Magic Bus

It seemed like a good idea at the time. There was the whole neo-hippy fantasy of a VW bus after a number of years without a car to our names. Biff found a guy in Santa Cruz selling his, for like a grand, and so we got it. It was green and looked like this:


Oh yeah, it also once had a camper top which had been removed and the hole covered up with a removable piece of fiberglass. The previous owner had lost the keys at Reggae on the River or something, and so the ignition was destroyed and jury-rigged back together. It was painted with house paint. Oh and hey, right before leaving, the guy mentioned that quite often the throttle will stick, making the engine rev and rev, so you have to pull over, open up the engine compartment and manually un-stick it.

But I was able to overlook all of it. It looked so sweet sitting there next to the Pan Handle of Golden Gate Park. Bif and I used to just sit in there, light a candle and drink beer. Once, when we had too many guests at our place, we slept in it. We called it the "Bus Bus" and I would often sing, "bus bus, magic bus".

I overlooked the negative things about it until I had to drive the thing anywhere. That jury-rigged ignition could come detached at any moment, killing the engine even if you're doing a flash speedy 53 mph down the 101. Any gust of wind would hit that 10 pound box of sheet metal like a sail, pushing you all over the freeway. It always smelled vaguely of a lawnmower in there, and the trip to San Luis Obispo, which would take about 3 hours in a normal mode of transportation, took near 6 hours.

On said trip to San Luis Obispo, I had forgotten all about the insanely steep incline to the freeway just before it drops down into SLO town. I used to have stress dreams that involved driving up hills that became more and more inclined as I progressed; the dream had come alive. I was doing a robust 3mph, being passed by semis, wind tossing me around the lane and me holding onto the wheel with a grip that rivaled that of a chronic masturbator. How could this get any worse?

Well thick, thick fog, of course.

We reached the destination, and after many relaxing beers and glasses of scotch, I put it behind me as over and done with. When we then blew a tire around King City on the way home, and then realized that the Bus Bus came without a jack, and then realized after walking a couple miles to an auto parts store to get a jack that the lug nuts were fused to the bus, I believe I realized that my brief love affair with the VW bus was over.

While we ended up donating it to get rid of it, I sort of wish I had caused this:


I do though have fond memories of sitting in the darkness within, drinking beer and laughing with Bif. I do have that.

Drawn To Love

All of the Christmas time cartoon specials have reminded of something. Was it the uncharacteristic turning of children in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" to helping ol' Chuck make his loser tree into a thing of glory? No. Was it the Grinch realizing the true meaning of Christmas when he heard the Whos singing, even without their toys?

It wasn't, but this the made me think of The Who singing Magic Bus even though their presents were stolen. Never mind.

It was seeing a portion of "Frosty The Snowman" and remembering that I had a huge crush on the little girl, Karen.

Seriously, I was madly in love with a cartoon character; I always had a thing for blonds. And when the forest animals band together at Frosty's bidding to build a fire for her, not only did I wish I could be the one to build her a fire, but I was highly suspect of rabbits and squirrels and deer building a fire in a forest; it seemed a little unsafe.

Karen, I used to mutter, I can make you far happier than Frosty ever could. Let me assuage your fears; let me take care of you. You're just a little girl, and I'm just a little boy, and it's a little weird that you're hanging out with a pile of frozen rain, brought magically to life. I don't care if he has a happy, jolly soul or not, let me take you away from all of this.

Oh the longing I had...

This sort of embarrassing behavior continued when I watched The Little Mermaid when I was in college. I fell in love with Ariel; with sexy, sexy Ariel. It was the shot where she finishes singing Part of Your World and leaps up onto a rock while an orgasmic wave crashes up behind her. Man...

At least this time I was logical enough to realize that it was impossible to be in love with a cartoon character, that it would never work out. She was a princess, I was a poor film major. She was from the sea, I was from the real world. She was drawn with pens and inks, I was ridiculously high.

I don't even want to bring up the first time I watched Toy Story.

Suffice it to say... Woody.

12 Shopping Days Left

Do you realize that Christmas is right around the corner?

Well, I'm sure that you do, you've always been far more organized than me. I remember that one time I was all, "hey, isn't Doc Robert's birthday next week sometime?" and you whipped out your planner/address book and let me know that I was 2 1/2 months late; plus an extra year as he had died the July prior.

By the way, I’m sorry about that DRo. Hope you were able to kick the nitrous demons in heaven better than you did here.

Seriously though, Christmas is so close to being around the corner that if you were being chased down the street by an angry panther, you may not run smashing into Christmas upon hitting that intersection, but you would definitely see it trundling its tinsel soaked self up the avenue.

I guess that I've just been so hyper-focused elsewhere, primarily on the marriage and subsequent celebrations of Tom and Katie, that the calendar has become this sort of slippery, time warp kind of thing. It is seriously making my mind hurt to meditate on how close Christmas is. All of the cartoon Christmas specials on TV didn't even clue me in.

I think my mind is adjusting to some sort of "dad brain". In trying to adjust to focusing on a child on top of the areas in life I’m already focused on, the brain is sort shutting down a bit. It's sort of like when I started taking a French class in college after a number of years of high school German. The teacher would ask a question in French, I'd translate the question to German in my mind, formulate the answer in German and once again translate, this time to English. It took me twenty minutes to answer "what color is your pencil?”

Actually, this "dad brain" thing is nothing like that story. I apologize.

I’m beginning to think that I may actually be having a very slow stroke. Every time that I pass by a certain area of the work floor, I smell Fruit Loops. And as far as I know, this is not a scent that people are choosing to apply to themselves. But then again, I've heard whispers of rumors that Jessica Simpson, or some other sadly untalented celebrity, has something like this on the market.

Which would make a nice Christmas gift for yours truly.

Like how I brought that full circle?

Sheep Boy Comes Alive

I got an email from Stephen today. I know Stephen from the grand DG days and I never hear from him, so I got that heady mix of excited and apprehensive when I saw his name there among those emails.

This may not tell you anything about Stephen, but the first time we shared words was when I walked into the audio room and in response to someone else's comment, I quoted Pee Wee's Big Adventure. "There are thousands of uses for corn, all of which I'm going to tell you about right now," said I. Stephen quickly spun in his chair and said, "how much do I love you right now?" I looked at him questioningly for a second and stammered, "I don't know".

Anyway, Stephen sent me this picture:


I am sort of jealous of this young man's full, bushy hair. I am sort of jealous of his slim physique. I'm even vaguely jealous of his apparent self confidence and the unlit cigarette in his hand. But I am not jealous of the sheep.

As many know, I have this same sheep. It makes a sheep sound if you apply pressure to the nose area.

I once wore said sheep to a party at Hellby's. The party degenerated, as they usually did, to nudity and abuse. I may be mixing up the abuser here, but if I remember correctly, Dougie P was whipping my sheep with a riding crop in order to make it "baah". And when I put a stop to it, as the whistling arc of a leather riding crop was striking my barely covered penis, Mercedes derided me as being a baby.

People in other states began calling me sheep boy.

It's been quite some time since I have slipped on the sheep, but it now sits in my desk, googly eyes and all. If you are a little rough in opening the top, center drawer you will occasionally be rewarded with that "baah".

Thank you Stephen. Oh the memories.

Second Best Laid

Oh yeah, I also wanted to start a religion.

Something nice and new, something inclusive. Something based on a philosophy of self respect and being non-judgmental. Something that helped people to love themselves and taught that not only was sex not evil, it was a wonderful art-form and pretty damn cool. Something that didn't insidiously pay for politicians, but did attract enough followers that law makers had to keep us in mind. Something that felt like a natural extension of our life experience and not force pushing us into a mold.

But then I saw the tide turning.

People get greedy, people want more power. People not raised in a culture of moderation are bound to push it too far. People will still tend to unburden their responsibility onto others. People will still flock to a popular idea without individual thought.

And oh yeah, the backlash…

There would be splinter groups. There would be Billyanity Reformists, Billyanity Protestants. There would be an as yet unnamed Martin Luther, tacking his doctrine to the barroom door. There would be bloody crusades, with followers twisting my wonderful ideas to their own desires. There would be cult turf wars. There would be religious excuses to steal others' natural resources.

And sure, good or bad, I'd dig the tax exempt status - but all that paperwork would be a bitch.

Best Laid

Oh the plans that I had. I was going to be a wandering, mendicant poet, traveling the deserted back roads of America, blowing the minds of the children and inducing quiet revolt. I was going to be a rock star.

My band would be named after an inside joke, cryptic to the point of catching the imagination of the jaded music press. We were going to release an EP that NME would rave about, but sales would be pretty lackluster. Interest in the band would begin to spread after a particularly fiery appearance on the "Arsenio Hall Show" where Tommy, the lead guitarist, would make like he was going to smash his knock off Les Paul only to savagely yank it back and toss off a roaring solo.

It would be after rumors of strange sex rites and rampant abuse of "mood elevators" on the Killing You Kindly tour that the band would become a hit. Our breakthrough video would be a dark, completely surreal (read: nonsensical) bit of four minutes, directed by a young, up and comer just out of film school. Our look and sound would attract the disenfranchised youth like ants to sugar water, and we would re-release the first EP (with a couple of previously unreleased outtakes and live cuts) to tremendous sales.

The wild stories of drug use and groupie abuse would be nothing compared to the internal struggle within the band. The drunken fights would destroy thousands of dollars worth of gear and end up burning down our newly built recording studio. The full on brawl that would occur onstage during a stadium show on the Soul Glue tour would be a staple of MTV and talk shows for weeks, but would unfortunately rip the band asunder.

I would embark on a solo tour, full of myself with the knowledge that I didn't need the rest of the band, with minor success. The venues would become increasingly smaller and dingier. To protect my self esteem, I would blame the lagging interest on the fact that the audience just didn't get what I was doing.

I would age gracelessly in a fog of cheap scotch and Whip-Its, writing a tell all book titled quite cleverly from one of the band's popular songs. This would spark a very brief interest in the band again. A song would be used on a soundtrack and would be played on a radio station serving those addicted to nostalgia. This would bring me enough royalty money to keep me in frozen pizzas until I died a completely unnoticed death at the age of 62 - a drunken, accidental drowning in the kiddy pool placed in the courtyard of the apartment complex.

Man, what the hell happened...

Life Lessons

Wow, that was a quick week. That was a week from another dimension. And being back at work, well it's a slice of awesome with a side of ranch.

Again, trying to keep this from being all baby all the time - but a quick update:
Baby and mom are doing great. Biff's still recovering, but nursing like a champion
Riley is now pooping real poop.
Riley likes car rides, being sung to, long walks on the beach and rainy weekends at home with a book and a nice, jammy zin.

Oh and here's a picture (thanks to Mandy for the pictures):


Okay, back to the nonsense. Let's talk tacos!

When I was a kid, I loved me some tacos. It was part of my triumvirate of pizza, spaghetti and the above mentioned tacos. My mom made tacos with hamburger and an envelope of taco seasoning mix. Meat went into crispy taco shells with shredded cheddar and iceburg lettuce.

Oh and hey, do any of you remember Taco flavored Doritos? Dammit, they were good. Not very popular apparently, but good.

One time I went over to Kenny's house for play time and dinner. Here are some interesting things about Kenny:
Kenny wore thick, black framed glasses - the same sort that my dad wore when he was in Vietnam.
Kenny was extremely smart, which unfortunately made him fairly unpopular with the general public.
Kenny had one of those boxes of little drawers that guys usually use to keep their screws and nails separated, but his was filled with little plastic guns from the original run of Star Wars action figures. He had apparently written to Kenner about a lost light saber or something, and they sent him this arsenal.

Kenny's mom, who wore the same kind of glasses that he did, made tacos for dinner. Shit yes! Tacos dude, I love tacos. How many did I want, she asked. I will take three of them Kenny's mom.

Problem. I don't know what Kenny's mom did to the tacos she made but they tasted like poop; spicy, sort of vaguely sweet poop. It took all my will to finish the first one, and I could not bring myself to get into the others. If I remember correctly, Kenny's mom really sort of let me have it for not eating the other tacos that I requested.

Lesson learned with this experience: If someone you're not used to is making you tacos - start out with one as a tester.