her boyfriend and she would usually reply with the fact that he didn’t like doing these things. What was frustrating, as time went on, she would go on about how happy she is in her relationship and sometimes would mention how great their sex is since they repatched things. I wasn’t sure how to feel about this since I felt that I was doing the basic date things that a boyfriend is supposed to do and that basically got her warmed up and ready to go when she got back to her boyfriend that evening.

During our time together there were three things that sort of ended my interaction with her (I’m excluding the boyfriend for this list). One was a really odd conversation we had one night getting dinner. I will sum it up; it was about homosexuality and she asked me if I had ever made love to a man. I responded with a “that’s a negative.” She then told me that I should because “being in the embrace of a man, you will find out things you never knew you wanted.” What an odd duck, is all I could think.

The next was a dinner party she invited me to. This is where I met many of her friends (keep in mind her boyfriend did not attend this). What made this dinner weird for me was that every single conversation that took place, I could not participate in. They went on from things like studying abroad in West Africa and the heart of South America to strange witch doctor stories to growing their own coffee at some point in their lives to general graduate school drama to mushroom hunting. I didn’t even know that mushroom hunting was an activity people even did. I had to leave the party; the whole time while they were talking, all I could do was drop little smart ass comments to get a laugh in but all that did was made me look like a bitter asshole (that’s when I felt like I was being my dad at family gatherings).

The final moment was a phone call that took place in January when she called me up to see if wanted to see Joanna Newsom at the Rio Theater (another venue in Santa Cruz). I asked what her boyfriend was doing and she said he was at home; he doesn’t like that type of music. At that point I finally snapped at her and told her that she needs to really figure out what her relationship is based on, if he does absolutely nothing for her. I was getting tired of (what I felt like) filling in where the boyfriend wasn’t. She understood and we hung up. I haven’t talked to her since.

About a month or two ago I was talking to a person at the 515 (one of the bars I visit) and she mentioned she worked at a nearby used book and record store and this was the same one that Coffee Shop Girl’s boyfriend worked at. I asked if she knew him and she said that he quit and went on some Peace Corps type of thing; I mentioned that I knew his girlfriend. She then indicated that he dumped her when he moved away. I told my friends this and they kept telling me that I should call her but all I could think of was that weird conversation and that awkward dinner party (and snapping at her).

Back to the present; she left me a message as I was in the capital of the nation. She called to say hello and that we haven’t talked in a long time and wanted to know what I was up to. I became frustrated with the present situation because here I am, waiting for a phone call from someone I had been obsessing about the last few months and then a woman from the past that I thought I had burned bridges with calls me instead.

The weekend concluded and I still haven’t heard back from the bartender. I am in a confused state because I know there are more absurd rules about calling her. She didn’t call me so, I guess, I am not suppose to call her back because that makes me look desperate or weak or some other adjective that challenges my being. But now I have this other message to respond back to but I am not sure if I want to call the Coffee Shop Girl back.

Here I am in a laundromat; washing my clothes (I need my black socks for work) writing all of this down. I haven’t called the Coffee Shop Girl because I am still waiting things out. At the same time, I’m still trying to figure out what my actions are to be for calling the bartender back. Why hasn’t she called me? With mentioning that I was going to be out of town, maybe she interpreted that as wait until I come back. But then would she call me now or am I suppose to call her now? This evening I am driving up to the bay area to have dinner with my friend Yumiko, so no phone calls will take place. However, I will be making phone calls in the very near future; I just don’t know which ones yet.

Survivor: Fairfax, Virginia

2007-07-10T15:43:00.001-07:00

I must say, taking a week off from work is pretty blissful. The reason this week of vacation took place was to visit my friends, Stephanie and Victor, who now live in Virginia.

I met Stephanie and Victor when I was in college. Stephanie was a student caller when I was working as a caller and student supervisor. After my days at the call center ended, I wound up at the video store and Victor just happened to work there as well (although I was at the Santa Cruz branch and he was at the Capitola one). I befriended both of them at different points of my life. Now, they reside in Virginia where Stephanie is attending graduate school at George Mason University and Victor cheers her on.

The visit was a brief one since not everyone could take a week off from work. My friends Amy and Jennifer both flew out as well (although from different parts of California). Friday through Monday was our duration. The highlights were our visit to DC on Saturday, eating at various hip restaurants, and making our own sushi on Sunday night. It wasn’t the most destination oriented; a lot of this trip was just enjoying each other’s company. Steph and Vic are two very entertaining people; it’s never a dull moment with them in the room.

Our excursion in the big capitol was eventful in the small-part-of-the-day way. In most cases, when people travel in groups, no one wants to take the role of leader. I’ve seen this on a dozen occasions. Of course, when we arrived to DC, no one spoke up about what we should do. I took a stand and suggested something that my boss had said: the International Spy Museum. Everyone agreed. The museum was incredibly fascinating; there were many interactive exhibits, display cases with some very unique espionage artifacts (many were very James Bondish). In the beginning you could choose from a wide range of identities that had a first and last name, occupation, age, where you reside, where you were born, what your destination is, and what your purpose of your stay is. By the end of the museum tour you could log onto a computer and find your identity and ask a series of questions (they were very reminiscent of those Choose Your Own Adventure stories). Based on your answers you would find out if your person made it out of the country or not (mine went into questioning due to suspicious answers).

After the museum, we were back at that game of “what do we do? I don’t know.” People asked me and I said I did my part by suggesting the spy museum; it’s up to other people now. But nonetheless, I chimed in again and said how about we walk around the different memorials. Everyone agreed on that.

We spent most of the afternoon in Washington DC and then wound up back in Fairfax. Most of us were incredibly exhausted from the 99-degree weather and the insane amount of humidity.

The rest of the weekend was spent solely in Virginia; we ate at different restaurants, played a lot of Nintendo Wii, and worried if their dog Cokey would make it out alive. Sunday night they invited their friends Alex and Liz over and all of us were playing some games and enjoying some drinks; at one point Steph and Vic’s little dog Cokey started acting really hyperactive. When Steph and Vic went to bed, the dog was still acting weird and never went to sleep. Vic took the dog to the vet at 7am because it was still being funky and never slept. The vet took some blood tests and it looked like the dog consumed some alcohol. Ha! The dog got drunk. I assume it made it out all right; I haven’t heard anything yet about its status.

Overall, the trip was definitely a fun one, even if it wasn’t a major sightseeing one. Steph and Vic have made it back to California a small handful of times since they moved out to Virginia last summer, so I figured it was my turn to make the rounds.

I will post pictures soon. Steph had a digital camera so she will be emailing those to me. I would have taken pictures but somebody has my camera.

Aviation for the Soul

2007-07-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

2007 is the year of airplane flying for me. I did my first flight into the sky back in the summer of ’93 when the family went to visit our grandmother who was still living in North Dakota at that time. After that, it was really random. I believe it wasn’t until spring of ‘96 when my older brother and I went to Washington DC, and then I didn’t revisit the friendly skies until my third year of college for a conference in New Mexico.

Anyway, this year it’s been busy for a guy who doesn’t travel much; I had Sundance in January, Pomona in April, Los Angeles in May, and now I just wrapped up my trip to Virginia (and don’t forget about my week long trip to Washington DC in two weeks).

The whole excursion of going to the airport and actually riding an airplane is such a unique experience (well, for me at least). As mentioned above, I’ve done a small handful of trips this year and what I am still trying to figure out is why are we always at a Security Level: Orange, which according to the Department of Homeland Security, that is just a fruit away from nuclear destruction. Yet there is not really anything intense taking place at any of the airports I’ve been. I want some kind of Marshall Law theme going on at the airport (you know, like scenes from The Siege).

Unfortunately my flights were not directly from California to Dulles International. I flew out of San Francisco and landed in New York City and then to Dulles; on the way back, I flew out of Dulles, then to Atlanta and then to San Francisco. From SF to NY I had the window seat and sat next to a married couple that couldn’t stop loving each other. Throughout the four hour flight the wife would lay in the husbands lap and the husband kept leaning in to kiss her head. At one point he looked like one of those mechanical birds that keep bending down to retrieve water. I never spoke to either of them until the plane landed.

While the flight was taking place, the Delta airline seats have little monitor screens in front of you, and there are various options you can choose from in order to entertain you. The popular one that many of the passengers chose was the fun Delta airline trivia game. I did not participate because I was more amused by the husband individual next to me playing. He got almost every question wrong. There were times when I wanted to snap at him. “No, don’t choose Macbeth! Choose Iago!”

When the plane landed at JFK International, the couple next to me started talking to me. The husband asked me where I was headed I then asked where they were going. He said to Ukraine. The couple had very southern accents. The husband sort of reminded of how Forest Gump spoke (I realize this is sad when the only male southern accent voice I can think of is a fictitious mentally challenged person).

“We’re going to Ukraine to visit some friends who we worked with on a mission together,” I then realized where this conversation was going. He began a series of questions.

“Are you from San Francisco?” I replied with no, that I’m from south of there, Santa Cruz to be more specific.

“Oh, well, we’re actually from Santa Clara. You know, we have our own church there. You might’ve seen it. It’s Santa Clara Progressive Baptist Church,” the husband then reached into his carryon bag and pulled out a postcard that advertised the mentioned church.

“It’s a great church, since you live in the area, you should come by and visit some time. We do great things like teaching people how to go to Heaven. You want to go to Heaven, don’t you?” At this point, I thought it would have been amusing to screw with him. I believe in Heaven, and I’m sure most people believe in some loose construct of Heaven, so of course, the typical answer would be yes. I just imagined giving an answer like:

“You know what, Heaven is a little overrated. I mean, everyone wants to go there. I bet you anything that it’s a little stuck up, and the food isn’t all that good. Why does everyone hate Hell so much? Don’t diss it until you try it.” But of course, I just responded with a polite yes and decided to move the conversation elsewhere. I asked more questions about Ukraine.

We eventually got off the plane; I had forty minutes to burn at JFK International. I finished the book I was reading and figured I should buy something for more reading pleasures. I had finished Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman and at the bookstore there was his latest book (that was just released on paperback), so it was meant to be. I would make Klosterman my theme for in flight reading. By the way, if you haven’t read any Klosterman, you should. He is one of the three reasons on why I have a blog.

The flight back to the west coast was a little different (probably because I didn’t have my Baptist married couple). The connector flight from Dulles to Atlanta was brief and I had a very enthusiastic flight attendant. She was the one who made all the announcements. At the end of the flight she did the typical “Thank you for flying Delta…” but kept talking. She went into great detail about the Georgia weather, how the exit of the plane is small so those who break six feet should watch their steps, the fact that there has been no time zone change because Virginia and Georgia are in the same time zone, although some people think that they are not. The last part was her mentioning that there were two passengers who served in our armed forces and wanted to thank them for their time and commitment for defending our nation. The passenger right behind me disagreed with that last note.

“Bullshit! Those bastards are killing innocent people!” no rebuttal on that comment. I felt bad, though, for the two soldiers who were on the plane.

The flight from Atlanta to San Francisco was estimated to be four hours and fifteen minutes, and, my god, that seemed like an eternity. Part of it was probably due to the fact that it was nightfall and I couldn’t really get an idea of what time of it was since we were traveling across three time zones and that I had no idea what part of the nation we were flying over.

Before the plane took off, the passengers behind me began their “lets not be strangers” conversation. Well, it was more like the male passenger started this with his fellow female passenger. The conversation was a series of questions.

Is Atlanta home for you?
Is San Francisco home for you then?
What made you move to San Francisco?
What part do you live in?
Where abouts?
What street do you live on?
What do you do for a living?
What made you go into that?
Were you doing that in Georgia?

Literally, it was a string of questions that lacked any hesitation between then. The male then went into detail on how he worked at a 24 Hour Fitness gym and how this woman should come by the gym and he will “treat her good.” I started thinking that this conversation was the basis of one of two things: either this 24 Hour Fitness gym man was absolutely horrified by awkward silences or I was overhearing the preamble to a date rape.

Luckily, the woman ended the conversation by dropping the H-word. Her husband was picking her up at the airport. Suddenly the 24 Hour Fitness gym man became silent.

So, as you can tell, I survived my series of flights. In a couple of weeks, I have more to experience. Some things that I learned from my sky travels were that cheese and crackers and a cup of ginger ale are probably one of the greatest things I’ve consumed. I made that my staple snack for each flight. Also, traveling through a lightning storm is some scary stuff (this took place about an hour outside of Atlanta). The Sandra Bullock movie Premonition is god-awful (this was the in-flight movie). It’s wise not to have a window seat if all you see is the wing. This happened to me on the way to New York City. I just stared at the wing and analyzed all the details. I kept thinking on why there were so many scratches or why those flaps would go up randomly during the flight or what’s all that goo? It made me slightly worry. But it gave me something to think about.

More than Meets the Eye

2007-07-04T14:46:00.001-07:00

The summer is still in the midst of its blockbusters being unleashed onto the American public. The latest installment of this series was Transformers, directed by Mr. Armageddon himself: Michael Bay. And I saw it last night.

I’ll get right into it. Transformers was a very fun movie to watch, and I expected that before even getting my ticket. It was full of clichés, a lot of cheesiness, but some of the best special effects I have seen. Industrial Light & Magic (the people who brought you the looks of Star Wars) were responsible for the large robots, and they outdid themselves.

In terms of the storyline, well, dolphins on cocaine could probably come up with a more intellectual plot. However, like I said earlier, I knew what I was getting into. I mean, the movie is based on a line of toy action figures from the 1980s.

The story goes like this: On the distant planet Cybertron, there were the Decepticons and the Autobots. The two races went to war and the Decepticons nearly destroyed the Autobots; those who survived left Cybertron and went elsewhere in the universe. Meanwhile, there is a cube called the All Spark (I think), which gives life to machines (in that crazy Transformer style) and the Decepticons want it to make a whole league of killing machines and take over the universe. Well, the cube landed on earth and now the Decepticons have arrived and so have the remaining Autobots. For the next two hours, we get to watch these two robot teams kill each other and see our tax dollars at work due to the amount of destruction they do on American metropolitan cities.

Michael Bay and the screenwriters probably went to the nearby video store and grabbed their four favorite action flicks because elements of them were quite apparent in the feature film. There’s the main character, Sam, who almost acts as a John Connor type from the Terminator movies. The Decepticons need to get to him for some valuable information and the Autobots know this. One of the Decepticons disguises itself as a police car (Terminator 2 anyone?), then the Autobot guardian angel (disguised as a beat up Camaro) comes in for the attack (all I could think of was Arnold going after the T-1000).

As the plot unfolds, the Department of Defense encounters a Men-in-Black ripoff called Sector 7, that reveal that they have known about the Transformers for the past sixty years and they take the main characters to a secret layout (similar to Independence Day and the Area 51 scene).

As Optimus Prime (the leader of the Autobots) goes into action, it always makes sure that Sam is with him, which requires the robot to constantly grab him and throw him on its shoulder. There are scenes where Sam falls near to his death and Optimus Prime sweeps in and grabs him. I thought they should have had Naomi Watts doing these scenes since she did the same stuff in the recent King Kong.

Also, Optimus Prime gave Sam many words of wisdom (mostly regarding the cube that gave machines life). Such phrases as, “Sam, make the greatest sacrifice happen, put the cube in my chest.” This being said in a very drawn out and dramatic voice. What I heard in my head was that creepy baby alien Kuato from Total Recall saying, “Quade, start the reactor!”

Do not worry though; I am not totally dissing the movie. I am just saying that I was in familiar territory while watching it. At least they weren't ripping off parts of Malibu’s Most Wanted or Dude, Where’s My Car?

It was the special effects that really amazed me. I just wanted to see more of the transformations take place. When the vehicles are going 90 mph on the freeway and you see them convert while still in motion, it was one of the sweetest things to see. I wish the movie could have gone for twenty minutes longer if it meant for more glorious Transformer action. But I am sure each Transformer probably cost $1.2 million to create.

For the superficial, mindless blockbusters that have been released thus far, I give this one a thumbs up.

Sociology Confined to a Box

2007-07-03T00:29:00.001-07:00

All I have to say is that television is such an amazing object. I don’t mean amazing in that glorious way where I would contemplate on what life would be like without its presence, but rather television is just this wondrous tool that somehow takes me out of reality for at least thirty minutes, if not, three hours.

Part of this wondrous experience is that after watching specific programs, I realize that my life is pretty good. This evening was an overload of TV viewing; the first two hours were the programs I missed from Sunday but thank god for HBO On Demand, it’s like I time traveled. By the way, if you haven’t seen the following shows, you are doomed for a miserable existence on this planet: John From Cincinnati, Entourage, and Flight of the Conchords. This block of programming is the definition of quality.

However, since every word has an antonym and every meaning has an antithesis, TV has its equivalent. Once my HBO sessions came to a final end, Eric and I explored the “other” digital cable channels we never watch (yet pay for). There was some WWE Raw, a documentary on Freddie Mercury (of Queen), rap videos from 1992 (I’m talking Coolio and Will Smith), and Cheaters.

Now, Cheaters is one of the god-awful reality shows that I knew about but never actually seen it. This show is, literally, something else. The premise, for those who don’t know, is that people who have a suspicion that their significant other is, wait for it, cheating on them will go to this tool named Joey Greco (or something really close to that) and he and his crew will research this, spy on the significant other, get footage of some cheating going down, and then go to the original person and show the footage. The episode ends with Joey Greco, the “victim,” and the camera crew confronting the cheating bastard and the whore, who took part, in the midst of some date.

The people who participate in Cheaters (both victim and victimizer) are the highest quality of American culture. The victim, who I found out is usually a woman, is so angry yet so in love with the cheating person that she just doesn’t know what to do with herself. Chances are the woman will tend to have stereotypical “white trash” features, and probably a Southern accent. The cheater will have one of the following: a rat-tail, a lazy eye, or an over-bite (and if you’re lucky, you may catch an episode where all three options are shown). The dialogue in the confrontation is amusing. Joey Greco will try to take on the role of morality. The victim will be the voice of hysteria; such words will be said: “You bastard!” “Why?!” “I loved you!” Then you have the cheater, who will have the classic dumbfounded look and words to follow: “What? What did I do?” “Well, I thought we were broken up after the fight about the TV.” And the third party member who made the cheating happen who will have the statement: “I had no idea.”

After screening a decent run of episodes and seeing what kind of theme of people the show presents, I started reflecting on the other offerings TV had that focused on this population that Cheaters shows a slice of. I created a top three list that best describes the “Less Fortunate of America” I guess you could call it.

3. Cheaters: I realized that you just see a couple, but due to the amount of emotion that is presented, I feel you get a whole experience. It’s as if they’re representing an entire culture.

2. The Jerry Springer Show: I am talking Springer from 1996-1998 when it was good and in its prime. Whether or not the episodes were staged, it did not matter. I saw things I never knew existed.

1. Cops: It never mattered what city they focused on because, somehow, the cops always wound up in the same area. The problem usually dealt with a wife calling the cops about some domestic dispute. You always got the same thing: the husband in his underwear or a pair of shorts, his face censored, and maybe, just maybe, a can of beer in the left hand. The wife probably had frizzled blonde hair, a t-shirt advertising some mountain range she has never been to or a wolf, and her face would also be censored.

“This asshole tried to hit me!” you could feel the rage coming out of her.

“Okay, sir, why were trying to hit her?” Officer #1 would politely ask.

“The crazy bitch was hitting me with her broom. I ain’t trying to hit her,” the husband would plea.

“Ma’am, is this true? Were you hitting him with a broom?” Officer #2 showed some concern with curiosity.

“Well… I mean, he wouldn’t let me have control of the remote!”

“Woman, you know I watch the Nascar highlights after the Wheel is done!”

“I’m sick and tired of the Wheel, you never get them right anyways! When do I get to watch what I want to watch?!”

“When you get a goddamn job…” at this point the cops have slowly migrated back into their patrol car. They tune into dispatch and realized that a major stabbing had just taken place that was about a mile away.

The slices of life that I don’t get to see. God bless my television.

Mission Accomplished

2007-07-02T08:26:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately this entry has nothing to do with the war in Iraq because we all know that’s a lost cause. However, you know who is not a lost cause? This guy (imagine me pointing my two thumbs towards my chest)! I believe in at least a couple of the entries on this page I have mentioned my admiration for a certain bartender that works at the Red, a bar that I frequently visit. Well, imagine this being a season of Lost and you finally got some plot point resolved because I got her number last night.

Friday evening was a night of triumph and courage as Eric, our friend Ben, and myself completed a round of miniature golf at the Boardwalk (by the way, I am a champ at the miniature golf); after the night of enduring sports was complete, we ventured onto familiar territory, that being the Red and the 515: the two bars that we pretty much only go to. For a Friday night, the Red was not as busy as we imagined it to be, and of course, there was my bartender. I managed to make conversation happen and in it she mentioned that Sunday night she has to work at the 515 (the two bars are owned by the same people). She then went into detail on how it’s going to be incredibly boring since no one goes to that place, especially on a Sunday evening. I had a new destination come Sunday evening.

Sunday evening, Eric and I walked upstairs into the 515, and sure enough, it was pretty dull and there was the bartender looking bored out of her mind. She was quite pleased to see our presence. After a while, some of her other friends pulled up to the bar and then Kyle called Eric and said he was at the Hindquarter drinking and playing dice. Eric took the initiative to move locations. All I could think was, “You’re ruining my game!” Although there really wasn’t much of game since the bartender was talking to her friends. But goals, I’ve got goals.

The Hindquarter is a restaurant/bar that our friend John (the best man at the wedding I went to who put his contacts in hydrogen peroxide) used to work at. We have met all of his former coworkers in the past, and they still work there. There was Brendan, a waiter we’ve hung out in the past, that made arrangements with Eric and I to play disc golf (Frisbee golf for those who don’t know what that is) Monday night. There was Tara, the hot bartender, who I decided to experiment with.

“Tara!” keep in mind I had two glasses of Macallen scotch at the 515 and a beer.

“Peter!”

“What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“I…”

“Doesn’t matter, you’re playing disc golf with us!”

“I don’t think so.”

”Okay, how about you and I just hang out in the parking lot,” she laughed and attended her empty glasses that needed washing apparently. I received the full name treatment from Eric, as if he was a parent catching his child cursing.

Things died down finally at the Hindquarter and I told Eric that we have to go back to the 515 because I’ve got goals!

We arrived and there were different faces at the counter, but my bartender was still there. I don’t even remember the conversations that took place. I want to say I had another glass of Macallen 12. Finally, Eric and I decided to conclude the night and as we walked away from the bar, I went to my bartender.

“Kim, can I call you because it would be cool for us to do something that doesn’t require you making me drunk and me giving you money,” I know this wasn’t the most direct or the most suave route to go, but A for effort.

“What do you mean? Like both of us being on this side of the bar?” she pointed to the bar stools we had just risen from.

“Sure!” she then started saying her number and I had to pull out my phone fast. Due to my current state, I had trouble entering the numbers; it was a good thing she was watching me type in the numbers.

“No, five, you want to type in a five. Peter, that’s an eight. Okay, that’s too many sevens, Peter, two sevens, not three.” I could feel Eric judging me from the corner. We left and I was on cloud nine. As we headed back home, Eric kept commenting on how ridiculous I was. All I could reply with was that I had a goal and that goal was complete.

So, those who have been with me at the Red, I appreciate your patience. I realize I met this person six months ago, but it’s been a challenging “Hero’s Journey” for me. Six months isn’t too bad, we’ve broken four years in Iraq.

Lets just hope I don’t fuck this up; I’ve been put into trouble due to my optimism in the past.

Full Size Exposure

2007-07-01T13:27:00.001-07:00

Here it is, the first of July, and I woke up in a hotel room. Wait a minute; it was my bedroom. Why would I think I woke up in some random hotel room? Oh, it’s because I finally upgraded my life by getting a full size bed! Yes, I am truly a real boy now. Yesterday morning I got the new bed delivered to the house then in the evening I went shopping for new sheets and a comforter. I toured Ross for a good deal but Ross was not so Rossome (get it? Ross + Awesome. If you’re rolling your eyes right now, I give full credit to my friend Zoe for that joke; blame her). After the Ross let down, Sears truly showed their softer side with five aisles of bed sets and pillows that were on sale. My Saturday evening became a night of adoring my new setup.

So, waking up this morning with a new bed and a new spread, it felt like it didn’t belong to me (hence the hotel experience). A few months ago, Shawna and Rebecca toured my bedroom and I received the Feng Shui report, and I failed. There were certain things I lacked like plants, the right usage of the space in the room, and a larger bed. My life has been confined to the twin size bed. Growing up it was a bunk bed; then in high school, it was a loft bed, which was the same experience besides no one underneath me. College was a twin size bed since I lived on campus all four years. After college, a girl I knew sold me her twin size bed and that was what I used since. So, the change is something definitely beneficial.

Even as I write this, I am laying on the new pad. It’s great, there is so much space that I can be a hypotenuse; look I am lying diagonally across the mattress! Oh, wait, let me turn the other way, oh, I am still a hypotenuse and I am not falling over. Such sweet times.

No More Space

2007-06-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

The greatest casuality of 2007 has happened.

My account with Myspace.com has come to an end (November 2005 - June 2007).

Here's an excerpt from the obituary:

"Peter's Myspace page, which had a circle of friends totaling 84 members, was found dead late Thursday evening, June 28, 2007. His myspace page led a great and courageous life. It was frequented by many visitors such as very attractive women named Colleen, Nicole, and Elise who wanted to have a good time. They placed many requests to be in the company of the myspace page.

Even in the music world, Peter's Myspace page had attracted many bands that thought they sounded like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, and even Radiohead. Such bands as the Godforsaken Bored, Rusted Souls, and the San Luis Obispo based Feathers on Sunday Mornings all asked to be friends with Peter's Myspace page.

Various accomplishments that Peter's Myspace had ranged from revealing its impact on Western history to indicating it has never seen an episode of Heroes.

Some not so known elements were the true outting of Valerie Plame, the revelation on who Deep Throat was, and the already given knowledge that Crash was going to win Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain at the 2006 Academy Awards.

Peter's Myspace page loved to laugh and adored children. People can contribute to the Peter's Myspace Memorial Endowment Fund; it will benefit innocent children who have bad luck."

Rest assured something new will come around.

"Why?! Why did Peter's Myspace page have to go and not you?! Why?!"

Gravity Sets the Mood

2007-06-26T22:34:00.001-07:00

While researching random prospects on the donor database, I found myself in a definite set routine. Luckily, conducting this research made time, somehow, fly by extremely fast (and I assure you it was not one of those “time flies when you’re having fun” things). After plowing through a couple dozen names and looking up any contact report comments or general giving history patterns, I glanced at the time and it was already post 5 o’clock. I suddenly became Fred Flintstone and yelled “Yaba daba do!” and slid off my long neck dinosaur… that is not entirely true. I walked to the bus stop.

With the summer schedule already set, the buses are not as frequent as they were during the academic year. A bus finally came after a good fifteen-minute wait. I came aboard and about four feet in I suddenly trip. Another passenger had some sort of basket/suitcase item that was in the walkway of the bus. I slammed my body hard on the ground; luckily nothing bad happened to me besides my dignity being shattered. I heard the bus driver ask if I was alright.

The second after my horizontal transformation I heard laughter from one of the passengers and this passenger was actually right by my landing zone. I rose and saw the person and, my god, she was the most beautiful person I have seen in, at least, a few years (this is one of those movie moments where the light around her is really vibrant and a gush of wind comes out of nowhere). I ask her if I could sit next to her so I could hide my shame from the rest of the bus and she agrees. I think I was slightly shaken by my pull to the earth because I usually would never even try to sit close to an extremely attractive woman (please read my fear list from a month or so ago where I describe attractive women as my number 4, or maybe it’s number 3, fear).

My fellow passenger brought to my attention on why she was laughing. She had in her lap a notepad with various crazy Einstein looking notes; she said she was wrapping up her notes on a lecture she is going to help conduct on gravitational waves. She then asked if I knew what those were. At this point, I flashbacked onto my wedding encounter where the cute girl Yuriko asked if I knew what music therapy was.

“Um, is that when the moon is full and the tide is at its highest?” apparently I am extremely funny when I am extremely ignorant because this girl was laughing.

She cured my ignorance with a brief explanation on gravitational waves, which according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, the force of gravity is due to the curvature of spacetime; this curvature is caused by the presence of massive objects. Roughly speaking, the more massive the object is, the greater the curvature it causes, and hence the more intense the gravity. As massive objects move around in spacetime, the curvature will change. If the objects move around in the right way, ripples in spacetime can spread outward like ripples on the surface of a pond. These ripples are gravitational waves. She sort of said this but I had to use Wikipedia to assist on the wording of this as I write my story.

Basically, she was amused because as she was wrapping up her notes, she sees this tall guy, who represents a decent amount of mass and then is suddenly a victim of gravity. So, due to my tallness, the more intense gravity there was. I then explained that I was nine pounds and eleven ounces when I was born, measuring at twenty-five inches. This probably led to the reason why my mother’s labor experience was so short (starting at around 1am and then my arrival right before 7am) since this massive amount of mass came out of her and the earth’s gravitational pull was doing its part.

She put her hand out and introduced herself as Nikki and I followed back with Peter. Nikki said she was a TA for the summer session physics class; I said I was a digital text engineer. Lie! Just riding off of my wedding story! No, I explained what I did on campus. She went into some more detail about her physics knowledge and I sort of tuned her out. I kept thinking of my perceptions of beauty and what causes them to be even more enhanced. Last weekend I saw a series of local bands perform, and in some of them were female singers, and I thought, “Wow, they’re pretty. Wow, they can sing. I can’t sing. Wow, they play the guitar, that’s really hot. I can’t play guitar.” So with Nikki, my thoughts ran as, “Wow, she knows physics. She’s really pretty. She’s smart. I don’t know physics. I can tell her the speed of objects as they fall to earth’s gravity. She’s pretty.” Imagine my voice sounding like a six year old boy as these words traveled through my head. Basically, if the woman is pretty, that’s good right there, but if she does something that I can’t do or does something really impressive; that makes the beauty go into some exponential rate.

I figured she was getting off at the Science Hill/Engineering bus stop, which, unfortunately, was coming very soon. I became very self-conscious at this point because those thoughts were rolling through my head; I heard all those things like asking her for her number, something! But I backed out. However, I don’t think it was due to my usual list of excuses, this one was due to the whole bus atmosphere. The bus was pretty full and was getting even more full as we explored the campus. So, I didn’t want to be that guy on the bus who asks out some girl. The worst part would have been her declining and that I have to be that guy on the bus who got rejected. No good, I say.

I wished her luck on her gravitational waves lecture and she exited the bus. When the bus got to the College 8/Porter bus stop, a cool hipster got on board and sat near me. He pulled out a book and began reading. I glanced at the cover and it was Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. Damn you, gravity!

I declared Nikki as my gravitational angel who I may never see again. Now, I’ve got to make sure that I get on the Route 10 bus at 5:33 pm outside of the Lower Campus bus stop, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll cross paths with her again.

The Fever of '57

2007-06-25T21:46:00.001-07:00

So, my friend Zoe helped make a movie. It is a documentary about Sputnik, entitled The Fever of ‘57. I realize many people may not be appealed to documentaries, and that some people assume that all documentaries are boring or not interesting.

With the power of trick editing, studios can make movie trailers represent a certain type of movie whereas the actual film itself is an entirely different genre. Well, who says a poster can’t do the same thing?

Below is something for the anti-documentary people.

A Magnetic Personality

2007-06-21T22:48:00.001-07:00

I enjoy taking the long way to work. I realize there is a bus stop a block away from my street. Instead, I enjoy the strut down Laurel Street, go about eight blocks, then turn on to Cedar Street and then eventually hit the main strip and buy a small cup of coffee, which is at the end of the main strip, and then walk back towards the metro bus center. It’s my routine of walking exercise, a good way to start the morning.

The other morning was like any other morning, except for the amount of traffic there was on Laurel Street. I was approaching the light intersection where Laurel and Center Street meet, and one of the side streets (Washington Street, I believe) had a car pulling out. The car was a dark blue PT Cruiser. There was a line of vehicles at the light but the Cruiser did not hesitate; it pulled right out onto Laurel Street and drove in the left lane where the oncoming traffic would come. Luckily there weren’t any oncoming cars and the Cruiser just plowed right through the red light and kept going.

Randomly, at the intersection, coming from the Center Street side, was a police car. I shouldn’t say randomly since the Santa Cruz city police station is on Center Street. Anyway, the police car was the first car at the light and after seeing the Cruiser blast its way through the light and continuing to accelerate down Laurel, the police car followed pursuit. I saw that the Cruiser made a right onto Cedar Street, which is where I usually cross the street to get to and then go down. The police car followed it onto Cedar.

I was only a block away and I was hoping that when I got to the crosswalk I would see the Cruiser pulled over. As I was passing one of the side streets, which is directly across the street from Cedar, there was a couple walking ahead of me, maybe fifteen or twenty. I saw to my left, which is where Cedar began from Laurel Street, the PT Cruiser coming from where he turned. However, he did not stop as he pulled from Cedar, it bolted across Laurel and right down the street that I was passing. Lucky for me, I was not in the crossing, but I did back up as this maniac was going at least 50 mph through the street. The unlucky part was the couple in front me got a first hand experience of the Cruiser maniac. The male of the couple encountered a sideswipe from the Cruiser. It was not a head on collision, but a good enough hit that caused the man to be forced to dive into the street, headfirst. The woman was in a state of hysteria as the man lied there; his face was pretty scraped up but he was talking at least.

I rushed over to see if he and she were alright. The woman was fine and the man seemed to be doing fine so far. I asked if she wanted me to call 911 and she snapped saying she would do it. I then asked if she wanted me to stick around to be a witness, or give a statement. She again declined. Right after this, the police car that was originally in pursuit was still on the Cruiser’s tail. The police car went down the same route that the Cruiser did. It had its lights on and I could see the police officer speaking into his dispatch.

The woman told me to leave and that it would be okay. I continued walking down to the metro center, I chose to skip coffee and just go straight to work. While walking, I kept contemplating on whether or not I should call 911 just to make sure. I turned around and saw her on the phone and the man was sitting up right, so that all looked comforting.

I arrived to work and immediately went upstairs and told my coworker Stacey what I had witnessed. It was all a little surreal for me. I later told some other coworkers, and one of them mentioned that I tend to encounter some strange happenings. This made me think of one of my student workers. I was telling her and some of the other students about my wedding weekend and she replied with, “We decided that we can’t believe you anymore! You have some of the weirdest shit happen to you, yet you are such a normal and dorky guy! What the hell? I mean, your house floods, old men give you hundreds of dollars at a bar, people mistake you for a Mormon and throw coffee at you, deer run you over!” I can elaborate into more detail on some of the stories mentioned, if needed.

What is it about my presence? Why am I a part of these strange predicaments? I think it’s some weird case of a magnetic personality (seeing that a PT Cruiser, a large metal vessel, was a few feet from my body as it went 50 plus, that makes sense).

Anyway, the day went on and I eventually became distracted from my morning actions due to the excitement I take in from the grand world of development.

The next morning I was taking the same path to work, that is, going down Laurel Street, turning onto Cedar Street and then the coffee shop and then to the Metro. I passed by a newspaper stand, which was actually right by where the man got hit by the crazy Cruiser. The front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel stated “Car Crash Ends in Firing Blaze” or something along those lines. I start reading the first paragraph and it read:

“CAPITOLA — A high-speed car chase just before noon Wednesday turned a normally quiet neighborhood into a fiery crime scene.”

Interesting, Capitola had some excitement. Then the article continued.

“A man suspected of stealing a PT Cruiser on Bay Avenue” Jesus! A PT Cruiser, that had to be my Cruiser, or some really messed up coincidence “snubbed orders by police to stop and, in an attempt to outrun authorities, drove the stolen vehicle into a patrol car and injured a Capitola police officer before crashing it into a home and setting the house ablaze, according to police.”

My god. The article went into further detail on how around 11am, the Capitola police started chasing the Cruiser. It ended, as mentioned, with the Cruiser plowing into a house. I’m still trying to get all the fine points together because I was heading to work around 8:45am or so when I saw the Cruiser and the Capitola police did not interact with him until 11am. So this crazy man must had gone into hiding somewhere for a while.

When I walked into my office there were the usual fifteen to twenty new email waiting for me; three or four of them were from my coworkers asking me if the article they read in the Sentinel was the same thing that I encountered. I replied, assuming as much, unless there is some hot demand for PT Cruisers. I am still trying to figure out why were all the Santa Cruz details not mentioned? A man did get hit by this guy. I wonder if the woman gave a statement or if she did, was there a connection made. Maybe since there was such a gap of time, that the police did not connect the Santa Cruz PT Cruiser chase to be the same with the Capitola PT Cruiser. I’m going to go to the Santa Cruz police station and mention what I encountered, just so there is some awareness, or something!

In pursuit

Poor, poor Cruiser.

Maniac McGee

The Workings of a Beautiful Friendship

2007-06-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Over the past few years I’ve noticed that I have acquired certain allergic reactions to various fruits, mostly within the melon family. Does this stop me from eating them? Of course not. I just cowboy up and indulge. How can one say no to a piece of cantaloupe, even if it makes the roof of my mouth itchy and my throat create some swelling? In recent encounters, I have come to the conclusion that more common fruits (apples, grapes, and bananas) are doing some other kind of reaction; the kind that requires you to sit on a toilet. I apologize for the gross factor. Like the melon, I do not stop because I know deep down that fruits are healthy for me.

Today at work there was a fruit platter in the kitchen and, of course, I take stab at some grapes, and within forty seconds, a shotgun went off in my stomach, and I suddenly had a new destination. When I came back to work reality, I had to pass through the kitchen again to get to my office and one of my coworkers was talking about her neighbors and the crazy parties they tend to have on a regular basis. I commented on how in my recent living situations I haven’t had a true bonding experience with any of my neighbors and then suddenly my days at the old Capitola apartment building I lived in with Christy came to me.

I know I have mentioned the Capitola days in the past; it was right after college graduation, I wasn’t making much money at the video store, my boss was a jerk, it was a challenging time for me. One of the other things that played a factor in my living situation was our next-door neighbor. When Christy and I first looked at the fourplex, we had the opportunity to look at the two apartments upstairs (both were vacant). There was suite number 3 and suite number 4. We chose number 4 because it had better natural lighting. About two weeks in, suite number 3 was being occupied. About a day or two later, I finally met the two occupants.

It was a true sense of the odd couple. There was an older man, maybe somewhere between 45 and 55, possible Filipino background, his name was Sam. Then there was the prizewinner. This individual was pretty unique; he was tall and slender, but very toned. He had long blonde hair, but bleached, but not that salon bleach, but Tom Hanks Cast Away bleached. He wore a leather vest, a sports bra, and some small short denim shorts. There were all kinds of tattoos on his arms that were that dark green color and they mixed in with his leathery tan skin. He wore thick glasses that magnified his eyes and he lacked a front row of teeth. He introduced himself as Miss Daryl Powell, a certified hermaphrodite.

I am not a connoisseur on the hermaphrodite world, but I don’t think that word is used anymore. I believe it has transitioned into transgender, but I can’t back that statement up. So when I reference Miss Daryl Powell, I was never sure what gender to identify Miss Daryl Powell with. Powell didn’t really have any feminine features besides the various articles of clothing he wore (all from the women’s side of the local thrift store). I do recall seeing his chest having lump features but then I saw him, one time, adjusting the little pads under his sports bra. Plus he wore spandex shorts sometimes and, sure enough, there was definitely something three dimensional down there. So maybe Miss Daryl Powell wanted to identify as a woman. I really do not know.

So once they moved in, it was late June, and little did I know that this was going to be a long summer. But not in that Endless Summer- I love surfing- kind of way. Miss Daryl Powell was a very up close and personal type of human, that literally would talk to you with a four inch distance between your face and his/her’s. I remember Miss Daryl Powell asking if Christy and I smoked cigarettes, and we said no. S/he was pleased with this answer because s/he indicated that s/he had asthma. However, s/he then responded with that we better not mind that s/he smokes marijuana because s/he has a license to do so. Miss Daryl Powell mentioned something about bad bones, and then it went into bad blood circulation, and then into other health issues. I just thought it was amusing how one with asthma would be such a proponent of marijuana usage. One thing though, was I didn’t realize that Miss Daryl Powell’s free ticket to partake in the ganja would result in s/he sitting outside of her/his doorway and lighting up. This was quite common. Another observation was the instrument involved; for someone that is medically certified to smoke weed, you would think a better tool would be used. What I saw when s/he smoked was a piece of wood used for the base, a lot of aluminum foil, a straw, and something that looked like a little light bulb. Like the realm of hermaphrodites, I am not a connoisseur on the instruments that allow one to smoke weed, but I would think something a bit more professional would be involved.

When Miss Daryl Powell was not taking in marijuana, s/he would usually sit outside in the little lawn chair placed outside of the door and take in the general surroundings. Every time Christy or myself would leave for work or come back from work, there was Miss Daryl Powell, taking in life. The worst part was when s/he would speak to either of us. Questions about what we were doing would come about. Christy was a runner so on her downtime, she would take advantage of the freedom, and, well, go for a run. Miss Daryl Powell asked about this and then go on about how for thirty years s/he used to train people for marathons. I had my share of conversations with Miss Daryl Powell, and the chronology of her/his life did not quite add up. There were the stories how Miss Daryl Powell was born and raised in Oklahoma, stayed there for thirty years, s/he lived in Hawaii for thirty years, lived in Santa Cruz for thirty years. Of course there was marathon training for thirty years, then there was being a cop for thirty years, worked in real estate for thirty years. While living there I drove a ’74 Plymouth Valiant, and Miss Daryl Powell mentioned that s/he used to work on engines for Valiants for thirty years (although the Plymouth Valiant went extinct by the end of the 1970s). So, basically, Miss Daryl Powell was full of shit, or slightly delusional.

It became a problem with Miss Daryl Powell hanging outside of her/his door that we would fear leaving our apartment because we knew we would have to be caught in some conversation. When I pull in the driveway, I would try focusing on the stairwell to see if there was a body up there. I would sometimes wait in my car until I saw the body move inside.

Miss Daryl Powell then took the initiative to come to our door sometimes and ask for various favors. Both of us had vehicles, s/he did not. Therefore there was always the random errand that needed to be done. S/he would ask if one of us could drive her/him to the social security office to pick up a check, could we take her/him to the store to buy some “pop,” the favors never ended. Neither of us ever did any of those favors because we are liars. We created random excuses all the time in order to avoid taking part in any mentioned actions. S/he would also do random things like put a welcome mat in front of our door, or fix our sliding screen, or hang a plant.

“I fixed your door,” s/he mentioned, as I was about to unlock the door to go inside.

“Oh, I didn’t know it was broken.”

“Oh yeah, you see here…” Miss Daryl Powell then went into great detail about how one of the screws was- I don’t even know what was wrong with the screw. All I remember is hearing Miss Daryl Powell saying that s/he used to be a civil engineer for thirty years. Finally it ended with “it’ll cost you.”

Knowing that I didn’t ask for this deed to be done, I was slightly confused, but I was polite, “Um… what do you want?”

“A meal,” I went inside really quick and found a half empty bag of frozen peas and just threw them to her/him. That hit the spot apparently. But this became a theme later on.

About a month or so in, Miss Daryl Powell’s housemate, Sam, packed up and moved out in the middle of the night. I could tell this hurt Miss Daryl Powell’s feelings, but it didn’t keep me up at night. S/he would then make little visits and ask if I knew anyone that was moving. Miss Daryl Powell was trying to sell the idea, s/he would mention that the deposit was already taken care of, all the person would have to do is just move in. That was it. I remember some people I knew talk about moving but there was no way in hell I was going to alert them about a possible opening.

Finally after a two-week struggle, suddenly Miss Daryl Powell had an answer to her/his problems. S/he rang the doorbell of our place to say that s/he found somebody to move in. S/he met this person at the metro bus center at the Capitola Mall. S/he described him as quiet but aggressive. I wasn’t sure what to expect from those details. A day later I looked through the curtains of our front door and I saw the individual who moved in. He looked like a very hairy bear that was caught in a fish net. I think Miss Daryl Powell found a bum hanging around the bus center and had that person move in. I do not know how rent was paid (well, from either of the two, for that matter). I never met the individual but I called him Papa Bear.

The living situation between Miss Daryl Powell and Papa Bear was somewhat awkward. The two of them had a mutual appreciation for the medically certified marijuana that Miss Daryl Powell had, but once they were inside, all we could hear was yelling. We could never decipher what the yelling was exactly, but the occasional push and shove would take place. Our living room walls would vibrate every once in a while. However, ten minutes later the yelling and physical forces would die down and then the two were back outside taking hits from the aluminum foil instrument with the random light bulb.

By October, one morning I was going to work and I saw a piece of paper taped to the door of our glorious neighbor’s place. It was from the rental company, and it was an eviction notice. There it was, the thirty-day notice and that after the given time period, the two individuals were not allowed back in the premise. There were no details on why exactly, but I had a decent sized list in my head on why they were forced to leave.

Papa Bear suddenly vanished; there were no more signs of his existence after the sign went up. Miss Daryl Powell still hung around; I know he didn’t have much furniture, it was mostly plastic crates and office storage boxes with random pictures taped to the walls. By the end of the eviction due date, somehow Miss Daryl Powell managed to persuade some young guy, maybe my age or a little younger to help Miss Daryl Powell move out. The youngling had a van and Miss Daryl Powell took advantage of this. It was just one day, and Miss Daryl Powell was no longer in our complex. About three weeks after that, a young married couple moved in. They were incredibly sweet people.

I saw Miss Daryl Powell maybe two more times after that. Both were at the bus center at the Capitola Mall. The first time, s/he was just walking around, sort of hovering in front of the Carl’s Jr. The second time, s/he was leaning against the wall of the bus center, her/his head rocking out to some tunes. The funnier part of this site was seeing the headphones attached to her/his head but the cord that dangled from the headphones was not plugged into anything. Oh Miss Daryl Powell, how you amused me.

Redefining the Word 'Amusement'

2007-06-18T21:41:00.000-07:00

After getting off the bus today to get to work, I noticed something distinctly different. That difference was the general vacancy on the autobus, there weren’t any students riding on it. It was officially summer in my head, although a meteorologist would probably have an alternative argument. Last week was finals week and this past weekend was graduation.

Acknowledging summer’s existence usually puts all kinds of thoughts into my head: vacation plans (Virginia here I come!), work transitions (new office!), no student workers (well, maybe three), general nostalgia (how doing nothing but swimming and playing outside for two and half months was absolute bliss), and the summer blockbuster (all the action flicks and sequels).

Summer blockbusters become a staple conversation for many of the common people. This topic almost replaces the “how’s the weather” conversation that many folks tend to divert to when they find a lull in some form of discussion with another human being. The films that get released in the theater will find their way into the hearts of many, whether it ranges from taking the kids out, a possible date, entertaining friends, recognizing that guilty pleasure, or the remake that rekindles your childhood (Transformers anybody?).

However, in the tradition of summer releases, there is always a theme: sequels! It’s a guarantee you will see a parade of sequels, whether they are parts of an overall series, third installments wrapping up a trilogy, a part two you were expecting, or a fourth installment that you didn’t see coming due to a thirteen year hiatus. Currently there has been quite the streak of non-originals out like Shrek the Third, Ocean’s Thirteen, 28 Weeks Later, Spiderman 3, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The ones due out soon are Rush Hour 3, Aliens vs. Predator 2, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter 5). The one that I want to talk about is Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

The latest Pirates movie was released a few weeks ago and is the third (and hopefully) final feature in this, now, trilogy. The summer of 2003 is when the first Pirates film was released. I remember I had some negative thoughts about this flick when I first saw the poster for it at a movie theater. Two things bothered me about this: a) it’s a movie based on the amusement park ride and b) it was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who was responsible for such hits as Armageddon, The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds, and CSI. Come that summer, it was released and everyone and their mother went and saw it. Some selling points were the fact that Johnny Depp was the main star, which many people love the Depp, and that Orlando Bloom was in it, which any girl between the age of fourteen and twenty-five is in love with. I’m not going to advocate Kiera Knightley’s role in it because I don’t find her all that attractive and I don’t know many other guys who do either.

I did not see the first Pirates in the theater, I, instead, went and saw many other quality films such as S.W.A.T., League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Matrix Reloaded, and Terminator 3. I waited for its rental release and this was when I was working at the video store. It wasn’t until this movie, specifically, came out for rent was when I decided that humans are going to go extinct very soon. Seeing this movie get rented out the day it was released, and then for almost five weeks it was still checked out, I saw people at their worst.

“When the fuck do you think you’ll have a copy?!”

“I’ve been here everyday for the last two weeks!!! You owe me something. I’m not leaving here until I get something that I didn’t pay for!!!” I promoted that he should steal something but then I would call the cops.

During my time at the video store, I saw people get driven to insanity over four films: Pirates of the Caribbean, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill Vol. 1, and The Incredibles. These four were constantly checked out for a great period of time, and people literally cut their own arms in the store (not entirely true). If someone is so upset that a movie about pirates is checked out, his life must be pretty good then. I just never understood why you would pull your own hair out or threaten people due to the absence of some movie.

I saw Pirates, and it was decent. I didn’t (and still haven’t) figure out what all the insanity was about. Well, apparently this movie was so good that Bruckheimer and the Nazis at Disney decided to make another Pirates movie (and secretly make a third one simultaneously). The sequel was released last summer and everyone I knew went and saw it. The common reactions were:

“It was really boring.”

“That movie should have been an hour shorter.”

“Some of those scenes could have been ten minutes shorter.”

However, the common thread amongst all the viewers I knew of that movie was:

“But the last two minutes were so good, I’ll go and see the third one.”

All I can say is that you are a sucker. Just because a character from the first film makes a cameo in the last two minutes of this near three hour feature doesn’t mean you have to cough up another ten dollars for the third installment a year from now. Here we are, the next summer, and almost everyone I know went in line to get his or her Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ticket.

When friends and colleagues would tell me they were planning on seeing this film, I would usually role my eyes or pass some form of judgment. As usual, they would have their argument on why they were seeing this film, and the follow up argument on why I should shut up and see the film anyway.

“Come on, it’s entertaining.”

When someone says this, that person is walking into dangerous territory. The word “entertaining” can go in various directions. If you want to use entertaining as a valid reason of why this movie is good, then I can argue that the action flick Swordfish is an entertaining film. Why? One may ask. Simple. The film has a pretty hip soundtrack by Paul Oakenfold, you get to see Halle Berry’s breasts, and there is a scene where Hugh Jackman has to crack a computer code within a minute while having a gun to his head… oh yeah, and he’s getting a blowjob while this is all going down (no pun intended). That’s entertaining.

The other direction is that entertaining is one of the ugliest words in the English language. Entertaining falls into a triad of words that people should do their best to avoid. That triad is:

Entertaining – Interesting – Nice

Interesting is usually used when one is not quite sure how to sum something up. It’s mentioned when someone wants to describe a specific topic, whether it was a presidential debate, or a woman’s singing vocals, and that person lacks any other adjective or is not totally familiar with the English language and will then bust out with, “well, it was sort of interesting.” It’s possible that some elaboration may arise after the I word was dropped. Sometimes the person will use the I word in order to avoid a phrase like, “that chick was totally cool!” In most common situations, the person who used interesting is worried about not sounding like a complete idiot and that interesting is, maybe, somewhat, of an academic word.

Nice is used when someone doesn’t want to hurt another person’s feelings. Nice can encompass a person’s comments on the color of a house, the looks of your best friend’s girlfriend, or the cuteness of a dog. “Oh, it’s… nice.” “Oh, she seemed… nice.” You know you have used it, you have heard your friends use it, and you hate it when someone uses it on you. Nice is a dirty word that upsets everybody involved, because the one using it knows he is not being honest and the person hearing it knows he is full of shit.

Entertaining is involved when an individual has just watched a crappy film and won’t admit it or hasn’t quite recognized the fact that it was a crappy film. Sometimes entertaining is an escape route to hide the fact that the following movie is actually a guilty pleasure of yours and your friends just won’t understand. The e word is also a defense mechanism to those who liked the crappy movie and his entire circle of friends hated it.

“Oh my god, Fast and the Furious was probably the worst movie ever made!”

“Seriously! I could have made a better film with $12 and Bazooka Joe gum!”

“Hey, it was at least entertaining,” dirty looks then arrive.

In the same conversation where the friend or colleague is trying to persuade me to go see the new Pirates movie, the mention of it being based on the infamous Disneyland ride comes up. Like entertaining, this argument can be steered in different directions.

The fact that Pirates of the Caribbean is based on the internationally recognized amusement park ride can seem charming. Many people may not realize, or maybe chose to forget, that Pirates was not the first or last movie to be based on a Disneyland ride. A year, maybe two years, before the first Pirates flick came out, Disney released The Country Bears with the talents of Haley Joel Osment and Christopher Walken. How many people saw that film? 4500. The film that came after the first Pirates based on a ride was The Haunted Mansion, an Eddie Murphy classic. It’s up there with Boomerang.

The flipside of this concept of the film being based on a ride, is that THIS FILM IS BASED ON A RIDE!!! I find the value and appreciation of films slowly draining due to this reason. I can’t wait until the day that all the ideas have run dry and all the rides have been made into feature length films, producers will then pitch such potential hits as Bumper Cars starring George Clooney, Mandy Moore, and Al Pacino as the crazy bolt of electricity, or Tall Water Slide starring Ethan Hawke, Natalie Portman, and Michael Ironside as the fear of heights. I’m sure Disney knows the money they are going to make from this new franchise; they have an entire amusement park of ideas to choose from for their next films.

The third Pirates movie has already been released and now many more summer features are coming out, every Friday to be exact. Come this October, Pirates will most likely be released out on DVD. Everyone will go out and buy their copy to add to their shelves with their copies of the first two Pirates movies. Then by Christmas time, the ultimate trilogy edition will be released. By summer of 2008, the Treasure Chest trilogy edition will be released that will include 12 discs of pure pirate booty fun. The funny part is that everyone who bought the third pirate movie in fall, will buy the ultimate trilogy edition in wintertime, and then will buy the special treasure edition in the summer time. I saw people do it with the Lords of the Rings and The Matrix.

In the meantime, everyone should get excited as It’s a Small World comes out Christmas of 2007 with Matthew McCounaghey and Rebecca Romijn. Next May we will see Space Mountain starring Jude Law and Cillian Murphy. Don’t forget the Thanksgiving after that will be The Tiki Tiki Room with Jake Gyllenhal and the voices of Danny DeVito, Bruce Willis, and Sarah Silverman. This is only the beginning, you realize.

After the beep, tell me how you feel...

2007-06-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

It’s been about two and a half years since I first got my cell phone. I did not realize that obtaining a cell phone meant that you would be part of another world. Prior to cellular usage, I was a house line kind of a guy, which meant I was a sucker. The various phones I had that were connected to the typical house line never had caller ID so I picked up no matter what. I felt that every time I picked up the phone it was like playing a game of Russian Roulette: one call could be a friend; another call could be a telemarketer, or a family member you’re trying to avoid. It was always a gamble when it came to picking up the house phone.

When I obtained the cell phone, I found myself in this odd sense of freedom. After programming all the numbers I knew into the little device, I could choose if I wanted to pick up the phone or not. My favorite scenario was when I was working at the video store. I was the assistant manager and the store manager wasn’t the most reliable (she didn’t speak English that well, which was one factor), so when ever I wasn’t working, I usually received a phone call from the store and the topics ranged drastically from a cash drawer is off by eighty dollars, to the power going off, or how to reset the security cameras, to a random worker not showing up to work and asking me to come in.

Having the cell phone made me have the choice of not picking up. Just because I have a phone that is readily accessible does not mean that I am readily accessible. Maybe mentally I am just not ready to have that conversation.

The other situation with cell phones is when a number pops up on your screen and you do not recognize the number. Since I do not give my phone out on a regular basis and there isn’t a directory of cell phone numbers handy, I get a little weirded out when an unknown number makes an appearance on the screen. I know some people will pick up automatically; I, however, wait for a voice message. The unrecognizable number may be a solicitor, a bill collector, or a friend calling from another phone, I just don’t know, hence the patience for a voice message.

Yesterday morning, while at work, my cell phone started to ring and there was a number that I didn’t register at first, but then about five vibrates in I realized it was my landlord calling. It was too late at this point to pick up and I was not sure on why he was calling exactly. I remembered after the phone stopped vibrating that my housemate Eric was going to email him about our moving out this summer and what the situation was with the deposit money we gave to the company to dry out the house. But why would he call me?

After the vibrations ended, there was no sign of a voice message, so he must have done the call and hang up scene. I left my office and did the typical rounds with the fellow coworkers and then came back to my office some time later and there was the sign saying I had a new voicemail. Oh, what did the landlord have to say?

“Hi Peter, it’s [censored]. I just got Adam’s email,” goes to show how well he knows his tenants, especially tenants who caused a lot of damage to one of his houses “and he wanted to know what the situation was. Well, I tell you what the situation is. I lost a lot of money with all this hell you guys put me through.”

You can tell what the tone of the voice message was just from reading the first couple of sentences. He went on for a while listing off the amount of time he spent getting his team out here to reconstruct the house, how there are some money disputes with the company that came out to do the dehumidifying, there are still some unsettled discussions with the home owners insurance, and how he has not been reimbursed for his efforts. He went on another topic on how he tried being a good landlord by not having the insurance people talk to us. And then the last topic was the deposit money for the dehumidifying company.

“And as for the check you wrote for $644, well, just think of that as a generous donation for the hell you put me through!” Say goodbye to that check.

It ended with him saying if I had any questions, I can feel free to call him. Thank you. When the message ended, I looked at my phone, which indicated the length of time I was on that line. It ended with eight minutes and forty seconds. He left a message that went for almost nine minutes (the description I provided was the true Reader’s Digest version). He had a lot to get off his chest and had to talk to somebody. Maybe an email was not enough, and I am pretty sure that my number is the only one he has out of the household.

I imagined this must had been pretty therapeutic for him; knowing that someone’s voice message system is listening to all his problems. That got me thinking about therapy and the world of cell phones. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some hot line you could call where you just rant for however long you want and then you hang up, and hopefully you feel better after all that. There won’t be a call back; the call system is just a technological representation of someone listening to you, and that’s good enough sometimes.

The range of topics would be vastly different, everything from a man named Harold calling in to discuss his suspicions on his wife cheating on him to young Joshua and his new found crush to Miss Powell vocalizing her concerns on the apparent deterioration of human kindness. There will probably be the sickos calling in on how they want to kill somebody or have sex with somebody or have sex with somebody and then kill that somebody. So, there may be some monitoring involved. I haven’t figured out all the details yet.

Prologues and Afterwords of a Holy Matrimony

2007-06-11T00:19:00.000-07:00

Friday evening was not a full moon night, although it seemed to have that tone. Usually on a full moon night there are the ignorant drivers, insane people on the street, and your pets all act unusually weird (I assume there is always a full moon inside my house then). This weekend was going to have a full line up since my two friends, John and Sean, were coming in. Then it dawned on me that when these two individuals are in my presence (or at least knowing they’re in close proximity) strange things tend to happen.

After work, Eric and I did a sushi run and then he left for the night. I received a phone call from John saying he was downtown and that Sean was due relatively soon. John and Sean were two close friends from college; however, John moved to the Los Angeles area last fall and Sean moved to the east coast last summer to attend John Hopkins University. It was a bit painful to see them leave Santa Cruz since they made up a good portion of my social scene while living here. This weekend, their good friend, Nick, was getting married.

Once I received the call from John that he and Nick were downtown drinking coffee, I was in pursuit to Pacific Avenue. As I went down a few blocks, I saw one of the typical Santa Cruz street people. It’s best to not make eye contact with them, but sometimes they still go in for the attack. This street culture member started talking to me as I was walking.

“When someone asks you for a drop of blood, don’t you just want to give them a tenth of a drop of blood and then do that ten times?” I really had no response; I didn’t even stop to pretend to be polite like I was interested in what he was saying. I kept walking and did not make eye contact or any other gesture of recognition. He spoke some more but lucky for me I was not able to intercept the waves of noise that were coming from his position.

After passing the wild street person and knowing that I was seeing John, it made me flashback on one of our strange encounters from the college days. Senior year, spring break, John and I did a walk downtown to go to the Red Room (a hipster bar that many college students attend when they break the 21 mark). We started at the beginning of the main street and the Red Room is a block parallel to Pacific but towards the end of the street. We had many strange interactions with many strange people.

There were the two “gangster” looking people in which gangster 1 asked gangster 2, “Man, remember when we used kill people?”

The random young man on a skateboard that decided to do a small orbit around John and me and then handed a piece of paper that simply said “Missing Dog” with a picture of some dog’s head placed on top of a Magic Eye backdrop.

The best one was once we were on the parallel street, there was a couple (a woman and a man) getting frisky against a tree. Suddenly we noticed the woman’s panties were dropped on the ground. “Those two are having sex,” John whispered.

The worst part was when I got a closer look of the woman. “Her name is [censored], she likes Josh Hartnett movies and pays with a debit card.”

John looked bewildered, “How do you know that?”

“She came into the video store this evening.”

After the series of flashbacks, I found myself at Hoffman’s coffee where John and Nick, were. We sat there for a little while discussing various themes, mostly pertaining to Nick’s future. Eventually we heard from Sean as he pulled into town and the night continued longer once he met with all of us.

The next morning arrived and John got ready and met up with Nick to buy some flowers (John was the best man for Nick’s wedding). Sean asked me to be his “plus-one” since he was dateless; I didn’t have any plans so I said yes. We made the rounds with downtown again to get some coffee, and of course, there were still strange encounters. Various people were passing out fliers that stated free screening of a new documentary called, “Psychiatry: the Industry of Death.” When reading this I thought that this had to be some Scientology bullshit; the flier indicated that it was presented by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Once we got back to my house, I googled that name and sure enough, it’s a branch of the Scientology church.

While we were all getting ready for the wedding, John decided to clean his contact lenses. However, due to laziness he didn’t get his own contact solution from his car, he just borrowed Eric’s solution. The catch here is that Eric’s solution is not the typical type, it’s an anti-bacterial formula, so it’s hydrogen peroxide that filters into a metal catalyst; after five hours it eventually becomes water and the lenses are thoroughly cleansed. Well, John just threw them in there for about an hour, not knowing what was actually in them. John took them out, placed one lens in the right eye.

“Oh my god! What the hell is happening?! Owwww! Oh my god!” John had his hand to his eye “Jesus!” He started to collapse, he began reaching out to anything, our books fell off their shelves as John desperately searched for the bathroom. Upon arrival to the bathroom, Eric sat there on the couch.

“Oh, he must’ve used my contact solution.”

“God! What the hell is this?!” came faintly from the bathroom. He turned the sink on and flushed his eye out as much as possible. John came out of the bathroom, water dripping off his face, his eye blistering red “man, if pain was on a scale from one to ten that was an eight.”

John did his best to get over the pain, got dressed and met with Nick to get flowers and did all the necessary deeds to make sure the wedding was going to happen. Sean and I wrapped up our current actions and eventually became decent and ready to go.

The wedding ceremony started at 1:00pm; Sean and I were on highway one, and it was twenty till at this point. Sean then spoke.

“Alright, so Peter, now I know Nick is getting married at a Catholic church in Watsonville. The problem is I don’t know where it is.”

“Have you called John?”

“I tried, it goes straight to voicemail, the same with Nick’s.”

“Bummer.”

“So, having you as navigator, once we get into Watsonville, I’m going to role down the window and you’re going to ask every person you see where is the nearest Catholic church.”

I was not quite ready to go and ask random strangers where the nearest house of God was, so I got on the phone and started calling people who may have had some kind of Watsonville connection, hoping I would get an answer on where the main Catholic church is. Nick and his wife to be are pretty devout Catholics, so we figured they would want the main popular church.

Luckily, as we drove on to Main Street in Watsonville, on the horizon was a tall gothic looking building. A very traditional church was ahead of us.

“I think we got ourselves a winner!” Sean exclaimed. We pulled into the parking lot and saw various people, all dressed up, walking into the church. They all looked ready for a wedding. As we got closer to the church, I noticed that they were all Latino. Nick’s wife to be, Rebecca, was from a Mexican family, so we drew the conclusion that these people were all from her side of the family. The doors to the church were in front of us, we walked in, took a seat on the groom’s side.

My eyes wandered around, trying to identify Nick, or any relative that looked like Nick, or looked Anglo-Saxon. The entire church was full of Latino people, the song being heard was in Spanish. I leaned my head to Sean, who took my words.

“Peter, I don’t think this is the wedding.”

“Yeah,” we immediately left, hoping no one actually saw us. After getting back in the car, our new goal was to find a phone book and look up churches. Then in the distance was a Best Western motel. Sean and I thought this was a calling for some odd reason.

“Best Western, I bet they know where the Catholic churches are,” Sean proclaimed the statement, and it made sense somehow. The motel was not busy so the two women at the front desk had our undivided attention. We proposed our current situation and then our question.

“Well, there’s St. Patrick’s off of Main Street.”

“Is that the tall creepy one?” Sean asked.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, that’s not it. We already crashed that wedding, wasn’t ours,” the lady then explained that there was another one near the Watsonville fairgrounds. The directions were written down and we went on our next mission. The church was discovered. As we pulled into the parking lot Sean pointed out his observations.

“Now that looks like a white trash vehicle. I bet the guy who drives that is from Sonora,” Sean, John, and Nick all grew up in Sonora, CA. The doors to the church were open, Sean and I slowly walked up to the steps and peaked our heads in. Half the church was Mexican, the other half was all white. I squinted my eyes a bit and saw the altar; there were Nick and Rebecca. Thank god. We took a seat and enjoyed the wedding.

After the ceremony, everyone gathered outside. John caught up with us; he took off his sunglasses and there was his eye: completely red and surrounded with a ring of mucous. I assumed it would have just been a little irritated but it looked like it was going into a more horrible route.

There was a small break between the ceremony and the reception, which was at the Chamadan resort in Santa Cruz. Sean and I made it back to my house and we did not see John. It came time for the reception and we headed to the resort. We eventually found John, who had his sunglasses still on and a glass of champagne in his hand.

“Hey guys, so I am going to down this glass of champagne and then go to the emergency room.”

“What?” came from both our mouths.

“My eye still hurts, it still burns, mucous keeps flowing out of it, and I can’t see because all the crap is covering my eyeball. I feel like I am looking through a glass of milk,” John finished the glass and Sean and I agreed we would take him to the ER.

Randomly, Santa Cruz Dominican Hospital was the next block over from the resort. We found a parking spot and came in. Sean and I took a seat and John explained his problem to the nurse at the front desk. There was a slight wait, but there was not many people in the waiting room. There was a couple in front of us, who I think were getting annoyed by us simply due to the fact that John was becoming tired and delirious and therefore was making a lot of non sense talk.

“Alright, which would you rather go without: pissing or sweating?” John asked with a serious face.

“Now, do all the post-effects come into play once I remove one of those functions? I mean, if I go without the function of peeing, does my body still require me to pee, and therefore I am in an everlasting state of pain?”

“What about sweating? Do I still get to have some kind of cooling down process? How will the water I consume be processed?”

“Do I still get to have some kind of condensation reaction? Will I know that I am being cooled down?”

“If I go without peeing, will the urine therefore just become sweat?” These were all real questions. Finally, John concluded it all.

“How about every time you sweat, pages of pornography seep out of your skin?”

“Deal!” Sean was set on that. A nurse called John and away he went. I got on the phone and went outside to hold the conversation. As I was in mid-conversation, I kept hearing this roaring noise. I looked up and about two hundred feet above me was a life-flight helicopter. I started moving away from the parking lot so I can actually hear the other end of the line, then I realized that the helicopter was actually landing. It was probably one of the most intimidating things I have seen. An ambulance met up with it and out came a child on a stretcher and paramedics loaded the child into the helicopter. It was weird to see. The conversation ended and I went back inside and saw Sean asleep.

John came out after being gone for about forty-minutes maybe. The doctor diagnosed him with having a minor-chemical burn on his eyeball. It seemed that when John was pouring massive amounts of water into the eye, there were still some remains of the hydrogen peroxide left. The doctor gave him some antibiotics and Vicodin.

We all rushed back to the wedding reception, which had transitioned into the dinner portion and we had reserved seats. However, that did not mean much because some random family members took the seats. We all had to split up and find the random available chairs at tables at different parts of the banquet hall. I found myself at a table where the wedding photographer was sitting and two co-workers of the bride.

The waiter, come to find out, was an old film major colleague of mine, who was annoying. When we were in college, he knew my weakness, that is, he knew I would listen to him because that’s what I do. He spoke to me for a good hour one time about a screenplay he was writing about a protagonist who has mental powers. After much description, his main character was a pervert and my film major colleague was pretty much writing down all his erotic fantasies into this screenplay. He later explained his methods of getting this picked up: he would move to LA, wait tables at the hipster restaurant where all the producers eat at and show them the script (of course they would buy it without hesitation), and he also stated that people have told him he looks like Topher Grace, and Scarlet Johansen dated Topher Grace, so therefore, she would date my film major colleague. He had it all figured out. I did my best to ignore him at the table but he found me, and we had a similar conversation.

I struck up a conversation with the two co-workers of the bride. I asked them what they did for a living (because I had no idea what the bride did). The woman next to me explained that they are music therapists. I nodded like I knew what that meant and she read right through me.

“Do you know what that is?”

“Yeah, it’s to make pianists less stressed out,” nothing but laughter from the woman, who I found out was named Yuriko (very similar to a friend’s name, sort of weird). She and the other co-worker went into great detail about what exactly music therapy is, but I don’t want to go into it.

Finally, I got to do one of my dreams, which was to be at a wedding and give off a false identity. I told them my name is Peter, but when they asked what I did for a living, I told them I work in San Jose as a digital text engineer.

“Do you know what that is?” I asked the two persons, both looked lost “well, basically, I create fonts for computers.” I just pulled that out of my ass. I went into great length on how my team and I are trying to reformat the Geneva font to help bridge Macs and Linux based computers better and how Helvetica is going to be the font for the 21st century. Again, I don’t know where this came from or for that matter where it was going.

The rest of the night went into the same path that other weddings do: a lot of champagne and wine consumption, and people on the dance floor. I went out to the parking lot because I do not like to dance. Let me say that again, I don’t like to dance. My friends tend to forget this and keep trying to persuade me by saying things like “it’s fun!” Well, you know what is also fun? Playing jacks. Yeah, and you don’t see me forcing that onto anybody.

As things unfolded, many people left, we all went off to other points of interest. John’s eye managed to make it through the night. We all made it home safely. The next day was something new for everyone.

Coincidental sounds that have no meaning other than their own definition

2007-06-07T20:28:00.001-07:00

I have come across this on a few forums, blogs, and music magazines. Everyone wants to know what the soundtrack is to her or his life. Well, here is the breakdown. Go to your iTunes library or Windows Media library or put all your best CDs in your multidisc stereo and put the songs on shuffle.

Below you will see all the cliché categories that make up a movie narrative, so imagine these categories summing up the path of what makes up your life. The first song that turns on from your shuffle will be the opening credits track, the next song you hear will be the waking up track, and so forth.

The songs provided are the ones I encountered when I hit shuffle.

Opening Credits:
“In Limbo” by Radiohead
Waking Up:
“Dance with Me” by Nouvelle Vague

Falling In Love:
“The Mariner’s Love Song” by the Decemberists

Fight Scene:
“Moonage Daydream” by David Bowie

Breaking Up:
“Start Making Sense” by Peter, Bjorn, and John

Making Up:
“Breathe Like You’re Dancing” by Sybris

Life’s Okay:
“Razzle Dazzle Rose” by Camera Obscura

Mental Breakdown:
“Brown Boxes” by Spinto Band

Driving:
“Here Comes the Summer” by the Fiery Furnaces

Flashbacks:
“Harrowind Hill” by Thom Yorke

Happy Dance:
“Street Spirit” by Radiohead

Regretting:
“Pete Standing Alone” by Boards of Canada

Final Battle:
“Ballad of a Comeback Kid” by the New Pornographers

Death Scene:
“Lady of Dreams” by VAST

Ending Credits:
“Calling Me” by the Rapture

After the list was complete, some of the songs that were “chosen” I thought were amusing. I was glad to see a Bowie song was picked for my fight song; I love the Razzle Dazzle Rose song by Camera Obscura, so having that as my “Life is okay” montage was pleasing; I am not sure about Street Spirit being the happy dance song; for regretting, Pete Standing Alone seemed fitting but the winner is Lady of Dreams by VAST as the Death Scene, that is the most appropriate.

Let me know if you want a copy of the Proud Gemini soundtrack. Also, to my viewers, you should try this out and let me know what your outcome was.

Arse versus Art

2007-06-04T21:54:00.001-07:00

Can you believe that the Criterion Collection is investing their time by restoring these trashy and really bad films?!

Howard the Duck
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!
Snakes on a Plane

p.s. Actually, Criterion is not doing this. I thought it would be amusing if these films got marketed as art-house films. Would you see them then?

This Just In: Three Ponies Delivered to Sixteen-Year-Old Girl's Birthday Party.

2007-06-01T12:22:00.001-07:00

What is it about the local news that makes it so charming and cute?

The local news is made to, obviously, deliver the updates of what is going on in your general community. With these updates, they want to make sure that everything is fun, happy, and comfortable for you. This is your neighborhood they are talking about. For the bad stuff, one can attend the evening news provided by the corporate stations where they discuss things from a national point of view. For the bad and the ridiculous, you can tune in to the major 24 hours news stations where they discuss the news how they see it (local or national).

When the local news starts, it’s always something adorable yet awkward. The other night I tuned in to:

“Two whales came into the bay today. Look how they appreciate the water!” the alpha male anchorman stated, his name was most likely Pat Douchenberg “You know, Sandra, I haven’t seen whales that big since I saw Star Trek IV.”

Sandra the sidekick anchorwoman did a light giggle and said, “I know, and it’s so heartbreaking when Darth Vader blows up that planet.”

Then the judgmental look from Douchenberg, “Oh, Sandra, you poor ignorant woman, meanwhile, today the county office of education sponsored the county spelling bee! Little Daisy Rovendorf of Central Street Elementary School won the contest when it came down to her and fellow schoolmate Rafi Lopez who lost to spelling ‘Reconnaissance.’ What a stupid little minority.”

I love the atmosphere I see from the local news.

After the heartwarming stories, like the spelling bee and stranded whales, there’s usually something about an elderly woman who saw the Virgin Mary when she pulled the lint out of the dryer. Then something slightly traumatic appears like:

“This morning a fire broke out at the Egotronics factory on Maple and 2nd Ave. The fire took charge and burned the first three stories killing at least eight people. Fire department said it was started by a Morningstar boca burger patty that was left in the toaster oven. Well, it’s fair to say that the vegetarians are to blame for this one. Let’s go to our reporter on the scene, Cheryl McCarelys.”

“Thanks, Pat. I’m here with blue-collar worker Mario who saw the whole thing happen,” the microphone goes to Mario, who’s never been on television before. She will ask him a series of questions like was he afraid, what did he see, was he or was he not a hero? Mario then will explain that he saw a dog trapped under a pile of debris and he saved the dog. Next frame: a close-up of the dirty yet lovable dog who was saved. The story will conclude that Mario will adopt the dog. Then it’s back to Pat Douchenberg.

“Well, I hope Mario names the dog Sparky,” Pat has a smirk on his face.

“Or Luigi,” Sandra chimes in.

The factory inferno story is then transitioned into the story about how tomorrow is “Free Slurpee Day” at the 7-11 on Hazel Road. The local news will then end with more footage of the whales that came into the bay.

The corporate evening news is a bit of a contrast from the “pinch its cheek because it’s so cute” local news. Usually you will see a stern, plastic looking leading anchorperson that will list off the more official news.

The headliner is Iraq. And yes people are still dying.

The follow up is a report that says studies have shown that the bigger your shadow is, the better chance you will have cancer.

Then some concluding news that goes:
“The federal government announced today that in an effort to eradicate the national debt, it will be selling the state of Rhode Island to a group of private investors, for a reported $18 billion. The investors plan to enclose the entire state with an all-weather roof, and turn it into the world’s largest shopping mall. When asked for comment, a White House spokesperson would only say, ‘Well, at least we didn’t sell it to the fucking Japanese.’”
Finally, you have the pleasure of switching channels to Fox, CNN, and Headline News where there is a whole variety of things to observe.

Fox News: “Today, our Lord and Savior President Bush arm wrestled the Devil and won. The CIA then took the Devil to Guantanamo Bay and after much ‘interrogation,’ the Devil confessed that he is to blame for the attacks on September 11, Ronald Reagan’s death, the creation of Charles Manson, and An Inconvenient Truth.”

CNN: “We’re focusing on the countdown to the 2008 elections. Here’s Barack Obama in Detroit. Look what he’s wearing: grey sports coat, white buttoned down shirt, with the collar unbuttoned. You know who also dresses like this? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now, you wouldn’t want to vote for someone that dresses like a crazy terrorist supporting Muslim?”

Headline News: “Just a moment, we have news coming from the White House. Here’s Tony Snow with an important announcement…
‘I'm just going to make this brief statement...the spreading of these erroneous and offensive descriptions has gone on for decades... and we find ourselves once again... having to make a public statement. Racehorses do not urinate more frequently... or at greater length than non-racing horses... or, for that matter, any mammal of comparable size. This organized, publicly sanctioned slander must stop.’”
I would say that the evening news is more like general entertainment.

This morning I tuned into NPR and caught this:

“A New Mexico woman was named Final Arbiter of Taste and Justice today, ending God's lengthy search for someone to straighten this country out. Eileen Harriet Palglace will have final say on every known subject, including who should be put to death, what clothes everyone should wear, what movies suck, and whether bald men who grow ponytails should still get laid.”

An Evening of Oedipus, Wannabes, and Arms with Tourettes

2007-05-31T12:33:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-25T13:40:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-11T12:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

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

2007-05-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-05T17:50:00.000-07:00

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)

2007-05-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

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.

An Awkward Seat Can Benefit You in the Longrun

2007-04-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

“Who is William Harrison?” that was one of the few Jeopardy questions I got right last night. The category was American Photo Album and there was the picture of President Harrison; I remembered the image because when I first saw Harrison’s picture, he reminded me of Tom Wilkinson and then I thought that they should do a movie on Harrison’s life (especially since he was the first president to die in office) and have Wilkinson play the lead role.

However, Harrison and Jeopardy faded away pretty quickly since my appetite was dominating my own existence. Once the episode of the long lasting game show ended, Eric, myself, and Rebecca went for a trip to Los Pinos to get some dinner. After dinner, a migration to the Red was made. Surprisingly at 8:10pm the bar was somewhat crowded. There was a small round table near the actual bar that could fit two people but three was slightly uncomfortable.

I retrieved a third barstool and we did the best we could with the sitting arrangements. Eric was originally on the outskirts of the table where the traffic of people fly by to get their desired beverages. This was verbally indicated by a mysterious old man who mentioned to Eric that he should scoot closer in. He then explained that Eric should get really close to Rebecca. Ah… the old man was revealing to be a creepy old man.

Eric did the action of scooting around the table, and thus, was somewhat closer to Rebecca. We all did the polite laughter for the old man because we knew he was trying to be funny with the said comment about getting really close to Rebecca. The problem was that this old man (who I decided was named Chester H. McEntomb) did not catch the notion that this laughter we were giving was a sign for him to walk away. He interpreted this laughter as a welcome. He then continued to exercise his vocal skills some more. Next question was to Rebecca on which of us two guys was she with. Her response, to throw a kink in the system, was both. This response did not quite click with Chester though.

I started tuning him out because he was just talking for the sake of simply talking. Somehow the topic of Adam and Eve came about and then Rebecca tried throwing an alternative out there with “What about Adam and Steve?” Again, the comment did not make much of an impact with him. He spoke some more and I decided to leave.

Of course, I didn’t leave the place, I went to the bar to obtain a beer and there was my favorite bartender (who I have mentioned in previous entries); I was explaining our current situation to her.

“See over there? That creepy old man decided to make himself comfortable at our table. I’m just wasting time until he leaves.”

“Do you want me to get one of the bouncers on him,” my dear Red friend offered.

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary. You see that woman he’s talking to? She’s got a taser ready in her left hand.”

“Seriously?”

“No. But wouldn’t that be exciting?” Ha ha, I made her laugh.

Once I got my beer, my phone rang and Chester was still there so I pursued my tele-conversation. I came back to the table and Chester was in full effect. He was leaning over the table and all his attention was to Rebecca. Eric looked bored out of his mind as Mr. McEntomb told his life story and how he was a true lady killer. I think.

Rebecca looked ready to go, so I conjured up a great exit strategy (and exit strategy I mean Chester leaving). I got the cellphone out and pretended someone was calling me.

“Hello? Hey, what’s up! Oh nothing, just at the Red right now. What’s that? Oh, yeah, Rebecca’s here! She’s right next to me. Do you want to talk to her? Sure, one sec!” I hand the phone off to Rebecca and explain that she wants to talk her.’

“Hello? Hey, what’s up!” Rebecca continued this decoy of a conversation. Chester was shut down. He then turned to me.

“So, what do you do? Are you a teacher too?” Chester must have asked Eric what he did.

“No, I raise money for a school,” I didn’t want to go into too much detail about what I did because I would have to kill him.

“How do you do that?”

“Well, I ask for donations from people of the community.”

“Here’s my donation,” when Chester said this, I did not quite realize what he did. I see him drop some things on our table. They were paper, but then I looked closer and they were dollar bills. Oh, he’s covering tip or something. On the contrary, these dollar bills were two $100 bills.

“This is $200! I can’t take this!” I projected to Chester to which he just shrugged me off and left our sight. Eric saw him go out the exit of the building. Rebecca wrapped up her conversation with the dead air and we were all in shock of what had just happened.

I felt guilty taking the money but he left before any of us could actually do something. I gave one of the bills to Rebecca since she was the desired object of affection for Mr. McEntomb and the other bill Eric and I will use when we go to San Francisco tonight.

I feel bad for getting Chester’s money since I wasn’t there to hear his life story like Eric and Rebecca did. They mentioned that his wife died and that he had barrels and barrels full of gold from a sunken treasure chest in his castle over the hill (actually that last part was false). I hope Rebecca writes up her angle of the situation on her site, and I hope Eric doesn’t expect me to split the hundred-dollar bill (just kidding!).

Shortly after Chester left, three barstools opened up at the actual bar. We shifted our sitting arrangements properly. The bartender (same one) asked what happened.

“Apparently if you just listen to an old and creepy man just long enough, he’ll give you money,” I revealed the bill, Rebecca showed hers as well.

“Oh my god, if I got $200 for every time I had to listen to some old and creepy man, I would be one rich woman.”

When the Machines win, my life force will be gone.

2007-04-21T13:56:00.001-07:00

My apologies for leaving you all in the dark for so long. When we last spoke, I was on my way to Pomona for a work related conference. Well, many things have taken place since that day I departed for Southern California. The two posts below will go into great detail about what happened a week ago. After you read about last Saturday and the Interior Storm of the Century, you will come to an understanding of why I have left Proud Gemini abandoned. So, go ahead and read Bathroom Oriented Tempest and then come back to this post.

Over the week, there hasn’t been much improvement in the house. Servpro called and explained that the water isn’t being absorbed properly from the vinyl floors of the bathroom so they will have to remove all the floor covering from both bathrooms. Plus, the water was collecting into the ceiling of the garage, so they will have to tear apart the garage to get the moisture out. Luckily, they will be working on one bathroom at a time, so the ground zero bathroom they started working on first and once that’s done, then they will work on the downstairs one. The garage, they needed us to empty it out. Unfortunately, the garage was a giant storage room for us, we all had extra furniture that we weren’t using, there were all kinds of boxes and storage bins, my bike, and random odds and ends. All of this had to be removed. Also, it was raining this week so we couldn’t put any of this stuff in the back, so we had to put them in the house.

Kyle’s room became a greater storage room since it had the items from the closet too. He is officially not living here while the damages are being repaired. After trying to get as many objects in his room, there were still some pieces that couldn’t fit. So, now our house is even more awkward. Not only do we still have the dehumidifiers everywhere, and Eric’s bedroom in our living room, we have miscellaneous furniture pieces and other things placed in various parts of the house, like a giant cabinet in our doorway, a bed frame in the downstairs hallway next to the giant dehumidifier that takes up most of the space down there.

Speaking of the dehumidifiers; these things are insane and intimidating. They are on 24/7 sucking all things are wet. They have hoses connected to them and the ends are placed in the nearest sinks, so randomly little spits of water spurt out into the bathroom sinks. The problem with them is that they have the loudest humming noise, and having seven of them in the house will do some damage. One is right by my bedroom door so my sleeping schedule is a bit shot. Plus, the moisture sucking aspect goes further then making the floor boards dry, they suck the moisture out of your own throat (and your plants too). Due to this, my body is whacked since I wake up dehydrated every morning, and my allergies are insane since the carpets are all gone and the machines are stirring all kinds of things into the air.

The garage has been worked on; we have no walls or a ceiling in there. It looks like they are building a new garage. The upstairs bathroom is being rebuilt almost, the toilet is still detached, no floor whatsoever. Eric has made himself comfortable in the living room, Kyle’s room looks like a public storage facility, the machines have taken over the house, and when you walk in, there is a haze of depression. Eric and I both realized that we just don’t like going home but we can’t do much since we are pretty broke (coughing up that deposit check did some damage on my bank account). There still isn’t a timeline of any kind for when the repairs will be done, and we’re still not sure about the insurance part of it all.

Anyway, sorry I don’t have anything really uplifting for you all. Feel free to share your recent moments in life, hopefully they’re a bit more on the bright side.

A Bathroom Oriented Tempest

2007-04-21T13:55:00.002-07:00

After returning from Pomona and a heavy night of consuming certain liquids, my Saturday morning had a distinct goal, which was to go somewhere to get a Bloody Mary. Evan was downtown buying some new clothes. Eric, Stef, and I were still at home discussing the events of Friday night. I had already taken a shower and was ready to conquer Saturday, Eric followed the same path. It was the late morning, nearing noon, and we were waiting on Stef to get ready. A shower and a change of clothes were all that was needed.

Eric and I were sitting in the living room while Stef was using Eric’s bathroom, the upstairs one, to get ready. He was done with the shower but while he was doing the post-shower things, Eric and I heard something odd from the bathroom. It sounded like a gust of water, as if the shower head came undone. While this blasting noise was going on, we heard Stef yelling, “Oh god! Oh god!” Looks of confusion were exchanged between the two of us. We ran over to the door and knocked and asked, “Stef? You decent?” We kept hearing the rushing noise of water and more “oh god.” After we asked about Stef’s status, we saw from the top of the door water coming out like a waterfall. And below, water was bleeding out from underneath the door. A look of shock was exchanged between the two of us. Suddenly the door opened and there was Stef, only in a pair of boxers, sopping wet yelling, “What do I do? What do I do?” Behind him looked like a hurricane was in the bathroom. He slammed the door and remained in the bathroom.

In our house there are indoor fire sprinklers in every room. With no exception, there is one in Eric’s bathroom and Stef found a way to dispatch water from the one fire sprinkler after he got out of the shower. Eric and I had no idea what to do. I went and grabbed as many towels as possible since there was water coming out of the bathroom at a rapid rate. Eric was on the phone with 911 explaining that this wasn’t an emergency but that there was water coming from the fire sprinkler.

The towels I grabbed made no difference; I padded them down outside the entry way into the bathroom. Because of the velocity of the water, the towels were drenched within four seconds. From the 911 call, it was explained that the fire department was on their way. Eric and I went searching for the water main, and we had absolutely no luck finding it. It felt like a Chinese fire drill when we went outside; we kept running around the house. There was the circuit board, the cable hookup, the telephone connection, but no water source. Keep in mind that while all this is going on, a fire alarm is going off.

The fire department came probably seven minutes after the 911 call but it seemed like an hour. The truck parked in the middle of the street and out came nine fire fighters. They rushed into the house as Eric, Stef, and I were standing outside taking in this surreal event. The lead fire fighter asked where the water main was and we had no answer. They did the same route Eric and I did. They ran around the house, went into the garage, and then finally, there was a brown wooden box on the wall next to the garage door. It had a sign that said Main Control. However, the box was sealed shut with screws. The fire fighter grabbed some tool and yanked out the main piece of wood that made up the box. Low and behold, there was the pipe and lever we were looking for. They turned off the water and the hurricane came to a stop.

While the fire fighters were doing their actions, we cornered Stef and asked what the hell happened. Stef explained that while he was showering, he had a shirt that had some wrinkles and wanted to get them out; the conclusion was to hang the shirt, which was on a clothes hanger, on the fire sprinkler and have the steam of the shower remove any wrinkles from the shirt. When trying to remove the hanger, it was not coming off the sprinkler properly and he applied some force that ended up breaking the little glass strip that holds all the water back (the same piece that explodes when exposed to intense heat), and out came Katrina.

The firefighters continued doing their magic; they ran back and forth from their truck and brought in various tools and contraptions to help get the water out. They ended up detaching Eric’s toilet so the water could drain faster into the big hole that the toilet was connected to. They then went into the garage and turned off the power since the water was bleeding into the garage walls where the circuit board was; this was a fire hazard waiting to happen. One of the firemen brought it to our attention that the hall closet underneath the stairwell was getting wet so we had to remove all the random items out of the hall closet. Now, Kyle, the lost housemate, we made his room the new storage room while vacating the hall closet.

Once the water was pretty much flushed out of the bathroom (or ground zero), the firemen collected outside and the lead fire fighter had questions for us, like, what the hell happened? Stef took the stage and revealed his actions; after the story was told, he also explained that he didn’t even live here. Suddenly, a burst of hysterics came. The lead fire fighter thought this was the funniest thing ever.

“Wait, you did this, and you don’t even live here?!” Frank the fire fighter was astonished, “Steve! You gotta here this,” then Steve the storm trooper came over and the news was delivered to him.

“Yo, Hank, come over here, you gotta here this!” Steve called for Hank the hero who arrived.

“What, this guy did it and he doesn’t live here?” Hank the hero, too thought this was amusing. Eventually all the firefighters found out and Stef stood there in shame. After all that, the lead fireman had paperwork for us to fill out, some forms to sign, and some words of advice to give us. He told us there was a lot of water damage and that we need to get a water salvage team out here ASAP in order to prevent any further water damage and mold buildup. I called the landlord while Eric was searching for water salvage companies in the yellow pages. I left a message explaining the situation and Eric found a company called Servpro. Both wouldn’t get back to us until an hour or so later.

The landlord called me back; I answered with, “Hey, Cliff, how’s it going?”

And his reply, “Well, you tell me!” I figured he was pissed. His first question was whether or not we had renter’s insurance, which I had failed to get, even after I had some conversations with coworkers about buying some. He then wanted to know how this exactly happened and I told him the whole story. Once he heard it was due to a friend putting a clothes hanger on it, he said that this was an act of negligence and that he was not sure if his insurance would cover the damages. This was when I started to get really scared.

The landlord said he would be over in a couple of minutes and when he arrived was the same time Servpro came over. They spoke to the landlord and explained what they were going to do. Before the team could do anything, they needed a deposit, which the landlord wasn’t going to cover and Eric and Stef didn’t have the money. I grabbed my checkbook and asked how much. The Servpro man calculated it all out and said $644.24. Ouch. I wrote the check, and they went to work.

From this one sprinkler in the upstairs bathroom, it not only flooded out the bathroom; the water bled into Eric’s bedroom, which is right next to the bathroom, and then roared down the stairwell like a waterfall, while doing this, the water absorbed into the stairs and went underneath in the hall closet (as mentioned above), and then into the downstairs hallway and downstairs bathroom. Our garage is underneath the upstairs bathroom and Eric’s bedroom, so of course, the water absorbed itself into the garage as well; it was trippy being in the garage and seeing water coming out of the light bulb socket and the outlet that was in the ceiling.

Servpro had started their magic once the check was made. They told us to empty out Eric’s room since his carpet was pretty damaged; all of his belongings went into the living room, which meant his queen size bed, his desk, nightstand, reading lamp, clothes, shoes, random knickknacks, everything. Then the team went into further work; they began removing the carpet from the downstairs hallway, the stairwell, and Eric’s room. Once the carpet went bye bye, so did the foam padding underneath. Now there was just dry wood everywhere, along with the nails that hold the carpet in. They then brought in dehumidifiers, which were to start sucking out all the moisture from the floors. Seven of these were installed: in the downstairs hallway, the mid part of the stairwell, a couple in Eric’s room, and a couple in the upstairs bathroom. Our house looked like a combination of a bomb that went off to us moving in or out of the place, and the house being remodeled. It officially sucked, for lack of a better word.

Eric, Stef, and I migrated to our kitchen table so we were out of their way. We were playing a card game, Quiddler to be exact. Rebecca had contacted me about meeting up with our friends Shawna and Stacey; I wasn’t sure at first because I found myself in the first stages of depression but then I thought that some fresh air and the idea of getting out of the house would be good for me, so I said yes. She arrived and saw the damages. We left a little after that and got dinner with Shawna and Stacey. I felt bad since I was in a slightly irritable mood and that showed while at dinner. I think they forgave me, though. This day seemed like the longest day possible, so much had happened in such a short amount of time, and it was all real, I never got to wake up from it. The sad part is that it’s still going on, we have no idea when the repairs will end.

Friday Night I’m in Love (with an expensive glass of whiskey?)

2007-04-21T13:55:00.001-07:00

One might be able to say that I made it back safely from Pomona last week. Eric found me at the San Jose airport and brought me back to Santa Cruz. At home was our friend Stef who was visiting from San Francisco. When we arrived, it was decided that dinner was to be bought and consumed. In result, the Hula Grill became our destination.

Upon leaving for dinner there was not much of a break for me; I got on an airplane, left Southern California, arrived in San Jose, Eric picked me up, came home, dropped off my baggage, and walked out the door to go to the Hula Grill. I hadn’t even gotten my keys out of my suitcase. I brought this to Eric’s attention when leaving, and he replied back that he had his, so no worries.

After dinner we decided to take on the drinking outlet. A slight debate arose when Stef indicated that he wanted to go to the Poet and the Patriot and that Eric and I wanted to make a visit at the Red. An equilibrium was created: we would go to the Red first and then the Poet, that simple. The night was early so we knew that both places wouldn’t be that crowded.

The Red was the usual setup. We arrived when it was still young and calm in the evening, which meant there was no wait for a drink, and no problem finding a seat. I was in heaven since a certain bartender was working. Those who have been with me at the Red when this person is working know exactly what I’m talking about. Evan, my Sundance companion, was in town and made an appearance at the Red as well. So there we were, four guys sitting at a booth, drinking beer, and oozing testosterone.

We left since Stef was eager about making a visit to the Poet & the Patriot. I don’t remember much about that visit simply due to the fact that we were not there for very long. We sat at a table, bought a round of drinks and then left. Not much to say. We were debating about going home, and then I popped up and mentioned the idea of stopping by the 515, a slightly newer restaurant/bar that we’ve visited a handful of times.

Little did I know that the 515 would be the end of our night. The four of us had no problem finding seats at the bar. There was Leon, the bartender, who was the one who helped us out in the past. This girl Amy showed up who knew Stef from a past life. She stuck around for a while and one of her friends made herself comfortable with Eric. Stef had/has a crush on this Amy individual and made a point of talking to her a lot. However, she revealed what would be Stef’s Kryptonite: an engagement ring. This drew Stef back a bit but he still maintained up close interaction with her. Evan at some point took off. What was I doing? I was buying $12 glasses of whiskey and “befriending” two drunk local guys.

My two new friends, who I decided to name Bobo and Little Devil, were doing the typical heterosexual “bro” thing: eyes focusing on anything that had skin and estrogen, making rude comments to each other about their sightings, the usual stuff. Bobo asked me, “Hey, you know what a guy can’t live without?”

I knew where this was going but decided to give the opposite answer, “Bones.”

“What? No, man!” Bobo didn’t accept this answer. I mean, he recognized the fact that a guy could not live without bones, but the answer he wanted rhymed with stussy.

Eventually, the Amy individual wounded up on my side of the bar and interacted with Bobo and Little Devil, and then Stef wound up over here too. Eric was locked in conversation with Amy’s friends, who I didn't really get to interact with. To my right was three men being pulled into the flirtatious gravitational pull of the Amy individual, and then to my left was Eric and his new crew.

It was just me and the glass of Van Winkle whiskey. I wasn't looking in Eric's direction and had no connection with Stef and friends. Eventually, Eric and his new team headed downstairs and some time after that, Stef disappeared with the Amy individual and Bobo & Little Devil. I was at the bar by myself, everyone had left me. I saw Eric’s jacket, grabbed it and migrated home.

While walking down Laurel Street, I realized, as mentioned earlier, that I did not have my keys on me. I was hoping that Eric was possibly home at this point, maybe partying it up with the new individuals from the bar. However, when I arrived, no such luck. I broke into the house, which required me to detach the screen, slide my bedroom window open, and find a way to pull myself up and through the window. I used a garbage can to provide a boost since my drunken state and overall weak body could not manage to pull myself up. The goddamn indoor cat we have wanted to be curious and social at the window and I had to keep knocking it off the window sill to prevent it from getting any ideas of escaping. I found my way into my bedroom and had no idea how to get that damn screen back on so I just closed the window itself. I had no idea what the state of affairs my social colleagues were in but I left the front door unlocked for Stef and I got in my pajamas and went to bed.

Fifteen minutes later, I heard ding-dong. I knew it was Stef, and I knew he would be insanely drunk, and I thought I knew he would just plow through the door, but I was wrong. He rang the doorbell. I got out of bed and opened the door. He came running upstairs and asked me if I was good to drive. Although walking home and breaking into my own home was a buzzkill, I was still not ready to get behind an automobile. Stef carried on a conversation about a fight that broke out and his sole purpose was to break it up; apparently the police came and the Amy individual was driving everyone home and demanded Stef to get back in the car.

After I convinced Stef that there was no driving back to the set of Fight Club, he was still hyperactive from his recent encounters. He heard our neighbors talking and fled downstairs to talk with them. Of course, he left the door open. The next words I hear are, “Peter, can you get Zero?” No way am I hunting down a black cat at 2am after I broke in my house and walked home wasted. Thankfully the cat was just sitting on some dirt and was easily accessible. We went back inside, Stef went on another rant about… well, I just don’t remember. I eventually went to slumberland.

I believe Eric walked in shortly after Stef and I settled down. The next morning, the three of us were in the living room comparing our evenings; Evan called and was down to meet up. Since some of us were experiencing hang overs and other wonders, a round of Bloody Marys was desired. We went to get our day going.

Things to Come

2007-04-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks!

Sorry for the delay on things. Unfortunately I have been kept busy; I would like to think it was due to a spectacular social life, but I think it's mostly work related and me drinking a lot in the evenings.

As of tonight, I will be flying out to Pomona, CA for a conference on work-related things and will not be back until Friday evening. I know you will all miss me in one way or another, but, nonetheless, I will return.

When I return, I will recap on the wondrous adventures of Pomona, and along with the other events that have happened: saw Muse on Monday, Jesus resurrected from the dead on Sunday, lost at Scrabble on Saturday, my friend Cary was in town on Friday, and I am amazing at Bocci ball, as seen on Thursday night. Wow, it's like a spring sneak preview to things that will happen and things that have already happened. If only I could make a movie trailer to all of this.

In the meantime, here is something to feast your eyes on...

The Cruelest Joke in the World

2007-04-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Quentin Tarantino has released a new movie. Well, it’s not just a Tarantino project; it’s a double-feature film, one by Tarantino and the other by Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Desperado). The overall piece is called Grindhouse, which is composed of a zombie film by Rodriguez called Planet Terror and a slasher/road movie by Tarantino called Death Proof. Both movies are roughly ninety minutes long and are a complete homage to 70s and 80s B-horror movies. The even more amusing part was the fake trailers placed in between the two pieces, which were directed by contemporary film makers (Eli Roth Hostel, Edgar Wright Shaun of the Dead, and Rob Zombie Devil’s Rejects).

Knowing that Grindhouse premiered on Friday, Eric and I discussed the idea of viewing it sometime this weekend. A matinee screening became the designated time, and Saturday would make that happen. In order for us to see Grindhouse, we decided that we should be productive beforehand. In result, we made an afternoon of cleaning house.

While the cleaning began, I chose to work the kitchen and Eric was to work with the living room. On our kitchen table was a jigsaw puzzle that Eric started back around Christmas time. The puzzle was 500 pieces and was based on a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. For those who have seen Basquiat paintings know that they are bit complex; there are usually a lot of random doodles, words, and many little obscure drawings found within the overall medium. Eric appreciated his art and went with the challenge of doing a puzzle based on his artwork.

As mentioned, the puzzle started development during the week of Christmas since Eric had many weeks off from his job (he’s a teacher). It was a “slowly but surely” process, but many dents were made. The puzzle occupied our kitchen table since then. Recently, Eric had approached near-completion. There was one problem though: one single piece went missing.

One may ask how this would happen. Many scenarios could have risen: the puzzle was on our table for a couple of months, so pieces had been shuffled around; and we do live with a cat who finds himself bored a lot. Much aggravation arose out of Eric when he discovered a piece was missing. There on the table, an almost complete puzzle, all there except one little piece. Internal debates took place within Eric’s head. He originally wanted to finish the puzzle and then mount it onto some kind of board and hang it on his wall. With this vacancy, he steered away from that idea. He just couldn’t have that on his wall knowing there was a small gap in the work. I thought it would be amusing, many stories could be derived out of this. Why is there a missing piece? one would ask when they saw this hanging on his wall. I even suggested making a little comic speech bubble that would have words commenting on the situation.

Once the cleaning began, Eric was placed into a temporary judgment day. “Do I or do I not put this puzzle away?” he contemplated. I said keep it due to the amount of work involved and the length of time the puzzle was on our table. He went against that thought and grabbed the box and shoved all the pieces in there. History was gone. Eric walked the box back to his bedroom and it went into hiding.

Our table was completely clear now. Eric went back to the kitchen to retrieve some other items and glanced at the corner of the kitchen floor and noticed something obscure. There it was: the missing piece! I had never seen Eric turn to such a distinct color of red before. “No fucking way!” were the first words I heard, and then “how did I not see this?!” Eric was holding the prized item. “I just put that puzzle away two minutes ago! Fuck!”

I couldn’t help myself, I just laughed. That was absolutely cruel, which ever unknown force that was behind this had a mean sense of humor. More cursing took place in Eric’s position. And more laughing took place in my corner. He left the kitchen and went downstairs and all I heard was “Ahhhhhh!!! Fuck! That’s it, I’m doing the puzzle again! Fuck!”

It’s funny how life works out.

Senior Citizen Relations

2007-04-04T22:43:00.001-07:00

Recently I was talking to a coworker about what was in our Netflix queues. The topic of liberal-oriented documentaries came up and we exchanged the titles of various flicks we saw. When discussing these liberal films, it got me flashing back to a dark era of my life. Well, not quite dark, but a more challenging time of my life.

It was the fall of 2004; many of you have already heard about my times shortly after college graduation. My boss at the video store was a tool, I wasn’t making enough money, and my social life was slowly coming to a narrow path due to various college friends abandoning Santa Cruz. On top of all this, politics was the main topic of discussion for my peers.

November was around the corner and everyone was nervous based on the possible outcome from elections. Would America and the rest of the world be at the hand of Bush? Or would there be an alternative future with Kerry in office? People were at their worst.

During this period, my housemate Christy was visiting her family in Montana and was gone for a week. With Christy gone, the apartment was a bit bare (since it was just her and me in the pad). While her absence was happening, I decided to distract myself by renting various flicks from the video store. Due to the climate of politics, I went with the random liberal films we had to offer.

Sunday night: The Reagans
This was a miniseries originally made for CBS but due to its anti-Reagan stance, they turned their back on the miniseries and then it went to Showtime. The film followed Ronald and Nancy Reagan as they left their Hollywood lifestyle, governed California, and controlled America for eight years. The film showed more of the flaws of the Reagan administration, proof that Nancy was really running the show, and how Ronald was senile.

Monday night: Hunting of the President
A documentary focusing on Bill Clinton and what the GOP was doing to bring him down while he was president. It chronicles the beginning of his first term and the origins of what the Republican Party had in store to tear down Clinton. It covers White Water, all the random women who claimed Clinton did something with them, and Lewinsky and Ken Starr. It becomes frustrating especially when it reveals how much of tax payers’ dollars were wasted on private investigations proposed by specific Republicans, and how the media was so focused on scrutinizing Clinton and forget about what else was going on in the country.

Tuesday night: Outfoxed
An hour and a half documentary on how fucked up Fox News is. Enough said.

Wednesday night: Unconstitutional- The War on Our Civil Liberties
Another hour and a half on what the Patriot Act does to the common folk.

Thursday night: Control Room
A unique film about the news network Al-Jarzeera and their coverage on the invasion of Iraq. By now, the film is a little dated since this covers the very beginning of the invasion. Al-Jazeera was recording and airing parts of the war that American media wasn’t showing and, of course, the US did not like this. The documentary reveals the battle and frustrations between the American military and the Arab news source (US fighter jets bombed the Al-Jazeera building in Iraq and claimed it was an accident).

Five nights of extreme liberal viewing. One might say I was brainwashed but I didn’t care. I was mad as hell and I was not going to take it anymore.

The next day, Friday morning, I was at the video store doing my duties as the opener. The store opened at 10am and ten after I received my first customer. He was an older man, late sixties maybe. In his hand were two DVD cases: volume one and volume two of Angels in America. I don’t know if everyone is aware of Angels in America but the miniseries premiered on HBO and was based on an award winning play. The plot is, basically, about the rise of the AIDS epidemic in New York City and how it affected specific people, so, yes, there are some homosexuals portrayed in the film.

The old man wanted to talk to me about his recent rentals.

“I want to talk to you about these discs,” he had the cases in full display. I figured they were defective or something in the non-viewable department “the young lady last night told me that these were really good. Well, when you read the back it tells you nothing about the plot.”

This was true, the back described how Academy Award winner Al Pacino, Academy Award winner Emma Thompson, and Academy Award winner Meryl Streep all star in this magnificent adaptation of the Tony award winning drama directed by Academy Award winning director Mike Nichols. So, no plot analysis. The old man continued.

“When my wife and I sat down to watch it, we couldn’t get past the first twenty minutes.”

I chimed in, “Did the DVD stop playing?”

“No! We couldn’t watch it because of all this homosexual activity,” oh boy.

“But the DVD played fine then?” I tried aiming the conversation in a different direction.

“I don’t know! I took out the DVD before we saw any more. You need to give some kind of warning.”

“Excuse me?” my frustrations started to rise.

“I mean, there should be some kind of sticker on the case saying Homosexual Relations!”

My favorite person, a bigot, I was talking to. As he made this statement, I decided to interject while pointing to the display rack for Schindler’s List (which just came out on DVD at the time).

“Sir, I can’t do that. If I put a sticker on this then I got to put a sticker on Schindler’s List that says Jewish Relations, and” he cut me off.

“Wait…”

“And then all those movies based on novels by Virginia Woolf should have a Feminist Relations sticker and-“

“Wait, that’s not what I’m getting at! What I’m getting at is that you need to warn people ahead of time if there’s going to be any of that… gay stuff,” he then whispered the last part.

“Funny, no one ever requests warnings of heterosexual scenes.”

“Well, that’s natural,” the old man had the nerve.

“So, what do you want?” I cut off with anger.

“A refund or something.”

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t give refunds on homophobia,” I said with the most strict face possible. The old man seemed to be not ready for this. He slammed the DVDs on the counter.

“Well, I’ll be taking my business elsewhere,” he left. I stood there watching the bastard walk to his car. I felt proud for what I did, but the more frustrating part was when I realized there was not a single soul near me. No one was there to hear or see what took place.

Have you seen this man?

2007-04-04T11:32:00.001-07:00

It was the late morning, not quite noon. Some would call it the brunch period where it is okay to order a sandwich or scrambled eggs and no one would judge. The laundry machines were in full effect; I was completing actions that needed to be done like washing dirty dark clothes because I was out of pants and underwear. While waiting for my cycles to be done, I was wasting time in my bedroom reading the wonderful world of the Internet. Suddenly the doorbell rang. This is one of those moments where there was the slight notion of recognition but your memory bank has not quite pulled all of its resources to fully comprehend what is at stake.

The doorbell just rang! Obviously this was something that did not happen often simply due to the fact that not many people come by our household, and if we are expecting guests, they usually receive the OK to go ahead and walk in. I opened the door to see the unexpected: two young women on bicycles with a subtle look of curiosity and disappointment. I knew already that they were at the wrong house.

“Is Craig here?” Woman on the left asked.

“Sorry, no Craig here,” I replied.

“No Craig?” as if I was lying.

“Nope.”

“Is this 126?” Woman on the right verified.

“Yep.”

“But no Craig?” Woman on the left attempted again.

Due to my sudden frustration with this I suggested, “Well, I can check. I’m pretty sure though there’s no Craig. Well, I’ve got a cat. Maybe he’s Craig.”

“Fuck this!” Woman on the left got back on her bike.

“Prick,” the woman on the right commented as the two rode off on their bikes.

I’m still checking around the house to see if Craig is anywhere to be seen. Sunday is when this happened, and I have been searching since. No sign yet.