So Sunday afternoon me, Slinger and CrazyLiz are at a bar for the Blackhawk's game.
More accurately, Slinger is there for hockey, I am there for chili and beer, and CrazyLiz is there for moral support.
In walks a gentlemen with heavy wool pants, a shmancy-frocky-lookin' men's dress shirt, fucking riding boots and these bad ass double-leather goldenrod suspenders. He looks amazing. I mean, he's not amazing-looking, but you know. Double-leather suspenders.
"How's the battlefield today, Terry?" calls a patron.
"Union won," Terry grunts as he seats himself at the bar.
"Bastards always do."
"Only on Sundays." Terry and the guy to his left keep on talking slightly hushed, but happily, and then the bartender delivers my potato skins so I temporarily forget about yellow suspenders because there's bacon in front of me.
"So where can I get a pair of suspenders like that?" Slinger asks him after we all exchange little zingers during a commercial break or something.
"You gotta fight for the Union." Terry doesn't look up and gulps his pint.
"And how do you get to do that?"
"Well, I got myself kidnapped as a Rebel and was forced to fight for the North."
"I woulda just been a double agent," Slinger giggles.
"They thought I was, sir," Terry continued. "After I was caught and taken across enemy lines, all I could hear was the click click click of cocked pistols and rifles aiming for me. It took 'em awhile to figure it out, that I wasn't a spy that allowed myself caught, and then they just...made me fight for the Yankees."
"How'd the Rebels feel about that?" I asked him.
"Well, they couldn't do much about it could they? Those Yanks are lucky I had a Union uniform as well." He chuckles to himself.
I glance at him. "So you have to bring your own uniforms?"
He still hasn't looked my direction, but he gives his beer a secret smile. "Well, when you've been doin' it as long as me you sort of invest in your own goods. Uniforms, pistols, horses."
"How long's it been?"
"Let's see, 'bout, ahhh," he licks his lips and squints while he counts in his head, "Bout fourteen, fifteen years."
"Hot damn."
"Yep, fifteen years. I've been in more battles than the soldiers in The War itself." He laughs. He finds himself brilliant. It's kind of mesmerizing. "Course, I'm dodging blunt objects and dry fire, with no worry for real bullets!" He roars again, having reckoned the secrets of survival.
"So you always get to wear them snazzy suspenders?" I tend to regress with my language, depending on the audience.
"Just today. That's what the yellow's for," he thumbs the yellow straps. "designates Union Cavalry. Actually it's mounted infantry when I fight for the South and then they're white, but--" he raises a finger "--Union's cavalry because they have the pistols as well as sabres, and Union's yellow."
"So you're on horseback?"
"Yes ma'am."
"That is awesome."
"I do enjoy it."
"So you got a horse for that?"
"Well, me and three of my buddies, we got him over at a Chicago police auction. We got lucky. 21-years old, doesn't shy at the gunfire." He takes a sip, and then corrects himself with a grin, "Well, fake gunfire."
"What's his name?"
Terry finally meets my eyes. "Sunshine."
I smile. "Nice." I slide my beer over to the rail. Neighbor's is the kind of establishment run on the etiquette of regulars. "So do you have a preference? As to sides?"
He smiles again. "Everyone wants to fight for the Rebels."
"Seriously? Come on. No one wants to represent the free states?"
"Now, we really just call them Yankees. Keeps things...well, we just call them Yankees."
"Damn Yankees."
"Damn Yankees."
I reach for the fresh beer in front of me and thank the bartender, whose name I don't know.
Terry starts up again. "Yeah, but I always fight for the Confederacy. You know, General Lee said he'd never fight against the Union unless it was in defense of Virginia herself." (All I want to do, by the way, is muscle into the conversation with stupid shit like, Robert E. Lee named his horse Traveller and Grant's horse was Jeff Davis and Traveller's original name was Jeff Davis but they were totally different horses and Jefferson Davis's horse was Blackjack but I'm not an asshole. Sometimes.) "It's more...almost important, representing the underdog. Not necessarily historically, almost emotion related. You try harder, even though we all know it's a reenactment...but it's always as if this time...this time we might win."
"But the Union always wins."
"On Sundays. Saturdays go to the Confederates."
I laugh. "So it's a weekend gig? How many battles you fight a year?"
"About, uh, twelve or so."
"How far do you have to travel for that?"
"Most're around here. But the Nationals last year were in Shiloh. That's in Tennessee."
"So not that far."
"Not that far."
I nod. "Is there anyone in your life liable to protest these getaways?"
"Not me. But I've been in it for so long...this is my family. My daughter, she's involved as well. She's got a whalebone hoopskirt. But I asked one of my buddies, I asked him--because he goes near forty these a year--he's a field officer for the Confederali --So how's it that Michelle let's you out on all these battles? and he says, Well, it's because I have no vices. I don't use tobacco, I don't drink alcohol, and I don't chase women and I don't play cards, so she let's me have this one thing."
"There you go."
"Ah, but then he says, he says ahhh, he says, But what goes after hours at cantonment she'll never know. And swear to god, that battle's over and there he is, smoking a cigar with a lady on his lap, dealing cards to a table of Yankees and swigging Jack right from the bottle."
"What a fucker," I smirk and take a sip of beer.
"Ma'am," he grins after a minute, all slick, "It occurs to me that you'd look mighty fine in a hoop skirt, if you'd be a willing participant."
I scoff and look down at my pajamas. Damn covered in grass stains and mulch smears from doing yard work with my dad. You know how every time you visit your parents they trick you into manual labor? I'm pretty sure I smell.
"That's very kind of you," I tilt my beer in thanks, "but if I can't be cavalry, I don't wanna play."
"You got a horse?"
"Nah, but there's gotta be one for me wandering around out there somewhere."
...
Showing posts with label chili. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chili. Show all posts
Monday, May 17, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
We Should Feed Canada Some Mrs. Grass Soup, But Only Until They Feel Better About SUCKING SO HARD AT HOCKEY
Scene: Seven friends are seated at the bar at Neighbors (you wish you were there) watching the US/Canada Olympic hockey game. Two are Canadian, the other five are USAmerican, and all of them are awesome. Except for the Canadians (BITCH WHAT I SAID IT, EH?)
(Sidenote: if you are not one of the seven people that was there, you will probably find this post tedious. Deal with it. Have some soup.)
...
"Whatever, look at those helmets! Who fucking designed those, Ed Hardy?" Smith Sister Sav giggles and sips her bloody mary.
"Seriously?" I snap and point at the TV above the bar. "Those masks are awesome. Look at it - that's Uncle Sam beating your Canadian ass with a hockey stick that's on fire. And on the other side? That's an eagle with like, fucking adamantium claws or talons or whatever."
"Do the chickens have large talons?" Schmee mumbles.
"HA! Do the chickens have large talons?"
Smith Sister WJ is whiny. "But our helmets are all classy, with our maple leaves, and they're all shiny and pretty."
"They would be better if they were blue."
"Red, white and blue."
"Or just blue like Sav's lame-ass blue Canadia tattoo." Slinger laughs at himself and drinks his Budweiser like a fucking champ. Like an American champ.
"You know what?" Smith Sister Sav declares, snapping with more hostility than she originally intended. "Why don't you show them your fucking blue sun tattoo?"
Slinger ignores her.
"I fucking hate that thing," Schmee shakes her head, eyes glued on the TV.
I raise my eyebrows at Slinger. "You got a tattoo of a blue sun? I don't wanna sit next to you no more."
"Sometimes people have oddly blue tattoos. What?"
"And sometimes TEAM USA SCHOOLS YOUR ASS AT HOCKEY." High-five.
"What was the rationale behind your blue tattoos, anyway?" I ask.
Smith Sister Sav goes back to her bloody mary, avoiding my eyes. "I don't wanna talk about it. Can we please talk about something else?"
"Sure, let's talk about your back-ass boondock country."
"Which is fake," Schmee chimes.
"Totally fake."
"You know what? Okay, fine, let's hear this. How are we from a fake country?"
"Seriously, I fucking love those helmets!"
Slinger laughs. "Do you guys even have a navy?"
"Of course they do, they're called mounties." Everyone looks at me. "Horses can swim."
"Haven't you seen Wild Hearts Can't Broken?"
"Was that in Canada?" Anway asks.
"No, swimming horses."
"I never liked that movie."
"You're lame."
"You're Canadian."
"Bitch, you know you're jealous."
"I wish I had a queen to cry to."
"Hey," Slinger stretches back, "if we give you Wisconsin, can we have your curling team?"
"They have cheese there, eh?"
The bartender comes over to drop of Smith Sister Sav's burger and fat plate of potato skins for Scott, her armcandy, who never speaks or drinks but he digs into his food with zeal. I look at the pile of dirty napkins and onion ring baskets and empty bottles in front of me and try to drag the bartender's attention with my eyes but it totally doesn't work.
"Please take these empties," I mutter, to no one in general, and slide my bottle onto the rail behind the bar. The bartender ignores me.
"She's never gonna clean it up," Slinger says quietly, annoyed. "It's been sitting there forever."
"I know, I don't want to look at it," I agree. I scowl at an empty bowl of chili.
"She's probably from Canada."
"Most definitely." Even onion rings get rejected. It looks sticky. I should order a water, it's really snowing outside. Bitch. Oh! Patty melts are seven bucks.
I snatch a fry from Smith Sister Sav and smile brilliantly. "See this?" I shove it into my mouth. "Round here in the U.S. of A. we call that manifest destiny."
Sav squints and snarls, "You know who invented those fries, right?"
"Frogs."
After a few moments of intense silence, where I'm sure everyone was just trying to sit there and think of proper banter, Anway speaks up. "You know, every Olympics I always want your people to wear Canadian tuxedos, and it never fucking happens," he muses.
"Agreed, that's horseshit."
"Oh, but it could happen, now they have those pajamas that look like jeans."
"Like the snowboarding team."
"Like the snowboarding team." Echoes all around. "Exactly."
"You guys are a bunch of fucking Denim Dans," I yell, and slump back into my beer. Chair. Beer.
The bartender comes over and clears all the nastiness away and I ask for a water.
"Nothing is more bad ass than that helmet, I swear to fucking god."
"What's the Canadian tuxedo?" both Smith Sisters ask, glancing down at their own red-and-white-maple-leafed-Canadiawear which isn't nearly as cool as our Americanwear.
"Are you fucking serious? You don't know your own home jersey?"
"All demin, head-to-toe," me and Anway explain. Perfect unison.
I swivel toward him. "Fucking jinx, bitch."
"The Canadian Tuxedo."
"How is that the Canadian Tuxedo?"
"I don't know. Because all Canadians live in Trailer Parks and weave their own Levi's."
"Have they discovered fire in Canada?"
Schmee's on it like Team USA on ice. "No, we brought it to them with the Olympic torch."
"Speaking of which," Smith Sister WJ adds, "I think Uncle Sam is holding the torch on the goalie mask."
"I like a flaming hockey stick better," I snap, "Because the Canadians are all 'fire bad!' and they totally run away."
"Okay, Ross, that was a bad one."
"Sor." I feel shamed. "Whatever, that doesn't change the fact that you're gonna get housed."
"You know what? I don't have to listen to this," Smith Sister Sav says. "This game doesn't even count anyway." She pops her maple-leaf jacket collar in frustration and furiously hides behind a copy of Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul.
Seriously. That happened. She pulled it out of her purse.
And then we all laughed like we were in a movie or something.
...
(Sidenote: if you are not one of the seven people that was there, you will probably find this post tedious. Deal with it. Have some soup.)
...
"Whatever, look at those helmets! Who fucking designed those, Ed Hardy?" Smith Sister Sav giggles and sips her bloody mary.
"Seriously?" I snap and point at the TV above the bar. "Those masks are awesome. Look at it - that's Uncle Sam beating your Canadian ass with a hockey stick that's on fire. And on the other side? That's an eagle with like, fucking adamantium claws or talons or whatever."
"Do the chickens have large talons?" Schmee mumbles.
"HA! Do the chickens have large talons?"
Smith Sister WJ is whiny. "But our helmets are all classy, with our maple leaves, and they're all shiny and pretty."
"They would be better if they were blue."
"Red, white and blue."
"Or just blue like Sav's lame-ass blue Canadia tattoo." Slinger laughs at himself and drinks his Budweiser like a fucking champ. Like an American champ.
"You know what?" Smith Sister Sav declares, snapping with more hostility than she originally intended. "Why don't you show them your fucking blue sun tattoo?"
Slinger ignores her.
"I fucking hate that thing," Schmee shakes her head, eyes glued on the TV.
I raise my eyebrows at Slinger. "You got a tattoo of a blue sun? I don't wanna sit next to you no more."
"Sometimes people have oddly blue tattoos. What?"
"And sometimes TEAM USA SCHOOLS YOUR ASS AT HOCKEY." High-five.
"What was the rationale behind your blue tattoos, anyway?" I ask.
Smith Sister Sav goes back to her bloody mary, avoiding my eyes. "I don't wanna talk about it. Can we please talk about something else?"
"Sure, let's talk about your back-ass boondock country."
"Which is fake," Schmee chimes.
"Totally fake."
"You know what? Okay, fine, let's hear this. How are we from a fake country?"
"Seriously, I fucking love those helmets!"
Slinger laughs. "Do you guys even have a navy?"
"Of course they do, they're called mounties." Everyone looks at me. "Horses can swim."
"Haven't you seen Wild Hearts Can't Broken?"
"Was that in Canada?" Anway asks.
"No, swimming horses."
"I never liked that movie."
"You're lame."
"You're Canadian."
"Bitch, you know you're jealous."
"I wish I had a queen to cry to."
"Hey," Slinger stretches back, "if we give you Wisconsin, can we have your curling team?"
"They have cheese there, eh?"
The bartender comes over to drop of Smith Sister Sav's burger and fat plate of potato skins for Scott, her armcandy, who never speaks or drinks but he digs into his food with zeal. I look at the pile of dirty napkins and onion ring baskets and empty bottles in front of me and try to drag the bartender's attention with my eyes but it totally doesn't work.
"Please take these empties," I mutter, to no one in general, and slide my bottle onto the rail behind the bar. The bartender ignores me.
"She's never gonna clean it up," Slinger says quietly, annoyed. "It's been sitting there forever."
"I know, I don't want to look at it," I agree. I scowl at an empty bowl of chili.
"She's probably from Canada."
"Most definitely." Even onion rings get rejected. It looks sticky. I should order a water, it's really snowing outside. Bitch. Oh! Patty melts are seven bucks.
I snatch a fry from Smith Sister Sav and smile brilliantly. "See this?" I shove it into my mouth. "Round here in the U.S. of A. we call that manifest destiny."
Sav squints and snarls, "You know who invented those fries, right?"
"Frogs."
After a few moments of intense silence, where I'm sure everyone was just trying to sit there and think of proper banter, Anway speaks up. "You know, every Olympics I always want your people to wear Canadian tuxedos, and it never fucking happens," he muses.
"Agreed, that's horseshit."
"Oh, but it could happen, now they have those pajamas that look like jeans."
"Like the snowboarding team."
"Like the snowboarding team." Echoes all around. "Exactly."
"You guys are a bunch of fucking Denim Dans," I yell, and slump back into my beer. Chair. Beer.
The bartender comes over and clears all the nastiness away and I ask for a water.
"Nothing is more bad ass than that helmet, I swear to fucking god."
"What's the Canadian tuxedo?" both Smith Sisters ask, glancing down at their own red-and-white-maple-leafed-Canadiawear which isn't nearly as cool as our Americanwear.
"Are you fucking serious? You don't know your own home jersey?"
"All demin, head-to-toe," me and Anway explain. Perfect unison.
I swivel toward him. "Fucking jinx, bitch."
"The Canadian Tuxedo."
"How is that the Canadian Tuxedo?"
"I don't know. Because all Canadians live in Trailer Parks and weave their own Levi's."
"Have they discovered fire in Canada?"
Schmee's on it like Team USA on ice. "No, we brought it to them with the Olympic torch."
"Speaking of which," Smith Sister WJ adds, "I think Uncle Sam is holding the torch on the goalie mask."
"I like a flaming hockey stick better," I snap, "Because the Canadians are all 'fire bad!' and they totally run away."
"Okay, Ross, that was a bad one."
"Sor." I feel shamed. "Whatever, that doesn't change the fact that you're gonna get housed."
"You know what? I don't have to listen to this," Smith Sister Sav says. "This game doesn't even count anyway." She pops her maple-leaf jacket collar in frustration and furiously hides behind a copy of Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul.
Seriously. That happened. She pulled it out of her purse.
And then we all laughed like we were in a movie or something.
...
Monday, October 26, 2009
I Would Throw A Good Search Party
I started making a list of tangible life goals, and so far they are limited to "puppy!" and "do not get hit by a train" and "who needs goals when Halloween is so close?" the second of which was inspired by the fact that on Sunday night I was on a train and we hit someone.
...
Last week, I decided to become a foodie. I figured, you know, I really like food. Like a lot. It is time for me to learn how to cook something delicious that isn't peanutbutter and jelly. Although, I fucking dare you out pb&j my ass, because I have chemical equations and shit to prove mine is more savory than yours.
I'm pretty sure that on my way home from the store I bounced through a fatty pothole.
You know when you're cooking something gutsy and lush, and it smells as good as the Food Network looks and words float behind your eyes, words you never use, like "sumptuous" and "resplendent" because really, this sauce? this spicy, harmonic sauce is sumptuously resplendent, and you're convinced pleasant accomplishment smells like this because even the stove is smiling, happy to simmer something so deliciously dreamy?
No?
Me neither.
The solution to cooking failures, of course, is cheap wine, sweatpants, and Battlestar Galactica. Which really made the night a success in the end, because you do not get much cooler than that, and if you dry yourself out with enough wine just about everything you eat after that tastes like Syrah anyway, so you know. Win.
Discovered my car with a flat, shreddy tire on Saturday, so that was peachy. I need to get it fixed by this weekend so I can drive for three hours to see Hot Mess Fraya.
And that is why I had to take the train out to the suburbs for the baby shower on Sunday, and why I was riding the train back into the city that night.
...
On Saturday night a couple of us went to a haunted house. I had to lead the pack through the fun, and Hanson clutched my arm the entire time, buried into my shoulder, while I reminded her to stone up as we approached every black corner. The best thing about haunted houses is watching people jump with raw, excited laughter. The corpses aren't real.
...
On the train, no one was excited, but we were all kinds of raw as we sat there locomotionless, pressing against the dark windows as cops with flashlights searched the tracks beneath us, looking for a body. A real body belonging to a real person who laid themselves across the tracks.
Every ten minutes or so the conductor would announce that it shouldn't be much longer, but they had yet to find a body so the search would continue. After an hour, the search expanded to included everything within a three-mile radius of our position. We waited some more.
...
In my brain, an impressive collective of passengers band together to scour the surrounding miles with torches. We are serious plainclothes investigators and heroes to boot. And in the shadows we find a deep, stalag-filled cave. Our numbers dwindle as the true spelunkers are whittled out of our troupe by a series of complicated puzzle traps, and eventually we slide into the drippy lair of a thin man in a top hat with an evil twirly mustache who hides a crooked sword in his spider-handled cane, and I defeat him in a battle of wits while my comrades liberate his prisoners from their cold, stone cells. And then our search party throws a Search-themed Party.
But we aren't allowed to leave the train. Stupid trainworkers. Ruining my fantasy.
...
I wanted them to find a mangled body. I wanted it to be someone I knew, but not well, so I could properly mourn and regret not taking the time to know them better. Those are the best people to die. Loved ones hurt, and strangers are eventually forgotten. Way it is.
I wanted them to find a living human being who jumped in the nick of it. I wanted them to find blood tracks leading into a forest, where the survivor lay panting with nonlethal wounds. I wanted it to be an elaborate prank, I wanted it to be a ghost, I wanted it to be a raccoon, I wanted it to be Ashley Judd because I can't stand her movies.
But they found nothing. We probably never hit anything at all.
But I was sure we did, because just before we suddenly slowed, while I was people watching and imagining Bradley Cooper taking pictures of a gruesome murder while Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper fight on the roof ("Yeah? But I'm taller."), and replaying that one episode of Homicide where Vincent D'Onofrio gets smashed between the subway and a platform and if they move him, he dies...
So all that is going through my head, and I wonder, If we were to hit someone on the tracks, would passengers feel the impact? and not fifteen seconds later the train comes to a surprise stop and I say out loud, to whoever, "Oh my god, I think we hit someone," and all these people look at me.
But they found nothing.
...
...
Last week, I decided to become a foodie. I figured, you know, I really like food. Like a lot. It is time for me to learn how to cook something delicious that isn't peanutbutter and jelly. Although, I fucking dare you out pb&j my ass, because I have chemical equations and shit to prove mine is more savory than yours.
I'm pretty sure that on my way home from the store I bounced through a fatty pothole.
You know when you're cooking something gutsy and lush, and it smells as good as the Food Network looks and words float behind your eyes, words you never use, like "sumptuous" and "resplendent" because really, this sauce? this spicy, harmonic sauce is sumptuously resplendent, and you're convinced pleasant accomplishment smells like this because even the stove is smiling, happy to simmer something so deliciously dreamy?
No?
Me neither.
The solution to cooking failures, of course, is cheap wine, sweatpants, and Battlestar Galactica. Which really made the night a success in the end, because you do not get much cooler than that, and if you dry yourself out with enough wine just about everything you eat after that tastes like Syrah anyway, so you know. Win.
Discovered my car with a flat, shreddy tire on Saturday, so that was peachy. I need to get it fixed by this weekend so I can drive for three hours to see Hot Mess Fraya.
And that is why I had to take the train out to the suburbs for the baby shower on Sunday, and why I was riding the train back into the city that night.
...
On Saturday night a couple of us went to a haunted house. I had to lead the pack through the fun, and Hanson clutched my arm the entire time, buried into my shoulder, while I reminded her to stone up as we approached every black corner. The best thing about haunted houses is watching people jump with raw, excited laughter. The corpses aren't real.
...
On the train, no one was excited, but we were all kinds of raw as we sat there locomotionless, pressing against the dark windows as cops with flashlights searched the tracks beneath us, looking for a body. A real body belonging to a real person who laid themselves across the tracks.
Every ten minutes or so the conductor would announce that it shouldn't be much longer, but they had yet to find a body so the search would continue. After an hour, the search expanded to included everything within a three-mile radius of our position. We waited some more.
...
In my brain, an impressive collective of passengers band together to scour the surrounding miles with torches. We are serious plainclothes investigators and heroes to boot. And in the shadows we find a deep, stalag-filled cave. Our numbers dwindle as the true spelunkers are whittled out of our troupe by a series of complicated puzzle traps, and eventually we slide into the drippy lair of a thin man in a top hat with an evil twirly mustache who hides a crooked sword in his spider-handled cane, and I defeat him in a battle of wits while my comrades liberate his prisoners from their cold, stone cells. And then our search party throws a Search-themed Party.
But we aren't allowed to leave the train. Stupid trainworkers. Ruining my fantasy.
...
I wanted them to find a mangled body. I wanted it to be someone I knew, but not well, so I could properly mourn and regret not taking the time to know them better. Those are the best people to die. Loved ones hurt, and strangers are eventually forgotten. Way it is.
I wanted them to find a living human being who jumped in the nick of it. I wanted them to find blood tracks leading into a forest, where the survivor lay panting with nonlethal wounds. I wanted it to be an elaborate prank, I wanted it to be a ghost, I wanted it to be a raccoon, I wanted it to be Ashley Judd because I can't stand her movies.
But they found nothing. We probably never hit anything at all.
But I was sure we did, because just before we suddenly slowed, while I was people watching and imagining Bradley Cooper taking pictures of a gruesome murder while Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper fight on the roof ("Yeah? But I'm taller."), and replaying that one episode of Homicide where Vincent D'Onofrio gets smashed between the subway and a platform and if they move him, he dies...
So all that is going through my head, and I wonder, If we were to hit someone on the tracks, would passengers feel the impact? and not fifteen seconds later the train comes to a surprise stop and I say out loud, to whoever, "Oh my god, I think we hit someone," and all these people look at me.
But they found nothing.
...
Monday, June 8, 2009
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.
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.
...
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.
...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Psychological Warfare
For Fat Tuesday, Gyna finds out about a bar with $3 liters of something that sounds delicious. We leave right after work and take Bowser dze German, who introduces us to his friend Philip, who is also from Germany and visiting Chicago.
"So how did you like the Field Museum?" I ask after a few. I am a Member of the Field Museum, which means I have a fancy tote bag and my name on a bunch of mailing lists.
"It was nothing. It was crap," Philip shrugs.
"What?" I bug out at Gyna.
"I know, I told them to get Mold-A-Rama dinosaurs and everything.”
“The whole thing was a little Discovery Channel," Bowser laughs.
“Exactly. That’s why it’s awesome,” I mutter. Philip looks at me and mouths egzakilty? I nod.
“Ja, egzaktily, with the gift shop and Sue dollies,” he mocks. “Tell us where we find out about dze real American dinosaurs. Wie sagt, ah, intelligent design and wonderful nonsense."
“Oooooo, like the Creation Museum." Gyna raises her eyebrows.
"Egzaktily! There is one?"
"In Kentucky,” I explain. “I went last year, and it is hilarious. They hate Darwin because he’s the devil. And they murder lambs like over and over and they have their own Garden of Eden and the guards have rifles and it’s goddamn wicked ridiculous."
"It is good? Are you a Creation…nista?”
“No, but I also don’t believe in talking mouses, and I—“
“Mice,” Gyna and Bowser correct me, grinning. Simpatico, those two.
“What? What did I say?”
“Mouses. You said mouses.”
“Yeah, well. Mice. Whatever, I would go to Disneyland tomorrow if I had the funds. Oh! And they have hip archangels who wear drug rugs and sunglasses and talk like they’re from California and talk about how science is wack and Jesus is your homeboy.”
"Well, that is what I want to do then." Philip turns to Bowser. "We will go tomorrow?"
"I can't. I have work."
"But it is so...America. Christians...und, and...and guns! Don’t be wack."
"I want to go, but I leave for Houston tomorrow," Gyna whimpers.
There's a slim needle of silence. The last time I went to the Creation Museum I caught a lot of atheistic hell for ‘supporting ignorance and everything that is wrong with America’ and ‘giving them money so they can teach our children mythology instead of science’ and I’m like, yeah, but, you know. Funny. "Fuck it. I got personal days. Let’s go.”
"You'll go? Really? Wickedawesome!"
"Ausgezeichnet!" I say, which is a German word I think I understand but really don’t.
We agree on a five-thirty am departure and slow down the beer before scattering home.
"I made a friend dzis morning when you were late with your car," Philip says at five-fifty-five, coiled with patience while I house my coffee.
"And how is that?”
"A young man came up to me, ja? and he said to draw my portrait. So I gave him ten US dollars."
"Dude. Schmuck."
"Schmuck? Schmuck. And yes, I know, I know, but it was such a nice portrait." He pulls a pencil sketch out of his jacket and shows it to me. It's horrible.
I laugh like a wrecking ball. “He gave you a ponytail.”
He smiles with pride. "Yes, well I now know I need haircut. I think it’s wickedawesome."
"It's on the back of an excel spreadsheet."
"Axel spredshit? Oh I know, I gave him dze, ah, the paper."
"And apparently ten dollars. You could have just given that to me, you know."
"I like to think dhat I pay for a story to relate."
Philip flicks the sentence aside with his odd translational English and admires his shitty portrait. I’m jealous. No young man ever asked to draw my portrait for ten US dollars, and I’m a nubile lady. A friend of mine has a face like a gently carved bolt of lightning, and artists are always trying to catch it on paper and hilariously failing. She isn’t a professional model or anything, just a breathing muse. But you can’t capture the shattering sincerity of lightning bolts without the right lens, yet they keep trying. Now I’m jealous of her too. Dammit.
We drive for a while. Kentucky is far from Chicago and we don’t have any directions, but I don’t think we need them since I read road maps when I’m in the bathroom. Perhaps maps would be more useful in the car. “If we hit Indianapolis, we’re going the right way. All the roads lead to Indianapolis.”
“Similar to Rome. I think that is wickedawesome,” Philip grins. “We will arrive.”
“Good. I don’t stop in Indiana, even for directions. People here keep bodies in their basements.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. Because I have unwarranted prejudice.”
“Why is that?”
“I think it’s the accent. There’s a soft, um, hostile—?” I glance at him and he nods—“pattern to speech here. As if people don’t trust you. It’s probably unintentional.”
“Are we driving between the Bible area of America? Perhaps they know you have so little respect for them."
“I guess. But we aren’t in the Bible Belt. Not right now.”
"Belt? As if for trousers? It supports what covers the sin—that’s intelligent. I wish we were.”
“We will arrive.”
Two hours in and I have to remind myself that I should not speak English like a river, but a light rain. I apologize to Philip about this but he thinks it's hilarious. I complain about Journey for like a bajillion minutes. After five hours and only one false exit all that quality bathroom time with maps proves worthwhile and we turn onto Bullittsburg Church Road where the museum lives.
Families scuttle around the parking lot like beetles, and the Creation Museum thrums dead center with the Garden of Eden dinosaur topiary rolling muddy and green beside it. Philip strolls towards the doors and opens them with flourishing reverence, on the cusp of jest, but only because I realize that doors should always be opened that way. I mean with honesty and zeal, never as a flippant remark on genuine excitement.
I watch him marvel as we walk the path through Genesis. There’s an alien alchemy to the Creation Museum, where bunnies and Velociraptors share honeycombs and drops of morning dew. I touch Philip’s shoulder and point to a red snake in the trees, glittering like a Chinese dragon while Adam and Eve bathe in a pool. I blush at their nakedness. Bearded Philip looks eerily like Naked Adam and I tell him so. Naked Adam is not necessarily a dreamboat, but it makes me picture Philip naked. I glance at his jaw. There is something about jaws, but not Philip’s jaw, which is good. Who needs a crush inspired by anatomically biblical mannequins and frivolous jawlines?
He snaps a picture of the exhibit. “A second portrait,” he explains.
I watch Philip as Adam and Eve slaughter a lamb on an altar for clothing, and study his curious face while Cain shadows over a bloody Abel. He thoughtfully regards the miniature model of Noah’s Ark where giraffes and horses and Brachiosauruseseses board the vessel in pairs.
I drag him to the flood diorama because it’s my favorite: scrappy, quarter-inch figures scramble on scarred rocks, wrestling bears and punting each other into the waxy, jagged sea. They’re determined to survive even after Noah didn’t pick them for his survivor team. I loiter for a while, memorizing their sins. “I just love how they try,” I say, and then turn to smile up at Philip, but he’s across the room.
Philip floats through it all, casual as a sonnet. He is here without a trace of irony, I realize. It makes me jealous again, so I counter these bursts of jealousy by repeatedly calling myself a stupid, jealous bitch and or telling myself to drop it. Like a dog. Drop it. Drop et. Humanity has come so far from the days of sharing honeycombs with Velociraptors. We hear drums in the distance, horror over the death of Christ and mourn for him. It is, after all, the greatest story ever told. In this building, and nowhere else, I want to believe. Only when I am here, I think, because they deserve that much. Science really can be used to verify a predetermined outcome. (No, it can’t.) But the museum is beautiful. We take lots of pictures.
“They don’t do, ah,” Philip makes the sign of the cross on his forehead, “Ash Wednesday.”
“No, Creationists think Catholicism is evil.” Up ahead, an animatronic prophet is writing ancient texts. “Are you Catholic?”
Philip sniffs. “Germany is very Catholic. And yes, we are evil. Remember the Holocaust? And Indiana Jones films?”
We stroll through the garden because that is how one is supposed to walk through gardens, stopping at the petting zoo to admire the zedonks and there’s a terrifying turkey thundering next to a camel. Philip pets a pig. I try to feed a wallaby but it runs away.
We decide to stop in Cincinnati for a bowl of chili and hit up a White Castle instead.
“White Castle,” I explain between bites, “Is the quintessential American food. It’s our entire cultural mindset packed into a square. I always want more White Castle, but in reality I don't need it. Ever. Because the idea of White Castle fundamentally opposes its physical manifestation – what we have is this. And then I have to pay the price for fantasy and indulgence. With my bowels."
“So...America makes you shit?" Philip winks. Why don’t people wink anymore?
I laugh, burning words. "No. No, not at all. But—yes. Because everything we love becomes shit. Because we smash it til it’s unrecognizable and then we mercilessly ridicule that which was once good until all that's left is poorly executed snark.”
"So...White Castle is snark?"
"I guess this has nothing to do with White Castle."
Later on Philip asks if we can stop in Indianapolis for a pair of Vans.
“What are you thinking?” I ask as we browse Shoe Carnival.
“I am thinking today was, ha, wickedawesome. I think when you come to Germany I know where I will take you, egzaktily.”
I've been given so much crap for supporting this museum just by paying to go there. But seriously, it's like Disney World, but with Jesus and dinosaurs and mass slaughter, and dead sheep are just lying all over the place. Completely macabre, like they're trying to scare you into agreement.
The propaganda tactics employed throughout the place are genius. Sometimes very, very subtle, and sometimes outright obvious. Every exhibit is designed with the distinct purpose of making non-believers feel guilty and the believers feel righteous. Perfectly constructed psychological warfare.
Although I believe that Creationism is firmly rooted in mythology, I believe even more strongly that people reserve the right to believe in what they want. So, I will support the Creation Museum, because no matter what, different mindsets are worth noting. In the end, it's just exciting and fun, like a Voodoo or Scientology museum, or watching Ghost Adventures.
...
"So how did you like the Field Museum?" I ask after a few. I am a Member of the Field Museum, which means I have a fancy tote bag and my name on a bunch of mailing lists.
"It was nothing. It was crap," Philip shrugs.
"What?" I bug out at Gyna.
"I know, I told them to get Mold-A-Rama dinosaurs and everything.”
“The whole thing was a little Discovery Channel," Bowser laughs.
“Exactly. That’s why it’s awesome,” I mutter. Philip looks at me and mouths egzakilty? I nod.
“Ja, egzaktily, with the gift shop and Sue dollies,” he mocks. “Tell us where we find out about dze real American dinosaurs. Wie sagt, ah, intelligent design and wonderful nonsense."
“Oooooo, like the Creation Museum." Gyna raises her eyebrows.
"Egzaktily! There is one?"
"In Kentucky,” I explain. “I went last year, and it is hilarious. They hate Darwin because he’s the devil. And they murder lambs like over and over and they have their own Garden of Eden and the guards have rifles and it’s goddamn wicked ridiculous."
"It is good? Are you a Creation…nista?”
“No, but I also don’t believe in talking mouses, and I—“
“Mice,” Gyna and Bowser correct me, grinning. Simpatico, those two.
“What? What did I say?”
“Mouses. You said mouses.”
“Yeah, well. Mice. Whatever, I would go to Disneyland tomorrow if I had the funds. Oh! And they have hip archangels who wear drug rugs and sunglasses and talk like they’re from California and talk about how science is wack and Jesus is your homeboy.”
"Well, that is what I want to do then." Philip turns to Bowser. "We will go tomorrow?"
"I can't. I have work."
"But it is so...America. Christians...und, and...and guns! Don’t be wack."
"I want to go, but I leave for Houston tomorrow," Gyna whimpers.
There's a slim needle of silence. The last time I went to the Creation Museum I caught a lot of atheistic hell for ‘supporting ignorance and everything that is wrong with America’ and ‘giving them money so they can teach our children mythology instead of science’ and I’m like, yeah, but, you know. Funny. "Fuck it. I got personal days. Let’s go.”
"You'll go? Really? Wickedawesome!"
"Ausgezeichnet!" I say, which is a German word I think I understand but really don’t.
We agree on a five-thirty am departure and slow down the beer before scattering home.
"I made a friend dzis morning when you were late with your car," Philip says at five-fifty-five, coiled with patience while I house my coffee.
"And how is that?”
"A young man came up to me, ja? and he said to draw my portrait. So I gave him ten US dollars."
"Dude. Schmuck."
"Schmuck? Schmuck. And yes, I know, I know, but it was such a nice portrait." He pulls a pencil sketch out of his jacket and shows it to me. It's horrible.
I laugh like a wrecking ball. “He gave you a ponytail.”
He smiles with pride. "Yes, well I now know I need haircut. I think it’s wickedawesome."
"It's on the back of an excel spreadsheet."
"Axel spredshit? Oh I know, I gave him dze, ah, the paper."
"And apparently ten dollars. You could have just given that to me, you know."
"I like to think dhat I pay for a story to relate."
Philip flicks the sentence aside with his odd translational English and admires his shitty portrait. I’m jealous. No young man ever asked to draw my portrait for ten US dollars, and I’m a nubile lady. A friend of mine has a face like a gently carved bolt of lightning, and artists are always trying to catch it on paper and hilariously failing. She isn’t a professional model or anything, just a breathing muse. But you can’t capture the shattering sincerity of lightning bolts without the right lens, yet they keep trying. Now I’m jealous of her too. Dammit.
We drive for a while. Kentucky is far from Chicago and we don’t have any directions, but I don’t think we need them since I read road maps when I’m in the bathroom. Perhaps maps would be more useful in the car. “If we hit Indianapolis, we’re going the right way. All the roads lead to Indianapolis.”
“Similar to Rome. I think that is wickedawesome,” Philip grins. “We will arrive.”
“Good. I don’t stop in Indiana, even for directions. People here keep bodies in their basements.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. Because I have unwarranted prejudice.”
“Why is that?”
“I think it’s the accent. There’s a soft, um, hostile—?” I glance at him and he nods—“pattern to speech here. As if people don’t trust you. It’s probably unintentional.”
“Are we driving between the Bible area of America? Perhaps they know you have so little respect for them."
“I guess. But we aren’t in the Bible Belt. Not right now.”
"Belt? As if for trousers? It supports what covers the sin—that’s intelligent. I wish we were.”
“We will arrive.”
Two hours in and I have to remind myself that I should not speak English like a river, but a light rain. I apologize to Philip about this but he thinks it's hilarious. I complain about Journey for like a bajillion minutes. After five hours and only one false exit all that quality bathroom time with maps proves worthwhile and we turn onto Bullittsburg Church Road where the museum lives.
Families scuttle around the parking lot like beetles, and the Creation Museum thrums dead center with the Garden of Eden dinosaur topiary rolling muddy and green beside it. Philip strolls towards the doors and opens them with flourishing reverence, on the cusp of jest, but only because I realize that doors should always be opened that way. I mean with honesty and zeal, never as a flippant remark on genuine excitement.
I watch him marvel as we walk the path through Genesis. There’s an alien alchemy to the Creation Museum, where bunnies and Velociraptors share honeycombs and drops of morning dew. I touch Philip’s shoulder and point to a red snake in the trees, glittering like a Chinese dragon while Adam and Eve bathe in a pool. I blush at their nakedness. Bearded Philip looks eerily like Naked Adam and I tell him so. Naked Adam is not necessarily a dreamboat, but it makes me picture Philip naked. I glance at his jaw. There is something about jaws, but not Philip’s jaw, which is good. Who needs a crush inspired by anatomically biblical mannequins and frivolous jawlines?
He snaps a picture of the exhibit. “A second portrait,” he explains.
I watch Philip as Adam and Eve slaughter a lamb on an altar for clothing, and study his curious face while Cain shadows over a bloody Abel. He thoughtfully regards the miniature model of Noah’s Ark where giraffes and horses and Brachiosauruseseses board the vessel in pairs.
I drag him to the flood diorama because it’s my favorite: scrappy, quarter-inch figures scramble on scarred rocks, wrestling bears and punting each other into the waxy, jagged sea. They’re determined to survive even after Noah didn’t pick them for his survivor team. I loiter for a while, memorizing their sins. “I just love how they try,” I say, and then turn to smile up at Philip, but he’s across the room.
Philip floats through it all, casual as a sonnet. He is here without a trace of irony, I realize. It makes me jealous again, so I counter these bursts of jealousy by repeatedly calling myself a stupid, jealous bitch and or telling myself to drop it. Like a dog. Drop it. Drop et. Humanity has come so far from the days of sharing honeycombs with Velociraptors. We hear drums in the distance, horror over the death of Christ and mourn for him. It is, after all, the greatest story ever told. In this building, and nowhere else, I want to believe. Only when I am here, I think, because they deserve that much. Science really can be used to verify a predetermined outcome. (No, it can’t.) But the museum is beautiful. We take lots of pictures.
“They don’t do, ah,” Philip makes the sign of the cross on his forehead, “Ash Wednesday.”
“No, Creationists think Catholicism is evil.” Up ahead, an animatronic prophet is writing ancient texts. “Are you Catholic?”
Philip sniffs. “Germany is very Catholic. And yes, we are evil. Remember the Holocaust? And Indiana Jones films?”
We stroll through the garden because that is how one is supposed to walk through gardens, stopping at the petting zoo to admire the zedonks and there’s a terrifying turkey thundering next to a camel. Philip pets a pig. I try to feed a wallaby but it runs away.
We decide to stop in Cincinnati for a bowl of chili and hit up a White Castle instead.
“White Castle,” I explain between bites, “Is the quintessential American food. It’s our entire cultural mindset packed into a square. I always want more White Castle, but in reality I don't need it. Ever. Because the idea of White Castle fundamentally opposes its physical manifestation – what we have is this. And then I have to pay the price for fantasy and indulgence. With my bowels."
“So...America makes you shit?" Philip winks. Why don’t people wink anymore?
I laugh, burning words. "No. No, not at all. But—yes. Because everything we love becomes shit. Because we smash it til it’s unrecognizable and then we mercilessly ridicule that which was once good until all that's left is poorly executed snark.”
"So...White Castle is snark?"
"I guess this has nothing to do with White Castle."
Later on Philip asks if we can stop in Indianapolis for a pair of Vans.
“What are you thinking?” I ask as we browse Shoe Carnival.
“I am thinking today was, ha, wickedawesome. I think when you come to Germany I know where I will take you, egzaktily.”
I've been given so much crap for supporting this museum just by paying to go there. But seriously, it's like Disney World, but with Jesus and dinosaurs and mass slaughter, and dead sheep are just lying all over the place. Completely macabre, like they're trying to scare you into agreement.
The propaganda tactics employed throughout the place are genius. Sometimes very, very subtle, and sometimes outright obvious. Every exhibit is designed with the distinct purpose of making non-believers feel guilty and the believers feel righteous. Perfectly constructed psychological warfare.
Although I believe that Creationism is firmly rooted in mythology, I believe even more strongly that people reserve the right to believe in what they want. So, I will support the Creation Museum, because no matter what, different mindsets are worth noting. In the end, it's just exciting and fun, like a Voodoo or Scientology museum, or watching Ghost Adventures.
...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
What What.
Lately I've developed a dragging, crippling addiction to mahfuckin Crunchy Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos. They blow my goddamn mind, I swear, and you can tell because they're officially prefaced by the verbal austerity of mahfuckin, a word I use in those rare instances of snack food seriousness, like when I'm talking about mahfuckin Cool Ranch or mahfuckin peanut butter Twix.
Or mahfuckin' stroganoff (what what), which, as I've just demonstrated, receives the automatic what what parenthetic follow-up. This can be best explained with the following consistent exchange:
Me, Drunk: Who wants mahfuckin' stroganoff?
Everyone At My Apartment, Drunk: What what.
And then I rip open that packet of instant mahfuckin stroganoff (what what), add butter and milk and water and cook the crap out of it (which defeats the point of "instant"), and everyone sits around eating it and talking with their mouth full while we watch either Trailer Park Boys, Venture Brothers, or Coupling, depending on whoever is over.
And that's mahfuckin (what what).
...
Or mahfuckin' stroganoff (what what), which, as I've just demonstrated, receives the automatic what what parenthetic follow-up. This can be best explained with the following consistent exchange:
Me, Drunk: Who wants mahfuckin' stroganoff?
Everyone At My Apartment, Drunk: What what.
And then I rip open that packet of instant mahfuckin stroganoff (what what), add butter and milk and water and cook the crap out of it (which defeats the point of "instant"), and everyone sits around eating it and talking with their mouth full while we watch either Trailer Park Boys, Venture Brothers, or Coupling, depending on whoever is over.
And that's mahfuckin (what what).
...
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Drastic Mistake of This City
As whole, I think superstitions are bullshit. But I've got my own little irrational notions that I've proved in my head with very unstable, unscientific methods. Basically, it involves a certain conviction of opinion: once you solidify an idea, and then doubt it for a second, luck wills that worry into existence.
You know what I mean. I completely jinx things. Something along the lines of, "Dude, I need a Dr. Pepper like how Bush needs to be pelted with shoes. Pull over at that Taco Bell."
Then whoever is driving says, "Do they have Dr. Pepper there?"
"Of course they do, Pepsi products, man." And then I fear, for a fraction, that they won't. Inevitably, that fear becomes reality, and I'm informed that this is the only Taco Bell that does not carry Dr. Pepper.
It's like when you meet a guy who can keep up with whatever Who's on First? routine you're pitching that day, and instead of introducing you to his girlfriend as "this hilarious girl," he actually seems single, and interested in you. And then Gyna yells "make out" several times, as if we're in college, and it doesn't scare him away.
So you later tell Gyna, "That guy is frakkin' awesome. Seriously, he dominates. And honestly? I think he actually likes me," but then it hits you, "But he prolly doesn't."
"Oh, shut the fuck up and just go back there and talk to him," Gyna whines, "and MAKE OUT." So you meander back over to him, and sho' nuff, he starts asking you probing, relationship-seeking questions *about one of your Hot Friends.
So what I'm trying to say is this: Fuck you, Chicago, and all of your peoples.
Because the weekend after Christmas, it was sixty goddamn degrees outside. And collectively, the citizens of Chicago woke up, smiled, and thought, "I cannot believe how warm it is. I am so glad it's not cold today. Oh, please don't get much colder. I am optimistic that our remaining winter weather situation will mirror these current atmospheric conditions. This is crazy awesome. But it prolly won't last..."
And the gods of luck heard this sincere cry of sanctity and surprise and said, "Well, let's give them another incredulous kick in the balls" and spent the next three weeks mustering up this insane cold-as-balls front to throw over the city.
So that's why, today, in this fine city, it is NEGATIVE NINETEEN DEGREES WITH A NEGATIVE FORTY WIND CHILL.
I have places to walk today, man. And I like the cold. Not this, though.
Yeah. Like I said. Fuck you, Chicago. Never do that shit again.
...
*This is a very common tactic that dudes employ, befriending me, so when they go after the Hot Friends, I encourage the hook up. Don't think I don't know, you dickheads. Of course, the problem with this is, after so many occurrences I'm completely jaded, and I automatically assume all guys want one of the Hot Friends and throw up an instant emotional shield, thereby thoroughly blocking any chance I had with someone who actually wants to talk to me.
...
You know what I mean. I completely jinx things. Something along the lines of, "Dude, I need a Dr. Pepper like how Bush needs to be pelted with shoes. Pull over at that Taco Bell."
Then whoever is driving says, "Do they have Dr. Pepper there?"
"Of course they do, Pepsi products, man." And then I fear, for a fraction, that they won't. Inevitably, that fear becomes reality, and I'm informed that this is the only Taco Bell that does not carry Dr. Pepper.
It's like when you meet a guy who can keep up with whatever Who's on First? routine you're pitching that day, and instead of introducing you to his girlfriend as "this hilarious girl," he actually seems single, and interested in you. And then Gyna yells "make out" several times, as if we're in college, and it doesn't scare him away.
So you later tell Gyna, "That guy is frakkin' awesome. Seriously, he dominates. And honestly? I think he actually likes me," but then it hits you, "But he prolly doesn't."
"Oh, shut the fuck up and just go back there and talk to him," Gyna whines, "and MAKE OUT." So you meander back over to him, and sho' nuff, he starts asking you probing, relationship-seeking questions *about one of your Hot Friends.
So what I'm trying to say is this: Fuck you, Chicago, and all of your peoples.
Because the weekend after Christmas, it was sixty goddamn degrees outside. And collectively, the citizens of Chicago woke up, smiled, and thought, "I cannot believe how warm it is. I am so glad it's not cold today. Oh, please don't get much colder. I am optimistic that our remaining winter weather situation will mirror these current atmospheric conditions. This is crazy awesome. But it prolly won't last..."
And the gods of luck heard this sincere cry of sanctity and surprise and said, "Well, let's give them another incredulous kick in the balls" and spent the next three weeks mustering up this insane cold-as-balls front to throw over the city.
So that's why, today, in this fine city, it is NEGATIVE NINETEEN DEGREES WITH A NEGATIVE FORTY WIND CHILL.
I have places to walk today, man. And I like the cold. Not this, though.
Yeah. Like I said. Fuck you, Chicago. Never do that shit again.
...
*This is a very common tactic that dudes employ, befriending me, so when they go after the Hot Friends, I encourage the hook up. Don't think I don't know, you dickheads. Of course, the problem with this is, after so many occurrences I'm completely jaded, and I automatically assume all guys want one of the Hot Friends and throw up an instant emotional shield, thereby thoroughly blocking any chance I had with someone who actually wants to talk to me.
...
Friday, December 19, 2008
No, No, I'm Not Bitter.
Someone, this morning, asked why I was so anti my home town.
Which of course reminded me of my miniature freak out session I had over at Mongo's blog (you are a source of controversy, my glorious friend.)
This person said, this morning, "I mean, I go to the bars there, and I love it. You just hate it because everyone else loves it."
But I had a different experience there, man. Now, of course, it's like this big deal, to go out in Naperville. People actually like it there, they want to move there, almost as badly as I wanted to leave.
I literally watched the population explosion happen. At eleven, I was aware of it. Places I rode my bike weren't there anymore. It happened over the winter, even. One summer, there was long stretch of prairie with bike paths, and the next summer it was giant houses. The forest behind the soccer fields was ripped down and replaced with crowded mansions, they even built on top of our makeshift dirt baseball diamonds. Everyone wanted to live there because it was quaint, with good schools and great things for children to do. Great things that needed to be improved upon, apparently, by snatching them away.
Did they even realize that this giant influx of young professional baby-makers would ruin the atmosphere of the town? That by closing down all of those family stores and diners and bars downtown and replacing them with a fucking Bar Louie and a Barnes and Noble and a Mongolian Barbeque and a fucking Eddie Bauer, they made me hate them? They gutted my bowling alley, ripped down my forest, mowed over my prairie, bought out my comic book store, bankrupted my video store, closed my favorite restaurants throughout all of my teenage years. How can I not despise that?
I spent a lot of time at BookZeller, this fantastic-scented used book store in a basement underneath a coffee shop(which was converted into our second Starbucks on the block). I worked at their warehouse for awhile, sorting, researching, and pricing the rare books they couldn't keep in the store. It was one of the greatest jobs I ever had. BookZeller closed a couple years after the Barnes and Noble busted open.
Which of course reminded me of my miniature freak out session I had over at Mongo's blog (you are a source of controversy, my glorious friend.)
This person said, this morning, "I mean, I go to the bars there, and I love it. You just hate it because everyone else loves it."
But I had a different experience there, man. Now, of course, it's like this big deal, to go out in Naperville. People actually like it there, they want to move there, almost as badly as I wanted to leave.
I literally watched the population explosion happen. At eleven, I was aware of it. Places I rode my bike weren't there anymore. It happened over the winter, even. One summer, there was long stretch of prairie with bike paths, and the next summer it was giant houses. The forest behind the soccer fields was ripped down and replaced with crowded mansions, they even built on top of our makeshift dirt baseball diamonds. Everyone wanted to live there because it was quaint, with good schools and great things for children to do. Great things that needed to be improved upon, apparently, by snatching them away.
Did they even realize that this giant influx of young professional baby-makers would ruin the atmosphere of the town? That by closing down all of those family stores and diners and bars downtown and replacing them with a fucking Bar Louie and a Barnes and Noble and a Mongolian Barbeque and a fucking Eddie Bauer, they made me hate them? They gutted my bowling alley, ripped down my forest, mowed over my prairie, bought out my comic book store, bankrupted my video store, closed my favorite restaurants throughout all of my teenage years. How can I not despise that?
I spent a lot of time at BookZeller, this fantastic-scented used book store in a basement underneath a coffee shop(which was converted into our second Starbucks on the block). I worked at their warehouse for awhile, sorting, researching, and pricing the rare books they couldn't keep in the store. It was one of the greatest jobs I ever had. BookZeller closed a couple years after the Barnes and Noble busted open.
They choked out the stable I worked at, literally, until it was forced to shut the gates. I could see it happening, I watched them build crap so close to our paddocks that the horses wouldn't go near the fence. And the new people, the new people that purchased those houses with perfect knowledge that they were by a barn had the vicious audacity to complain about the horse smell. They took away our smell. We used to smell trees and grass and earth.
It's funny, because in my head, those people that moved there? The chains and the bullshit? They thought it was an improvement. They thought they were making it better. They thought that by upping the trend factor, adding designer stores...they thought that made the town more valuable. And according to Money magazine, it did (number two).
Looking at it now, there is a very healthy mix of small and large businesses, wonderful schools, more trees, better libraries. The people who live there, right now, are in love with everything. Sure, there are still boutiques and private businesses, antique dealers. There are some bars that I still love, with that perfect greasy, homemade bar food*, but none of them are downtown.
The changes that happened within that town stole everything that I loved, everything that connected me to the world, to my childhood, my identity, and fucking lit them on fire and laughed when it pissed me off. I mean, when you're a teenager, that's how you identify yourself. Where you go, what you like. That's what shapes your identity later on in life. That's why I'm so retarded about associating myself with things that I love...I don't want them taken away from me too soon. I want that time when they're mine to share.
Change is good. Conflict is good. It is, I love it, I love it, I love it when things are different. But when you change into a clone...that change is bad. Bad change.
I love my family and friends that still live there, and I don't look down on them for living there at all. Most of those friends moved to Naperville during the boom in the 1990's. They weren't there when it was...what I remember. I still go there every other week.
But I will never, never, never live there again. And no, I'm not bitter. Not at all.
...
* I've only found one bar here with excellent, unchallenged bar food (thank you, Gyna) Still, it's up on that designer burger trend, but the rest of the menu is fucking bar food. Dirty bar food, like homemade chili and potato skins, burgers like a hockey puck - no, a baseball. But I'm still looking for bars where everything costs five dollars and tastes like grease, but deliciously so, places where newcomers stare at their chicken and pat a napkin over it to get out the oil, where bloody marys are thick, dark, and heavily spiced, without all that frilly lemon-celery nonsense. That's one thing that Naperville's got.
...
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
They Are The Future
When I sauntered into work this morning, our building was kind enough to provide a breakfast buffet for its inhabitants. Free cinnamon roll = hell yeah breakfast.
So melty cinnamon roll in hand, I sit down at my desk all ready to spend a day working myself into a gooey, sticky mess and catching up on all the work I missed yesterday, because we had some bullshit Christmas party for all of our high rolling donors. Not thirty seconds later, the boss decides decides to call me from his office.
"Ross! Guess what you get to do this afternoon at three!"
"I can hardly contain my curiosity."
"You know how [a bunch of other people I work with] are with carolers at the train station right now?"
"Yeah, of course."
"You get to lead the afternooners! Isn't that exciting?"
"Oh, man, are you kidding me?"
Then one of my coworkers walks by, smirking. "Yeah, we didn't want to tell you because we were afraid you'd call in sick."
"Goddammit."
The boss chirps over the intercom of my phone, with the laugh of a seriously unbalanced inmate, "You're welcome!" He only speaks in exclamation points.
So at three I bundle up and head over to a street corner in the loop to meet up with a bunch of overexcited students from two of our schools, who immediately demand hot chocolate and start singing "Jingle Bells" while they shook little fucking hand bells and played a cackling, ill-pitched rendition of "Silent Night" on their recorders.
Just because I raise money for schools does not mean I want to hear children singing. I loathe the sound of a large group of singing children. Love kids. They are the future. Just please stop singing in large groups. Your voices slice deeper than the wind chill.
Eventually, one of my coworkers got the brilliant idea that we should shuffle the kids over to the ABC studio so they could get on the five o'clock news. Guess who got to introduce them on television, naming their schools and pretending to smile and care deeply about the children of Chicago, with a snotty red face and layers of protection against the ten degree weather?
Oh, if you guessed me, then you get a fucking star.
...
So melty cinnamon roll in hand, I sit down at my desk all ready to spend a day working myself into a gooey, sticky mess and catching up on all the work I missed yesterday, because we had some bullshit Christmas party for all of our high rolling donors. Not thirty seconds later, the boss decides decides to call me from his office.
"Ross! Guess what you get to do this afternoon at three!"
"I can hardly contain my curiosity."
"You know how [a bunch of other people I work with] are with carolers at the train station right now?"
"Yeah, of course."
"You get to lead the afternooners! Isn't that exciting?"
"Oh, man, are you kidding me?"
Then one of my coworkers walks by, smirking. "Yeah, we didn't want to tell you because we were afraid you'd call in sick."
"Goddammit."
The boss chirps over the intercom of my phone, with the laugh of a seriously unbalanced inmate, "You're welcome!" He only speaks in exclamation points.
So at three I bundle up and head over to a street corner in the loop to meet up with a bunch of overexcited students from two of our schools, who immediately demand hot chocolate and start singing "Jingle Bells" while they shook little fucking hand bells and played a cackling, ill-pitched rendition of "Silent Night" on their recorders.
Just because I raise money for schools does not mean I want to hear children singing. I loathe the sound of a large group of singing children. Love kids. They are the future. Just please stop singing in large groups. Your voices slice deeper than the wind chill.
Eventually, one of my coworkers got the brilliant idea that we should shuffle the kids over to the ABC studio so they could get on the five o'clock news. Guess who got to introduce them on television, naming their schools and pretending to smile and care deeply about the children of Chicago, with a snotty red face and layers of protection against the ten degree weather?
Oh, if you guessed me, then you get a fucking star.
...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Cold Pants Syndrome
From now on, I'm defining the temperature outside by how much it sucks wearing pants.
Because almost as much as I hate peeling off a pair of sweaty jeans in dead heat August (like the outter layer of an onion, where you just have to cut the damn thing right off) there might just be more misery building up when cold pants graze bare legs.
(Originally, I had this plan to plot certain points across the plane of a Cartesian coordinate system, like so:
where (x,y) at the origin is equal to (not at all sucky, 68 degrees) but it was too complicated to try to look up relevant results and don't feel like being quasi-trigonometrical anymore.)
Cold pants are never a continuous torture; they usually sneak up on you after you've remained stationary in the freeze for a bit. Maybe you're crossing a street and waiting for a long traffic light. Maybe you're stealing a secret cigarette in an alley behind your office building which you never do unless you really fucking hate the color printer.
(Gaahhh, maybe I should wear a bib when I eat my lunch so I don't drop ramen noodles down my fucking cleavage. I look like a jackass, sitting here digging around. Slippery little dbags.)
(I am a parenthetical mastermind today)
But either way, you stand there, looking around and watching everyone walk waddle in their winter gear, all puffy and wrapped (man I love winter: everyone looks like a big fat present), and you slowly and slightly tilt until your pants aren't touching your legs, frozen a quarter of an inch away from your skin. It's fun, because it's like, "Ha, I'm naked under these pants." And you are, I mean, everyone is naked under their pants, but sometimes just thinking naked makes you giggle because you're very immature for your age.
So eventually it's time to walk again, and as you lift your leg to take that first step your froze-ass pants slice up your leg and you mouth a silent, fuck. Because now you're even colder than before, and you've got the icey pants to prove it.
Mongo would say I need long johns. We've discussed this, briefly via blog, and I say they're weak. But if long johns prevent cold pants syndrome, well, then why the hell not? Is it worth being a wuss all day just to thwart the menace of cold pants for a fraction of a minute?
This is obviously a decision best made while staring into the bleak, empty pockets of my wallet.
Cold pants win.
...
Because almost as much as I hate peeling off a pair of sweaty jeans in dead heat August (like the outter layer of an onion, where you just have to cut the damn thing right off) there might just be more misery building up when cold pants graze bare legs.
(Originally, I had this plan to plot certain points across the plane of a Cartesian coordinate system, like so:
Cold pants are never a continuous torture; they usually sneak up on you after you've remained stationary in the freeze for a bit. Maybe you're crossing a street and waiting for a long traffic light. Maybe you're stealing a secret cigarette in an alley behind your office building which you never do unless you really fucking hate the color printer.
(Gaahhh, maybe I should wear a bib when I eat my lunch so I don't drop ramen noodles down my fucking cleavage. I look like a jackass, sitting here digging around. Slippery little dbags.)
(I am a parenthetical mastermind today)
But either way, you stand there, looking around and watching everyone walk waddle in their winter gear, all puffy and wrapped (man I love winter: everyone looks like a big fat present), and you slowly and slightly tilt until your pants aren't touching your legs, frozen a quarter of an inch away from your skin. It's fun, because it's like, "Ha, I'm naked under these pants." And you are, I mean, everyone is naked under their pants, but sometimes just thinking naked makes you giggle because you're very immature for your age.
So eventually it's time to walk again, and as you lift your leg to take that first step your froze-ass pants slice up your leg and you mouth a silent, fuck. Because now you're even colder than before, and you've got the icey pants to prove it.
Mongo would say I need long johns. We've discussed this, briefly via blog, and I say they're weak. But if long johns prevent cold pants syndrome, well, then why the hell not? Is it worth being a wuss all day just to thwart the menace of cold pants for a fraction of a minute?
This is obviously a decision best made while staring into the bleak, empty pockets of my wallet.
Cold pants win.
...
Friday, December 12, 2008
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.
...
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.
...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Ubiquitous debauchery somnambulism
I have a new favorite game. I've been playing it nonstop since yesterday afternoon.
It's not really much of a game, since there's no way to win or keep score or really any way to gain anything from it other than perfect pronunciation, which is exactly my type of game. Completely non-competitive, and it gives me a reason to feel smarter than other people with my critically impervious lexiconization (I said it) of ubiquitous and debauchery and somnambulism, three words which are perfectly synonymous with my drunken tardation.
Basically, follow these instructions:
Phase 1
Go here.
Phase 2
Type a word into the searchmobile. One of the aforementioned three will suffice.
Phase 3
Scroll down to the "American Heritage Dictionary" definition.
Phase 4
Click "Audio help."
Phase 5
?
Phase 6
Profit
Yeah, I just did that.
Anyway, so I made it to work today, which means two things:
1. I dominate.
2. I am hungover as balls.
I would like to thank everyone who came over last night to turn my life into an endless cycle of Blurg. I hate the lot of you.
It was an average Tuesday night, your average party, with your average skewerkabobs, grilled mango salmon, two kinds of chili (fuck yeah, chili), and strawberry-lemon tart. Which is what everyone in Chicago eats on a Tuesday. AYFKM? What the hell kind of pretentious grinders are we?
The best kind.
Lennyways, hipstery bikes are breeding on the grassy knoll in front of The a.p.t. The party has split off into two separate factions of Xtine's friends: the ones that we share are sitting inside, the ones that are hers are on the porch, which has been boarded and reinforced since the last party we had. The friends that are just mine rarely visit my home. Knife. Gut. Stab.
Here is a question, by the way: why is it that when you're having fun being a jackass and embarrassing yourself to a near-tasteless degree, there has to be several dissenters hanging out on the porch who narc on your fun?
Wait. Let me rephrase that: why is it that when I get drunk and sing Huey Lewis and the News and there are strangers around who are far prettier than I could ever be, I always assume that they're dissenters? There is a great possibility that they too understand that you don't need no credit card to ride this train.
I have this thing about pretty people that I have yet to befriend: I always assume they're looking down on me from some beautiful people elitist pedestal, and refuse to converse with me until I squeeze out about forty pounds and stop cranking shit to eleven. But my assumptions could very well be untrue.
Life is fun.
I think I just experienced an earthquake...is that possible?
...
It's not really much of a game, since there's no way to win or keep score or really any way to gain anything from it other than perfect pronunciation, which is exactly my type of game. Completely non-competitive, and it gives me a reason to feel smarter than other people with my critically impervious lexiconization (I said it) of ubiquitous and debauchery and somnambulism, three words which are perfectly synonymous with my drunken tardation.
Basically, follow these instructions:
Phase 1
Go here.
Phase 2
Type a word into the searchmobile. One of the aforementioned three will suffice.
Phase 3
Scroll down to the "American Heritage Dictionary" definition.
Phase 4
Click "Audio help."
Phase 5
?
Phase 6
Profit
Yeah, I just did that.
Anyway, so I made it to work today, which means two things:
1. I dominate.
2. I am hungover as balls.
I would like to thank everyone who came over last night to turn my life into an endless cycle of Blurg. I hate the lot of you.
It was an average Tuesday night, your average party, with your average skewerkabobs, grilled mango salmon, two kinds of chili (fuck yeah, chili), and strawberry-lemon tart. Which is what everyone in Chicago eats on a Tuesday. AYFKM? What the hell kind of pretentious grinders are we?
The best kind.
Lennyways, hipstery bikes are breeding on the grassy knoll in front of The a.p.t. The party has split off into two separate factions of Xtine's friends: the ones that we share are sitting inside, the ones that are hers are on the porch, which has been boarded and reinforced since the last party we had. The friends that are just mine rarely visit my home. Knife. Gut. Stab.
Here is a question, by the way: why is it that when you're having fun being a jackass and embarrassing yourself to a near-tasteless degree, there has to be several dissenters hanging out on the porch who narc on your fun?
Wait. Let me rephrase that: why is it that when I get drunk and sing Huey Lewis and the News and there are strangers around who are far prettier than I could ever be, I always assume that they're dissenters? There is a great possibility that they too understand that you don't need no credit card to ride this train.
I have this thing about pretty people that I have yet to befriend: I always assume they're looking down on me from some beautiful people elitist pedestal, and refuse to converse with me until I squeeze out about forty pounds and stop cranking shit to eleven. But my assumptions could very well be untrue.
Life is fun.
I think I just experienced an earthquake...is that possible?
...
Sunday, May 27, 2007
My purse is covered in grease.
Things I did last night that were probably not very smart:
1. Made friends with Jeremy the homeless guy that hangs out in front of House of Blues. Talked to him for about twenty minutes and gave him an unopened pack of cigarettes and five dollars and told him to "keep on truckin.'"
2. Started walking home from Continental by myself in the rain. Called Phil so I had someone to talk to on the ride home and hung up on him when I saw Burger King. Tried to argue with the woman at the drive through about my lack of automobile. "Do I look like I should be driving right now?"
3. Saw a sign next door that said, "Homemade chili." I was so there. Tendercrispbaconcheddarranch my ass, chili dominates. Bought a bowl of chili and a giant slice of pepperoni pizza and put both in my purse so they would stay dry from the rain. Tried to stop an argument about miscounted change between the tired, gray cashier and a couple of thuggish looking guys. I was all, "Dude, just calm down, man. Have some chili."
1. Made friends with Jeremy the homeless guy that hangs out in front of House of Blues. Talked to him for about twenty minutes and gave him an unopened pack of cigarettes and five dollars and told him to "keep on truckin.'"
2. Started walking home from Continental by myself in the rain. Called Phil so I had someone to talk to on the ride home and hung up on him when I saw Burger King. Tried to argue with the woman at the drive through about my lack of automobile. "Do I look like I should be driving right now?"
3. Saw a sign next door that said, "Homemade chili." I was so there. Tendercrispbaconcheddarranch my ass, chili dominates. Bought a bowl of chili and a giant slice of pepperoni pizza and put both in my purse so they would stay dry from the rain. Tried to stop an argument about miscounted change between the tired, gray cashier and a couple of thuggish looking guys. I was all, "Dude, just calm down, man. Have some chili."
...
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