rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

welcome, freshmen.
I’m at the IDS. there’s a freshman edition coming out in about two weeks, where they run a lot of old shit from the paper, so there is a ton, a ton of shit in the queue. sucks. I don’t feel like reading it.
anyways. I was going to lay down a huge post over the last few days, but I don’t think that would do it justice. the tone of what I’d talk about would change, dramatically. so I’ll just do one at a time.
get ready to rock…

The Pierogi Fest is fucking awesome.
I don’t think I can say it any more simply than that.
I was there friday night and saturday afternoon. saw the parade. worked a booth.

this all takes place in Whiting. Whiting is jammed, roughly, between Inland Steel, Lake Michigan, a couple of refineries, Hammond, and the Indiana Toll Road. it’s about a mile from the state line, so for more or less all purposes, it’s Chicago. it looks like Chicago. smells and tastes like Chicago, talks like Chicago. to see it, go here and type in, you guessed it, “whiting indiana”. zoom in.
I’d talk about the parade, but it’s nothing special. it’s a very local event, and it’s very tongue in cheek; lots and lots of references to the fact that everyone here is of eastern european. for example: there was a Slovak Royal Navy. (Slovakia is landlocked)

the next day was volunteer day.
I have pictures, somewhere. someday, they might be here. some day.
I was supposed to be there at 10 am, but, as a responsible young adult, I overslept. got there at 10:45. good thing no one cared, and everyone there was in a good humor. I got assigned to the grill.
the set up was as such: our booth was a tent, attached to an open area where the range and this big ass charcoal grill was set up. no one was really assigned to anything in particular, but sooner or later, we all assumed responsibilities. I ended up at the grill with church council president Nick “the staremaster” Korzow. (that nickname is a long story, based on the observations of me and my fellow altar boys during endless, boring church services back in the day.)
and I held it down. like a few redcoats at Roark’s drift fending off endless waves of Zulu warriors, me and the church ladies fought off waves of the pasty and overweight, clad in their finest “polish princess” and White Sox regalia. no matter. I was among the people.
I was scheduled until 2 pm. and I’m not even kidding, I grilled, easy, 150 to 200 sausages. they sold fast, and we couldn’t keep up. everything was made by the old ladies at the church – they actually had a sausage making committee, I’m serious – and it paid off. it was the first year the church did it, and they probably made a lot of money. the food was great.
if they do it again next year and I’m in the area, I’ll totally work the booth again. was definitely an experience. oh, and I got a hat out of it. it’s bright pink, says “Protection of the Virgin Mary Orthodox Church” on it, and has a graphic of a pierogi and a sausage. kick. ass.

lots of other shit happened. but I’m at work, and there’s other stuff I should be doing, like, you know, editing the paper. so stay up.

this is a story I wrote for a creative writing seminar I had a year ago. I don’t think I’ve posted it before, but I’m a little drunk, so I didn’t bother to check. I wrote two stories for that class. the other one was pretty bad. so I posted this one. the old digging through your my documents folder until you find something you haven’t read in months, and you say “holy shit, look at this, dude!” move.
five minutes later, a little cut and paste, and you’re ready to rock. because, you know, you want people to stroke your creative writing ego.
did I mention I’m drunk?
––––

The Last Frontier (or, Midnight in Breezewood)
December 7, 2004

“Why are we stopping?”
Mark didn’t answer. He was focused on the car in front of him: a grandmother in an older model Ford. She was well under the off ramp speed limit, and unaware of the line of cars building behind her.
“Where are we?” His sister was more awake now, sitting up in her seat. She kicked her feet onto the dash and pressed her toes against the windshield, stretching. Mark saw this and scowled.
“Breezewood. We need gas, and I need to stretch.”
“You want me to drive?” He could still hear the sleep in her voice.
“Nah. I got it. You drive next tank.”
Emily thought about it, did the calculations, and then, “that’s another four hours.”
“I know.”
“You’ve already been driving for eight.”
“Yeah, well, no big deal. If I need to stop before then …” he paused a beat, swerving into the left hand lane to pass grandma, searching the approaching marquees for a bargain. “If I have to stop, or need to, or want to, you know? I’ll stop.”
“Okay.” Emily put her head against the window, and noticed some lint underneath the nail of her big toe and began to pick at it. And then, without looking away from her foot, she said, “what’s that smell?”
“Shut up. If you farted, you can’t pass it off on me. Think about it; you need three people at least.”
She gave him her you’re so dense look, and said, “no, stupid. Smells like burning, something burning.” She stopped digging for the lint.
But Mark wasn’t paying attention, because Texaco was an anemic 1.69 for reg. unleaded. He pulled into a self serve pump, killed the engine, and smelled the antifreeze for the first time. Steam began to creep from beneath the hood, and he sighed. Checked his watch.
11:30. Maybe a motel, but lets see how bad it is first. No need to panic.
Mark knew very little about engines, and his car’s wasn’t any different. But he knew what coolant was – it was pooling between the front tires. Which was bad. Midnight in Breezewood. “And miles to go before I sleep.” Fuck.
Emily stuck her head out of the passenger window, and the breeze pulled the matted hair away from her temples.
“What’s wrong with the car?”
“Fuckin’ radiator, I think. I don’t know.” Mark unhooked the support and let the hood fall. He could see her toe prints on the glass clearly now under the bright gas station lights.
“I’m not even filling it up. We’re not going anywhere for a while.” He jerked a thumb towards the Denny’s in the next lot. “Let’s call Mom and get some eats. I’m hungry.”
“But I don’t like Denny’s.”
“What?”
“But I don’t like Denny’s.” She pulled the lint, pink like the socks she was wearing that day, from her toenail and flicked it into the thick air. Mark watched it float down to the oily concrete. Gross.
“Em, don’t be a pain. Just get coffee or fries or something.” But she didn’t say anything, and that meant that despite his arguing and posturing, Emily still wasn’t interested in Denny’s. Instead, they agreed she would buy all she wanted in the gas station’s convenience store and bring it with her while he got a table.
“I’ll call Mom,” he said, taking on the mantle of authority, “but not until we push the car into a parking space. Put your shoes on. The concrete is dirty.”
*
Mark stood at the payphone on the edge of the gas station lot, dialed collect and prayed his mother would accept the charges.
He imagined the rotary phone ringing on the kitchen counter a time zone away. His mother would be up, drinking tea. WGN would be on with news reports of west side shootings and missing children, human interest stories about VFW flag venerations for the looming national holiday. Mom never talked long distance. She might ask Mark for the payphone’s local number, which he’d have to scratch through layers of grime and stickers to retrieve. Then, she would call him back on the antiquated cell phone one of Mark’s older brothers or sisters had given her out of frustration. She didn’t have an answering machine, and they had figured that with a phone on her at all times, she would always be available. But she refused to use it except in the evenings. Long distance was free nationwide after nine pm.
None of that fear materialized. She accepted the charges, and Mark let out his breath.
Their conversation was brief. Mom said to get a motel or call your cousin in Harrisburg for a ride.
“Mom, that’s like two hours away.” And then, “we have a cousin in Harrisburg?”
Heck yes, they had a cousin there. She sent a Christmas card to him every year, even still sent one to his first wife who was a lovely woman. And as for two hours away, well, what was family for? That deadbeat didn’t work steadily, and she was sure he could find time for her two youngest.
In the end, they decided the best bet was to get a motel and see about a tow with Triple A or a bus ticket tomorrow. Or heck, Mom would be coming herself in the morning, if it came to that. She lamented allowing them to drive all that way by themselves. Emily was only two months past her learner’s permit, and he had never traveled so far alone, and now look where it had gotten them. Mark simply nodded his head as she continued, barking instructions about watching his sister, keeping an eye out for perverts and pederasts while they were there. Mom didn’t like Breezewood.
Breezewood, factually, was a sea of gift shops and all night cafeterias, gas stations and lots of sleeping semis, full at all hours of the day. A truck stop turned town turned truck stop that owed its entire existence to Interstate 70 and the Penn Turnpike, because it sat at their crossing. An entire community built on the idea of the open road. Mom, however, wasn’t interested in the open road, and had once described it more succinctly.
She had traced their route with her index finger as she and Mark stood over a road atlas on the kitchen table one week earlier: I-80 through Indiana and Ohio, to I-76 at Pittsburgh, to I-70 at Breezewood. “You go south there,” she said, and then paused. “Ugh. Breezewood. Too tacky for me,” and made a face like sour grapes.
At “tacky,” Mark had looked through the kitchen window at the army of lawn gnomes placed about their front yard and smirked, but Mom didn’t catch it.
The town, it seemed, was a linchpin for any traveling by car their family did. Grandparents resided in Philadelphia, an aunt or two in the Washington area. But Mom didn’t do much traveling anymore. If it was terribly necessary, she chose to fly. Mark and Emily, however, had pleaded (Mark much more quietly, not wanting to openly ally himself with his younger sister) that they be allowed to drive out east for a cousin’s graduation party. Emily saw it, she assumed, as a road trip. But for Mark, she understood it to be the pull of that freedom every teenager feels from their driver’s license – the want and need to drive anyplace, to distant places, test themselves on America’s highways and quietly say to themselves I’m an adult. I’m on my own, and so she agreed hesitantly.
Now, on the phone, she wished she had had the good judgment to keep them at home. She told Mark to get a motel room, and to call first thing in the morning. Then she hung up.
*

The Denny’s was mostly empty. The back half of the restaurant was dark, the chairs stacked up on tables. The staff numbered more than the patrons, who sat far apart from one another and only acknowledged each others’ presence by speaking in subdued tones to their companions.
Mark dabbed a steak fry in the pool of ketchup he had created and eyed Emily across the booth from him. She was staring at his plate.
“You gonna eat all of those?”
Mark allowed himself to grin. “I thought you ‘don’t like Denny’s.’”
“Don’t be a butt, Mark.”
He pushed his plate with the half eaten burger across the table to her, and she dug in. She had sucked down the Big Gulp full of pink lemonade and eaten the bag of Doritos she had bought at the gas station, but hadn’t planned on the draw of greasy food. Mark was always silently amazed she wasn’t heavy; she nearly ate her weight in candy weekly.
“What’d Mom say?” she asked through a mouthful of potato.
“Be careful. Get a motel.” He leaned back into the booth. “You know we have a cousin in Harrisburg?”
“We do?”
“Yup.” Mark took a drag on his strawberry milkshake and looked out the window past the parking lot, past the gas station and their crippled car. Along the interstate, which ran above Breezewood on a ridge, he could see the billboards, dozens of them overlapping. He focused on one, advertising cheap fireworks and commemorative 9/11 china.
Breezewood’s American Trading Post, 50% off all goods!
“Mom doesn’t like this place,” he breathed. “Says it’s tacky.”
Emily finished the fries and followed his gaze into the dark. “I like it.” Mark looked back at her, and she said, “Not the tackiness. I don’t care whether it is or not, but I like it here. I don’t mind being broken down right here.”
He turned back to the window, and when he didn’t speak she went on. “Doesn’t it seem like we’re miles away from anything? I mean, from the nearest town, and the rest of civilization? Isn’t that amazing?” She leaned across the table as she spoke, smiling as she talked. She looked excited, like the thought was giving her chills. “I wonder if the government exists out here. Does Pennsylvania even control this place?”
Mark listened, still gazing at the signs. As she spoke, a motorcycle pulled into the gas station in the foreground. Through the glass, its engine rumbled as if on mute, but for some reason Mark wondered if it made any such noise at all. On the bike rode an older man, at least in his sixties by the length of his face and the way his body sat. Despite the summer heat, he was clad in a leather jacket, worn jeans, scuffed boots. Most notably, on his head he wore what looked like a headdress. A goddamned Indian headdress.
It was a headdress, all beads and leather and eagle feathers. The kind the Indians whom John Wayne would fight in the painted valleys of “The Searchers” or “Stagecoach” would wear. It started at his forehead, hung down below his ears and trailed all the way down the small of his back. It was dingy; the wind from riding at interstate speeds had taken its toll. Feathers were bent and missing, lost somewhere back towards Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or Baltimore. The man parked his bike and went about his business filling up. Wherever he walked the headdress flowed behind him, trailed him like a cape.
Emily hadn’t noticed the chief and went on. “You ever get the feeling on a highway, especially at night, you could go for miles in any direction and it’d be like getting lost in space? The only way to go is to follow the road, or you’re lost.”
It was dark, and about 40 yards away, but Mark could swear the dude was wearing face paint. He wondered if he had noticed him, backlit in the restaurant window across the lot.
Emily pulled his milkshake across the table and started sipping on it. Between swallows, she said, “and these truck stops are like outposts. Stockades on the pony express.”
The chief filled his tank, and sauntered inside to pay. He walked slowly, like age was just beginning to take him.
She finished the shake, and said, “this is the last frontier, Mark.”
Mark turned back to her. He thought of idiot savants.
“What?”
“I mean, it may be a fake one, cause there are houses and cul-de-sacs just a few miles up the road there, and we’re only two hours from Heinz Ketchup and the Steelers, but it’s the best we got.”
“What, were you just taken over by a foreign body or something?” He was taken aback. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Well you weren’t drinking it anyway!” she cried, and wiped the last of the strawberry from her lips.
“No, goof. Look,” and he pointed to where the Indian was walking, returning his chain wallet to his jeans, straddling his bike, kick starting the engine, and gone. The last thing they saw before he faded from the dim road lights was the bright white of the feathers stretched out behind him.
Once he was gone, they were both quiet for a moment until Emily giggled. “Wow. It really is like the wild west out here.” Then she started to ape a Will Smith song.
*

If you have a riff with people wanna bust Break out before you get bum-rushed at the (Wild Wild West) When I roll into the (Wild Wild West) When I stroll into the (Wild Wild West) When I bounce into the (Wild Wild West)
- Will Smith featuring Dru Hill, “Wild Wild West”

*
They waited for a lull in the already sparse nighttime traffic, and crossed the road with suitcases and pillows under their arms. Emily sat on a bench just outside the front office, underneath the drive up overhang while Mark paid cash for a single double or a pair of singles. Whichever was cheapest.
The room smelled like cigarette smoke and only had one bath towel, but it had air conditioning and HBO and two beds. It would do. Emily called the bed farther into the room as always. She didn’t like sleeping close to the door in strange places.
“Conan’s on.” She had already found the remote. But Mark wasn’t interested. A day in the car had wore him out, and he wanted to sleep.
“Macaulay Culkin and Tom Sizemore are his guests.”
Almost asleep.
“I wonder what their conversation was like in the green room.”
Mark thought of the Indian. Thought of the endless roads, America’s amazing highway system and all other proud warriors on it that night. He felt safe in the quiet room with the thin pillows that smelled of cigarette smoke beneath his head, Emily laughing softly at the television banter. He thought of the broken down car, his mother’s worrying, and he didn’t mind any of it, because he was tired, it was dark, and it was quiet. He felt secure here, lost in the middle of America, the middle of nowhere.
“Did you know Sizemore was involved with Heidi Fleiss?”
The last thing he registered before falling asleep was a picture framed on the wood paneled wall. It was “American Gothic,” only the farmer was wearing a shirt with the Golden Arches, and his wife held a Big Mac in her raised hand. The motel owner’s idea of a joke.
How wonderfully tacky, he thought.

I got an email from Mar. she’s still holding it down up in the boundary waters.

on her boss and job:
she took a week long trip. that means she didn’t work for an entire week so I missed my day off so for 14 days, i’ve been telling pubescent young adult boys about voyageurs while they make fart jokes and de-pants each other. i have tomorrow and friday off, thank god. I’m totally pumped.

on her day off:
I’m seriously going to spend my entire day in Ely, which is not that big, but I don’t care, I’m not coming back here until after dinner, and I’m going alone. and I’m listening to Paul Simon in the car.

Mar rules.

what else.
I finally figured out how to do that link thing, where you can make the link just appear as a word or a phrase and not have to paste the whole fucking URL. it only took me until now.
see? I just did it three times! amazing.

I finished that fair story. when I turned it in, they assigned me another one. on the Discovery launch. (America sent astronauts up yesterday, if you were asleep.) they liked the fair story, even if I didn’t. I thought it sucked.
anyway, both are gonna be on the front page tomorrow. which means either A) the paper really is slow right now or B) I’m really good. I think it’s A. and I’m not trying to be humble.
yeah, so read them at www.IDSnews.com.
I wonder what they thought of the space shuttle story, though. I just emailed it in, didn’t really get any feedback. but I don’t really care that much anyway. they asked me to do it, I didn’t beg to write those stories.

thas it an’ thas all. tomorrow, the Pierogi Fest. holy shit.
if I don’t post for a while, it’s cause I was rolled into dough, stuffed with sauerkraut, and eaten by a fat polish guy dressed in a pierogi suit.
stay up.

I spent four hours at the Monroe County Fair yesterday, among the people. story will be on thursday.
you need three sources. quotes.
this is what I wrote down. I’m serious.

-slight smell of sugar and grease, livestock, coupled with nothing less than oppresive heat.
-which event wil be shown? how does the event work?

welcome to the country.

-county fairs. traditions across America.

-swine. a 4 H breeding show. in a barn, around a ring. not much tension, it would appear. most are here to get out of the sun, and you can’t blame them: conservative estimates put the temperature at 95 fahrenheit.
belt buckles, it appears, are not uncommon. clothing is of the “old navy” variety.
one of the most important pieces of kitchen equipment around here is the deep fryer.

The interview of one JUDSON HOLMES, owner and operator of Holmes Catfish:
-how’s it been so far?
“these three days have been extremely tough. heat with humidity. it’s tough.”
-yeah, it’s pretty bad.
“but I’ve been to a lot of fairs. this is one of the best fairs in Indiana.”
-I’ve noticed there aren’t that many people here yet. you think it will fill out later in the evening?
“the fairways will be full up. these crowds will be astronomical. this is a world class fair. it’s Cadillac. it’s the Cadillac of county fairs.”
- so you own this stand?
“yes. it’s seasonal. I run it from the end of Aril through October. it’s seasonal.”
-so what do you do in the offseason?
“I do psychological profiling for the DOC.”

(welcome to the front page, Judson Holmes)

there was a lot more. but I’m not going to post it all. what I’m going to do, instead, is write the motherfucker. not psyched at all. actually kind of worried. I don’t like features, and I’m not sure if I have enough to stand on.
read it in the paper.

so no Andrew. what a dick.

no. it wasn’t like I was waiting for him. I just thought of him right now, when I was thinking about what my last post was about.

okay, so anyway. what’s been cracking.
I’m getting off work on friday, and the phone rings. I assume it’s gonna be Alisha to go swimming or some shit. it’s not. it’s an 855 number. that means it’s from campus.
it’s Cordell from the paper. Cordell is the city/state desk editor. he wants to know if I’ll write a story on local reaction to the renewal of the Patriot Act, cause the House of Representatives just voted to make it permanent. all except the most controversial clauses, like “the FBI can take a dump in your toilet, without a warrant, and they don’t even have to flush.” that clause (which are actually two clauses, the “feds can check your medical and library records” and the “roving wiretap” clauses) only got ten year extensions.
so I called a bunch of locals. city councilmen. local republican party affiliates. political science professors.
and now it’s done. I’ve got a newfound respect for the writers who turn out the endless amounts of bullshit copy I read at the paper every couple days.

my first story will be in the paper on monday, if all goes well. you can find it at idsnews.com. look under the “city/state” section, it should be in there. I hope it’s in there. I put some work into this mothefucker.
oh, and if it’s biased, please tell me. I need to know.

beyond that.
Phil came down for the weekend. he brought his boy John, who’s actually Josh’s cousin. get this: Josh’s dad and John’s dad are brothers and Josh’s mom and John’s mom are sisters. which makes them like super cousins, and available to each other at all family functions. that’s gotta get a little wierd.
we all kicked it. went out tonight. kept it real. you know how I do.
Phil’s a lot of fun. he’s living with Josh next year, in the apartment above us. that means that on any given night, I’m going to be kept awake by Led Zeppelin III being played at full blast at 4 am. I’m going to hate those motherfuckers, I just know it.

what else.
Josh has got a really cute friend named Andrea. ran into her at the bar. I wouldn’t say I tried to hit on her, because she was drunk (and me hitting on anyone is a joke in itself), and that seemed wrong, but I get the feeling that she’s not into me. oh well.

and to end.
with the advent of my new CD player in my car, I’d like to point out two things:
1. “Bossanova” by the Pixies is arguably their best album. which is saying something, as they put out some great albums.
2. “Pack up the Cats” by Local H is most definitely their best album. I didn’t have any of it on tape, so it had been a while since I listened to it. I had almost forgotten; that album is fucking great. “all the kids are right” gives me chills. seriously, not even kidding, chills. I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and my heart beats a little faster.
I’m not sure if it’s the music or the lyrics that do it to me during that song. if I could post the song itself, I could, but since I can’t, I’ll leave you with this – a song about the worst show of a band’s career, and something more pure; the kids who support it, who live off of rock when they think they’ve got nothing else going for them in their suburban high school nightmares:

Local H – all the kids are right

you heard that we were great,
but now you think we’re lame
since you saw the show last night.
you hoped that we would rock,
knock it up a notch,
but rockin’ was nowhere in sight.
and it’s never good when it goes bad.
no one likes to feel like they’ve been had.
and it may be okay, but you won’t wear our t-shirts now, or anymore.
first the band looked wired,
then the band looked tired,
sluggish and a little slow.
walking through the set,
as drunk as we could get,
and what the hell was wrong with Joe(Local H’s drummer)?
and you could tell the crowd was fading fast.
every song we played looser than the last.
and it may be okay, but you won’t wear our t-shirts now…
all the kids, they hold a grudge.
their minds are logged onto the net.
and all the kids, they hold a grudge.
you failed them and they won’t forget it.
all the kids, they’re tired and turn away.
they saw what you did.
you’re all wrong and all the kids are right.
you heard that we were great,
but now you know we’re lame
since you saw the show last night.
you hoped that we would rock,
then you wished that we’d just stop,
and finally we said good night.
when we had returned for the encore, you and half the room had headed for the door.
No one wanted more…
(refrain)

I’m listening to “OPP” by Naughty by Nature. I don’t know why I’m getting in the habit of makng note of whatever song’s on in the background, but it’s starting to feel wrong not to.
 
it’s hot out. wind is whipping my screen. sky’s red. gonna be a helluva storm. and me and the writing bug, up late with an online journal.
highly advanced orangutans or gorillas. or aliens, aliens will come across this journal some day, as if it were the last ship’s log of the planet earth, and think we were all fucked. I should keep that in mind when I bitch about inane bullshit.

you know what I just realized? like right now. what I just realized right now?
tomorrow is the Tom Petty/Black Crowes concert.
god damn it.
I’ve got two strikes against it: I’m supposed to work tomorrow night, and I don’t have any money anyway.
I do have money, or I’ll always find the six bucks for movie rentals, though. tonight, rented “Series 7: the Contenders.” watched it. good lord. funny, in a horrible way.
I think my favorite part was when Dawn barks into the phone “one half hour, or people start getting hurt,” and the hostages she has in the movie theatre start clapping and she says, “that means you, you stupid assholes.”
if that doesn’t make sense, and I’m sure it doesn’t, go find the movie and watch it.
I seriously love that video store, Plan 9. I wish I could work there. I might put in an application, but something tells me they don’t hire a whole lot. I’m becoming friendly with the girl who works there, so maybe some day. it’d be nice to have a second job – cause let’s be honest, I don’t intend to stay here and work bullshit jobs until I’m 28, but that could be a real possibility.

don’t talk that way, you’ll get out.

edit: stop looking up Andrew on the Internet, you fucks

.
even with all of that, cause I’m not really into the whole “devoting my life to any higher power” thing, I’d still call him one of my best friends. he and I, I don’t know, just always seemed to get along well. he was the first friend I made when I moved to Valpo, and I’m not sure if that’s cause we were so compatible or if it’s because he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. nice to a fault. so nice I can think of many instances in which it probably physically hurt (courtesy of me, and the rest of my high school friends).
so it’s cool he’s coming down. if he’s coming down; I’m gonna call him tomorrow and see what’s cracking. I’d imagine he’ll stay here, sleep on the couch. I don’t think he knows anybody else in town.
too bad Smith isn’t here, he’s as tight as I am with Raelson. hear that, Smith? while your dumb ass is betraying America by hanging out with the fuckin’ French, Andrew might actually come to Bloomington after four years.

eh, but I wouldn’t get too excited about it. he’s probably not coming.

I am a big spender:
I tend to leave cash lying around my apartment.
all the tips I get from work are obviously paid out to me in cash, so when I come home, I just throw it out on the table. or on a desk. counter top. floor. there’s money everywhere. not as efficient as a bank, but the money’s on hand, nonetheless.
so I’m sitting there yesterday, and I decide to do something with it.
I found 110 dollars after about ten minutes. so I went to the bank. and put it all in.
then I went to Best Buy.
290 dollars later, I have a new video game (about pirates. neat!) and a CD player in the Saturn.
eh, fuck it. it’s only money, and I’ll spend it on other dumb shit if I didn’t on this. I’m in my car constantly. I’ll probably drive out east rather than fly. that’s about 11 hours one way. and my tape deck was hurting.
I will say, though, I felt a little sad seeing it go. I knew every tape I had almost intimately. I could mark the seconds between the songs, I knew where the recording was warped, I was a master of guesstimating how long to fast foward or rewind. I had a great tape that was Sam and Dave and Motown singles/CCR . I had another one that was White Blood Cells/Elephant. those were killer tapes, and if anyone with a good home would like to adopt them, feel free. I don’t own either of those albums, either, so I guess me and the White Stripes are parting ways. at least for a while. oh well. now I get to rock an untapped CD collection.

it’s what else is news too:
Bush made a nomination. for SCOTUS.
doesn’t SCOTUS make of, you know, scrotum?
anyway. Bush made a nomination. guess where the guy’s from?
LaPorte.
well, actually, he’s from Miller Beach or some shit, but he went to boarding school in LaPorte.
that movie “Prancer”? that was based in LaPorte. Oprah? got a house outside of LaPorte. so does my aunt.
I hate LaPorte. it’s like Valparaiso, only with a higher crime rate, that still manages to vote republican. fuck that place. (for those not in the know: LaPorte is about 20 miles east of Valparaiso.)

and what else is cracking:
I watched “Battle Royale” last night. holy fuck.
watching it, it’s obvious that there’s some serious social commentary going on. something about the breakdown of civility and the loss of respect for authority. pitting a bunch of 15 yr olds (still in school uniforms) against each other in an all-out bloodsport is obviously meant to satirize a subject and take it to its extreme… but it’s in Japanese. addressing an issue that probably has more weight in Japan than it does here. and the people in charge of subtitles were obviously not native speakers of ‘merican. so sometimes, a scene would come by, and I’d have no fucking idea what was going on.
like, in this one scene there’s a gun fight, and these people are separated across a room, pinned down by gunfire. one says to the other “meet me later!” and the other replies,”you are special too!”
what the fuck?
but yeah, while a lot of it’s not exactly easy to follow, you can tell it’s well made. it probably freaked a lot of people out, what with the gratuitous violence – and not ridiculous violence, either, a lot of it is pretty believable, which makes it that much more unsettling.
oh, and that girl who was in “Kill Bill” who fought Uma Thurman with a spiked ball and chain, she’s in it too. she’s fucking crazy. I’ll just say this: bowie knife and testicles.
bowie knife. testicles.

that’s all. next week, I’m senior writer for a day. which means I’ll have a big, bold story in the paper. and if you go online, you can read it. shameless self promotion, but oh well.

keep it real.

edited for his spelling gaffes. it’s a habit now. anyway, found on my computer:

It’s funny how things work out. You know?
I mean, who would a thought that you and I would be friends in college? That a jackass that has drank life from a silver spoon would be president? And that on average I have a nice, cleansing bowel movement in your bathroom four times a week when no one else is here? And that I touch my swimsuit area with your pillow.
But that one, I think you probably just assumed.

right now, I’m listening to Love and Rockets’ “so alive.”
and now you know.

what a day. was scheduled for a double.
woke up late, as usual. I’m convinced that’s going to be a problem at work someday. thank god “work” is a deli run by stoners.
did that from 10:30 to 2. got off, and went directly to let myself into the apartment complex pool I made a key for. met Alisha there.
swam in my clothes. I figured this is how I would do it, I’d use the pool house to lose the boxers, and swim in my shorts, then get out and lie around for an hour to dry off. that way, the boxers stay dry, and I don’t go back to work with wet underroos. turns out, the rip in the back of my shorts is substantially bigger. so I had to keep the boxers on for the sake of decency, lest I make some kid cry with a flash of hairy white cheek.
how’s that for a visual, eh?

so I walked back into work, soaked, looking like I’d been in a pool. cause I had been.
I’m not even trying there anymore. I think somebody said, “dude, you’re, like, wet.” beyond that, nothing. anything goes, I swear.

when I got off at 8, I didn’t feel like doing shit. I spent the day working, with a break to swim and lie in the sun. that shit’s exhausting. seriously. getting sun, for me, puts me to sleep. that happens to everyone, right?

so I went and rented two movies from everyone’s favorite Plan 9.
“Battle Royale” and “Dog Soldiers.”
first one’s Japanese, kind of lord-of-the-fliesey. bunch of school kids have to fight it out to death on a deserted island with improvised weapons, or the cruel hand of god will detonate bomb collars around their necks. some story, huh? I haven’t even watched it yet. that shit was just on the box, who knows what’ll happen next.

I did watch “Dog Soldiers,” though. wanna guess what that shit’s about?
werewolves. it’s about werewolves.
British werewolves, no less.
it’s like a horror movie you see at 3 am on Showtime, only it replaces gratuitous boob shots for British accents. lots of “bollocks” and “shite” gets thrown around. the guy who played Tommy in “Trainspotting” was in it. so was the english version of Drew Barrymore.
or is that already Kate Blanchett? fuck it, nevermind.
unintelligable story full of ridiculous violence. but then again, it’s about a squad of soldiers fighting off werewolves. so at least there was a lot of it, and there were some good lines.
one thing I loved was the film’s actors, both in character and during the “making of” documentary, (yeah, I watched “the making of Dog Soldiers.” ha ha, fuck you.) had the balls to compare their movie to “Zulu.” which, if you’ve ever seen it, is awesome. a real, real cool movie if you ever get a chance to rent it.
yeah, both include impossible sieges. the similarities end there.

so, in conclusion, go rent “Zulu” instead.
tomorrow, got a whole lot of nothing planned, except going back to the pool, working on my sun burn and paying the god damned phone bill. get some sleep.

you, reader, casual reader. Spencer. you, person who doesn’t know how to use the internet that tries for pornography and ends up here (seriously, somebody was looking for “big huge tits” just today and got me instead. and one, motherfuckers!). you, Mar, who is going all hippie on me.
you, whoever you are who reads this. you obviously need to know more about me.

ask, and ye shall recieve:

what Matt ate today (an excuse to use the “numbers” option up at the top of the screen)

1. le Snapple. most Snapples are kosher. I learned that in high school; they’ve got a lovely interactive website.
2. veggie sub, ala Dagwood’s. I went with a whole sub on wheat. colby, havarti, swiss. lettuce, tomato, onion, olives, pickles, cucumber, green pepper, banana peppers, alfalfa sprouts. salt, pepper, Dagwood’s sauce (mayo, with secret hobo spices). got the employee discount. it’s because I’m an employee.
3. 20 oz. Coke. I want my dollar back.
4. bag of Reese’s Pieces. fuck, I want my three dollars back. movie theatres are so damned expensive, and I still feel sick.
5. veggie burger, of the Gardenburger variety. threw it on some white bread I found lying around the kitchen. I think that shit’s low carb. killed the last of the mustard, hijacked some of Galia’s ketchup, and it was ready to ROCK.
6. Dole fruit bar. basically, an expensive popsicle made of fruit.
7. some Gatorade.

that’s what it is. I’d imagine when you total all that up, it’s not very healthy. I went running somewhere between the soda and the candy, so maybe that kind of evens that out. maybe.

I went and saw “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” today. I’d have to say my favorite part was the Mike Teevee bit. what with the “2001: a Space Odyssey” and the giant chocolate bar. totally fucking creepy. but then again, so was the rest of the movie, so take it for what you will. hopefully, most kids won’t pick up on it. I’d imagine they won’t. Roald Dahl had a sick sense of humor.

I work in eight hours. good night.