memorial

So Bonds passed the Babe on the all-time list today. I found out about it while watching the live updates of my fantasy baseball league. I got my ass handed to me this week, but I almost came back and won it. I would have, I think, if my pitchers could throw strikes...and get batters out, of course. Bonds will have to hit 30-something more home runs before everyone gets all worked up again (he sits 40 behind Hank Aaron on the all-time list). For now, the game will settle back into it's slow and steady rhythm, and all is right with the world--at least in my world--because the Mets sit at the top of their division by 3.5 games.

That's not all that's going well, I guess. It's been a good weekend, as weekends go. I did the bar circuit as per usual and I only had to go to work on Saturday. I even did laundry so I have clean underwear again. All of those things make me happy. Well, I could have done without work on Saturday, but that's why I get paid the big bucks. Oh wait, I don't. Scratch that.

Tonight I saw the new X-Men movie, which was good, but nowhere near as bad ass as the last one. It was entertaining enough though: big action, some good humor when things got too serious, nice effects, loud noises, hot women and bad ass dudes (I used to hate Wolverine, but Hugh Jackman pretty much rules). Ian McKellan really makes the whole movie work, though. He's really convincing as Magneto, and even manages not to look like an idiot when he's wearing that cape and the silly helmet. Well, not a complete idiot anyway. I was happy to see Halle Berry give Storm a bit more personality and be more of the strong character she was in the comics (at least when I was growing up), and I was just happy to see Famke Jensen as Jean Grey/Phoenix. Sweet.

What I like about the X-Men franchise is that there's been a clear storyline through out. It's not just a series of hero fights villain, hero kills villain. Though I didn't like the first one, all three have played very well off of each other, and though Bret Ratner is no Bryan Singer, the film didn't lose much with him at the helm. Ratner stuck to the themes and characterizations of the first two movies very well. Though the story doesn't follow the comics exactly, they have done a good job creating a separate X-Universe in the films that works really well.

I almost didn't get to see Hugh or Ian or Halle or Famke or anything, however. I ordered the tickets online for the first time from Cinemark.com, fearing the show would be sold out. But I didn't bother recording my confirmation number, because I do a lot of business online, or over the phone, and they're always trying to give me confirmation numbers. They'll ask "do you want your confirmation number?" and I'll ask, "do I need it?" and they'll answer, "well, no, not really." Sometimes they'll ask me if I want it, and I say, "sure," just to be polite. They'll read it off and I'll act as if I'm writing it down, but I'm really not. I'll just lose that piece of paper anyway.

But Cinemark is serious about their confirmation numbers, as I found out today. I got to the kiosk with my ID out, because in all the yammering small print, I saw the word ID pop up (I guess that's not really a word, but whatever). I told the attendant that I was here to pick up my ticket that I'd purchased online, and she asked, "Do you have your confirmation number?" though we were only separated by a small layer of glass, she spoke through the microphone and speaker system.

"Nope, but I have my ID." I slipped it through the window slot.

"I can't give you your ticket without your confirmation number," she said apologetically.

I was decidedly frazzled. I think I said something like, "Oh, uh, hm. I have my ID."

"I'm sorry, sir," she said patiently. "I can get the manager, if you'd like."

"Could you?" I asked. Of course she could. She already said so.

The manager arrived, a young portly man with red hair and goatee. He was briefed on the situation and approached me. "You don't have your confirmation number?" he asked.

"I've never done this before," I said.

"You need that confirmation number."

"I have my ID," I said futily.

"And the card I ordered the ticket with." There it was. My ace in the hole.

"The important thing is that confirmation number," he said. But I could tell he had sympathy for my plight. "I could check on your credit card, but I'd have to call the main office in Dallas, and it's late...and it's a Sunday..."

He held my movie-watching fate in his hands, as I'm sure he has to countless other poor goobers who have had trouble negotiating the trecherous world of Internet commerce. Would I be let in or sent away? It was up to him to decide. This was why he was named manager.

"Let me see what I can do."

He entered the kiosk, made a phone call, then addressed me via the microphone and speaker box. "You May Enter," he said, in not so many words. He informed the girl behind the counter of the arrangement. I signed a guest check and was given a ticket. She smiled somewhat excitedly, as if she'd just seen the everyman triumph, against all odds. "Enjoy the show!" she chirped. In my mind, a slow clap built to thunderous applause.

More proof that all is right in my world is that, thanks to my roomies ordering sexy underthings, I now receive the Victoria's Secret catalog, meaning Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio will be delivered into my home, and subsequently, my sweaty clutches, on a regular basis. The Victoria's Secret Catalog is a wonderful thing because the items showcased within help women feel sexy, beautiful and desirable, and also works well for makeshift free pornography in a pinch. I haven't had to stoop to that level yet, but I will do so without shame if the need arises.



[I totally made the above image all by my lonesome with Microsoft Photo Editor. I feel like some kind of misunderstood genius. It required not only my sad perversions, but some math as well. This is truly a great day.]

this entire summer, i'll have nothing to do, except perhaps party with jessica alba

My whole day, pretty much, was just a tedious bundle of hours waiting for the LOST season finale. I should have just slept in. I did a bunch of work and fussed my way through e-mails, but I couldn't stop looking at the clock. The season finale was awesome, and I think I was standing for most of it; but the only thing that sucked about it was the realization that I'd have to wait FOREVER to see the next new episode. It's like four months away, and I could be dead by then. All that are left now are the long, hot, Evangeline Lilly-less days of summer. Luckily, my roommates are still catching up watching season one...

I'll manage to survive somehow. LOST dominated much of the day, but there was still some other shit that happened too. I locked my door behind me this morning and instantly realized I'd left without my keys. No one was home when I got out of work, so I had to climb in through the side window, which turned out to be a very demoralizing venture. The window didn't look all that high up, but I'm not as spry as I was when I was but a lad. I opened the window and placed my arms on the sill and quickly took stock of my perdicament. The windowsill stood about chest high. I figured a simple hop would do it, and it would have, if I were an NBA star. A running start would do. For some reason, I thought I'd be able to vault myself in like Mary Lou Retton or... some... male gymnast. I took a few steps back, lurched foward, hopped, then jumped and banged up my shins something awful. I was left with no other option other than brute strength. If I couldn't pull it off, there was no telling whether or not I'd even see the finale. I muscled up to the window, planted my hands firmly hopped and leveraged against the sill.

I hung motionless above the ground, and my thighs were yelling at me to the tune of "You dumb chubby fuck! Call a locksmith!" But I perservered. Or however it's spelled. And pushed my behemoth noggin through the blinds. I'm glad no one was in earshot of my pathetic groans and wheezes. I kicked and struggled and slithered my gut over the sill and into my house. Take that Mary Lou. And I landed in a crouch on my living room floor. I thought I'd torn a quad or something the way my legs were yelling at me, but I told them to fuck off. Pizza was on the way and Evangeline would be close behind.

I also got a shout out on the MySpace page of one of the bands I interviewed (a kinda big one on Ozzfest). I was stoked and felt like a celebrity. But that may have been because I'd gotten an e-mail from Jessica Alba earlier in the day--two, in fact!

Okay, so I suppose they weren't really from Jessica Alba. Apparently she doesn't have the time, nor the desire, to e-mail ponderously bulky dudes who flop around like docked mackeral when they're trying to break into their own houses. The e-mails were sent by a marketing company plugging a contest for tickets to the MTV Movie Awards, which I suppose must be hosted by Jessica Alba this year. The e-mails had a flier with a picture of Jessica on it and some shit about how, if you won, you'd be able to interview stars and stuff, and a link to a contest page. However, when I checked the "from" line of the e-mail, they read "Jessica Alba." Well, it was funny when I was at the office. It seems to have lost something now. So here's another picture. Good night.

melting pot

I watched an episode from season 5 of The Sopranos tonight that kinda got to me. In this season, Tony Soprano's cousin, Tony B. (played by Steve Buscemi), is let out of prison and tells Soprano that he wants to go straight. He did some thinking in the pen and decided to learn a traded instead of reentering the family business. Soprano's a bit upset by this, wanting things to back as they were, but supports his cousin in his new endeavor and goes as far as to set him up with a legit job while he studies to become a state-certified masseur. Tony B.'s job is with Mr. Kim, a Korean immigrant who owns and operates a laundry business. Kim doesn't like having Tony B. around, but knows he needs Soprano's union connections to survive. In this episode, Tony B. is out on the job and while he's loading the back of the truck, it gets stolen. Kim initially blames Tony, because of his previous record, but after finding out it was the work of two kids looking for a joyride, apologizes and offers Tony a deal. Kim says that he found out that Tony is studying to better himself, and given the long hours he's working at the laundry service, Kim admires Tony's work ethic. He tells Tony that as soon as he's board-certified, Kim will let him use an old storefront he owns as an office. The two will be partners, and Kim's directionless daughter (who's smoking hot by the way) will help out as well.

Tony is elated. He's teary eyed when telling the rest of the guys and says "Getting out of prison is a lot like being an immigrant." Tony gets his certification and begins work on fixing the office while splitting time working the laundry business. One night, Tony's sharing the story of his good fortune with his girlfriend when a car comes zipping around the block and tosses a bag out the window. Tony goes over to investigate and it's full of drugs and money, $12K. He tosses the drugs and keeps the money. He says he's going to buy his girl a ring, but she advises that he should invest that money back into the business. He ends up spending it on alcohol and gambling and living the good life he was accustomed to before he went to prison. However, this time around he's still busting his ass at his two legit enterprises. It gets to be too much for Tony. The scene that got me was, after a long night of drinking and gambling, Tony was painting at the office and gets a call from his girlfriend. She tells him the massage tables were sent to his grandmother's address (the wrong place) and he snaps at her; she snaps back. He hangs up on her when Kim walks in. He says the place is looking nice and asks about the tables. Tony snaps at him and goes back to painting. Kim is in a good mood, because he's looking forward to the new venture, but Tony is bent over and angry. Kim is unbothered by the snippy remark and continues with the conversation, but Tony only becomes more agitated and makes fun of Kim's thick accent. Kim again remains positive, though he's obviously hurt by the remark and says, "So, partner, we open in three days!" To which Tony punches him hard in the nose. It was a very violent scene and very troubling to watch.

My grandparents were immigrants, obviously, because I'm a white person. My family wasn't brought here in chains or nudged out of their homes. Still, I'm sure my grandparents suffered some measure of discrimination or prejudice when they got here, which they in turn levied on to the next group that arrived. The door to the country was open, but I don't think there was a welcome mat. I haven't followed it all that much, and I don't understand a lot of the measures whatnot that Congress keeps voting on in regards to immigration. I'm not a big follower of politics, but it weirded me out when I heard that a measure to build a giant fence across the US-Mexico border was passed by an overwhelming majority. It almost seems like something out of a movie, like Escape from New York or something. Really? A fence? A giant fence? It's the message it sends out more than anything that bothers me. I mean, even I can scale a fence, and if they were going to throw all this money at something to keep Mexicans out of the country, I figured they'd put it toward something that might actually work. I always figured the more the merrier. I've driven across the country a couple times and I was surprised to see that there wasn't anything there. Just tons of empty space. I dunno, now maybe it's a good thing they build a fence so people can't get in. That way they won't find out that the American dream is rapidly turning to shit.

In that article I linked to a Republican senator from Alabama, Jeff Sessions, said that The Great Wall of Texas would be "a signal that open-border days are over." He then butchered a quote from one of my favorite poets, Robert Frost, "Good fences make good neighbors, fences don't make bad neighbors."

Of course, if Jeff Sessions had read the poem, he may have realized the irony in that statement.

Mending Wall
By Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

714

My old roommate Ashley sent me a text message that read "Guess who just saw Barry Bonds hit 714." It was followed by a second message that read "That would be me." She was at the interleague game between the Giants and the A's at the McAfee Coliseum. I wrote her back and said that she was very lucky, and I was very jealous. When I was a kid, I watched David Cone go eight-plus innings with a no-hitter. It would have been the first in Mets history, and something that I'd remember--to the minutest detail--for my entire life. To this date, no Mets pitcher has ever thrown a no-hitter. That was the closest I'd ever been to baseball immortality, and even that would've paled in comparison to seeing the Babe tied at no. 2 on the all-time homerun list. I watched Bonds's press conference, and he was remarkably humble. I don't think it had set in. I could imagine it would be a surreal moment. However, I thought Brad Halsey's press conference was more interesting. Brad Halsey will appear as the answer to a question in Trivial Pursuit for years to come. He gave up the gopher ball to Bonds. Halsey was pretty laissez-faire to being a footnote in baseball history. He said that he was just one of 714 and that the homerun wasn't the first he gave up and certainly wouldn't be the last. Toward the end of the conference, he was asked if all the pomp and circumstance going into a Bonds at bat. Since he's chasing history, the baseball has to be swapped out for his at bat. A special ball is put into play in order to dissuade counterfeiters and profiteers. Halsey said the balls used for a Bonds at bat had a B on them and a number, and a pitcher of Barry. "Barry's face is on the ball?" asked a reporter. "Yeah," said Halsey. "And if you look it in the eye, it winks at you."

hang nail

Even when I was a kid, I didn't dance. I'd watch my relatives at weddings, engagements and graduations, and see how much fun they were having making fools of themselves to the electric slide, but I could never lower myself to join them. I was afraid people would laugh at me. At one of these graduation parties, the music was playing all night, and I was probably five years old. My mother encouraged me to go and have fun, but I just sat at the table and watched everyone else, telling myself I'd just go out on the floor later. When the night was about to come to a close, I realized this would be my last chance to join the fun everyone seemed to be having, so I ran on the floor and busted a move to the music (poorly of course), and a circle of happy relatives gathered around me and smiled and clapped. This wasn't fun. I was terrified. After the party, I must have come down with something, because on the ride home, I started feeling really sick. I remember laying in bed and my mom took my temperature. I felt like I was on fire, and I was burning around 103. She put cold compresses on my forehead and gave me something for the fever, and I fell asleep. When I woke up the next day, she asked me if I'd remembered what had happened the night before. Instead of my fever going down, it went up, and I was burning 106. It was like 4am or something. I started wandering around the house and I was hallucinating. I mistook the kitchen cabinet for the bathroom. She got me back into bed and got the fever under control without any further incident. I still don't remember any of that happening.

Tonight, I went to a hip-hop show, and I was content to drink and chat and enjoy the music, but some of my female friends thought it was necessary to push me out on the floor. They dragged me by my shirt, and I pleaded with them not to. I tried to be good humored and laugh and say, "oh no. I don't dance. Haha." And then they circled around me, and I froze up like rigor mortis had set in. I covered my face and joked nervously, "I'm far too modest for all this," but they giggled and pushed and prodded and grinded up against me. I covered my face and clutched my drink close. I couldn't move. It's not that I didn't want to. I wanted to let go and have fun, but I couldn't. I had painted myself into a corner. Joining in would even bring more attention. Afterwards, I felt really embarrassed, not because of what they did, but because I'd acted like such a baby. And then I felt ashamed for being so embarassed. One of the women was my more recent roommate, who I have a good relationship with, and I said that I was sorry, but I'm really uptight. She said, "You're adorable," but I find that my assessment is far more acurate.

j pop drag pop

Japanese school girls + Japanese drag queen + obnoxious disco beat + flashing lights + heaping amounts of tan-in-a-bottle = music video gold.

authenticity

It had been a trying day. Stress kept me awake 'til well into the AM, and I watched a rather large house spider narrowly escape the clutches of my dutiful house cat/bug slayer (it was quite a battle of wills). I sought the solace of my oasis within this oasis that lies in the blistering and barren Sacramento Valley. The heat blazed near 100 (95 to be exact), we had to load in magazines from a stuffy truck and off two more skids at the door; record labels changed artist schedules at the last moment (literally), and I was forced to dump a photo shoot I'd spent weeks arranging in favor of press shots; stories aren't coming in as fast as I'd like, and I'm wondering if I'm just being ruthlessly anal.

Things got better when on my desk I found the re-issue of Boston's first album, which was quickly ushered to the CD stereo and blared at an office-friendly volume (not nearly as loud as that album deserves to be played). But still, I needed more, so I went to my home away from home, the Chinese Restaurant on Second. This time, however, its soothing atmosphere was disrupted by a group of two college couples who--rightfully so--were celebrating the end of the school year. They were loud, and drunk, and by all accounts, douchebags, but douchebags are people too and have the same rights as the rest of us.

They must have just sat down to eat when I arrived. Plates of yummy food piled high were brought out by the diminutive waitresses. One of the women at the table asked for chopsticks. "We like to do it the authentic way," she said.

They ate their dinner and spoke at high volume, but mostly, they drank. Tsing Tao beers all around and, of course, warm bottles of sake. Oh, but you're thinking sake is more associated Japanese cuisine, right? Well it is. Because that's where it's from. But the Chinese Restaurant serves sake. I wanted to look it up, and the article on Wikipedia mentioned there is one theory that sake was originally developed in China and brought to Japan. It also mentioned the popularity of sake in Japan. These are both pretty good reasons why you may find sake in Chinese restaurants. However, I think in this case, sake is served at The Chinese Restaurant because enough douchebags who didn't know there was a difference between Chinese and Japanese kept coming in asking for it. Case in point:

The normally somber and reserved staff at The Chinese Restaurant seemed somewhat invigorated by the young party monsters. Their zealousness for an authentic sake-accented Chinese dining experience included the traditional sake bomb, which involves dropping the little cup of sake into half a beer and chugging the whole thing down. Each sake bomb was preceded by a chant and a pounding on the table. Before the fourth or fifth round of drunken cacophony, the Matron of the restaurant came over and taught them a new chant: "Yee, uhr, sahn. Sake sake sake bomb!" Yee, uhr, sahn, she instructed, is Chinese for one, two, three. The douchebags had problems spitting this out. Sometimes they'd say sake twice, other times, they'd say it four...ice. Sometimes they'd leave out an uhr or a yee. They certainly had plenty of practice, and the wait staff watched on with glee.

At one point, one of the waitresses walked by the rowdy table and shouted out something to the Matron in Chinese (from watching plenty of subtitled movies, I can hear the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese, but I'm still not sure which is which), and one of the drunken dude douchebags shouted out, "Hey! I know what you're saying!" To which, most in the restaurant gave a chuckle. "I can speak Japanese," he added. "They're not Japanese, they're Chine..." said the woman at the table who had been acting as the voice of reason, but she trailed off in a loud whisper toward the end of the word, and the room got rather silent.

My fortune read that I should contact a loved one who was living a far distance from me.

lycanthropy

Last night, as I headed out to a poorly attended punk show, I realized that, through the layer of yellow haze, the moon was full. Or at least mostly full. When it's more than half, I usually can't tell the difference.

If the people who lived in my part of town had money, they'd be called eccentric, but since they're all flat broke, they're just plain crazy. On my way to work yesteraday, I noticed there's a group of folks living in a maroon Ford Aerostar mini-van, nestled in the bulb of the cul-de-sac at the end of the block. That's not odd, I suppose, seeing as the creek is a popular campground for the town's transient community, but then again, it was still daytime, and the moon had yet to show its face.

I couldn't hang at the punk show. There were little more than a few handfuls of people there, and most of them were in the smoker's patio. I only went to see a coworker's performance, and after he was done, I nursed my pint of New Castle through the second band's tedious set. I was bored, and pretty lonely out in the show area, so I decided to press my luck downtown.

Most of the walk was pretty quiet, until I got to third and noticed the throngs of mini-skirted females heading to this dancehall sort of bar (a really stinky one at that). Many of them were identically dressed: cropped tops and tennis skirts in bright day-glo colors. Class is officially over in this college town, and though finals are looming just days away, the streets have been crawling with kids looking to make the most of the last couple days in their homes away from home, away from their parents' watchful eyes. Their voices were as loud as the colors they were wearing as they gathered on line for the club. A popular local '80s cover band was playing, and the kids were looking to revel in the nostalgia of songs that were released before many of them were born. The full moon watched with its indifferent eye and I said "bless you" to a woman when she belched.

I made my way to Meathead Tavern, where I've been spending too much of my time lately. It stinks worse than the dancehall, and the press of bodies in the tiny environement only enhances the funk. For some reason, someone in this town thought it would be a good idea to outfit 95% of the bars with carpet, a decision that had baffled me since my arrival.

I bumped into a gaggle of my coworkers who were already settled into their seats on the drunk train. My ticket remained unpunched. Honestly, I'd been avoiding the conductor because I'm growing tired of the aftermath: waking up to a couple hours sitting on the bowl. It's not fun. Though it'd be worth it if the previous night was more interesting. Lately, I haven't been thrilled. Being at Meathead Tavern for any length of time, however, is just asking for trouble, but I managed to ease into a hearty buzz at my own pace.

After last call came and gone, and the lights were turned on, we headed out, and I ended up at the diner with two kids almost a decade my junior. We were served water in a karrafe, and I'm amazed one of them didn't puke on the table. It had to be after 3:30 when we left, but they were convinced this party was going on by my house, and since I was heading that way anyway, to go home and sleep, they followed along. We were tailed by a sketchy group of dudes, we heard gunshots, and about three doors away from the supposed location of this alleged party, they turned around and headed home. I got home and went to bed, my belly happily full of steak, eggs and English muffin.

Tonight, I went to a play, and the moon seemed just as full. For the second night in a row, I fretted over my choice of shirts, something I almost never do. I looked at myself in the mirror--looked and fretted. I tried to convince myself that I looked fine and that no one was going to care anyway, but still I fretted. Eventually I didn't care, and the loose short-sleeved button down was comfortable, which was welcome in the warm and somewhat sticky air. The play was okay, but I was happy to get out and do something that wasn't just going to the bars. I went with my roommate and her boyfriend (who's becoming my roommate also). After the show, they had to head out of town, and I was left to my own devices. I was one of the first to show up at a party at the Queen Bee's brother's office downtown.

My choice of shirt still irked me, and those who were gathered at the party's early stages were rather worn out. The Brother told me to make myself at home and fix myself a cocktail, so I did. He looked perhaps the most haggard of all of them, telling me that he'd gone a little too crazy the night before, and the rest reported that they'd been at this party or that--parties thrown by local businesses, parties thrown at exclusive golf courses, parties that the dudes living in the van in my cul-de-sac probably wouldn't have been invited to.

More people began streaming in and the mood lightened up fast. I left for a bit--unfortunately just as Uber Milf arrived--to go meet up with my friend who was celebrating his birthday. We watched a really fucked up movie made for the Masters of Horror series by Takeshi Miike that Showtime refused to show (Bravo did however, and I can see why Showtime wouldn't touch it; it was really fucked up). We drank a couple beers and I convinced him to roll back down to the party.

Uber Milf had gone, and so had many of the others, but the cooler crowd remained. More cocktails, more conversation, two retrievers who had 40-inch verticals, and I turned out to be the last one to leave.

The streets were completely empty. Other than roving police--who had nothing better to do than watch me as I crossed the street--it was just myself, the full moon and people who pick through downtown garbage cans. I made it up to the diner when I remebered the gunshots from the night before, and checked my wallet to see if I had cash. I thought of walking the rest of the way, but I don't like being the only person on the streets, so I ended up getting the cab. There are always a few cars parked in front of the diner. I crossed the street and when I got to the corner I passed a couple drivers making idle chitchat. One of them called out and asked if I needed a cab. I said I did.

He asked me where I was going, and I said that it wasn't very far, and that I would usually walk but I don't like being the only person out at night. He chuckled and made a right. Halfway down the main drag, he told me that he was going to grab a bite to eat and head home before I'd shown up, and then he mentioned that he was talking to the other driver about how this full moon had produced more crazies than any other he could remember. I hopped forward to agree. I told him about the prayer circles I'd seen in the middle of sidewalks, and the gunshots, and the various other random occurances that had happened over the past two days.

He said (and I'm paraphrasing), "There was this woman in here with her friend last night, who was just insanely horny. They were splitting the cab with these two dudes in their 20s, and the women had to be in their 40s. One woman was sitting up front, the other was in the back with the two dudes, and she was just all over them."

I laughed, and as he pulled to a stop in front of my house, he said, "wait, it gets better."

"Eventually, she asked me if I thought it was okay if she slept with her nephew. I said, 'No! What the hell are you talking about?!' She said that he wasn't really her nephew, but that he was four when he was left with her family. 'Now it's 20 years later, and he's back, and he's really hot,' she said. We ended up at the 7-11 on East Avenue and the women went out to get beer. As soon as they got into the store, the two dudes just opened the cab doors and bolted. I told the women they went in the opposite direction."

confluence

For some reason, that word popped in my head as I stood up against the wall at meathead tavern. I was at the office until 4:45am last night, and I felt like going out. I went to work late, came home early and then went out to do laundry. I had to dip into my backup underwear reserves the past two days, which is not something I like to do. After LOST, I shaved, showered and put on my freshly washed clothes and then sat down in my living room wondering why I'd gone through so much trouble. I didn't have "plans." In fact, as I sat there on the couch, staring at the first disc of season five of the Sopranos that had just arrived from my new Netflix account, I contemplated not going out at all. Unfortunately, my wanderlust had gotten the best of me; I had gone through all this trouble. This was the first time I'd washed my three pairs of jeans in at least two and a half weeks, and the weather was nice enough.

I headed out to meathead tavern because I had plenty of drink tickets there and I figured I'd bump into someone I know. I entered to find the place crowded; and it was a total sausage fest. I said hi to a couple people and then found a spot by a television set to watch Sportscenter when the word "confluence" popped in my head. I don't think I've ever actually used it in a sentence. In fact, though I'm sure it's a word, I have no idea what it means. So I had to look it up at m-w.com, the site without which I'd never be able to function as an editor. This is what the good people at Meriam Webster had to say:

1 : a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point
2 a : the flowing together of two or more streams b : the place of meeting of two streams c : the combined stream formed by conjunction

I guess, looking back, that had absolutely nothing to do with the evening's course of events. Maybe it did in the most basic sense as a bar is a place where people come together. At meathead tavern, I drank my Captain and 7 and stared mindlessly at the television in-between catching passing glances at the new bar maiden as she cheerily stalked around picking up empty glasses. I was checking to see if Barry Bonds had tied Babe Ruth for second on the all-time home run list. There's a lot of hate for Barry and I can understand why. I always thought he was a prick--arrogant, self-centered--but that never changed my opinion that he's perhaps the greatest ballplayer I've ever seen. Ken Griffey Jr. would have gotten that honor if he could've only stayed healthy, though, if Albert Pujols keeps going the way he is, he's going to trump both of them around the time he turns 30. As far as I'm concerned, whether or not Bonds took performance enhancing drugs is irrelevant. All modern day record seekers have come under the same amount of fire, even more likable chaps like Sammy Sosa and Mark Maguire who helped resurrect interest in the game after strikes and contract squabbles had crushed people's faith in the American pastime.

But while Sosa and Maguire were shooting for a single season mark, Bonds is going for something much more hallowed, and he's going up against the most important man in baseball history. Babe Ruth was well before my time. Even before my father's time. The only images that I have of Ruth are sped up black and white highlight reels: Babe winking at the camera, Babe swinging for the fences, Babe's legs moving at unnatural speeds as he motors his ponderous form down the first base line. I'm not denying that, in his day, Babe Ruth was the most powerful player in the sport, but I doubt he'd be the prodigy he was if he'd been playing in the modern age. Maybe it is performance enhancing drugs, or that the ball is "juiced" to produce more home runs, but I think it's ridiculous to ignore the possibility, that after well over a hundred years of playing the sport, that the players have become more fine-tuned and sophisticated. There have been countless advances in scouting, technology, training...I'm getting off base.

Maybe Bonds knew, maybe he didn't. The fact of the matter is that MLB didn't have a drug/steroid policy until 2003 and the alleged time of Bonds's steroid use was before 2003. I'm glad that MLB does have a steroid policy in place now because they're harmful and they send out a wrong message, but if baseball was concerned with that, they would've done something about it long before 2003. Now that the game's most revered icons is about to be passed up for the second time by a black man, no less, people are screaming for an asteriks. I dunno. I think about it a lot, but I don't have any solid opinion. I never liked Barry Bonds, but that doesn't change his accomplishments. Neither does a little cream. In case you were wondering, here are some letters Hank Aaron got when he approached and later demolished Babe Ruth's all-time home run record:

"Dear Nigger Henry,

You are (not) going to break this record established by the great Babe Ruth if I can help it. . . . Whites are far more superior than jungle bunnies. . . . My gun is watching your every black move."

"Dear Henry Aaron,

How about some sickle cell anemia, Hank?"

Y'know, same shit different year.

I watched the television and saw that Bonds was still stuck on 713 HRs. After the report, ESPN tacked on a montage clip at the end of Bonds smacking long balls. This caught the attention of a young woman at the bar who could barely stand and was being led toward the bathroom by a girlfriend of hers. She stopped in front of me, and, seeing that I was watching the television, pounded my chest and shouted, "He did it! Barry hit the homer!" I tried to explained to her that he hadn't, that they were just showing clips, but she was so happy about it, I felt kind of bad, and besides, she was already being hurried further into the crowd.

idle

I used to handle boredom really well. I wrote stories, played guitar, drew pictures and, after I was old enough to drive, went on excursions. My creativity was more industrious than inspired. I don't think I was particularly awesome at any of these things, but I was good enough to keep myself occupied for a while. And I figured if I did them enough, I'd eventually grow to really like doing one, and who knows, maybe it'd get me somewhere.

While it hasn't gotten me far, writing (more acurately editing) does pay my bills and I guess I should be grateful for that. But I'm far from the babbling brook of creativity I once was. I haven't done any fiction work for as long as I can remember, which isn't very long nowadays. And it's not because I haven't had the opportunity. I've had time to do this, I just haven't wanted to.

But now I'm going off track. Now I cure boredom with television (which was always part of the equation), beer and sitting on the Internet. Other than typing at this thing, sometimes I go perusing one of my favorite sites for mindnumbing activity, ThePlaCe.ru. It's a Russian site, so I can't really read anything, and I'm not really sure how I found it, but I've figured out that it provides large, high quality scans of celebrity magazine photos and things of that nature. Many of the images I've posted here have been taken, without credit from there, so I guess it's time I gave them their due, even if the owners of that site will have as hard a time reading this site as I do theirs. When I'm bored, like I was tonight, I sit and click through endless photos of starlets, pop stars, lingerie models, etc. and kind of zone out. It puts me in the same kind of state, more or less, as watching a baseball game between two teams that I care little about: relaxed, occupied and blissfully free of thought.

Sometimes I check out pictures of women I haven't heard of before, but most times I go by old standbys. Tonight, I happened to rifle through their large collection of Britney Spears images when, much to my chagrin, a thought creeped in there. More like a memory, really. That's kind of like a thought.

It was like seven years ago, and I was 22. I rolled downstairs, probably around 3pm after just waking up. I was still working at the comic book store and going to college. I sat down on the green carpet and tuned the 27-inch Sylvania console TV on MTV because that's what I did when I, as my sister put it (taking the line from Reality Bites), was in the bell jar. She's always been the more responsible, sensible and ambitious one. I've always been less proactive, I guess you could say. Anyway, I caught the video for "Hit Me Baby One More Time" for the first...time...and became somewhat aroused (not that I'm particularly proud of that). Then I realized that the face of pop music had once again been altered from scruffy looking dudes in beat up guitars to barely legal sex kittens. I think it happened while I was sleeping.

I was lying on the couch before as my roommate and her boyfriend watched the Lakers in the NBA playoffs and a Macintosh commercial sparked a discussion about desktop calculators for Windows. I said that I use that program to do all my math, and if not that, I use the calculator on my cell phone. I never needed one as a kid, I did it all in my head or on a piece of paper, but now writing down numbers seems too stressful and carrying the one sends me into sweats. The boyfriend mentioned that he checks his cellphone calendar all the time. My roommate showed us up and said she just writes things down, or simply remembers them. It keeps her sharp. I said, "I've gotten so dumb." I can't imagine why.

endurance

On Saturday morning, I sat in this local barbershop/tattoo parlor happy to have had a full night's rest. They're few and far between. I'd decided, on a whim, because that's usually how I decide most things, to have a proper straight razor shave (with the hot towels and everything) and head buzzing (I was sick of cleaning up the bathroom after doing it myself). My appointment was scheduled for Friday, but a three-hour black out through most of the downtown and surrounding areas of town caused me to have to reschedule. On Friday, when I showed up for my original appointment time, the shop was full of tattooed patrons and employees sitting on the various barber chairs and waiting room couches. They regarded me as an outsider as I entered, but offered me a beer or something else to drink from the fridge. It was hot as fuck, so I opted for a water and occupied an empty stool. The shop is full of retro paraphernalia, mostly pinup art and '50s and '60s barbershop signage. One such sign displayed the eight or so hair cuts for men and the phrase "we cut your hair the correct way, the way you want it" proudly emblazoned on it. It's a pretty cool place. After the crowd at the store had thinned out some, one man re-entered from the back. I was one of two left in the shop; the other guy was reading tattoo magazines in the waiting area. The man who re-entered sat on a brown barber's chair, reclined, and asked me what hair cut I wanted. I told him I wanted it buzzed to the scalp, and I wanted a shave as well. Turned out he was the owner and also the barber. The power wasn't coming back on any time soon, so he asked me if I wanted to reschedule and I said sure, so we made an appointment for 11am on Saturday. He told me the shave thing was "very relaxing," and that every man should have it done at least once in his life, and that our fathers and grandfathers all had it done. It was his sales pitch, but I didn't need one, I had my mind made up about it before I entered the shop. It just seemed like something I should have done. Which brings me back to where I started.

I was the first appointment of the day. The owner let me in and I had a beer and waited in the waiting area as he and this other woman got the place set up. I was joined in the waiting area soon after by a group of young women who the owner later accurately described as looking like "a group of sorority girls from a sorority that you had to have double Ds to get into." They were all there for tattoos, I assume of flowers or butterflies.

I drank a Corona and got all shorn and left feeling like a million or so bucks. I may have to make it a yearly thing. And since my appointment was moved because of the black out, I got five bucks off. As I was in the chair, I was informed that the shop was going to have an afterparty that evening for the girls of the roller derby and that they'd have a keg and a DJ and I should come by. Since I had tickets to the roller derby anyway, I said that I probably would. The festivities would start at 12:30am.

Meanwhile, I'd received word that the commish of my fantasy baseball league would be in town, and that he and a few other guys in the league (though some of them live here, I don't really know them. I'd gotten introduced to the league by someone I'd known through my roommates who I used to get into baseball discussions with at parties. I've only met the other members of the fantasy league once before at a poker game). I was informed that they'd be hitting up the bars and that if I could, I should meet them up.

Roller derby was fun. The action, I think, was better this week than in previous week. And at the event, I bumped into an old tenant from my apartment managing days, so we shot the shit for a while and got caught up. I also met up with some coworkers and scored a ride downtown where I thought I'd try to meet up with the fantasy baseball crew. They were at this bar close to campus, and the line to get in was really long. It was moving quick, though, so I hopped on. I ended up waiting 20 minutes. Once I got inside, the place was ridiculously packed, and it more and more became apparent to me that I really didn't know who I was looking for. I eyed people I thought was them only to receive looks of confusion or agitation in return. I made four or five sweeps of the floor to no avail, so I left.

When I got outside, I found there was a message on my phone from my coworker/LOST buddy, who was downtown at a bar a block away. It was the first of the two roller derby after parties. The place was about 20 times smaller and just as packed, but I had drink tickets there. Somehow, my order for one Summerfest yielded two, but this unexpected bounty didn't last long, as walking to the less crowded back area resulted in a collision with another intoxicated patron, turning my two full pints into two halves. I combined the two in one glass and ended up at a table with my coworker, three people I didn't know and the dude who used to be my tenant.

From there it was a pit stop at the local watering hole, then the liquor store, then the tattoo/barbershop for the after party. When we got there, the place was dead, and like all after parties, I felt totally out of place. As time went on, though, more people trickled in, we made a fruitless effort to siphon beer from the world's foamiest keg; I pissed in an alley and spilt beer on myself for the second time. I got home at 3:30am to find that my front door was wide open and a police car patrolling the street that flashed its spotlight on me three times and never stopped to ask me who I was or where I was going. The house was free of intruders nothing looked stolen, but I never checked the spices in the kitchen cabinet. We have an extensive collection for a group of people who rarely cook.

I've typed all of this while a house spider that I thought was a brown recluse (there aren't any in California, I looked it up) has been perched on the window sill above me. It hasn't moved an inch. I think it's waiting for me to leave. I haven't decided whether or not to smite it with a broom yet, but I think I'll let it be. For now. I also found out one of my old roommates became a cheerleader for the Seattle Seahawks, which delights me on a many different levels.

Sorry you had to read all that.