The Redundant Monkey

The other day my friend Sherrie tells me,  "It's going to be almost a year since you last posted something."

I click on the dusty bookmark to check out this dusty ole blog, and see that she is correct.  A whole damn year.  Wow.  A lot can happen in a year, and well, a lot did happen in a year.  Of which I will update anyone who is interested at some other time.

In the meanwhile, I'm getting kind of tired of the name of this blog.  My love for Family Guy just isn't as strong as it used to be, and I think its about time I changed the name to reflect something that is more me.  As soon as I think of something clever enough, I'll start posting again.  I think.  I hope.

I'M GOING (BACK) TO SAN FRANCISCO (BUT WITHOUT FLOWERS IN MY HAIR)

...because I didn't learn my lesson the last time. 

Tomorrow morning I'm heading out to SF again, and this time I'm doing Berkeley.  I missed all the hippies the last time I was around, but that's what I get for staying at Fisherman's Wharf.  Maybe we'll run into Ta-kun.  Hopefully I'll have some fun stuff to write/complain about, but seeing as how I haven't been posting shit lately...don't hold your breath.

Scott McKenzie - San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)

I AM NOT GULLIVER or A SHRIMP CANAPE? YES, PLEASE.

I flew into San Francisco last Wednesday sometime just before noon.  In the middle of the week, in the middle of the day, in the middle of this strange city I found myself trying to fight back the onset of a mild anxiety attack.  This was the first time, in a long time, that I didn't have my car with me.  An Angeleno without a car is like a knight without his sword.  A pilot without a plane.  A backdoor party without the lube.  Dress shoes without socks.  Pasta without the sauce, but I will get to the pasta part a little bit later in the story.

I love cities, but I loathe public transportation.  Los Angeles is one of the few cities where public transportation is a joke.  It's been more than 15 years since I've taken a bus. If I recall correctly I was in high school, ditching class to take a bus from Cerritos to Huntington Beach.  Even then, my friends were playing navigator, so the only real knowledge I took from that experience is that the bus driver does not make change.

Being stranded without a car makes me flashback to when I was a kid in elementary school.  At that time, after school programs were non-existent.  You just waited around the schoolyard till your parents came and picked you up.  My siblings and I were always the last kids left to get picked up.  As you wait there, your mind starts to wander, and every worst possible scenario pops into your head.  Maybe they got into a car crash, maybe they forgot, or worst of all, maybe they just decided they didn't want you anymore.  Anxiety at 8 is not a good thing.  I felt like I was going to have to be like Punky Brewster, and I was going to have to find some old white guy to shack up with, who would supply me with an old busted up flower cart for me to use as a bed.  Trust me, as a cute asian boy at the age 8, such things are way too easy.

When our ride finally did show up, we'd walk to the car feeling defeated as the schoolyard guard would glower at us resentfully because we forced her to stay that long (she wasn't allowed to go home until every kid left).  I'm sure she had a life to get back to, she was a schoolyard guard after all.  They don't just let anyone into a prestigious Schoolyard Guard Academy.

That abandonment anxiety has stayed with me throughout my life, and I was beginning to feel it in San Francisco.  It had been almost 20 years since I had gone up north.  The last time ma and pa took care of all the details.  This time I was by myself, and those old lessons of self-sufficiency had to come into play.  Gulliver, I am not. I rarely travel alone.  I've always had the luxury of really good friends who are semi-control freaks, with which I'm more than happy to just follow. I decided to fly up to the Bay Area to take a little break from Los Angeles and to visit an old friend of mine from the semi-recent old days.  For the sake of anonymity, let's just call him Ta-kun.

Ta-kun did not own a car, and as an added extra bonus, Ta-kun would be at work when I arrived, so he couldn't meet me at the airport.  I would have taken a taxi to his place, but websites were saying that the fare could be as high as 40 bucks, and being the cheapskate I am, I decide to brave public transportation.  I emailed Ta-kun for directions.  This is the response I got in return:

um there is no easy bus to take from the embarcadero station. you could take

the 1 down to van ness and then walk from there but thats a bit of a walk.  i would

get off at civic center and take the 47 or the 49 from there which will take you all

the way down van ness. get off at bay and walk down bay (make a left) until you get

to franklin (one block) and then make a right into fort mason

Mommy? 

I put on my big boy pants and I took the Bart to the Embarcadero station, and then cabbed the rest of the way.  I eventually show up at Ta-Kun's work place, and I'm really excited to see him, we do a quick greet n' hug.  He ditches work for a second to let me into his house, where I start to veg out in front of the TV, waiting for his return.

When I made arrangements to come up, Ta-kun forgot to tell me that he had tickets for a Cat Power show the night I was arriving.  I told him that I was OK with that.  I can handle one night on my own by myself.  It's just that by this time, it's getting dark, and I'm starving.  I'd gone almost a full 12 hours without eating anything.  Someone call me a wah-bulance.

Ta-kun gets a call from his friends who say they'll be over in a bit for some "pasta, wine, and desert."  Yummy, sounds good to me.  All of the sudden I can hear and smell someone cooking.  It smells funky, like a smell that shouldn't be associated with pasta.  I don't say anything.  Beggars can't be choosers.  I am after all a guest in their house, who I am to question what someone is making me?  Just be gracious and pretend that you're going to like it, at least you'll have some food in your belly.

I'm sitting on a chair in Ta-kun's room thoroughly engrossed in the Top Chef marathon running on the TV (go Harold!), when I hear someone at the door.  The wine and desert are here.  I walk into the room, smiles and all and no one really seems to notice I'm there.  OK, this is a little awkward.  I don't expect fanfare and no one needs to get down on one knee and kiss my ring, but a little eye contact would be nice.  I do what I do whenever I feel awkward in social situations, I excuse myself for a cigarette.  It's just that I really really do not feel like smoking, it felt like I was eating tobacco for the past 8 hours.   As I'm smoking I notice that the inside of the house has gotten quieter.  I finish my cigarette, step off the patio and into the house, and I realize that everyone is eating pasta and drinking wine.

I walk into the dining area fully thinking that I'm going to sit down with everyone else and eat, but as soon as I enter, I notice that there is no more room for me at the table.  At four people, the little dining table was at capacity, and besides, there wasn't any pasta left anyway.  I pretend that I am walking to the kitchen to fetch something, only what could I possibly be fetching from the kitchen?  This wasn't my kitchen.  I frantically looked for something I could put in my hand and luckily after a few tries, I found a glass in one of the cupboards.

I walked back to the table and said, "OOOOH CAN I HAVE SOME WINE?" and I swear the girl at the table made a face.  Perhaps I was being presumptuous?  I hold out my glass, and as while it's being filled with some foul red wine, my cell phone rings, and it's Prof. J all the way from Atlanta, saving the day yet again.  I excuse myself and head outside for yet another cigarette, and at that point my stomach began to feel like a spittoon.

To be fair, after they had finished eating, I was offered a half-eaten piece of Jewish pastry.

After the satisfied four leave for the show, I take a walk down the hill to the nearest liquor store.  I grab a bag of chips and a six pack to keep me company for the rest of the evening.  I get to the house, pop open the bag of chips and take a swig of my beer and start to watch Top Chef again, because I'm a fucking sadist.  My stomach growls in anger as I watch the team of chefs scramble to make an amuse bouche for a bitchy gay couple's wedding party.  The food on the TV looks so good, and I contemplate being a chef for a second, because that's a job where you would probably never go hungry.  Eventually the hunger subsides and I get too buzzed to care anymore.

All in all, it was an OK trip.  I did as much sightseeing as my legs could handle, that place has got hills.  To be quite honest with you, I hate sightseeing almost as much as I hate public transportation.  Give me a beer and stick me under a nice tree, or a cool bar to get lost in, and I'm fine.  Other than that first night, everything else was OK.  I got to meet some really nice people, I got to eat some crab (wheee!), I saw a girl get her pussy eaten out on the Bart, and I got to spend some time with Ta-kun, which was the whole reason for going up there in the first place.  As I get older and old friends start to take off for parts unknown, for some crazy reason, it's getting harder and harder to keep in touch, and it depresses the hell out of me, and I start to get that last-one-on-the-playground feeling, like I'm just waiting around.   It would have been better if he didn't have to work every day that I was there, but some time is better than no time at all.  Or as my Bube would say, "A half a Jewish pastry is better than nothing! L'chei-im!"

TWO MISTAKES

1.  I'm starting to regret not buying Coachella tickets.  It's best we not talk about it.

2.  Today I dried a whole box of fabric softners sheets with a load of my laundry.  I have the softest socks on the planet.  I also smell like I work for Bounce.

That is all.

I HAD A COW, MAN

In case anyone was wondering what I was up to:

I'm gonna update this fucker if it kills me...but not today.  In the meanwhile, go to Citizenrobot to get the full story on the cows.  (I was really drunk last night, so I made the most retarded looking cow, can you guess which one?)

DOWN IN THE ATL or WHO ARE YOU, AND WHY ARE YOUR LIPS ATTACHED TO MY BEST FRIEND'S FACE?

...and we're back!

It's been a little over a week since my little romp in Atlanta and I still haven't really remastered the flow of living in Los Angeles, the pacing here is so different.  Not necessarily different in a bad sense, just different. 

My original travel plans involved some sort of multi-city trip around the South, but my schedule, the schedule of the unemployed and unhindered, really didn't coincide with anyone else's, so for the time being I had to settle with just a short little trip to Atlanta, with some open plans to revisit the South sometime in the near future  (If anyone wants to brave the red states for a little jaunt, let me know!). 

I probably would have never visited Atlanta if it wasn't my best friend, Professor J, who's finishing up her PHD in Philosophy at Emory College.  This trip was a two part mission, the first was to just hang out with her while she was on Spring break, you know, playing catch up, drinking, just making our limited time together worth it.  The second part of the mission involved a little scrutiny on my part.  It turns out that while Prof J. was away, she done and got herself a good ole southern boyfriend.

Now a good friend would just trust that Prof. J made the right choice, and a good friend would unconditionally accept the new guy without question.  I'm not a good friend, I'm THE best friend, so it's part of the job to shoot first, and ask questions later.  Even if the guy is the greatest guy in the world, or if he found the miracle cure to AIDS, or even if you had a 12 inch flaccid dong, I'm still going to scope you and your intentions out, it's just this instinctive thing I have to do with all my friends. 

I arrived at the airport early Thursday evening.  Apparently I had just missed President Bush's arrival at the airport, thus immediately reinforcing any sort of Republican-loving stereotypes I had already formed in my head about the people of Georgia.  I look around and spot Prof. J, but she isn't by herself, the new guy is there with her.  She looked different, or rather there was something different about her, and I could tell she was smitten (that or she's just been having a lot of sex).  I gave her a hug, and then introduced myself to new guy and say hi.  He shakes my hand, says "hi" back, and I am immediately disappointed that he doesn't have a Southern accent.  At least with her ex, the French guy, I was immediately charmed by his accent. 

A younger  and more immature Gary, would have been furious that she brought him to the airport before we could spend some quality one on one time with each other.  A younger Gary would have pulled her aside and said, "How dare you spring him on me right away.  How dare you ambush me."  The older Gary was actually glad he was there.  Let's get this introduction crap out of the way and have some drinks.  Plus he had a car.

I was also relieved that New Guy wasn't hideous, actually to my relief he was quite good looking, handsome, very man-ish if you will.  I'd say he's a cross between Keifer Sutherland and Peter Sarsgaard.  Not that I'm surprised, all of Prof. J's past conquests have been good looking gentlemen, this guy could hold his own.  It would have sucked if he was ugly, and I would have to put up this facade of approval.  She'd ask, "Well what do you think?"  and I would reply, "Weeeell, he's nice and he has a car!" 

Straight from the airport we went to a bar, and this pretty much would set up a precedent for how I would spend the rest of my evenings in the South.  We drank and drank and drank.  This was like the Olympics of drinking, and my poor liver played torch bearer. I love bad analogies.  I drank more on this trip than I had in a long time.  I had not drank this much since my early 20's. I think on average I was paying anywhere between $60 to $100 a night on drinking alone.  Jager, you are no longer my friend.  I couldn't help it though, Atlanta is such a bar culture kinda town.  You couldn't throw a rock in that town without hitting a bar.

Not that I'm complaining, I do whole-heartedly believe in the mystical nature of alcohol.  It loosens the tongue, lowers inhibition,  it's as Margaret Cho would say, the equivalent of Wonder Woman's lasso.  Sure, belligerence is an easy option, but moderation was key here.  Drinking at a steady pace, the truth comes out, drinking in excess, the puke comes out.  As long as I could straddle the thin line between truth and puke, it was all good.  It was in these drunken conversations that I learned he was an a-OK guy.  He gets the stamp of approval.  I really like this guy, and hopefully my words don't come back and bite me in the ass in the future.  (Though what really sold me on him was his collection of still-in-the-box Transformer toys at his house, and he also let me touch his Voltron (wink)).

One night we met up with a girl who was the friend of a friend here in Los Angeles.  We drank, we danced, we talked.  I asked her why is it that people in South seem so nice.  Here in LA, people seemed obsessed with what you do for a living, and if always feels like you're trying to prove your worth to someone. If you randomly say "hello" to someone in LA, people get all freaked out, like you want something from them.  Or they give you a look, sometimes they might go out of there way to ask, "Do I know you?" The people I met in Atlanta were all really nice, not as nice as the New Orleans folk, but nice nonetheless.  How can the South, with it's seemingly stereotypical reputation, maintain it's manner and charm?

"Well we're just raised that way," she said. 

I bit my tongue.  Sure what she's saying might be true, but I don't want to hear it.  Basically you're nicer because you were raised that way, unlike myself, who was raised by wolves, in this survival of the fittest Mad Max wasteland future world, otherwise known as Los Angeles.  I was too drunk to argue so I let her have it, even though I disagree 100%.  Besides something even worse would happen, that would pretty much scar my memory for life.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom and relieve my bladder of the 4 beers I accidentally drank at break neck speed.  I get to the back, and of course I don't see the line of men waiting for the toilet, and I fling the door to the bathroom wide open, and of course the toilet is occupied, but it's not just occupied by just anyone.  There at her most vulnerable was Prof. J, like a yoga master in mid-hover, pants lowered down to her thighs, toilet paper in hand, just about at pre-wipe. She looks up and our eyes connect, and then she lets out a scream, I let out a yelp and quickly shut the door.  The guy next in line to the toilet says, "Way to go, man."  To which I reply, "I wasn't supposed to see that, I wasn't supposed to see that, I wasn't supposed to see that."  What I actually did see was nothing, no piece of poo in mid plunge, no privates, nothing I couldn't share with the rest of world.  She'll probably kill me for sharing this, but really it's nothing.  If she wants to witness me in mid-stream, 10 feet away from a urinal, she's more than welcome to.

All in all, it was a great trip.  I got to hang out with Prof. J, I made a new friend, I drank, I danced, I ate some really good food, I got to see Prof. J in a three dollar donkey show...wait, that was a totally different trip, but still, I had a lot of fun in Atlanta. Now that I'm back in Los Angeles, and I've finally settled back down to the hum drum way of life I lead, I actually kind of miss Atlanta..  I miss being an arm's reach away from my best friend, I miss the Southern hospitality, I miss the cheap drinks, and I miss the good food, but this is home.  I talk so much shit about LA, but the truth is I love it here more than anywhere in the world.

PROCRASTINATION IS THE KEY, I JUST NEED TO FIND THE DOOR

Damn you New Year's resolutions, damn you!

Normally I lie when people ask me what my resolutions are.  I never really do them because they always just become a list of early failures for the year.  My follow through is horrible. So I make them up because, upon hearing "I didn't make any," people get this look on their face, that says, "Like, what, you think you're better than me?  You think you're perfect"  The feeling is not unlike making up sins in the confessional booth when you were a kid, at least when you were a Catholic kid.  A priest would never believe a ten year old boy would ever have a shortage of sins, so you start making things up to ward off any kind of suspicion. This year though it was different, I seriously wanted to change certain life habits of mine.  I decided to start my resolutions a month late, and of course, as soon as I began, I broke every single one of them.  Write everyday.  Fail.  Exercise everyday.  Fail.  Be more charitable and giving.  Fail.  Quit smoking. Fail.  Cut back on the salami massages.  Fail.  Stop punching babies in the face.  Fail.  Aaaaah know!

I guess procrastinating and starting resolutions in February, and not in January like everyone else was a sure set up for failure.  In my head, I believed that quitting would give me the time to accomplish all of my "yearly goals" with ease.  Quitting meant that I would have tons of time, a commodity, we all take for granted.  Most of my excuses these past few years always began with, "Man, if I had more time..."  Now if I had a baby, I'd use that as an excuse for everything, because people would excuse you. "Sorry. Can't. Baby." People would let you get away with murder.  Alas, I have no baby, just myself to be responsible for.  Now I was going to have nothing but time on my hands, and things were going to change, goddammit!  Of course, things never go exactly the way I think they're gonna go.

The day after I quit, I got roped into doing some work at the radio station, and this would last approximately 10 days.  I didn't really want to, but as a favor to a friend, I did.  I just found it highly suspicious that the job would start the day after I quit my previous job.  I did that and finally had a nice weekend all to myself.   

Of course as soon as that was over I was asked to do some freelance work as a music consultant for a commercial.  I had to do it as a favor, and to remain in the good graces of the person who offered me the job.  I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, and I came to find out that the work, was the same kind of work that killed me so much at my last job.   The job is not hard at all, there are worst jobs you can do than music consulting.  It just gets frustrating after awhile because there's always a lot of mind-reading involved.  I guess I can use an analogy to best explain what it's like.

Let's say that you're a bride, and you have to order your wedding dress but the only thing is that you can't see the dress you're ordering, you just have to describe the way you want your dress to look over the phone.  You have to relate this magnificent dress in your head to the dressmaker on the other end of the line.  Now let's say you're not very good at describing your dress, so you throw in all these random adjective.  It should be long, flowy, flirty, sexy, virginal, fun, different, or just whatever.  Now as the dressmaker, off those few adjectives she gave you, you're supposed to come up with something perfect for your client.  You show up at her hotel, on the day of her wedding, with a collection of 6 dresses, you choose 6 because you're not really sure exactly what kind of dress she had in mind.  You're hoping that if none of these dresses is exactly what she wants, then maybe she'll choose the one that looks closest to her imaginary wedding dress.

That's kind of like what my job has been like for the past 3 years.  It has absolutely nothing to do with wedding dresses, but it involves all that crappy mind-reading.  You get a description of some scene from a TV show or a movie, and most times you can't even look at the scene. Then the client tells you what kind of music they're looking for.  If you're lucky, than that person knows music, and he or she will give you exactly what they want, but more times than not, these people know nothing about music. "We want something fun,"  "We want something uplifting,"  "something cool,"  "Something dramatic," "loose," "crazy circus-y sounding stuff."  You go through whatever huge music library you have at your disposal, and kind of make a mix CD of things you think would be appropriate for that one scene.  Some songs will stick, most won't, that's just the way it goes. If you don't know the music library, than you're pretty much fucked because all of your time will be spent acquainting yourself with artists you know nothing about. 

Like I said, it's not the worst job in the world, it's just frustrating and time consuming.  I left my last job because it wasn't fulfilling.  Of course now I have no real work skills, sure I can pick out a great song, but so what?

I hesitate sometimes, whether or not I should share details of my work life.  Sure I'll write about and even maliciously ridicule family members and friends on here, but not my job, at least not in such detail.  I'm a believer in the whole, "don't bite the hand that feeds you" philosophy.  Someday I'll need another job, that requires me to get a letter of recommendation from a previous job, I don't want to tell them, "Sorry I can't do that, my boss found out I called her an asshole and other anti-Semitic things on my blog, and she refuses to have anything to do with me." 

I finished up that freelance gig last week, so that's done, and now that I finally have all this time on my hand, I don't know what to do with myself.  You're thinking, "Masturbate Gary, masturbate like there's no tomorrow, and if one hand gets tired, just use your other hand, and when your other hand gets tired, switch hands again! Masturbate till your arms fall off!"  Maybe you weren't thinking that, but still, I wish could do that, but I have more productive things I need to attend to.  Such as planning out a schedule for my traveling plans, but all I really want to do is sit on my ass and watch TV.  Oh woes me.

Today while I was on the ass-magnet otherwise known as my couch I was watching an old Ellen DeGeneres stand up bit, and she was talking about procrastination, and it was like I was listening to one of God's own blessed prophets.  She was talking about time and how everyone complains that we never have enough of it.  If we were able to to chop off all those bits of extra time in a day, and bunch them up together, we would still do absolutely nothing with it. 

Procrastination is not the problem. It is the solution. It is the universe's way of saying stop, slow down, you move too fast. Listen to the music. Whoa whoa, listen to the music. Because music makes the people come together, it makes the bourgeois and the rebel. So come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody try to love one another. Because what the world needs now is love, sweet love. And I know that love is a battlefield, but boogie on reggae woman because you're gonna make it after all. So celebrate good times, come on. I've gotta stop I've gotta come to my senses I've been out riding fences for so long... oops i did it again... um... What I'm trying to say is, if you leave tonight and you don't remember anything else that I've said, leave here and remember this: Procrastinate now, don't put it off.

Amen.

THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG (PT. 2): THE RESULTS SHOW

This is the continuation to my last post...

If you guessed options A, B, C, or E, then my friend, I am sorry to say - EEEHHHHH!! You're fucking wrong.  Thanks for playing.

If you answered D, then you my friend, are a genius.  (Eric gets a free beer)

As of this past Friday, I am officially a free man.  Not necessarily free in the slave sense, but more of, free of the shackles of employment sense.  Yes, yours truly is now officially unemployed.  I guess this is a cause for celebration.  Anyone that  knows me, knows that I've been bitching non-stop about my job for the past 2 and a half years.  I've been at this job for a total of 3 years, if that gives you any clue as to how efficient I am in following through with my wishes.  Some of my friends have been wishing me "congratulations" but it just doesn't feel right.  "Hey good job on QUITTING!"  "Congratulations on finally being able not to have a paycheck for awhile."  "Hey congratulations on your first step towards becoming a bum!"

It's not that this job was the hardest job in the world.  If you're wondering what it is I did for a living, I did music licensing.  What's this you say?  Don't worry no one knows.  When someone would ask, "What do you for a living," I always try and change the subject.  If they're persistent and I tell them, they only come at me with more questions. 

Basically, most of my job was really just listening to Cd's.  I helped musicians sell out, and we put them in TV, movies, trailers, video games, you name it.  If it needed music, then we supplied it.  The one good thing about the job was that all of our bands were from indie labels, so it was rewarding to see some small baby band land a trailer for a multimillion dollar movie.  People have issues with seeing their favorite band or song being exploited  like that, even I still have some issue with it.  For instance U2 and the Beatles really don't need to be making anymore money,  whores.  At the end of the day, credibility won't pay the bills and it won't put food on your table. If your some small band out of Portland, and mainstream commercial radio isn't playing your music, than I think licensing is the way to go.  Look at how big Death Cab got after they landed that spot on the OC. 

So yeah, I listened to Cd's for a living.  My job primarily consisted of making suggestions and compilations.  Tough work, I know.  It wasn't curing cancer or teaching the world a damn thing, but it made horrible shows like The OC or South Beach, just a little more tolerable. The money was really good and the job was so easy, but after 3 years, it was time to hang up the ole hat, the job just wasn't challenging anymore.  I felt like a hooker who was tired of the constant repetitive penetration (and I'm talking about the lubeless kind).  I just couldn't take it anymore.

The job itself wasn't so bad, but the drive was murderous.  An hour to an hour and a half drive there, and anywhere from one to two hours back home.  So basically, on average, two whole hours of my day consisted of me driving.  Multiply that by five, for five days of the week, and then multiply that by the number of weeks, and you come up with 40 hours of driving a month, or for those of us who are mathematically challenged, an assload of time being stuck in traffic.  I fucking hate the 10 freeway with a passion. Oooh, and fuck you 405 interchange, while I'm at it.

At the beginning of the month I gave my boss notice that I was quitting.  I gave her a whole month, rather than the usual 2 week standard fare, just so she have enough time to find a replacement.  It was uncomfortable at first, and I was constantly trying to reassure her, "It's me, not you!"  It felt like I was breaking up with someone.  "Aw baby, you've been nothing but good to me, this is just something I gotsta do."   Looking back at the whole thing, giving her a month's notice was probably a bad idea.  This has been one of the longest and slowest moving months ever.   

Anyway, long story short, I'm a unemployed bum come this Monday morning.  Not to worry, I've set aside a savings that will keep me afloat for pretty much most of the year.  I'm not looking to be jobless for that long, but maybe for a few months.  I need serious time off.

So what comes next?  A few things.  Traveling is #1 on the list, only it's not the sort of exotic or foreign traveling one does.  No, I've decided to stick a little closer to home.  I haven't set up an itinerary just yet, but I know that most of my time will be down in the deep South.  The idea of getting lynched is so exciting.  I'm just kidding, I actually have some love for the South, and it's an area of the States that I've always wanted to explore.  Don't worry, I'll always be a blue stater at heart.

So that's that.  Along with traveling, I want to get more writing done.  This includes, more "blogging" and contributing to the newly redesigned Citizenrobot.com.  Citizenrobot is a sort of pop culture website, founded by my very good friend Sherrie.  A few years ago the on-line zine was at the height of it's success, and then, very quietly, it went away.  Now it's back, so stay tuned for some exciting crap. 

...and thank you for playing!

THE CAT OUT OF THE BAG (PT. 1)

After a month of keeping quiet, stitches, stalled resolutions and recovering from the worst sick ever, the kitty can finally come out of the bag.  Though a month in burlap sack has give the cat a little atrophy, and she's very very hungry, so let's do this slowly.

I have a tendency to jinx myself by opening my big fat mouth and shooting my wad prematurely. I'm one of those big talkers, who can talk the talk, but basically don't want to walk the walk.  This time though, I pulled through, and I'm thinking it's because I kept my mouth shut.  Last month I "blogged" about some plans I was working on.  I received a few emails and phone calls from some friends asking me what the big secret was.  "So what's this cat in the bag, I read about?" they would ask.  Only, it wasn't such a big secret, I might have just exaggerated a little bit in my last post, but people like to be literal, and I know they were thinking I had some really big big plans.  I hate to let anyone down, there are plans, but maybe not what you were thinking...you decide.  One of the following possibilities is true:

A)  I recently applied for a reality show competition, and I have been cut from the show.  On my show, one of the following catch phrases can be heard.  "The tribe has spoken," "I'm sorry that means you're out, Auf Wiedersehen," or "I only have one picture in my hand.  One of you is moving on to becoming America's Next Top model, and one of you will be packing their bags and going home.  (oh I had a celebrity sighting.  We saw Eva, from America's Next Top Model at Cha Cha Cha's.  Girl got skinny)

B)  On a whim, I recently bought a lotto ticket from the liquor store a few weeks ago.  I won.  Even though I didn't win the big jackpot prize, I won a substantial amount of money, enough dough to keep me financially secured for the year.  I'm planning on quitting my job, and packing my bags to travel extensively throughout Europe for the rest of 2006.

C)  I recently was in a car accident and have lost the use of my legs.  After about a month or so of deadly depression and painstaking rehabilitation, my physical therapist lent me this documentary called "Murderball."  I became so inspired by the stories and the actual game, that I've decided to try out for the local Murderball league here in Los Angeles.  I've been spending all month training, and learning to love life once again.

D)  I decided to quit my job because I felt it wasn't challenging anymore.  I plan on getting fat, then getting in shape, and then getting fat again while I am unemployed.  I also plan on writing a lot more, but really,  I have no concrete plans for the future. At the age of 30, I've decided to throw responsibility out the window, and finally have some "me" time.  I have accrued a savings to keep me comfortable for at least till November of this year.  Part of that savings will be used to travel extensively throughout the South and other parts of this nation, as sort of a Native American walk throughout this land that I call my country.  Even though I get tired of repeatedly finding myself, finding myself is one of my favorite hobbies.

E)  After a year of hard work and toil, I have finally finished the last chapter of a novel I have been working on.  Much to my agent's chagrin, it's taken me almost a year to finish this book.  It's about a road trip involving a drag queen and his straight friend, who everyone thinks is gay.  It's done in the same vein as Thelma and Louise, only that stupid ending is not an option in my book.  Last week I took some pictures for the jacket, and I have to say, I am pleased.  Everyone needs their own stylist and photographer.

OK I just wrote a whole bunch of shit, but my computer decided to hop back a page, thus erasing everything.  All that witty banter and insight - gone!  I'm too pissed to rewrite everything, so this post will be, To Be Continued....

SOME LAST MINUTE END OF THE YEAR RAMBLINGS

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel...well I don't feel much at all to be quite honest with you. As much as I look forward to the new year, it's inevitable arrival always comes with a hint of Armageddon in the air. I always expect something extraordinary to happen at the end of the year. Something to herald in a new age. Be it natural or man-made, I've always felt that destruction was just right around the corner. Of course, this is never case, and any sort of inflated uber-imaginative fantasy I've associated to the beginning of the year, never happens. The new year's holiday has always fallen face-down in a huge puddle of muddy disappointment. I know, way to be a joy kill on the last day of the year.

To be quite honest with you, I like New Year's. Christians have their Easter for new beginnings, and I have this day. I've grown quite apathetic to the actual celebrations, and the brouhaha, but on a symbolic level, I welcome it. No amount of drinking and joyous occasion could parallel this great feeling I have in my chest.

The new year means forced upon reflection, but it also means, hope. It means a whole year has gone by, and goddammit, I'm still alive (albeit with a few stitch scars) I came out of it. Not necessarily on top, no, no, I just came out. Of course, as the old adage goes, "there's only one place to go when you're out on top." My cynicism will always prevents me from letting myself go too much. When the time comes for rewards and accolades, I will accept them wholeheartedly, but for now, any sort of celebration would be deemed premature in my eyes.

When I look back at the year that was 2005, I do so with a mental merger book. In one column, we have "winnings," and in the other, we have "losses." I'd share them with you, but what may seem glorious in my eyes, might seem trite in others, so I'll spare you any specific detail. Let's just say I broke even this year, and I'll leave it at that.

There was so much I could have done, so much I could have accomplished this past year, but I felt like I was asleep through most of it, and yet those few times I was actually alive and awake, I would never ever take those back. This year, like every other year, I learned a lot about myself. I can slowly feel the old skin of adolescence finally shed off it's last bits, and what lies under that, isn't necessarily adulthood, but something a bit more vague.

2006 brings with it, new change, new direction. In the very first month of the new year, I'll be making a lot of changes in regards to my life. It's funny how your occupation, your friends, your family, if any minor shift occurs in any these things, then that constitutes as a complete life change. Of course by funny, I mean terrifying. I look forward to it, but I can't spill the beans, just yet. This cat is howling and scratching to get out of the bag, but I've got to sit on her for just a little bit longer. It's ok kitty, I promise you'll get to come out and play soon. Oh kitty, you won't have to endure my big fat ass for too much longer.

So I go off on a good note, but before I go a few thank you's are in order. Gratitude via the internet is lame, I know, but gratitude in any form is better than no gratitude at all. Thank you very much to the few comeback again readers I have. It does wonders to my ego. To those internet strangers who clicked onto my blog from google, hoping to find pictures of monkeys breastfeeding off of some indigenous tribal woman's teat, and only found disappointment instead, but decided to check this place out, and come back again and again...thank you! To my friends, especially the ones who I won't be able to see until the new year, thank you. To all the crazies and fucked up assholes of the worlds, thanks for all the material, and oh yeah, a hearty, "fuck you" again, for good measure. To the old man who sends me dirty emails from Russia, and to his steadfast persistence, thank you.  Alright that's enough with this sap.

2006, here I come...