humping around

I was on the fence tonight whether to blog up some stuff or go to bed, but then I spilled a beer and it got all over my new hoodie and some placemats, so I had to throw in a load of laundry. Now I have like an hour and a half whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

Why don't I tell you about my weekend? It was pretty weekendy.

On Saturday, I went and played me some basketball, poorly. I didn't really fuck up or anything, I just barely registered. There was no point to me. If our game ever got turned into a movie, you would be like, "Why did they introduce that supporting character in that one scene and then never get back to him?" I didn't advance the plot at all. Maybe they're saving me for the sequel.

After one game I was sitting on the sideline, dripping sweat and trying to make small talk with a guy I know. I was like, "Man, I'm a step slow today...maybe two steps." Trying to be modest but also telling it like it is. He said, "Dude, you've been two steps slow for two years now." Ouch. I'll show him! Ah....fuck it, no I won't.

Then I was talking to another guy about the Knicks. Remember them? Tall, incompetent, irrelevant, unpleasant? Office is over on 33rd? Anyway, this guy was genuinely optimistic about the 2008-09 season, with D'antoni stepping in as coach and all.

"But the personnel..." I said. "They have two big fat center types who can barely move, one with a heart problem, and now they're gonna run? Yikes. It's all the same shitty dudes, I don't see them being competitive."

He said, "I think Nate Robinson's gonna play well. And I like David Lee. And the new Italian guy might be good. And Crawford..."

I was all, "OK man, if you think that's gonna be a good team..."

He said, "This is the time of year to have high hopes."

He's right. Of course, once they start playing games those hopes will fade fast. But why not at least be excited for a month? As he pointed out, this will be a good chance to see how much of a difference a coach can make. My guess: 5-6 games over the course of the season.

Thinking about Zach Randolph got me reminiscing about Knicks I've hated through the years. Greg Anthony will always be my least favorite Knick PG, but I think Charlie Ward deserves some special mention in any discussion of History's Most Loathsome Knicks. Not only did his low-bridge boxout on PJ Brown ignite the fight that cost us the '97 season, but then he took over the locker room with his anti-semitic and anti-woman-reporter bullshit. He was a hateful, small-minded little fuck, and...AND... he had virtually no game to speak of. That combination is unforgivable. Plus he had the charisma of a file cabinet. A file cabinet full of papers displaying the box scores of every game Charlie Ward ever played for the Knicks, with his stat line highlighted.

So a belated F you to C Ward.

Then Saturday night I knocked back a few bierce with some college pals at Tom & Jerry's. It was fun, but around 2:30 everybody (except me) started getting tired. I was about to enter the "rah rah let's tear the night open and throw burning garbage into its bleeding torso" section of the evening, but I sensed that there was no more life to be squeezed from this particular crew on this particular night. They had stuff to do on Sunday and frankly I was becoming more aggressively uninteresting every second. So we parted ways, mostly their choice.

I put on my headphones and started to walk home. The bottom may be falling out of the economy but you'd never guess it from walking through NYC at night. Packed bars, people spilling out onto the street smoking. Traffic all jammed up at 3 am. Horns and loudmouths filling in any silent moment that might try to slip in. Packs of douchebags in pressed shirts, looking to pick up girls so they can brag about it to their bros the next day. Arty kids passing judgment on them. And married dudes walking home from the bar bopping their heads to their favorite songs from 1973.

I walked up Bowery and made a right onto maybe 3rd street. Up ahead something caught my eye. It was a young couple, grinding like crazy against a building. What fun! At first I thought they were actually...you know...doing it. They were totally mashing their parts together in a crazy exaggerated thrusty-dance. I think the words "They're fucking!" actually rolled across my mind.

As I got closer I noticed that they were clothed, which both relieved and disappointed me. I would call it a building-aided vertical dry hump al fresco, if I was keeping score. As I got closer still I noticed that the guy was sort of burying his face in the woman's neck/cleavage area, and the woman was leaning back and apparently enjoying whatever he was doing. Then I looked again...the woman was actually talking on her cell phone!

Wow.

I got concerned for a minute. What if she was in trouble? I didn't want to be part of a 2008 Kitty Genovese moment, so I turned off my music to listen for sounds of distress and/or ecstasy. No sounds I could make out at all. Definitely none to get worried about.

But I couldn't help wondering: who was she calling? Was she listening to work voicemails? Calling an ex to taunt him with the live play by play of her latest hookup? Looking to recruit a third? Naively trying to pre-order Mets playoff tickets? Calling Ghostbusters? Making a spa appointment for Sunday?

And did her paramour care that all his best moves were only enough to consume a fraction of her attention? He didn't seem to.

I like to think I would.

IAQ part II

Q: Since you are a weepy little vegetarian puss-boy, I wonder: have you ever killed something? You might like it.

A: I don't like killing. I don't like dying. I don't like jokes about death. I don't like suffering. I believe most animals suffer in some way when they are killed. It's all bad.

That said, I have killed. I went fishing once. I caught like 5 fish. We threw 'em on some ice; I don't remember the rest but can only presume they later died. That one's on me, li'l fishes. Oh, and I accidentally stepped on my pet gerbil McIntosh when I was 6 years old, causing it to writhe spasmodically across the linoleum kitchen floor of our rented summer house, coughing up blood. It died a few minutes later, so we buried it in the backyard. When we visited the gravesite later that day it was swarming with ants.

Maybe that had an impact on me.

I did kill a mongo fucking waterbug thing at my mom's house last weekend. Not proud of it, but not feeling guilty either. It had to die. To me, insects are below the mercy line. It's not that I think they are too stupid to have feelings -- I have seen roaches scurry for their lives. It's more that I hate them and consider them the enemy.

Q: Do you like cabbies who go real fast, real slow, or somewhere in the middle?

A: Generally, real fast. I appreciate the effort to get me there quickly. However, I had a cabbie the other day who was lurching in and out of traffic so violently that it actually made me a little queasy. I was amazed he didn't bang into anything. He may never have an accident, but if he does, it'll be an ugly one.

Q: What's your take on those Heineken mini-kegs? I'm thinking about getting one this weekend.

A: Look, go get the mini-keg. They're pretty adorable. But be warned: it is not going to accommodate a large crowd. Or even a small crowd. Or even a poker game. It's like 12 beers. BJL, Joe Monkeyweb and I put one away during the Jets game a couple of weeks ago and it barely made a scratch in my sobriety.

12 beers. When I was a young man that was half a night. I remember showing up at parties with a couple of forties, partly trying to be different and willfully uncool, but partly also thinking, I'm gonna drink me 80 ounces of beer, EASY. And sure enough, I would. Then I'd steal somebody else's beer the rest of the night. Then everything would be so so good for a short while.

What I'm getting at is, if you are going to a snooty get-together this weekend, bring a mini-keg. FOR YOURSELF. Write your name on it in sharpie and ask that everyone refrain from touching it. You will win.

Q: How are you coping with the Yankees, well, you know, no jugarán en Octubre?

A: Reading a lot of SLAM magazine. Glaring at the squirrels. Sipping coldies when the bosses punch out. Revelling in Clemens's weird Stadium snub disappointment. Working like a dog. Rocking out to that old familiar love song. Mentally high-fiving myself for no reason. And, of course, thinking back on that crazy night at Jon's house when you, me, and Jimmy all paid $5.50 for Chinese food and Rolling Rocks.

Q: So you got your Hold Steady ticket. Who's going, and where are we meeting up beforehand?

A: Let's get a list. Pete, you in? BJL? I know Mike D. Hunt and his pal Finn will be there, fresh from Minneapolis. The show's all the way on the westside so maybe we should meet in midtown and then head over. Are you familiar with the phrase "Jimmy's Neutral Corner"? Just a thought.

Q: Say you got in a horrible accident, and all that was left of you was like a toenail, an ear, an eye, various digestive parts, and a brain. You couldn't talk, you couldn't move or communicate, you were just a sad thing in a bed. Would you want to keep living like this?

A: Yes. Every second on this sweet earth is an undeserved gift from the great mysterious whoknowswhat, and as long as I can think and sense in some way what is going on around me, I will accept the gift humbly.

To be clear: this is not to say I don't like KitKats and blowjobs.

Q: OK, say I'm having a post-bar extravaganza at my apartment and I have a magic music machine that has all the music in the world on it. As usual, you are the drunkest one there and, with only like 5 people left in the room, you decide you are now officially DJ. You badly need to inflict your taste on everyone else.What nine songs can you not resist playing, despite the fact that they are not necessarily party songs and everybody else is tired of them because you did the same thing at the last extravaganza?

A: at the moment:
-I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
-Debris
-I Will Dare
-Incident on 57th Street
-Central Reservation
-Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues
-Monkey Gone to Heaven
-for fun, Laid
-then I'll let you pick one. Wait, not that crap.

Q: How do we get more IAQ's?

A: Send in some legit Q's.

just some crap

Ordered my DBT-THS ticket for the Thursday night 11/6 show. It's gonna be awesome, I can tell. I say we (anyone who's reading this and attending) meet up for some happy hour action beforehand. If you've got the time, we've got the beer.

Summer is over. Astroland is over. The future of Shoot the Freak is anyone's guess.

I don't feel wistful about this summer, maybe cuz I'm feeling pretty good about fall. I have like three new shirts, a new hoodie and two new pairs of pants. That's what you need going into any new season. Some new clothes. Just to let everybody know you're still a factor that needs to be dealt with.

I got a haircut, too, from the barber on West 11th street I've been going to on and off for like 30 years. When I was a kid, it was called Little Tony's. Then, maybe due to some litigation or just a fondness for WCBS-FM, it became Little Tony Be Good. Now it is Little Tony & Igor Be Good. Times change. Eventually, Igor may need to get involved. No sense fighting it.

After a quick internet lookup: here's the story. Sad, in the end. Aren't they all? Should I be going to Mr. Joseph's now?

I played hoops on Saturday for the first time since I was in California this summer. I didn't suck too bad at all. Maybe like a 4 outta 10 on the suck scale. I am going to play again this Saturday and next Saturday and every Saturday until my ACL snaps like a rubber band.

So probably like three more Saturdays.

(EDIT: played again this Saturday, I sucked a little bit more than last Saturday, and I took a crippling blow to my midsection that sounded like two sides of beef slamming into each other at 150 mph. I will still play again next week.)

Facebook sexual orientation update: one of my high school buddies who was ostensibly straight back in '87 is now officially gay. And, judging from some recently posted pics, another dude who I used to work with will be gay soon. He's pretty much just waiting for the paperwork to go through. If I ever decide that I am gay, facebook will be an excellent tool for coming out. I think I would probably just update my status to "Hans is now gay. Way gay."

I just want to remind you that I predicted an 85-77 season for the Yanks. Keep some tabs on that for me.

irresolutions v. 1

Summer, that sloppy, sandy, overtanned, oiled-up ol' beach floozy that you somehow can't forget, is pulling out of your driveway in tears. She's done with you and your bullshit and she's determined to find someone who will make her feel like a lady. Meanwhile, Autumn's texting you that she wants you to meet her parents. This is serious.

As the mornings get cooler and the crops come in, it seems like a good time to reflect on life, rue old fuckups, and make grand plans we never intend to act upon.

Here then is my first set of Irresolutions, stuff I kinda hope to do in the upcoming months, but -- let's face it -- probably won't. It's mostly the same old crap. And, when appropriate, I'll pepper in a few pieces of related information I've gathered over the years.

I. Normally I'd make a resolution to just ignore the assholes, to let 'em have their moment rather than stooping to their level. Fuck that. My new plan: just stoop, baby. When an asshole pipes up and sprays me with their asshole talk, I am spraying right back. No free asshole rides anymore. You say something obnoxious, hurtful or insulting to me, it is coming right back at you and I'm putting a little Trappey's Hot Sauce on there as well. You're warned, asshole.

II. Man I need to drop 20 lbs. Reasons are many:
-delay arrival of first heart attack at 46 and premature death at 59;
-gain ability to dunk basketball backwards while shouting Garnettlike stream-of-consciousness obscenities of joy;
-look better in clothes;
-look better out of clothes;
-feel sexy like a sexy man should.

To achieve this shit, here are a few things I should do but won't.

-Give up soda (will actually do this -- in fact, holy shit! I just did).
-Cut out chips. Chips are my fucking weakness and we gots all kinds of free chips at work. It's a problem. Man I love chips. Right?
-Stay away from the chunky chews.
-Ride my bike/walk/run to work.
-Jog around outside.
-Swim. ha ha ha.
-Lift weights. ha ha ha. oh my God you totally got me on that one!
-Eat good food for lunch at least three days a week, and horrible food only like once a month.
-Kick my vegetarianism to the curb and start eating fish.

This might be a good time to point out that somebody once told me you are allowed exactly two loud awkward slurps at the bottom of a milkshake. Any more than that is rude. Also, many urinal-mates have told me that if you shake it more than twice you're playing with it. I am not sure if these two rules are related. Whatever, I can't be drinking milkshakes or masturbating in public anyway.

III. Get in a good weekly hoops game, preferably against anemic dwarves with spotty outside shots and poor ballhandling skills. Then and only then can I dominate. Otherwise I might as well retire.

IV. Get on top of shit at work, at least to the point where I don't feel like I'm always one step away from chaos/panic/disaster/personal humiliation. This can be done. It's not just on me, we need to get our whole ship moving a little more steadily, and then when the storm arrives we're not running around wildly like a bunch of desperate sea monkeys.

Related: never settle for a metaphor as lame as "running around wildly like a bunch of desperate sea monkeys" again.

V. See the Hold Steady/Drive-by-Truckers show when they come here. Who's in? No, I mean BESIDES The Hold Steady and the Drive-By-Truckers. Alright, who needs you.

VI. Read a book every two weeks. I may have to count my kid's night-night books for this to work. But man, there's nothing like being carried away by a good book. Except maybe Fritos. Oh Lord my feelings towards Fritos are nearly sexual.

Hey, I said NEARLY.

VII. Switch from Budweiser products to Miller products to support one of my favorite states, Wisconsin. It's like the only one still brewing there, right? Shit, just found out Miller is in business with Coors. What should I drink? Pabst? Old Style?

VIII. Become more aware of what's going on in my family and more involved in its future. They need me to be at suspected-performance-enhancing-drugs-user levels of productivity. I can do it.

IX. Do a better job managing my money. I would settle for a better job physically managing my cash -- the loose bills in my pocket and the ratty receipts in my wallet. My pop was the same way.

X. When pissed off at someone, vent about it to others only when completely necessary and appropriate. Talking shit behind people's backs is weak. Confront directly if at all possible. Most likely I will continue to seethe silently.

XI. Attend one more game at Yankee Stadium before they rip it down. I haven't been to a game yet this year. Ah, who really cares? The stadium has no real personality, and the whole thing already got redone like 30 years ago. Oh well, we'll always have Ken Griffey Sr.'s 1983 catch to remember it by.

XII. Wear my nice soft new hoodie to work when it's between 50-60 degrees outside. I love hoodies. I suspect they love me too but the consequences of admitting it are too dire for them to ever say anthing.

XIII. finish my t-shirt based on this design:


...and live in accordance with its lofty ideals.