Obviously, You're Not A Golfer

Golf; I’m not a fan. Do I appreciate that to play well it takes skill and discipline? In the same way that I appreciate how much it must suck when you ruin a pair of panties while on your period – it will not effect me personally.

Dad likes golf. Dad gets off on golf. Golf is like wicked crazy sex all done up on weed, coke and nitrous to my dad. Kind of, I personally wouldn’t want to invite my son to the above mentioned metaphor, but Dad was pretty insistent on my doing some golfing with him in Mexico.

I tried to make it pretty clear that I wasn’t into golf. I had played it once, and again I can see why people would dig it, but I get what some people get from golf from other things: that sort of zen concentration from artistic endeavors, self delusional idea of “exercise” from bowling, massive beer drinking from going to bars. It was as if Dad couldn’t hear me say that I did not enjoy golf.

So I was a bit miffed when I ended up on the empty road to the golf course, on an unfinished resort, after several days of subtle, and not so subtle, hints that I was not going to enjoy golfing. And while I was trying to remember that I was there for Dad and celebrating his birthday, it turned out I did not in fact enjoy golfing.

Bless his golf porn heart, Dad was trying to give me pointers on how to improve my game. I finally had to look at him straight and tell him that this was definitely not something that I would be doing again, and that he could stop. Things improved a bit when my brother was able to back track to the car round those standing guard on the empty dunes of Paradise Perfected and bring us back some Tecate. And then there was the tooling around in the golf cart, and talking about how much fun it would be to roll that cart.

It’s very difficult to roll a golf cart, my brother tells me knowingly.

Did I get anything out of the day? There was a perverse giggle issued when I slammed a ball across a water hazard, skipping it across the water like a stone and almost making it to the other side. And this sense of frustration that the trip was about over and I spent a full day doing something I do not like.

Which brings me to this: I was telling Biffy about how this part of Mexico would not make my vote for Most Awesome Place. She let me know that I was hard to please. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it makes me think of the postings about this trip.

I certainly don’t want to make it seem like I didn’t appreciate the opportunity to be able to take a vacation like this, or that I didn’t have a great time. I find it often more entertaining to write with a smart ass, biting tone.

As a whole, the trip was relaxing and I will hold onto the great stuff for so much longer than the petty complaints. I’ll remember the nice, subtle sunsets and the sunrises even more glorious in their unshowy hues. I’ll remember trying to point out stars to each other in the utterly clear skies by making an imaginary clock in the sky, and laughing intensely when the clock’s center continued to change depending on the person. I’ll remember switching cooking shifts, cooking together, drinking together, being a full family together for the first time ever. I’ll remember my brother meeting his nephew for the first time, a meeting that I knew meant a lot to me, but I did not realize how it would somehow lock something intangible together inside of me. I’ll remember sitting with my brother, joking and egging each other on and eventually talking like close friends who had literally known each other forever.

I’ll remember how difficult it was to end that goodbye hug when he left for town, for a bus, for a plane back to Costa Rica; how tired it would make me.


Feb(r)uary Song of the Day: With the mini Built to Spill epic seeming to finish this thing up nicely, I want to throw your way one more song to echo the extra day for the month. For this leap year day, I bring you “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)” by Tom Waits.

Short Shrift

Ran out of time for a posting, damn this work straight to the bowels of hell. I started the day off with a mad desire for more sleep and then an argument with my boss (which had nothing to do with sleep). I have since been tying to focus on happy things. Things like:

• The gray drizzle burned off to give us one of those fairly glorious, early spring days – you can hear the crocus’ sing (thankfully they sound nothing like the band Krokus).
• The Sasquatch Festival line up this year.
• The news that there’s to be an Arrested Development movie next year.

Tomorrow, I’m coming back with a story about golf. Who’s excited? I know I am.


Feb(r)uary Song of the Day: A twofer Thursday with “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)" by Grandaddy and then “Untrustable/Part 2 (About Someone Else)” by Built To Spill.

Just What Does He Say

One of the things that may happen when you make aluminum cans look so desirable that you continually have your mouth to one - more often than not sucking at it like a $500 whore - is this:

Don't let that sly, "I'm so cute" look fool you, that kid will drink all your beer, trash your pad and take your car and sell it in Stockton for candy.


Feb(r)uary Song of the Day: "Undone (The Sweater Song)" by Weezer.

No Comprende, It's A Riddle

We came back to the house to discover that our uncle had filled a cooler with Tecate Lights. There was some scoffing and some derision tossed out our uncle's way (playfully, but we were being quite clear at the same time that if he pulled shit like this again there would be righteous pain). But I like to think that I am one who likes to make lemonade out of lemons.

Or in this case, quick alcohol delivery systems out of crappy light beer.

My brother and I began to shotgun Tecate Lights as if the heathen gods of the Gulf of California demanded it. Until that case was done, there were fairly constant sly looks from one to the other, to be quickly followed by, "you know what your problem is? You're off balance by about 12 ounces of fluid." To which the other would reply, "I know a really quick way to fix that."

This tin can puncturing, open topped guzzling didn't even stop for a family wide fishing trip. I think Captain Mike was a bit shaken to see two grown men challenging each other to a chug off at 10 in the morning, but as it would turn out, I wouldn't really care what Captain Mike thought.

The last time I had been fishing on a boat in Mexico, I was seventeen and taking full advantage of the lax ID checking going on at all beachside bars outside the Puerto Vallarta hotel we were staying in. I was 8 kinds of hungover the morning my dad woke me up and insisted I get on a boat with everyone else. Already queasy from the margaritas and the pina coladas (and I do like getting caught in the rain, by the by), spending 5 hours on a rocking boat seemed like a great Roald Dahl-like punishment for my illegal drinking. For years I thought my father a near brilliant strategic mind, come to find he had no idea when I told him about it this trip.

But Captain Mike... Captain Mike... Captain Mike was like one of those guys who takes on as his direction in life the teachings of Jimmy Buffett. Shaggy hair, t-shirt and shorts, owns a boat that he charters to the likes of us for a day of fishing, has a fiancé out of the country and a puppy named Tequila that he bought at a bar.

Fine, I don't have an issue with the lifestyle per se, but there was something about Captain Mike I didn’t like, some douche baggy ticks that I couldn't quite collect as a valid character assassination; just a feeling.

There was the fact that he started getting a little too chummy with my female cousin (who, while simply trying to be friendly, comes off as a little too friendly). Throughout the trip he continued to ply her with margaritas from inside the boat and ignore the rest of us. When she stated that he should come by later (which was a dumb idea, but she was all done up on tequila, sweet and sour and god knows what else) he took her up on it.

Captain Mike showed up to the house later that night while we were cooking up the fish we had caught. He walked right on into the house and started conversating. When the bad vibes finally got to be too much for his stoned head, he retreated. But before leaving he managed to get out the "booty call" description of how to get to his house; that is, enough landmarks to ensure that said booty can find its way over.

It did not. Captain Mike is a douche bag. I did not miss Captain Mike.


Feb(r)uary Song of the Day: Another twofer Tuesday with "Whenever You Breathe Out I Breathe In (Positive Negative)" by Modest Mouse and "(I Got A) Catholic Block" by Sonic Youth (as do I Thurston Moore, as do I).

The Touch Of A World That Is Older

The house where we stayed had colored tile everywhere. It was as if the house had a rare and festive form of cancer where ceramic tumors grew and metastasized into all the colors of the rainbow. It screamed party.

The house where we stayed used whale vertebrae, shells, and what was possibly a porpoise skull as decorations in the beach sand.

The house where we stayed was surrounded by houses of similar size and build; which is to say large and cement. They clung to an exclusive section of the beach like some gringo city state preparing for a battle against poverty.

The road between the house and town was twenty minutes of mostly empty sand and scrub. Here there were the billboards that seemed conspicuous in their absence before, advertisements for the new resorts and condo complexes whose cranes were already there like the sniffles that are the coming attractions for the flu on its way.

The road between the house and town was empty for the most part, but if you looked far enough off the road, you could make out the small, corrugated tin shacks that served as the houses for those who didn’t vacation in Puerto Penasco.

The main part of the town didn’t seem to feel like a Mexican seaside town, but felt like the American idea of a Mexican seaside town. Enough Latin feeling for the waddling and sunburned retirees from Idaho to feel like they’re on vacation, but not too foreign to make them feel uncomfortable.

The main part of the town was made up of shops that sold some fairly tacky crap. If you’re looking for shot glasses, or blankets, or sombreros, cheap silver jewelry, or clever T-shirts which feature a cartoon Chihuahua drinking or puking or humping someone’s leg, then here is where you find it my friends. It only takes a short while to realize that all the shops essentially sell the same things; not so different form America actually.

The main part of the town was filled with people trying to get you to buy things, or charter a boat, or come to a free breakfast where they will then talk you into investing into one of the resorts currently being built by the above mentioned sniffle cranes. While I didn’t notice it, my brother and his wife were bothered by the sense of the people not being overly nice. I seemed surprised by this being the two of them spoke Spanish fluently, but this didn’t seem to make a difference.

The road back to the house was a good place to discuss things we had encountered in town. My brother and I discussed the gregariousness of the denizens of Puerto Penasco. I told him I understood why people wouldn’t be too into visitors. For years the place had been a playground for the students of the colleges of Arizona, a place to wallow in irresponsibility and cheap tequila, streets used to puke and piss in. And now older, richer white people were buying up all of the beach property and building ostentatious houses that the natives could never afford. And they were probably being treated as if they were dirty, ignorant and Spanish speaking obstacles in front of the next thing to purchase. I understood a lack of niceties.

The road back to the house had a billboard which seemed to bother me more than it should have. It showed an artist’s rendition of a new condo complex to be built with a suitably Latinized English name. Below this illustrated monstrosity were two simple words: “Paradise Perfected.”

And I had been living under the notion that paradise was perfect by definition.

To be continued…

*Musical note: I was completely unaware that Huey Lewis and the News had made so many albums, but my dad cleared me up of this misconception. I was completely unaware of the ills that an hour and forty minutes of HL and the N can cure (which is for the most part dissolving the plague of anger and apathy the hour and a half of James Taylor had created just before.)


Feb(r)uary Song of the Day: “(Red)” by Califone (following up the Giant Sand, Califone is the brittle wind that erases the street signs and makes the journey raw.)

I Feel A Hot Wind On My Shoulder

Spent the night in the Hotel de Gringo, ate breakfast there with a group of twanglicious dove hunters who behaved pretty much as I expected they would and then hit the road for another five hour drive out to the coast on Mexico's finest asphalt.

As I mentioned, it's some arid country out there in the thick of it. There's a lot of sun, sand and wind that will wash away the most stubborn road sign you put in front of it. Thankfully it was a straight shot out to the Gulf of California so we wouldn't have to pay attention to these whited out signs.

Or so the map would have you believe.

Somewhere near... I'm not sure, I couldn't read the sign, but there was a detour in the highway that brought us to a thinner two lane highway that passed long empty train stops and windblown bull fighting rings. We lost all track of where we were or how we were to get to where we were trying to get to. The Rand McNally map of Mexico was as useless as Jimmy Buffet singing to us about "way down in Mexico." Screw you Buffet.

We finally came upon a small town that had a sizeable square of grid patterned streets. We pulled over at a corner liquor store/bar with a great big Tecate sign (looking back on it, it's interesting to note that it was a Tecate sign – more on this later (maybe)) where my brother asked directions with his fluent Spanish. We finally finagled a route to some other highway and it was more or less smooth sailing to Puerto Penasco.

There was the confusion as to which signs for which luxury condo complex we were to use as directions, and there was the brief moment of panic when I pulled the truck over for my dad to get his navigation shit together and ended up spinning wheels in the desert sand, but we got there.

"There" was a 4 bedroom house on the beach, literally yards from the water. I got in, kissed my wife and son hello, congratulated my mother on a fine choice of rental, and made it clear that I was gonna shake the desert heat and hit that water post haste. The response from my mother was as if I had told her I was gonna go find a diseased cow, kill it with my bare hands, eat it, poop it out, then finance its run for president of a local condo committee.

"Really?!?!?!?!"

There probably weren't that many punctuation marks with the question, but it seemed odd she was so shocked by the idea, when most anyone who knows me knows that I can't spend a couple of minutes near a body of water without getting into it if feasibly possible.

Cold, that water was. Not snow melt in Northern California on New Years Day cold, but colder than I was expecting from the sunny shores of Mexico. And that's where the shock lay for me madre. It seems that my folks acclimated to Phoenix, and my brother and my sister-in-law acclimated to Costa Rica, were freezing their asses off in the 70 degree weather.

Coming from 35 degrees and wet in Seattle, it felt pretty damn good to me.

To be continued…


Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: “(Well) Dusted (for the millennium)” by Giant Sand (The balls on these guys to smuggle the title of the song between two parenthesis, like the balloon full of coke inside the pretty young thing muling it on in).

I'm On A Wavelength Far From Home

Here I am, back in the north where people around me don’t give two craps about my relaxation (honestly, people in the south didn’t either) and all entrees do NOT come with a side of rice and beans.

As briefly mentioned below, the start of this Mexican adventure began with my father and I hightailing it through the border at Nogales (where the border agents didn’t even turn away from their conversation to watch us pass) and on into some not so tourist visited towns in Northern Mexico.

The main highway through this part of Mexico is a two lane affair with a definite lack of shoulders to at least set ones mind to rest. And for a freeway, there are a large number of speed bumps laid out to slow one’s progress to Hermosillo. There are speed bumps to slow you when you reach an agricultural check, speed bumps to slow you down when you reach a drug check post and speed bumps to slow you down when you reach any number of small, poverty stricken towns that cling to Mexican Highway 15. An admirable market has arisen in these towns. When a car is forced to stop at said bumps, a flock of people approach the car from both sides and attempt to sell you any number of things, but mostly what appeared to be tortillas.

There’s a rumor that in some of these places, if you’re true of heart and lacking of any form of common sense, you can buy bags of “fresh” shrimp while you travel this magical highway.

The landscape in these parts is desert to be sure, but not the fun “Wile E. Coyote” desert, nor the biblical lose-and-find-yourself-in-a-trial-of-the-soul desert, but a long stretching, wasteland of desert. There are saguaro cacti growing in some places, but more often than not there is dry and empty spaces filled with scrub brush and wire fences gone to disrepair – but there is not a billboard clogging the view of nothing.

Except… I did see, as the only form of billboard out there in the desert, a couple of little red squares (about the size of a typical stop sign) with familiar yellow arches and two simple words: “me enchanto.” It definitely sounds far more sexy than “I’m lovin’ it”, particularly if you say it all slow and breathy with a come fuck me look on your face.

All of this empty desert would be great for letting you mind roll undistracted, if it weren’t for being forced to listen to the playlists your father is so gosh darned proud of creating on his iPod. *More on this to come – all week I would guess.

On realizing that we were probably going to be late in reaching Hermosillo to pick up my brother from the airport, your main man driver Billy here fell back on lessons learned driving the mean streets of Southern California. I reached speeds of 110, severely unsafe for the state of the roads, the state of the other drivers on said roads, and ultimately all for naught as we were late picking my brother up.

Hermosillo? Nice town, but having spent a large number of years in Southern California there was something very familiar about it. I did notice that for the most part, all of the buildings were single story affairs, except for those built specifically to deal with the infestation of Americans feeding at the NAFTA tit. Such as the gaggle of Ford reps who were also staying at the high rise hotel Fiestamericana. See what they did there with the combining of Fiesta and Americana? It’s like a taste of being in a Latin American country without the discomfort of being outside of what you’re used to.

To be continued…

*Musical note: Dad explained to me how he had made these playlists on his iPod as if he didn’t already know that I myself have an iPod. Proud as a new parent, he explained that he had taken all of his Jimmy Buffet songs and put them on a playlist without a single repeated song. He had also done a “Super Eagles” list where he included the entire Eagles catalogue, as well as solo songs from Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Glenn Frey. This was the sort of thing that I was forced to sit through as I cruised the arid countryside of Mexico – save for the hour and half respite where I specifically requested that we listen to The Band. Some things I learned from this musical journey that first day:

• Elton John has recorded several versions of “Candle In the Wind” and all them can bite my ass and call it candy.
• That the audience captured responding to the live version of “Hotel California” I heard were so frigging stupid they couldn’t realize the song for what it was – and cheer at the recognition – until about 4 minutes in. That being said, this audience was at an Eagles show.
• Kenny G has recorded a version of Celine Dion’s “The Heart Will Go On”. This is like shit covering shit. This is like a shit burrito drowned in shit sauce. This is shit meeting shit head on and causing a massive shit vortex that pulls anything in the vicinity into it and turns it to shit.

Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: Another twofer Tuesday with “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” by Pink Floyd and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by The Beatles (I love that there are essentially only those words in The Beatles’ song and it’s one the heaviest (also in the title) songs they made).

Goin' Southbound (A Slight Return)

Due to the power of wireless internet and laptop computers, I am posting to the world from a toilet in a hotel in Hermosillo Mexico.  I'm sweaty and tired, but still amazed.

Here's a picture of my doing it:

Goin' Southbound

Hey all,

I'm finally doing something I had always intended to do before - post with a good buzz on.

What makes this one a little weird is that I am currently at my parents' house in Phoenix, doing twosies on a shot of Bud Light.

Tomorrow (man that took a lot of times to type correctly) we head to Mexico. What I did not realize until we arrived here in Arizona, is that my father and I will be spending the night in Hermasillo after picking up my brother and his Costa Rican wife at the airport there. Apparently it's harder to get a visa to enter the (again, that one took multiple times to type and it's 3 friggin letters) states than it is is to see a good example of Paris' acting abilities.

Anyway, I'm off for a week, drinkin it up beach style in a rented house in Mexico. Feelin' the need for a break big time.

Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: As I have not been to Mexico since the 80's, I'm going to leave you with a weekful of 80's treasures -
"Nothing To Fear (But Fear Itself)" by Oingo Boingo
"(Don't Go Back To) Rockville" by R.E.M.
"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions
"(Nothing But) Flowers" by Talking Heads
"(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais" by The Clash (for the love of Jesus with the "j" as an "h", don't take (that one took a lot of attempts as well) these all at once, spread 'em out over the week.)

The One Where CoWorkers Kill Each Other

So I took the day off yesterday as the sickness that has made Kickers a snotty, crying mess finally waylaid me. It took over despite all the work that I had done in making my body inhospitable through booze and fast living. I feel this reacted poorly to the work I had also done in trying to live longer by eating well and getting some exercise.

So I spent yesterday in headachy, fevery, sleepy fog. Completely to the side, they’re playing Guided By Voices on KEXP right now, the combo of that, the bare tree shakin’ its shit in the big wind outside and the sound of Kickers talking gently to himself makes me pretty danged happy.

Anyway, I returned to the workplace this morning to find my team still frazzled from the fit they had worked themselves up into yesterday. See, they had apparently processed all of the emails they were charged with processing, thus not only doing their job, but doing to a degree a success. For most people this would be a good thing.

To hear it spoken of today, in the sort of shocked whispers that are reserved for legend, you would have believed that under the red glow of massive fires, the team had set upon each other and eaten the weak – somehow also managing to firebomb Tacoma in the middle of it all. I kept expecting to trip over ribcages and slip in the cast off inner organs of former correspondence reps.

Despite the graphic “when two tribes go to war” tales I was told about, someone still had the time and wherewithal to email all of us with the info that Heath’s death was due to accidental overdose on prescription drugs.

But I already knew that, I had been privy to the news yesterday. I saw it reported twice and was confused each time by the breath of relief the newscasters issued when they reported that it was prescription drugs that had done him in. It was as if the shadow of street drugs would besmirch the life he had left behind.

I’m not sure that it’s better that he had five or six “legal” drugs within reach. That still smacks of being in touch with a dealer, even if said dealer has a medical degree.


Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: Again, feeling bad for missing yesterday, here’s a Twofer (this time) Thursday – “Bang A Gong (Get It On)” by T. Rex, followed closely by David Bowie’s “Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)”

Poop

Poop.

I feel like it, I wanna say it a lot, and I’m reminded of a scene in Grizzly Man where senor bear lover goes all weak kneed and girly touching the fresh poop from a bear.

Grizzly Man, I say watch it. If you don’t know about it, it’s a documentary about a man who spent a number of years camping in the Alaskan wilds, taping himself mere feet away from Alaskan grizzly bears. You want my opinion? Doesn’t matter, I’m running this here post. I’m bothered by this guy for the same reason I’m bothered by a lot of people; hypocrisy. This dude maintains that he’s selflessly protecting these bears that he loves, but spends 90% of the film time we’re privy to talking about how much he does for the bears (I’m a little unclear what exactly he does to protect the bears; check that, I’m a lot unclear), about how he teaches children for free and we also get to see him enacting different entrances for his diatribes with different bandanas. This doesn’t spell out the acts of a selfless individual to me, it smells like fishing for attention.

And that my friends, smells like burnt popcorn – and bear poop.

Learning that this guy was an actor – even going so far as to invent a new history and fake accent – doesn’t do much to dissuade me of this thought. But, that’s just the way I see it, please watch it, it’s worth a whirl on the Netflix queue.


Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: It’s a twofer Tuesday with “(We’re A) Bad Trip” by Camper Van Beethoven and “Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber)” by The Flaming Lips (The two seem to go hand in hand quite nicely).

Without Even A Cow To Trade

Sitting here and trying not to get mired down in frustration, which is an area of opportunity for me. I have become so brainwashed in the corporate PC jargon that it is now automatic for me to say “area of opportunity” instead of “where I suck”, or “how I typically fuck up”. All those great single syllable “uck” words going to waste…

Anyway, I’m trying to let other people’s frustrations flow through me instead of latching onto the small chunks of crisitunity already being harbored in my system until I’m rife with frustration tumors, giving birth to devil spawn frustration pupa.

I’m trying to focus on the vacation to come next week and not on the teething, cold infested, 14 month old that’s going to have to sit through a 2 hour plane ride. I’m trying to ignore the same cold that’s trying to take my body down. I’m feeling a little overheated, a little feverish, so I laid my forehead down on the coolness of my desk for a moment. From this vantage point, I could clearly see a little green thing on the floor of my cubicle.

I thought it might be a pistachio or something, but I picked it up and discovered it was a dried bean of some sort. It looks like a lima bean perhaps. It does not belong to me, I have not eaten anything at my desk that resembles this.

Perhaps it is a magic bean. I almost hate to say anything about it, for it seems to me that magic is a pretty fragile thing and words can break it like ice, but I’m holding onto it, my magic bean.


Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: “You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You’re Told)” by The White Stripes.

Feb(r)uary

Welcome to February, the freak month, the odd duck month, the “one of these kids is doing his own thing” month.

It’s a month that has fewer days and an extra “r” to make up for it. Seriously, that “r” after the “b” makes me nervous, it makes me feel like a secret agent in there, perhaps a secret agent that has forgotten its cover and no longer realizes that it’s a secret agent.

Not long ago, we were having a discussion about music, and Kimberly let it be known that she doesn’t like song titles with a parenthetical in it. The example that she gave was “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. She really doesn’t like it. I really don’t have a feeling about it one way or the other, but I can say that I love me a good parenthetical. I feel like I can’t get through a day without using a parenthetical. I feel a parenthetical is like a rabbit hole in a sentence (sometimes a dirty little rabbit hole (sometimes a clean one, but those don’t always amuse me)). And when I see things like that, sly little parenthesis stacked up against each other at the end of a sentence, it reminds me of good things like a conservative falling from grace, they remind of Falwell’s tears which makes me smile and smile.

So in honor of Kimberly’s dislike for parenthesis in a song title, in honor of a month that I feel should have a parenthesis in it, I bring you the:


Feb(r)uary Song Of The Day: “2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)” by Radiohead (When I brought up to Kimberly that all the songs on Hail To The Thief had two titles, one in parenthesis, she found this particularly irksome).