Block Party at the Edge of the World.

[September 2003]
[click play if you like these w music]

I was sick.  We went to the mall and the reaction was to buy shoes.  It made me feel pathetic.  Who could care about wearing shoes at a time like this?  I felt like I needed to be barefoot as a trudged through the next few months.  Only I could be blaming myself and getting angry at a pair of skate shoes.  I almost lose it trying on a pair of socks.  I feel too human for words.  I’m not going to die or anything, but my 21st birthday was setting up to be more of a graduation than a celebration.

Hours later we’re at a chain restaurant downtown.  I am avoiding my phone at all costs.  There is a big party on 28th Street tonight and everyone I have ever met will be there.  They will block off the street on both ends, the fraternities will open their doors and a flood of drunken humanity will water every lawn with jungle juice.  The thought of going sickens me.

I order an alcoholic beverage at dinner in front of my father despite being underage.  It was that kind of night following that kind of day.  Even the damn waitress seems to understand.  I’ve never been a bad kid.  Maybe I’m bad by certain standards and there are certainly many, many things I haven’t told a soul save the ones who saw things firsthand, but I never really crossed the line.  I always loved balancing on it and staring at the impending freefall on either side.  For me, it is the fascination of peering over the edge of a tall cliff realizing you are a stone’s throw from utter chaos.  I didn’t need to swim in such turbulent water, but I sure loved sitting on the shore.  And metaphors.

That was the first drink I’d had in some time.  I had imposed a rule of sobriety and utter silence.  I didn’t need anyone knowing anything about me.  This was not to say I didn’t want to talk about the little hurdle life had thrown me.  I just didn’t want to be let down by all the people in my life I felt might be unequipped to deal with this kind of thing.  I suspected part of growing up would be learning to trust people and then learning to wipe away the ones who wouldn’t piss on you if you were set ablaze.  For some awful reason, they are the hardest to sweep away.

My father urges me to go to the party.  I want to tear my face off from not smoking cigarettes and like the moment of a song when the drummer starts tapping the kick drum, I feel the drink getting in my veins.  That familiar feeling is starting to come back.  My eyes well up and I can’t explain it, but everything feels like a movie again.  I am on stage and the skyscrapers are the stage lights.  I bite my lip and look at my father and realize it is always, always going to be like this.  It’s just another scene.  I should have known.  I guess they don’t teach you that kind of thing in film school.

My father drops me off at my apartment just down the street.  My cousin is there on the couch.  He’s got plans and I decide to spare him the details of what has started going on inside of me right now.  I just take to a bottle of tequila and my balcony.  It is my favorite place in the world.  I can hear my music from my bedroom and I can’t stop staring into the neighboring skyscrapers.  I decide today is not the day to quit smoking.  The sensory pleasure of being young and feeling important with a cigarette is intoxicating to my vanity.  A warm rush of chemicals.  I look down and realize that I absolutely love these new shoes.  They are all I have ever wanted in footwear.

I feel zero stress figuring out the eight freeway changes in the two mile drive to Adams.  I am going to pregame at a particular apartment near to campus.  When I get there, no one is ready and I am left to figure it out by myself.  I smoke cigarettes out front in the ugliest, shadiest alley that ever felt so much like home.  I lean against a fence and get my shirt dirty.  I feel long and lean.  I can see my friend through her window and she appears to be dressed so I decide to go inside.

We have a strange friendship, the kind where you are close but don’t talk so much.  I have a habit of playing around on her computer and playing rap songs off her playlist.  We are making small talk.  I am dating her friend.  I am probably an inconvenience.  I drink all their diet coke and come and go at the strangest of hours.  Such a strange experiment is college.  You have friends for a lifetime and then you make all new ones.  They will have to be enough.  They will have to care enough because you cannot go back.  When I left my hometown I left.  I left because I thought there was no way I could do it.  And I did, trusting that anyone who really loved me would be there someday when I landed.  But life throws you a curve ball and you simply must squeeze the last drops of juice from the rind.  You have to make due when you don’t know who cares and who doesn’t.  You never know if you are alone in a room of friends or too familiar in a room of strangers.

We are getting drunk now and the city seems to be waking up.  Our little college town wedged into a bad neighborhood of the crown jewel of the West Coast is flickering on.  People are making their way to one street in particular and soon I will be going there too.  I wonder who I will see because I have not picked up my phone in days.

She is talking to me and I had checked out of the room and into some strange place in my mind.  She can see me go to autopilot and she flips me the tequila and she simply asks, “How are things going?”

“Ok,” I tell her, assuming base conversation is what she ordered.  I wouldn’t want to serve lobster thermidor if she wanted a quesadilla.  But she didn’t…

“No, I mean things.  I have been waiting for the moment to ask.”  Suddenly the tequila burns off in a losing battle with reality.  We are actually talking.  I pause and make this face.  It’s a face so few people have actually seen.  It’s how I probably really look.  For someone who talks and talks and talks, I do not know what to say.

“I don’t know.  Can I just thank you for asking?”  She sees it in my eyes.  She’s not used to this face I am making.  I feel excessively vulnerable and I wonder if I will be impaled right now.

“You know I love you, right?”

I smile.  I can’t help it.  This is the first time a friend of mine from the post high school era has told me that I mattered to them.  This is the moment I know this drunken spin cycle of a city is my home and the roots have begun to take hold.  Someone out there doesn’t want me to die and that is enough.  It is a warm feeling.  I feel like a cat that has fallen asleep in a sunbeam across the floor.  I need the conversation to stop so I don’t ruin it.  Whenever I get a little faith in humanity, I run with it.  I give her a hug and thank her as much as possible.  I head out to the row.

It is like what I imagine Tokyo is like.  Everyone has put every colored light they own out on display.  The place glows like the end of the world.  Stereos and turntables and amps blast different songs into the cool night air.  They all seem to blend together.  It is a parade of human faces.  I swear I recognize some of them, but it makes no sense.  A girl from Dallas.  A boy from New Jersey.  My life is literally flashing before my eyes.  I am hallucinating from memory.

Stepping onto the lawn of my fraternity feels like pulling off a crowded freeway.  My muscles expand.  My jeans fit better.  I can’t explain how much more comfortable I am now.  I see familiar faces.  Miner is upstairs with a cigarette.  We make eye contact and do our proverbial mental download.  He now knows what I am thinking and we no longer will need to talk.  I get sucked into the party and find myself in the courtyard.  Dave is there.  It is a nice surprise.  I feel like I haven’t seen him in a long time.  I just give him a hug.  Deep down he’s probably not sure how to be, but as usual he finds a posture that works.  I am not sure what we talk about, but we are as we were as middle school students.  We are two friends staring around a room filled with monsters marveling at their teeth and tails and scales and smirks.

I have never felt so happy to turn my head off.  All the lights are forming a celestial freeway leading my mind to wander.  I will wake up and it will be a foul tasting dose of reality.  So many times in life like that.  You are going to fade into sleep and awake no better than you did the day before.  All you have is another memory in the tank and some more fodder for waxing existential.

And for tonight, that is more than good enough.

Slow Play a Karate Kid Montage.

I have seen the new preview for the remake of Karate Kid starring Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s kid.  I am embarrassed to say that I got kind of fired up.  Maybe I am a sucker for a franchise that went strong for three movies (I am ignoring you Hilary Swank).  My cousins and I used to put on our combat pads and crane kick the shit out of each other all over the early 90s.  Every time a friend of mine is about to embark on a difficult mission, I tell him to “sweep the leg”.

There are some things about the new movie that look promising.  There is a feeling that they are going to pay homage to the original, but will try to update it, which is what I think needs to happen.

The story of the new film was obvious.  Some kid is a total puss and he uses the help of an old karate master to learn how to crane kick the shit out of the assholes that are making his life a living hell.  In the original, Daniel-san was an Italian kid getting his ass beat all over the San Fernando Valley.  Cobra Kai was an evil dojo of Aryans that were training to kill the Russians.  They were menacing, like a Children of the Corn meets 1980s Reseda, California.  It was a good enemy, but it doesn’t apply to today’s landscape.  To truly piss off and freak out the American audience, the remake would need a new enemy.

In the 1980s, every movie was about fighting the Russians.  That was the way to get it done.  Top Gun?  Tom Cruise, there are Russian MIGs getting super shady.  Rub some oil on Vil Kilmer’s chest and then get up there and take these guys down.  Rocky IV?  Hey Stallone, the Russians have engineered a super boxer who loves to roid and he just killed your homeboy Apollo.  Red Dawn?  Come on!

Karate Kid (the new one) has updated Cobra Kai.  They have decided to take an African American kid, move him into communist China, have him get picked on by kids who know karate, and have Jackie Chan teach him to fight back.  I feel like this is a metaphor for what Obama’s economic battle with China will eventually become.  The filmmakers know Americans are freaked out that our economy is hurting and China’s seems to be booming.  Obama couldn’t bring the Olympics to Chicago.  China just had them.  America is freaking out.  Hollywood’s reaction?  Send Will Smith’s son to China with Jackie Chan and have him crane kick the shit out of everyone.

Looking at the trailer, at one point the kid is training on the Great Wall of China which is awesome.  You need to train on cool shit if you expect to beat the enemy.  My real hope for the film is that they slow play that scene.  The temptation is to go balls to the wall on all the song choices.  Let me just say, if they do not use a song like the following, they are missing an opportunity to crane kick the shit out of our ears:

That is what I am talking about.  You with me?

Throwing Rocks at Satellites.

There was a distinct itchiness at my elbows, a clear sense that my skin was going to start peeling.  I had been agitated for a few weeks for some reason.  Now it was much, much clearer.  I was going to shed my skin.  It made sense.  You always fight the hardest before you give in.

I should have understood the tell tale signs of a seasonal rebirth.  Like a moth, I am drawn to streetlights and I fawn for skyscrapers like a tourist.  I am a stupid sap in my car slamming to my greatest hits and hoping my eyes blur enough to feel like I’m in a movie and stay focused enough to keep Ichiro and I out of the median.

You can’t get caught up on the floating world as the ukiyo-e artists described it.  At any moment something beautiful could float by.  At any moment a rotting mess could do the same.  In a way, you have neglected your swimming pool.  You have kept getting in without skimming the surface for dead bugs and debris.  You have gotten comfortable being uncomfortable.

I’ve been looking for the stupidity of one night of spinning and rambling and stumbling and the complete lack of clock watching.  Pretty soon I will catch a sunrise and the fever will break sending me to a soft landing on the sand of an early summer.   Blink and you might miss me this time.  Sooner than later I am going through the worm hole and I am not looking back.  I am going to be happy there like I was happy here.  New friends, new adventures and the thrill of old friends that came with needing to tighten old sewn on smiles.

So we need to call the dogs of war again for one more campaign watching massive ice cubes capsize in rye.  We’re going to smile for the cameras and breathe in the foggy Bay Area air.  We’re going to blow out the torches of the Gaslamp.  I am going to tear Silverlake to the ground and twist his arm until he taps out.  I have been underestimated again.

Feel free to invite me out.  I am going to be a lot of fun this summer.  I won’t let you down.

Ultimate Friday Pump Up.

Here is a collection of videos to get you ready for the weekend.  Pretty soon it’s Daylight Savings and every day will be great, so this is an important weekend so there for here is an important pump up.  Don’t ask me any questions about why I am showing you these videos.  You’re welcome.

And now you are ready.  Burn it down.  Catch you Monday.

Get Cozy With The Anarchist Project.

I drank many beers with Sean Brown before I realized he was hell with a pen.  It is a pretty common tale.  I don’t want to say it is short-changing your friends, because it is more innocent than that.  It’s just being in your own world and not coming up for air.  If I had to explain it best, it’s that the simple pleasure of drinking and rambling with a friend of a friend that got in the way of what became really obvious:  The guy can write.  He’s hell with a pen.

sean and i in our natural state guided by islay. toluca lake, california

I should have been way more attuned to this.  My bandmates in Fight From Above have some freakishly talented friends.  It’s probably wrong that I have taken advantage of their support without giving it back in a public forum.  They are there for me, but am I there for them?  Am I a fan of my friends who are a fan of me?  I am.  Resoundingly so.  Sean is taking us to school.

There is, of course, the great Will Weston who came from Hawaii to San Francisco and has made the Bay Area his canvas.  Here is a man who we have begged to play in the band and he continues to vanish for months only to surface at a show with a smile and a spare Telecaster to noodle with.  He’ll go back north and then we’ll see this on the internet:

I couldn’t even tell you where Sean came from.  He claims Michigan, but reading his writing you might think he flew in from space taking a large chunk out of Mars with an errant limb on the way in.  Whether wearing a Nixon mask at the Republican National Convention or pouring drinks behind a bar in Portland, I think for too long I didn’t understand that Sean was doing something so similar to what I had been hoping to do.  He was collecting enough minutia to color his words.

Recently I caught up on his blog, or project, or living book of essays, hard to say.  There was just a lot there.  I had good music in my headphones and just ripped through it.  Here’s a taste I especially dug:

And while our styles might grow weary of being pondered, and our ears may grow tired of straining for the sound of a phone that never rings, we will fight on. I will fight on. And if you’re lucky, as I know I am, it will be possible the sit on a rooftop somewhere in Los Angeles, with a Bloody Mary in hand, and to find that fire inside that keeps us moving forward.

He’s talking about the pulse.  The pulse is something Will Weston brought to my attention and it moved me forward as a cynic and a writer and a blowhard egomaniac, all important pieces of writing every day.  To see Sean at the bar with bleary eyes over a beer, you might think he is just watching, but he is observing.  I am glad he is full steam on his blog THE ANARCHIST PROJECT because it seems like his observations are finally pouring out.

So thanks, Sean.  Keep fighting the good fight.  Keep that Northwest strange and point us in the right direction.  Cuba Libres and baseball this summer, because I know and like the way you think.  Bring on the maritime air.

The Bachelor Ends With Sausage Fest.

My predictions were correct.  In my first and previously only post about the bachelor, I hit it right on the head:  There was no way Jake (the bachelor) was not going to pick Vienna (who I call sausage).  There was just no way.  As I had mentioned, Jake is the kind of guy that confuses you a little bit.  You’d think with his good looks and stereotypically chick-killer occupation (pilot, bro), he’d be used to getting the variety of sex that a good-looking pilot would get.

Only that ain’t Jake.

great call, bro.

Jake somehow managed to get through life without ever running into someone like Sausage, and last night it was completely extra obvious.  Here was poor Tenley, who had only kissed her previous husband who ran out on her, unable to give Jake the kind of physical assurances he needed.  Whereas Jake doesn’t understand that anything worth having you need to work for.  Think about it.  You can get a Snickers bar from a vending machine.  Lobster requires catching one, murdering it, then preparing it and it all depends on the quality of the ingredients.

In case you are slow, Tenley is a lobster.  Sausage is a lumpy Snickers bar.

Don’t get me wrong.  Snickers is dope.  I used to eat them all the time when I was a kid.  I used to sit in class thinking about Snickers.  I’d even take a Snickers bar out to a movie and pretend I was in love with it.

Jake, you already got everything you wanted from Sausage, you just don’t realize it and that is why you should have called me, Broseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.  You hooked up with her on a fucking pirate ship with an army of stylists trying to keep her extensions sutured to her burnt roots.  It won’t get any better than that.  I have been around a lot of Snicker bars in my day and let me tell you something I can say with 237% accuracy:  Sausage leaves her wet laundry all over the house and eats weird things like canned tuna with bleu cheese on it (microwaved).  She leaves all these things in the sink along with clumps of her extensions.  Dude, you have to know all this.  I feel like all of America knows this.

this is why you read the owner's manual, jake. now you own it. how about google her ass, dude.

You will get home from a long day of flying planes and having chicks ask you “what the fuck were you thinking when you picked Vienna” only to get home and find Sausage on the couch in a pile of wet laundry licking the lid of a cup of pudding (yes, she eats them still.  all the time) when she will jump up excitedly showing you the trick where she hangs a spoon on her nose.  You will think, where is Tenley right now?

The answer is simple.  She is at home with a man who is slightly not good looking enough for her, but really, really grateful for such a reasonable woman who just wants to be loved.  He even forgives her for sounding like the fourth chipmunk.  In return, Tenley slowly learns to be a little more loose.  She doesn’t have to be perfect.  After all, her husband farts.  A lot.  The good thing about Tenley is she definitely keeps Febreeze in every room and changes the flavors out seasonally (there is nothing more awkward than say, Thai Flowers in winter or Vanilla and Cookies in summer).  The good thing about her husband is the time he spent hoping a chick like Tenley would fall into his lap he also spent passing the bar, so homeboy has some money.

Jake should have known when Tenley kept her cool after he basically told her she doesn’t “do it” for him that she’d be the best kind of wife.  The one who will hear you out even when you are being a total douche.   Personally, I EXPECT to be a douche many, many times in my life and I expect to make many, many comments that are taken the wrong way.  You have to know the person you are with is ready to help you pull your foot out of your mouth.  You have to be ready to do the same for them.

Let’s be clear.  You saw how Tenley reacted to bad news.  Sausage?  Here’s putting fifty quid down that upon hearing bad news she immediately downs a bottle of Charles Shaw (chardonnay) and starts putting on make up, slightly excited for a night of going to a nightclub with a one-word name named after a fruit (Peaches or something like that) with her former sorority sisters who claim she is “way not as fun” now that she “married that pilot guy from TV”.

Jake will be at home calling ABC to ask if they still have Tenley’s number.  They don’t.  He will ask for Gia’s number, but her brother will pick up and freak him out.  Finally, he will call Allie, but she’ll be walking pigeon-toed and holding someone else’s hand by them.  Jake will have to wait until Sausage stumbles home with barbecue sauce in her hair reeking of cigarettes and carrying a half-eaten McRib sandwich.  She will stare at him glassy-eyed and ask “aren’t you the guy from television” before booting all over their front lawn.

All of this leads to Jake gaining twenty pounds, losing his hair and making a deal with a low level Mexican cartel to fly drugs over the border for them.  This will happen after Sausage tells him she is pregnant with triplets and certain at least one or two of them are his.

So many girls I know were on Facebook last night so upset over the ending of the show, but I want to point out that Tenley was the big winner.  She is not marrying a man who is capable of falling for a girl like Vienna.  Eventually, it will work out.  It will work out for her and I am very sure of it, so long as she keeps the intensity low enough not to scare off some good guys.  I certainly have run into some girls that were perfect save their freakish obsession with everything being perfect.  A little messy fingerpainting in life is good.  Sausage fingerpaints all the time.  She signs her checks in fingerpaint.

So it’s all good, America.  Jake needs to sow his wild oats (James Earl Jones voice from Coming To America).  It’s Jake’s fault he doesn’t know you don’t need to get engaged to someone to sleep with them.  I look forward to their tabloids.

Olympics Bacon Wrap Up.

The Vancouver Olympics of 2010.  A place where all the sports you either do for fun (skiing) or are embarrassed to admit you care about (ice dancing) come together for two weeks of fierce competition.  Men with too much time on their hands and the greatest collection of soccer moms on earth come together to test their might at curling.  Ten stoned snowboarders make a brief cameo to catch a few 1080s at the halfpipe.  We watch some guys ski in a circle, drool all over themselves and shoot a gun at five little black dots.  That’s what we got.

As I mentioned before, the Canadians had high hopes for this Olympics.  Spending 9 figures on extra pump-ups and training with the goal of winning the medal count at the Olympics and becoming the first North American nation to do so.

Only it was America who flipped out, pumped up and when ninja on the competition.  The Americans’ 37 total medals set the Winter Olympic record, beating the German record of 36 set in Torino.  If there is one thing the United States is better at than beating the Germans, it is putting Canada in it’s place.

In fairness to America’s lovely hat, Canada won 14 gold medals, enough to top the heap, and for that, I am pretty proud of them.  America was no slouch with 9 golds.  All that said, you could not win a medal in Vancouver without having to stand next to an American on the podium.  I am pretty sure everyone who was there has the National Anthem memorized at this point.

America overachieved to the max.  Our hockey team was young as balls, not predicted to medal and ended up winning the silver.  Not only did they win the silver, they went 1-1 against the gold medalist Canadians and actually outscored them 7-6 on Canadian soil.  This would be like Canada going 1-1 against the US in football in Texas.  That is how ridiculous what the US did was.  Imagine if they played baseball?  For the record, I am certain most Canadians believe baseball is something gross you do to a fraternity brother when he falls asleep with his mouth open.

Then came the closing ceremonies.  I tweeted last night this was pretty much what your 5th Grade Christmas play would have looked like if it had a 50 million dollar budget.  There was a giant inflatable beaver.  There were a bunch of over-sized Mounties that looked like they were plucked from a giant gift shop.  There was Michael J. Fox admitting he was Canadian after admitting he had been living in America for 30 years (like most famous Canadians do), although I can’t pick on Michael J. Fox because he is like the Canadian Michael Douglas in my mind.  They brought out Catherine O’Hara and we all wondered if this is the best Canada could do.  They brought out William fucking Shatner.  Canada gave him a platform to talk.  Bravo.

They poked fun at how they had a broken Olympic torch.  A better idea would be to make sure you don’t fuck up the Olympic Torch, Canada.  They had Avril Lavigne singing that goofy ass girlfriend song.  Michael Buble sang something about Maple Leaves.

Then it ended.  I felt empty for about two minutes and started realizing it was almost baseball season.  My heart thawed.  I realized that it didn’t matter if Canada drank too much and kind of half-assed some things (like winning the most medals).  I love those goofy bastards and I am glad they won a gold medal in hockey and got to party in the streets.

Vive le Canada.  And all the medals America won there.

A Memory of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

[autumn 2008]  I would press play.  It helps the reading.

We are heading from some sort of premiere event to the Beverly Hills Hotel.  It’s hard to know why.  One of my friends is convinced there is a party somewhere deep in the lush brush behind the Polo Lounge.  A certain sickness always clings to my insides upon seeing the wallpaper at this hotel.  It is nothing like you see in movies.  To be standing next to it is to understand that it was plastered on some wall as some sick trick to make returning GI’s from the South Pacific, and later Vietnam, feel convinced they have transported back to their most medieval memories.

The hallway is long and someone in our group decides to uppercut what appears to be a large, wooden canoe filled with exotic potpourri.  This kind of behavior is usually reserved for a drunken exit from a hotel, however no one seems to know why we are here or what time it is.  If not now when, I guess.

When you are the most vulgar people in a room, you sort of dictate the tone.  No one says a word as we pass through the hotel into the gardens out to the rear.  I expect some sort of beast to appear out of the deep flora surrounding us.  Everything feels like a beach resort in Hawaii, somewhere near Polo Beach and its cinnamon sand.  I can hear bossanova and everything in my body pulls me towards it.

We step through a clearing to find ourselves at a cocktail party.  Alcohol barons are showcasing their upper-crust libations to Los Angeles’ finest restaurateurs.  First thing is first.  I steal a large amount of pens from the hotel, mostly because I see the opportunity.  Their cream colored ballpoint is elegantly decorated with coral and mint stripes and the hotel’s signature font, a universally recognizable cursive that takes me back to an era I often feel I belonged in.

With my jeans teeming with ballpoint pens, I begin to make a lap around the room.  I have always been able to appear to be whatever was necessary, at least for a short while.  I have decided that I am a sous chef from a new downtown lounge that will specialize in tiki era drinks and a limited menu of British pub style tapas.  I am fully prepared to describe my made up signature dish, a deconstructed beef wellington made with braised oxtail, Irish soda bread and a mustard greens salad.  If I am asked for any more detail, I plan to knock over whatever drink is nearest to me and flee wildly into the darkness of the man made jungle just outside.

I get caught in a conversation with two real estate agents where I am discussing my feelings moving to the Pacific Palisades if I ever decide to sell my downtown loft.  They respond to me by telling me what an emerging community downtown is becoming, which is standard issue real estate talk.  Downtown was always cool and these people have never been there except to see a Laker game.

I am drinking some very, very old brandy and thinking about how I don’t really like brandy no matter how good or old it is.  Outside, an older former professional athlete is getting stoned on the edge of the jungle.  I do my best to ask him some questions, but he is uninterested.

Soon, I make off with some sample boxes of upper crust whiskeys and whiskys and begin making my way out of the jungle.  I find myself in the string light lit Polo Lounge.  I can feel Hunter S. Thompson plotting his trip to Vegas on this patio.  You can almost taste the Singapore Slings on the film of your unwashed teeth.  I decide to make phone calls, but soon notice a celebrity chef is at the bar making out with someone too young and desperate to be his wife.  He is uncomfortable and ferret-like as he sees us recognizing him.

On our way out, the potpourri bowl has been cleaned up.  This is a recipe for disaster.  A member of the group uppercuts it again.  I am too slow to know to run.  It’s a trap.  We’ve been set up like raccoons.

My party has vanished and I am speed walking behind them, unsure of whether or not to stop as some sort of hotel staff member is chasing me down.  Eventually he catches me and we do a clumsy verbal dance.  After a few minutes of discussing the absurdity of arguing over spilled potpourri, we are allowed to leave and be alone with our thoughts.

Talking Shit to Canada.

It’s hard to hate Canada.  In fact, I don’t hate Canada at all.  They are like the 51st state.  A big Upper Minnesota if you will with a funky French part folded in there, not unlike the stale piece of bubble gum in a pack of baseball cards.  They are nice people.  They love hockey and round bacon and calling mac and cheese “Kraft Dinner”.  Now and then, they’ll even dump some mayo on some French fries.  Party on, Canada.  Please, please take this blog post the way I intend it to sound:  Like a drunk man at a bar who just watched you spill your beer all over yourself and keeps laughing and drawing attention to you to the point that you almost want to kill this overweight bastard until after five minutes, he tosses you a spare shirt he has in his gym bag and you drink whiskey together before being convinced to go to a questionable strip club where you both do things you vow never to speak about ever again.

That’s how I want you to take this post.

When I found out Canada was getting the 2010 Winter Olympics, I was excited for them.  I was happy for my northern brothers and sisters.  The only thing that made it tough to swallow was this “Own the Podium” campaign.

Essentially, the plan was throwing 114 million dollars (or 253 billion Canadian dollars) at a comprehensive training program and declaring proudly that Canada would win the most medals at the Vancouver games.  Not so much.

While there is still time and events left, Canada may own the podium, but the U.S. definitely leased it from them, built a mini-mall on it, threw a Starbucks in, had sex with some local Canadian high school seniors, burned down the local movie theater and pissed on the side of every toilet seat in town.

America is not a perennial winter Olympics powerhouse by any stretch.  We’re playing out of our mind right now.  We’re Neo in the Matrix when he figures out he can do extra cool shit like jump INTO people and blow them up from the inside. I think we’ve been pissed about our political system and our economy and the bad commercials during the Super Bowl, so we flipped out and just started beating up on people.  I like it.

So Canada is looking for a big second week and maybe they will get it.  Things were looking up as the Canadian Women’s Curling Team beat our American women up in a big way.  It was the worst curling ass kicking I have seen since the last time I watched curling, which was possibly eight years ago.  Literally, Canada was poised to have a big momentum shift.  That afternoon, of course, the unstoppable Canadian Men’s Hockey Team, the best in the universe, would be facing off against the Americans.  Canada was going to kick our ass like it was women’s curling.

I decided I would watch the game.  I grew up the biggest New Jersey Devils fan on earth.  I got into a verbal altercation with some New York Islander fans at the Nassau Coliseum when I was all of six years old.  My father had to remind the guys I was still learning how to wipe my own ass and not drop half my food on my chest when I ate.

Moving out here and missing Gretsky made it hard to fall for the Kings, though I certainly caught a few of their few playoff games just because playoff hockey is like sex, it’s always fun to watch.  (sorry, Mom)

I stuck with the Devils for a long time, but once I went to USC, I cemented myself as an Angelino.  I fell for the Lakers.  More than anything, I fell head over heels for the Dodgers.  I studied the city.  I cannot find the parts of me that are East Coast anymore except for my birth certificate (which is from New York).

So it hit me as the puck dropped that this was the first hockey game I was going to really get into since possibly 2005.  I started thinking about the gravity of the game, the speed of the skating and the pagent…

Here, Canadian fans cannot believe these asshole Americans are cheering for the other asshole Americans on the ice.

OOPS.  America scored.  It was that fast.  Sorry Canada, you thought I was going to get nostalgic right there?  That was what we like to call the Yankee Fakeout.  Kind of like when you thought you were going to beat us in hockey yesterday.  I’m switching gears.

What ensued was five goals, each more hilarious than the next.  I didn’t care that it was Marty Brodeur in goal and that it was my country giving a beheading to my childhood goalie.  I didn’t care that American hero Brian Rafalski wasn’t a Devil anymore.  I was just enjoying the Canadian crowd squirming.

It was sort of like when your little brother makes the high school basketball team and then makes all state.  You are not as good at basketball as him, but you take him outside anyway and beat his ass through some majestic combination of old man strength and knowing you two took totally naked baths together as children that your parents filmed.

Canada roared back with a goal and then it took the US something like thirty seconds to score again.  It was like in cartoons when the dude would hold his hand out and push the other guys’ head so that all that guy’s punches would miss.  Canada had way more fight, threw way more punches, but lacked a certain “Americaness” that they would need to win on this day.

When Canada sings “we stand on guard for thee”, that clearly was not in reference to the net.  When they sing “with glowing hearts”, I am guessing that was in reference to the red light above their own goal that kept glowing every time America scored.

In reality, Canada is probably winning the gold in hockey.  They are the better team.  They are the home team.  This might have been a bump in the road for them.  An awesome, magical bump with bigger genitalia and a hotter girlfriend.

It had been 50 years since the U.S. beat Canada in hockey during the Olympics.  So while Canada may right the ship, beat us later when it “counts”, I don’t care.  What I care about is that we got sweet, sweet revenge for our women’s curling team losing in the afternoon.  My lunch tasted flavorless thinking about how those Canuck Avon saleswomen destroyed our American team.  Come to think of it, I don’t know what I would have done if the US Men’s Hockey Team HADN’T won.  [shudder]

It’s all in good fun, Canada.  What I mean is, it is really fun to beat you.  It is really fun because most Americans woke up today and said, “Holy shit!  The Olympics started?” and others chimed in, “We beat Canada in hockey?  Aren’t they good at hockey?” and other things like that.  Then we all went off to do something American, like eat a hamburger that weighs over a pound and comes with over six slices of cheese on it.

Good luck the rest of the games, Canada.  Get it in now.  The summer games probably won’t be your jam unless Steve Nash learns to play every sport.

here, a young Canadian boy dreams of his mother marrying an American so he can stop painting maple leaves on his cheeks and start winning more Olympic events.

here, a Canadian hockey player begs for forgiveness from his countrymen for not playing as Americanish as he needed to for a victory.

here, a Canadian fan prays to the hockey gods for a Canadian comeback only to realize that the hockey gods have all become U.S. citizens after seeing how well it has worked out for Jim Carrey.

here, two Americans celebrate not being Canadian as a Canadian asks for a quick seppuku style Japanese death.

here, the Americans celebrate the large portions served in American restaurants.

here, the Grand Canyon is awesome and not in Canada.

Replacing Smileys with Tom Sellecks.

AIM conversations have benefited greatly from the advent of “smilies” or “emoticons” or basically the faces people make with characters that let you know that a simple HAHA wasn’t enough.  Isn’t that what these things are about in the first place?  Making sure the person on the other end of the line knows what you are thinking?  After all, people often get confused during text sessions because it is sometimes hard to infer meaning.  Was that sarcastic?  Does that mean we’re about to have sex?  Does she really want me to help dispose of the body?

Even with the veritable pantheon of emoticons available to us, I don’t think they are as accurate as they need to be.  We need something that gets to the point.  Something that has the acting ability to truly carry out our message with 100% accuracy and maybe a little something extra.  Like a mustache.  Like a really fucking awesome mustache.

It is with great honor (pronounced the way Jason Segel says it in I Love You, Man when Paul Rudd asks him to be his best man.  Next time you watch it, you will appreciate me more.  If that is possible) that I present to you a formal decree to replace all smileys with Tom Sellecks.  What is a Tom Selleck?  Well, he is the best actor on earth in the history of the earth and he has a top five all time mustache.  He got a few rounds in with Courtney Cox before handing the leftovers to Matthew Perry.  He taught a Japanese baseball team how to enjoy themselves.  He was Magnum P.I., bruh.

So here is how it works.  I’ll fake an AIM conversation for the purpose of a demo.  BTW, I am talking to a supermodel:

ZACK:  man, i hate working late.

SUPERMODEL:  lol.  me too.  although i don’t have to anymore.

ZACK:  y not?

SUPERMODEL:  i am sleeping with our boss.

ZACK:

See how that works?  Just drop a Selleck.   Here’s another example:

ZACK:  i wish people liked my blog more.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON:  they do like it.

ZACK:  i don’t believe you, hunter.  but thanks for the lsd.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON:  zack, you are my muse.  fear and loathing in las vegas was based on your 8th birthday party.  you are gonzo as shit.

ZACK:  u mean that?

HUNTER S. THOMPSON:  with all my heart you maniac vulture.

ZACK:

Now you are getting it.  Here are some other Sellecks you can use for the following emotions:

excited

i'm on it, boss

happy

heading to lunch/hungry

get the fuck out of here no way.

silly

oh really?

surprised

Now you are ready to try this yourself.  If there are some emotions you want, feel free to send them my way.  I’ll post them.