The day I left San Francisco to Israel I hadn't slept. It's not for lack of trying - just that if I was going to have to wake up early to catch a flight then it would be easier to not sleep and have my devilish grin up and running at the word go. I ripped a bunch of tracks from Limewire, the strokes, interpol, french kicks, the walkmen, clipse - anything I could to get prepared. Be ready for a flight into obliivion. I was taking no chances, my passport was tapped to my waist - I would have sewed it to my arm if I would've had some string. I had my ID and Credit card ready to go at a moments notice. The only thing I didn't have was a working knowledge of Hebrew- or any knowledge for that matter. Was I too be condemned to the classless ranks of other dumb americans before me?
A slave of my hubris?
Yakked out I was afraid the trip I was about to take was a dream I would wake up from before I took off. Like crystal pepsi and summer time it would be gone before I could ever get the taste of it. A trip like this was unheard off, I'm the middle son of a middle class family, in the middle of a egocentric examination of all things debauchery. I didn't know what I expected to find, faith? God? Country? Fellowship? Other people who didn't eat bacon?
I caught a cab at 7 in the morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed. With my bags in the trunk and charm in my smile and a full wallet I headed toward the Bart stations at Powell street and adventure.
I got off Bart at the Oakland Coliseum and caught the airBart bus to the Oakland Airport. Coming from the sunshine of San Francisco to Oakland is like traveling through Conrads Heart of Darkness. Every station a little more dangerous, more shifty people, more bad intent.
I got off at the Airport and grabbed my stuff. There were two Christian tourists on the airBart bus with me, confused by the Airport I helped them to there terminal and waited with them in the security line. They were spreading message of Christ to San Francisco - I covered my mouth with my hand and hoped none of it would get on me.
Since I decided to bring my only piece of luggage as carry on security decided to tear it up. They threw out my shampoo, my soap, my toothpaste, my deodorant and my dignity. All I had left was some wrinkled clothes, and a shocker flashlight. A shocker flashlight?
It's a tricked out flash light that gives you a jolt when you try to turn it on. They loved it at airport security. The guy who went through my gear gave it to all his cronies - they giggled like little girls at a tea party. After he gave it back to me and helped me pack it into my carry on I asked if I could have my other unopened sundries back, as I thought in my mind that I had proved I wasn't a terrorist. He gave me a shocked look and said no.
Asshole.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
My first interview with Christian Slater
____________________________
My first Interview with Christian Slater
This is my first interview with Christian Slater and I’m nervous.
I’m terrified.
Christian, he’s waiting for me in the other room, I’m here in the bathroom, my photographer hasn’t shown up yet. To be quite frank this is my first interview ever.
I hope he doesn’t realize that.
I don’t take pictures. I know this is a stupid thing to think of now, but I don’t.
Not a click. Never learned. Which is weird because my father is a picture frame maker.
Christian Slater clears his throat, like he’s impatient and I want to go. I have to go, leave get out and runaway. I am not qualified to do this. I lied on my interview.
I made it up.
I never wrote for my high school newspaper. I didn’t even like heathers.
.
He is sitting and he has dark hair that hangs around his pale face. It’s older now, the face more so then I remember from movies. He has wrinkles that line the edge of his mouth and a line of his forehead. Christian Slater stares at me, his eyes dead locked on mine.
Scratch that.
I loved heathers
Me:
Christian how have you been?
CS
Well I’m a little upset
Me
Why are you upset
CS
You’ve kept me here almost an hour
We stare at each other a moment. He reminds me of dreams, the kind where you wake up and think you’ll remember but just fall back asleep and realize in the morning you forgot something life changing. Earth shattering.
There is the smell of Downey drier sheets, Aqua-Velva aftershave. He is summer and that glorious time in the mall with my friends when we all tried to pretend we were so cool and not just dumb teenagers.
He crosses his legs and re-crosses them. I realize as we sit here in this dead air silence sort of thing he must be getting the feeling that I ask deep profound questions.
I realize this is true as well.
Me
Tell me about where you believe the future in Mexican textiles is heading and how that reflects on both Nafta and our current administration as a whole.
CS
Well,
Wait…what?
Me
Chris, may I call you Chris? I feel that your work has had a considerable role in changing people’s lives for the better in very pivotal but at the same kind subconscious ways.
Your opinion?
CS
Well, first I guess I’d like to start out by saying that-
Me
Did you know my ex-girlfriend used to fantasize about you when she was a teenager?
CS
No, I didn’t know that
Me
Yeah, she had a picture of you in a box, and would think about you by herself in the woods
CS
Uh well
Me
What do you say about that
CS
About what
Me
About underage teen age girls manipulating their genitalia in response to your image, in the woods?
CS
Well, I’d say that-
Me
Ha! So you admit it.
CS
Admit what?
Me
Do you have plans to sleep with my ex-girlfriend?
CS
No
Me
Liar!
CS
I don’t even know you-
There is a vibe here, a nervous energy much akin to that awkward pre-teen dating. Of my own sweaty and inexperienced first time in the woods.
Playing dirty truth or dare.
Nervous smiles, clammy hands and under inflated breasts - soft curly pubic hair.
I don’t remember the sounds. I remember the smell. It’s the humid warmth of a Jersey summer, and humidity and perspiration on the tip of the lip, looking at smuggled porn all day psyching ourselves out to do it.
I realize as I relive this Christian Slater is starring at me, looking at me.
Why is he here?
Did he follow me?
Is this my place?
Is he stalking me?
Or am I stalking him?
Me
Switching subjects tell me about your work with Patricia Arquette
CS
Huh?
I realize as we converse that he is obviously on drugs. The stark raving iris of a mad man gives it away. I must stare him down. I can’t let his gaze dominate mine.
I will beat him.
CS
Why are you staring?
Me
I’m casting my eyes deep into the heart of teen cool
CS
Well, when you put it like that
Me
A soul so immaculate, so pure and praiseworthy I must draw you.
CS
What?
Me
Here, You saw titanic.
I sense distrust. Fear. This is the first interview I’ve ever done with Christian Slater and he seems to be nervous around me. Like a lion I must not break his gaze. To retreat now would be sheer madness, suicide. But, if it’s a fight he wants – I will bring it to him.
CS
What magazine do you write for again?
Me
They have a Spanish word for you, it means both beast and crazy –
Pollo Loco
Christian mouths the words and they roll of his tongue in a linguistic waterfall.
CS
What does this mean, this Pollo Loco?
Me
I’m a journalist, not a translator. Keep it together man.
I offer him a cigarette and in the style of all famous authors and journalists we make love.
Afterwards, when we are finished, I hand him a towel and he wipes himself up.
CS
There was this time once; I was on set for this thing with Jack Nicholson and Mimi Van Doren.We had just finished filming a three-some, which for whatever reason didn’t air. Mimi retreats back to her trailer, tired likes, and Jackie and I are just hanging out reverberating in the afterglow. Happy likes, you know?
Chan, that’s our casting director walks in with two bags of thai opium and three teenage prostitues. Now at first I was a little skeeved out, and arguable so, they if anything, were only 14.
And, ugly…
We each dig in, start on the opium and pretty soon were burning through it like freedom fliers on red square. Well, pretty soon were knee deep in Thai hooker and I look over at Jacko and I say, Hey yours got a penis!
They are in some weird reverse lotus position and I can see both faces. The Thai kid, he is young and wild eyed – Jacko of course is puffing his hash and laughing manically.
He replies back to me behind loud guffaws – yours does to.
To my astonishment he did.
This is it, I realize…my moment to strike. His defenses are down. He does not expect me to attack him now. Look at him, calm, relaxed. He has no idea of the danger that awaits the trap that is about to spring.
I smile.
CS
Yeah, you could say they were good times.
Funny follow up.
Jacko gets the clap from this kid and later I find that Chan, got aids that same time around.
Now I’ve never gotten tested, but I figure when I give blood that they would let me know if something was up.
Well, with his culture being different and all he ended up being crucified on the Great wall, head removed and sent to the museum down in Shanghai.
Strange thing, cultures.
That reminds me, once in Jakarta we were taken to a bath house. It was after an all nighter ripped to shreds on triple latte’s, speedballs and a copious amount of amphetamines. Now, I’m not one for drugs. Never have been, never will. But, it was that bastard Chan again. Gets my weakness every time, domino affect and piles them one after another with the music, drinks, sex and then ultimately drugs. The odd thing was after we would screw he would always get that energy, casting fever he would call it and find out something more for us to do.
Something that would push us to some new extreme.
Something that we hadn’t tried yet, or wouldn’t live to try through.
It was a kind of suicide those days – a living with death in it’s freakish occurrences daily type thing. My publicist obviously hated Chan; hated him with a passion. She realized, and correctly so, that if I died in some kinky way that her career was over.
Kaput!
Who wants to manage the guy that had sex with the girl in Hanson?
Come to think about it, she’s the one who probably told the embassy about Chan and his T Cell count.
I strike suddenly, my hand flat out and straight into his throat.
My fingers make contact with the soft throaty flesh and I hear a crack.
He falls back gurgling up spit, kicks his feet for a few moments and lies still.
I stand over him, put my pants back on and straighten my shirt.
We are through here.
I walk over his body and out the door.
This is my first interview with Christian Slater.
I think it went well.
०२ फेब ०६
Emperor Norton I
I went home again.
The city. The bay. The people. This is home and I don't want to change it. I dream more there, I think more there - I might even dance better there. Then again, maybe not.
I'm getting old or else I'm just getting bored. Either way life always ends up like a david bowie song - pretty but with no real meaning. I've been trying to write a lot more lately but yet I find I've got nothing to write about.
I mean, technically I should be able to write volumes. Shit, we could start with Eric. Did you know he has a black pair of short shorts that he wears to the gym that have the words "Man Eater" written along the ass in hot pink? Seriously, I should be able to do something with that - but...what's the bother.
San Francisco though...what do you hold in store for me? My wallet gets a workout and my legs get tired and yet I'm smitten by you. If you could only cheat on me once or twice you'd remind me of an ex-girlfriend. Ooh....that was cheap.
Top 5 breakups of all time ( courtesy of Hi Fidelity)
1. Gould.
I don't really want to get into this story, lets just say it's hard to know that some times I was the bad guy, it's even harder to know that and keep it up. Thats how I roll, I keeps it gangsta.
2. Alena Palivoda
She was my first kiss. Polish and little mosquito bite boobies. This is in third grade and she always wanted to see my p-e-n-i-s. Little did I know that this would be a good indicator of things to come. For some reason my parents got it into my head that if a girl wanted to have sex with me then she definatley had to have AIDs.Therefore she became the first person I ever knew who had AIDs. In retrospect its really fucked up, but also I laughed when I wrote AIDs. It makes me thing of that song from Team America: World Police. We broke up after I accidentally broke her nose while playing T-Ball. I failed to mention that she is also my first girlfriend.
3) Jerri Something
She had a tattoo that drove me wild. I was 19 and at 17 she was already way cooler then me. This also would be a good indicator of things to come. It was a weird x crush and I don't think that I'd ever experienced that before. We used to do ether because I thought Hunter S. Thompson was cool...he still is. We broke up when a friend of mine who was a stripper let me in on the fact that she was sleeping around with like 4 other dudes and a traveling circus. Nice. It wasn't the fact that she went behind my back, it was that everyone knew but no one said a thing. Also, I think she stole my neighbors cat.
4) Rachel Knudsen.
We didn't really break up as much as disovle. She was my rebound in highschool. She started off as a best friend and finished off in a moan. We went to NY together and hated every second we spent...but god we were good in bed. Went to the poconos and relived my childhood in a Salvador Dali sort of way. Transitional like a junior prom.
5) Amber Kennedy
This is the first girl I ever loved. We worked together at the New Mexican writing for the teen page. God what a body (whistling sound ensues) She used to follow me home from school without me knowing. Now that would be known as stalking - but back when I was in highschool it was still hot. Sort of is now too. She promised me the world and faked tears on the phone when she broke my heart. I was sick for three days. In a good indicator of things to come I hooked up with her best friend. I never saw her again.
Dark thoughts from distant days, like Joy Division I'm being over dramatic.
Why did the blonde go to church?
Because she heard there was a man hung like this ( stretches arms out...christlike)
Real Politik
The 1st Amendment has been on my mind a lot lately, especially after those Danish cartoons of Mohamed appeared to cause riots world wide. I was proud of the European countries who stood up with the Danes and disappointed with those who didn't. The American response confused me because I can understand the thought process of the heads of the papers but not really stomach the actions. No major paper ran the cartoons; this was done in order not to offend any Muslims and inflame the situation.
While this may seem like a good decision as it respects the value of human life - it appears to me to instead strike a major blow to the 1st Amendment and bow into the pressures of a increasingly unstable religious group.
We take our freedoms for granted, but what will the cost be to defend them?
I am not a Muslim. I am not a follower of Allah nor have I read the Koran. I do not adhere to the tenets of whabism and furthermore I never intend to.
Why then do the commandments of one religion have to adhere to me? If that applies to me then it applies to the world.
The cartoons drew heat because one of them depicted a picture of Mohamed with a bomb in his turban. According to the Muslim faith, replication of the likeness of Mohamed is strictly forbidden.
Muslims were then incensed by the stereotypical portrayal of their prophet. Then, in true stereotypical fashion - they rioted. Almost right on cue.
They burned flags, they kidnapped people, stormed embassies and basically proved every stereotype true.
So whats the problem with the cartoon? In the US and abroad editorials abounded about how insensitive those cartoons were, how offensive they were to Muslims all over the world. Yet, no one mentioned how the Danes were "offended" by the destruction of their embassies or how "insensitive" it was for rioters to destroy Danish business.
In response to this violence the editors of the major European papers that printed them were fired, including the editors of the paper in Denmark. In fact, two Saudi newspaper editors who ran the cartoons were jailed and given death sentences by their government.
So then, this raises the question - what next?
Will our women have to wear veils in public?
This isn't a far fetched question. If we can fail so miserably on this first international battle of principles then what follows can only be bigger and more incredulous.
What happens next?
---------------The Cartoons In Question--------------
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/Loganbrouse/Mohammed-drawings-newspaper1.jpg
02 May 2006
I am a man, dammit.
I like boobies and I like vodka.
I swear and I like to shoot guns.
I leave the toilet seat up.
I never fold my gym clothes.
That doesn't mean I don't have a sensitive side.
Take the lyrics of Don't Stop Believing by super group Journey. What does it mean?
At first we are introduced to the seemingly mundane life of a small town girl - she's livin' in a lonely world.
What does this mean to us. Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) lays it out for us, not with words but with rock! She's taking a midnight train - and baby, it's goin' anywhere. This is where we are introduced to the genius of Journey. You see, he's a city boy but Journey sets us right with the knowledge that his life...its just as bad. He's taking that train too.
Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin' anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit
He took the midnight train goin' anywhere
This next verse is a personal favorite because we see how the cynical realities of the world they inhabit struggle to destroy the souls of the youth that exist within. The smokey room is merely a metaphor for the coquettish arrogance of youth and Journey is trying to tell us that like Romeo and Juliet these kids, with their youth and their spirit - they can beat it. They're not jaded by the cruel hypocrisies and banalities of this travesty called life. No - they believe in love, they want to give it a shot and for a smile they can share the night. This verse ends with hope - it gives a message of faith and ultimately...redemption. Only if it would go on and on and on and on...
A singer in a smokey room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on and on and on
The following part of the song is indicative to the story of Job. What the people lament is what makes the people who they are. Journey is telling you to take your star bucks liberalism and your harry potter ideals of justice and shove them far up your ass. These strangers that they speak of, these shadows searching in the night, well they are just as real as you and me. Its like Journey challenged us to look deep in to the abyss of our souls, to try and shine a spotlight into the truth of what makes us who we are - and then played four minutes and nine seconds of rock over the muffled cries of our inner child. Fuck Yeah!
Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard
Their shadows searching in the night
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
Hiding, somewhere in the night
This last part of the song I usually skip because I'm still too busy rocking to the first parts. For the sake of argument - I will say that its really a reflection of who we are as a people and the merits of the choices that we make. I feel that Steve Perry (P.B.U.H.) really lays out our options and tells us that the choices we have to make aren't always the choicest of choices. What Journey means by this is that sometimes, our options are always the best option to option. We're all payin anything to roll the dice, just one more time. Sing that without crying.
I dare you.
Working hard to get my fill,
everybody wants a thrill
Payin' anything to roll the dice,
just one more time
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
Of course the chorus is a mere repetition of the basic themes of the song - one of youth and young manhood. One of beauty and loss, of the duality of man. Of the burdens of duty and desire. This is the music that the heart beats to, it what gets you up in the morning and puts a smile on your face when you sleep. This is the stuff that makes you straighten your posture and become a better man. It's like Chuck Norris sang falsetto then learned how to play a synthesizer and formed a super group with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mr. T.
It is a homage to all things awesome and a sacrificial offering to Elvis at the temple of Rock!
(chorus)
Don't stop believin'
Hold on to the feelin'
Streetlight people
08 Jun 2006
If only the stems work...
Playing trivial pursuit drinking tequila listening to the kinks and this sideways seventies smile comes out of me. The beer must be flat but it's summer time, and I've still got my youth....Friday, July 20, 2007
10 Oct 2006
syllables then 7 then 5
Walking through the city today I thought of some hiaku that reflected the atmosphere. Here they are in their un-edited form:
1)
black kids run so fast
the city's a drum machine
silence, decieving
2) A pensive bull dyke
crouches on her lovers face
pretends we aren't there
3) Grey not yellow
asian toddlers look like aliens
the truth is out there
17 Oct 2006
Not even a month and we've already been fired...
On Saturday the 14th Eric was officially fired from his first job. How you ask? Why you ask? Well - it wasn't my fault.
Seriously.
We were supposed to be catering this wedding at the Presidio. We were supposed to get there at about 4pm. Due to the fact that Eric can't hail a cab worth shit - he got there around 5. Due to the fact that I didn't care I got there around six. So far, good start - right
So we're working this wedding - hanging out, getting the bartenders to hook us up with shots and drinks - basically having a pretty decent time. Now, since we are in San Francisco the caterer is gay. Which makes his boyfriend gay. So we meet Lee (the boyfriend) and he seems pretty cool. A little too cool if you catch my drift?
So this Lee guy and actually all the people there are pretty cool and they are giving us there cards and telling us how they'll set us up for other gigs because of the good job we were doing.
Now, I've got to tell the truth here - Eric was doing a good job, he really was working hard - bussing and running shit...blah,blah,blah.
On the other hand, I had been walking around for about an hour with the same glasses just going back and forth between the busser station, the reception area and my little hiding place. I was smart though and the boss man, Aaron thought I was really working hard. A plus for me!
We start wrapping up the night and Lee the boyfriend starts trying to get us drunk. I warn him that I'm from Santa Fe, that I am a proffesional drinker and that it wouldn't be as much for him as it would be for Eric and I. He refuses to let my good advice sway him and proceeds to try to outdrink me with tequila. Well about 5 shots later hes slurring his words, leaning on shit and hanging on Eric. Eric, a non-tequila drinker is also sloshed.
I keep drinking a little bit keeping the 505 torch held high.
Let me re-itereate here, that even though we were both late everyone really liked us. We won them over. We were going to be friends.
Seeing that all our work is done Aaron the boss pays me in cash. Then he asks me where Eric is to which I tell the truth - I don't know. We go looking for Eric and in the process find him in the boys bathroom (this was a highschool that the wedding was thrown in) pants down around his ankles engaged in a very, very awkard position with our friend Lee. Well Aaron runs out crying, Lee does whatever Lee does and Eric sneaks out of the building and hides.
This is the last thing I remember...
Cut to 5 hours later and its about 4 am and I'm lying face down at the bottom of a hill in a thicket. Eric and my new jeans are nowhere to be seen. For some reason I have my phone, have my wallet and have my money. Just no jeans. Why? Why?
I walk the 5 miles back to my house cursing Erics name for leaving me. I left him a message threatening to kill him. I try to hail a cab - but no one would pick up a guy without pants covered in leaves.
The next moring Eric tells me that as we started to walk home I nose dived off the side of a hill and there I lay - unwilling or unable to move. So he hoped a cap and left me.
We have reached the status of rockstars. There is no turning back.
24 Oct 2006
He who dares wins in the city...
So, its important to note that in general - I'm not that bad of a guy. Por Hemplo, I usually try to give money to the homeless and compliment the ugly. I always tip both servers and strippers and I usually try to do that tap on the head thing before I...ahem. Well, despite all these great character traits I'm still finding myself on the banned list of certain hotels.
Here's the thing - third night in San Francisco and we spend it drinking and eating at this place called Cha Cha Cha on Haight street. I'm there with my friends Tony and Mely two fellow Santa Fe transplants as well as King George and Eric. We get bombed and start speaking supermarket Italian. You know, Preggo, Mozzeralla..Provolone, conversing gallantly in the romance language. Well as things go we left the restaurant and hit some clubs and had a great evening.
Pretty normal - but don't worry...it gets better.
Around two in the morning we get back to the hotel and find ourselves with a mighty thirst. At first Tony, Eric and I try to hit one of the liquor stores (I didn't know they stopped selling at 2) but it's of no use. One funny thing is that I learned that Eric makes like a gay rabbit and flees at the first sign of danger (in this case a wheel chair bound Rasta who was rolling behind us shouting shit). We get back to the hotel disappointed and decided to order a pizza. At three in the morning both are very essential. Unfortunately for us, Mr. Pizza Man the 24hr pizza delivery service wouldn't deliver to our hotel.
In that moment of glorious defiance I ripped up the phone book in protest of the pizza company that spited us. I threw the shredded pieces of paper out the window and down they fell 6 stories to 4th street - like some urban duck hunt gone awry. This was followed in rapid succession by a water glass, an iron, a tv remote control, a Gideons bible, one air jordan, 4 eggs, coffee mix, a coffee pot, Georges and then my urine, Eric's Argyle sweater and finally our innocence which fell faster then michael jacksons pants at a boyscout jamboree. Everything hit the ground with either a satisfying thud or an electrifying crash!
Then as if a sign from heaven, or at least from the hotels management( at this point in my life one might be a metaphor for the other) the phone in our room began to ring.I failed to mention that Eric had passed out. This is important later.
My general rule of thumb is that if your hotel phone rings after 2 in the morning its always best to grab your shit and flee. Which is what we did. Except for Eric who was assed out.
I make it halfway down the hall and almost to the elevator when my conscious kicks in. I couldn't leave Eric, he was co-signer of my lease, my personal Internet cafe (I am using his laptop to write this) a source of most of my jokes, my hetero life partner and most important my friend. So with no regard for danger to either life or limb I went back for him. I ran in the room and shook him till he woke up - sleepy, drunk and confused. I told him grab your shit and go. It took him a minute to comprehend the scope of what I was yelling at him.
Just a quick aside, King George has learned this from numerous strip club encounters - when I say we have to go...I mean it, we have to go now.
We grab as much shit as we can from the room and head toward the elevator. Its at this moment when the story goes from mundane to insane.
Like cowboys we're cut off at the pass by savages - in this case the night bellman. He yells in full authority - were you the ones in 617? Of course, being the slick tongued smooth operating devil that I am - I yell no. I must have telegraphed my intentions with my eyes because he grabs for my arm. I pull a terell owens do a juke and sprint down the stairs, yelling at Eric -run motherfucker! I get down to the lobby and the little bastard bellman has beat me there, must have taken the elevator. He's at the door. He's blocking it with his body. Telling me the cops are on the way. Telling me I'm going to jail. I tell him I don't want trouble, pretend like I'm heading to the front desk and then when his guards down - I tackle him. We both go flying threw the front door of the hotel in an orgy of destruction and youthful ambition.
I will not go silently into that good night.
I get up - the bellman's down, I take off running down the street. I pass Tony, yell at him to run, he hands me his car keys and I fly four blocks down the street and hide in his car.
George, Mely and Tony join me shortly - but where's Eric?
From the car I see about 5 cruisers blazing down the street towards the hotel. I picture little Eric being taken downtown, being interrogated - bright light shinning in his face. Grizzled police asking him - where were you the night of October 5? The Judge throwing the book at him - prison showers...then I realize he might like it and suddenly I don't feel that bad. We creep down by the hotel, Erics in cuffs sitting on the curb. We pull into a little side street and wait. Delighted to be alive and scared for my friend. Then my phone rings and its Eric and they let him out. He's down the street hiding from homeless. He says the cops are looking for us. He tells us that he acted his balls off with the cops - told them that he didn't know us, was just invited to party in our room. Since his name wasn't on any of the hotel registers they let him go.
I ask him what happened in the hotel - how did the bastards get you?
He tells us that he was right behind me - he saw the tackle and as he was about to make his move the other guy behind the front desk locked the door by remote. He hit the door anyway and thats when he got tackled by a now very angry bellman. The front desk dude threw the bellman a club and threatened to brain eric with it if he got up. Thats how he stayed till the cops arrived.
Its King Georges last night in town and we pick up Eric and race to get George to the Airport - laughing the hole time.
Who says youth is wasted on the young?
15 Nov 2006
 | I always said I was a juicy piece of man candy...  Dicitionary.Com defines discomfort as 1. an absence of comfort or ease; uneasiness, hardship, or mild pain. 2. anything that is disturbing to or interferes with comfort. I define discomfort as 43 hives appearing around my neck on Sunday, 27 individual hives appearing on my right arm on monday followed by another 12 on my left arm and numerous blisters and red spots suddenly appearing all over my back and legs shortly there after. I state here for the record that I am not a fan of tradional western medicine - not that I'm an incense loving hoaxa tea drinking, yoga worshiping neophyte hippie far from it (except for the hoaxa tea thing) just that I don't really want pills and steroids and antibiotics raging unchecked through my liqour infused body. That changes at 3 in the morning when I am in extreme discomfort. That changes when hives appear on my eyelids, on my ears, my toes and my hand swells so that I can't close it. After that point shoot me the fuck up with whatever you have handy. Steriods, pile em on, wanna test a new radiation therapy - please It'd be my pleasure - pump me full of artificial pick me ups like a lab rat and watch me explode across the sky like a billion bottle rockets on the 4th of july. I checked myself into the ER. Nicole and Eric went with me, Nicole also seemed to be having the same problem but not as bad. For her it was confined to her legs and cheeks whereas I looked like I coated myself in red chile and then jump kicked a wasps nest. This was my first time visit as a patient in a hospital. I was also slightly buzzed and more then a little nervous. I went to a room and they took my temperature and blood pressure and then put me in a gown. Nicole and Eric where in the next little partioned off corner of the room. I opened the curtains to hear them laughing at my lack of modesty - quickly I crossed my legs. In my mind I was trying to figure out how I could achieve the following: A) How to get rid of the rash that was covering my body B) How to not pay for the visit C) How to get a prescription for either valium or medical marijuanna With luck and charm I achieved 2 out of 3 The Doc deteremined that I was suffering from an acute allergic reaction to bug bites suffered from one of the shady hotels I'd been staying in. I determined my name was Eric Fura and signed his name to all the forms (any reference to people either living or dead is purely coincidental) The doc gave me benadryll, steriods (not the pump you up kind - I asked) antibiotics and something for the inflamation. In a bold effort to achieve my third goal of narcotics I told the doctor I had extreme anxiety - told him I was scared of scratching myself to ribbons in my sleep - scared I would wake up without a face and if there was anything he could do... He paused for a second, I took the oppurtunity to reach into my pocket - slip him a twenty to see if it would help, instead I pulled out a $1 bill and a devilish smile. You can't win em all. I went back to my hotel with Eric and Nicole and took all my meds. They told me I couldn't drink because of my antiobiotics. This lasted for a day. My hives are faded, my skin is a solid mocha brown and my blood is pulsing with chemicals. Kind of like I never left Santa Fe. |
24 Nov 2006
24 Nov 2006
| Leftovers are for folks with a fridge... Whisky and Benadryll |
26 Dec 2006
26 Dec 2006
| christmas My candle burns at both ends; |
New Years 2007
31 Dec 2006
| new year's eve day The tap, Close my eyes and flow. Allegory. |
Non descpript thursdays in the mission...
You know, its not that I ever want to sound grotesque or obscene. I just want to write my little stories, tell you about my little adventures and have a jolly old time. Not too much to ask for. Its not like I could've planned my night out in the mission. I don't make these things up, unless noted I don't even elaborate. I just report. Cold hard objective style.
It was around 11 at night and I just closed the bar where I work. My co-worker Eric (not my roomie) and I were going to hit up some bars in the mission and get swerved. All seemed in order. He had a car and we stopped down in Hayes valley to pick up a friend of his. Somehow or another Eric didn't get the name of the bar right and we stopped at the wrong place. I know I'm in San Francisco, I know it's the heart of gay culture but I just don't think about these things. So I walk into the club, walk passed the 6'4 Irish bouncer who was dressed as Donna Reid and into...a tranny bar. The music stopped. The crowd inside grew silent.
Stared at us.
The people on stage doing some cabaret thing stopped.
Everyone stopped and stared, and stared and stared.
Being sober, I didn't quite know what to make of the situation.
Do I start belting out Madonna classics?
Do I vogue?
Do I order a blue cosmo and bitch about the new goldfrapp cd?
As one the crowd smiles at me, bats their eyelids.
Beehives, polka dot dresses and high high heels are all a titter in
antica - pation.
I back the fuck up out of the bar, careful to not let them see me sweat.
Like woman and sharks - the gays can smell fear.
Slowly, slowly, slow-ly we back into my coworkers car.
He's fumbling with the keys. Their following us outside like coked out zombies from some sick wax museum of ktichy '70s era housewives.
Safe in the car we lock the doors and blast metallica, we don't say anything - we don't make eye contact.
Up the block we find Eric's friend - I offer to buy a round of shots, but its only beer and wine so we leave. Pussies.
On the way to the mission I call my friend tattoo Lisa from Santa Fe. We meet her outside of a bar called the phone booth. She's sitting on the stairs drinking a mini bottle of Jameson.
Offers us a sip and we pull out our flasks filled to the brim with a wicked Irish lullaby.
Safely seated and on the road again we head off into the boozy night of San Francisco.
We hit a place called Bruno's - hot chick bartenders and dudes in loosened ties slumming it. The place is a mess of young lawyers, deflated egos and the pulsating madness of 20 something rage. Bodies slamming grinding against each other in the inferno like bumper cars. Screaming train wrecks of people hollering against the wails of the Dj's top twenty - the glare of the strobe lights pulsates rhythmically to my heart beat.
Somehow our party spills into the street, cars whizz by like piss on an electric fence. People are hollering, shouting and spilling out their guts to which ever pavement will listen. Our uniform is couture, our dress is rebellious rich youth - diesel jeans and chuck taylors - we are crimes against conformity. I'm pushed into Beauty Bar, pushed past people getting manicures by incredible hip two toned hair women with superbly decorated fingernails and into the sweaty mash on the dance floor. Beers in hand and fernet on my lips - lovers or strangers grinding next to me, shouting things in different languages happy to be alive, to be there and bare witness on a nondescript thursday in January.
Then its last call and the cold of the street again, my eyes watery and the world hazy. People are passing out, stumblers swinging on the sidewalk like chandeliers and even though its time for bed something screams out more more more. I need to get back to north beach. Need to get home to my baby, need to take a piss.
Scandalously I scamper in the night - uncork my champagne and let it fly on a doorway. A 100 proof stream trickles away from me. There's light and a door opens and for a second I imagine that I've died. I aim my stream towards the light. I've died, and God's a Pakistani and he's very mad at me. I'm pissing in the doorway of his store- his store that's still open. That's still serving people. That I'm pissing in. They're watching me and laughing, pointing holding their sides so their guts don't fall out.
Slowly I back up.
Slow-ly button my pants.
Slow-ly back towards the street.
Am I sensing a theme for the night?
Then its a taqueria and chaos, the late night car salesman desperate to seal a deal with chicks obliterated on one to many mai tai's. They're revved up with redbull, faces red and veins bulging in thier necks. The drunks look like they've been chocked half to death libido's in overdrive - ready to explode like the deathstar in a moments notice.
I back out of the bar and wipe the lust of my brow.
Back out in the street and its hugs and slaps on the back and "Logan where were you?"
There's bottles to finish and breathless sighs and smiles and whirlwind of does and don't and half remembered finishes.
Fernet, Chartuese and Jamesone singing through my blue label liver. Couldn't hop a cab cause I didn't have cash, couldn't take a bus cause I didn't have balls and couldn't bum a ride because my friends couldn't stand. Eaten alive by the dreams of another night, stung by a drinking bee and thirsty for more I stood savagely in the street like Daedelus over the sea.
Stinking drunk and missing friends,
but patient.
now you know I'm here.
Grabbing the Shark
31 Jan 2007
| Grabbing the shark by the fin...  Monterrey bay If Rascal is my middle name then Danger is my first. It's not that I plan adventure - I find it's the adventure that seeks me out. Let me tell you about how I almost got kicked out of the Monterrey Bay aquarium. Let me tell you how I stared death in the face and blew it a kiss and gave it a wink. I woke up on Sunday at 8:30 am to meet with Tony and Betsy who were driving in from Alameda to take Nicole and I down to Monterrey. It was a sunny day in north beach and we decided to get some breakfast. Tony was taking his time so we followed up our food with bloody mary's at O'reilly's our favorite Irish pub. We were going to invite Eric to come with us but he's too poor. Wait, that sounds mean. We were going to invite Eric to come with us but he had to work...yeah - that's sounds good. So we get in the car and Tony informs us that he has a 30 pack of bud light in the back. Usually when people say they have booze I feel l they are specifically talking to me - and I try to oblige them. By the time we get to the gas station San Jose (30 miles away) he has 10 beers left and a bunch of cans. These are the black thunderclouds that hang ominously in the horizon foreshadowing some sinister event. By the time we get to Monterrey we've mostly run out of beer (we'll I've mostly run out of his beer) and we've moved onto black label sparks. When I bought them the lady at the store warned me that they had liquor and a cop would ticket us for drinking them in public. I re-assured her by telling her that we would only drink them on the car ride to the aquarium. Strangely she seemed OK with that. Then we drive and drive and pass sand dunes and the ocean. By the time we get to the aquarium the sparks are gone and my flask is empty. We debate getting margaritas and decide against it - for the good of both our fellow man and the fish. The aquarium is is a sea of silent despair. Stupid sea otters bang there heads on the glass of their holding tanks as I selfishly hold my hot-dog out in front of them. Above the entrance to the cafe where the beer is sold is a huge whale skeleton. That means I'm standing under a huge whale skeleton. I keep wondering what the other fish think when they see it. We thought Abu Gharib was bad. By this point our words are slurred and we're stumbling and pushing past the smaller slower children. We're a wreck of tourists as we stroll around incredibly fresh sushi. The first and near last exhibit we went to was a touching tank. I've been to touching tanks before but usually they involve ecstasy and house music. This was different. Little kids we're getting their pre-pubescent rocks off picking up star fish and petting sea anemone's. No menthol ciggarettes, no back rubs just sea cucumbers and paper towels. The way they had it set up is that there is a touch tank of the fish I just mentioned and then another tank that connects to it via slotted holes in another room. In this other tank there were sharks and sting rays and more sharks. Nothing big, length of my arm at the max. But still - sharks. So I surprised myself by not falling into the tank and reached down and tried to touch a sting ray. Nicole tried to take a picture. Then Tony tried the same - Betsy got the shot. I made a Steve Irwin joke and a little kid teared up. This wouldn't be the last time. Those thunderclouds from earlier - they were starting to rumble. So this shark comes cruising by me and I have this flash back of my grandfather on fishing trips holding up shit he pulled from the sea by the tail and smiled for photos. I make a grab for it. The picture at the top of this post was taken right when I grabbed the shark. It felt like wet leather and power and I grabbed it's tail and yanked. Two things happened. One, time slowed down. I saw a lady in a uniform start to slow motion yell at me, noooooooooo! as she pushed people out of her way to get to me. Two, I grabbed a fucking shark. The realization hit me when it turned on me and tried to bite me. I pulled my hand quickly out of the water and splashed some little kid who was in a stroller. He started to cry too. I turned around to run, someone tried to grab me and I ducked and that dude bumped someone else who dropped their camera into the tank. Things were happening quickly now. Betsy, Tony's girlfriend was bewildered but thankfully Tony had been through this before (see the pickwick hotel episode) he grabbed her and quickly walked out. The person who's camera was in the aquarium was yelling at the guy who tried to grab me for knocking it out of her hand as I was trying to get away. Then the shark who's highly agitated makes a pass at her, tries to bite her. People are in an uproar. Children are crying. Asian tourists are taking pictures. I back out slow and quick just as security starts getting there. I'd love to tell you how we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the jelly fish, yellow fin tuna and other delectables and while we did those things I also spent time looking over my shoulder for bigger fish - you know...the kind with badges. We spent the remainder of the day eating mexican food, drinking pitchers of margaritas and talking in old tyme voices, see. We drove in inky blackness through Carmel and made it to a target in some sleepy sea-side town before getting gas and heading home. On the way we polished off three cigars, two bottles of wine and the majority of Nicole's sobriety. We finished the night almost as we started it, in the bars of North Beach. Safe and secure home again and bewildered how we got there. |
Thursday, July 5, 2007
An Ode to Jack (either Daniels or Keroac
We are on the road again
pre-emptive surgical shots
followed by laser chasers
glee fully running through
our spirtual deforestations
lost
in a karaoke bar
trapped in San Francisco
the only way out
is blowing kisses from the end
of another bottle
merry makers
fools...
rosey cheeked &
gin blossomed
our ugly beautiful way
is our golden escape
pre-emptive surgical shots
followed by laser chasers
glee fully running through
our spirtual deforestations
lost
in a karaoke bar
trapped in San Francisco
the only way out
is blowing kisses from the end
of another bottle
merry makers
fools...
rosey cheeked &
gin blossomed
our ugly beautiful way
is our golden escape
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