Turn Signal

Why can't you use a turn signal? ANY OF YOU? Mad scientists built a lever into your wheeled robot house, on purpose, just so you could alert other robot drivers that you are moving laterally. And just to keep it simple, this lever lives next to where your fucking hands go.

Your assumption that you can just weave in and out of traffic all willy-nilly with little regard for your fellow travelers is fucking egregious. EGREGIOUS.

As with all things in life, when you make a decision, please take a second to reflect on how your decision is going to effect the people around you, and in the world. Even Ashton Kutcher knows that small actions make a difference, and he's a fucking dumbass. Then he made a shitty movie about it and made things worse. Don't see it. It's terrible and it doesn't make any sense. In a bad way, not in a good way. Ashton Kutcher did not consider the butterfly effect of his own movie back in 2004 that makes me feel angry today. The fucking nerve.

Thor 2 didn't make any sense either, but that movie goddamn ruled. Do you know why? Because the filmmakers didn't try to logic something that they didn't really understand, they were just like, "um, bibbity bobbity bifrost SCIENCE = MAGIC BLOODSMOKE" and then everything was fine.

Ashton Kutcher, on the other hand, tried to explain something that he didn't understand to serve his own agenda, like when Christians appropriate "science" for their religimagic, which is backwards. Technically not Ashton, but the guys who made that movie. You can't say "magic because of science." That defeats the purpose of fucking magic. Science will negate the magic. BUT! Undiscovered science? That is magic. Do you see? Idiots. EGREGIOUS.

Don't try to make sense of something you cannot fathom in the first place. Or...no, that's wrong. Always try to make sense of things. But do not flaunt your blatant misunderstanding of a concept on film. Talk to someone who knows what the what before you act like an idiot.

Then again, I got my shit on here, and I have absolutely no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

I didn't get in a car accident or anything. I just really don't like cab drivers. They're slippery bastards.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT? I don't think cab drivers really like NPR! I think I just get into a cab and they switch the radio to NPR because I have glasses and I dress like a hungover junior high school teacher. Well, your deduction is inaccurate, cabbies, because I like my ignorant pop music from time to time, and I'm only wearing these pants because finding pants I enjoy is very difficult, and I'm not as cultured as you think I am. BOOM!!!! Suck it.

GRYFFINDOR

Warped

An angry letter I wrote to the world this morning, inspired by the gajillions of people that crammed into Chicago for a rally:

Dear Blackhawks fans,

Just because you have waited a tortured, arduous THREE YEARS since your team's last championship doesn't give you the right to be a gaggle of gooseshits.

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like you're doing this for the love of hockey, it feels like you're just acting like a bag of dicks because you think Chicagoans are supposed to act like a bag of dicks.  This isn't a cock measuring contest, it's a celebration.  This is about pride and love and a battle well fought. 

I used to love sports.  Did you know that?  LOVE.  Never was athletic, but I tried as hard as I could to be the best that I could.  It was fun.  I loved hockey, I loved baseball.  I used to follow horse racing religiously.  Lately nostalgia's been working overtime and I'm thinking I should get back into racing, but...it can be incredibly depressing.  When an average of 1200 horses are euthanized on the track each year due to injury, probably cuz they're all jacked up on painkillers so they keep running even after they shatter their own bones - I mean, that's what made me stop watching in the first place.  Hell, that's why Luck was cancelled.  People kept on murdering horses out of mercy.

Then again, the danger makes it exciting. Exciting and terrifying and depressing. 

Whatever, so at one point everything switched in my brain and I stopped caring about sports.  At one point sports became a burden instead of a hobby.  Don't remember when.  But at one point everything stopped being fun.

DON'T THINK I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO FEEL JOY.

But this?  Crazy fans running around this city in a wasted stupor because you think you're supposed to?  This isn't joy.  This is a mockery of it.  This is just a bunch of fucking clowns walking around douching each other and then arguing about whether they're better at douching than all the other doucheclowns.

Am I so jaded, or are they so deluded? 

I guess it's inevitable that I would change.  I'm not talking about the old days, I'm talking about what it takes to feel joy.

...

Last week, Jessica and I just took a ten-day road trip through eight states.  Someday we will talk about how much I loved South Dakota.  I think, this summer, I'm going to do a post a week about things I love.

We stopped at a place called Pioneer Village, a museum of America's history and rapid industrialization, fashioned by adventurist and plastics mogul Harold Warp who is, officially, my new hero. 

Pre-Pioneer Village, we drove and discussed humanity's priorities and how they've shifted throughout the ages between third and second and first world nations.  In the past humans felt differently about death because they were surrounded by it - we died at a younger age, most people killed animals routinely for food, etc.  Progress and industry shifted first world humanity's priorities completely: survival is no longer a need.  It's an interest.  The immediate question is not "how will we live?" it's "do we like how we live?"

The next day we detoured from our route for a few hours over to Pioneer Village, where we were introduced to Harold Warp, Colossal Collector, and hanging above our heads was a sign with a Warp quote that I will now totally paraphrase because I can't exactly remember it -

Man first fights for the right to survive, 
then the right to create art, 
then the right for power.

Which is what I was trying to say but way better. 

...

When I was younger, sports were art.  For me, of course.  I can't speak for the world, and I can't assign a different value to another person because I am not another person.  This isn't a hokey, "back in my day things meant something" post, because today IS my day, as are all the days after and before, from birth to death, so that saying makes no sense.  But I've grown as a person, and my perception has changed.

So again: When I was younger, sports were art.

Now that I see them as a quest for power, I've lost interest.  I don't give a shit who wins.  I just want to marvel at a thought well-created, an action well-executed.

...

And that is why all you fucking Blackhawks fans annoyed the fuck out of me this morning.

- Rassles

Please Allow Me To Nerd Out

I caved and watched John Carter about a little over a month ago because I was on this Friday Night Lights kick and needed more Taylor Kitsch, and I'm now on a one-woman crusade to make everyone watch it because it's awesome. 

Remember when I said I wrote something about Star Wars?  I said it before and I'll say it again, talking about Star Wars is fucking cliche, but when something shapes your childhood pretending it's not important to you is just plain silly.  

Then again, this isn't really about Star Wars at all - and it's more about how Hollywood fucks things up sometimes, and how they get it right sometimes. 

Here is the abridged version of what I wrote a month ago:

First of all, I loves me some JJ Abrams.  Alias and Lost are two of my favorite shows, Super 8 was fun (but waaaaaay too polished and aware for a coming-of-age movie) and I thoroughly enjoyed Star Trek, although I am an infant in Trek lore, so any arguments about JJ ruining Star Trek with lens flares don't even register. 

But the man is a walking gimmick.  His name a gimmick.  Obviously he's not as gimmicky as someone like Peter Jackson, who couldn't identify a gimmick if a hobbit kicked him in the nards.  Peter Jackson is so gimmicky he's George Lucas.   Since JJ gained a reputation as a creator of cult TV his name evokes certain feelings of dedication and camaraderie, and Star Trek was his breakthrough for those people who hadn't caught on yet.  

For Star Wars we need a director who is pure and raw with a coming-of-age feel, not well-seasoned and mature with little adolescent idiosyncrasies.  Maybe the guy that directed Attack the Block, but then again THAT was his coming-of-age movie. If this were a few years ago I'd say Rian Johnson, but Looper pushed him up a notch from Brick, which was like watching a snake juggle knives and I mean that with the utmost respect.  Star Wars should MAKE the director and not the other way around. People are looking at this thing in a totally wrong way.

Of course, Star Wars is itself a gimmick, it's a classic hero story and it's totally a coming-of-age movie, and not in the when-oh-when-will-I-lose-that-v-card sense, but in a teenager-learns-to-make-decisions-for-someone-other-than-himself kind of sense. And it works because it was made by a man who was, at that time, coming-of-age in his career. 

Kind of like - okay, Andrew Stanton, who did Wall-E and Finding Nemo, would have been a good choice.  But then he made John Carter.

Before that he hadn't yet made the full transition into adult topics - the first of a trilogy is always about finding your footing and beginning somewhere, so it would make sense to have a director transitioning into more adult topics while still appealing to children - hence "coming of age." JJ did his "coming of age" movie with Super 8, but the problem was he make that movie AFTER HIS OWN DIRECTORIAL TRANSITION, which was Felicity-era JJ, so it was compiled of memories of what things were like, not experiences of how things ARE. 

It's harder to portray that emotional innocence if yours is gone - it'll only work once.

That's why movies like Stand by Me (Rob Reiner grows up) and Now and Then (Lesli Linka Glatter grows up) actually work, but movies like Moonrise Kingdom fail.  Moonrise Kingdom was very cute, yes, but it was never innocent.  Parts of it were supposed to be, but it was far too cunning to ever get there. It was Wes Anderson waving around a giant lollipop yelling, "LOOK AT MY FUCKING LOLLIPOP BECAUSE LOLLIPOPS ARE INNOCENT."
  
The kicker is this: John Carter is what the Star Wars prequels should have been: a vehicle fully aware of the tropes and cliches involved in the story so it utilizes them to its advantage.  Sensational, pulpy, cheesy, and ridiculously fun. 

Compare that to something like Snow White and the Huntsman, which was just a series of bullshit used and irrelevant ideas that were painted to look pretty, completely oblivious to both source material and innovation. 

• Exhibit A: Fuck you, Rupert Sanders.  Use real fucking dwarves.  Haven't Peter Dinklage and Warwick Davis taught Hollywood anything in the past two years?  
• Exhibit B:  Queen that is mean because of some dumb groan-worthy background story that villifies feminism (a woman's only desire for power is to get back at the man that wronged her!  Not everything is about you) and instead turns an otherwise interesting power-hungry character into a hackneyed woman who is bad because she is getting old and ugly, and women do not like to be ugly.  You know what could have made a rad story?  Re-write the whole damn thing to focus on Charlize Theron's rise and fall as The Evil Queen.  It could be like Wicked (the book, not the shitty musical about shallow BFFs that fight because they totally have a crush on the same guy).
• Exhibit C:  Pretty girl that everyone believes is special but we have no fucking idea why, since she's boring and annoying.  And then Thor is all like, "you're a girl, you can't survive in the forest" and she's all, "no, I'm really pretty so no one will kill me" and then Rupert Sanders is like "let's give her a sword for no reason so we know she's a strong woman now! Swords = strong." (??????) 

That movie doesn't mean anything.  It's a pretty movie with pretty people who are all terrible.  

Granted, John Carter doesn't necessarily mean anything either other than the celebration of telling a fun story.  It's also a pretty movie with pretty people, but they're presented differently.  When they give the princess a sword, it's not a novel idea that she's a woman with a sword.  It's not supposed to represent a transformation - everyone in the movie can use a sword.  All of the women and all of the men.  This is never pointed out with a line like, "Our women are equal!" It's just the way it is.  There's no reason to point it out.  Our villain is the bad guy because he wants to be a bad guy. Our hero is the hero because he's...well, it's because he's fucking American.  But they amp that cheesiness up too, and nearly satirize it but never get all ironically detached and uselessly sarcastic, and I dig that. 

I would love it if Andrew Stanton was captaining the Disney Star Wars franchise.  But maybe not anymore...after all, he already made his John Carter.   

...

A Request For People

This post has been sitting in my drafts since August.  I keep on thinking I should post it and deciding against it, playing the game of semantics and signifiers against myself, using new examples, new ideas, trying to keep shit relevant and connected like new sets of Legos.

But in the end, if I keep on putting this off it will no longer be relevant. I used to just post whatever I was thinking every day regardless of relevance or writing, and for some reason lately I want to censor myself - I think it's because this blog is now connected to other places where I write.

Whatever. 

So sometimes I get drunk and rant about TOMs shoes.

This has been going on for a few years now.

Years of working in a non-profit coupled by a life-altering conversation with Priestess Miriam of the Voodoo Spirit Temple of New Orleans (who inadvertently introduced me to the perils of poverty tourism while I was knee-deep in poverty fucking tourism) have given me a different view of what it really means to give back.

I wish that all forms of altruism were created equal.

When I use "we" and "our" in this post I am speaking on behalf of the following people:  middle or upper class citizens of first world mainly English-speaking countries.  

My opinions, actions and interpretations are governed by my background.  To assume otherwise is irresponsible. I grew up as a very, very average middle class American.  As a person in a first world country with access to public education and the fucking internet, good intentions must be preceded by research.  They must.  It is irresponsible to think otherwise.

It is irresponsible, as a middle or upper class citizen of a first world country with altruistic tendencies, to throw ourselves willy-nilly into philanthropy.  It is irresponsible to assume that a cause is worthy just because it has a name.

...

A request for donors:  seriously guys, "breast cancer awareness" is not a cause, it is a conversation.  It's not even a fucking thing.  Yes, cancer is bad.  No one likes cancer - well, according to Rule 34, someone does - but no one questions the badness of it.  The world knows that cancer and Nazis are bad. Also, mildly related: Jessica is good at things.

Fight cancer by donating to research and relief. Check out the Breast Cancer Research Foundation or the National Breast Cancer Foundation is better.  The Avon Foundation is...whatever.  The Avon Foundation is not a charity.  Do they support a good cause?  Yes, and they give millions to it. But they make billions.

Personally, I try to separate philanthropy from both consumerism and income, which tricky.  Since I work for a non-profit it could stand to reason that I don't feel the need to donate money to a cause I support, but that's not how my head works.  Would I chose to buy products from an organization because they supported a good cause?  Possibly.  Only after research.  But I would never file that under "charitable giving," just like being employed by a charity is also not "charitable giving."

...

...and then there are TOMs.  Seriously?  People purchase their TOMs with no knowledge of how or where the shoes were made, no knowledge of where the donated pair is going or why...but also?

1. Some people hear "Africa" and "South America" and minds automatically jump to underprivileged children who are dirty, uneducated, and fucking shoeless. 

2. TOMs perpetuates the idea that whole continents, double the size of North America, in their entirety, NEED our help.  The very vocabulary that we use is ridiculous.

3.  WE perpetuate slum stereotypes about entire fucking continents full of millions of people from thousands of cultures because we are goddamn self-centered idiots.

4.  Those shoes are stupid-looking.  If I see someone wearing them, I will avoid that person. If that someone is a friend, I will spend the rest of the day wondering about my friend and their life choices and why they are being an ignorant trend-machine. Sors.


One of the things that I believe is that support should be localized and empowering.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't give money to "Africa" (I am so fucking sick of hearing about USAmericans generalizing fucking "Africa").  Operating from a stance where we assume we know how to help people from an entirely different background than our own with an entirely different agenda is, again, irrefuckingsponsible. Teaching a man to fish is only productive if that man lives near goddamn water.

The crazy thing is, shoes and other textiles are something that people can make themselves with simple tools and materials that most people in the world will actually have access to, and by just throwing shoes at "poor kids in Africa" we are taking away their community market.

If you must help "Africa," first stop with ignorant generalizations, and then consider Riders for Health.

...

A request for people making charitable contributions:

Please do not earmark your gift for something and then change your mind seven months later and assign it to something else.  Chances are your gift has been spent, and you are forcing an organization to pull funds we wanted to put into different programs, and now those programs cannot go forward.

In fact, don't earmark that gift at all.  The greatest way to help is to let the professionals decide where it should go.  Unless you are employed by the organization to which you are donating, you are not one of the professionals.

 ...

A request for volunteers:

It is rad that you want to make a difference.  You are a nice person.  Congrats! But please consider the ramifications of your volunteering. 
 
For example, let's say you want to help out at an inner-city school.  The school would love it if you could help clean the deep dark corners since their janitorial staff is limited.  But, well?  You were really hoping you could volunteer with kids, you know?  You really want something that will directly help the kids.  Couldn't you just read to a classroom or something?  Help a science class for a day?

That's YOU not willing to give the help that is needed.  You are not volunteering if you dictate the terms.  You are demanding we give you a cool story to tell your friends.  Fucking tourist. 

Not only that, but you aren't helping.  You're just as a disruption, taking learning time away from the kids and the teachers.  Remember what it was like when you were in school?  One person shows up to talk to your class and nothing gets done for the rest of the day. 

...

I have so many more things to say, but that will make this post go on too long...whatever, I'm posting this for me anyway, just so I can have it on record for myself. I feel like once I post something on here it's a weight off my shoulders and I don't have to obsess over it anymore.


Your actions affect people.  My actions affect people, and I'm trying to learn how to be more wary of it, but it's an ongoing process.  Omniscience is like really hard, so we don't need to be aware of everything, and mistakes are okay.  Hell, I drive my car short distances every day.  But please remember the reasons behind charity.

...

The Bird Tree

A woman lives in the building next door to me.  She's an adorable old hag with a calico cat and a little white dog.  There's a rocking chair on her porch, and she'll sit there for hours in her old lady floral dressing robe while the dog sniffs around the trees on a twenty foot leash. 

Her cat never leaves the window.  He's there right now, I'm sure of it, watching the birds.

She sprinkles birdseed all over the sidewalk beneath the tree in front of her place so its leaves are constantly flickering with twitters and wings.  Like the real kind of twitters, not the annoying kind.  Her cat loves it. 

No one in the hood parks under that tree.  People will park two blocks away before they leave their car under the bird tree.  But sometimes you're in a hurry, or it's cold outside so you assume there won't be that many birds, or you just moved in to the neighborhood and you haven't learned yet.  About the bird tree. 

This week it was cold.

On Monday it was below thirty degrees, which means scarves and fuck yeah weather and soup.  I've been thinking soup-related thoughts all damn week, and mostly about a giant bowl of steaming ramen filled with bamboo shoots and eggs and shit while David Cassidy belts out awesome things in the background about a love there is no cure for. 

I was on my lunch break on the hunt for soup, fantasizing and romanticizing ramen like it's my job (it's not, unfortunately) when paused at a corner was a bent old man wearing the same scarf as me.

I turned and looked at him.  "Nice scarf."

He nodded and smiled.  "Yours is nice as well.  It matches your eyes." He spoke with a thick Irish accent.

"It also matches your accent.  Are you from Ireland?"

"Yes, miss.  But you are not.  I believe your scarf is."

"Yeah, I got it a few summers ago in the Ring of Kerry."

"Which is where I was born.  I'twas lovely to make your acquaintance."

"And you.  Stay warm."

"Stew for lunch!" He smiled.

(You now, stew is also a very delicious kind of soup.) 

My car was parked under the bird tree all day on Monday, where I assumed it would be safe.  The hag never spreads birdseed in the cold.  But the bitch did.  She scattered seeds all over the ground beneath the tree and the sidewalk so her cat could enjoy the birds all day, and the birds ate the seeds (which is not nearly as fulfilling as soup/ramen/stew in this kid of weather) and then the birds SHAT ALL OVER MY CAR.

I haven't had time to clean it until today, so I spent no less than thirty-five minutes scrubbing it this afternoon.

There must be a way to bill the old lady for all the quarters I blew at the car wash. 

...

After the Fox

This is Part 6 of the Wir Gehen Nach Deutschland series, which is, apparently, a series now, because I just called it a series, just now, and there are eleven of them, which is bonkers.

Part 1: Fashion Scarves in Fucking Charge

Part 2: Predictable

Part 3: Noishenvantengutencastlestein v. Hitler's Casino

Part 4: Beating Hitler at His Own Game

Part 5: Inhale

Part 6: After the Fox

Part 7: Like Mountain

Part 8: But You Know. Sweden.

Part 9: It's Fine

Part 10: Kiss Off

 Part 11: Red Man Says Nein

We left Dachau thirsty and depressed and in desperate need of ample beers, so luckily we were in the right land for that.  Back in Munich we immediately booked it to the Hofbrauhaus and spent half an hour trying to (a) check in to Facebook, and (b) tell Gyna we were going to be late for dinner.

Checking into Facebook took up about a total of ten hours of our time throughout the whole trip - every arrival into every city was kicked off with a trip into a Starbucks for free wi-fi so we could check into Facebook, because it's not real if it's not on Facebook.  This is something I don't understand, mostly because I don't have internet on my phone.  I'm not anti-check-in or a hater or anything.  I just don't get it.

By the way, if you leave me a comment about how touristy or overhyped the Hofbrauhaus is, you're a jerky elitist and you hate fun for no goddamn reason other than jerkiness and fun-hating elitism.

Poor Gyna waited to meet us for like half an hour, no doubt frazzled and frustrated at our complete disregard for her time.  Sorry, Gyna.

There was wine and dinner, and everyone learned how Katsisch and I hold conversations, which is not so much of a back-and-forth as it is a breakneck foxhunt, and we weave and tangle and plummet and jolt in this excessively verbal, raucous harmony, but we're after the same damn fox.  Philip wore red chinos and we got drunk.

Then there was a bar, and there was beer, and soon we were knee-deep in strange Germans who said wonderful things like, "So, you are the Americans?  Yes, I know.  You have been shouting to the bar.  Yes, Chicago, your sister yelled that.  She is the pretty blonde one?"  Katsisch never learned about vocal resonance or volume, and the more alcohol she had the more obvious this became. 

Eventually all things must end, good and bad, and we went back to Gyna's around two.  Three?  I have no idea, but we had to be up before 6am to catch a flight to Copenhagen.


...

Lies I Have Told

After reading this, I've decided it's time.

It's time to write the blog post I have been putting off for years.  Because no one wants to read this.  Go ahead, stop reading.  But I have to do it and I have to do it now.  It's not a big deal, or anything terrible.  But I need to do it for...let's say therapy.

...

My freshman year of college I lied a lot to fit in, which is a good explanation of why it was so hard for me to make friends.

Here, I thought, here I can tell people I have had boyfriends, because everyone cares about boyfriends. Of course I'd never had a boyfriend.  Or a date.

In high school, I was one of those girls who never got asked to a dance.  At fourteen I just asked guys myself.  One dance, I took my friend Dan and he spent the night looking forlornly at other girls and being disinterested, and I realized he didn't want to be there with me, which blew my fucking mind because I thought I was awesome.

Three years later Steve called me an hour before prom to bail and buy drugs.  I was murderous.  I asked him because my 'best friend' Jon - who I spent years blocking from my memory, who had my undying puppy love, who could ask anything of me, who had to have known how much craved him - he told me - and I hate talking about this - he told me he wouldn't go with me because, and I quote, "Well, Rass, you won't impress anyone.  I need to go with...I need to go with a woman."

Holy fuck.

Anyway, so when people asked freshman Rassles about high school, I told them I just broke up with someone. It felt true enough.  I also told them things like, "Well, of course, I could have had sex, but I just haven't found the right guy" which is what all virgins say, but it wasn't true.  No one ever tried.

...

I didn't drink my freshman year of college because I thought it was stupid and I had important shit to study so I could be a veterinarian.  Making friends was hard, so I would go to parties by myself and try to meet people.

But people, especially boys, will not talk to sober 18 year old girls.

Sometimes I would just go to a party and buy a solo cup and pretend I had beer. I wanted to fit in so badly.  I tried very hard to pretend to listen to the music everyone seemed to be obsessed with.  I become a Dave Matthews Band fan, an Aerosmith fan, a Jimmy Buffet fan.  I really, really tried. I lied and said my dad took me to a Jimmy Buffet concert once.  My dad doesn't give a shit about Jimmy Buffet. 

But I learned, slowly, that my classmates didn't trust me.  Not because I lied about going to a Jimmy Buffet concert (seriously, what?) but because I didn't get fucked up.

The few friends I made were wary to invite me to parties and usually were ashamed of me when we got there, but I never understood why.  I spent a lot of time saying, "No, go on, I'll be fine." 

Absolutely no one trusted me when I tried to take care of the hammered girls throwing up all over the bathroom, passing out on toilets while their friends took all of the incorrect steps on dealing with a girl on the verge of alcohol poisoning.  They would get angry at me for helping, tell me I was self-righteous, that they could see how I despised them and they would hoist up their tube tops and stumble in their heels, banging their knees on doorframes, wild-eyed and whammered. I tried to nurse of a lot of girls I didn't know.

Then one day in January, I got those looks and exploded. Crying.  Yelling, "YOU KNOW WHY I DON'T GET DRUNK?" I told them that when I was fourteen I went to a college party, blacked out, woke up in a strange house and vowed never to drink again.

Of course, that never happened.

But it was magic.  I had respect. People approached me at parties.  A lot of, "You know, I thought you just were like weird, you know, I didn't know you been there.  I knew there was something about you.  I could tell there was a bigger story, I could tell you were cool, I knew there was a reason, I'm so sorry you went through that..." 

I never even insinuated - I mean, later I learned - and by later, I mean in 2011 - apparently this story morphed into "Rassles got drunk and was raped when she was fourteen."  Which is annoying, but I guess kind of predictable.  Only one person ever asked me that many details, and I told her I didn't remember. 

But people seemed to genuinely care about me.  Only after they thought I was special.  I really resented a lot of them for it. 

Then I came clean to a couple friends years later, and they were all like, "so what? who fucking cares if you lied when you were 18?  We were all assholes" which was awesome.

...

Sometimes I think that lie was the worst decision I ever made.  Because of that I lie, I pledged a sorority. Because of that sorority, I didn't transfer schools, I stopped wanting to be a doctor, I started drinking and smoking cigarettes and turned into a general asshole. But I loved every terrible, mood-swinging minute of it.

During pledging, we had to run.  A lot.  And on the first day of running I fell, and a swarm of sorority banshees surrounded me, heckling (Were you born a fat, slimy, scumbag puke piece o' shit, Private Pyle, or did you have to work on it?) and I was pissed, I couldn't fucking believe the garbage they were screaming (I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-fuck you!) who the ruddy fuck do these ogre harpies think they are, they can go fuck a fencepost for all I care, these (you had best square your ass away and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up) bone-faced cumdumpsters, I hate them, I hate them...and I yelled that my knee, my knee, oh, my knee...I don't have any cartilage in my knee, I can't run anymore, which shut them up real fucking quick, but was also a lie.

They never even let me try to run after that, whenever I asked, probably because they were afraid I would get seriously hurt, and then the school would kick them out for hazing.  But I felt guilty, I was terrified of not fitting in, I watched my pledgemates run and stumble and endure, I berated myself to sleep and swore that for the next five weeks I would do everything perfectly, that I would help everyone however I could, that I would come clean...

That's the problem with lies.  People are so darn nice about them.  They're so understanding, so worried, so genuine.  

I never did tell them the truth.  This sorority booted liars.  They kicked two of them out of my pledge class.  But they would have kicked me out, I have no doubt.  They had no patience for people who couldn't cut it.  None.  So I just let it go.  

...

Oh, it feels nice getting all of these twelve year old lies on the internet.

...

We Spend Our Lives On Trial

This article just punches me in the chest, because I had to deal with that bullying shit for years (of course, I retaliated by yelling louder and pointing out how the things they loved were stupider). I still have to deal with that shit, although on a much smaller scale. I hate getting that look, that confused, oh-she's-one-of-those-girls looks. I don't have socially acceptable interests. At least not among extroverts. And by "extroverts" I mean "guys who don't live in a basement." Hey guys - GET OUT OF YOUR BASEMENT AND COME TO THE BAR.

It's easy to get addicted to being bullied after having it define you for years. Of course now I have this ridiculous arrogant air about me because yes, I was bullied for being smart and nerdy and not very feminine, so say it. Go on. Say what you're thinking.

And then it's my fucking turn.

They called me crazy because talking back, of course, is a sign of mental dysfunction. Teachers never stepped in, mostly because in high school the bullying is all sidelined and mental and pansy-assed. The smart kids (who were the biggest assholes) trap insults into class discussions during Literature of Romance and Tragedy, "I think it's commendable that Hester just bears all of the persecution with nobility. I admire that. It's always obnoxious when they fight back. Right Rassles? Wouldn't you agree?" The most neanderthal, and the rarest, hang out in the cafeteria near the quiet, greasy-haired kid in a black trenchcoat and combat boots and loudly talk shit about his clothes and music from a short distance. So I would walk over there in my little sweater vest and khakis (fuck you, mom) and call them gutless and make fun of their shoes or their hair or something and just walk away.

This did not make me popular. If anything they ignored me.

Of course, in college my behavior was a virtue. I think it's just because students didn't know me well enough to know that you're supposed to avoid me, like all those kids from kindergarten through the end of high school. Then again, in college we clung to the people we knew would have our backs, because that place was like a fucking battleground where everyone was fighting to be the most awesome.

So...now you know why I'm a fortress.


Day 5: a song that reminds you of someone

Basically every song reminds me of someone, it's just that sometimes that person is myself. I thought long and hard about this. Who would I honor with words, affection and song?

You better be reading this, asshole.




Gyna is moving to Germany in one month. This makes me very very sad. Gyna is leaving and now I'll be swimming in a sea of couples and pairs. Goddammit. Having someone like Gyna around, someone who perfectly balances the excruciatingly rational with the excruciatingly silly, is kind of nice.

You remember those guys I mentioned above, the ones who live in basements? Gyna is the girl they approach at the bar. It makes sense, she wears glasses and is roughly shaped like a superheroine. Sometimes I get eerie osmosis loiterers that stand close to me and laugh at my jokes but never say anything, just soak up my shine, but Gyna gets picked up and then they want to see her again.

That's because Gyna laughs readily, tells good jokes and engages in the ridiculous (like when she threw a Four Loko party with eight flavors of Four Loko chilling in wine coolers, plates of lavish cheeses and grapes on the vine, bowls of fruit, delicate crackers, and the 100 Sexiest Music Videos counting down on the TV), she's whipsmart and knows a lot about a lot of things. She is also very self-assured and fashionable, but the good kind of fashionable because she still hangs out with me when I wear Pumas and a t-shirt to a club (not that I go to clubs willingly but birthdays are birthdays) and she's all cleavage and fancy jackets and heeled boots with belts on them, even though she shakes her head and calls me an asshole (which is fine, because I know very well that I am being an asshole when I deliberately dress down so I don't have to talk to douchebags that hang out at fucking clubs which will let me in because my friends are hot).

I just noticed something when I was fielding through pictures: there are lots of pictures of me and Gyna going places and sitting on things, like motorcyles and barrels with saddles on them and strange hands.

Also, she rides in my sidecar. Or I am her driver. Not sure which is which.

So "Youth Gone Wild" is our official karaoke duet. There's really no reason for it other than the fact that it's a bad ass song.

...

Impound

I left the auto pound on Saturday afternoon all dirty and sour and broke, but with my beautiful, battle-scarred car who loves me unconditionally, even when I leave him out in the cold. Poor thing was on a snow route between 3AM and 7AM on Friday night. Who has the patience to read the goddamn novels posted on street signs? Obviously not a single person in Chicago, because they were all at the fucking auto pound on Saturday picking up their cars.

There were about sixty people heeled into the double-wide that houses the Chicago Auto Pound's maze of a queue and it smelled like fucking bitter exhaustion. The guy behind me was wearing a fur-collared coat like it was a Hawaiian shirt, zipped open over his bare, red gut and a cartoonish, seven-inch silver cross hung perfectly between a pair of ruddy pecs. He hacked into grimy hands and kept on growling to his buddy about getting a "wrecker" in one of those voices that sounds like rock quarry. I wanted to tell him to wash his hands and put on a fucking shirt. It's ten degrees outside. This isn't fucking Kokomo.

The guy with him might not have been his buddy at all, I mean he could have just been a random dude standing in line that had to awkwardly half-chuckle at some boulder stranger's undecipherable jokes while trying to avoid eye contact with his gaping naval. I couldn't stop staring at it. Every time I turned, there it was being all belly-buttony and gross, like someone jammed a tulip bulb into a blowhole.

This one middle-aged woman in Juicy pants and Uggs took a good fucking half hour. She kept on sending her sixteen-year old son out to the car while she lovingly manhandled her adolescent daughter and argued with the worker in the window. And he would trudge outside and come back with some scrap of paper and hand it to her with loathing, and she would snap, "Whadaya doin? This expired in, like, foor yeers ago and it was fer the Acura. Go bayack and just bring mahmmy everything yoo find."

And he would stare at her with undead eyes fueled by sixteen years of scorn and belittlement, resigning back into the cold while his mom ran her manicure through her daughter's golden hair. "He doon't knoow where the glove compartment is at," she scoffed conversationally to the woman in the window, who snorted. "His dayad never teached him anything." I wanted to punch her. On behalf of grammar and justice.

Plus, the couple in front of me kept on making out and telling secrets in giggly, hushed Spanish and I was totally freaked out.

Nearly two hours later and I'm riding in a van with a wheezy old man around the pound trying to find my car in a lot the size of Siberia, and just as dirty, barren and cold. I hate it there.  But I've always wanted to go to Siberia...

...

An Open Letter I Posted Around My Apartment Complex.

Hello, fellow tenants.

First of all, I want to thank you for your attention. Basically, thank you for reading this note at all. My name is Rassles, I live in Apt. 1 on the east side of the building, and recently my bike was stolen out of the back hallway. It was last officially seen, with eyes, on Sunday. My roommate noticed it was missing this morning. Her bike remains untouched.

(Note: this is not my bike. I had the OG buttoned mattress seat, and this is a later model, but you get the idea.)

It's not a very exceptional bike, just a dark copper-colored Schwinn Suburban with two flat tires that I intended to fill up this weekend. It really only has emotional value, since it belonged to my mom for thirty years. Seriously. It's name is Atticus. I know that sounds ridiculous.

I was just wondering, I mean, does anyone know about a person wandering around the back hallway and snatching things that are important to me? Did someone snatch something important to YOU? Because if they wanted to come across as an asshole, then mission accomplished.

Sincerely,

Rassles
April 7, 2010


I almost forgot: if you have any information, my cell phone is (###) ### PUSH, and my email is rassleslists@gmail.com.

...

Friendship Is Just Like Electromagnetic Interactions and Quarks

My friendship with the Smith Sisters can best be ignorantly described with the following highly accurate Feynman diagram that flawlessly follows all of the rules of quantum electrodynamics:

I know what you're thinking: O fair Rassles, my brilliant, beautiful, bodacious blogging friend, however did you familiarize yourself with quantum physics? Weren't you a diligent speech major, busy writing a senior thesis that would earn you a historically impressive D+?

First of all, in my defense, I started that thesis a week before it was due and I was supposed to be working on it for a year. Second of all, I changed my major about seventeen times. Third of all, your face makes you look like a jerk.

But I dabbled in physics, for sure. Well, I've read In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, which is sloppy old school fun with physics, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to name-drop things like inter-perlative-quantum-business-something.

Sooooooo I don't really remember anything about the book except the pictures. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that if I am anything, I am full of shit.

Basically, I wanted to talk about the Smith Sisters via graph, so initially in this explanation, I needed a graph. And I knew I wanted a Feynman because there were squiggly lines.

But I technically didn't remember the name of it, so I to googled "diagram with squigglies and positrons" and found it right away and I was all "fucking score" and then I tried to remember where I read about it since I've never taken a physics class in my life, and I googled "physics book with a cat" and then fucking Vwa-la (this is the way we spell things around here, by the way, because this is fucking America and I don't want any of your French-fangled Canadian verbal crappage all up in my business) I've got a complex explanatory answer to a question no one asked me directly.

This serves as an accurate diversion, no doubt, from the fact that my graph makes no sense whatsoever, and also provides a worthy transition into a rant about how my country is better than Canada because our hockey team whooped their asses, ergo I am better than The Smith Sisters because they are from Canada and I am from THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. And I will continue to point that out as often as possible, even though they let me sleep on their couch when I'm drunk.

...

Unfortunately, that would prove to be a superlong blog post, so...tomorrow? I thrash Canada.

And yeah, I'm aware of my hypocrisy: I bitch about the Olympics and then write a blog post mentioning that game. BUT! But but BUT! Making fun of my friends, without mercy and under the guise of patriotism, takes precedence over nearly everything.

...

Conversational Aerodynamics

This morning me and MoLinder definitely sat around and read my blog to each other out loud, reading simultaneously from our separate laptops, a sad, hysterical pajama reenactment, laughing hysterically because we am goddamn hysterical.

Don't know if you guys knew about that. My evident hysteria. Thought I'd let you know.

And next time some creepy dude asks you about the landscape of your pubic hair, tell him it's the Bat Signal and give yourself a well-earned high five for skillful evasive maneuvering. It's like I'm the X-43 of speaking, which is crazy because those things clock in at like Mach 7 or something.

Of course, they also crash into the ocean eventually, forlorn and forgotten, having fulfilled their supersonic destiny of telling that sound barrier what's what.

Doesn't matter. At least I left an impression. Like those vapor cloud singularities that puff out during a sonic boom.

I am digging this analogy.

You know what? NASA is the shit.

...

PS: No taxation without representation.

...

Hateful Tricks On Your Tongue

Back when I lived in the burbs with my parents, basically the summers between college and the few years after, me and all of my other worthless friends going through our post-secondary education adolescence used to hang out at some seedy ass bars.

College in the Quad City Area opens you up to the seduction of double wide trailers, dog tracks, smoky, moth-eaten casinos, car thieves, parking on the front lawn. We donated plasma for drinking money and we would sit in the lounge of the plasma bank with all the other Mississippi River Rats, ready to be drained of bodily fluids (but sixty bucks richer) just so we could get drunk quicker and blow it all at the casino next door.

Okay, so I did that once.  Twice?  Let's not make it seem like I was cool enough to pull that kind of righteousness all the time.  But you get the picture.

Then we'd study, taking full advantage of our upper-crusty liberal arts education with all the other suburban kids who migrated to the river for their college education. But some of us really tried to take advantage of shady side of the QCA.

So during college breaks, back in the pleasant confines of Naperville, my friends and I would seek out the fringe establishments that were as close to the QCA as possible.

Anyway, one of our favorite hangouts was this dirty ass bar called the Squirrel Cage, run by a pit-stained three hundred pound  walking heart attack who lived upstairs and planted himself on a sagging plastic stool behind the bar with his legs splayed open and fed us string cheese and pork rinds. I don't remember his name, but when he wasn't working, Wes, his hot 29 year old son, tended bar (um, I don't know if you've ever been a horny, plain-looking 22 year old girl, but nearly every guy between 25 and 35 who smiles at you sideways is seriously hot, and not at all creepy.)

"They have PBR," my friend Kim said, "on tap.  You need to come there with me."  Bear in mind, please, this was in 2002, before the Great Pabst Surge, so this was a big fucking deal and the main reason we went there.

But the other thing about the Squirrel Cage was the ever-threatening, lurking presence of Jeppson Malort.

If you're not familiar with Malort...you're a fucking lucky bastard. Do not, ever, under any conditions, knowingly accept a shot of Malort from another human being. They are playing a nasty, hateful trick on your tongue, and you're probably better off drinking Liquid Plummer laced with gasoline and a hint of mint, because that's the kind of taste infusion Jeppson is going for. What kills your will to keep down your lunch, however, is the lingering, venomous, cottonmouth-and-bug-spray aftertaste that coats your throat and esophagus for the next twenty minutes or so.

Seriously. It's the most antagonistic liquid I have ever had in my mouth. Google it.

The only way to get rid of the after taste is to take another shot, and then the vicious cycle continues like an infinite mirror effect, but if the infinite mirror was actually infinite shots of tequila mixed with rumplemintz, cigarette butts, and crack needles.

So after steadily frequenting the Squirrel Cage for about two weeks, one day Wes dropped off three surprise shots for us along with our usual PBR's.

"What's this?"

"On me." He winks, and like washes a glass or something.

"Is it like"--I smell it---"gaaaacck...ugggh. Fuck."

He snickers and does that Upward Guy Nod thing, smiling. "Just trust me."

Me and my friends exchange looks, clank our shot glasses, and proceed to murder ourselves.

Luke puckers immediately, slamming his shot glass down on the bar, and bolts for the bathroom. I'm making huffing sounds, squinting. Coughing. Kim licks her lips, scrunches her eyebrows and throws her shot glass at Wes.

"That was foul," she states, plainly.

One of the regulars at the other side of the bar starts cackling at us.

I'm still coughing. "You are a total dick."

Wes is still grinning. "Your buddy okay?"

"You probably killed him," Kim coughs and spits, which surprises me, because she's always buttery and sly.

Luke comes out of the bathroom and points at Wes, mumbling, "I fucking hate you, dude."

I can't take it. "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?"

Wes grabs a cloudy bottle of urine-colored booze and sets gently it in front of us. Jeppson Malort.

There's actually a little cautionary tag attached to the bottle.

Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malort reject our liquor. Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone. Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate. During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malort. During the lifetime of our founder, Carl Jeppson was apt to say, "My Malort is produced for that unique group of drinkers who disdain light flavor or neutral spirits."

It is not possible to forget our two-fisted liquor. The taste just lingers and lasts - seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! PERSERVERE. Make it past two 'shock-glasses' and with the third you could be ours...forever

It's an initiation of sorts, an illicit hazing ritual that so many Chicago neighborhood dives impose upon their naive regulars.

And now, people out there are trying to make that shit taste good. I respect the challenge, but sometimes? I feel like Malort remains a secret for a reason. How the fuck else are you going to show your regulars some swindling, bastardized love? How else are we supposed to send steaming cups of evil to people we don't like, or trick tourists into sudden death? So unfair.

...

Shadows in the Land of Rassles.

It's over. I have nothing left to believe in.

My boss, who I affectionately refer to as "Action Man" in my head and to his face, but only with a salute, because he runs everywhere and only speaks in exclamation-pointed His-Girl-Friday-Fast-Talk, See? is forcing me to do all of these horrible things that I don't feel comfortable doing.

From: Action Man
Sent: Monday, April 13, 20094:35 PM
To: Rassles
Subject: RE: BSF on Facebook!


Rossi, you on Facebook yet? Get on that, Missy!

Come see me when you have a few minutes. Website questions - what does this word mean?

I almost forgot! Go Cubbies! Have a cold one for me! But after work! Facebook!

- Action Man

Seriously, sir? Why you gotta be a raging bitch?

No, I am not going to be your friend.

...

Later addition, 6:45 PM: I signed up for Facebook and then immediately deleted my account. It feels wrong. In my soul. It just feels wrong.

...

Mad World

Can anyone explain why I've had goddamn Tears For Fears constantly running through my head for the past two weeks?

And if anyone says fucking Donnie Darko I will find the old workroom of HG Wells (I don't care what anyone says, The Time Machine is totally autobiographical), steal his time machine, traverse to your father's thirteenth birthday and castrate him, so that way neither you nor your comment will exist via the most commonly-accepted theories regarding the space-time continuum. Predestination paradox, bitches.

Extrapolate that.

(Let it be known that I have no ill feelings towards Donnie Darko, other than the fact that I was at a bar about a month ago that happened to have two movies playing, one of which was Donnie Darko, and the second was a movie whose title I couldn't remember, so I asked like every single person in the bar, "Hey, what movie is that? The one that is not Donnie Darko?" and pointed to the television that was not playing Donnie Darko, and every single fucking person told me it was goddamn Donnie Darko. I was about ready to go all fucking Donnie Darko on everyone.)

...

There Are, In Fact, Multiple Row Sevens Throughout Soldier Field

So when my boss fast-talked me into accepting those football tickets, he spouted, "Row Seven" in between many adjectives and verbs and other forms of grammatical syntax that I've forgotten, because I ignore my boss as much as I can, as I did all of my English teachers.

Usually when someone donates tickets to my office (for all of the hard work we do servicing the community), they're phenomenal, and fuck yeah Bears game.

I soon remembered that there are, in fact, multiple Row Sevens throughout Soldier Field, and we could be in any one of them. This did not concern me.

One thing you should know about me: I don't really have a winter coat. There's this nice-ish looking camel coat I wear to work, with lining that rips a little more every single time I lift my arms. Not wearing that to a Bears game.

Let the layering of the sweatshirts commence. For extra luck with the cold, I topped it all off with my Homer Brewing Company sweatshirt, because I like beer, and it kept me warm when I was in Alaska. But most importantly, because I wanted the opportunity to mention, over and over again, that one time I went to Alaska, and I bought this sweatshirt and a growler of Red Knot Scottish Ale and drank it on a rocky beach where the sun rarely sets.

Thank god I've gotten that out of the way.

So yeah. We arrive at the game, and our spectacular Row Seven Seats are in Row Seven of the upper deck. Not only that, but they're in a corner facing goddamn Lake Michigan, and there be biting winds. And I be cold as all fuckery.

But the game was excellent. My co-workers ditched me at half time and left me drinking and sitting alone. About halfway through the third quarter some of the neighboring Phase 4 Fans gave up (come on, guys. Ten degrees? Nothin.) and pretty soon I had a radius of four empty chairs around me. I was not warm. But was I going to let a little cold front scare me away? Hell no.

And then I got very lonely.

I could survive the dropping temperatures in the Fortress of Solitude, but never its ever-desolate name.

So I got the fuck out of there. They had stopped selling beer anyway.

Then I met up with Gyna, who has been in California all week, and we went to a bar with a vast array of desecrated coloring books, where nearly every page of Spiderman, Biblical characters, My Little Ponies, Anakin Skywalker, and eerie Precious Moments children contains visible hand-drawn genitals.

So we whipped out our pens and helped them finish off all of the pictures they missed. Besides, the bartenders threatened to take away our PBR if we didn't draw dicks on stuff.

...

Letting Your Guard Down

Every single fucking time I go to goddamn Lincoln Park bad shit happens.

I should have trusted my instincts. Lincoln Park is the fucking devil.

I actually had a good time. That's how the devil gets you on his team: he's all nice to you, so you're like, "Well, I guess he's not that bad, I mean they sell high-life here and they're playing Rick Astley. Even though the only people in the bar who seem to have clandestine feelings towards deep-voiced gingers are me, Gyna, and the DJ. Fucking idiot Lincoln Park people. No respect for irony. But this place isn't too bad, I'm having fun. Ooooh, ooooh...Duran Duran!"

Fun is blinding.

So we leave, and I can't find my car. So me and Gyna hop in a cab.

Since I had no cash to pay for the cab, because I spent it all at the bar (a pox upon your houses, Lincoln Park), I told the cab driver to take me to an ATM. Then when we get there, my wallet's gone.

Cabbie gets pissed and kicks me out of the car and I walk home, freaking out over lack of wallet. Called the bar: no cigar. Called every single cab company that employs white cabs (but not drivers) to see if my wallet was in there. Can't find it.

Today, I got a call from my bank about some "suspicious activity," as most activities seem to be, where someone tried to charge $2,000 on my Debit card at CVS. So I canceled all of my cards, and found out that they tried to charge it on my debit card and both of my credit cards.

Fucking idiots. Good luck with that, they're both maxed out. That's what you get for robbing someone who's fucking broke, SUCKAH.

But, unfortunately: my corporate card was in there. I never carry that card with me, but I used it last week and never took it out of my wallet. So chances are that card's getting shit mad style.

They have everything. ID, credit cards, library card, check book. It's all canceled and finished, I've got a fraud alert on my credit report.

I hope whoever used those cards looks at my corporate card and sees where I work, and feels like a fucking retarded fruit fly jerkface for robbing from the inner-city children of Chicago. Oh, I'll just go to Banana Republic, and charge it to one of the only organizations that would have worked to help me as a child so I wouldn't grow up to be a thieving fuckhead son of a bitch.

I hate Lincoln Park with the fire of a thousand suns.

"You let your guard down, man," MoLinder told me today. YOU LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. That's what fucking Lincoln Park does to you: it bends you over the table and rapes you hard. And then it makes you pay for your rape kits, like Sarah Palin."

Speaking of which, Palin was on SNL last night and it was fucking hilarious. Mark "Funky Bunches of Sex" Wahlberg also made an appearance in a sketch that SNL ripped straight from my brain, because I wrote it in my head on Monday. Down to the donkey.

Just a little post script: I heart Colin Powell right now. And MSNBC has a slick little democratic donkey logo going on.

...

Seriously? Is Ben Folds the new Dave Matthews?

Because my friends are The People To Know, I got to go to another free concert last Friday. M.E. put us on the list to see Ben Folds, which was just amazing. Because NKOTB was kick ass, but Ben Folds? Love him. There's nothing like watching a spectacled skinny man smash out the frustrations of his soul with a noisy piano jam.

Some things I don't understand about Ben Folds concert patrons:

1. You are enjoying music. Why are you just sitting there? I'm no fucking dancer, probably because I have to like a song to wanna groove, but sometimes I just can't help breaking out the white girl shimmy, and poorly. But everyone was just sitting there. Unmoving. Maybe tapping their feet a little bit, and then they got this look of embarrassment when they made a little bit of a scene.

Because of this, Gyna and I felt it was necessary to leave the balcony seats full of Sitters and head down to the floor with the Jammers. And you know what? The Jammers still just stood there, nodding their heads, like these Ben Folds thralls who never dissent, who agree, unmoving.

Fucking idiots. Maybe you didn't feel like dancing? You prefered complete immobility? Ben deserves more. Shame on you.

You do not need to be too cool, here. You're watching a dorky guy play the piano, singing about brainwashing and bitches gone nuts. No one's judging.

But they are. And then Gyna made a good point: is this why musicians pass over Chicago, because of the intense public preoccupation with trying to appear cool? I wanna be cool too, but obviously my definition of cool differs completely from theirs.

2. Then again, I'm judgmental as fuck.

I say this: Go ahead and throw your inhibition into a vortex of guilt, but stop making out on the floor. You piss me off.

So now we know that I hate couples.

No, lies: not couples: people who act all coupley. You can be as makey outty as you want, but if you must eat each others brains, do it on the back of the floor, or off to the side. Because you're taller then me, and I came here to watch Ben Folds, not the intermingling of your salivary glands, as fascinating as that is.

Was it just one couple? Ye gods, no. There were hundreds. All over the place. They surrounded me like a Skull initiation and all I could see were these grossly obnocksh, pimply couples licking the sweat from each others faces, jamming hands in unseemly places.

Really? This song is about abortion. Does that make you randy?

They creeped in on me, feeling and licking and grabbing all ugly like, and I can hear their smacking over Ben Folds and I can't see shit, and I can't ignore them because I can feel them, like Dementors. They're creepy.

Sometimes when you see a coupley couple you watch them, their interaction. You see how they find excuses to touch each other, how they steal kisses when they think no one is looking. Their eyes lock and they instantly smile, and laugh because they're together. It's endearing, sometimes. And that's annoying too, but in a jealous rage kind of way.

These people just sucked at life. They have no right to breed, and no right to show off their breeding foreplay on the floor. Get ye away, hosebeasts.

Gyna thought it was funny.

I started getting pissed, and planted my feet on the ground. I did not want to fight during Ben Folds, but in me vs. The Couples, I was fucking determined to win. There were four surrounding me. So I stick out my finger like a gun. "If one of those bastards gets too close," I tell Gyna, "they're getting poked. By my finger glock."

And that's how you show the maker outters you mean biznass.

3. Oh, and seriously? Is Ben Folds the new Dave Matthews? I haven't seen Ben Folds since 1998. Where did all the douchebags come from? They're not even real douchebags, they're like douches in training, or D-List Douches. Douchiness doesn't come naturally enough for them. It's like, they all turned twenty two, realized they were sheep (who smelled like gravel) and decided to emulate the Douchebags, and failed miserably. Their personalities just aren't forceful enough to achieve true douche-osity, so they just settle with semi-douche, and they're unhappy about their failure to attain a full level of douchebaggery.

Who aspires to be a douchebag?

Those guys.

...

Route 66 Ratings: Oatman, 50 points

Disclaimer: To those who know me well, the following blog may shock you due to the alarmlingly high concentration of exclamation points, particularly following my own dialogue. If you were previously unaware of my deep mistrust and hatred for all things exclamation point, now you know. But in this blog, I feel that it's necessary to properly illustrate how very, very, very excited I was. I was like, Batman excited.

On with the blog.


September 1, 1:20 PM PST You see, MoLinder used the air condition sparingly. On for two minutes at ten minute intervals. She's used to the heat, fucking San Diegans. She wears hoodies when it's eighty degrees. I thrive on cold.

I'm sitting on a tufty winter sleeping bag in hundred degree heat, sweat sliding down my calves. "Oh my god I'm dying. Can I please turn on the air conditioning?"

"Yeah, of course. Sorry. I just don't want the car to overheat."

Whatthefuckever. "Dude, the desert fucking sucks."

"I told you. It's just a big nothin."

"Yeah, I know, but I'd never seen it before."

"There's nothing to see."

"Seriously." I have been riding in this car through the desert for just over an hour. I'm not even outside, and I know I hate it. I feel sorry for Clint Eastwood, and kind of like a pussy. Water.

Up ahead, past the wasteland of sand and rock, I can see this oasis of green. It's all glittery and wettish. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Grass."

"I know--what's that doing there?" She leans closer to the steering wheel and squints. "Oh, Colorado River."

I take my feet off the dashboard and lean forward alongside her. "Is that Needles?" Three Dog Night starts going through my head.

"I think so."

"Sweet." I wish I had that song with me. Obviously I did not plan out my soundtrack well enough.

Pulling out my mangled road trip book, I realize exactly where we are. "Okay, so now we're going to Oatman." + 2

"What's in Oatman?"

"Burros." + 2

"Like...burros, burros?

"Like Mexican donkeys just fuckin walkin around. We have to go there." + 2

"How do I get there?"


September 1, 1:45 PM PST MoLinder is driving straight for the mountains on Historic 66, which veers off the main highway for about forty miles, and she's very excited that the road continually dips up and down, because she doesn't need to use the gas when she's got enough momentum to climb up one hill after we coast down the previous one. + 3

"So what else is here?"

"I don't know. I think there's a ghost town somewhere." I look in my book. "Yeah. Old mining town. Oatman, Arizona." Pointing to the caption. "Fucking bur-ros." + 2

"How do we see them?"

"I dunno, I ain't never been there. I guess they're just like, walking around. Like pedestrians. Or baby ducks."

"Ducklings."

"Yeah, I know. Whatever."

"You know that we can't, like, stay long and go exploring and stuff, right? Because of the cats. Kitty's whining and she's totally pissed off. I think the drugs wore off." - 2

"Oh, no, that's fine. Poor Kitty. I just need a picture of the burros. I have to see the burros. It's like, I'm being drawn to them. They're calling out to me. Like the hyenas." Ahhh, the hyenas. "I wanna ride one." + 5

"I don't think you can ride them--" - 2

"Well duh, of course I can't ride them, but that doesn't mean I don't want to. I'm just gonna jump outta the car and like, walk around for five minutes. And you can get gas. And then if you want, I'll wait in the car while you walk around."

"I don't know, man. But I do need gas. I hope we make it around the fucking mountain."

"We'll be fine."

"Well, we'll see."


September 1, 1:53 PM PST The Focus turns a corner around a giant outcropping that looks like Pride Rock and there it is. Oatman. There's a beaten sign.

It's all run down and deserted. "Where the fuck are all the burros? Give me burros or give me death, dammit." - 3

"Oh, Ross, I am going to fucking kill you if this is it. If this is it, I will push you out. of. this. car. and. leave. you. here. for the fucking burros." - 5

But there aren't any burros. Sigh. "Just drive further, there's got to be something." I get the feeling that this is it. I'm feeling insanely guilty for making her go so far off the highway. And we're definitely running out of gas. - 3

We turn another corner, and instead of depressing rusted shacks and abandoned skeletal trucks there's this gorgeous kaleidoscope of Mojave blankets. Farther around the corner we find a fifty-foot stretch of wonderful touristy shops full of complete crap that will inevitably shatter or get lost within two weeks of purchase and then be sold at a garage sale or donated to a thrift store, where some asshole hipster will buy it and put it on a shelf and tell visitors they got it on a road trip. + 10

I wanted ALL OF IT.

And there are wild burros everywhere. + 20

"LOOK AT THEM. Just walking around. Bein' burros. I fucking love this." Burros are strolling lazily down the street, standing on porches, inside shops, laying in makeshift mangers, huddling around foals and shoving thier noses into passing cars. Shit was nuts. + 5

MoLinder is silent. - 5

"Isn't this fantastic?"

"There is no gas station." - 5

"I'm sorry. But--burros!"

"But I need. to. get. gas. I--I guess I--I--I just--just thought it would be different. I didn't think it would be this, I didn't think it would be, you know. This." - 5

"What did you expect?"

"Not this. A town."

"I told you it was just burros. Wandering." + 1

"Yeah, but I thought...I don't know. Gas station. Something."

"Can I pet one?"

"And I'm hungry."

"But I want to pet one and take a picture. I need a picture of me and one of them."

"There's nowhere for me to pull over." - 5

"Come on, please? I need to take a picture. Pull over here."

MoLinder is pissed. "I just...I don't know what to do." - 5

"Five minutes, okay? Pull over right here."

"Where?"

"Here." I point. "I just really want to do this. This is the only thing this far off the road that I want to see anyway." Mentally, I'm crossing out other sights and activities off the list of Route 66 funstuff. - 10

"I didn't expect this. I really didn't."

"But look! BURROS! How fucking cool is that?"

"They're just burros." - 5

"Well...yeah. But come on. It's funny. I want to buy something."

"Just hurry up." - 5

"It's okay, I have no money." Thievery passed through my head in shimmery red letters as I closed the card door, and my inner monologue is on fire.

Fuck that, Ross, no stealing from the brave Mojave. Maybe I'll take a burro. (+ 3)

Oh, MoLinder would HATE me! But hey, free wild burro. (+ 3) That foal-cub looks like we could cram it into the car above the cat carriers. ( + 3) If you don't mind crushed burro legs (- 5) burrowed in the back of your skull (+ 5 for word play!).

Oh, poor baby burro with its little crushed legs. I'd have to wheel it around in a Radio Flyer and name it "Birdy." (+ 3) And people would stop me on the street and say, "Is that a horse?" and I would reply, "No, it's Birdy, my burro. I found him crippled and starving when I was hiking in the high cliffs of Mexico and saved him from circling vultures and lurking cougars. I'm in the process of trying to nurse him back to health. The veterinarian says he'll always be a wild burro, and could never be tamed and will probably never walk again, but I say fuck that, I saw "My Friend Flicka," and all he needs is patience and love. (+ 10)

So I snapped a shot of a burro with my disposable and the entire downtown area and ran back to the car, which MoLinder immediately turned around. I made her stop once more so I could jump out of the car and pet one of the burros, and it ambled over to the car and shoved its nose inside. MoLinder shrieked and giggled, and she didn't hate Oatman anymore. + 15

September 1, 2:02 PM PST We left the way we came and got gas and a couple packets of Jack Links back in Needles, and hopped back onto the main highway and through Arizona, towards New Mexico, where Satan lives. + 14 (half a point for each time I said burro, because it's a fun word. Burro.)

...