Monday, July 14, 2008

stuck outside of Eau Claire with the Minneapolis blues again

I'm back in NYC after two weeks in Southern California. Thought I would post some pictures. First some I took here in NYC before I left...

Ah, Stomp. What the fuck is the deal with Stomp? How is it still playing? Do they have one of those $60 a month loophole leases or something? I fucking HATE Stomp. It's been there for like 20 years. Who's going?

I would rather watch Riptide reruns with my eyelids taped open than sit through Stomp. Look at this part of the poster outside the theater. The dude has plungers stuck to his belly! Ha ha!

If your pal came out of the bathroom like that, you'd probably give it a genuine three to five second laugh. But it ain't professional-quality entertainment. Ah, who knows? Maybe Stomp is awesome.

Bowling is awesome, although the Bowlmor has really gone from a legendary NYC institution of sketchiness and fun to a representation of all that is wrong with our town: expensive, showy, and completely lacking in substance and functionality. And I sucked my first time out post-209.

Representing all that is right in our city is San Loco. Cheap, tasty, no-frills, and pretty much unchanged as far as my drunken old taste buds can tell.

I ordered way too much food. Sometimes that's what you do, rather than choose.

Did you know there is an amazing public track right off the FDR downtown? You can just go run there whenever you want. If I were the type of man who ran, I might do it there.

The Belgian place in our neighborhood is far from perfect, but it's a nice place to chill on a HIATUS afternoon.

Threatening skies to the West. And man is Houston street a mess.

Beach day, Stuyvesant Town-style:

Then there's a genuine California beach day. Sigh.

My freshman year roommate was a fascinating guy. A sensitive soul trapped in the body of a mountain man. Or maybe he was just a mountain man. He had no fears. He used to tell me that if he was in an airplane that crashed, he'd be fine. "I would do whatever it took to get out alive. I would just be determined to survive and I'd make it." I almost believed him, because he was the toughest bastard I ever met. Beating him in a fight would mean killing him and would probably take three men.

Let's call him Oly.

He was always getting into trouble, sometimes his fault, sometimes just terrible luck. He had a girlfriend in Minneapolis for awhile and he used to hitchhike there from Madison to go see her. One time, just a few miles into the journey, he found a ride with a middle-aged dude who said he was going all the way to Minneapolis. Great luck! It was cold as hell and the less rides it took to get there, the better.

Not a word was said between them for the first 30 or 40 miles. Finally, the middle aged guy cleared his throat and spoke.

"Do me a favor, reach underneath your seat," he said.

Oly reached down and found an unmarked, nearly full bottle of who knows what.

"Have some," said the driver.

"No, that's OK," Oly said. "I'm good."

"Ah, a teetotaler," said the driver. "Well pass it over here then."

Oly passed him the bottle, and the guy took a healthy tug.

"You don't look like a teetotaler," said the driver. "Come on, have a sip."

Not knowing what else to do, and seeing as how the driver had already taken a sip and was still alive, Oly grabbed the bottle and took a nice deep gulp. It burned, but in a familiar way.

"Good, isn't it?" the driver said, taking the bottle back and helping himself to another huge snort. "I knew you wasn't a teetotaler."

This went on for another hour or so, the two of them passing the bottle back and forth, and finally there was some conversation. Just small talk, where you from, are you a Packers fan, etc. Just bullshitting. Oly noticed that the guy was beginning to gently swerve out of his lane every few minutes, and the car had dipped down to about 50 mph on the left lane of the interstate. Oly was getting drunk, but his survival instinct had kicked in and he began to watch the driver carefully to make sure he didn't lose control of the car. Several times it almost happened. Oly considered grabbing the wheel, or asking him to pull over, but each time he was about to, the guy would straighten up in his seat, shake out the cobwebs and right the ship. There didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

As the bottle became nearly empty, the small talk trailed off to silence again. After a few awkward miles, the driver suddenly asked, "Have you ever sucked a man's dick?"

"Uh...no," Oly said.

"Well, I'll tell you what," said the driver. "There's an exit about two miles up the road. I'm gonna take that exit, then I'm gonna pull over, and then you're gonna find out what it's like to suck a man's dick."

Without hesitation, Oly pulled a knife out of his sock and held it up to the guy's face.

"No...you're gonna pull over right here and let me out," Oly said. "Right now."

"Easy, easy! I was just talking," said the driver, pulling over immediately. Oly held the knife up to the guy's face the entire time, then grabbed his backpack and climbed out of the car. The guy sped off.

It was getting dark. Oly was still about ten miles Southwest of Eau Claire. He put his knife back in his sock and began to walk down I-94. He was still too freaked out to put his thumb back up, so he just kept walking in the cold. He walked for nearly four miles before he heard a siren behind him. It was a state trooper, a woman, and she told him not to move. She had her gun drawn already.

"Do you have any concealed weapons?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I have a knife."

He pulled it out and offered it to her, handle first.

"You know that's against the law," she said, taking the knife and then kicking it aside. "And you shouldn't be out here."

He told her the story. She told him to go pick up the knife and put it back in his sock. He scrambled over to get it.

"Get in," she said. He climbed into the passenger seat of her cruiser. She drove him all the way to Minneapolis, neither of them saying a word.

This is a palm tree:
Palm trees are pretty awesome.

While we were in Cali, we went to this interesting offshoot of the SD Zoo.

I have mixed feelings about zoos, although this one was pretty cool because it was spread out and there seemed to be more attention paid to recreating the natural habitats of the animals, etc. It was vast.

Given the choice between living in a mock habitat sans predators or going home to the real deal, I gotta think these guys would stay in San Diego. I know I would.


I'm sure they've all lost their natural hunting instinct and gone soft but they're probably cool with that. This guy looks like he'd still fuck me up in an instant.

We went by the beach. People were surfing.

I'll never be as cool as the uncoolest surfer.


Even the Lego surfers are cooler than me.


There is a scene in Knocked Up where the Paul Rudd character grits his teeth and says with a forced smile, "We're going to Legoland." When you go to Legoland, you are officially renouncing your selfish youth and acknowledging that you now exist mostly to make your kids happy. It's a strange feeling, but it's also sort of comforting. And I gotta say, the Lego people are really good at making shit out of Legos.



Outside the bathroom there was this odd Lego cartoon:

I understand the first panel: "Dad, get me some water."

And I understand the second panel: Dad steps on kid's Lego and shrieks in pain, spilling the water in the process.


But the payoff? Hmm. 25 GP's to the person who comes up with the best caption for this:

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Saturday, June 21, 2008

i got a nikon camera

So I got my new digital camera: it's a Nikon D40. It's a couple of years old but I hear good things about it and the price was right. I could have probably got a more souped-up model without totally breaking the bank, but the truth is I know zero about photography so this will be a good intro for me. I am still trying to get that magic DSLR look, but here are some shots I took with the new camera, definitely better than the old one. As always, you can click to enlarge.

Had a couple of daytime beers on Thursday with crsmal. You should have been there, we missed you. Not really.

Here he is. He is about to tell me to go fuck myself.


The place filled up at lunchtime but by 2:30 it was 95% cleared out and the bartender could safely return to the racing form.

On the way home I snapped some shots. This dude is roughly one third as suave as he thinks he is. He's actually on the phone asking his mom to send him money.

Some intense discussion outside the palm reader on Horatio street. I should have majored in palm reading. There will always be palms.

I caught this gentleman from across a park with my zoom lens. He's definitely going for the Eddie Felson, Color of Money-era look. And it's working for him.

The courts on Horatio are kinda over with, just a couple of people playing one on one. I have some great memories of playing there over the years. One that stands out was the day this white banker dude who wasn't even very good insisted on yelling "boo-ya" every time he shot.


This guy is famous. He had just sold about five of these things when I took the shot.

These two were having a great animated discussion on East 15th street. I am not sure if they are a couple, but I hope they are.

The new camera will definitely help with shots of the kid:


When I got home I stopped for a quick pee at this crappy bar outside Stuyvesant town. It was pretty full, mostly an OTB kinda crowd. For some reason, "Left of the Dial" was playing on the jukebox.
I finished Cruddy. It eventually became overwhelmingly dark and violent, to the point where I found it a bit exhausting. Graphic, gross, fucked up, weird, depressing, but still occasionally funny and very poignant. I guess I still kind of love it. I give it an 8.5 out of 10. Don't want to recommend it to anyone who is offended by blood, guts, etc. but the main character will definitely break your heart. Whoever asks for it, it's yours.

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