A freak ice storm swept through the nation over the past week. Wednesday night, it snowed and blanketed everything in a thin layer of white -- a rare occasion for these parts.
I met up with Don and a friend of his from California, who was visiting for the holidays, at an Irish pub along the side of the highway for a quick drink. While driving there, the snow came down at a rate I'd never seen before. That's not to say there was necessarily a lot of snow; I just don't ever actually see snowfall. Through the windshield, the drive resembled those old Windows space-travel screen savers with the white-dot stars flying toward the screen.
We shot the shit for a few hours, and when we left, the snow had stopped but our cars were covered in it.
-
Today, the city was still below freezing, though the sleet and snow had dissipated overnight. Foo, who was stateside and home for the holidays, joined Don and I at a wine bar near The Strip.
Wrapped in layers of probably all of our winter clothes, we huddled around an outdoors patio heater and enjoyed cigars, a bottle of wine, and couple of Blue Moons.
I'd never smoked cigars before but had always wanted to give it a try, so Foo picked out a couple of sticks and showed me the ropes. The cigars he picked out had a faint muddy flavor to it. It was dry and it felt like I was drawing mostly blank air while puffing, but I suspect that had more to do with how the cigars were stored than anything.
I don't enjoy the taste of cigarettes, and the tobacco served at hookah bars feels too light and tastes too fruity except when the hookahs are filled with alcohol. I think cigars are just the right taste and feel that once I find my right flavor, it could be something I enjoy.
We finished our cigars and a bottle of wine that Don picked out, kicked back for a short while, but ultimately buckled to the cold and went home, hoping that the night brings low enough temperatures to ice down the streets and shut down the workplace.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Turkey at Noon
The Company contracted another new guy about a week ago, a general applications developer to work on my team. He's an eccentric fellow in his early thirties, a college football fanatic, and unlike almost everybody else on the team short of myself, doesn't have a wife or kids.
The new guy and I discovered that he used to work with a guy who was the twin brother of another guy that I used to work with, somehow, and we kicked off a fairly smooth start. The plan, at least from what I've been hearing, is that he'd be taking over the SSIS development and that I would move forward with services-oriented development.
-
The Client sponsored a holiday luncheon for the local IT department at a fancy hotel in Town Center. The new guy and I hitched a ride with the chick consultant from San Francisco, and we convened with the rest of the team in a banquet room, tables draped in cloth with the napkins fanned out on our plates and three forks of varying sizes for each plate.
Lunch was a buffet table with two kinds of poultry, ham, leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, something with spinach in it, varying pastas and vegetable plates, and stromboli, the last of which seemed oddly out of place to me. Dessert was pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and key lime pie.
After the meal, the department bigwigs took over the microphone and went through their hoo-rahs, giving a run-down of status reports, praising some of the progress that had taken place through the year, and eventually trying to reassure everybody that despite the economic downturn, we were good and stable for the year ahead.
Following the speeches, most of the consultants hightailed their way back to the office. These are the folks that, you can tell, are addicted to their work -- the kind of people that have a hard time keeping a good work and life balance. I feel pretty bad for these folks, sometimes. Events like these are sponsored for by the big company dime. Even as a contractor, these hours are billable. I don't care if my work doesn't get finished on time; I like to kick back and enjoy the moments any chance I get.
-
A game of white elephant kicked off at the end of lunch for those who had signed up to participate. I did not, but I stuck around to see the presents.
Our team director, who had been sitting up front and center socializing with the bigwigs, scurried to the back to the table I had been sitting, giggling. He confided that he'd wrapped up the most inane gift for the game: a Chia Pet in the shape of Shrek's head.
Coincidentally, the gift ended up in the hands of one of our business analysts, a very timid girly girl who had not been apart of the conversation when the team director told about his gift. She sat down right next to him with the box and a pout, complaining about how ugly the head was. We laughed while he bit his tongue.
-
The infrastructures lead and I joked about playing hookie at the bar next door, but ultimately returned to the office to finish the workday.
The new guy and I discovered that he used to work with a guy who was the twin brother of another guy that I used to work with, somehow, and we kicked off a fairly smooth start. The plan, at least from what I've been hearing, is that he'd be taking over the SSIS development and that I would move forward with services-oriented development.
-
The Client sponsored a holiday luncheon for the local IT department at a fancy hotel in Town Center. The new guy and I hitched a ride with the chick consultant from San Francisco, and we convened with the rest of the team in a banquet room, tables draped in cloth with the napkins fanned out on our plates and three forks of varying sizes for each plate.
Lunch was a buffet table with two kinds of poultry, ham, leg of lamb, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, something with spinach in it, varying pastas and vegetable plates, and stromboli, the last of which seemed oddly out of place to me. Dessert was pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and key lime pie.
After the meal, the department bigwigs took over the microphone and went through their hoo-rahs, giving a run-down of status reports, praising some of the progress that had taken place through the year, and eventually trying to reassure everybody that despite the economic downturn, we were good and stable for the year ahead.
Following the speeches, most of the consultants hightailed their way back to the office. These are the folks that, you can tell, are addicted to their work -- the kind of people that have a hard time keeping a good work and life balance. I feel pretty bad for these folks, sometimes. Events like these are sponsored for by the big company dime. Even as a contractor, these hours are billable. I don't care if my work doesn't get finished on time; I like to kick back and enjoy the moments any chance I get.
-
A game of white elephant kicked off at the end of lunch for those who had signed up to participate. I did not, but I stuck around to see the presents.
Our team director, who had been sitting up front and center socializing with the bigwigs, scurried to the back to the table I had been sitting, giggling. He confided that he'd wrapped up the most inane gift for the game: a Chia Pet in the shape of Shrek's head.
Coincidentally, the gift ended up in the hands of one of our business analysts, a very timid girly girl who had not been apart of the conversation when the team director told about his gift. She sat down right next to him with the box and a pout, complaining about how ugly the head was. We laughed while he bit his tongue.
-
The infrastructures lead and I joked about playing hookie at the bar next door, but ultimately returned to the office to finish the workday.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Vroom Vroom!
I made my first big purchase last night: a brand new 2009 Civic EX, complete with leather trim.
I muled over the car I wanted for the past few months, prioritizing price and gas efficiency, as I think most Americans are doing these days. The plan was to make the purchase at the year-end to catch clearance deals, but small, gas efficient cars are in high demand and nobody's offering any deals worth waiting. And 2008 models are only going for a few hundred bucks cheaper than their 2009 counterparts.
I had my decisions narrowed down to the Honda Accord, Volkswagen Jetta, and the Honda Civic, in order of most to least desired. The Accord and Jetta topped my list really because they were competitively priced for their features and fuel efficiency and because they were sedans (the Civic comes in a sedan flavor too, but they are just really ugly with four doors). Ultimately, the cheaper pricetag on the Civic won over, and, really, nobody ever rides in my backseat anyway.
I went across town to get it because the particular dealer was the one that offered the model and color I wanted at the best price after shopping at half a dozen dealers.
The sales manager that assisted me was a Vietnamese cat seemingly in his mid-thirties that still sported a skin-close fade and spiked top. He spoke to me colloquially with vulgar language and slang, as if I were his friend, but we both knew all I wanted was a cheap car, and all he wanted was my money.
Most of my negotiations had been exchanged via e-mail -- I refused to speak over the phone or visit dealers in person without a solidified pricetag because I hate being placed on the spot by salespeople -- so the visit was pretty bullshit-free. I told him what I wanted and the price that had been presented to me, and we went straight to the paperwork.
Financing the car was a whole different ballpark.
The finance manager that worked with me was a Hispanic cat in a power suit with greased back hair like a modern-day Ricky Ricardo. He tried to sell me an atrocious rate of 9% and slapped all sorts of bullshit insurances and warranties onto the bottom line.
I negotiated with the guy for four hours and walked out of his office three times, ultimately telling him, "Nine percent, really? I'm hemorrhaging money at that rate! I'm sorry, but if this is how you make your money, you're going to have to wait for some shmuck who doesn't understand money to walk through these doors. I have a steady job, a great paycheck, zero debt, and zero obligations. I'm your perfect customer. I could walk into any bank right now and they would throw loans at me at fractions of what you're offering me. If you don't want my money, man, someone else will take it."
In the end, he succumbed to a more reasonable rate. To be honest, the rate almost felt like robbery in my favor, and I'd almost feel bad if these people weren't car dealers -- and if I weren't signing away a huge chunk of money. It was almost midnight by the time I drove off the lot, and that might've had something to do with it. That, or it's really true what they're saying about all these car dealers having trouble unloading inventory.
-
The morning after driving the new car home, my old car, as if in an act of jealousy, crapped out. The rear passenger tire blew out, and one of the spark plugs just suddenly went dud.
I muled over the car I wanted for the past few months, prioritizing price and gas efficiency, as I think most Americans are doing these days. The plan was to make the purchase at the year-end to catch clearance deals, but small, gas efficient cars are in high demand and nobody's offering any deals worth waiting. And 2008 models are only going for a few hundred bucks cheaper than their 2009 counterparts.
I had my decisions narrowed down to the Honda Accord, Volkswagen Jetta, and the Honda Civic, in order of most to least desired. The Accord and Jetta topped my list really because they were competitively priced for their features and fuel efficiency and because they were sedans (the Civic comes in a sedan flavor too, but they are just really ugly with four doors). Ultimately, the cheaper pricetag on the Civic won over, and, really, nobody ever rides in my backseat anyway.
I went across town to get it because the particular dealer was the one that offered the model and color I wanted at the best price after shopping at half a dozen dealers.
The sales manager that assisted me was a Vietnamese cat seemingly in his mid-thirties that still sported a skin-close fade and spiked top. He spoke to me colloquially with vulgar language and slang, as if I were his friend, but we both knew all I wanted was a cheap car, and all he wanted was my money.
Most of my negotiations had been exchanged via e-mail -- I refused to speak over the phone or visit dealers in person without a solidified pricetag because I hate being placed on the spot by salespeople -- so the visit was pretty bullshit-free. I told him what I wanted and the price that had been presented to me, and we went straight to the paperwork.
Financing the car was a whole different ballpark.
The finance manager that worked with me was a Hispanic cat in a power suit with greased back hair like a modern-day Ricky Ricardo. He tried to sell me an atrocious rate of 9% and slapped all sorts of bullshit insurances and warranties onto the bottom line.
I negotiated with the guy for four hours and walked out of his office three times, ultimately telling him, "Nine percent, really? I'm hemorrhaging money at that rate! I'm sorry, but if this is how you make your money, you're going to have to wait for some shmuck who doesn't understand money to walk through these doors. I have a steady job, a great paycheck, zero debt, and zero obligations. I'm your perfect customer. I could walk into any bank right now and they would throw loans at me at fractions of what you're offering me. If you don't want my money, man, someone else will take it."
In the end, he succumbed to a more reasonable rate. To be honest, the rate almost felt like robbery in my favor, and I'd almost feel bad if these people weren't car dealers -- and if I weren't signing away a huge chunk of money. It was almost midnight by the time I drove off the lot, and that might've had something to do with it. That, or it's really true what they're saying about all these car dealers having trouble unloading inventory.
-
The morning after driving the new car home, my old car, as if in an act of jealousy, crapped out. The rear passenger tire blew out, and one of the spark plugs just suddenly went dud.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Nothing Like Duck Hunt
The Client sponsored a team-building afternoon event of clay pigeon shooting today. We assembled at noon at a shooting range near the mall, a few minutes from the house; I'd driven by the area countless times and never realized there was a shooting range nearby.
I arrived at the range, driving solo, because I'd opted to work remotely from home in the morning since the house was so close. Pulling into the parking lot was like entering a new country; there was an evident change in culture -- a people and a way of life that I knew existed somewhere in the state of Texas but had never actually witnessed firsthand.
There were Hummers and pick-ups adorned with Confederate emblems, scruffy overweight men in trucker hats and sleeveless denim vests. And camo.
There were guys in camo. At a place where you shoot clay discs.
-
The team was split into four groups of four and one group of five.
I was teamed up with the infrastructures lead, the solutions architect, one of the business analysts, and the new SSIS developer. We named our team "The Fraggers" -- because we probably won't hit anything with our guns, but we're sure to get something with errant frag grenades.
-
The sporting clays course consisted of ten stations of alternationg four- and six-count targets, totalling fifty targets.
The first station was a four-count with two clay pigeons being launched from both sides at a distance going toward the shooting stall. Having never held a shotgun before, I stepped into the stall cluelessly and dropped two 12-gauge shells into the chamber.
I mounted the shotgun, hesitated, and then yelled, "Pull!"
The first pigeon launched, and I pointed the barrel in the general direction. Lined up the near and far beads on top of the barrel onto the pigeon, followed it for a second, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.
The shotgun kicked and left a dull pain on my shoulder. The clay pigeon survived my fire.
I mounted the shotgun again, pressing the stock snug against my shoulder this time. I used to go to the batting cages when I worked farther north and needed to burn time to avoid rush-hour traffic. I learned to snug the butt of the bat against the hand to keep the vibration from bruising and blistering my hands and arms. I figured the same would probably be true for a gun.
"Pull!" I yelled again.
The pigeon launched from the opposite side of the field this time, and I lined the beads up on the disc. Exhaled. And squeezed.
This time, the pigeon shattered, and my shoulder absorbed the recoil. I beamed a little, and ejected the shells. The odor of gun powder was inexplicably refreshing.
I proceeded to hit my next two targets at that station, and with a bit of swagger, I balked, "Just like Rainbow Six, baby!"
-
The first station was the only station in which the pigeons launched toward the shooting stall. Every other station launched the pigeons toward the field.
Out of the remaining forty-six targets in the course, I managed to hit only one. And I kind of cheated a little, because both pigeons were pulled simultaneously, and I squeezed both rounds at only one pigeon instead of trying to chase the second.
The solutions architect and SSIS developer both had around eighteen hits apiece. The business analyst had four hits. And the infrastructures lead, at the end of the day, was awarded a certificate for personal worst performance of zero hits.
My team, despite having a one-man advantage, had the least total number of hits. By double digits.
I arrived at the range, driving solo, because I'd opted to work remotely from home in the morning since the house was so close. Pulling into the parking lot was like entering a new country; there was an evident change in culture -- a people and a way of life that I knew existed somewhere in the state of Texas but had never actually witnessed firsthand.
There were Hummers and pick-ups adorned with Confederate emblems, scruffy overweight men in trucker hats and sleeveless denim vests. And camo.
There were guys in camo. At a place where you shoot clay discs.
-
The team was split into four groups of four and one group of five.
I was teamed up with the infrastructures lead, the solutions architect, one of the business analysts, and the new SSIS developer. We named our team "The Fraggers" -- because we probably won't hit anything with our guns, but we're sure to get something with errant frag grenades.
-
The sporting clays course consisted of ten stations of alternationg four- and six-count targets, totalling fifty targets.
The first station was a four-count with two clay pigeons being launched from both sides at a distance going toward the shooting stall. Having never held a shotgun before, I stepped into the stall cluelessly and dropped two 12-gauge shells into the chamber.
I mounted the shotgun, hesitated, and then yelled, "Pull!"
The first pigeon launched, and I pointed the barrel in the general direction. Lined up the near and far beads on top of the barrel onto the pigeon, followed it for a second, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.
The shotgun kicked and left a dull pain on my shoulder. The clay pigeon survived my fire.
I mounted the shotgun again, pressing the stock snug against my shoulder this time. I used to go to the batting cages when I worked farther north and needed to burn time to avoid rush-hour traffic. I learned to snug the butt of the bat against the hand to keep the vibration from bruising and blistering my hands and arms. I figured the same would probably be true for a gun.
"Pull!" I yelled again.
The pigeon launched from the opposite side of the field this time, and I lined the beads up on the disc. Exhaled. And squeezed.
This time, the pigeon shattered, and my shoulder absorbed the recoil. I beamed a little, and ejected the shells. The odor of gun powder was inexplicably refreshing.
I proceeded to hit my next two targets at that station, and with a bit of swagger, I balked, "Just like Rainbow Six, baby!"
-
The first station was the only station in which the pigeons launched toward the shooting stall. Every other station launched the pigeons toward the field.
Out of the remaining forty-six targets in the course, I managed to hit only one. And I kind of cheated a little, because both pigeons were pulled simultaneously, and I squeezed both rounds at only one pigeon instead of trying to chase the second.
The solutions architect and SSIS developer both had around eighteen hits apiece. The business analyst had four hits. And the infrastructures lead, at the end of the day, was awarded a certificate for personal worst performance of zero hits.
My team, despite having a one-man advantage, had the least total number of hits. By double digits.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Age is a Status
My birthday weekend started with dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Midtown that's famous for its blue margaritas. Had a small dinner with Don, Kenneth, Slim, Claudia, and Brad. Bingo was my volunteer designated driver.
The margaritas are well-known because the tequila and the blue liqueur mask a douse of Everclear. First-time patrons are often oblivious to the potency of the drink, and will consume several glasses before the demon creeps out.
I had three margaritas.
-
With my face nice and warm rouge, but before the full extent of the alcohol had taken effect, we met up with Nick, a buddy of mine from back in high school who now contracts for the same client as I do. We walked a few blocks out to a dueling piano bar, also in Midtown, the locale that I'd publicly let all my friends know that I would be at.
Nick came through with a mission, and we champed drinks all night at the bar.
The margaritas were more than enough to put me in the gutter for the night, but its effects hadn't done its job yet, and in the meantime, I'd left inhibition at home -- something I've lately found myself doing too often -- and I wasn't saying no to anyone.
-
As the night wore on, more folks showed up. Trinh and Julian made their appearances. Krys and Gene showed up as they got out of work. Richard, Anton, and Binh came through. Brandon and Fletcher made their arrival. Even some chicks that I'd met only few days prior at a sushi bar came through.
And with each group that showed up, everybody went through the same lines about how I had to take shots with them. I willed through the night and refused to decline a drink from anybody. I was intent on drying out that bar if it took the life from me.
-
Chilling by the bar with Nick, late in the night, drunk out or our minds, we had an incoherent rambling session.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you man ... I have to tell you. Dude...
ME: Yeah, man, yeah. Thanks for comin' out, man!
NICK: Yeah, man, life is good, man. Work is good, life is good. Shit's good, man.
ME: Naw, man, Lemme tell ya. You're a fuckin' champ, man, you're the fuckin' man.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you. Dude, you're the only Web geek like me that I know that can throw down with me.
We exchanged rants for maybe a good ten minutes before we realized that neither of us were really making any sense, and we decided to roam the floor. We wandered around from group to group, table to table, casually using my birthday as an excuse to engage in conversation and dance with random chicks.
We danced and made incoherent babblings with random drunk chicks, waitresses, the girls that walk around with glowing test tube shots, anything that moved, we pimped it. I even danced with this on behemoth of a girl; she was the size of a house.
When asked why I was dancing with such a big girl, I responded, "Why do men climb mountains? 'Cause they're there, motherfuckers, I wanna know what's at the fuckin' top."
-
When the lights flickered on, we were herded out the door. The boys went their separate ways, and Bingo and I made our walk across Midtown back to his car.
A homeless guy stopped me at a street corner, asking for change. When I refused, he asked me for directions. I started to map out some of the streets for him, but he interrupted to correct me. We got into a little debate about where certain streets were, and he was probably right because I was sloshed out of my fucking mind. But then I got impatient with him and told him to fuck off because -- really, what the hell does he need directions for; it's not as if he has a home he's trying to get back to, right?
The margaritas are well-known because the tequila and the blue liqueur mask a douse of Everclear. First-time patrons are often oblivious to the potency of the drink, and will consume several glasses before the demon creeps out.
I had three margaritas.
-
With my face nice and warm rouge, but before the full extent of the alcohol had taken effect, we met up with Nick, a buddy of mine from back in high school who now contracts for the same client as I do. We walked a few blocks out to a dueling piano bar, also in Midtown, the locale that I'd publicly let all my friends know that I would be at.
Nick came through with a mission, and we champed drinks all night at the bar.
The margaritas were more than enough to put me in the gutter for the night, but its effects hadn't done its job yet, and in the meantime, I'd left inhibition at home -- something I've lately found myself doing too often -- and I wasn't saying no to anyone.
-
As the night wore on, more folks showed up. Trinh and Julian made their appearances. Krys and Gene showed up as they got out of work. Richard, Anton, and Binh came through. Brandon and Fletcher made their arrival. Even some chicks that I'd met only few days prior at a sushi bar came through.
And with each group that showed up, everybody went through the same lines about how I had to take shots with them. I willed through the night and refused to decline a drink from anybody. I was intent on drying out that bar if it took the life from me.
-
Chilling by the bar with Nick, late in the night, drunk out or our minds, we had an incoherent rambling session.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you man ... I have to tell you. Dude...
ME: Yeah, man, yeah. Thanks for comin' out, man!
NICK: Yeah, man, life is good, man. Work is good, life is good. Shit's good, man.
ME: Naw, man, Lemme tell ya. You're a fuckin' champ, man, you're the fuckin' man.
NICK: Dude, I have to tell you. Dude, you're the only Web geek like me that I know that can throw down with me.
We exchanged rants for maybe a good ten minutes before we realized that neither of us were really making any sense, and we decided to roam the floor. We wandered around from group to group, table to table, casually using my birthday as an excuse to engage in conversation and dance with random chicks.
We danced and made incoherent babblings with random drunk chicks, waitresses, the girls that walk around with glowing test tube shots, anything that moved, we pimped it. I even danced with this on behemoth of a girl; she was the size of a house.
When asked why I was dancing with such a big girl, I responded, "Why do men climb mountains? 'Cause they're there, motherfuckers, I wanna know what's at the fuckin' top."
-
When the lights flickered on, we were herded out the door. The boys went their separate ways, and Bingo and I made our walk across Midtown back to his car.
A homeless guy stopped me at a street corner, asking for change. When I refused, he asked me for directions. I started to map out some of the streets for him, but he interrupted to correct me. We got into a little debate about where certain streets were, and he was probably right because I was sloshed out of my fucking mind. But then I got impatient with him and told him to fuck off because -- really, what the hell does he need directions for; it's not as if he has a home he's trying to get back to, right?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Greater Expectations
The Company laid off my team's SSIS developer today.
She was notified on Tuesday that her last day would be Thursday, today. Though I'd seen it coming -- she was clearly not carrying her weight, and though I was hired on as a general .NET developer, I had been taking on her duties over the past few sprints -- it still seemed pretty fucked up for The Company to give her just two days to turn her life around.
I guess that's the risk of being a contractor; they can throw you back just as quickly as they reeled you in.
-
One of the reasons I left The Ex-Company earlier this year was because I felt a moral uneasiness being associated with an establishment that was seemingly so unethical to its worker bees. Promises were sold and subsequently retracted. Fellow employees were laid off or placed in uncompromising situations due in large part to management's own mishaps.
I wanted no part in that, and so I left.
Coming into the current Company, I had no expectations that they were anymore morally righteous. It is business after all.
Maybe for that reason, when I heard of the SSIS developer's short notice turnover, I was unaffected. Perhaps the world is predictable, and we are disappointed simply by our own expections.
Sort of like a girl who dates an asshole and expects him to be an asshole. When he's an asshole, she's content because that was her expectation, and in the rare cases that he's not an asshole, those moments seem even more alluring. And it may very well have been the case that she left a lesser asshole for this asshole because she expected the last asshole to not be an asshole, and he disappointed her.
Besides, this asshole probably has more money. Signs a bigger paycheck. And I feel no shame in saying: my silence can be bought.
-
We had a farewell team lunch for the SSIS developer at a Mexican restaurant, which was ironic because she practiced one of those religions that prohibited the consumption of most meats.
The lunch was mundane; guys talked to the guys they normally talk to about the subjects they normally talked about. Nobody seemed to pay much mind to the SSIS developer or spoke to her as if it were her last day.
Upon my departure from The Ex-Company, everyone inquired about my future, and contact information and networking referrals were exchanged. But none of that happened for the SSIS developer. I wasn't sure whether it was because everybody thought what I thought -- that without taking the time for some serious training, she was underqualified for this industry -- or whether it was her own introvertedness that dissuaded others from offering aid. Or maybe a combination of both.
At the end of the day, we shook hands and she simply went home.
She was notified on Tuesday that her last day would be Thursday, today. Though I'd seen it coming -- she was clearly not carrying her weight, and though I was hired on as a general .NET developer, I had been taking on her duties over the past few sprints -- it still seemed pretty fucked up for The Company to give her just two days to turn her life around.
I guess that's the risk of being a contractor; they can throw you back just as quickly as they reeled you in.
-
One of the reasons I left The Ex-Company earlier this year was because I felt a moral uneasiness being associated with an establishment that was seemingly so unethical to its worker bees. Promises were sold and subsequently retracted. Fellow employees were laid off or placed in uncompromising situations due in large part to management's own mishaps.
I wanted no part in that, and so I left.
Coming into the current Company, I had no expectations that they were anymore morally righteous. It is business after all.
Maybe for that reason, when I heard of the SSIS developer's short notice turnover, I was unaffected. Perhaps the world is predictable, and we are disappointed simply by our own expections.
Sort of like a girl who dates an asshole and expects him to be an asshole. When he's an asshole, she's content because that was her expectation, and in the rare cases that he's not an asshole, those moments seem even more alluring. And it may very well have been the case that she left a lesser asshole for this asshole because she expected the last asshole to not be an asshole, and he disappointed her.
Besides, this asshole probably has more money. Signs a bigger paycheck. And I feel no shame in saying: my silence can be bought.
-
We had a farewell team lunch for the SSIS developer at a Mexican restaurant, which was ironic because she practiced one of those religions that prohibited the consumption of most meats.
The lunch was mundane; guys talked to the guys they normally talk to about the subjects they normally talked about. Nobody seemed to pay much mind to the SSIS developer or spoke to her as if it were her last day.
Upon my departure from The Ex-Company, everyone inquired about my future, and contact information and networking referrals were exchanged. But none of that happened for the SSIS developer. I wasn't sure whether it was because everybody thought what I thought -- that without taking the time for some serious training, she was underqualified for this industry -- or whether it was her own introvertedness that dissuaded others from offering aid. Or maybe a combination of both.
At the end of the day, we shook hands and she simply went home.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Tainted Blue
Thanks to Ike, the 600-mile monster storm hovering over the Gulf of Mexico, the whole city halted operations for the weekend. The Client closed its offices Thursday afternoon and would not open again till Monday.
Don, Trinh, Julian, and I went downtown on Thursday night to throw down before the media-dubbed "$100 billion storm" turned the lights out this weekend. We went to a bar on Main St. with a live 80's cover band.
Late in the night, a group of Asian guys started a quarrel with us. Allegedly, I was talking to some girl earlier in the night, and one of the guys in the group, her boyfriend, didn't appreciate it.
A bald-headed guy in a white T-shirt -- who, from what I understand, was not the girl's boyfriend -- punched Julian -- who is not the guy that talked to the girl. I wrestled the guy off of Julian, and security came in immediately and told us to leave.
I was led out first by a short Hispanic police officer, and I complied, walking through the crowd and out the door on my own without resisting. I didn't want to fight, and the night was just about done anyway.
When I got out of the door, it was just me and the police officer; the other guys had, for whatever reason, been held up a little longer inside. The officer told me to go home.
"I am," I said, "My driver's still inside. He'll be out in a sec, and he'll take me home."
The officer told me not to stand in front of the club, and that I need to step around the corner.
I did.
As soon as I turned the corner, the son of a bitch gave me a cheap kidney shot. He proceeded to grab me by the face and plant my head into the sidewalk.
As I sat up, he walked away. So in a drunken stupor, I started yelling obscenities at him. I called him an overcompensating prick. A short, cockless faggot with a sick Napoleon complex. I generously offered my services to his wife since he obviously wasn't capable of pleasing her. And while I was at it, I suggested that I'd go ahead and fuck his mother, his sister, and even his daughter, too, if he had one.
I don't know why I said the things I said. I was a drunk guy bleeding on the sidewalk yelling at a police officer. The funny part was that, as I was yelling these things to him, I remember that I wasn't mad that I had been hit or angry that I was bleeding; I was fucking pissed because he scuffed my new kicks.
I wholly expected the officer to attack me again and just wail on me, open me up. And in retrospect, I kind of wish he had, because my obscene yelling had attracted a crowd, and some open wounds might've made good grounds to press charges. But he just stood me up and cuffed me, saying to me, "I told you go home. You had to run your mouth, didn't you?"
Though I was cuffed, I never believed that the officer was going to arrest me. Because he never tried to move me anywhere; he just stood there, repeating, "You still wanna run your mouth?" Plus, there was a hurricane just hours away on the horizon, and they'd have to process me super fast and go through the trouble of transporting me to a safer area.
But I didn't call him out on it; I was drunk and stupid, but not quite stupid enough.
Not long after, the guys came around the corner and saw me, accompanied by another police officer, a stout Caucasian guy, who was escorting them out. They all ran over to assess the situation.
As soon as the second officer arrived, I blurted, "I just got two things to say! First, this is my statement: when I was asked to leave, I complied peacefully and willingly. I have hit no one tonight, and no one hit me. Except him." I angled my chin to point at the officer who was holding my cuffed arms behind me. "I have done no wrong, I have violated nobody's rights, and nobody violated mine. Except him.
"Second, that is all the talking I'm going to do to either of you. So if you're arresting me, I'm lawyering up. And I want your badge number." I turned back to catch a glimpse of the officer behind me, then read his nametag aloud.
The two officers discussed something quietly. Then, the Hispanic officer, asked the guys, which one of them was driving me home. Don acknowledged. The officer uncuffed me and commanded, "Take him home."
After crossing the street, I turned back around and loudly reiterated my offer to fuck his wife and mother for him, before being dragged by the guys back to the car.
Don, Trinh, Julian, and I went downtown on Thursday night to throw down before the media-dubbed "$100 billion storm" turned the lights out this weekend. We went to a bar on Main St. with a live 80's cover band.
Late in the night, a group of Asian guys started a quarrel with us. Allegedly, I was talking to some girl earlier in the night, and one of the guys in the group, her boyfriend, didn't appreciate it.
A bald-headed guy in a white T-shirt -- who, from what I understand, was not the girl's boyfriend -- punched Julian -- who is not the guy that talked to the girl. I wrestled the guy off of Julian, and security came in immediately and told us to leave.
I was led out first by a short Hispanic police officer, and I complied, walking through the crowd and out the door on my own without resisting. I didn't want to fight, and the night was just about done anyway.
When I got out of the door, it was just me and the police officer; the other guys had, for whatever reason, been held up a little longer inside. The officer told me to go home.
"I am," I said, "My driver's still inside. He'll be out in a sec, and he'll take me home."
The officer told me not to stand in front of the club, and that I need to step around the corner.
I did.
As soon as I turned the corner, the son of a bitch gave me a cheap kidney shot. He proceeded to grab me by the face and plant my head into the sidewalk.
As I sat up, he walked away. So in a drunken stupor, I started yelling obscenities at him. I called him an overcompensating prick. A short, cockless faggot with a sick Napoleon complex. I generously offered my services to his wife since he obviously wasn't capable of pleasing her. And while I was at it, I suggested that I'd go ahead and fuck his mother, his sister, and even his daughter, too, if he had one.
I don't know why I said the things I said. I was a drunk guy bleeding on the sidewalk yelling at a police officer. The funny part was that, as I was yelling these things to him, I remember that I wasn't mad that I had been hit or angry that I was bleeding; I was fucking pissed because he scuffed my new kicks.
I wholly expected the officer to attack me again and just wail on me, open me up. And in retrospect, I kind of wish he had, because my obscene yelling had attracted a crowd, and some open wounds might've made good grounds to press charges. But he just stood me up and cuffed me, saying to me, "I told you go home. You had to run your mouth, didn't you?"
Though I was cuffed, I never believed that the officer was going to arrest me. Because he never tried to move me anywhere; he just stood there, repeating, "You still wanna run your mouth?" Plus, there was a hurricane just hours away on the horizon, and they'd have to process me super fast and go through the trouble of transporting me to a safer area.
But I didn't call him out on it; I was drunk and stupid, but not quite stupid enough.
Not long after, the guys came around the corner and saw me, accompanied by another police officer, a stout Caucasian guy, who was escorting them out. They all ran over to assess the situation.
As soon as the second officer arrived, I blurted, "I just got two things to say! First, this is my statement: when I was asked to leave, I complied peacefully and willingly. I have hit no one tonight, and no one hit me. Except him." I angled my chin to point at the officer who was holding my cuffed arms behind me. "I have done no wrong, I have violated nobody's rights, and nobody violated mine. Except him.
"Second, that is all the talking I'm going to do to either of you. So if you're arresting me, I'm lawyering up. And I want your badge number." I turned back to catch a glimpse of the officer behind me, then read his nametag aloud.
The two officers discussed something quietly. Then, the Hispanic officer, asked the guys, which one of them was driving me home. Don acknowledged. The officer uncuffed me and commanded, "Take him home."
After crossing the street, I turned back around and loudly reiterated my offer to fuck his wife and mother for him, before being dragged by the guys back to the car.
September Rain
Friday evening, six or eight hours before Hurricane Ike was expected to make landfall, the outer band's high winds whipped through town. I had made a lot of stupid plans with people on what to do during the hurricane. I wanted to fly a kite in the wind. I wanted to make trashcan hurricane drinks and soak some apples in there to eat after we were done drinking.
But the wind went from very calm to very violent very quickly, and none of my stupid ideas came to fruition. The sound you hear when you hold a conch up to your ear resonated outside, and trees and picket fences knelt in mercy to the wind.
Within the hour, the power went out.
-
There was still no electricity on Saturday morning, but by noon, the rain clouds had cleared out and the strong winds had passed.
There were heaps of debris lying on both our front and back lawns, and half the picket fences around our yard had been knocked over. Our fence is a wall of rotting wood, fifteen or so years old and having edured probably more than twice as many tropical storms. We simply stood them back up and nailed the boards back together.
My mother keeps a tree in the front yard with low-hanging branches with prickly leaves that not only stab me when I mow the lawn, but also leave an itchy sensation hours after the fact. The storm had ripped most of the branches off, and I silently celebrated inside, hoping the damned thing doesn't make it.
Shingles had been shredded from our roof in several areas, causing water leakage into a few of the second-storey rooms.
A few years ago, when Rita was supposed to demolish the city, we bought a huge roll of tarp in preparation for roof damage. When Rita veered east and missed us completely, we stashed the tarp away in some dark corner. Consequently, after Ike damaged our roof, we were unable to find it. So in its stead, we took down our shower curtains and nailed them over the holes in our roof.
We cleaned up and made ad hoc patches for whatever damage we could before evening, before it got too dark. I settled myself on the roof with a copy of the latest Maxim, an issue with a nude Megan Fox donning the cover, body parts strategically covered by a bedsheet.
A cold-front was passing into town as Ike was making its way out, carrying a comfortable breeze that made having no electricity slightly bearable. Someone in the distance with an incredible sound system -- and, apparently, a generator -- blasted some Spanish opera-sounding music. The night was like a scene ripped straight out of a movie, based in some European country like Italy or France, with a shot of the rooftops of a town, the streets uninhabited, and the sound of singing or prayers echoing in the distance from a source unseen.
After the sun dipped in the West and my eyes could no longer make out the words or pictures in the magazine, I rolled over and dozed off on the rooftop.
-
Sunday morning, 6am, a second band of rain swept over us, dousing me awake from the rooftop in cold, fat, chubby raindrops.
I climbed off the roof into a window, and quickly ran around the house, closing all the rest of the windows before our carpet took water damage. After washing off and towel drying, I went to find a clean set of clothes only to find that the shower curtains we nailed to our roof did not hold.
The ceiling above my closet had collapsed under the weight of rainwater that had leaked through the roof. My entire wardrobe was covered in dirty rainwater and damp sheetrock debris. I would go the rest of the weekend without a clean pair of underwear.
-
We spent the next seven hours trapped indoors, unable to open windows or doors due to the heavy rain, and without electricity to power an air conditioning unit.
In the late afternoon, when things dried up a bit more, the family and I ventured out and about in the city to find an air conditioned restaurant. I commandoed a pair of basketball shorts and a polo shirt I found in my brother's old closet.
We found electricity in the western parts of the city, where the hurricane had done the least damage, and settled into a deli. Even there, they had just regained electricity, and they served stale bread on their sandwiches and cold soup.
We stalled for a few hours after eating just to bask in the wonders of air conditioning.
-
Came home in the early evening, power had been restored, and I could begin running loads of water-damaged clothes through the washer.
But the wind went from very calm to very violent very quickly, and none of my stupid ideas came to fruition. The sound you hear when you hold a conch up to your ear resonated outside, and trees and picket fences knelt in mercy to the wind.
Within the hour, the power went out.
-
There was still no electricity on Saturday morning, but by noon, the rain clouds had cleared out and the strong winds had passed.
There were heaps of debris lying on both our front and back lawns, and half the picket fences around our yard had been knocked over. Our fence is a wall of rotting wood, fifteen or so years old and having edured probably more than twice as many tropical storms. We simply stood them back up and nailed the boards back together.
My mother keeps a tree in the front yard with low-hanging branches with prickly leaves that not only stab me when I mow the lawn, but also leave an itchy sensation hours after the fact. The storm had ripped most of the branches off, and I silently celebrated inside, hoping the damned thing doesn't make it.
Shingles had been shredded from our roof in several areas, causing water leakage into a few of the second-storey rooms.
A few years ago, when Rita was supposed to demolish the city, we bought a huge roll of tarp in preparation for roof damage. When Rita veered east and missed us completely, we stashed the tarp away in some dark corner. Consequently, after Ike damaged our roof, we were unable to find it. So in its stead, we took down our shower curtains and nailed them over the holes in our roof.
We cleaned up and made ad hoc patches for whatever damage we could before evening, before it got too dark. I settled myself on the roof with a copy of the latest Maxim, an issue with a nude Megan Fox donning the cover, body parts strategically covered by a bedsheet.
A cold-front was passing into town as Ike was making its way out, carrying a comfortable breeze that made having no electricity slightly bearable. Someone in the distance with an incredible sound system -- and, apparently, a generator -- blasted some Spanish opera-sounding music. The night was like a scene ripped straight out of a movie, based in some European country like Italy or France, with a shot of the rooftops of a town, the streets uninhabited, and the sound of singing or prayers echoing in the distance from a source unseen.
After the sun dipped in the West and my eyes could no longer make out the words or pictures in the magazine, I rolled over and dozed off on the rooftop.
-
Sunday morning, 6am, a second band of rain swept over us, dousing me awake from the rooftop in cold, fat, chubby raindrops.
I climbed off the roof into a window, and quickly ran around the house, closing all the rest of the windows before our carpet took water damage. After washing off and towel drying, I went to find a clean set of clothes only to find that the shower curtains we nailed to our roof did not hold.
The ceiling above my closet had collapsed under the weight of rainwater that had leaked through the roof. My entire wardrobe was covered in dirty rainwater and damp sheetrock debris. I would go the rest of the weekend without a clean pair of underwear.
-
We spent the next seven hours trapped indoors, unable to open windows or doors due to the heavy rain, and without electricity to power an air conditioning unit.
In the late afternoon, when things dried up a bit more, the family and I ventured out and about in the city to find an air conditioned restaurant. I commandoed a pair of basketball shorts and a polo shirt I found in my brother's old closet.
We found electricity in the western parts of the city, where the hurricane had done the least damage, and settled into a deli. Even there, they had just regained electricity, and they served stale bread on their sandwiches and cold soup.
We stalled for a few hours after eating just to bask in the wonders of air conditioning.
-
Came home in the early evening, power had been restored, and I could begin running loads of water-damaged clothes through the washer.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
They're Called House Geckos
Friday night, I was leaving work and my car wouldn't start. And nobody at The Client works on Fridays, so nobody was around in the parking lot to give me a jump.
I had to call my father to swing by on his way home from work to bail me out. Jumper cables didn't help; turns out, my battery was just coming to the end of its life.
I left the car at work overnight and brought a new battery out the next morning to take it home.
-
Yesterday, driving home from work, I was going through Meadows Place, which is a tiny little city. Little, as in, like, three blocks little. The Meadows isn't so much a city as it is a residential neighborhood with a bunch of senior citizen homes. The cops in the area are assholes; the kind that'll ticket you for going 37 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
I was doing about 50.
And as I was driving through, I crossed a sheriff on the on-coming side of the street. Soon as I passed him up, I watched him, from my rear-view, take a U-turn and flash his lights.
Right around the same time, the car to my right made a right turn. He might've braked too abruptly or didn't use his signal or something -- I wasn't paying attention to him -- and the car behind him rear-ended him.
The sheriff stopped those guys instead, and I got off scot-free.
-
After leaving the gym tonight, I was cooling off on the trunk of my car in the parking lot. The weather at night around here has been nice and breezy lately, maybe because Ike's on the horizon -- I dunno, I never paid much attention to physics or biology or whatever the hell science class teaches hurricane mechanics.
A fella leaving the gym got into an old navy pick-up that was parked next to mine and tried to start up. His engine churned, coughed, and died. I watched him make two or three more attempts until he looked up and made eye contact with me.
"Won't start, huh?" I asked. I hate it when people ask obvious questions like that. No shit, it won't start, smartass, who the hell churns their engine for fun?
"Can you give me a jump?" he pleaded.
"'Fraid I got no cables," I shrugged. "Do you have power? Your radio still work? Your headlights come on?"
He turned up his radio and flicked his lights on and off, "Yeah, I got power. What does that mean?"
"Honestly, I got no idea, man. People ask me that all the time when my car don't work. I dunno what it does."
Damn it, I'm a dumbass.
I let the guy borrow my phone to call around for help. I got a fancy shmancy phone, though, and he's pretty old, so I had to dial for him. He only knew one number, some chick, and it went straight to voicemail everytime. He left her a few messages, pleading for her to come get him.
"You from Arlington or something?" I asked him because I recognized the area code of the recipient. For whatever reason, I know area codes to dumb places.
Turns out, the guy's from Dallas and he's just in town for a visit. It was probably a dumb idea for him to take a road trip without carrying a cell phone of his own and in a car prone to failure, but I refrained from telling him so.
I sat around in the parking lot with the guy, asking bypassers if they had jumper cables without luck, until I decided it was time for me to go. I bid him good luck and started getting in my car. As I was loading my gym bag in the backseat, I found jumper cables under the driver seat. My father had forgotten them there from Friday.
"Hey hey hey," I cheered, "Your lucky day, chief!" I said "Hey hey hey" like Doug Butabi did to the skank in A Night at the Roxbury.
-
When I got home, I saw one of those little lizard things crawling on my front door. I pulled its tail off. Don't know why.
I had to call my father to swing by on his way home from work to bail me out. Jumper cables didn't help; turns out, my battery was just coming to the end of its life.
I left the car at work overnight and brought a new battery out the next morning to take it home.
-
Yesterday, driving home from work, I was going through Meadows Place, which is a tiny little city. Little, as in, like, three blocks little. The Meadows isn't so much a city as it is a residential neighborhood with a bunch of senior citizen homes. The cops in the area are assholes; the kind that'll ticket you for going 37 MPH in a 35 MPH zone.
I was doing about 50.
And as I was driving through, I crossed a sheriff on the on-coming side of the street. Soon as I passed him up, I watched him, from my rear-view, take a U-turn and flash his lights.
Right around the same time, the car to my right made a right turn. He might've braked too abruptly or didn't use his signal or something -- I wasn't paying attention to him -- and the car behind him rear-ended him.
The sheriff stopped those guys instead, and I got off scot-free.
-
After leaving the gym tonight, I was cooling off on the trunk of my car in the parking lot. The weather at night around here has been nice and breezy lately, maybe because Ike's on the horizon -- I dunno, I never paid much attention to physics or biology or whatever the hell science class teaches hurricane mechanics.
A fella leaving the gym got into an old navy pick-up that was parked next to mine and tried to start up. His engine churned, coughed, and died. I watched him make two or three more attempts until he looked up and made eye contact with me.
"Won't start, huh?" I asked. I hate it when people ask obvious questions like that. No shit, it won't start, smartass, who the hell churns their engine for fun?
"Can you give me a jump?" he pleaded.
"'Fraid I got no cables," I shrugged. "Do you have power? Your radio still work? Your headlights come on?"
He turned up his radio and flicked his lights on and off, "Yeah, I got power. What does that mean?"
"Honestly, I got no idea, man. People ask me that all the time when my car don't work. I dunno what it does."
Damn it, I'm a dumbass.
I let the guy borrow my phone to call around for help. I got a fancy shmancy phone, though, and he's pretty old, so I had to dial for him. He only knew one number, some chick, and it went straight to voicemail everytime. He left her a few messages, pleading for her to come get him.
"You from Arlington or something?" I asked him because I recognized the area code of the recipient. For whatever reason, I know area codes to dumb places.
Turns out, the guy's from Dallas and he's just in town for a visit. It was probably a dumb idea for him to take a road trip without carrying a cell phone of his own and in a car prone to failure, but I refrained from telling him so.
I sat around in the parking lot with the guy, asking bypassers if they had jumper cables without luck, until I decided it was time for me to go. I bid him good luck and started getting in my car. As I was loading my gym bag in the backseat, I found jumper cables under the driver seat. My father had forgotten them there from Friday.
"Hey hey hey," I cheered, "Your lucky day, chief!" I said "Hey hey hey" like Doug Butabi did to the skank in A Night at the Roxbury.
-
When I got home, I saw one of those little lizard things crawling on my front door. I pulled its tail off. Don't know why.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Witness to Projekt Revolution
Paul and I scored a pair of floor tickets to the Projekt Revolution tour, a concert in the Woodlands headlined by Linkin Park and Chris Cornell. Also appearing were The Bravery, 10 Years, Atreyu, and a few other no-named bands that I didn't care too much for.
The main attraction for me was Cornell. I was a fan of Soundgarden back in the mid-90's when I had longer hair, ripped clothes, and developing tinnitus from grunge and post-grunge rock bands like Nirvana and Bush. I picked up on Cornell again when he later re-emerged with Audioslave.
I'm not a huge fan of his recent solo efforts, but he was going to cover his Soundgarden and Audioslave and even Temple of the Dog works, and that was more than enough for me to be there.
-
Knowing from previous experiences about the venue's nine-dollar beers highway robbery prices, Paul and I consumed most of our poisons before arriving. But we arrived early in the afternoon to catch Atreyu on the side stage, in one hundred-degree sunny weather with nary a cloud in sight, so it limited how much we were willing to dehydrate ourselves.
I knew only a few of Atreyu's tracks, mostly from radio play, but Paul was a rabid fan. So after the few songs that I knew were played, I wandered off to some of the promotional booths and kiosks, bumping into other folks I knew.
After Atreyu closed, a handful of nameless teeny-bopper bands went on stage, so Paul and I hid in the shades behind the lawn to refuel on Blue Moons.
-
The main stage opened later in the evening. Our seats were seven rows back from stage.
The Bravery played their set, and was the last band before Cornell began the headlined show. Again, I was only familiar with a few of The Bravery's songs, mostly from radio play, and even those were sometimes more self-deprecating and angst-filled than I care to be at this age.
I dozed off during The Bravery's set. No offense to them; I'd spent four hours under the scorching sun, fighting through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, fueled on nothing but Blue Moons.
-
During the intermission after The Bravery, the faint acoustics to Black Hole Sun playing on the loudspeakers brought me out of my slumber and onto my feet. In preparation, we quaffed as much Blue Moon as whatever little cash we had left could muster up.
Cornell finally came on looking scruffy like a younger Bob Dylan, seemingly in synch with the sun finally setting and the air cooling down. He opened up with some of the newer Audioslave tracks from the "Out of Exile" album.
Then the lights dimmed, and Cornell took center stage with a guitar and performed a solo cover of Like A Stone. Immediately afteward, the band broke out and they followed with Be Yourself and an insane performance of Show Me How to Live. It was that trio of songs that truly started my night and got the adrenaline running through my system.
Cornell's set went on for some ninety minutes. He sporadically introduced tracks from his newer solo albums, but mostly stayed true to the roots of Soundgarden and Audioslave that made him a phenom, and had one memorable -- and to say the very least, SICK -- duet performance of Hunger Strike with Chester, the screamer from Linkin Park.
When he performed Black Hole Sun, I looked around at the crowd and noticed some of the audience sitting -- mostly the younger kids, the ones probably too young to remember Soundgarden. And seeing them personally offended me. Who the hell goes to see Chris Cornell and sits down during Black Hole Sun? I mean, this is the song that turned Chris Cornell into Chris fucking Cornell!
I started yelling at them, "Everybody here needs to stand the fuck up! This is Cornell's Mona-fucking-Lisa, you can't sit during this!"
-
The show closed with an intense performance by Linkin Park.
I've always listened to Linkin Park because they have a catchy, unique techno-rock fused with hip-hop sound. But they were never a band that I listened to regularly or topped any of my lists.
But after seeing them live, if Linkin Park ever comes through town on another tour, I'm jumping in line to see them. They are hands-down the best performers I've ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, I never followed Linkin Park so I can't list a lot of their tracks the way I can with Cornell, except for some of their very first efforts from the "Hybrid Theory" album from back at the start of the decade -- which included Crawling, the track that saw Cornell returning a favor with his own memorable guest appearance during the show.
About an hour into the set, the members of the band left the stage with the exception of the drummer. Nobody ever knows the drummer's name. The lights dimmed, the drummer took the spotlight with a solo act, and the last beat on the drums turned the lights off.
In pitch blackness, the crowd lost their motherfucking minds. They screamed and stomped and beat on the backs of the seats. Tens of thousands of fans shrieked and cheered, and their exhiliration echoed and roared across the lawn, surging down toward the stage like a blast of wind. In that darkness, I literally felt the noise.
And in response, the band jumped back on stage and rocked for another hour.
Linkin Park brought with their performance a level of energy that's hard to describe. I wish I could say that they kept me on my feet the whole time, but the fact is I had to sit down out of sheer exhaustion during Shinoda's solo flows and some of the slower tracks like Leave Out All The Rest.
-
The ride home was eerily silent in comparison, our throats parched and sore, our clothes drenched in sweat, the adrenaline rush subsiding.
The main attraction for me was Cornell. I was a fan of Soundgarden back in the mid-90's when I had longer hair, ripped clothes, and developing tinnitus from grunge and post-grunge rock bands like Nirvana and Bush. I picked up on Cornell again when he later re-emerged with Audioslave.
I'm not a huge fan of his recent solo efforts, but he was going to cover his Soundgarden and Audioslave and even Temple of the Dog works, and that was more than enough for me to be there.
-
Knowing from previous experiences about the venue's nine-dollar beers highway robbery prices, Paul and I consumed most of our poisons before arriving. But we arrived early in the afternoon to catch Atreyu on the side stage, in one hundred-degree sunny weather with nary a cloud in sight, so it limited how much we were willing to dehydrate ourselves.
I knew only a few of Atreyu's tracks, mostly from radio play, but Paul was a rabid fan. So after the few songs that I knew were played, I wandered off to some of the promotional booths and kiosks, bumping into other folks I knew.
After Atreyu closed, a handful of nameless teeny-bopper bands went on stage, so Paul and I hid in the shades behind the lawn to refuel on Blue Moons.
-
The main stage opened later in the evening. Our seats were seven rows back from stage.
The Bravery played their set, and was the last band before Cornell began the headlined show. Again, I was only familiar with a few of The Bravery's songs, mostly from radio play, and even those were sometimes more self-deprecating and angst-filled than I care to be at this age.
I dozed off during The Bravery's set. No offense to them; I'd spent four hours under the scorching sun, fighting through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, fueled on nothing but Blue Moons.
-
During the intermission after The Bravery, the faint acoustics to Black Hole Sun playing on the loudspeakers brought me out of my slumber and onto my feet. In preparation, we quaffed as much Blue Moon as whatever little cash we had left could muster up.
Cornell finally came on looking scruffy like a younger Bob Dylan, seemingly in synch with the sun finally setting and the air cooling down. He opened up with some of the newer Audioslave tracks from the "Out of Exile" album.
Then the lights dimmed, and Cornell took center stage with a guitar and performed a solo cover of Like A Stone. Immediately afteward, the band broke out and they followed with Be Yourself and an insane performance of Show Me How to Live. It was that trio of songs that truly started my night and got the adrenaline running through my system.
Cornell's set went on for some ninety minutes. He sporadically introduced tracks from his newer solo albums, but mostly stayed true to the roots of Soundgarden and Audioslave that made him a phenom, and had one memorable -- and to say the very least, SICK -- duet performance of Hunger Strike with Chester, the screamer from Linkin Park.
When he performed Black Hole Sun, I looked around at the crowd and noticed some of the audience sitting -- mostly the younger kids, the ones probably too young to remember Soundgarden. And seeing them personally offended me. Who the hell goes to see Chris Cornell and sits down during Black Hole Sun? I mean, this is the song that turned Chris Cornell into Chris fucking Cornell!
I started yelling at them, "Everybody here needs to stand the fuck up! This is Cornell's Mona-fucking-Lisa, you can't sit during this!"
-
The show closed with an intense performance by Linkin Park.
I've always listened to Linkin Park because they have a catchy, unique techno-rock fused with hip-hop sound. But they were never a band that I listened to regularly or topped any of my lists.
But after seeing them live, if Linkin Park ever comes through town on another tour, I'm jumping in line to see them. They are hands-down the best performers I've ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, I never followed Linkin Park so I can't list a lot of their tracks the way I can with Cornell, except for some of their very first efforts from the "Hybrid Theory" album from back at the start of the decade -- which included Crawling, the track that saw Cornell returning a favor with his own memorable guest appearance during the show.
About an hour into the set, the members of the band left the stage with the exception of the drummer. Nobody ever knows the drummer's name. The lights dimmed, the drummer took the spotlight with a solo act, and the last beat on the drums turned the lights off.
In pitch blackness, the crowd lost their motherfucking minds. They screamed and stomped and beat on the backs of the seats. Tens of thousands of fans shrieked and cheered, and their exhiliration echoed and roared across the lawn, surging down toward the stage like a blast of wind. In that darkness, I literally felt the noise.
And in response, the band jumped back on stage and rocked for another hour.
Linkin Park brought with their performance a level of energy that's hard to describe. I wish I could say that they kept me on my feet the whole time, but the fact is I had to sit down out of sheer exhaustion during Shinoda's solo flows and some of the slower tracks like Leave Out All The Rest.
-
The ride home was eerily silent in comparison, our throats parched and sore, our clothes drenched in sweat, the adrenaline rush subsiding.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Disarm The Obstacles
Hung out with Kenneth, Trinh, and Trinh's brother, Martin, at a Korean karaoke bar Saturday night. It was Vinh's birthday weekend, and he and his friends were hanging out at the place, but when Vinh bailed to go clubbing or something, I opted to hang back with the fellas and kick it.
One of the tables adjacent to us started singing Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's Picture. The girl was rocking the female vocals, so I looked over to check her out. One of the other girls at the table, a tan skinned, dirty-brown haired chick, was standing up, wildly cheering on her friend, yelling, "That's my cousin! That's my cousin! Woo!"
I turned back to my table, "That one's kinda cute. The one standing up -- Indian-lookin' chick."
"Yea, she's cute," Trinh agreed, "I don't think she's Indian, though."
"She's Hispanic," Martin chimed in.
I looked back at the girl, "Nah, she can't be Hispanic. She's got some of that exotic Asian thing goin' on."
"You should go ask her," Martin challenged me.
"She's Indian," I retorted, "You go ask her."
"Paper-scissors-rock to ask her."
Martin played rock, and I played scissors.
-
The table had three girls and four guys, not the most approachable ratio. When I walked up to the table, I engaged the guys first, "Are y'all the ones that were singing Picture earlier?"
One of the guys, a pimply-faced kid with his hair gelled up and in like a faux mohawk, acknowledged, "Yeah, that was us." He pointed at himself and the girl that was singing, but I pretended not to notice the girl.
"Man, y'all tore that shit up," I said, "That song is the shit, man, that song is phat and y'all rocked it. Just had to let you guys know that, man."
I started to walk away, as if that were all I'd come over to say to the table, but the guy predictably threw on his modesty act, "Nah, man, nah, that wasn't me. That was all her. She was tearin' it up." He stood up and pointed a downward finger over the girl's head.
I turned back, pretending to be startled as if I'd just noticed the girl for the first time. I showed a doubtful face, "You? You were doing Sheryl Crow? No way, you don't look like you can pull that."
The tanned skinned girl stood up and finally joined the conversation, "Oh, she can pull that! She can pull that! That's my cousin, baby, that's my cousin! Woo!"
That was my in.
I rounded the table over to the girl's side and stood between the two cousins. "You guys are cousins?" I asked, "Y'all don't look nothin' alike, what are you?" The one that had sang Sheryl Crow's vocals was obviously Vietnamese, but the tanned skinned girl was still up in the air.
"I'm mixed," she said.
"Yeah, no shit," I rolled my eyes, "Mixed what?"
"German and Vietnamese."
"You don't got Vietnamese in you," I scoffed.
"Yeah, I am!" she defended herself zealously, "Are you Vietnamese?"
"Yeah."
"Okay..." her eyes rolled up into the corner in thought, "You are..." She started speaking in tone-deaf Vietnamese, "Ðẹp trai quá, đẹp trai quá." In Vietnamese, that means, "Too cute, too cute."
"Yeah, I know," I replied matter-of-factly, shrugging.
She cracked a smile at my arrogance. "I am..." Again in tone-deaf Vietnamese, "Mập quá, mập quá." That means, "Too fat, too fat."
"What the fuck?" I chided, "You so fucking are not." This chick couldn't have been an ounce over ninety, maybe ninety-five, pounds. She was tiny.
She grabbed her breasts into her hands and lifted them up, "Yeah, I am. These are mập quá!"
As soon as she let her hands go, I palmed her tits and said, "Naw, sweety, I think they're just right."
I half expected her or her cousin to get offended and slap me or maybe one of the guys would jump out of his seat and kick my ass. But she just laughed, folded her arms over her chest, and threw herself into my arms.
One of the tables adjacent to us started singing Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's Picture. The girl was rocking the female vocals, so I looked over to check her out. One of the other girls at the table, a tan skinned, dirty-brown haired chick, was standing up, wildly cheering on her friend, yelling, "That's my cousin! That's my cousin! Woo!"
I turned back to my table, "That one's kinda cute. The one standing up -- Indian-lookin' chick."
"Yea, she's cute," Trinh agreed, "I don't think she's Indian, though."
"She's Hispanic," Martin chimed in.
I looked back at the girl, "Nah, she can't be Hispanic. She's got some of that exotic Asian thing goin' on."
"You should go ask her," Martin challenged me.
"She's Indian," I retorted, "You go ask her."
"Paper-scissors-rock to ask her."
Martin played rock, and I played scissors.
-
The table had three girls and four guys, not the most approachable ratio. When I walked up to the table, I engaged the guys first, "Are y'all the ones that were singing Picture earlier?"
One of the guys, a pimply-faced kid with his hair gelled up and in like a faux mohawk, acknowledged, "Yeah, that was us." He pointed at himself and the girl that was singing, but I pretended not to notice the girl.
"Man, y'all tore that shit up," I said, "That song is the shit, man, that song is phat and y'all rocked it. Just had to let you guys know that, man."
I started to walk away, as if that were all I'd come over to say to the table, but the guy predictably threw on his modesty act, "Nah, man, nah, that wasn't me. That was all her. She was tearin' it up." He stood up and pointed a downward finger over the girl's head.
I turned back, pretending to be startled as if I'd just noticed the girl for the first time. I showed a doubtful face, "You? You were doing Sheryl Crow? No way, you don't look like you can pull that."
The tanned skinned girl stood up and finally joined the conversation, "Oh, she can pull that! She can pull that! That's my cousin, baby, that's my cousin! Woo!"
That was my in.
I rounded the table over to the girl's side and stood between the two cousins. "You guys are cousins?" I asked, "Y'all don't look nothin' alike, what are you?" The one that had sang Sheryl Crow's vocals was obviously Vietnamese, but the tanned skinned girl was still up in the air.
"I'm mixed," she said.
"Yeah, no shit," I rolled my eyes, "Mixed what?"
"German and Vietnamese."
"You don't got Vietnamese in you," I scoffed.
"Yeah, I am!" she defended herself zealously, "Are you Vietnamese?"
"Yeah."
"Okay..." her eyes rolled up into the corner in thought, "You are..." She started speaking in tone-deaf Vietnamese, "Ðẹp trai quá, đẹp trai quá." In Vietnamese, that means, "Too cute, too cute."
"Yeah, I know," I replied matter-of-factly, shrugging.
She cracked a smile at my arrogance. "I am..." Again in tone-deaf Vietnamese, "Mập quá, mập quá." That means, "Too fat, too fat."
"What the fuck?" I chided, "You so fucking are not." This chick couldn't have been an ounce over ninety, maybe ninety-five, pounds. She was tiny.
She grabbed her breasts into her hands and lifted them up, "Yeah, I am. These are mập quá!"
As soon as she let her hands go, I palmed her tits and said, "Naw, sweety, I think they're just right."
I half expected her or her cousin to get offended and slap me or maybe one of the guys would jump out of his seat and kick my ass. But she just laughed, folded her arms over her chest, and threw herself into my arms.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Canadian Yuppies
Still groggy from the previous night at the hookah bar, the crew -- Kenneth, Trinh, Don, and Xixi -- reconvened on Saturday for a hot pot lunch at a dumpling house. Together, we re-hydrated while trying to reconstruct the night from the collective remnants of our memories.
We were joined by Thu and a co-worker of hers, a guy who initially seemed proper and professional, but after listening to our lunch conversation, quickly showed a cruder side, humorously profane topped with indiscreet misogynism.
Thu is a chick from Canada that works for the same suits as Titty and Kenneth, except in the Canadian office. I met her a little over a year ago when I was entertaining an offer from that company, and she was in town attending a training class. In that time span, I accepted another offer, left that job, and moved onto yet a new employer. Thu, on the other hand, is in town this year to lead a training class.
Her co-worker apparently holds a high level position in the Canadian office, though he didn't look or act like he was any older than his mid-late twenties, if even. Kenneth was accordingly very reserved around the guy.
-
Later in the night, Titty joined us and we took Thu and her co-worker to an upscale bar downtown with a live cover band that I think Trinh has some sort of man-crush on. The few of us from the previous night were still weary, though, so we were conservative with the drinks.
I baby-sat a glass of Sprite, faking drinks half the night.
The Canadian guy, however, came out hell-bent on making it a night as it was his last in town. He ordered rounds of Prairie Fires, which he claimed was a Canadian drink, though I doubt either tequila or Tobasco sauce originated from Canada.
At some point in the night, the guy told me that he wanted to pull some of "these bitches." When I asked him why he called them bitches, he said, "Because they're bitches!" I told him that he wasn't gonna get any if he kept calling them bitches, and he retorted, "You got to put them in their place. You got to tell them they're bitches, and let them know they're bitches, or they'll start thinking they're the shit or something!"
If he weren't Canadian, we probably could've been best friends.
-
At the end of the night, Kenneth was driving the Canadian guy back to his hotel, and just as the car pulled into the parking lot, the guy opened his rear driver-side door and hurled. As concerned as Kenneth was about partying with higher-ranking management in his company, the guy puked all over his car.
-
Tuesday, I took an extended break from the office and had lunch with Thu at a pho shop. We made catch-up talk -- I updated her on how things went downhill for me at my last place of employment and my outlooks about the new one, and she told me about her stuff and about the wedding she was going to have in -- I think -- September.
Some time just over a year ago, she was telling me about how she didn't believe marriage was a terribly big deal, and that she wouldn't care if she never married her man. At that time, I was telling her about how I didn't need growth and money to be primary factors in my career decisions as long as I loved what I did.
This year, I left a company of very friendly, very personable, like-minded peers and moved into a more structured, professional environment that conveniently came with better recognition and pay. Last year, I was chasing aspirations. This year, I chase paper. When asked what the difference was, my answer was simple: I can hold money.
I can only imagine that a ring might, likewise, be easier to hold than things like love and whispered promises.
We were joined by Thu and a co-worker of hers, a guy who initially seemed proper and professional, but after listening to our lunch conversation, quickly showed a cruder side, humorously profane topped with indiscreet misogynism.
Thu is a chick from Canada that works for the same suits as Titty and Kenneth, except in the Canadian office. I met her a little over a year ago when I was entertaining an offer from that company, and she was in town attending a training class. In that time span, I accepted another offer, left that job, and moved onto yet a new employer. Thu, on the other hand, is in town this year to lead a training class.
Her co-worker apparently holds a high level position in the Canadian office, though he didn't look or act like he was any older than his mid-late twenties, if even. Kenneth was accordingly very reserved around the guy.
-
Later in the night, Titty joined us and we took Thu and her co-worker to an upscale bar downtown with a live cover band that I think Trinh has some sort of man-crush on. The few of us from the previous night were still weary, though, so we were conservative with the drinks.
I baby-sat a glass of Sprite, faking drinks half the night.
The Canadian guy, however, came out hell-bent on making it a night as it was his last in town. He ordered rounds of Prairie Fires, which he claimed was a Canadian drink, though I doubt either tequila or Tobasco sauce originated from Canada.
At some point in the night, the guy told me that he wanted to pull some of "these bitches." When I asked him why he called them bitches, he said, "Because they're bitches!" I told him that he wasn't gonna get any if he kept calling them bitches, and he retorted, "You got to put them in their place. You got to tell them they're bitches, and let them know they're bitches, or they'll start thinking they're the shit or something!"
If he weren't Canadian, we probably could've been best friends.
-
At the end of the night, Kenneth was driving the Canadian guy back to his hotel, and just as the car pulled into the parking lot, the guy opened his rear driver-side door and hurled. As concerned as Kenneth was about partying with higher-ranking management in his company, the guy puked all over his car.
-
Tuesday, I took an extended break from the office and had lunch with Thu at a pho shop. We made catch-up talk -- I updated her on how things went downhill for me at my last place of employment and my outlooks about the new one, and she told me about her stuff and about the wedding she was going to have in -- I think -- September.
Some time just over a year ago, she was telling me about how she didn't believe marriage was a terribly big deal, and that she wouldn't care if she never married her man. At that time, I was telling her about how I didn't need growth and money to be primary factors in my career decisions as long as I loved what I did.
This year, I left a company of very friendly, very personable, like-minded peers and moved into a more structured, professional environment that conveniently came with better recognition and pay. Last year, I was chasing aspirations. This year, I chase paper. When asked what the difference was, my answer was simple: I can hold money.
I can only imagine that a ring might, likewise, be easier to hold than things like love and whispered promises.
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Go, Cougs, Go
Friday night, I sent a text to the hookah bar girl to see what she was up to. She was working the night, so I stopped by, accompanied by Kenneth and Trinh.
It was Kenneth's birthday weekend, and he was in party mode. The plan was to just stop by the hookah place for a little while to kick it with the girl before heading toward Midtown to romp.
The hookah girl caught us at the door and seated us in her section near the bar. I told her it was Kenneth's birthday, and she immediately yelled, "Jägerbomb!"
She brought us a round plus one for herself. We toasted and she cheered, "Happy birthday!"
An older lady at the bar overheard us, a blonde haired lady maybe in her forties or fifties wearing a frighteningly thick wad of red lipstick. "Is it somebody's birthday?" she yelled over to our table, "Is it his birthday? Get them another round and put it on my tab!"
So the hookah girl brought out another round plus one for herself.
-
As we drank more and the night got later, we abandoned plans of going Midtown, and the rest of our party -- Tam, Don, and Xixi -- joined us at the hookah place. The hookah girl moved us out onto the patio to give us more room and some space for her to sneak a seat when she wasn't busy.
Midway through the night, sauced up and heavy in party mode, Kenneth stood up and asked the table, "You guys wanna see me get a cougar?"
I hesitated, because I'd seen the cougar in question, and I really did not think that his hooking up with her could possibly end well. But I'm a dick with a sadistic sense of humor, and ultimately, the answer to the question was: yes; yes, I wanted to see that shit.
And so it came to be, Kenneth disappeared for half an hour and returned with probably a handful of shots in his system and a lady twice his age.
As it turns out, the cougar was related to the owner of the joint, and he eventually came out to our party and joined us. This cleared the hookah girl of her work, for the most part, and she joined our party as well, drinking and getting her rowdy on. Eventually, even the DJ joined us.
-
By last call, I'd drank myself beyond stupidity.
The guys had gone inside and were dancing up on random chicks. Trinh found an obese one to keep him company. Kenneth danced with some other dude's girlfriend.
The hookah girl found me hanging out on the patio by myself and dragged me onto the dancefloor. She freaked with me for a little bit, did some crazy hands on the floor, ass in the air kind of shit. That was the point in the night when I realized I'd been taken too far past my limits.
As I watched the girl's ass grind up against my crotch, I realized that I was too drunk to be dancing. And if the night went anywhere beyond dancing, I was way too fucked up to be doing that too.
"What's up?" she finally asked me, "You cool, babe?"
I shook my head slowly. I think something inside me died. "Naw, sweety," I uttered, "I fucked up tonight. I don't think I can be doing this right now."
-
When the music stopped and the lights came on, the cougar and the owner told us that they were related to another guy who owned another club, and that we would be moving the party to that venue.
We all agreed. The hookah girl said she'd come join us, but she had to close up. I told her that I'd wait for her to finish up.
Tam, Don, and I hung out a bit outside the place as she closed up. I sat down somewhere and blacked out.
-
By the time I woke, there was sun in my eyes. I was not at home, and there were about two dozen missed calls on my phone.
It was Kenneth's birthday weekend, and he was in party mode. The plan was to just stop by the hookah place for a little while to kick it with the girl before heading toward Midtown to romp.
The hookah girl caught us at the door and seated us in her section near the bar. I told her it was Kenneth's birthday, and she immediately yelled, "Jägerbomb!"
She brought us a round plus one for herself. We toasted and she cheered, "Happy birthday!"
An older lady at the bar overheard us, a blonde haired lady maybe in her forties or fifties wearing a frighteningly thick wad of red lipstick. "Is it somebody's birthday?" she yelled over to our table, "Is it his birthday? Get them another round and put it on my tab!"
So the hookah girl brought out another round plus one for herself.
-
As we drank more and the night got later, we abandoned plans of going Midtown, and the rest of our party -- Tam, Don, and Xixi -- joined us at the hookah place. The hookah girl moved us out onto the patio to give us more room and some space for her to sneak a seat when she wasn't busy.
Midway through the night, sauced up and heavy in party mode, Kenneth stood up and asked the table, "You guys wanna see me get a cougar?"
I hesitated, because I'd seen the cougar in question, and I really did not think that his hooking up with her could possibly end well. But I'm a dick with a sadistic sense of humor, and ultimately, the answer to the question was: yes; yes, I wanted to see that shit.
And so it came to be, Kenneth disappeared for half an hour and returned with probably a handful of shots in his system and a lady twice his age.
As it turns out, the cougar was related to the owner of the joint, and he eventually came out to our party and joined us. This cleared the hookah girl of her work, for the most part, and she joined our party as well, drinking and getting her rowdy on. Eventually, even the DJ joined us.
-
By last call, I'd drank myself beyond stupidity.
The guys had gone inside and were dancing up on random chicks. Trinh found an obese one to keep him company. Kenneth danced with some other dude's girlfriend.
The hookah girl found me hanging out on the patio by myself and dragged me onto the dancefloor. She freaked with me for a little bit, did some crazy hands on the floor, ass in the air kind of shit. That was the point in the night when I realized I'd been taken too far past my limits.
As I watched the girl's ass grind up against my crotch, I realized that I was too drunk to be dancing. And if the night went anywhere beyond dancing, I was way too fucked up to be doing that too.
"What's up?" she finally asked me, "You cool, babe?"
I shook my head slowly. I think something inside me died. "Naw, sweety," I uttered, "I fucked up tonight. I don't think I can be doing this right now."
-
When the music stopped and the lights came on, the cougar and the owner told us that they were related to another guy who owned another club, and that we would be moving the party to that venue.
We all agreed. The hookah girl said she'd come join us, but she had to close up. I told her that I'd wait for her to finish up.
Tam, Don, and I hung out a bit outside the place as she closed up. I sat down somewhere and blacked out.
-
By the time I woke, there was sun in my eyes. I was not at home, and there were about two dozen missed calls on my phone.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Opening The Box
A small group of the guys from work decided to have a team-building dinner at an Indian restaurant tonight, organized by our infrastructures lead. I wasn't apart of their team, though we share the same open-bay office space, but they invited me along because I was working late, and they caught me on the way out the door.
During dinner, their team joked around and cursed and insulted each other's mothers. Their team has seemingly better chemistry than mine because the majority of them are relatively young, whereas my own team is composed mostly of older, more serious guys. The kind of cats that pop Centrum pills and test their blood sugar after every meal.
We had pili pili, goat curry, and a sampler plate with chicken, beef, and lamb kebabs.
-
After dinner, one of the consultants from Seattle asked if I knew of any good hookah bars. He and the guy from Austin thought it was too early to head back to their hotel rooms, and the guy from Austin, though living in a college town, had never smoked a hookah before.
The infrastructures lead joined us, and I showed them to a little joint on The Strip that I knew about because it was next door to a bar I regularly visit for happy hour. By the time we arrived, it was pouring a storm, but we took a seat on the patio under a curtain-drawn gazebo-looking structure anyway because they were blasting loud club music inside.
A cute, petite girl came out to wait on us; she wore large neon green hoop earrings and a necklace of colorful beads. Her hair was tied on both sides into little tails with more neon colors. She looked like the kind of girl that loved getting smash and using it as an excuse to do dumb things -- but very cute and petite, nonetheless.
I playfully gave her a hard time with the drink orders, requesting Stella and Amstel and other beers that I knew a dinky shack of a bar like this wouldn't have. After a few runs back to the bar to check on my beer orders, she came out with a bottle of Dos Equis and declared, "You're drinking Dos Equis, man, I don't care what you want. I'm not doing this anymore."
We laughed, and I told her, "I'm just giving you a hard time, dear, Dos Equis is fine." Then, I followed up, "I feel kinda bad, sending you running around like that. Why don't you just sit down and chill for a bit? There's nobody here, anyway, and it's raining."
She acquiesced.
The girl was not the least bit shy, and she began leading our conversations, diving into topics about drug-induced adventures and sexual experiences. She revealed herself to be a marijuana-enthusiast former college track runner -turned- skater and surfer.
She badgered me for my age, and I refused to answer seriously. I insisted that I was nineteen, and predictably, she knew I was lying. I was self-conscious because my co-workers were present. Since working at the new gig, I made it a point to not time-date myself because I knew that I was the youngest person on the team. I was staffed on a project backed by a multi-million dollar business proposal, and there would be meetings where I might voice my opinion, possibly make corrections or suggestions, and even criticism. And being so young and briefly removed from school, I did not want to have my youth become a hurdle.
So throughout the night, she tried to pry my age out of me, and I kept telling her that I was nineteen.
-
Sometime in the night, her manager stepped outside, looking for her, only to find her loitering about at our table. He came over to figure out why she wasn't working.
The guys and I started talking up a clamor, telling him about how great of a waitress she was, how she was so much fun and making the bar a better place to be, and how drunk she was getting all of us. So he cheered up, told her she could stay and even drink with us.
And so the girl started to drink with us. That was all it took for me to throw inhibition out the window. The whole table of us drank ourselves beyond professionalism, and stories began to leak out -- the kind you don't share around the watercoolers at work. The kind that'll make you want to avoid eye contact the next day.
Then, she asked me again about my age. She said that everybody was already drunk and telling embarrassing stories so I didn't need to try to hide things about myself anymore. I agreed, but still didn't give her an answer. So she took a guess, and she guessed my age exactly. "On the dot," I said. She replied, "Good. That's how old I wanted you to be."
-
At around 11pm, we decided to disband. We thanked her for her company and went our separate ways. Unsolicited, she wrote her number on a blank order slip and said to give her a call to hang out sometime.
During dinner, their team joked around and cursed and insulted each other's mothers. Their team has seemingly better chemistry than mine because the majority of them are relatively young, whereas my own team is composed mostly of older, more serious guys. The kind of cats that pop Centrum pills and test their blood sugar after every meal.
We had pili pili, goat curry, and a sampler plate with chicken, beef, and lamb kebabs.
-
After dinner, one of the consultants from Seattle asked if I knew of any good hookah bars. He and the guy from Austin thought it was too early to head back to their hotel rooms, and the guy from Austin, though living in a college town, had never smoked a hookah before.
The infrastructures lead joined us, and I showed them to a little joint on The Strip that I knew about because it was next door to a bar I regularly visit for happy hour. By the time we arrived, it was pouring a storm, but we took a seat on the patio under a curtain-drawn gazebo-looking structure anyway because they were blasting loud club music inside.
A cute, petite girl came out to wait on us; she wore large neon green hoop earrings and a necklace of colorful beads. Her hair was tied on both sides into little tails with more neon colors. She looked like the kind of girl that loved getting smash and using it as an excuse to do dumb things -- but very cute and petite, nonetheless.
I playfully gave her a hard time with the drink orders, requesting Stella and Amstel and other beers that I knew a dinky shack of a bar like this wouldn't have. After a few runs back to the bar to check on my beer orders, she came out with a bottle of Dos Equis and declared, "You're drinking Dos Equis, man, I don't care what you want. I'm not doing this anymore."
We laughed, and I told her, "I'm just giving you a hard time, dear, Dos Equis is fine." Then, I followed up, "I feel kinda bad, sending you running around like that. Why don't you just sit down and chill for a bit? There's nobody here, anyway, and it's raining."
She acquiesced.
The girl was not the least bit shy, and she began leading our conversations, diving into topics about drug-induced adventures and sexual experiences. She revealed herself to be a marijuana-enthusiast former college track runner -turned- skater and surfer.
She badgered me for my age, and I refused to answer seriously. I insisted that I was nineteen, and predictably, she knew I was lying. I was self-conscious because my co-workers were present. Since working at the new gig, I made it a point to not time-date myself because I knew that I was the youngest person on the team. I was staffed on a project backed by a multi-million dollar business proposal, and there would be meetings where I might voice my opinion, possibly make corrections or suggestions, and even criticism. And being so young and briefly removed from school, I did not want to have my youth become a hurdle.
So throughout the night, she tried to pry my age out of me, and I kept telling her that I was nineteen.
-
Sometime in the night, her manager stepped outside, looking for her, only to find her loitering about at our table. He came over to figure out why she wasn't working.
The guys and I started talking up a clamor, telling him about how great of a waitress she was, how she was so much fun and making the bar a better place to be, and how drunk she was getting all of us. So he cheered up, told her she could stay and even drink with us.
And so the girl started to drink with us. That was all it took for me to throw inhibition out the window. The whole table of us drank ourselves beyond professionalism, and stories began to leak out -- the kind you don't share around the watercoolers at work. The kind that'll make you want to avoid eye contact the next day.
Then, she asked me again about my age. She said that everybody was already drunk and telling embarrassing stories so I didn't need to try to hide things about myself anymore. I agreed, but still didn't give her an answer. So she took a guess, and she guessed my age exactly. "On the dot," I said. She replied, "Good. That's how old I wanted you to be."
-
At around 11pm, we decided to disband. We thanked her for her company and went our separate ways. Unsolicited, she wrote her number on a blank order slip and said to give her a call to hang out sometime.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
The Day We'll Fight Back
For Independence Day, Binh gathered a small crowd together at The New Cage.
The New Cage is Binh's new apartment, which he recently moved into, maybe a month go. The Old Cage is our old apartment, my brief stint as his absentee roommate. For simplicity, "The Cage" will from hereon just refer to the current one.
Met up with Krys, Ivan, and Gene at the Cage for some beers. Binh had a PC hooked up to his big screen, so Anton being Anton, surfed around YouTube and Entensity, finding fucked up borderline snuff videos to help the alcohol kill our brains.
The latest YouTube craze is apparently a Mad TV skit with Bobby Lee called "Dragon Hunter 2."
-
At around midnight, the crew shuffled out to a pub near Town Center, where we quaffed as many pitchers as we could before last call. There was a live band playing.
They sucked.
-
Back at the Cage, someone devised a new card game called Ba Cao For Shots.
Someone asked, "How do we play?" To which, Gene replied, "We play Ba Cao ... for shots."
And so we took turns drawing cards and drinking Hen.
Blake and Chu stopped by after a night at some club, and they brought two girls. The chicks were both drunk. And crazy. Not the good crazy.
One of the girls was skinny with a long horse face, and either wore too much make-up or was ghastly pale. She was an attention whore, and made it a point to be loud and announce her presence with inane rambling the moment she stepped into the place.
The other girl was shorter and noteably cuter and slightly less annoying. But equally crazy. She had security issues or something, and at one point in the night, locked herself in the bathroom because she was drunk and was afraid of making a fool of herself. Which, in my personal opinion, was just a tad counterproductive. Her attention whore friend had to console her and remind her that she was a unique and beautiful snowflake.
I was also told, through whispers, that the shorter girl had a forty-some year-old boyfriend that had been lighting up her phone all night. Forty year-old boyfriends are usually a good indication of daddy issues.
The attention whore kept clinging onto Binh's girlfriend and trying to be best friends with the girl, though the whole room could tell she was just trying to sip on Binh's Kool-aid.
-
Sometime in the night, the neighbors called the cops because we were too loud. We continued drinking, though in whispers, swearing under our breath at the people around us for trying to lead civilized suburban lives.
The party slowly fizzled and died, and as the sun rose, we one by one bowed out and went home.
The New Cage is Binh's new apartment, which he recently moved into, maybe a month go. The Old Cage is our old apartment, my brief stint as his absentee roommate. For simplicity, "The Cage" will from hereon just refer to the current one.
Met up with Krys, Ivan, and Gene at the Cage for some beers. Binh had a PC hooked up to his big screen, so Anton being Anton, surfed around YouTube and Entensity, finding fucked up borderline snuff videos to help the alcohol kill our brains.
The latest YouTube craze is apparently a Mad TV skit with Bobby Lee called "Dragon Hunter 2."
-
At around midnight, the crew shuffled out to a pub near Town Center, where we quaffed as many pitchers as we could before last call. There was a live band playing.
They sucked.
-
Back at the Cage, someone devised a new card game called Ba Cao For Shots.
Someone asked, "How do we play?" To which, Gene replied, "We play Ba Cao ... for shots."
And so we took turns drawing cards and drinking Hen.
Blake and Chu stopped by after a night at some club, and they brought two girls. The chicks were both drunk. And crazy. Not the good crazy.
One of the girls was skinny with a long horse face, and either wore too much make-up or was ghastly pale. She was an attention whore, and made it a point to be loud and announce her presence with inane rambling the moment she stepped into the place.
The other girl was shorter and noteably cuter and slightly less annoying. But equally crazy. She had security issues or something, and at one point in the night, locked herself in the bathroom because she was drunk and was afraid of making a fool of herself. Which, in my personal opinion, was just a tad counterproductive. Her attention whore friend had to console her and remind her that she was a unique and beautiful snowflake.
I was also told, through whispers, that the shorter girl had a forty-some year-old boyfriend that had been lighting up her phone all night. Forty year-old boyfriends are usually a good indication of daddy issues.
The attention whore kept clinging onto Binh's girlfriend and trying to be best friends with the girl, though the whole room could tell she was just trying to sip on Binh's Kool-aid.
-
Sometime in the night, the neighbors called the cops because we were too loud. We continued drinking, though in whispers, swearing under our breath at the people around us for trying to lead civilized suburban lives.
The party slowly fizzled and died, and as the sun rose, we one by one bowed out and went home.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Same Shit, Different Toilet
I started at my new place of employment this week, sub-contracting at a Client that deals in oil drilling, transporting, and distribution.
My on-boarding was a mess since I was catching the tail end of a Sprint cycle; everyone was hustling to meet their marks. First day, they basically tossed a laptop at me and a gig worth of documentation to read up on.
The place is pretty state-of-the-art. They've got monitors on those adjustable arms so you can position the screens all over the desk at your whim. The desk and chairs both have motorized adjustment mechanisms with four memory settings, I guess in case there are days you feel like sitting high and other days you feel like lying back.
These big blue-chip index companies are pretty damn strict about their policies, particularly in regards to safety and privacy. The first two days comprised primarily of reading these handbooks, and then I had to take these dumb quizzes over the material. I call them dumb because if you answered a question incorrectly, it displayed the correct answer and asked you to try again.
I read the first handbook thoroughly because I didn't want to be "that guy" who failed the on-boarding quizzes, but then I realized that there was no way to fail, so I just clicked through the rest of the material.
-
It was mid-week by the time I'd gone through the on-boarding material and was given my laptop, account, and on-line access. I have a buddy, Nick, from high school who I knew was contracting at The Client, but at another building downtown, so the first thing I did was pull up his name on the internal chat messenger and catch up.
The Client licenses this software called WorkPace, which advertises itself as a way to help "achieve safe and healthy work habits." It's basically this process that runs in the background and keeps track of how active you've been at your computer -- how fast your mouse is moving around, how often you're clicking, how fast your keystrokes are -- and tries to remind you to rest if you breach a certain threshold.
The threshold on my machine had been set to 75 words per minute. I easily sustain close to 90 words a minute casually.
Almost as soon as I began chatting with Nick, the little WorkPace panel started popping up, telling me to chill out and take a break. And because of my machine-gun-esque typing, the panel popped up every five or ten minutes, trying to slow me down.
I mentioned this up to Nick, and he told me that he ignores it. That he likes to sometimes type as fast as he can and see if he can make the little smiley face frown.
I thought that was something I'd like to see, so I began chatting and writing e-mails as vigorously as I could. Turns out, the smiley face never frowns. It keeps smiling until it locks your damn machine up and sends a warning message to somebody somewhere, probably telling them that there's a little dick in room C1202 that won't comply to company safety policies.
-
Sporadically, these animated windows pop up on the screen with directions for various at-your-seat stretching exercises, and it displays a thirty-second timer to practice it. One of the exercises is to stare at the lower corner of the monitor and allow your eyes to drift, to rest and relax your mind and eyes at the same time.
I've always liked to just let my eyes to wander low and away, not to relax, per se, but because I'm a bit of a sloth and it lets my mind float lazily while looking semi-busy. I always wondered, whenever I did things like that, how all my co-workers always managed to have something to do and were always so diligent about it. I wondered if other people were just moseying around, trying to look busy like I was doing, or if they were actually more productive than me.
Now, I can do it with a guilty-free conscience, knowing that everybody around me has to do it too.
My on-boarding was a mess since I was catching the tail end of a Sprint cycle; everyone was hustling to meet their marks. First day, they basically tossed a laptop at me and a gig worth of documentation to read up on.
The place is pretty state-of-the-art. They've got monitors on those adjustable arms so you can position the screens all over the desk at your whim. The desk and chairs both have motorized adjustment mechanisms with four memory settings, I guess in case there are days you feel like sitting high and other days you feel like lying back.
These big blue-chip index companies are pretty damn strict about their policies, particularly in regards to safety and privacy. The first two days comprised primarily of reading these handbooks, and then I had to take these dumb quizzes over the material. I call them dumb because if you answered a question incorrectly, it displayed the correct answer and asked you to try again.
I read the first handbook thoroughly because I didn't want to be "that guy" who failed the on-boarding quizzes, but then I realized that there was no way to fail, so I just clicked through the rest of the material.
-
It was mid-week by the time I'd gone through the on-boarding material and was given my laptop, account, and on-line access. I have a buddy, Nick, from high school who I knew was contracting at The Client, but at another building downtown, so the first thing I did was pull up his name on the internal chat messenger and catch up.
The Client licenses this software called WorkPace, which advertises itself as a way to help "achieve safe and healthy work habits." It's basically this process that runs in the background and keeps track of how active you've been at your computer -- how fast your mouse is moving around, how often you're clicking, how fast your keystrokes are -- and tries to remind you to rest if you breach a certain threshold.
The threshold on my machine had been set to 75 words per minute. I easily sustain close to 90 words a minute casually.
Almost as soon as I began chatting with Nick, the little WorkPace panel started popping up, telling me to chill out and take a break. And because of my machine-gun-esque typing, the panel popped up every five or ten minutes, trying to slow me down.
I mentioned this up to Nick, and he told me that he ignores it. That he likes to sometimes type as fast as he can and see if he can make the little smiley face frown.
I thought that was something I'd like to see, so I began chatting and writing e-mails as vigorously as I could. Turns out, the smiley face never frowns. It keeps smiling until it locks your damn machine up and sends a warning message to somebody somewhere, probably telling them that there's a little dick in room C1202 that won't comply to company safety policies.
-
Sporadically, these animated windows pop up on the screen with directions for various at-your-seat stretching exercises, and it displays a thirty-second timer to practice it. One of the exercises is to stare at the lower corner of the monitor and allow your eyes to drift, to rest and relax your mind and eyes at the same time.
I've always liked to just let my eyes to wander low and away, not to relax, per se, but because I'm a bit of a sloth and it lets my mind float lazily while looking semi-busy. I always wondered, whenever I did things like that, how all my co-workers always managed to have something to do and were always so diligent about it. I wondered if other people were just moseying around, trying to look busy like I was doing, or if they were actually more productive than me.
Now, I can do it with a guilty-free conscience, knowing that everybody around me has to do it too.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
LA Trip: Day 3 & 4
By day three, I was burnt. Literally and figuratively.
I'd spent the last two days in a row walking along the beach under the sun drinking nothing but alcohol. And that's a generally bad idea.
My skin was peeling and my head was pounding, and I feel like I'm at an age now where I tend to listen to and abide by what my body tells me. So I stayed in bed straight through the day till the sun had gone down.
Found a small phở shop near Manhattan Beach for dinner. Turned out, however, that there wasn't a single Vietnamese person in the place -- it was owned and run by Japanese.
The food was terrible and expensive as fuck all.
-
I got a hold of Audrey late at night, and I met up with her downtown for some aimless walking around. Audrey is a chick I'd met some time ago through mutual friends. We circled Little Tokyo and landed at a mom and pop Ramen shop for a late night meal at around 2am.
There was a sign-up sheet on a clipboard at the door to sign your name and wait for it to be called for seating. When Audrey and I arrived, we were the only names on the list and caught the last available seats.
After we'd been seated, I noticed a large group of maybe six to eight people sign their name on the list and then loitered outside the door on the streets. Another large group of similar size appeared after them, signed the sheet, and also dawdled about on the sidewalk.
That was one of the most peculiar things I'd ever seen. That shit would never fly back in Texas. It's hot as fuck down South, and people are grumpy and impatient; I'd have never waited in line like that for food.
-
Because I'd gotten a hold of Audrey so late in the night and on the tail end of my trip, we agreed to hang out again the next morning before my flight home. She took me for a trip to Chinatown, which she refers to as "old" Chinatown because apparently there are newer, "unofficial" Chinatowns, kinda like the one I went to in San Gabriel Valley on my first night.
We checked out bootleg "Adiaas" and "Pumu" shops and haggled prices with street vendors over imposter beanie babies.
There was a sign set up in the manner of the famous Hollywood sign that read, "Chinatownland." I'm not sure why "land" was suffixed at the end of it.
I was looking for a street vendor that was willing to chop a live chicken's head off for me a la Chris Tucker's character from Rush Hour 2, but no luck.
-
I milked practically every minute of my trip, and was the absolute last person to board my flight, catching it just as they were closing the boarding door.
Had I been just a minute slower, I would not have been allowed to take that trip back to tedious work life and shit weather.
I'd spent the last two days in a row walking along the beach under the sun drinking nothing but alcohol. And that's a generally bad idea.
My skin was peeling and my head was pounding, and I feel like I'm at an age now where I tend to listen to and abide by what my body tells me. So I stayed in bed straight through the day till the sun had gone down.
Found a small phở shop near Manhattan Beach for dinner. Turned out, however, that there wasn't a single Vietnamese person in the place -- it was owned and run by Japanese.
The food was terrible and expensive as fuck all.
-
I got a hold of Audrey late at night, and I met up with her downtown for some aimless walking around. Audrey is a chick I'd met some time ago through mutual friends. We circled Little Tokyo and landed at a mom and pop Ramen shop for a late night meal at around 2am.
There was a sign-up sheet on a clipboard at the door to sign your name and wait for it to be called for seating. When Audrey and I arrived, we were the only names on the list and caught the last available seats.
After we'd been seated, I noticed a large group of maybe six to eight people sign their name on the list and then loitered outside the door on the streets. Another large group of similar size appeared after them, signed the sheet, and also dawdled about on the sidewalk.
That was one of the most peculiar things I'd ever seen. That shit would never fly back in Texas. It's hot as fuck down South, and people are grumpy and impatient; I'd have never waited in line like that for food.
-
Because I'd gotten a hold of Audrey so late in the night and on the tail end of my trip, we agreed to hang out again the next morning before my flight home. She took me for a trip to Chinatown, which she refers to as "old" Chinatown because apparently there are newer, "unofficial" Chinatowns, kinda like the one I went to in San Gabriel Valley on my first night.
We checked out bootleg "Adiaas" and "Pumu" shops and haggled prices with street vendors over imposter beanie babies.
There was a sign set up in the manner of the famous Hollywood sign that read, "Chinatownland." I'm not sure why "land" was suffixed at the end of it.
I was looking for a street vendor that was willing to chop a live chicken's head off for me a la Chris Tucker's character from Rush Hour 2, but no luck.
-
I milked practically every minute of my trip, and was the absolute last person to board my flight, catching it just as they were closing the boarding door.
Had I been just a minute slower, I would not have been allowed to take that trip back to tedious work life and shit weather.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
LA Trip: Day 2
Early the next morning, I rolled out to the Santa Monica strip, which was a recommendation of a drunk guy from one of the bars on Venice Beach. Santa Monica Beach is the beach you normally see in movies or on TV where there are big steroid addicts pumping iron along the beach front.
It's also home to a community of pothead bums.
The first sight I saw of Santa Monica Beach was a crowd of people gathered around a performer, a fast-talking Jamaican fellow with some pretty clever quips. He did a flip off of a chair and landed on a pile of broken glass, and then demanded everyone donate money into a black box. When the crowd dispersed, he angrily cursed at them for not being generous.
I thought it was peculiar for a beggar to get angry at people who wouldn't give him money, but I quickly discovered that this was actually the norm around here.
The next sight was a mime, who quickly demanded money as soon as he noticed me staring. Mimes don't fucking talk, asshole.
Around noon, a small camera crew set up around a graffitied wall and started a photoshoot with some bikini model. She was pretty damn hot, so I stood around and watched. Pretty soon a crowd of people gathered around, staring at her go through her poses. I always imagined models were sequestered on some artificial set or at least shielded from onlookers, but apparently not. By the time she was finished, there were a good dozen or more guys just standing around ogling her.
Welcome to the West Coast, Lucky, you ignorant little country boy.
The most astonishing thing I saw at Santa Monica was a gazebo along the beach, and sitting in this gazebo were two white kids in probably their early twenties and an old Asian lady in probably her fifties. And the three of them were passing around a blunt. At two in the afternoon on a weekday.
In fact, there were fully grown men and women riding their bikes along the beach, smoking marijuana, and just taking naps in the grass in the buttfuck middle of the day. California is an expensive ass place to live in; if everyone's high on the beach at two in the afternoon, who the fuck is working and paying the bills?
-
I finished the afternoon at a homey little bar that feels like someone had just set up in an alleyway between two buildings and threw a roof over it. It was a bar in the classic sense, with a woodgrain counter and stools, and an old balding bartender with a full beard of white and lots of stories to tell.
I always wanted to find a bar like this back home -- a hole in the wall with bottles that aren't filled with piss liquor and a bartender that knows how to mix his drinks and tell his tales.
He carried the conversation while I muled over a Van Winkle Mint Julep, telling stories of his younger construction worker days, and of the kids that worked alongside him that lost their arms or legs or even heads to accidents.
As the five o'clock hour approached, the working class shuffled into the bar to wash away their tediums. An old school jazzy song played in the background, and the bartender mixed drinks and entertained his patrons.
I made idle chatter with the locals, trying my best but failing at pretending to not be a tourist. I talked mostly about the software industry in the area and in the Bay Area, where it has a stronger presence. I honestly don't know how serious I was about it, but I was curious if a kid like me could stack paper out West.
-
Dinner was served through a door. Literally.
I ate a Mexican dish in an alleyway, right next to a door that led to a kitchen. It was a split door where the top half opened while the lower half stayed shut, and a Mexican dude took and served orders through it.
I don't remember what the plate was called, but it was beef and chicken cooked into a doughy tortilla looking thing. It was fucking delicious. And for two bucks a plate, I took two more orders for the road.
-
At around midnight, I met up with Dylan, a good friend of mine from high school who had packed up his things several years ago and drove west out to Hollywood to pursue a career in the film industry -- which the locals refer to as The industry.
He showed me to a dive bar in West Hollywood that was supposed to be a popular place among the college aged kids. There were beer pong tables set up and various other drinking games. That particular night, however, was unfortunately barren and dead.
We killed maybe three pitchers of Dos Equis anyway before last call. We took a pit stop by a gas station on the way back to Dylan's apartment and grabbed three cases of beer. Apparently, they can sell beer a lot later in LA than they do back home.
Drank until the morning hours, talking about work, life, religion, and all the topics that you regret talking about as soon as you start. Crashed at Dylan's apartment.
It's also home to a community of pothead bums.
The first sight I saw of Santa Monica Beach was a crowd of people gathered around a performer, a fast-talking Jamaican fellow with some pretty clever quips. He did a flip off of a chair and landed on a pile of broken glass, and then demanded everyone donate money into a black box. When the crowd dispersed, he angrily cursed at them for not being generous.
I thought it was peculiar for a beggar to get angry at people who wouldn't give him money, but I quickly discovered that this was actually the norm around here.
The next sight was a mime, who quickly demanded money as soon as he noticed me staring. Mimes don't fucking talk, asshole.
Around noon, a small camera crew set up around a graffitied wall and started a photoshoot with some bikini model. She was pretty damn hot, so I stood around and watched. Pretty soon a crowd of people gathered around, staring at her go through her poses. I always imagined models were sequestered on some artificial set or at least shielded from onlookers, but apparently not. By the time she was finished, there were a good dozen or more guys just standing around ogling her.
Welcome to the West Coast, Lucky, you ignorant little country boy.
The most astonishing thing I saw at Santa Monica was a gazebo along the beach, and sitting in this gazebo were two white kids in probably their early twenties and an old Asian lady in probably her fifties. And the three of them were passing around a blunt. At two in the afternoon on a weekday.
In fact, there were fully grown men and women riding their bikes along the beach, smoking marijuana, and just taking naps in the grass in the buttfuck middle of the day. California is an expensive ass place to live in; if everyone's high on the beach at two in the afternoon, who the fuck is working and paying the bills?
-
I finished the afternoon at a homey little bar that feels like someone had just set up in an alleyway between two buildings and threw a roof over it. It was a bar in the classic sense, with a woodgrain counter and stools, and an old balding bartender with a full beard of white and lots of stories to tell.
I always wanted to find a bar like this back home -- a hole in the wall with bottles that aren't filled with piss liquor and a bartender that knows how to mix his drinks and tell his tales.
He carried the conversation while I muled over a Van Winkle Mint Julep, telling stories of his younger construction worker days, and of the kids that worked alongside him that lost their arms or legs or even heads to accidents.
As the five o'clock hour approached, the working class shuffled into the bar to wash away their tediums. An old school jazzy song played in the background, and the bartender mixed drinks and entertained his patrons.
I made idle chatter with the locals, trying my best but failing at pretending to not be a tourist. I talked mostly about the software industry in the area and in the Bay Area, where it has a stronger presence. I honestly don't know how serious I was about it, but I was curious if a kid like me could stack paper out West.
-
Dinner was served through a door. Literally.
I ate a Mexican dish in an alleyway, right next to a door that led to a kitchen. It was a split door where the top half opened while the lower half stayed shut, and a Mexican dude took and served orders through it.
I don't remember what the plate was called, but it was beef and chicken cooked into a doughy tortilla looking thing. It was fucking delicious. And for two bucks a plate, I took two more orders for the road.
-
At around midnight, I met up with Dylan, a good friend of mine from high school who had packed up his things several years ago and drove west out to Hollywood to pursue a career in the film industry -- which the locals refer to as The industry.
He showed me to a dive bar in West Hollywood that was supposed to be a popular place among the college aged kids. There were beer pong tables set up and various other drinking games. That particular night, however, was unfortunately barren and dead.
We killed maybe three pitchers of Dos Equis anyway before last call. We took a pit stop by a gas station on the way back to Dylan's apartment and grabbed three cases of beer. Apparently, they can sell beer a lot later in LA than they do back home.
Drank until the morning hours, talking about work, life, religion, and all the topics that you regret talking about as soon as you start. Crashed at Dylan's apartment.
Friday, June 13, 2008
LA Trip: Day 1
Less than twelve hours after getting home from DC, I was back on a plane, Los Angeles bound.
Everybody always talks about the weather in LA. They always say how great it is, how perfect it is. Coming from Texas, nothing anybody ever told me prepared me for it. It's beyond perfect -- to the point that only an anecdote could come remotely close to describing.
My plane touched down at 3pm. It was the better part of an hour before baggage claim came through and another for the Budget shuttle to pick me up and take me to the car rental place. And then, there was another hour of wait before they could give me a car because the genius behind the counter gave my car away to the guy that was directly in front of me in line.
Three hours after landing, I hopped in a silver Ford Cobalt and jumped on the freeway.
Into traffic.
There is no rhyme or reason to LA's traffic, seemingly. Back home, when there's traffic, it's because there's construction or a car accident or some other form of obstruction. Not in LA. In LA, there's just traffic. You get in your car and sit in traffic, and then traffic rolls along to your destination, and that's it. There's no cause for the traffic; it's just there.
At 8PM, I rolled into a Chinese hot pot shop in San Gabriel Valley. By the time I stepped out of my car, it'd been twelve hours since my last meal.
But the second I stepped foot out of that car, the weather slammed me in the face, and the only thing that went through my mind was, Fuck me! This feels perfect!
-
I spent the first night on Venice Beach, which was pretty dead since it was a Thursday night. I bar hopped along the beach and its side streets, chatting up the bartenders and locals, trying to get an idea of going-on's for the weekend. I'd hopped the flight to LA with absolutely no plan or idea of where I'd go and when.
The Lakers had just choked a huge game to the Celtics, so everyone was moping around in their yellow and purple. I tried to avoid talking basketball to the locals, but it was the only thing on anybody's mind. They all seem to think the Rockets are a joke; they're all in for a surprise.
-
Checked into a Holiday Inn near Inglewood. Piece of shit hotel in a piece of shit neighborhood.
Everybody always talks about the weather in LA. They always say how great it is, how perfect it is. Coming from Texas, nothing anybody ever told me prepared me for it. It's beyond perfect -- to the point that only an anecdote could come remotely close to describing.
My plane touched down at 3pm. It was the better part of an hour before baggage claim came through and another for the Budget shuttle to pick me up and take me to the car rental place. And then, there was another hour of wait before they could give me a car because the genius behind the counter gave my car away to the guy that was directly in front of me in line.
Three hours after landing, I hopped in a silver Ford Cobalt and jumped on the freeway.
Into traffic.
There is no rhyme or reason to LA's traffic, seemingly. Back home, when there's traffic, it's because there's construction or a car accident or some other form of obstruction. Not in LA. In LA, there's just traffic. You get in your car and sit in traffic, and then traffic rolls along to your destination, and that's it. There's no cause for the traffic; it's just there.
At 8PM, I rolled into a Chinese hot pot shop in San Gabriel Valley. By the time I stepped out of my car, it'd been twelve hours since my last meal.
But the second I stepped foot out of that car, the weather slammed me in the face, and the only thing that went through my mind was, Fuck me! This feels perfect!
-
I spent the first night on Venice Beach, which was pretty dead since it was a Thursday night. I bar hopped along the beach and its side streets, chatting up the bartenders and locals, trying to get an idea of going-on's for the weekend. I'd hopped the flight to LA with absolutely no plan or idea of where I'd go and when.
The Lakers had just choked a huge game to the Celtics, so everyone was moping around in their yellow and purple. I tried to avoid talking basketball to the locals, but it was the only thing on anybody's mind. They all seem to think the Rockets are a joke; they're all in for a surprise.
-
Checked into a Holiday Inn near Inglewood. Piece of shit hotel in a piece of shit neighborhood.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
DC Trip: Day 5
The last day in DC was spent wandering the city.
DC's layout is kind of like what you would get if you took a monkey with down syndrome and made him play Sim City. Like, there are some streets that are one-way, and then you reach a certain point, and the street is still one-way, but suddenly in the opposite direction. There are also areas where you think it's a neat grid system with simple letters and numbers, and then some wildcard street pops up just to throw you for a loop. Like, you're driving past A Street, B Street, C Street, and suddenly the street names are like Jimmy Ave, Patrick Blvd, and you're like, Where the fuck is D Street?
Also, there are no places to park. I mean, there are streets and you can drive your car to where you need to go. But you can't park the car anywhere. I'm not sure how that works; I assume you just roll your car along to where you want to go, and then you jump out of the car or something and let it roll along since you can't park it. Hey, I didn't make the rules. Ask the down syndrome monkey.
The drivers in DC love to honk their horns. All the time. For any reason. I don't know if it's maybe an East Coast thing, but in Houston, when someone honks their horn, it usually means something along the lines of, "Warning! Some shit's about to happen!"
But not in DC.
In DC, people honk for no real apparent reason. I think they have conversations with their car horns. Like someone honks to say, "Good morning! How are you?" and then someone else responds by honking, "I'm fine, thank you. Do you have any Grey Poupon?"
-
We visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which is where they have those dinosaur fossils and monkey-man evolution diagram things and that one famous elephant at the door with the ears flapped back and trunk raised. There were little kids all over the place from some school field trip or something.
I bumped into a couple of kids ooh-ing and ahh-ing at a fossilized bone of a Brontosaurus's leg on display.
I went up to them and told them that the bone wasn't real, that it was just plastic.
KID #1: Nah uh! This is a real dinosaur bone!
ME: Have you ever seen a bone? It's white. That thing is too brown and shiny to be a bone. It's plastic!
KID #2: Nah uh! It's a bone -- it's just old!
ME: Dinosaurs aren't real. Everybody knows God made the world in six days. How can there be dinosaurs billions of years before man? Everybody knows this stuff is plastic and fake. Dinosaurs aren't real; just like Santa and the Easter Bunny.
-
Had dinner at a riverfront restaurant and flew out the morning after.
DC's layout is kind of like what you would get if you took a monkey with down syndrome and made him play Sim City. Like, there are some streets that are one-way, and then you reach a certain point, and the street is still one-way, but suddenly in the opposite direction. There are also areas where you think it's a neat grid system with simple letters and numbers, and then some wildcard street pops up just to throw you for a loop. Like, you're driving past A Street, B Street, C Street, and suddenly the street names are like Jimmy Ave, Patrick Blvd, and you're like, Where the fuck is D Street?
Also, there are no places to park. I mean, there are streets and you can drive your car to where you need to go. But you can't park the car anywhere. I'm not sure how that works; I assume you just roll your car along to where you want to go, and then you jump out of the car or something and let it roll along since you can't park it. Hey, I didn't make the rules. Ask the down syndrome monkey.
The drivers in DC love to honk their horns. All the time. For any reason. I don't know if it's maybe an East Coast thing, but in Houston, when someone honks their horn, it usually means something along the lines of, "Warning! Some shit's about to happen!"
But not in DC.
In DC, people honk for no real apparent reason. I think they have conversations with their car horns. Like someone honks to say, "Good morning! How are you?" and then someone else responds by honking, "I'm fine, thank you. Do you have any Grey Poupon?"
-
We visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which is where they have those dinosaur fossils and monkey-man evolution diagram things and that one famous elephant at the door with the ears flapped back and trunk raised. There were little kids all over the place from some school field trip or something.
I bumped into a couple of kids ooh-ing and ahh-ing at a fossilized bone of a Brontosaurus's leg on display.
I went up to them and told them that the bone wasn't real, that it was just plastic.
KID #1: Nah uh! This is a real dinosaur bone!
ME: Have you ever seen a bone? It's white. That thing is too brown and shiny to be a bone. It's plastic!
KID #2: Nah uh! It's a bone -- it's just old!
ME: Dinosaurs aren't real. Everybody knows God made the world in six days. How can there be dinosaurs billions of years before man? Everybody knows this stuff is plastic and fake. Dinosaurs aren't real; just like Santa and the Easter Bunny.
-
Had dinner at a riverfront restaurant and flew out the morning after.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
DC Trip: Day 3 & 4
The days after the wedding were our obligatory visitations of all the relatives in the area before leaving buttfuck, Virginia.
I stopped by a handful of houses, giving traditional Vietnamese "chào" greetings to dozens of faces that seem vaguely familiar with names I'll never remember. My parents' families are so ridiculously enormous, that a long time ago, when I was young, I just completely gave up trying to remember who was who and how they were related to me. As far as I was concerned, if they were remotely near my age, I called them cousin, and if they were substantially older, I called them aunt or uncle. And if they were morbidly old, I called them, "bác."
-
There was this one particular cousin/uncle person that I remember from my childhood. He used to be a priest working out of Louisiana. When I was a kid, he used to visit my parents' house every once in a while just for kicks and giggles.
I distinctly remember him because he taught me how to play cards. As a kid, my mother had seared into me the idea that alcohol and gambling were sinful. And yet, every once in a while, this priest came to our house, got piss-drunk in our living room, and made me play Tiến Lên and Mộ Binh with him for Monopoly money.
He's not a priest anymore.
-
There were dozens of little kids running around and making loud noises like little kids do. Their parents made them say "chào" and stuff to me. I bet in ten years, they'll be just like me now, and they won't give a good damn who I am or how I'm related to them.
I wonder if they'll grow up and get the hell out, or if they'll sprout new homes right next to their folks. Maybe this little town could keep growing bigger and bigger. It'll become like one big buttfuck Vietnamese redneck metropolis.
-
After a couple days of meet-and-greets, we threw our bags in the rental, said our good-byes, and drove back to Nga's hole in the wall in DC for the weekend.
I stopped by a handful of houses, giving traditional Vietnamese "chào" greetings to dozens of faces that seem vaguely familiar with names I'll never remember. My parents' families are so ridiculously enormous, that a long time ago, when I was young, I just completely gave up trying to remember who was who and how they were related to me. As far as I was concerned, if they were remotely near my age, I called them cousin, and if they were substantially older, I called them aunt or uncle. And if they were morbidly old, I called them, "bác."
-
There was this one particular cousin/uncle person that I remember from my childhood. He used to be a priest working out of Louisiana. When I was a kid, he used to visit my parents' house every once in a while just for kicks and giggles.
I distinctly remember him because he taught me how to play cards. As a kid, my mother had seared into me the idea that alcohol and gambling were sinful. And yet, every once in a while, this priest came to our house, got piss-drunk in our living room, and made me play Tiến Lên and Mộ Binh with him for Monopoly money.
He's not a priest anymore.
-
There were dozens of little kids running around and making loud noises like little kids do. Their parents made them say "chào" and stuff to me. I bet in ten years, they'll be just like me now, and they won't give a good damn who I am or how I'm related to them.
I wonder if they'll grow up and get the hell out, or if they'll sprout new homes right next to their folks. Maybe this little town could keep growing bigger and bigger. It'll become like one big buttfuck Vietnamese redneck metropolis.
-
After a couple days of meet-and-greets, we threw our bags in the rental, said our good-byes, and drove back to Nga's hole in the wall in DC for the weekend.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
DC Trip: Day 2
We stayed the night at my cousin's house in buttfuck-nowhere, Virginia.
I woke up in the morning to find my father going loony in the kitchen. He went through alternating wild bouts of inane squealing and giggling, and settling into more somber, agitated states, declaring unconvincingly, <I'm okay! It's over, I'm okay!>
My father is a diabetic coffee fiend.
I don't know what types of diabetes there are, but he has the type that doesn't have to take insulin shots, but he goes haywire when his blood sugar level is out of wack. This particular morning, he had coffee and didn't eat breakfast.
I'm not entirely sure what a diabetic sugar high feels like, but I've seen people act just like that while eating hydrochloric shrooms. My father described it like a car running low on gas. I can't say for certain what a car feels when it has no gas, and I'm not even sure my father does. But he's been repairing cars for a living his entire life, so maybe I'll just take his word for it.
My brother and uncle calmed him down while my mother fed him breakfast foods to get his system balanced out. After the situation became under control, I took a step outside to catch a view of my new surrounding.
-
I hadn't gotten a good peak at my cousin's house because we arrived in the dark middle of night, and Virginians, seemingly, have not invented streetlights yet.
The house is monstrous.
It's a three-storey mammoth of a house built into the side of a hill. A gated driveway starts from the street at the base of the hill and circles around the hill into a drop-off parking lot type of thing behind the house and garage.
From the top of the hill, you can get a 360 view of the entire neighborhood -- which consists of just this one house, because we were in the middle of buttfuck-nowhere, and my cousin has no neighbors. Nothing but trees for miles and miles around; you can't even see the horizon.
-
My other cousin, Tom, whom I've probably met before but have absolutely no recollection of, had his wedding at around noon-ish. It was your standard Church wedding starting with, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." and ending with, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
1 Corinthian 13 was not read during the ceremony.
The reception took place in the evening, and was an outdoors event in the cul de sac outside my mother's cousin's home. A whole bunch of my cousins and uncles and aunts all owned and lived in these houses all along the same street. The whole neighborhood was basically a family tree. Like if you were trying to study the family records of these people, you just walked from one end of the street to the other end, and voila.
From what I've gathered -- and I could and probably am wrong -- this little community started when some dude that's related to my mother somehow or another, came to the States sometime a long time ago. He got married, bought a mobile home and parked it in buttfuck, Virginia. They started a family, and when the kids grew up and got married, they bought mobile homes and parked it right next door. This continued, until they eventually bought land, built houses, and established one big familial community in buttfuck, Virginia. Kinda like some sort of Vietnamese redneck town.
After the reception, I retired to my cousin's monster house. As far as I know, there was no Remy at the reception.
I woke up in the morning to find my father going loony in the kitchen. He went through alternating wild bouts of inane squealing and giggling, and settling into more somber, agitated states, declaring unconvincingly, <I'm okay! It's over, I'm okay!>
My father is a diabetic coffee fiend.
I don't know what types of diabetes there are, but he has the type that doesn't have to take insulin shots, but he goes haywire when his blood sugar level is out of wack. This particular morning, he had coffee and didn't eat breakfast.
I'm not entirely sure what a diabetic sugar high feels like, but I've seen people act just like that while eating hydrochloric shrooms. My father described it like a car running low on gas. I can't say for certain what a car feels when it has no gas, and I'm not even sure my father does. But he's been repairing cars for a living his entire life, so maybe I'll just take his word for it.
My brother and uncle calmed him down while my mother fed him breakfast foods to get his system balanced out. After the situation became under control, I took a step outside to catch a view of my new surrounding.
-
I hadn't gotten a good peak at my cousin's house because we arrived in the dark middle of night, and Virginians, seemingly, have not invented streetlights yet.
The house is monstrous.
It's a three-storey mammoth of a house built into the side of a hill. A gated driveway starts from the street at the base of the hill and circles around the hill into a drop-off parking lot type of thing behind the house and garage.
From the top of the hill, you can get a 360 view of the entire neighborhood -- which consists of just this one house, because we were in the middle of buttfuck-nowhere, and my cousin has no neighbors. Nothing but trees for miles and miles around; you can't even see the horizon.
-
My other cousin, Tom, whom I've probably met before but have absolutely no recollection of, had his wedding at around noon-ish. It was your standard Church wedding starting with, "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." and ending with, "I now pronounce you man and wife."
1 Corinthian 13 was not read during the ceremony.
The reception took place in the evening, and was an outdoors event in the cul de sac outside my mother's cousin's home. A whole bunch of my cousins and uncles and aunts all owned and lived in these houses all along the same street. The whole neighborhood was basically a family tree. Like if you were trying to study the family records of these people, you just walked from one end of the street to the other end, and voila.
From what I've gathered -- and I could and probably am wrong -- this little community started when some dude that's related to my mother somehow or another, came to the States sometime a long time ago. He got married, bought a mobile home and parked it in buttfuck, Virginia. They started a family, and when the kids grew up and got married, they bought mobile homes and parked it right next door. This continued, until they eventually bought land, built houses, and established one big familial community in buttfuck, Virginia. Kinda like some sort of Vietnamese redneck town.
After the reception, I retired to my cousin's monster house. As far as I know, there was no Remy at the reception.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
DC Trip: Day 1
I touched down in Baltimore at about 1 am local time.
Before this trip, I had no idea Baltimore was so close to Washington, DC. The only thing I knew about Balimore was that its football team is purple, its baseball team is red, and they're both birds. I think, for that reason, everytime I think about Baltimore, I think about a bird; kind of as if Baltimore were an animal instead of a location.
The drive to my sister's condo, located pretty much right in the middle of DC, took fourty-some minutes.
Her place is about the size of my bedroom plus closet back at my parents' house. My folks tease her about forking out so much cheddar for so little space, but I guess there's some sense of accomplishment in just calling a little hole your own. Plus, we've been spoiled by roomy Texas space.
Personally, I don't think I've ever owned a thing in my life, and I kind of think I'm not sentimental enough to get caught up in it.
We crashed at my sister's for the night.
-
We woke a little before noon the next day and took a stroll over to the local Chinatown.
The parts of DC that doesn't involve national monuments is pretty much crap. Complete with shady, brick-ladened alleyways like the kind from old DC (not the city) comic books. I feel like I could shank someone between these buildings and just walk away with it.
Had lunch at a mom-and-pop shop with an owner who spoke shoddy English at best. My parents spoke their broken English, and he spoke his broken English, and both sides were clearly frustrated with each other.
There's a scene in Spike Lee's 25th Hour where Edward Norton stares into the mirror and starts saying his fuck-yous to all the ethnic groups of New York. One of the lines he says is, "Fuck the Koreans [...] Ten years in the country, still no speaky English!?"
That's kind of how I feel sometimes, though not nearly as vulgar or spiteful. Or Korean. Seriously, you can learn a little more than "Sorry, I don't speak English" in twenty-five years.
-
After Nga came home from school, we jumped in the rental and headed into Virginia, where my cousin would be getting married.
The drive was about five hours long, and scattered along the road were signs that read, "Speed limit enforced by aircraft." And I wondered to myself if there were actually planes flying overhead watching for speeders. I hope those planes are powered on the joys and laughter of children, 'cause gasoline costs a buttfuck-ninety-nine these days.
We passed by a town called Harrisonburg on our voyage through Virginia. I know a girl who went to school there. We used to spend hours on the phone idly, and then somewhere along the way, it fizzled and died.
I remember one night, she laid out her plans for me over the phone -- by some age graduate, grad school by whenever, married by whatever, first kid by this or that age, etc. -- and I responded by asking her, "What if you trip?" To be honest, I thought it was cute; at least one of us knew what they were going to be doing tomorrow.
We reached a sign with arrows pointing in the direction of Richmond, Virginia, and continued past. I imagined that, at some point, she was on this same stretch of road, talking on the phone with me while commuting to her parents' home. Last I spoke to her, she was graduating and landed a gig at a company that develops defense and aerospace systems. I wonder how that's working out for her dream to be a pediatrician.
I spent a couple of hours falling in and out of consciousness, hypnotized by miles and miles of asphalt and mack trucks.
-
We arrived at our destination at around midnight, at a small town south of Roanoke. That is to say, we arrived at a small town that's south of another small town in the middle of butt-fuck.
Before this trip, I had no idea Baltimore was so close to Washington, DC. The only thing I knew about Balimore was that its football team is purple, its baseball team is red, and they're both birds. I think, for that reason, everytime I think about Baltimore, I think about a bird; kind of as if Baltimore were an animal instead of a location.
The drive to my sister's condo, located pretty much right in the middle of DC, took fourty-some minutes.
Her place is about the size of my bedroom plus closet back at my parents' house. My folks tease her about forking out so much cheddar for so little space, but I guess there's some sense of accomplishment in just calling a little hole your own. Plus, we've been spoiled by roomy Texas space.
Personally, I don't think I've ever owned a thing in my life, and I kind of think I'm not sentimental enough to get caught up in it.
We crashed at my sister's for the night.
-
We woke a little before noon the next day and took a stroll over to the local Chinatown.
The parts of DC that doesn't involve national monuments is pretty much crap. Complete with shady, brick-ladened alleyways like the kind from old DC (not the city) comic books. I feel like I could shank someone between these buildings and just walk away with it.
Had lunch at a mom-and-pop shop with an owner who spoke shoddy English at best. My parents spoke their broken English, and he spoke his broken English, and both sides were clearly frustrated with each other.
There's a scene in Spike Lee's 25th Hour where Edward Norton stares into the mirror and starts saying his fuck-yous to all the ethnic groups of New York. One of the lines he says is, "Fuck the Koreans [...] Ten years in the country, still no speaky English!?"
That's kind of how I feel sometimes, though not nearly as vulgar or spiteful. Or Korean. Seriously, you can learn a little more than "Sorry, I don't speak English" in twenty-five years.
-
After Nga came home from school, we jumped in the rental and headed into Virginia, where my cousin would be getting married.
The drive was about five hours long, and scattered along the road were signs that read, "Speed limit enforced by aircraft." And I wondered to myself if there were actually planes flying overhead watching for speeders. I hope those planes are powered on the joys and laughter of children, 'cause gasoline costs a buttfuck-ninety-nine these days.
We passed by a town called Harrisonburg on our voyage through Virginia. I know a girl who went to school there. We used to spend hours on the phone idly, and then somewhere along the way, it fizzled and died.
I remember one night, she laid out her plans for me over the phone -- by some age graduate, grad school by whenever, married by whatever, first kid by this or that age, etc. -- and I responded by asking her, "What if you trip?" To be honest, I thought it was cute; at least one of us knew what they were going to be doing tomorrow.
We reached a sign with arrows pointing in the direction of Richmond, Virginia, and continued past. I imagined that, at some point, she was on this same stretch of road, talking on the phone with me while commuting to her parents' home. Last I spoke to her, she was graduating and landed a gig at a company that develops defense and aerospace systems. I wonder how that's working out for her dream to be a pediatrician.
I spent a couple of hours falling in and out of consciousness, hypnotized by miles and miles of asphalt and mack trucks.
-
We arrived at our destination at around midnight, at a small town south of Roanoke. That is to say, we arrived at a small town that's south of another small town in the middle of butt-fuck.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Chapter Zero
I've always kept a journal for longer than I can remember.
When I was a kid, I had these Lisa Frank notebooks that I wrote stupid shit in, like, "I think Tiffany is cute," or, "Mrs. Mayberry is a bitch." I didn't really know what a bitch was back then. I do now, though, and Mrs. Mayberry was a serious bitch-case.
I realize that Lisa Frank are girly notebooks, but I grew up wedged between two sisters, so fuck you. Don't judge me.
Toward the end of high school, I took my journals online, right around the time blogging became a fad. I also began to blog more narratively and occasionally with some cohesiveness or vague semblance of a point. I think a lot of my blogging was influenced by Rain Noe, a free-lance writer who picked up a healthy fanbase from AsianAvenue and LiveJournal, and Foo, a childhood friend of mine who wrote for the high school newspaper.
-
The hardest part about keeping a journal isn't trying to find something to write about. Shit happens all the time. That's how you find things to talk about over some Shiners at the bar. Or if you're the kind of person who sits at a bar with absolutely nothing to contribute to a conversation, chances are you probably should stop blogging and get the fuck outside and do something.
The hardest part about keeping a journal is keeping myself from reading my own journal. Because it provides a snapshot of historical events in my life.
And I fucking hate my past selves.
I hated reading about how I spent months agonizing over some stupid bitch, or how I binge drinked an entire summer away, or how immature I reacted to past situations.
And that is how I came to learn that I hated my fucking job.
I'd been complaining about my job to my friends and my family. In fact, it was seemingly the only topic any of my conversations ever covered. I'd been dreading waking up in the mornings, contemplating the possibilities of driving forward on the freeway and missing my exits.
And more than anything, I'd been complaining to myself. In the form of Outlook notes and private blog entries, detailing conversations with colleagues and supervisors whose faces I wanted to introduce to baseball bats.
-
I've always prided myself on being a smart and capable person. A person with all the skills and resources necessary to do what I want to do in life and be where I want to be.
And yet, I found myself in the mornings with wrinkled khakis, cheap polo shirts with the colllars morphed from washing, unshaven, and sometimes, hungover. Hating. Nothing in particular, really -- just hating.
So today, I have Lisa Frank to thank for where it all began. I read through my blog entries and learned that I fucking hate myself and where I am right now.
Milk good situations and change bad ones, I always say.
So I booked a vacation trip to Los Angeles for the hell of it and quit my job.
With no plans.
With no solid job prospects.
And with no giving a fuck.
When I was a kid, I had these Lisa Frank notebooks that I wrote stupid shit in, like, "I think Tiffany is cute," or, "Mrs. Mayberry is a bitch." I didn't really know what a bitch was back then. I do now, though, and Mrs. Mayberry was a serious bitch-case.
I realize that Lisa Frank are girly notebooks, but I grew up wedged between two sisters, so fuck you. Don't judge me.
Toward the end of high school, I took my journals online, right around the time blogging became a fad. I also began to blog more narratively and occasionally with some cohesiveness or vague semblance of a point. I think a lot of my blogging was influenced by Rain Noe, a free-lance writer who picked up a healthy fanbase from AsianAvenue and LiveJournal, and Foo, a childhood friend of mine who wrote for the high school newspaper.
-
The hardest part about keeping a journal isn't trying to find something to write about. Shit happens all the time. That's how you find things to talk about over some Shiners at the bar. Or if you're the kind of person who sits at a bar with absolutely nothing to contribute to a conversation, chances are you probably should stop blogging and get the fuck outside and do something.
The hardest part about keeping a journal is keeping myself from reading my own journal. Because it provides a snapshot of historical events in my life.
And I fucking hate my past selves.
I hated reading about how I spent months agonizing over some stupid bitch, or how I binge drinked an entire summer away, or how immature I reacted to past situations.
And that is how I came to learn that I hated my fucking job.
I'd been complaining about my job to my friends and my family. In fact, it was seemingly the only topic any of my conversations ever covered. I'd been dreading waking up in the mornings, contemplating the possibilities of driving forward on the freeway and missing my exits.
And more than anything, I'd been complaining to myself. In the form of Outlook notes and private blog entries, detailing conversations with colleagues and supervisors whose faces I wanted to introduce to baseball bats.
-
I've always prided myself on being a smart and capable person. A person with all the skills and resources necessary to do what I want to do in life and be where I want to be.
And yet, I found myself in the mornings with wrinkled khakis, cheap polo shirts with the colllars morphed from washing, unshaven, and sometimes, hungover. Hating. Nothing in particular, really -- just hating.
So today, I have Lisa Frank to thank for where it all began. I read through my blog entries and learned that I fucking hate myself and where I am right now.
Milk good situations and change bad ones, I always say.
So I booked a vacation trip to Los Angeles for the hell of it and quit my job.
With no plans.
With no solid job prospects.
And with no giving a fuck.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Judas of Suburbia
My parents married in the late teens, relatively young in comparison to today's American society. They were introduced to each other by their parents, married as they were expected to, and had kids as they were expected to. My father got in uniform during the war and served his country. My mother raised the kids at home and served her husband.
Such was the cheese that bound my family.
We were a utilitarian family; held together by a sense of duty rather than a sense of intimacy. My father worked as an automotive technician to put food on the table because that was his duty. My mother fed us and bathe us and educated us because that was her duty. My brothers and sisters and I sometimes did our chores and other times knelt in the time out corner weeping and whining because that was our duty, sort of.
I went to school like I was supposed to, did homework and aced tests like I was supposed to. Took the little progress report slips home for my parents to sign like I was supposed to. I excelled in mathematics and language arts and cheated my way through geography and world history.
I graduated Cum Laude from high school like I was supposed to. I attended a local university like I was supposed to, and in five years, graduated with a Bachelors of Science like I was supposed to.
I buttoned up my collar and learned how to knot a tie like I was supposed to. Got a job in a cubicle like I was supposed to, brought home paychecks like I was supposed to.
And then, my parents sat around the house waiting for me to bring home a nice girl to marry and pop out grandkids for them.
And I was like, Fuck that!
I spent my entire life being primped and groomed, molded and educated to become a person who has all the smarts and aptitude to get where I need to go in life. I have the skills and resources to get all the things I want to have out of life, with no one but myself to blame for failure or stagnance.
And I'm supposed to marry and make babies and start this vicious cycle over again? Fuck that.
I'm a digital native, a yuppy, a product of middle class suburbia, member of a generation defined by hedonism and instant gratification.
A child of vanities.
And no bonfire.
Such was the cheese that bound my family.
We were a utilitarian family; held together by a sense of duty rather than a sense of intimacy. My father worked as an automotive technician to put food on the table because that was his duty. My mother fed us and bathe us and educated us because that was her duty. My brothers and sisters and I sometimes did our chores and other times knelt in the time out corner weeping and whining because that was our duty, sort of.
I went to school like I was supposed to, did homework and aced tests like I was supposed to. Took the little progress report slips home for my parents to sign like I was supposed to. I excelled in mathematics and language arts and cheated my way through geography and world history.
I graduated Cum Laude from high school like I was supposed to. I attended a local university like I was supposed to, and in five years, graduated with a Bachelors of Science like I was supposed to.
I buttoned up my collar and learned how to knot a tie like I was supposed to. Got a job in a cubicle like I was supposed to, brought home paychecks like I was supposed to.
And then, my parents sat around the house waiting for me to bring home a nice girl to marry and pop out grandkids for them.
And I was like, Fuck that!
I spent my entire life being primped and groomed, molded and educated to become a person who has all the smarts and aptitude to get where I need to go in life. I have the skills and resources to get all the things I want to have out of life, with no one but myself to blame for failure or stagnance.
And I'm supposed to marry and make babies and start this vicious cycle over again? Fuck that.
I'm a digital native, a yuppy, a product of middle class suburbia, member of a generation defined by hedonism and instant gratification.
A child of vanities.
And no bonfire.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Prologue
When I was a little kid, our house was robbed. Someone broke into the house and made off with our TV and stuff.
The lower left corner of our bedroom window had been broken, a hole more than large enough for an entire adult arm to reach into and feel around. We had horizontal blinds, stained yellow from the ages with a hint of grey from the dust that my sister and I were supposed to clean off during weekly chores, but never did.
Stage-view, my father's bed was to the left of the window; my mother's, to the right. My sister and I shared beds with my mother because my father snored like a yeti.
The window had been broken in the middle of the night, and we slept straight through it. I was too young to think about it, really, so I'm not sure how a hole in our window equated to a missing TV. My guess, ex post facto, is that the culprit stole our keys off the windowsill or something and used that to gain entry into the house.
I remember that I was so astounded by the hole in our window, I actually stuck my head and shoulders through the hole and looked around the outside of our house. My uncle wandered into the room while I was half-hanging out of a broken window and yelled at me for being a dumbass.
-
When I was a little kid, my parents would take me groceries shopping with them because nobody was home to look over me, and I was the type of kid that was dumb enough to stick his head through a hole in a broken window.
Sometimes, when we got home, my mother would give me a dollar or some loose change left over from the shopping, and told me to put it away. I'd hide the money my parents gave me, and when I'd accumulated a sizable sum, my mother would ask me if I wanted to spend that money on toys or donate it to the Church or the poor, starving families of Vietnam.
I always chose toys, and my mother would scold me and lecture me on the importance of charity. I always wondered why she gave me a choice if she ended up making me give the money away, anyway.
I hid my money in a Pringles tube. The green kind -- sour cream & onion. And by "hid," I meant I kept it in plain sight on the windowsill where everybody could see it.
We were too poor to spend our money leisurely on things like a piggy bank. My sister learned from school that you could cut a small slit into anything and turn it into a bank, so long as money fit in it. I thought that was the most ingenious thing ever, so I took a Pringles tube and turned it into my personal piggy bank.
I think my sister had an original-flavored red Pringles tube bank.
I remember that at the peak of my wealth, I'd accrued $62 and some change.
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When I was a little kid, some motherfucker broke into my house and stole $62 from a Pringles tube I had sitting on my windowsill.
I never really thought about it, but today I did, and it really pisses me off. Because -- I mean, really -- who the fuck steals money out of a Pringles tube? It's like, some son of a bitch was robbing my house, and then he decided he wanted a snack, so he popped open a tube of Pringles, and jackpot! He found money.
I was like three years old. Some asshole tried to steal Pringles from me and ended up stealing $62.
The lower left corner of our bedroom window had been broken, a hole more than large enough for an entire adult arm to reach into and feel around. We had horizontal blinds, stained yellow from the ages with a hint of grey from the dust that my sister and I were supposed to clean off during weekly chores, but never did.
Stage-view, my father's bed was to the left of the window; my mother's, to the right. My sister and I shared beds with my mother because my father snored like a yeti.
The window had been broken in the middle of the night, and we slept straight through it. I was too young to think about it, really, so I'm not sure how a hole in our window equated to a missing TV. My guess, ex post facto, is that the culprit stole our keys off the windowsill or something and used that to gain entry into the house.
I remember that I was so astounded by the hole in our window, I actually stuck my head and shoulders through the hole and looked around the outside of our house. My uncle wandered into the room while I was half-hanging out of a broken window and yelled at me for being a dumbass.
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When I was a little kid, my parents would take me groceries shopping with them because nobody was home to look over me, and I was the type of kid that was dumb enough to stick his head through a hole in a broken window.
Sometimes, when we got home, my mother would give me a dollar or some loose change left over from the shopping, and told me to put it away. I'd hide the money my parents gave me, and when I'd accumulated a sizable sum, my mother would ask me if I wanted to spend that money on toys or donate it to the Church or the poor, starving families of Vietnam.
I always chose toys, and my mother would scold me and lecture me on the importance of charity. I always wondered why she gave me a choice if she ended up making me give the money away, anyway.
I hid my money in a Pringles tube. The green kind -- sour cream & onion. And by "hid," I meant I kept it in plain sight on the windowsill where everybody could see it.
We were too poor to spend our money leisurely on things like a piggy bank. My sister learned from school that you could cut a small slit into anything and turn it into a bank, so long as money fit in it. I thought that was the most ingenious thing ever, so I took a Pringles tube and turned it into my personal piggy bank.
I think my sister had an original-flavored red Pringles tube bank.
I remember that at the peak of my wealth, I'd accrued $62 and some change.
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When I was a little kid, some motherfucker broke into my house and stole $62 from a Pringles tube I had sitting on my windowsill.
I never really thought about it, but today I did, and it really pisses me off. Because -- I mean, really -- who the fuck steals money out of a Pringles tube? It's like, some son of a bitch was robbing my house, and then he decided he wanted a snack, so he popped open a tube of Pringles, and jackpot! He found money.
I was like three years old. Some asshole tried to steal Pringles from me and ended up stealing $62.
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