No good deed

So last night I was at a happy hour with some co-workers, which turned into a much bigger happy hour with other folks, including the chick from my very first blog entry. Turns out she had a death in the family or something along those lines that made her cry, so when I got a call from my buddy Frankie asking if I wanted to meet him and a couple of his boys out at the Pub, I told him it sounded good. I asked if he'd mind picking me up at my house since I was already pretty buzzed and teetering on drunk.

We got to the pub around nine, and had to sit upstairs since the place was crowded. I ordered some corned beef and cabbage since I hadn't eaten yet, and was dangerously close to being drunk. . . . getting tired. Went outside to smoke and felt like I recognized one of my fellow smokers. I kept looking at her, and it turns out she's this this chick that dated Frankie around December of last year. He met her at a Christmas party that we crashed. They didn't date very long, but we hung out a couple of times.

I told her I was there with Frankie, and she went in to talk with him. Now the broad was drunk when we started talking with her, but by 1:00 she was FUBB . . . I was pretty far gone and so was Frankie by then. I asked her if she wanted to come back to my place with us since she was too drunk to drive home. She said she would, but only if I had rum back at my place. I happen to have lots of rum at my place: Cuban rum, Jamaican rum, 151, three other types of Bacardi, and some Captain fucking Morgan for good measure. Not that it mattered . . . by the time we got back to my place, she and Frankie were in full on "hook" mode.

Anyway, they ended up sleeping in my guest room -- I got interrupted by Frankie once to ask if I had any condoms. I told him there were some in the guest-room bed stand. Heard them go at it twice. Nothing like the sounds of drunken sex when you're drunk and sleeping alone. Good for Frankie, though -- he was breaking a bit of a slump.

I ran into Frankie in the hall this morning. He was carrying a pair of boxers with him. They looked soiled. . . turns out the chick went on the rag last night. She was wearing Frankie's boxers, which were now on their way for the trash. They didn't stop the flow enough from the sheets, though. No good deed goes unpunished there.

We all went for breakfast, and now it's going to be a lazy day if I'm lucky.

A tribute to the wingman

Mediocre beer; good message.

I love street vendors.

If you can't enjoy a hot dog at 2:30 in the morning, then the terrorists have already won.

Lower than I expected, actually . . .

63%

I guess an arsenal of firearms, a machete, and a stockpile of canned food will get you only so far.

How do you cock-block the cock-blocks?

Any thoughts are appreciated. Fuckers have been ubiquitous lately. Just last night I was trying to make headway with two hot Mexican chicks (from Sinaloa, Mexico, is what I gathered), and my wing-man was no good due to his monolingual handicap. Two tools showed up and hung around like barnacles. Barnacles, I tell you. The Mexicanas wanted to go dancing -- wanted some reggaeton. No way in hell was I prepared to go to a wetback club around midnight with two hot Mexican chicks. I value not getting stabbed more than I value the prospect of exotic poon, so I bid them a fine farewell. The cock-blocking tools pissed me off far longer, though.

Let's call a spade a spade

First and foremost, Queen did this long ago, and they did it better and with more class.



At the end of the day, fat chicks are like mopeds. They're fun to ride only until your friends see you. Judging from the comments, a bunch of chubbies find this twink's song empowering. A little bit of wiki research leads me to suspect the guy's full of shit, though: "Although his 'camp' performances have led to speculation that he might be gay, Mika keeps his sexuality private. In response to media speculation he has been quoted as saying, 'I never talk about anything to do with my sexuality. I just don't think I need to. People ask me all the time. But I just don't see the point.'"

I guarantee this guy putts from the rough. One of the youtube comments summarized it and cracked me up: "I like the song but when it comes down to it Mika wouldn't f**k one." I like to call that veritas.

The Hand of God

June 22, 1986. In 1986, when England and Argentina met in the quarter-finals, tensions were running particularly high between the countries, due partly to the Falklands War, which had taken place just four years earlier. Jorge Luis Borges described the Falklands War as "two bald men fighting over a comb." That about sums up the England/Argentina football rivalry for me.

Top of the world

It's been a while for me, but one of the greatest feelings known to man is the one he gets while he get his shoes shined in Vegas by a professional shoeshiner (preferably mad) while the chick he flew out with him stands by waiting, dressed to the nines for a night on the town. If you haven't done this, well, then you're letting the best in life pass you by. It's right up there with the hot-towel shave at the barber's.

Situation normal . . .

So I called the head-shop girl last night. Got her voicemail, and her mailbox is full. Sent a text follow up, but no response. Looks like this one might die on the vine, folks.

Of course, I suppose I could walk into the head-shop, buy a box of whippets, and ask her if she's free later that evening. Again, looks like this one might die on the vine, folks.

Mama tried

Fucking Johnny Cash became the flavor of the month a while back among the hipsters. Shit, my mom was a Cash fan when I was a kid and I couldn't think of anything more square than his Live at San Quentin album, with that fucking "Boy Named Sue" song that annoyed me even at the age of seven. Well, when I was in college -- this was way before he became cool again -- my folks invited me to a Cash concert with them and I passed on it, and yes I sort of regret it in hindsight that I didn't go, but seriously he wasn't cool back then.

Motherfucking Merle Haggard is just as hard core as Johnny Cash ever was. More so since Haggard actually did some real hard time, whereas Cash was, by and large, a poser. But Merle Haggard is the Schlitz to the Pabst Blue Ribbon that Cash has become. In other words, few recognize the true genius that gave us Okie From Muskogee, while band-waggoners are all on board for Folsom Prison Blues. Mutts. All of them.

From my saved e-mail folder:

It always seems like hardest part about getting back on the horse, is finding a horse you want to get back on. Fact is, that is not really the case. There are tons of horses out there. The truth is we freeze up and don't try; we take ourselves out of the game so we do not have to get rejected. Moreover, if you do not jump on a horse (almost any horse) you will have that walking through the desert with an empty canteen look on your face; in other words, you will lack confidence when talking to the horse, which horses can sense from miles away, and there is nothing that horses like less than a rider who lacks confidence.

Further proof that Spaniards are insane . . .

. . . and I love them for it. Especially the Basques.

Kalimotxo is a sickly sweet mixture of Coca-Cola and red wine. Home-mixed, the crazy fuckers chug it in the streets during fiestas. Not the best tasting stuff out there, but it'll get you drunk. Being that the drinking age in Spain is 16, kalimotxo is big among the younger crowd. Personally, I'll stick to the cerveza or the Asturian cider, which they sell for about $3 a liter and will show you a damn good time once you've acquired a taste for it.

Honkey Tonk Woman

In my experience, some of the most pleasant salespeople are employed in what may be called "fringe" industries: the army surplus cashier, the pawn broker, the porn store clerk, and the head-shop girl. There's simply no tangible pretension in any of those business establishments. Humanity at its very core visits them -- playgrounds of the id. They take you as you are in the porn store. Sometimes, when I need a reality check, I swing by the closest pawn shop and wander through the aisles, looking at the stuff that people traded in. The instruments and guns are usually the most interesting, though I always find both horribly overpriced.

So last night, I saw the head-shop girl at the Pub. I confess to a long-standing schoolboy's crush on her. So I got her attention, called her over, and bought her a beer. She was there with two of her non-conformist friends, both of whom weren't all that excited about my existence. Anyways, turns out head-shop girl is not only cute, but a pretty good conversationalist. We chatted music and books (Hunter S. Thompson fan -- didn't see that one coming), and at the end of the chat, I asked for her number. She gave it to me. Talk about two worlds colliding, but I'm going to call her up later this week. Stay tuned.

Sic transit gloria

I've always liked this photo. So many words come to mind every time I see it. The Cold War seems like ancient history anymore. I was out with a chick the other day, and she had no real memory of it -- pretty much to anyone born after 198o, the Cold War and WWII are both something they just read about in history books or saw in movies.

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Got the hangover false-dawn this morning. Despite the fact that I went to bed at 2:30, I awoke at 5:30 ready to start the day. In about half an hour, my body will betray me, and want to go back to sleep until 10:00. But it will be too late. I need to be in the office by eight today. So it goes. I sure am hungry, though. Perhaps because I didn't keep last night's dinner down, opting instead to leave it in the parking lot of last night's second bar.

As an aside, I find it much easier on the body to vomit while drunk, rather than while hungover.

I swear, I set out to have one -- maybe two beers last night. My compadre, Frankie, decided to hit on the waitress at the second bar. When she got off at ten, he made up a whole plan that he and I had for the evening and invited her along with us. Up to that moment, I was planning to finish my beer, go home, and watch South Park until I dozed off on the couch. Instead, by midnight I was halfway into my third Grey Goose (rocks) at the third bar, bragging about my skills at bocce. How I ended up bragging about that is lost in the fog. I don't play bocce. Didn't even know how to spell it until just now.

I had a graphic dream about that waitress. This morning I'm having trouble separating the dream from the reality. Shit. Alarm clock just went off.

Product loyalty

I remember when my dad told me not to be cheap when it came to "rubbers." He said that when he was young Trojan was a very trusted brand. To this day, I've never purchased any other brand of condom.

Thank God for good swimmers

I like to watch the little army of Mexicans (or Guatemalans, or Ecuadoreans, or whatever third-world country they're from) that do my yard every month. It's like watching a bunch of ants or something. They're all like 4 feet tall, and each one of them has a unique role. It's awesome. And cheap. I hope none of them ever gets deported. If I dedicated an entire day to doing my yard, even if I had the right tools (which I don't), my yard wouldn't look half as good as it does when this crew gets done with it.

Same at the car wash.

I don't buy the bullshitty argument that these folks are taking American jobs. Name me an American that wants to do either of the above mentioned jobs in July for what I'm willing to pay them. If you succeed in naming someone, pass this message on to them: If your job is endangered by illiterate peasants who are here illegally and don't speak English, perhaps you should reconsider your choice of job markets.

As true today as it was in 1839

There is nothing more paradoxical than the female mind; it is difficult to convince a woman of anything; they have to be led into convincing themselves. The order of the proofs by which they demolish their prejudices is most original; to learn their dialectic it is necessary to overthrow in your own mind every scholastic rule of logic.

Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time, Chapter XIV

Yeah. Bought an old, used copy of this book for $1 back in the summer of 2000. From a penny-per-word standpoint, one of the best literary values I've stumbled across.

When your friends piss in the pool

Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs.
In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes, A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923).

I received the following e-mail from a broad that I had a drunken make-out session with one night before:

I think you are a really great guy, but I am wary of dating another guy in your group of friends. Especially when I think that ultimately you and I are not compatible...although I have no doubts we would have fun for awhile. :) Hopefully you are okay with this--I did not mean to lead you on.

So I read it over a couple of times. I should have pressed harder for a close. When in doubt, fuck.