Alligator hoofprints on my liver

Hello! I bet you thought I was gonna let another three weeks pass between postings again, didn’t you. Well, sorry to disappoint. I’ve got too much catching up to do.

First off, a small side note -- it feels great to write again. I know my postings are usually just nonsense, but still. It's therapeutic. Granted, I’m still a little rusty, but soon I’ll be back to my old…uhh… Pulitzer-worthy form. Whatever.

On to business! Part two of the 2008 year-in-review will have to wait. Today, I want to recap my trip from this past weekend to New Orleans.

I was unsure about how I would feel going back there. My heart is still shipwrecked somewhere around St. Charles and Burdette, you know (though it’s probably been picked clean by vultures at this point). But you see what I’m saying. I have a lot of memories there. Granted, I didn’t spend a lot of time there…but I have a lot of memories. Memories that are inextricably linked to my ex-girlfriend. Over the past year, any time I would see New Orleans on TV, my heart would sink. The Saints, the Hornets, Katrina footage, Mardi Gras, Lil’ Wayne…anything. My heart would sink. Well, I’m happy to report that, while I did think about her some when I was there, I certainly didn’t think about her a lot. This is a good thing.

Part of that had to do with the people I was in New Orleans with -- Cory and Eric – two people who (if it’s possible) may have less restraint than I do. Seriously, we didn’t bother to invite one voice of reason on this trip? We decided to include the trio that has seen more sunrises than a rooster (hey-yo!) and made more questionable decisions than Cuba Gooding, Jr (two times!)? Well. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Let’s flip through some pictures, shall we?

On the drive down I-10 East, Cory and I decided to stop for breakfast at a Waffle House in Beaumont, TX. Beaumont is…how shall I say this…real America. The woman at the counter had a mullet and Toby Keith was warbling something patriotic over the crackly speakers. It was perfect. I should note that I lived in Beaumont until I was about six years old. Can you imagine if we’d stayed there?! Not to generalize the fine people of Beaumont, but…there’s a good chance I’d be coaching high school football, have three or four shitty kids and a chunky wife (my high school sweetheart!) and live next door to my no-good brother and his family.

This is what happens when things collide on the griddle. You get a delicious bacon/hashbrown concoction.


I think I had cheese eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, raisin toast and grits. It was spectacular.


Casa de Waffle. Prrrrobably not the best name for a picante sauce.


The first thing I saw at the first gas station we stopped at across the Louisiana state line. Drive-thru drinks. That come in a cup. With a straw. Terrific.


The view from our room and the hotel itself. We stayed at the lovely Royal Sonesta on Bourbon and Bienville. It was a great hotel. And in the French Quarter! (side note: this proved to be a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we didn’t have far to stumble to get home. A curse because we didn’t leave the French Quarter once while we there. When I would visit last year, I felt…I don’t know. I won’t go so far as to say I felt “local,” but I didn’t feel like a tourist either. This time, I felt like a tourist. Not necessarily a bad thing, just… I don’t know. If New Orleans were a person (she’d be a stinky, Cajun drunk, for one thing) -- it's like I ran into her at a restaurant and was happy to see her, but she didn’t remember me at all. Hmmm)


The French Quarter, my partners in crime…


Don’t let the silly glass, silly straw and silly plastic grenade deceive you. These drinks were merciless. In fact, these drinks were so strong that we ended up in a strip club by 7:00. 7:00! Strip clubs never seem like a good idea until at least 1:00! (side note: I put a dollar on the stage, and the lovely young lady doing the dancing asked me a question. And when I went to take a drink while coolly formulating a cool response to her question, I spilled beer down the front of my face. How exactly do you recover from that?)


This was taken at the piano bar at Pat O’Brien’s. I realize this is a terrible picture. In fact, all of these pictures are terrible, but that’s because they were all taken with my phone. It’s true. My digital camera never left the suitcase. Anyway, this was an attempt to take a picture of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. From the back of a room. With the help of a mirror dangling above the stage. I’ve circled Jerry with my handy-dandy Telestrator™ for your benefit. Anyway, we did end up getting a picture with him, and to everyone’s surprise, he was an extremely friendly and accommodating guy.


In New Orleans, they have coin-operated games attached the urinals. Happiest place on earth.


These were taken from the balcony above Tropical Isle (home of the Hand Grenade!). We got up to the balcony because we were able to weasel our ways into a University of Alabama fraternity formal. I felt a bit like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite trying to talk with the girls, but it was still a lot of fun. And we met a young man who was the living, breathing embodiment of “Will Ferrell as Harry Caray.” You can’t imagine how many “Will Ferrell as Harry Caray” impressions were done after this meeting. “Hey Eric, if the moon was made of barbecue spareribs, would you try to eat some? I know I would."


My final memory of Friday night. And for some inexplicable reason, I decided to photograph it. Yikes.


The next morning. And some delicious, healing creole food. I had the Natchitoches meat pie. That’s pronounced “Nacka-dish” for some reason. And…uhhh…”meet pye” if you need help saying the whole thing.


There’s nothing remarkable about these pictures. Just a bar. What’s astonishing is that I took these at five o’clock in the morning. Like I said. Happiest place on earth.


So that was that! All in all, a terrific (if not liver-and-checking-account-destroying) weekend in the Crescent City. I’m not sure when I’ll be back. Like Vegas, a little goes a long way. But I had a great time and I still love that place.

Have a good weekend! Aiiyeeeee!!!

2008 Year in Review! (part one of two)

Well, good for me. I've managed to spit out a whopping six blog entries between the beginning of October and now. And three of those were videos and one was an entry saying that I wasn't gonna write anymore. Well done. But I'll make no apologies! It's time to move on. Time to tackle 2009. Time to look ahead! But before we look ahead...let's look back, shall we?

(side note: I realize the deadline for all 2008 recap lists/articles/blog entries passed about two weeks ago. Meh.)

January
The year got off to a promising start...

2008 should be a good one. I can't remember the last time I started the year with a job, a place to live and a girlfriend.

That was a hell of a start! And I was happy. I felt like I could look ahead instead of constantly looking back. I liked my job. I liked Houston. I was optimistic. I wrote that on January 2nd. Aaaaand that's about the time my year started careening downhill...

...things with the girlfriend have been weighing heavily on my mind as of late. I would say "we've hit a rough patch," but I know it's much more than that. We've gotten to where we're fighting a lot more, and I think all the uncertainty is beginning to pull us apart. She's not planning to move to Houston after she graduates, nor would I expect her to. So we're trying to figure out what the point of the whole thing is.

The irony, of course, is that she did move to Houston after she graduated, but by the time that happened, we'd been broken up for six months. That's not the important thing here. The important thing is that when I wrote this, I was about to enter into a world that I'd never experienced before -- the world of the heartbroken and rejected. I've already written about this at great length, and I really don't feel like rehashing it (especially since there are eleven more months to cover and, unfortunately, she'll be making a few more appearances), but I can tell you that I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Although, there was a sick part of me that wanted to see what all the fuss was about. What was this feeling everyone always talked about? What was a broken heart, really? Wounded pride? Disappointment? How could this little feeling have produced thousands upon thousands of songs, poems, essays, books and overpass scribblings? Well. Be careful what you wish for.

Let's see, I also joined a gym in January and started my short-lived "healthy snack review" feature. I should start that again. Ah, and I did a wonderfully entertaining entry on the worst blockbusters of all time. (and yes, I linked to that posting only to get more mileage out of the fact that I spent somewhere between four and six hours on it)

February
February didn't offer much. I did a handful of mailblogs. I went to Galveston. Valentine's Day came and went pretty quietly. I did get very, very excited for the All-American Football League, due to the fact that a.) it was football in the spring, b.) there was a Team Texas, and c.) Team Texas was going to play their games at Rice Stadium, which is about a mile from my apartment. The league was supposed to launch in the spring of 2007. Then it was pushed back to 2008. Then, because most of the money used to fund the league was tied directly to (gulp!) subprime mortgages...they postponed it til spring 2009. I'm not holding my breath. Hell, even the Arena Football League has canceled their season and they've got a TV deal! It's not looking good.

March
At this point, I was settling into my heartbreak. It actually caused me to think of (and write!) an ill-conceived analogy involving Peruvian potato farmers...uhhh...right. Also, I began "dating" someone from my office. I don't think "dating" is the right word. Are you "dating" when your only interaction is sporadic email, getting drunk together and screwing? I say no. But! It was a good distraction.

Let's see, what else...I spent an ungodly number of hours researching and writing a posting on Bill Simmons. All of that time and effort resulted in three whole comments. Two weeks after that I wrote about Drank and a short film I saw on TCM starring a cast of dogs. That resulted in five comments. Sigh.

But! The major event of March had to have been South By Southwest. It was a drunken good time. And it really was a good time. The first night I maaaay have overindulged. But I saw a lot of my favorite people, a few bands and had an overall fantastic weekend. Speaking of which...

April
If you held a gun to my head and demanded I tell you anything about this past April...well, there'd be bits of Robert matter all over the wall. In fact...er...what the hell happened this past April?! Time to check the blerrrg!

Ah yes! Much as March was defined by the nuttiness that was SXSW, April was defined by the nuttiness that was the Crawfish Festival at West Alabama Ice House. What a day!

I also began playing with the idea of online dating, but was hesitant. Apprehensive. Scared of being paired with this woman again.
And then, of course, there was this.

May
Now May was an eventful month. I can tell you without even looking that it was May when Cory and I took our mid-week trip to San Antonio. That was a lot of fun. I need more Tuesdays like that.

May was also when I decided to finally sack up and give online dating a try. And, I gotta say, it was a good experience. It was a nice little microcosm of dating in general, I guess. The attention from cute girls was encouraging, the winks from not-so-cute girls was appreciated, but ultimately, ignored. I went on some dates. And...well...I guess I'm sorta still dating one of the girls I met on Match. Yes. It's true. I'm dating Sonia. Umm...more on that some other time.

June
Goodness, I was a dating machine in June! I went out with Penny, Gabby, Alyson and Sonia! When it rains, it pours! And it was pouring! (note to self: when they invent a time machine, set clock to June, 2008) I started the month having just gone to dinner with Penny (apparently I wasn't that into her), then ended the month having just gone out with Sonia for the third time.

I also went to my ten year high school reunion in June. That was a lot of fun. And I relayed the story of Christian the lion (incidentally, I've heard rumors of a movie. I hope this is true).

July
I saw Wall-e. Apparently that's all that happened to me in July. I also started referring to Donna as "D*nna." I stole that from someone, but I can't remember who. My god, I can't believe I've been stressed out about that girl for one year. ONE. YEAR.

August
I was dating Sonia in August as well. I know this because I wrote an entry about our Saturday afternoon spent getting drunk, eating THC pills and then wolfing down bacon candybars. That was a fun Saturday.

The Beijing Olympics happened in August, but I didn't write much about them. Umm...

I had to cancel a trip to New Orleans because of Hurricane Gustav, which ultimately caused little damage.

The truth is, I kinda love that city. I haven't been back since New Years. It'll be interesting to see how many memories come flooding back (poor choice of words?) and how much of it is tied to D*nna. So. It could be interesting. Ideally, my happy memories of the city will be tied simply to the city itself. And it really is an amazing place, between the French Quarter, the Marigny, St. Charles, the big houses, the sleepy pace...

(side note: the previous paragraph is only relevant because I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow. And yes, it's my first trip since last New Year's. How will I feel? Anxious? Excited? Sad? Drunk? Only one way to find out...)

Now then, the defining moment for me was easily my trip to New York. I saw friends. I made new ones. It was a lot of fun.

Well, I'd love to get to September-December because a lot of really interesting things happened during that time (Tech football, I became an uncle, Hurricane Ike), but I'm about five minutes from walking out the door and I won't be back til Tuesday. Thanks for checking in, it's good to be back!

My brother grew a mustache...

Man, this is creepy.



He's gonna use those chopsticks to molest you. Possibly eat your heart. At least now we know exactly what he would look like if he smoked a pillowcase full of crack. Lordy.

Storytime Friday!

Courtesy of a small French girl.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Closed for repairs...

Well as you've probably figured out by now, I've taken a bit of a break from the ol' blerrrg. I'm not really sure why. Wait, yes I am. I was only writing about one thing -- my disaster of a dating life. It's not that I didn't enjoy it. It was fun to be self deprecating and reflective and it was a nice forum for getting things off my chest...it just got to a point where I was so sick of thinking about it. And by "it," I mean "her." So I took a break. A break from her, a break from writing about her, a break from thinking about her. And it's been incredibly helpful.

So. I'll be back soon. Thanks for checking in.

Storytime Friday!

To get you in the mood...

Part one...


Part two...


Part three...

Back! Help!

Okay, I'm getting back on the horse. For the past couple months, I've kinda been letting this blog sit. Let's call it my post-summer hiatus, shall we? Anyway, I'm gonna start writing again, I swear.

So why did I take a hiatus? Well, basically I have one thing happening in my life right now, and I'm sick to death of talking about it. Things with D*nna (predictably) spiraled downward and left me back at square one. Sort of. Because sometimes we hang out and I'm perfectly happy and sane and able to go about my business. But sometimes not. And that's the problem. Things keep changing everyday -- even though this friendship/relationship hasn't -- and I'm tired of writing 1,500 words about how I feel one day only to feel completely different the next day.

Ahem. Anyway, I'm putting a temporary embargo on any and all relationship talk for the next couple weeks. It's not fun to think about and it's not fun to write about. So let's talk about something else!! Something else! Like...uhh...hmm...jeez.

I'm kinda drawing a blank here, so kindly send any and all questions about anything to memoirsmailbag@gmail.com. Let's get the ball rolling, shall we?

It's Friday or the...high...way. What?

Well there you go. Another ten days, another blog post. I think I've been hesitant to write because so much has been going on. And I'm feeling overwhelmed. Anyhoo, where do I begin?

I went to ACL Fest last weekend. It was fun. I really should've stayed home because I was still getting over a mild case of strep throat (my favorite!). But instead of spending all day Friday in bed sipping orange juice and watching Tyra...I spent all day in a dusty field, in 90 degree heat with the sun shining down on me. I did manage not to drink anything alcoholic on Friday. In fact, I probably had about seventeen bottles of Vitamin Water. I felt better on Saturday, but still not great. By Saturday night my inner-alcoholic won out, and I spent every minute from 7:00 pm to 5:00 am sipping on something. Needless to say, I felt like absolute nutsack on Sunday and ended up missing the last day of the festival -- which was fine because I really only wanted to see two bands that day anyway, Stars and Band of Horses.

Anyway. It was fun. Vampire Weekend was surprisingly enjoyable, even though it sounded like they played the same song ten times in a row. I really liked Gogol Bordello (from afar) and Conor Oberst (who I'm a fan of). I saw a few other acts that were entertaining enough, but not particularly life-changing -- Beck, David Byrne, Swell Season.

I know I'm totally mailing in this blog entry, but I wanted to put something down. My personal life is still a circus, balancing my time between an ex-girlfriend who's indifferent to my existence (D*nna) and an ex-girlfriend who probably still has some real feelings for me (Sonia). It's an interesting situation. Which I'll detail at some other time when it's not Friday afternoon and I'm not chomping at the bit to get the hell out of here.

Anyway, here's a minute of Murphy to brighten your Friday. Murphy is my dog (well, my mom's dog) and he's the sweetest damn pup you'll ever meet.

Ike, Ike Baby? Really? Should I do it?

Yeah, that's the subject line. I feel shame.

I know, I know, I know. Welcome to the thrice-monthly blog stylings of one lazy bastard. Gimme a break, alright? There was a gawldanged hurricane! Anyway. It's Monday, a week after the storm, and I am alive and with power. Thanks for asking.

So. The last ten days. The Thursday before Ike came to town, I decided I would leave. After he changed directions and headed straight for us, I figured it would be best to be somewhere else. It's not that I was afraid of a full-blown disaster in Houston. But...well, I assumed at some point the power would go out. And that's really all I need. I can appreciate wanting to stay home and "ride out" a hurricane. After all, you want to be there to pick up the pieces when all is said and done. But if the power is gonna go out? What's the point of being there? So you can sit in the hot, sticky darkness with a tire iron in your hand, waiting for looters to kick in your door? Besides, my apartment building is forty years old, so...if the roof was gonna come flying off, I didn't want to be caught sitting on the crapper reading a magazine by candlelight when that happened.

So I left for Austin at around 10:00 on Thursday morning. This ended up being a very, very smart move since I managed to miss all of the evacuation traffic and was able to glide in at around 1:00. I borrowed some office space that afternoon (thanks Eric!) and Friday morning, and ended up getting a lot more accomplished than I would've had I stayed in town.

I also watched the Weather Channel religiously (Jim Cantore = awesome) and worried and fretted about Houston and Galveston (my new favorite weekend day-getaway destination).


And predictably enough, as the night wore on, the traffic from Houston to Austin (and Dallas) got thicker. Here's the evacuation traffic I was talking about...

Anyway, it ended up being a beautiful weekend in Austin. It was sunny (seriously, not a single drop of rain) and the hurricane ended up pushing some cool weather our way. When I got up Monday morning, it was in the high sixties! That's Christmas weather!! I had a great time while I was there, and even though I knew I wouldn't have to work on Monday, I headed back to my apartment. You can only sleep on so many couches, ya know?

The road signs leading to Houston said, "Do not drive to Houston or Beaumont." Gulp. However, once I got to town it was fine, if not a little unnerving. The problem wasn't that there was flooding, the problem was that the whole damn city lost power. That doesn't sound like a big deal -- and I guess it isn't, in the grand scheme of things -- but none of the street lights worked and when the sun went down...well, it was completely dark. Which is scary when you live in a neighborhood like mine that's "up and coming" but still has some spotty blocks.

Predictably enough, once the hurricane blew through, and the national media saw that we didn't have a full-blown Katrina on our hands, they disappeared. Thanks for visiting, Anderson Cooper. See you next year!

I don't really have any good aftermath pictures, mainly because I didn't see much. Just these two...

I love that cow. Look at him. Ringing the doorbell. "Charlene, I know you're home! I saw you peek through the curtains! Let me in!!"

That's a tree. That tree fell. Umm...it is...fallen. Who needs Anderson Cooper when you've got me?

Anyway, life is back to normal. Some people still don't have power. I'm back to work (after only working Thursday afternoon and Friday last week). Normalcy is...here...uhh...to stay. Great.

Uhhh....

So, Ike turned. He's comin' this a-way. Shit.

Satellite imagery of the storm shows...well...it shows that it's big.


I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I might go to my dad's. I might use this as an excuse to go to Austin. Assuming there aren't hundreds of thousands of cars on I-10. Stay tuned!

Hurricanes (the drinks, the natural disasters and the girls)

I'm gonna follow in the footsteps of Bill Simmons on this one and just pick up where I left off. No long explanations about the absence, no apologies. Granted, his absence (ten weeks) was far longer than mine (ten days), but...well, his readers number in the tens of thousands, while mine number in the...uhhh...single digits. Anyway. Not sure what my point is there.

A lot has happened in the last ten days. A lot of thoughts, a lot of uncertainty and lot of frustration and excitement and sadness all at the same time. And I'm still trying to make sense of everything, but it's like my brain can't find its footing. It's been a weird ten days.

Sonia and I broke up on Friday. Why did we break up, you ask? Well...okay, let me start from the beginning. After Gustav derailed our plans to go to New Orleans, we decided to take a quick trip down to Galveston instead. It was a decent substitute. For one thing, I think Galveston wants to be New Orleans when it grows up. From the French Quarter-esque buildings at the Strand to the majestic, old houses lining Broadway...I mean, it's got a long way to go, but it's something. Also, I'm sorta fascinated with Galveston and what it could have become. Most people don't realize this, but in 1900, Galveston was the biggest city in Texas and was poised to become what Houston is now (the fourth largest city in the US). Unfortunately, that same year, a monster hurricane came through and wiped Galveston off the map, killing 8,000 people. To put that in perspective, Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 people.

The bodies were so numerous that burial was not a viable option. Initially, the dead were taken out to sea and dumped; however, the currents of the gulf washed the bodies back onto the beach, so a new solution was needed. Funeral pyres were set up wherever the dead were found. In the aftermath of the storm, pyres burned for weeks. Authorities had to pass out free whiskey to the work crews that were having to throw the bodies of their wives and children on the burn piles. More people were killed in this single storm than have been killed in the over three hundred hurricanes that have struck the United States since, combined, as of 2006. Thus, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Cripes. Anyway, here's a picture of the path Galveston's hurricane took.


And just for shits and grins, here's a picture of Ike's projected path, scheduled to hit sometime this weekend. He's gonna beat us like he beat Tina.


(side note: You know, I've become absolutely fascinated with hurricanes this year! Maybe it's because I live in a city that's smack dab in the middle of the hurricane danger zone. Maybe it's because two weekend trips have been threatened or canceled by hurricanes -- Edouard and Gustav -- and another hurricane is bearing down on me now -- Ike. Whatever it is, it's...interesting. Although that's easy for me to say now. Ask me how "interesting" it is when my Passat is upside down on top of the roof of my apartment complex.)

Ahem, anyway, Galveston also has a beach! So...umm...there's that. Where the hell was I? Ah. So Sonia and I went down to Galveston that Saturday. And we had a great time. We really did. We bought some beers and some Cheetos (an after-swim necessity), rented two beach chairs and an umbrella, and parked ourselves in front of the ocean for a few hours. It was fun. We swam, we listened to music, we talked, we ate Cheetos. After getting sufficiently sunburned, we got a hotel room at the lovely Hotel Galvez. The room was $200 for the night, which isn't bad at all, considering we sauntered into the lobby, drunk and soaking wet with no room reservation, and got a lovely room overlooking the ocean. (side note: for comparison, I went to hotels dot com and did a search for a room in NYC this Saturday to see what $200 would get me. A LaQuinta Inn in Secaucus, NJ. Yeesh.). Anyway, the Galvez...


Hooray! So the trip was good, but...I was having doubts. When we walked up the Seawall and poked around the giftshops and held hands and all that...I just...hmm. The butterflies in your stomach need to be there. The excitement needs to be there. If I couldn't get excited during this, a weekend getaway, then when could I? Questions, questions. Anyway, we drove back to Houston on Sunday around lunchtime, and at this point, I needed to be alone. I don't care who you're with, sometimes you just need to unwind by yourself. Sit on your couch, be retarded, stare into space, take a nap, whatever. So that's what I did. I went home and napped. Well, Sunday night she came over. Which was fine, but...well, we'd been together nonstop from Friday afternoon to Sunday mid-day, and I was still kinda enjoying my solitude. So we hung out Sunday night. Monday morning (Labor Day), we parted ways again, but again, later in the day she called and wanted to come over. So I said okay.

At this point, I began feeling...smothered. Here's the thing -- her dad passed away pretty recently. Her best friend is moving away. And I worried that maybe she was moving things along too quickly because of that. I don't think she was consciously ignoring the red flags I was waving, but she was ignoring them. This, coupled with the fact that I was still trying to figure out how I felt about her. Don't get me wrong, I think she's amazing. I'll go through the checklist I always use when describing her -- she's smart, she's funny, she's incredibly sweet and giving, she's cute, she's loving...but all of those things are easy to overlook when you're being suffocated. If this relationship had moved at a normal pace -- none of this boyfriend/girlfriend pressure -- who knows how things would've turned out. I don't know. Anyway, I kept having doubts. And I kept feeling pressure. And I just wasn't sure about things. Things were getting out of hand quickly (she gave me a set of housekeys) and I needed to nip it in the bud before it got really out of control (read: her saying "I love you," which, thankfully, never happened). So we talked on Friday. And it was hard and it was awful and I felt terrible. But she realized that she was trying to fill a void with me and probably came on too strong. And she wants to be friends. And hopefully we will be friends. Anyway, she probably needs to deal with some things on her own before she's ready to jump into a relationship again. And hopefully she'll find the right person when that time comes. Sad face.

And on a completely unrelated note (I swear it's unrelated -- but I know I'm gonna sound like a selfish prick anyway), I've hung out with Donna a couple times. We went to lunch last week. We hung out on Saturday. We tried to be friends. And it was all very platonic and harmless. However. I began thinking about her. And some old feelings began returning. And I was pissed that I felt that way. For one thing, the relationship we have now in no way resembles the relationship we had before. I no longer think she hung the moon. I can see her faults, whereas before, I really didn't. When we were together together, she was perfect -- she was the smartest girl I'd ever met, she was the coolest girl I'd ever met, she was the greatest girl I'd ever met...she's no longer those things to me. Regardless, I found myself craving her attention again. Which is very, very bad. It's like I've said, you don't hand a recovering alcoholic a bottle of gin.

One of two things will happen here...
1.) I'll realize how silly I'm being and these feelings will dissipate. And eventually we will just be friends.
2.) I'll get wrapped up in her again and end up needing her which will instantly send her running for the hills. Back to square one.

I feel like I'm at a critical crossroads here. Do I stop hanging out with her and forget about her? Or do I work to be her friend? There's no easy answer. Option one will be hard because she lives around the corner and she wants to hang out and I want to hang out with her. Option two is hard because I'll have to face these feelings head-on and consciously try to change them. Option one is the right answer. But option two might be the only way for me to find any closure with this goddamned girl. Take cover and stay away from any windows.

Storytime Friday!

This was my favorite cartoon short as a kid. I think it played before Dumbo. Anyway. Enjoy!

Gustav the Terrible

Remember how I was complaining about Tropical Storm Edouard trying to ruin my trip to New York? Well, his no-good, Russian cousin Gustav is trying to derail my trip to New Orleans this weekend.
Granted, we would be leaving New Orleans Monday morning, so it's possible Gustav wouldn't even make landfall until after we'd already left. But still. If he's on a collision course with that city, it's possible (just possible) things might start shutting down. I hear they've had a hurricane there before.

And I'm not sure how I'd feel about being evacuated from New Orleans and sitting in traffic on I-10 for sixteen hours. Grrrr.... For the sake of this blog entry, I'm going to pretend Gustav isn't there. Yup. He's gonna dry up in the warm, hurricane-producing waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He doesn't exist...

So...it's gonna be an awesome weekend in the Crescent City! I'm really looking forward to saddling up to the bar with a silly frozen drink in my hand and watching twelve straight hours of college football. I'm gonna buy ridiculous beads and wear a feathery Mardi Gras mask and eat a lot of jambalaya. It's gonna be great.

The truth is, I kinda love that city. I haven't been back since New Years. It'll be interesting to see how many memories come flooding back (poor choice of words?) and how much of it is tied to D*nna. So. It could be interesting. Ideally, my happy memories of the city will be tied simply to the city itself. And it really is an amazing place, between the French Quarter, the Marigny, St. Charles, the big houses, the sleepy pace...

So, we'll see. Stay tuned!

Snoop Knugg

Well, in the first time since...uhh...ever, I'm not dog-tired on a Monday. Why is that? Well, usually I'm dog-tired on a Monday because I'd spent the previous two days drinking too much and smoking too much. This past weekend I had family fun time in Monroe with my mom, my brother, my sister and my brother-in-law. A good time was had by all. We were lazy, we relaxed, we talked, we ate...your typical Monroe weekend. So! Since I'm so refreshed and restored, I should write something, right? Let's knock out some Knuggets, shall we?

I finally saw the Dark Knight this past weekend. At about the two-hour mark, I was ready to give it an enthusiastic two thumbs up. But then it kept going for another half hour, which to me, made it a tad too long. As cynical/skeptical as I am, I thought Heath Ledger was amazing. I just think they should've saved Two Face for the next installment. Overall, I thought it was good though. Nice and dark and blow-uppy.

Usually when I go out of town, I set my thermostat to around 80. This time, I decided just to turn the AC off completely -- you know, save myself a little money this weekend. Bad. Decision. I got home at around 10:30 last night and my apartment was at a cool, crisp ninety two degrees!! Good lord! So I turned on two fans, opened a window, cranked the AC and stripped down to my boxers. I was finally able to crawl in bed an hour later when the AC had brought the apartment down to a downright chilly 83 degrees. Never again. The green movement can kiss my ass.

I'd like to thank the state of Florida for keeping America's Funniest Home Videos (one of my favorite shows, by the way) on the air for almost twenty years. What would the producers do without you, jean short wearing, boat owning citizens of Florida? Thank you. For your above ground pools, your trampolines, your miniature dirtbikes, your four-wheelers and your ropes hanging from trees.

So, the Olympics ended yesterday. The US won the overall medal count with 110. China came in second with 100. However! They had 51 golds to our 36; and that's what we're really counting, right? I mean, if you use a simple weighted points system -- 3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze -- they win...but only by a hair (223 to 220). So let's just call it even. I'm okay with that. Besides, they had a few unfair advantages. For one, they had home field. Also, they're a bunch of damn cheaters. Also, they're kinda shitty about the whole thing. So I'm more than happy with how the Olympics turned out. Phelps lived up to the hype, we won the gold in basketball. Yeehaw, the end, see you in 2012.

And from the mailblog...

Is Beverly Hills Chihuahua a sign of the apocalypse?
Richard K.
Austin, TX



I think you know the answer to that.

Umm...

Okay, watch this...

And then tell me you aren't a little freaked out to learn that the actress in the video is completely computer animated. Wha?! The future scares me.

New York, NY

Umm...wait, what?

That's nice, isn't it? Tropical Storm Edouard is just hanging out, urinating all over my flight plans. Which is why I've oh-so-cleverly decided to start calling him "Cousin Eddie."
Go away, Cousin Eddie! Moving on...

I had a pretty good weekend. I spent most of it with Sonia. Friday night we stayed in and played Scrabble. I know. We're 85 years old. But! I managed to piggyback off her word "live," turning it into "delivery," and scored an improbable, impressive, unthinkable 126 points on a single word!! Thank you, double-triple word score!
Saturday we hung out at the swimming pool and got sunburned and drank too much. That afternoon, we went back to her place and drank some more and played Guitar Hero (did I say "85 years old?" I meant "15 years old"). Anyway, fishing through her fridge, I stumbled upon some prescription THC pills that her dad had been taking. There were about 25 left, so we decided it would be a good idea to give those a try. Now. I haven't been high in about six years. She hasn't been high in about eight years. So we were confident it would be fun for both of us, and equally effective for both of us, since neither of us were really the drug smoking type. So there we stood, holding these little spherical yellow pills in our hands. I shrugged, said "see you in Narnia!" and popped it into my mouth.

So now what? We can't just form a drum circle right off the bat. We had a few more beers, waited, watched TV, waited...uhhh....after about thirty minutes, we started to get restless. "Do you feel anything" she asked. No, not really. You? "No." Hmm...so we (we're such nerds) googled the drug and started reading about it. The official website wasn't very helpful, so we found our way to a stoner message board. The reviews were mixed, but one guy noted that he "took five of them" before anything happened. "Should we take another one?" she asked. Sure! So we took another one. Thirty minutes passed. Nothing. We took two more. An hour passed. Nothing. I took two more, she took one more. I was starting to feel drunk, but beyond that, nothing.

At this point, my stomach was starting to feel a little funny. I excused myself and went into the bathroom. Here's where I made my first mistake. I was standing there gripping the sink in front of the bathroom mirror, and I lifted my head and looked myself dead in the eye. I felt a smile start to creep onto my face. The corners of my mouth began to involuntarily curl upward. This evolved into a full-on smile. And then I let out a pinched squeak of a laugh. "Ah-geeee." Now my cheeks were starting to hurt because I was smiling so widely and I was laughing through my nose. Uh oh.

I tried to stifle my laughter, but the more I resisted, the worse it got. I poked my head around the corner to see if maybe (hopefully) Sonia had been hit by the same giggle fit that I had. She was staring ahead at the TV, straight-faced. Dammit. Then she did the worst thing imaginable -- she turned her head and looked at me. Well this just opened the floodgates. I quickly ducked back behind the wall and collapsed into a fit of laughter. "What are you doing?" I paced around trying to regain my composure. I began to sweat. I laughed and laughed and laughed at nothing in particular. Then I decided to just embrace it. So I walked out into the living room guffawing like a mad man. She smiled, "what are you laughing at?" The words exploded out of me. "I don't know! I have no idea!" So I sat on the couch and laughed some more. She laughed at me, but was a little confused about what was going on.

She kept probing and trying to understand what was so funny. Did I not occur to her that I'd just taken six THC pills?! Anyway, I kept insisting that I was laughing at nothing, and finally, she accepted it. Not five minutes later, I heard a stifled laugh. I turned my head to look at her, and she was beet red, doing everything in her power not to explode. And then it was all over. We laughed and laughed and laughed. We'd look at each other, attempt to have a conversation and then we'd start laughing again. It was fun.

Then we decided it was snacktime. Earlier in the day, we'd swung by Whole Foods to pick up the bacon candybar I'd read about on Traci's blog. Well, what better time to eat a bacon candybar than when you're high as a giraffe's ass? So we dug in. It was...salty. Kinda weird tasting. The red fire candybar was better, but they were both perfect, considering the state we were in.
One strange side-effect (beyond the uncontrollable laughter and desire to eat bacon candybars) was the surreal stretching of time. We were watching a segment on SNL (that wasn't particularly funny), and were both sitting there, slack-jawed, at how unbelievably long it was taking. Like Cheech and Chong, we turned to each other and asked, "was that segment not thirty minutes long?" Yeah. It was.

Then musical guest Spoon played "The Underdog," and the song lasted somewhere around three hours. It was awesome. Although, it made me wonder -- why in the hell would a group of stoners want to watch a jam band whose songs are already fifteen minutes long?! Wouldn't it feel like they had been playing for days?! If anything, Phish should be able to play two and a half minute songs, finish their set in twelve minutes, and their stoner fans wouldn't know the difference.

I'm flying to New York tomorrow!! Hooray!! I get in at 10:30 pm. Updates next week!

Storytime Friday!

I was walking to a restaurant with Sonia recently, and we passed a guy -- in his twenties, scraggly hair, mouse-whisker beard, painfully skinny, wearing painfully skinny jeans and some frighteningly neon high tops -- who was smoking and generally looking disinterested. I muttered something under my breath about "goddamned hipsters," to which Sonia replied, "what's a hipster?" I was kinda stumped. I thought it was one of those things you just knew. I stammered a bit and said something like, "well, it's like...they dress...umm. They try to look as stupid as possible. No, that's not it. They're condescending. Uhh...haven't you ever been to an American Apparel?!" Anyway, for some reason, they're hard to define. Thankfully, I stumbled across this brilliant article (from Adbusters) that could be the definitive thesis on hipsterdom. Enjoy!

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization

By Abdul

We’ve reached a point in our civilization where counterculture has mutated into a self-obsessed aesthetic vacuum. So while hipsterdom is the end product of all prior countercultures, it’s been stripped of its subversion and originality.

I‘m sipping a scummy pint of cloudy beer in the back of a trendy dive bar turned nightclub in the heart of the city’s heroin district. In front of me stand a gang of hippiesh grunge-punk types, who crowd around each other and collectively scoff at the smoking laws by sneaking puffs of “fuck-you,” reveling in their perceived rebellion as the haggard, staggering staff look on without the slightest concern.

The “DJ” is keystroking a selection of MP3s off his MacBook, making a mix that sounds like he took a hatchet to a collection of yesteryear billboard hits, from DMX to Dolly Parton, but mashed up with a jittery techno backbeat.

“So… this is a hipster party?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. She’s wearing big dangling earrings, an American Apparel V-neck tee, non-prescription eyeglasses and an inappropriately warm wool coat.

“Yeah, just look around you, 99 percent of the people here are total hipsters!”

“Are you a hipster?”

“Fuck no,” she says, laughing back the last of her glass before she hops off to the dance floor.

Ever since the Allies bombed the Axis into submission, Western civilization has had a succession of counter-culture movements that have energetically challenged the status quo. Each successive decade of the post-war era has seen it smash social standards, riot and fight to revolutionize every aspect of music, art, government and civil society.

But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

***

Take a stroll down the street in any major North American or European city and you’ll be sure to see a speckle of fashion-conscious twentysomethings hanging about and sporting a number of predictable stylistic trademarks: skinny jeans, cotton spandex leggings, fixed-gear bikes, vintage flannel, fake eyeglasses and a keffiyeh – initially sported by Jewish students and Western protesters to express solidarity with Palestinians, the keffiyeh has become a completely meaningless hipster cliché fashion accessory.

The American Apparel V-neck shirt, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and Parliament cigarettes are symbols and icons of working or revolutionary classes that have been appropriated by hipsterdom and drained of meaning. Ten years ago, a man wearing a plain V-neck tee and drinking a Pabst would never be accused of being a trend-follower. But in 2008, such things have become shameless clichés of a class of individuals that seek to escape their own wealth and privilege by immersing themselves in the aesthetic of the working class.

This obsession with “street-cred” reaches its apex of absurdity as hipsters have recently and wholeheartedly adopted the fixed-gear bike as the only acceptable form of transportation – only to have brakes installed on a piece of machinery that is defined by its lack thereof.

Lovers of apathy and irony, hipsters are connected through a global network of blogs and shops that push forth a global vision of fashion-informed aesthetics. Loosely associated with some form of creative output, they attend art parties, take lo-fi pictures with analog cameras, ride their bikes to night clubs and sweat it up at nouveau disco-coke parties. The hipster tends to religiously blog about their daily exploits, usually while leafing through generation-defining magazines like Vice, Another Magazine and Wallpaper. This cursory and stylized lifestyle has made the hipster almost universally loathed.

“These hipster zombies… are the idols of the style pages, the darlings of viral marketers and the marks of predatory real-estate agents,” wrote Christian Lorentzen in a Time Out New York article entitled ‘Why the Hipster Must Die.’ “And they must be buried for cool to be reborn.”

With nothing to defend, uphold or even embrace, the idea of “hipsterdom” is left wide open for attack. And yet, it is this ironic lack of authenticity that has allowed hipsterdom to grow into a global phenomenon that is set to consume the very core of Western counterculture. Most critics make a point of attacking the hipster’s lack of individuality, but it is this stubborn obfuscation that distinguishes them from their predecessors, while allowing hipsterdom to easily blend in and mutate other social movements, sub-cultures and lifestyles.

***

Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.

“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.

Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”

“Offensive?”

“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”

“Ok, so what are you girls doing tonight after this party?”

“Ummm… We’re going to the after-party.”

***

Gavin McInnes, one of the founders of Vice, who recently left the magazine, is considered to be one of hipsterdom’s primary architects. But, in contrast to the majority of concerned media-types, McInnes, whose “Dos and Don’ts” commentary defined the rules of hipster fashion for over a decade, is more critical of those doing the criticizing.

“I’ve always found that word [“hipster”] is used with such disdain, like it’s always used by chubby bloggers who aren’t getting laid anymore and are bored, and they’re just so mad at these young kids for going out and getting wasted and having fun and being fashionable,” he says. “I’m dubious of these hypotheses because they always smell of an agenda.”

Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims it.

***

“He’s 17 and he lives for the scene!” a girl whispers in my ear as I sneak a photo of a young kid dancing up against a wall in a dimly lit corner of the after-party. He’s got a flipped-out, do-it-yourself haircut, skin-tight jeans, leather jacket, a vintage punk tee and some popping high tops.

“Shoot me,” he demands, walking up, cigarette in mouth, striking a pose and exhaling. He hits a few different angles with a firmly unimpressed expression and then gets a bit giddy when I show him the results.

“Rad, thanks,” he says, re-focusing on the music and submerging himself back into the sweaty funk of the crowd where he resumes a jittery head bobble with a little bit of a twitch.

The dance floor at a hipster party looks like it should be surrounded by quotation marks. While punk, disco and hip hop all had immersive, intimate and energetic dance styles that liberated the dancer from his/her mental states – be it the head-spinning b-boy or violent thrashings of a live punk show – the hipster has more of a joke dance. A faux shrug shuffle that mocks the very idea of dancing or, at its best, illustrates a non-committal fear of expression typified in a weird twitch/ironic twist. The dancers are too self-aware to let themselves feel any form of liberation; they shuffle along, shrugging themselves into oblivion.

***

Perhaps the true motivation behind this deliberate nonchalance is an attempt to attract the attention of the ever-present party photographers, who swim through the crowd like neon sharks, flashing little blasts of phosphorescent ecstasy whenever they spot someone worth momentarily immortalizing.

Noticing a few flickers of light splash out from the club bathroom, I peep in only to find one such photographer taking part in an impromptu soft-core porno shoot. Two girls and a guy are taking off their clothes and striking poses for a set of grimy glamour shots. It’s all grins and smirks until another girl pokes her head inside and screeches, “You’re not some club kid in New York in the nineties. This shit is so hipster!” – which sparks a bit of a catfight, causing me to beat a hasty retreat.

In many ways, the lifestyle promoted by hipsterdom is highly ritualized. Many of the party-goers who are subject to the photoblogger’s snapshots no doubt crawl out of bed the next afternoon and immediately re-experience the previous night’s debauchery. Red-eyed and bleary, they sit hunched over their laptops, wading through a sea of similarity to find their own (momentarily) thrilling instant of perfected hipster-ness.

What they may or may not know is that “cool-hunters” will also be skulking the same sites, taking note of how they dress and what they consume. These marketers and party-promoters get paid to co-opt youth culture and then re-sell it back at a profit. In the end, hipsters are sold what they think they invent and are spoon-fed their pre-packaged cultural livelihood.

Hipsterdom is the first “counterculture” to be born under the advertising industry’s microscope, leaving it open to constant manipulation but also forcing its participants to continually shift their interests and affiliations. Less a subculture, the hipster is a consumer group – using their capital to purchase empty authenticity and rebellion. But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

An amalgamation of its own history, the youth of the West are left with consuming cool rather that creating it. The cultural zeitgeists of the past have always been sparked by furious indignation and are reactionary movements. But the hipster’s self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution. Western civilization’s well has run dry. The only way to avoid hitting the colossus of societal failure that looms over the horizon is for the kids to abandon this vain existence and start over.

***

“If you don’t give a damn, we don’t give a fuck!” chants an emcee before his incitements are abruptly cut short when the power plug is pulled and the lights snapped on.

Dawn breaks and the last of the after-after-parties begin to spill into the streets. The hipsters are falling out, rubbing their eyes and scanning the surrounding landscape for the way back from which they came. Some hop on their fixed-gear bikes, some call for cabs, while a few of us hop a fence and cut through the industrial wasteland of a nearby condo development.

The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures. I take a look at one of the girls wearing a bright pink keffiyah and carrying a Polaroid camera and think, “If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.” But instead we ignore the weapons that lie at our feet – oblivious to our own impending demise.

We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new.

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

(Side note: And yes, I realize I'm one of those "chubby bloggers" that Gavin McInnes of Vice is referring to. Meh.)

Hide the women and children...