Attention, whoever runs the music at my office building

You can lay off the Christmas music now. And if you're not going to lay off of it, how about at least not piping it into the bathroom? Do you have any idea how hard it is to go when the velvety smooth voice of Lou Rawls is singing O Come All Ye Faithful? I can't figure out if I should take a piss or go go splash on some High Karate and pour myself an Old Fashioned before going out to find some foxy chicks who want to swing.

Lay off the Christmas music. Please.

My back pages

I had plans for some actual content here today, but I've apparently contracted every disease in the world simultaneously. So, when not praying for my own death and nearly passing out in the drug store (fun day around the Shark Fin Hat world headquarters), I did some web surfing. Remember this? Well, lookie here.



What the hell? Who's coming with me to Asia so we can eat food endorsed by Robocop? I wonder if ED-209 is the pitchman for any rival noodles.

I swear to God that I won't do any more Robocop posts until '09.

And here it is, Merry Christmas

So, here's a couple of things on Christmas. First, Ron.

Ron had a happy little Christmas
Ate a waffle and he put away the dishes
Ron read the paper and he went for a run
No one can say that he doesn't know fun

Ron called his mom and his sister
Called his Aunt Jane but he missed her
Ron doesn't go to church these days
Now that he's older and set in his ways

Ron chopped wood and he stacked it up
Poured a little whiskey in his favorite cup
Ron built a fire as the sun went down
King of his world with a royal crown

It's ain't exactly "Yes, Virginia," but it's what I got.

And the Muppets + the Hold Steady = a reason to smile



Have a good day, whoever you are and whatever you're into. Cheers.

Philo Farnsworth and me

I don't watch a lot of TV. I'm not making any kind of big stand here, there are a few shows I try to catch, but I just don't make the time commitment for most television. As a result, I become a bit of a social pariah whenever any of the following come up:

Lost
Heroes
24
ER (This is still on, yes?)
Desperate Housewives
Grey's Anatomy
House (Actually, just saw my first episode of this. They showed a little kid bleeding rectally in the first five minutes. Pass.)
Battlestar Galactica
Law & Order in any iteration
CSI
How I Met Your Mother
American Idol
Dancing with the Stars

And so on. But, I've spent this evening catching up on Elvis Costello's Spectacle on the Sundance Channel. Holy lord, this is a fine example of the medium. Each episode is Elvis sitting down with a guest to discuss their mutual love and experiences with music, with performances scattered throughout. So far I've seen the Elton John and Lou Reed episodes, and both were electric. It's easy to forget just what a great musician Elton John is with all of the grand showman aura about him. His episode dispels a lot of that, and Reed's episode breaks through the coldness that has been attributed to him over the years, rightfully or not. This is informative, enjoyable and warm television, something all too rare.

If you're not a music nerd and are starting to doze off after my little spiel above*, you should still give the show a chance. The performances alone are worth the price of admission, as seen below. The ones I've included here are Elvis performing covers of his guests' songs, but there are some incredible duets featured, too.





*Yeah, I realize that could have less to do with whether or you're not a music nerd and more to do with me being a shitty writer, wiseass.

Addendum

The package has been located. It's in the front office of my apartment complex. I am an idiot. That is all.

My Christmas wish...

If I had but one wish this holiday season, it would be for the jackoff that stole the Amazon package left at my door to get cayenne pepper in his eye. And then his brakes fail. And he hits a wall. And his car explodes. All while I'm banging his wife.

Hey, asshole. Are you enjoying the Red Steagall and Supersuckers CDs and the book of short stories by Larry Brown? Isn't that exactly what you were hoping to find when you opened that box? I'm sure that's right up your alley. Dickhole.

Okay. Rant ranted. I refuse to let this make me any more of a misanthrope than I already am. I am going to accept the fact that the world is a horror (see two posts back), and in the context of that, I am going to find something that make me happy. I was going to find some kind of Christmassy song/video to post here, but everything just seemed so cliche, so instead I'm just going to put one that makes me smile. Here. Happy holidays, folks. It's all good in the hood.

Fried chicken

As a life-long resident of the south, I kind of figured we had the market cornered on the world's best fried chicken. However, the fried chicken in Korea appears to be fuckin' amazing...

This holiday season...

Over the last two days, I went to five different stores looking for the right Barbie for my niece. Spending two days and a whole bunch of fossil fuel looking for a hunk of plastic that will most likely be forgotten within a couple of years kind of encapsulates why I'm pretty sure I'll never have kids, but I did it for two reasons:

1. I'm going to tell a 5-year old that she didn't get what she wanted because her uncle didn't feel like driving around and wanted to teach her a lesson about materialism? How much of a dick do you think I am?

2. She wanted Zoo Doctor Barbie. ZOO DOCTOR BARBIE. I have a niece that's expressing an interest in science, however tangential. I'm going to cultivate the living shit out of that.

More about the holiday season. About a year ago was a grim, grim time, even for me. A number of things personally and professionally had gone wrong, leaving me feeling like I couldn't trust anyone, most of all myself. I pulled through thanks to some heretofore untapped internal reserves and the support of a small group of friends and family. Another thing that helped get me through that time was a rant by Little Steven on his Underground Garage show. I posted this on my old blog, and I reproduce it here now:

“Okay, who wants to commit suicide? Raise your hand. One, two…quite a few this year. All right, let’s try and figure this out, shall we? Three reasons, I’m thinking:

Number One: Society says you should be happy and thankful this time of year, and you’re not either one.

Number Two: You are lonely. It’s the time when people celebrate family and friends, and you either don’t like a lot of your family, or you don’t have much of a family, and you really don’t have that many close friends, either.

Number Three, and this is good any time of the year: You’re broke. Busted. Tapped out. Bills are piling up, and now you’re supposed to buy people presents?

That pretty much covers it, right? Well guess what? Everybody’s depressed. Everybody with a brain, anyway. That is reality for most people. Some people are better actors, and some people can live in denial more successfully than others. But the reality is, life sucks. It’s a horror.

Yes, there a few people who have wonderful families and friends and money. A very few. Everybody else going around looking and acting happy is a moron. They’re idiots. Don’t they read the papers? New Orleans, the Asian tsunami, AIDS in Africa. Need something closer? Go out your door, make a right, how far do you get before tripping over a homeless person?

Life sucks, trust me. Most people’s families are dysfunctional, most people’s friends are backstabbing hypocrites, and our economy is permanently screwed. It will be bad for the rest of everybody’s lifetime because of the debt. Not just the deficit, the debt. So it ain’t just you.

So what do you want to do? Sit around and whine about it? Commit suicide? Check out and let the bad guys win? Because they want sensitive, intelligent troublemakers like you out of the way.

No. We are not going to whine and complain. We are not going to very cowardly check out. We are going to acknowledge that the world is a horror show, and in the context of that reality, and in spite of that reality, we are going to find some things to celebrate.

Like what? Like the Beatles. Like Little Richard. Like the Ramones. Like Jon Stewart. Like the Simpsons. Like Bill Maher. Like dogs and elephants and sex and love and the one family member maybe you do like, or the one friend maybe you do trust. Or the little kid down the street that smiles at you when you’re in a bad mood. Like truth. Like books. Like movies, flowers, go-go girls, and Christmas.

Christmas is cool. That’s why everybody celebrates it, regardless of their religions. It doesn’t matter if Jesus was really the son of God or not. Like all religious writings, it is symbolic. Christmas symbolizes rebirth, renewal, a second chance, an opportunity to start over. We’re not on this planet very long to begin with, so while we’re here, let’s try and have a little fun.”

Be good to each other out there, folks.


"Tom Waits and Peter Murphy" duet on a Christmas song. There are no visuals. Wash the dishes or something while you listen.

Shuffle poem

The game: put your ipod or what-have-you on shuffle. The first line of the first 20 songs is your poem, the first line of the 21st is the title.

Everything's So Easy for Pauline

Sun Green started making waves on the day Grandpa died
I know you think we're pretty thick
Smack crack bushwacked
Can you hear the little girls asking "Daddy where have all the little boys gone?"
A man can't do no more than a woman will let him

She was a girl from Birmingham
Should we give it up?
I walk the thinnest line
Take her to heart
They'll talk about it after dinner over after dinner drinks

I crept from a soft dimension
She's nine years old and sweet as she could be
I could live inside a teepee
This forest is growing faster than I could tell
You said that I would be sorry if you went away

My my, hey hey
When you lie don't you cry because it's over
We used to kiss
You got a dangerous background
Oh, life is bigger


Hmmm. It actually kind of hangs together for a bit before it totally breaks down into randomness.

Swifty meals.

A few thoughts on fast food...

1. I'd like to have a word with the people at McDonald's who let the word "nuggnut" enter the lexicon. First of all, for this to have happened, somebody had to brainstorm it from their advertising team. Then they had to present it to McDonald's executives as a good idea to build a campaign around. Then it was tested through multiple focus groups and passed with flying colors. Then commercials were written and filmed, Web sites conceptualized, written and constructed. AROUND A WORD AS GODDAMN GROSS SOUNDING AS NUGGNUT. Christ.

2. Attention, Arby's. My office window overlooks one of you, so we have an uneasy truce of a co-existence. I have accepted this. What I cannot accept is your commercial where the guy has his wife dress up as an Arby's worker and carry in a tray of roast fucking beef as a way to sexify the ol' lovelife. I might have left this well enough alone, but then you have your logo sproing to life above his head in the most blatant bit of phallic symbolism I've seen on television since the last time I watched one of those Sunday morning fishing shows on ESPN. The hell?

3. You guys had one of the chicken biscuits from Wendy's? Chicken the size of your head. It's horrendously awful for you, but it soaks up a hangover quite well.

Best shows, plus bonus

Best shows I saw in 2008:

1. The Dirtbombs at the Earl, April 2nd— The best show I saw this year, hands down. Two hours of insane Detroit garage soul rock. They loved the crowd, the crowd loved them and nobody stopped moving the whole night. Their We Have You Surrounded album is essential. See them whenever, wherever.

2. R.E.M. at Lakewood Amphitheater, June 21st – The third time I’ve seen them, and the best. Touring behind their best album in 10 years, they sounded like a band re-energized. The mighty Justin Waddell and I went to this show together and I think both of us nearly cried when they fired up “Harborcoat.” Well, Justin cried. I stood there being all stoic and awesome.

3. Tom Waits at the Fox Theater, July 5th—I never thought I’d get the chance to see Waits play. But he came here a couple of years ago, the show was great, and I figured that was it. Then he comes back two years later with the Glitter and Doom tour and completely blows the previous show out of the water. “Innocent When You Dream” with the audience singing along—chills.

4. The Drive-By Truckers/The Hold Steady/Bobby Bare Jr. at the Ryman Auditorium, October 31st—Every bit as good as I hoped it would be. I’ve become a big fan of the Hold Steady over the last couple of years, and their live show lived up to their reputation. I can’t remember that last time I saw a band that so completely captured the emotion of what rock and roll can come to mean. The Truckers were on fire, and the whole night was pure joy. Couple that with the surprise of finding out that a good friend of mine from high school was Bobby Bare Jr.’s drummer and you’ve got a perfect show.

Now if somebody could hook a brother up with AC/DC tickets…

And now...

Mork calling Orson. NaNo, NaNo

First things first, new comic strip here.

Second things second, I finished my novel for NaNoWriMo 2008, On the Beach. Whether it’s any good remains to be seen, as the editing and rewriting process lies ahead now. But I do think the germ of a good story is there, and I accomplished at least some of what I wanted to do. If nothing else, it stands as the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever written and proves (to me) that I can take a disciplined approach to my more creative endeavors, which is what had been missing for quite some time.

Anyway, I don’t know if spending a month straight writing about an alcoholic, suicidal asshole was therapeutic or dangerous, but it’s done. Here’s the honor roll for this endeavor:

Neil Young’s On the Beach album—“Ambulance Blues” is the best song ever. I realize I say that about a lot of songs. The mood of this record was a huge influence on the book.
SIP
That girl with pink hair who works there
Manuel’s Tavern
The Independent
George Dickel
Peets Coffee
The World's Greatest Sinner
The I Don’t Care trivia team, whose creativity inspires my own
The Mighty Mighty Matt Myers and Cary Christopher for the same reasons

Thanksgiving Weekend Dance Party

Oldies edition:

1. Gordon Lightfoot, "Sundown." Been on a Gordon Lightfoot kick lately for some reason*:



2. The Hollies, "Bus Stop." Best song ever? Maybe.



3. Sigh. The fact that I can kind of count this as an oldie makes me sadder than you can imagine, but it's 15 years old, so...Also, this may well be my favorite song of all time.

Soul Asylum, "Without a Trace."



By the by, I had completely forgotten that Clare Danes was in the video for "Just Like Anyone." You can watch it over at Youtube, but I can't embed it here because SonyBMG are a bunch of Nazis.

Actual content on the way soon.


*The reason is most likely that I am 65 years old on the inside.

Old dirty bastards

I'm going to be a complete junior high girl for a minute (get back here, this isn't about Twilight) and wish a happy birthday to a couple of my friends who are aging this week. These two guys are were part of a small group of people who closed ranks around me a little while back and helped me get through an extraordinarily difficult time, quite literally helping to save my life.


Guys, your friendship means the world to me and is one of the things that keeps me in balance. This song is for you.

SSDD.

Here's something that happened to me yesterday:

Me, sitting in traffic, happily humming along to Waylon Jennings' "Outlaw Shit." The lady in the car next to me starts waving, trying to get my attention. I roll down the window.

"Can you tell me how to get to Monroe?"

"Keep going straight, then make a left when you get to Smiths Olde Bar."

"And will that take me to 10th, where the movie theater is?"

I pause for a second, replaying the route in my head. "Oh, yeah, it's down that way."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Are you positive?"

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE TIME!

If Will gets so fucking annoyed at being questioned twice about the directions he just gave that he pulls a bazooka out of the back seat and shoots the stupid lady in the face, turn to page 36.

If Will gets so fucking annoyed at being questioned twice about the directions he just gave that he somehow manages to turn into the Hulk and throw the stupid lady's car to the moon, turn to page 52.

The World's Greatest Sinner

A few weeks ago on TCM’s Underground, maybe the best block of programming on television, they showed a classic so fucked up, so out there, that it has now taken the crown as THE WEIRDEST GODDAMN MOVIE I’VE EVER SEEN.

Please keep in mind this is coming from a guy who owns the three-disk deluxe edition DVD of Caligula and saw Pink Flamingos in the theater.

The World’s Greatest Sinner, from 1962, is a project from Timothy Carey, a character actor who had roles in Kubrick and Cassavettes films. He wrote, directed, produced, distributed and stars in the film, which is about…

Hoo boy.

You know you’re in for something when the screen immediately slams you in the face with a blast of red. Carey plays Clarence “God” Hilliard, an ordinary guy who walks out on his insurance job and starts his own religion based on man being his own god. Also, he spreads the word through rockabilly music, while sporting a glue-on soul patch. Oh, and then he runs for president. And he and his family live in the suburbs but have a pony. And Frank Zappa did the score, some of his earliest professional work. And fucking Paul Frees is the voice of the Devil. It all leads to conclusion built of Hilliard’s own hubris that…look, you have to see this for yourself.

I’m pretty sure Carey made this movie for two primary reasons:

1. So he could make the movie he wanted to make, with the political and religious themes he wanted, Hollywood system be damned.
2. So he could make out with women ranging from age 14 to around 80 throughout the movie.
   

I respect that. It gives me hope for getting my script for Sharkfinhat Gives It to that Girl From Transformers made.

The World’s Greatest Sinner is filled with bizarre jump cuts, weird imagery, Dadaist influences, and Carey generally looking like he’s ganked out of his mind most of the time. All of this insanity wraps up in under 80 minutes. Over at Absolute Films, run by Carey’s son, you can find out more about whatever the hell this is and get a copy of the film.

I’m leaning towards The World’s Greatest Sinner being genius. It’s been a month since I watched this thing and I can’t get it out of my head. Isn’t that one of the requirements of great art? My hat’s off to you, Mr. Carey.

If you are well and truly bored...

You can track the progress of my NaNoWriMo book here. I hit 30,000 words and I still don't totally hate the story, so I'm taking that as a good sign. I wrote a sex scene today, which was kind of fun because I had to find the balance between sounding passionate and sounding like a Penthouse letter.

Dance Party U.S.A.

It's Friday. I have no content for you, but here are some cool songs.

1. Holy shit!



2. Centro-Matic is one of the best bands in the world that you're probably not listening to.



3. Speaking of great bands that you're probably not listening to, here's Pugwash.

With apologies to Tom Waits

Jerry the security guard worked hard. Well, Jerry the security guard worked, at least. Cornerback for the high school football team, blew his knee out his first year at junior college before he had a chance to transfer to the university. The job paid decent enough and mostly all he had to do was stand around in the lobby a couple of hours in the morning and then make his rounds.

Jerry waved to all the office rats as they came in every day before they shuffled off to the elevators to go upstairs and do God knows what. Jerry ate his lunch back by the loading docks with the cleaning guys before going back to do his afternoon rounds. Jerry would go home to his wife that had been a cheerleader at the junior college and now worked down at the nail salon and watched Dancing with the Stars every week. Jerry sipped at a glass of George Dickel before he went to sleep every night.

Last night, Jerry waited until that one prick from the accounting firm on 12 was in the revolving door and then jammed his baton in the groove so the little bastard was stuck. Jerry made sure the guy could see when he walked up to his car and pissed on it. Jerry gave him a wave, then took off in his own car, headed south and moving fast.

Jerry hated Dancing with the Stars.

Days of Wine and Sharks, Vol. IV

Part the Final

(Note: Cary did another write up of what it feels like to be in that shark cage. I highly suggest you click here and read it.

I wake up after possibly the most sound night's sleep ever. Takes me a minute to adjust to where I am or even who I am. Then it hits me that I slept in a bed that folds out of from the wall, the kind that Jack Tripper would have gotten a full half hour out of. I shower and everybody else starts to get up. We have breakfast at the condo and get ready to go.

We’re taking a tour of wine country today, having a limo cart us around. I’ve only been in a limo once before, for a strange, brief ride across my hometown last Christmas. We all pile in and start the drive. The driver, Robert, is a cool guy who knows a lot about the area and the wines made here. I keep an eye on the countryside since I’ve never been in this part of California, but it’s all a bit of a blur.

Here’s the thing about me and wine: I know dick-all about it. I know I like red ones, but not the white ones so much. We hit six or seven wineries over the course of the day. I tried several I liked, but there’s no way I could distinguish them from each other if you put them in front of me. This is the third time I’ve spent a day touring wineries, and I’m none the smarter for it. The fact that I’m usually pretty buzzed at the end of these tours negates any educational benefit that I may get from them. C’est la vie.

The day is a lot of fun though, and it’s cool to check out the architecture of the wineries. The first one we visit is meant to simulate the inside of a wine bottle in form and structure. Fortunately, everybody else in the group knows a little about wine and is able to ask some intelligent questions while I stumble around behind them like Otis, the town drunk from the Andy Griffith Show. I think even Cary’s five-year old daughter was able to ask about ripening schedules by the end of the day while I was grunting about “pour more of that last one. No, not that piece of shit, the other one.”

It’s a pretty great, low-key way to spend the last full day here. We spend several hours touring the wineries, getting back to the condo mid-afternoon. We all crash for a little while, then take a side-trip to the casino just down the road. I hit the penny slots and actually manage to come out slightly ahead by the time we leave. It makes me want to go back to Vegas soon. Honestly, who doesn’t have a bunch of extra money lying around these days to chuck out the window?

Back to the house afterwards, where we stay in and cook for the last night. It’s the perfect way to wind things down. We have a long drive in the morning to get me to the airport before Cary and crew make their long drive home, so we all call it a night fairly early.

Up before dawn the next morning. We’re on our way pretty quickly, since it’s going to be about three hours to the airport. As we pass through San Francisco, I ride over the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time, though it is shrouded in a thick fog. The time goes pretty quickly, and before I know it, we’re at the airport. It sucks to have to say goodbye to everybody when it feels like we just started this vacation. The airport is eerily deserted, t the point that I wonder if there’s been some kind of national disaster that I missed. It turns out just be a sleepy Saturday the San Francisco airport. I breeze through security and grab breakfast, getting a bloody Mary to ease into the day.

My flight to Salt Lake City is over in a blink, mostly because I’m out cold for most of it. We land and I’ve got a three hour layover. I end up hanging out at the Wasatch brewpub that Cary told me about, where I discover the wonders of their Polygamy Porter. I talk to an Army drill sergeant for most of the time, and I’m please to find out that management bureaucracy is just as thick and screwed up in the military as it is in the private sector. A sandwich and a couple more beers later and I’m on my way.

On my flights back, I read Sputnik Sweetheart, by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite writers. It’s the story of a woman who vanishes, and the man who had an unrequited love for her who joins the search. Towards the end of the book, when she still hasn’t turned up, I read a passage that hits me so hard I literally have to get up and go splash water on my face in the bathroom. Here it is:

“I loved Sumire more than anyone else and wanted her more than anything in the world. And I couldn’t just shelve those feelings, for there was nothing to take their place.”

Goddammit.

I think Murakami knew he was onto something here, because he set those two sentences apart as their own paragraph. I finish the book and sit there thinking for the rest of the flight. Where I’ve been. What I’ve done. What I haven’t done. I’m back in Atlanta before I know it, and safely back home. I let a couple of people know that I had not become shark bait, and the adventure is over. I turn out the light and go to sleep.

Requiescat in pace.

Miss Manners never covered this

This just happened:

I'm walking through a liquor store parking lot to my car. Some guy, a little rough around the edges, walks up and asks if I can give him and his girlfriend a ride. I tell him sorry, but no. He asks if I have a $1.75 for bus fare. Sorry, no.* Then in a Hail Mary play for the ages, he tells me he'll let me fuck his girlfriend.

I don't exactly know what the polite way to decline such an offer is. I just told him "that's okay" and went on my way. Quickly.

Maybe I should have gotten a look at her.

No, no, that's not right.


*I don't think I'm being a dick in this situation, but I'm not 100 percent.

Hey Now Wonder

I fumbled around with a tune for this on the guitar earlier, but my guitar playing is, how do you say, really fucking awful. So, rather than subject you any MP3 horrors, I'll just post the lyrics*.

Hey now, walk around your room again
Hey now, wonder what's your darkest sin
Hey now, send another drink down
Hey now, wonder why you wear a frown

Hey now, this could be your greatest day

Hey now, wonder if it goes astray

Hey now, see if you can get it back

Hey now, wonder what it is you lack

Hey now, your favorite card’s already played

Hey now, wonder why you’re so afraid

Hey now, scrub it from your mind so clean

Hey now, wonder why you feel so mean

Hey now, write another life away

Hey now, wonder if you’ll be okay

Hey now, break it down a little more

Hey now, wonder what was there before

*These are lyrics, goddammit, not a poem. Lyrics!

Here's hoping.

Days of Wine and Sharks, Vol. III

Part the Third

(Pre-story note: Cary already did a great write up of the shark day here. Consider mine supplemental.)

I wake up about 10 minutes ahead of the alarm, about 4:15. Jump in the shower to get myself moving, hitting myself with a blast of cold water at the end to make sure I’m awake. I get my bags and meet Cary and Kelly in the hotel lobby. We check out and head to the marina, which only about 10 minutes from the hotel. In the car I reflect on that last words that most of my friends said to me before I left, most of which were variations on “you are so going to die.” I also think about my sister, who I’ve listed as my emergency contact. My parents have no idea about this trip, and if things go badly, it’s up to her to tell them how I went out.

There are a group of guys standing down by the docks who point us towards our boat, the Superfish. I’m mildly disappointed that the boat doesn’t have a big cape, but I get over it pretty quickly. The cage that will act as our observatory/watery tomb is hooked to the back of the boat. James, the lead guide for the day, is already on board and tells us to come on up. We’re the first to arrive, the first to line up to be a hot lunch as Hooper put it. The other divers and observers arrive, and we get under way just after six. It’s an interesting mix of people, some in their 20’s, some in their 30’s, and a few really old, decrepit people, like Cary. Along with Captain Mick and Sean the Deckhand, we’ve got a pretty full boat.

It’s a three-hour ride out to the Farallones and we head out as the sun is starting to come up. It’s a pretty great way to take in a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. This will easily be the longest amount of time I’ve spent on a boat in one day. I’ve never been prone to motion sickness, so I’m hopeful that holds true today.

The three hours flies by. I spend a good amount of time just holding onto a rail and taking in the sight of the endless ocean. Along the way, nature puts on a little show for us as porpoises and whales burst forth from the waves. The only time I got a little freaked out about the trip was about a week earlier. I was drifting off to sleep at home when it occurred to me that the creatures we’d be seeing were out there RIGHT NOW. Whatever I would see underwater was already out there, living its life simultaneously to mine.

It was just a weird feeling. These weren’t creatures contained in aquariums. They had total freedom to go anywhere, and on that day, nothing but random chance would bring them into contact with me. I’d be throwing myself into an environment totally alien not just to me, but to my entire damned species. I had strange dreams that night.

Everybody aboard is cool, so we have a good ride out to the islands. Before I know it, Cary tells me they’re starting to come into view. The Devil’s Teeth, as they’re known, are becoming clear in the distance. No more than nine members of the forestry service ever live here at a time, and it’s been declared a wildlife sanctuary for the sea lions and birds that call it home. For three months every year, great whites congregate here. Then people like us pay to get in the middle of all that. I tell myself it’s cheaper than a cocaine habit.

We arrive a little after nine, and the first group suits up to go in the cage. Because the sharks that make this their home base are mature sharks, there’s no point in chumming. They’re attracted to mammal blood. Instead, the team uses sea lion decoys. I think about asking if they ever consider stopping by a butcher shop and getting cow blood. Then I can’t decide if this is a stupid question or not, so I just keep my mouth shut.

The first group goes into the water. After they’re in, the crew asks who wants to go next. We step up, and go get our wetsuits on. This takes something like 50 hours. I finally get set in my wetsuit, and the first group comes back up. We get fitted with our ankle weights, then the chest weights just before we slide into the cage from the back of the boat. Cary goes first, then I’m up, with Kelly to follow.

Whew. This is it. James tells me to take a few breaths to get used to breathing through the regulator, since I’ve never been diving before. I slide to the cage, turn around, and begin to slide down. There’s an initial moment of panic when I think I can’t breathe. I realize I can, and calm down. It’s incredibly disorienting to be underwater at first, but I make my way to my side of the cage. I stand there for a minute, and Cary gets my attention and motions for me to crouch the way he is.

I finally start to orient myself to the cage. The sensation of the tide is amazing. Even with the cage just hanging from the back of the boat, if you lean forward it feels like you’re flying. Kelly makes her way into the cage, and the three of us start to look around. We spot a giant jellyfish, an incredible thing to see at first. By the end of the day, we’ve seen 60 of the bastards and they’re old hat. Visibility changes by the moment, sometimes as much as 30 feet, other times it’s nearly impossible to see your hand in front of your face. You’re also taking in plankton by the faceful, which is unsettling.

Did I mention the water was goddamned freezing? Well, it was. The dive company recommended a 7m suit for all divers. Mine was 3, but I also had a vest with my hood attached, so my core was protected with 6mm. That would usually take care of the temperature problem, but normally you’d be swimming and generating heat. We were locked into the cage and not moving much, so I spent much of the day freezing my ass off.

We ended up going into the cage three times total over the course of the day. Seasickness kept knocking out different divers, so there was more opportunity for us to spend a lot of time in the cage. I flew across the country for this, I wasn’t going to miss out on anything. The Superfish was equipped with a hot tub filled with seawater, so between dives you’d jump in there and reheat your body. Reheating your soul is up to you.

It’s weird what goes through your mind in such a foreign situation. Here I am, as far away from my everyday life as possible, literally thousands of miles away from almost everyone I know and submerged in the ocean. Speech communication with any other human being is impossible, so it’s pretty much just you and your thoughts. My thoughts and I aren’t always on speaking terms, so it can be kind of tough to be stuck with no one but your inner monologue to talk to. My mind drifts around from a laser focus for sharks to wondering what I could have/should have done differently in life and back about a thousand times every time I’m in the cage. It was kind of therapeutic and certainly more helpful than going to an actual therapist was. I may still be a disaster as a human being, but at least now I have an insane story to tell.

Cary and I made our final trip into the cage. We’ve been down about 10 minutes when he taps me on the shoulder, pointing below. About 15 feet down, the definite outline of a shark swimming past. It looks to be maybe 12 to 15 feet. We lose site of it, then it circles back around to my side of the cage and continues back under the boat. Cary surfaced to tell the crew we’d seen a shark (the first of the day). We catch one more glimpse of her, but that’s it. Even with our brief encounter, you get a sense of the sheer power of these things.

I came back up for the last time and jumped back into the hot tub. Cary, who shall be known as Namor from here on out, stayed in the water for nearly half the time we were out there as more and more divers were felled by the water temperature and seasickness. The ride back into San Francisco gave us another show from the whales and plentiful beer for us to tell our stories over. Cary and I already started making plans for either another shark trip or something a little more…crypto zoological.

We got back to the docks and said our goodbyes. I called my sister and told her I had indeed survived. We stopped at an In-N-Out Burger, where all three of us inhaled burgers and shakes. I was out like a light as soon as I climbed back in the car, and Cary drove us to the condo his hid parents had rented so we could meet back up with his family. We still had another full day ahead of us, though.

New comics

Here's a new one from me.

Here's one from my friend Cary over at Omoo-Omoo.

If you're reading this, you're probably already familiar with Matt and his Hayder.

Not a comic, but seriously fucked up and entertaining:

Jokes

Instant Messenger is a tool that has helped the world communicate instantaneously. It is also the dumbass development that leads to stuff like this, the result of the mighty Justin Waddell and me abusing our free time. The dental jokes are his, the orthodontia jokes are mine.

From "Will and Justin on the Road: The Dental Joke Tour: 2009: Across the Nation, This Ain't No Vacation Tour: The Gum Health and Gum Chew Express: Cavity Cavalcade: Once in a Lifetime (the channel) Tour*”

*Brought to you by Simonize Car Wax.

“My dentist is excellent. Just the best. Treats me like royalty. Yeah...he keeps giving me crowns.”

”My orthodontist said he was going to do an impression of my teeth. I told him to get a white jacket and 31 friends.”

“Sigh, my teeth are so messed up. Every time I go for a check up, my dentist says..."You know the drill.”

“I thought my orthodontist wanted to join my fantasy football league. He said he was going to give me some new brackets.”

“My dentist gave me this sound warning: You need to brush more. So now I brush once every other Saturday.”

“My orthodontist is a big basketball fan. His favorite team is the Indiana Spacers.”

Days of Wine and Sharks, Vol. II

Part the Second.

I’m still on Eastern time internally, so I wake up fairly early. First things first: coffee. There’s no coffee maker in the room, so I throw on some clothes and walk down the block to Café Trieste. The coffee’s not bad, but not necessarily great either. It’ll do.

I decide to do some more walking around before the city fully gets going. Again, I’m struck by the fact that although there are people headed to work and going about their business, the city doesn’t seem rushed. It has room to breathe. I like it.

I walk over to Chinatown, which is eerie when it’s deserted. I walk past an alley that looks exactly like the one in Big Trouble in Little China, then realize that it might well be. The grocery stands are setting out their fruits and vegetables for the day and the junk stores are setting out their cheap souvenirs. I don’t need any of it, but I take in the cheeseball atmosphere and kind of enjoy it.

I walk around taking a few pictures, something I didn’t do yesterday so as not to be too touristy in the middle of the afternoon. I get some pics of Kerouac Alley, which is a really nice little space between Vesuvio and City Lights with poetry quotes on the ground and some incredible murals on the walls. I do some more walking around, getting a couple of pictures of the cityscape. Heading down by Washington Square Park, I see a lot of older Asian women doing tai chi. It’s pretty fascinating to watch. I briefly consider standing with them and doing the robot. Then I think about how many other wiseasses have already pulled this joke, and I decide to skip it.

Running has been a big part of my life for the last few years, and I’m quietly thankful for Atlanta’s relative flatness while I’m walking around. If I’d taken up the hobby (can’t make myself call it a sport) in the middle of these hills, I don’t know if I would have stuck with it. Looking at the cars parked on the streets, I realize that these surroundings are exactly why emergency brakes were invented.

The original plan was for me to take the train over to Berkley mid-day to meet up with Cary and his family. He calls me and tells me they’re going to head straight into San Francisco, which will make things that much easier. I grab breakfast at a little café next to Hotel Boheme and then go back to the hotel to get ready for the day and check out. The hotel would be a little expensive to stay at for more than a couple of days, but I’m glad I had a night here, and I know that I’ll be back.

Cary and Karen pick me up, and we head down to meet their daughter, his parents, and his sister at Fisherman’s Wharf. I only get to hang out with Cary and Karen a couple of times a year at most, but given that he and I email throughout most workdays, it usually feels like no time has passed, and today is no different. I went through some pretty grim times over the last year and Cary was one of the people I leaned (still lean) on pretty heavily.

Fisherman’s Wharf is giant tourist spot. I have mixed feelings on this kind of place. Totally artificial vacation spots (Disney, I’m looking at you.) make me feel pretty disconnected from the people around me and from myself, and I wonder where mankind went so very wrong. It just seems so completely separated from any kind of real, natural experience.

I’m well aware that overthinking stuff like this is why people usually end up rolling their eyes at some point when they talk to me, by the way.

But Fisherman’s Wharf has one foot in reality, with the gathering of sea lions and WWII ship and submarine docked there, so I’m able to stop with the pretentious thinking and enjoy myself. We grab lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea lions sunning themselves, and I annihilate clam chowder in a sourdough bowl. Our waitress is totally cute and has a Russian accent. Cary is able to convince me that it might be a little early to propose to her.

We walk around for a bit, stopping long enough for me to grab some sunblock. When I go out in the sun, Geiger counters start to tick and explode if I don’t cover myself, and a sunburned scalp is the ongoing nightmare of the bald man. Once I’ve procured what I need from Panama Jack, I grab a couple of souvenirs for my niece and nephew.

Our group splits eventually, with Cary’s parents and his sister going on a bay cruise while Cary, Karen, Lily and I go for a tour of the Jeremiah O’Brien, a Liberty ship permanently docked at Pier 39. I get my biggest laugh of the trip when Cary explains to his daughter that he lived on a similar ship when he was in the Navy, and then has to clarify that no, it wasn’t exactly like being a slave.

Touring the ship is pretty interesting, and I try to imagine how shit-scared I would have been leaving on a ship like this in WWII. In the days immediately following 9/11, I more or less assumed that things might get bad enough that the draft would go back into effect, mostly because I was as panicked and confused as anyone. I wondered how I would handle military life. I might be able to get used to it, I guess. It would be just like McHale’s Navy, right?

After the ship, we head over to what turns out to be my favorite part of the afternoon. There’s an old penny arcade, with all these great wooden automations from the early part of the 20th century. Several of them have little scenes that animate when you put a quarter in, like The Opium Den that has skeletons jump out from the sides into a den scene, or old movieola machines marked “Adults Only” that show women from the ‘20s in their bloomers. I love this kind of stuff. There’s also another machine that terrifies me to my very core. Please see picture for explanation.

From there, we head out to Berkley. Cary, his sister Kelly and I will be staying here before our dive tomorrow, while the rest of his family heads on back to the condo they’re staying in. As we get to Berkley, I’m very happy that I chose to stay in San Francisco the night before. Berkley seems nice enough, but there’s not much happening in the area where we’re staying. It doesn’t really matter, since we’ll pretty much just be sleeping here and then leaving very early in the morning.

We all get checked in, and Cary and I head back over to San Francisco to meet up with a friend of his that he worked with at DIMP. Mike turns out to be a great guy who schedules his own 24-hour horror movie festival every year. The three of us have a few drinks back at Vesuvio, get an insanely good Italian meal across the street (calamari pasta for me) and grab one more beer at a dive bar before calling it a night.

Back at the hotel, I go through my equipment for tomorrow. I haven’t worn a diving mask since I was a kid, so I sit around wearing it for a while getting used to breathing through my mouth.

Yeah, it looked as ridiculous as you’re thinking.

I check my email, get everything set for the morning, and hit the light. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.

Placeholder

I'm working on the next part of the travelogue, which I'm sure will make literally twos of people happy. Also, more comic strips. In the meantime, enjoy this. Stick with it even if you've already seen the initial clip.

The Days of Wine and Sharks, Vol. 1

Part the First

The day starts blearily enough as I stumble out of bed when the alarm rings at five. Shower. Shave. Throw the last few things in the bag. I’ve already decided on the music for the car on the way to the airport—Warren Zevon’s Life’ll Kill Ya. The music you listen to at the start of the trip is essential—choose poorly, and you could find yourself surrounded by wild pygmy natives, ready to take your head. LKY’s title track, with its “requiescat in pace, that’s all she wrote” refrain, seems appropriate.

Airport. Zip right through security, head to find myself some breakfast. Omelets make me believe that there may indeed be a higher power behind this planet. Strong coffee. Good. The day is starting out well.

Flight is for the most part uneventful. I have my requisite aisle seat, with one guy sitting to my right. He needs to get up at one point and I move to get out of the way, but he says “I can step over.” Before I can protest, this guy is stepping over me and essentially giving me a three-second lapdance.

Horrific.

I read Susan Casey’s The Devil’s Teeth on the plane. It’s all about the place I’m headed,the Farallon Islands and their annual shark congregation. The place has a fascinating history that includes egg mafias, mysterious skeletons and ghostly apparitions, along with thousands upon thousands of great white sharks, sea lions and birds. Great book, but by the end of it, you’re pretty sure that Casey would be an endlessly annoying person to be around. She becomes hopelessly involved with her story, to the detriment of everyone involved.

I eventually play the in-flight trivia game. I don’t do so well the first round, but my second round, not only do I win, I get the highest score of anyone on the plane of any round. Advantage: me.

Plane lands in San Francisco and I find my luggage before heading for BART. I take the train to the closest stop to my hotel and promptly walk four blocks in the wrong direction. I catch my mistake and turn around. The upside of this detour is that I’m 99 percent sure I walked by Mike Nesmith. There’s a lot of construction as I make my way along Columbus, meaning there’s a lot of crossing back and forth along the street. I’m trying not to stop and stare too much along the way, but I’m taken with the city pretty quickly.

It’s a big city that doesn’t feel clogged, something that’s become all too apparent about Atlanta lately. It feels like there’s room to breathe here. Even walking around the financial district in the middle of a weekday, the vibe doesn’t feel crunched or dirty. It feels livable.

I find where I’m staying, Hotel Boheme, without much trouble. My room’s not ready yet, but I leave my bag and ask Charles, the front desk guy, where I can find some lunch. The area where I’m staying straddles the line between Little Italy and Chinatown. He recommends a place called House, an Asian fusion restaurant. Charles is right on the money, as I have some wasabi noodles with roast pork that are just what I need. I walk around the neighborhood a bit. Lots of Chinese restaurants and strip clubs. I’m home?

Head back to the hotel to check in. Charles tells me the room I’m in was where Allen Ginsberg used to like to stay. I spend about 10 minutes trying to think of a “starving, hysterical, naked” joke, and decide the hell with it. Hotel Boheme is a really cool, old school hotel with only 15 rooms. I’m given a key to my room and to the front door of the hotel, actual metal keys, which is nicely reassuring in an age of plastic keycards. Every evening from 6-10 they set out sherry in the lobby for an evening cordial. It’s a pretty wonderful place to stay, and I’m glad I shelled out the extra 50 bucks for the night.

At the same time, there’s a little bit of a creepiness behind it. The history here is palpable, almost so much that it feels trapped in time a bit. I fully expect to see a ghost floating down the hall at some point. I read an interview with Billy Bob Thornton once where he described having a phobia about antique furniture. I’m starting to understand what he meant, I think. But the idea that we’re all so used to bland experiences that we’re petrified of something real is horrifying, so I put the weight of the hotel out of my head and appreciate it for what it is.

I get into my room and doze for a bit. I’ve got Doug Sahm’s (look him up) San Francisco songs playing in my head as I drift off. After my nap, I change clothes and head out for a bit. I’m staying just down the street from the City Lights bookstore, where the Beat movement had its genesis. Incredibly cool to wander around inside and soak up some of the history. I pick up a couple of books, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanto which is a staff pick and fits in nicely with my efforts to read more authors who aren’t American or British, and The Yage Letters Redux, by Burroughs and Ginsberg.

I step next door to Vesuvio. About three seconds after I walk in, I know that this would be my regular bar if I lived in San Francisco. Long bar, cool art up on the walls, absinthe(!) behind the bar, and friendly people. Also, they open at 6 am. I grab a seat at the bar and watch baseball for a while, talking with a couple of the regulars. The bartender gives me a couple of dinner suggestions, and tells me I really can’t go wrong in the neighborhood.

I don’t know what it is about certain bars. I’m never as comfortable as I am sitting on a barstool in a dark room. The “third place” (look it up) is where I’ve always gravitated, where I’m in my element. When you're in the right bar, you pick up slices of everyone’s life, you’re a part of a communion or a nameless sacrament. Traveling alone carries with it a pretty natural feeling of alienation (or maybe I just carry that natural feeling of alienation), but it’s something that melts away however briefly between those walls. I fall in love with waitresses and bartendresses pretty easily, and I think it's part of the sense of belonging I feel when I walk into a bar (with a priest and a rabbi), even one I’ve never been to before.

The bartender’s right about the neighborhood, as it turns out. I end up sticking my head into a no-name Italian place and grab a slice of pizza, which tastes like a little bit of heaven. I wander for a bit into a couple of seedy blocks, realize I probably have “tourist” written across my face and head towards The Beat Museum. I’m a little unsold at first, as the first room you enter is the gift shop. But it’s only $5 to go into the museum proper, so I take my shot. I’m glad I did. It’s a thorough re-telling of the movement, with some way cool artifacts, including Neal Cassady’s shirt and Ginsberg’s old pipe organ (slang). There’s even an exhibit that addresses the lack of women in the movement, something that some females I know have quite understandably said kept them at arm’s length from the Beats. I settle into the movie room at the end of the tour for a bit, then grab a copy of Howl and head out on my way.

I’ve been back and forth on the Beats as an influence on my own writing. I took to Kerouac and Bukowski pretty easily, but Burroughs and Ginsberg took me longer to wrap my head around. Ginsberg was pretty easily explainable, since I’ve always had a little bit of a block when it comes to poetry. For Burroughs, it took a while to get myself into the fractured mindset that his stuff requires. Maybe I wasn’t broken enough to appreciate it before, but it feels like I am now. One thing I’ve discovered is that their works tend to be malleable enough to still feel fresh and current, rather than purely being reflections of the time. There’s a trick to being of your time and place while also being of any time and place. I need to figure out what that is.

I stop by my hotel, intending to drop off a couple of books and go back out, maybe to the Condor, the city’s oldest strip club, purely for historical purposes of course. But I lie down for a minute and everything gets dark for the night.