Immuno-(im?)(de?)(sup?)pressed

WE'VE MOVED!

2006-11-27T23:53:00.000-08:00

It's now time for both of my readers to update their link for me on their blogrolls. You see, I've had no real problems with Blogger, but because I like to fix things that aren't really broke and because some of my blog-savvy friends told me I had to, I've moved here:

http://www.immunopressed.com/

Despite all controversy, the battle has been won!

2006-11-27T17:27:00.000-08:00

We're #1!

EAT MY ASS, CLAY CANE!

Because that's where #2 comes from!

By Popular Demand I Present To You: How To Eat Coochie

2006-11-27T01:18:00.000-08:00

I'd like to start by thanking my readers for the many requests to share one of my true passions. When I was younger, I was naive. I thought that just because I liked to try the many flavors this world has to offer, that everyone did. As I grow older I find that my adventurous palate is a feature that sets me apart from many others who are too picky to try new tasting experiences. They have patterns for eating that prevent them from trying new things. For example, if you eat a hot dog day in and day out, certainly, you may never develop a liking for oysters. It's certainly natural.

Many have dabbled in sushi or have been tempted to try snails. Among the adventurous eaters, these are certainly the basics in food suited for the advanced palates. But if you are to get more creative with your ingestibles, you haven't really scratched the surface until you've devoured the likes of tangy snapper, mussel pie, moose lips, or the very rare otter wallet. Coohie is another one of those unique delectables and with the few steps provided below I hope that after reading this article, you won't be afraid to put your tongue to it.

Step 1: Be sure to procure fresh coochie. It's definately much harder to find than coochie that is a little bit older (maybe even stale), like the kind you can find at any corner Gas N Sip, but if you go to the extra effort to get it fresh, trust me, you will be rewarded for it. Fresh coochie can be easily identified by its odor. Much like shopping for fish, if it smells fishy, it's not fresh. Although unlike fish mongers, those who have fresh coochie available are not always willing to let you sniff before purchase ..or...um ...I mean.....procurement. Purchasing coochie is not a sure way to insure freshness. Hunting wild coochie is a better way to go, though harder to come by. This next part may sound strange for a dining experience, but you may need to tell the coochie provider you love them before they will give you the coochie. Don't worry though, you don't have to mean it.

Step 2: Don't just dive right into your coochie without a solid plan for preparation. Take your time. Unwrap your coochie carefully and inspect it for freshness and flaws. Be sure to turn it over and check the back side. Wash your coochie thoroughly and check it for pin bones by gently running your fingers along it. Remove with pliers, if necessary. Similar to lobsters boiling, people often think they hear their coochies scream in agony at this stage, but don't worry, the pain is over before they know what happened. Some people like to pluck their coochie before eating but I find the feathers add a nice texture.

Step 3: Never eat cold coochie. From my own personal experience, I've found that coochie is most enjoyable at approximately 100 degrees Farenheit, though temperatures may vary. It should always be tender and juicy. If it's tough, throw the coochie out immediately. There is always more coochie to be had. It is definately ok to stuff a coochie as part of the preparation. Check with your coochie provider. They are often ready with insightful ideas for stuffing recipes, though sausage is the most traditional (not vienna).

Step 4: Choose a setting. It's most common to eat coochie indoors and it's the one meal most often served in the bedroom, though it is ok to eat coochie in any room of your house. I wouldn't suggest the garage, but whatever floats your boat. Eating coochie in a restaurant is very difficult, but not impossible. You can also eat coochie at a picnic, but I suggest bringing a comfortable blanket to put beneath you to help keep ants off the coochie.

Step 5: Coochie is not a food you eat with a fork and a knife, and if you bring a spoon to the meal it would just be ridiculous. If you're not eating it with your fingers, you're just not getting the full coohie-eating experience. It's not uncommon to serve coochie with liberal amounts of alcohol, but there is a point of diminishing returns. You may also serve it with a sauce. I recommend chocolate, but I have a sweet tooth. Tabasco is probably not a good idea. Some people like to serve coochie with fruit. Two large melons would be a nice accompaniment.

I do hope these steps come of great use to you, and often. It would be a great shame for you to go your whole life without at least trying coochie, if not making a daily meal. If you take the time and follow all of these steps, coochie will be the one food that almost seems like it enjoys being eaten. This won't be true if done improperly. Coochie has actually been known to wrap itself back up and leave the dining area if not treated with great care.

Sure, you can go back to eating hot dogs if that's your thing. No one will blame you for not being adventurous. If all you ever did to coochie was poke at it with a big stick, you'd still probably be ok, but there's a reason that great chefs around the world are known for devouring coochies with a fierce passion. Emeril Lagasse is known to like his coochie steamed. Bobby Flay apparently likes his coochie poached. And the world's foremost coochie eating chef, Julia Child is said to have liked her coochie over easy.

(if this doesn't get me to #1 on the google search for "how to eat coochie", I don't know what will)

First Time For Everything (part 2)

2006-11-15T17:12:00.000-08:00

As my friends trotted off in the wrong direction (wrong in that we were supposed to look like we were going to the football game until after my parents' car was gone), I yelled over to them "Hey! This way! The ticket booth is over here!" None of them responded, or even flinched. They just kept going. My father was actually far enough out of sight and I realized my paranoid attempt at acting like were headed to watch the game was no longer necessary, so I skated after my friends.

It seemed that the finer details of the evening's plans were up in the air. No one in the group ever really considered where we were going. We were just skating aimlessly, burning off the prior few hours of teen angst and energy that had built up from the non-physical activities of watching TV and eating dinner (and since my sister had prepared the meal, watching dinner and eating TV was a real option). No one cared where we were going, just that the end result was us being drunk, having fun, maybe breaking something, and ultimately eating Stouffer's French Bread Pizza before passing out on Bill's floor for the evening.

We had to avoid the Ave.*, as my parents would likely be there or on one of its side streets having dinner. The rest of the group would probably want to hang out there as that would be the most likely place to run into some girls. I didn't have much experience with girls up to this point, but I was pretty sure there wasn't anything that was going to happen with any girls that night that was worth getting all of us in trouble over because my parents spotted us in front of Burger King at the end of the Ave. The others may have had grander visions of their romantic capabilities and where they may lead, so at any moment I may need to push them off the course which may get me in the most trouble.

The moment I felt collective momentum of our skateboards pulling us towards the Ave., I yelled out "So we gonna get drunk or what?" Those were the only words I thought may redraw their current intentions. The truth was, I wasn't that excited to get drunk. I knew this would be the biggest opportunity for parental defiance in my life so far but I was unsure whether I was ready to take it. However, the trepidation was being overpowered by an unshakable feeling of freedom. For every neural unit of fear my brain was pouring into my nerves, another part of my brain was cranking out double those units in anticipation and excitement. No way I was backing out and it seemed that at least Eric was ready too. He yelled out, "Yeah, let's find someplace to get fucked up!"

Everyone agreed and the group began to head away from the Ave in favor of a less public location to break out the Bacardi. Looking back, it seems we were all a bit inexperienced with finding good places to get bombed. We chose Mckinley Elemenetary School playground. The school was at a corner where two major roads met. Lots of cars drive by there and no one really stopped to think "the more cars that drive by, the more likely one of those cars would be a cop car." Logic, reasoning, and probability were things we would learn about in years to come, but not yet. There were also many houses nearby, and of course we would never conisder how loud we might be and that people would probably call the police. It's not like we were going to drink quietly like Bukowski in the corner of some dank bar somewhere. We were teenagers. We were going to drink, smoke, yell, laugh, make fun of each other, and loudly.

There we were on the blacktop where each day little kids eat lunch and play four-square, and at night it was dark and desolate, but it's funny that no matter how lightless a place is, you instantly feel very well lit and seeable when illegal acitivity begins. As soon as Eric pulled the Bacardi from his back pack and handed it to me to take a swig, I thought to myself "we probably shouldn't just stand out in the middle of the yard like this, we may want to conceal ourselves a little bit." I think everyone felt it at the same time.

Mike suggested we take cover in the jungle gym. You know the kind. The all in one playground set with thick wooden posts planted in a bark covered ground, steps to take you to the top, where you can make a choice from there. Down the slide, over the rope bridge, down the pole, or across the monkey bars to the crow's nest with the big metal ship's steering wheel. Under the pre-launch platform before you go down the slide, there seemed to be a enough space for the five of us to sit in the bark and safely drink our rum. The posts and cross-posts provided enough cover, especially in the dark, that even if people could hear us, they would have a hell of a time seeing us underneath the slide.

We all climbed in and got cozy. Eric had brought a couple cans of soda, but, without any cups, it would be beyond us to figure out how to mix the rum with the soda without wasting at least a half of a can, a valuable 25% of our mixer. As soon as we ran out of soda we'd be drinking it straight, and no one seemed interested in that. While four of us sat there rationalizing how to properly mix the two liquids while wasting as little of the coke as possible, Eric blurted out "The soda's not gonna get you drunk, you pussies!" then grabbed the bottle from Padrick, who was trying carefully to pour the Bacardi in a half drunken can of coke. Padrick screamed "YOU FUCKER!" as he wiped the spilled booze on his jeans. Eric took a huge gulp straight from the bottle, then handed it to me and in between his post swig coughs said "Here, you go."

*The Ave is the nickname for Burlingame Avenue. Burlingame, CA's version of Main Street, USA. When my parents were growing up it would have been where the drugstore, the dimestore, the soda fountain, the locksmith, the cobbler, the blacksmith, and the coopersmith would have all been. By the time I was a kid Burlingame grew into a farily wealthy community and the Ave. had become a 3 block long boutique extravaganza. Bridal shops, bakers, coffee houses, art shops, expensive restaurants. and trendy bars. By the time I was an adult the independently owned boutiqes had all turned into corporate stores with a boutique feel. By all women's standards and at first glance, it's a "cute little area with lots of great shops!", but closer examination of said shops would reveal the plague of our country that is Pottery Barn, Starbucks, TGIF, the Gap, and Baby Gap (separate store, same block).

A one-word review on the first two chapters of the book I'm reading.....

2006-11-11T13:46:00.000-08:00

CRAP!

This may be an unfair review, but I'm willing to let it stand.

The way I pick books to read is I walk around Borders and cruise around and let cover art, titles, and tag lines guide me to a book that looks interesting. Then I pick it up read inside jackets and back cover to see if it really might be something that would interest me. I carry it around with me and do the same thing with 10 other books. I then decide how many I can afford and start making some decisions of what to keep and what to put back on the shelf (usually any shelf closest to me and not the one I found it on).

The book I've been reading I picked up two weeks before my kidney transplant and only now started it. I usually hate to read about other people's revelations and lifestyle changes, but I was at my greatest point of fear and lowest point of depression over facing my kidney disease head on. I've been dealing with it I was 12, but up to this point I had no pain, no major procedures, no serious drugs to take, and a transplant had always been "that thing I'll have to deal with later in life". But it was now here to face and I was down about it and I thought reading books by other people who had ideas on better living with or despite their illness might make me feel better. Problem is....I never got a chance to read thebook, transplant came and went, life problem solved (for now), fear and depressions gone, and no real need to hear about someone else's life, illness, or death.

Flash forward 6 months, transplant sucessful, happy again, not interested in reading non-fiction better-living books, nothing else in my house to read, and not interested in a potentially expensive trip to the bookstore (why is it that every time I want something to read I forget that there are cool places on this earth that let you borrow books for free?), I pick up the only book I have and I really am willing to give it a chance. I mean, it did get pretty good reviews.

The book is about some rich NYC-major-acounting-firm-CEO who found out he had a disease that left him with only 3 months to live. He had decisions to make about how to best live the short time he had left, and decided that the organized, CEO, accountant, businessman side of him could plan it out perfectly. I've decided not to read further and find out how that worked out for him. Should I ever have 3 months to live, I doubt very seriously I would have enough money to follow the life/death plan of a Manhattan millionaire. I'm sure the book's not really about money or death plans, but more about emotions and facing fear of death and that crap, but I already have some firm ideas about that stuff and I'm not really intersted in hearing some blow hard that had his ego stroked (among other things) every day by his 20,000 employees show me how much smarter than me he is.

At one point in the first chapter, he was trying to explain how happy he was to be spending his last Fourth of July with his family in their Manhattan penthouse on their balcony watching the firewords over the East River. That does sound like a pretty good way to spend your last holiday on earth. Will your book tell me how to take the last three months of my life, parlay the $14 I have in my checking and the $250 I have in my savings (minimum balance to avoid charges) into enough money to buy me a penthouse over looking the East River? I'm thinking that in the last days of my life the only Penthouse I will possibly be able to afford will be one that has lots of pictures in it and can be purchased at any 7-11 convenient store across the country.

It's nice that you have that kind of luxury, but I think it likely there are more people in this world that will spend their last Fourth of July crying on their bathroom floor, holding their side and trying not to wake the neighbors in their low rent apartment building by screaming too loud, lying there dying while the water in the ramen cooking on their hot plate boils off and the noodles turns to rubber, because they can't afford health insurance.

So...can anyone recommend a good book? I'm more interested in fiction right now, but I'll consider a good piece of non-fiction.

First Time For Everything (part 1)

2006-11-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

"You're sure you're not going anywhere after the game?" my father asked, as he dropped my friends and me off in front of the high school? Him and my mom were going out to dinner after they dropped us off, and afterwards likely enjoying the peace and quiet of having their 13 year old son spending the night at a friend's house. I wasn't a big "spend the night at friend's house" kid. I went out a lot for someone as young as I was, but I usually ended the evening at home in my own bed. Also, I had a sister so my parents got very little time to themselves at home, but she was out too.

I was much freer than most kids my age. My parents were pretty lenient about curfew and trusting about things like that. It would not be unheard of for me to stay out until one or two in the morning as long as I had a ride and my parents knew who I was with. My father almost never asked me too many questions about my plans. Usually it was just the basics and I was actually surprised to hear him ask that question as I was waiting anxiously to watch him drive off. It was almost as if he knew this was the night he couldn't trust me. As if he had read my mind when I asked him to let me spend the night at Bill's house with the rest of my friends.

The other four were already singing the chorus to the song "No sir, straight to Bill's house!", but I was hesitant to actually let the words fly out of my mouth because I was still young enough to hate lying to my parents and old enough to know that as an ex-Marine, my father could easily kick my ass for pissing him off. He had never hit me as a child, but as I got closer to adulthood I'd let myself believe he'd be willing to show me he could at any moment pummel me if he so chose. I've never actually had to find that out for sure, but as HE gets older I find myself thinking I could put up a good fight.

I had already lied earlier in the day after planning this evening with my skateboard buddies (I may have actually cringed and yelled "shut up" if someone had referred to my friends and me as "buddies" at the time, but I'm ok with using that term now, so I'll apply it here). I had almost told the whole truth about all of us spending the night at Bill's house, though I may have neglected to tell him the part about Bill's parents being out of town. If the entire truth of this Friday evening, and my plans to get drunk for the first time in my life, had later been revealed to my father, the next faslehood out of my mouth would not be the one I received the most punishment for. "No Dad, we're just going to Bill's house after the game."

The players: Eric, who also lied to his parents, and managed to get his older brother to buy us a bottle of Bacardi for the evening. Bill, his parents away, his mohawk donned, and Stouffer's Frozen French Bread Pizza's ready to go in the freezer for when we needed something to sop up the Bacardi in our stomachs later in the evening. Padrick, ditto on the parents lie, and ready with the one liners to keep us amused for the evening, he was the Chandler of our little group of punk rock Friends. Mike, his single mother also out of town, similar lie told but different in that he was supposed to be staying at my house because his Mom didn't know Bill and would have said no to the Flannel Shirt and Ripped Jeans Slumber Party, he felt like he had the most to risk because his mom was frequently heard saying "You little fuck, you're on restriction for six months!", a punishment unheard of from the rest of our parents. Then there was me, skateboard as my main vehicle for transportation, age 13 and never been drunk but willing to let my friends use the power of peer pressure to talk me into a new experience, though not much pressure needed to be applied.

The equipment: 5 skateboards, 5 packs of cloves, 1 back pack with bottle of Bacardi in it, and 3 boxes of NoDoze (nothing like 20 cups worth of caffeine to enhance your Bacardi buzz).

The mission: for 5 thirteen year old boys to skip the high school football game, consume 1 bottle of Bacardi and 3 packs of NoDoz, make it through the night without A) getting in trouble with our parents, B) getting sick, or C) getting arrested.

Plan in action when we return on Monday.

Cruelty To Animals

2006-11-09T16:38:00.000-08:00

Sure, it's always a funny gag to put undergarments on wild animals for the sake of comedy. And, yeah, it's even funnier when you're on a family vacation in Africa on safari, and the underwear is your sister's, and now all the natives think she's a whore for wearing a thong. And they think she's freak because they're zebra striped. And they think she's now going commando because they believe people in the rest of the world are like them and only own one pair of underwear. And you would be right to think it's even funnier when you don't tell her where they've been and just sneak them back in her suitcase and until next Thanksgiving when your dad wants to show your extended family his African vacation slide show. And your 2nd cousin Steve is there, you know the one, the one your sister had a crush on and made out with in the 5th grade. Yeah...all that stuff is funny.

But think of how the Rhino feels before it goes too far.

Ce monde n'est pas assez grand pour les tous les deux nous!

2006-11-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'm not even really sure what I said in the title of this post, but I know it's not "Please lie down with me this evening."

I am a complete language dunce. It's either that or the California educational system failed me as a youth. Spanish classes over a four year period from Intermediate School to High School were unable to teach me much more than the ever so useful translations for "My name is Jerry", "I put the blue pen on the table", and "How old are you?" Additionally I was able to pick up a few phrases of my own. Growing up so close to Mexico one learns very quickly "Give me a beer", "Fuck your mother in the ass", and "If you talk to my sister again I will have your whole family sent back across the border." Fortunately, I've only needed to use the first of those three.

I actually know a little more than that, but four trips to Mexico and one trip to Spain has taught me that no one wants to speak to you one word per second in any language. When someone starts talking to me in Spanish, I'm still translating word two by the time they get to word 32. Then I'm like "Fuck it, una cervesa, por favor." If they're not a bartender, they usually just walk away angry or amused.

Here in blog world, I used to have fun clicking on the "NEXT BLOG" button. Because there are so many bloggers who blog in other languages, I would play a little game of "How many clicks will it take until I find one I can actually read?" Then I managed to find enough regluar reads in English so I could stop playing"find the next English blog" game and I prefer it that way.

Additionally, I'm addicted to my site meter stats. I, probably like all of you, love seeing how people find me, how often they come here, and where they're from. My favorite is to click on the world map and see where people are checking me out from. It's super cool to see how places all over THIS country people hit from, but it's always extra special when you see someone hit from somewhere else in the world. I've had a few South Americans, Malaysians, Philippians, and some guy from Yemen checked out my blog more than once.

Then I realized it sucks that I can't check out their blogs. Even if the site meter was able to give me a link....the fuck if I could read what I saw when I got there. Still I thought it was nice for them to visit. Until I saw this:

Look, Pierre, don't even bother. I know you're all better than me because you can speak both English and French, and because you can buy good champagne for cheap, and because you can cook snails, but this is my space. I don't need you coming here all Frenching things up around here. I know your kind. You're all thankful cause we saved your ass a couple wars ago, but see how that helps me when I'm traveling in Paris and I need your help finding the Eiffel Tower. Suddenly the only English you know is "I dunt spik inglish!" Dude, I see how you are.

But since you're here anyways.....props to the food and the women. They're both tasty, I'll give you that.

On a side note, I think its hilarious that the spell checker in blogger doesn't know the word blog.

So all of a sudden I think I'm Mr. Reviewer or something...

2006-11-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

Friday night I went to see the play Love, Janis at the Marine's Memorial Theater in San Francisco. Going into it I wasn't sure how this was going to go over for me. I had heard a little about it and that there was some girl in the production that sounds exactly like Janis Joplin. I thought it unlikely.

Now, I'm not the hugest of Janis Joplin fans. I know the hits. I like the hits. I respect her as an artist and singer and an icon of San Franciscan history. But she died the year I was born so it's hard for me to really know her all that well. Janis, love her or hate her (is there anyone that actually hates her), was an extremely unique singer. Raspy, soulful, loud and wild. Regardless of how I felt about her, it was going to take more than wearing feathers in your hair to make me believe you are Janis Joplin.

This turned out to be a dual function production. It was a play and a Janis Joplin concert presented together. The play part of it was a monologue by an actress playing the "inner, real-human" voice of Janis Joplin, mostly based on reading Janis's letters to her family in Texas throughout the time she lived in San Francisco and became famous. The rock concert part was a full band and Janis impersonator, Cathy Richardson....also meant to potray the "outer, performer" voice of Janis. They really need to be critiqued separately as the impact that each had on the entire production was vastly different.

The actress that played inner-Janis (Morgan Hallett) was...well...to put it nicely....fucking terrible. She didn't look like Janis Joplin. Her Texan accent, while well rehearsed, would only be believable to someone that's never been in Texas. In my opinion actors are only good when you don't realize they are acting and most of the play I couldn't help but notice her acting. There were maybe one or two brief moments that felt real. Another odd thing was that I kept trying to figure out who she reminded me of. I spent most of the few hours in that seat thinking to myself....GODDAMN THIS IS BUGGING ME. WHO DOES SHE REMIND ME OF!?!

Afterwards, my friend April pointed out it was Jennifer Aniston. THAT WAS IT!!! But more specifically it was Rachel from Friends. I was watching Morgan Hallett playing Jennifer Aniston playing Rachel playing Janis Joplin. The stage designe looked like it was done by a couple 7th graders and lended the idea that you actually were in a make-believe episode of Friends, where Joey (pre-success-of-Drake-Ramore) was in an off-off-off broadway production about Janis Joplin and his leading lady backed out of the play at the last minute and instead Rachel had to take over. It would have been a very natural transition to see Joey come dancing on stage as Sigmund Freud singing "Vuht you envy's a shvang!" and proudly displaying his newly discovered "jazz hands".

On the flip side, outer-Janis sung by Cathy Richardson was unbelievable. She sang every note, every run, and had every dance move. She really made you believe she was Janis Joplin. The band was pretty good, but not good enough for the singer they were backing. Cathy went well beyond the scope most singers could go to imitate. She was able to manipulate mic positioning in relationship to her mouth to create her own effects like compression and vibrato with absolute perfection.

The thing is she knew how to be Janis better than Janis knew how to be Janis. I won't take anything away from her amazing talent, but I will say that as life long music fan it felt a little weird. I got the impression that she came into that theater night after night, delivering perfect performance after perfect performance and never missing one note, one run, one dance step and that made it a little artificial, especially given the object of her imitation. I doubt seriously that Janis Joplin...emotional, passionate, soulful, wild, vocally untamed, alcoholic, drug addict Janis Joplin...ever delivered the same performance of one song twice. Likely she couldn't and likely she wouldn't. It felt almost wrong to hear someone else do it so pefectly, knowing that if you asked them to do it again, they could.

The low part of my night was when Cathy sang "Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz" un-miked and asked the audience to sing along. You see...I wanted to hear HER sing it and instead I got to hear the tone-deaf-moron-who-didn't-know-the-words-but-sang-at-full-volume-guy behind me, instead.

The high part of my night was when, just after the band stopped playing and we were moving into a very emotional part of the play, April asked me if the band was any good. I replied that I thought they were just ok, but better than the original band that Janis fronted (Big Brother & the Holding Company). I then whispered "There's a reason people only know Janis Joplin and not the name of the band she sang for" loud enough for everyone immediately around me to hear. Then we giggled audibly as Janisfer Anijopliston told us how lonely but happy she was in San Francisco.

The Devil & Daniel Johnston

2006-11-05T01:25:00.000-08:00

I once considered myself somewhat of an"alternative" sort of person. When I was teenager I wanted so desperately to be different than everyone else. I thought wearing clothing bought in second hand stores, smoking menthol cloves, listening to music that strayed from Billboard's Top 40 as far as possible, and spending every Friday night at the midnight performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show was enough to differentiate myself from the popular cliques in high school.

I thought just because I knew every word to Blister In The Sun and chased down underground dance clubs every weekend instead of going to high school basketball games and buying Janet Jackson CD's that I had some right to claim I wasn't a follower. Later in life I figured out that trying to be different than than everyone else where I was at was just another way of trying to find a way to fit in somewhere else. It meant I was just a follower of another sort and probably to a greater degree. When I realized this, I began to embrace pop culture and turn my head from the "alternative" lifestyle, almost to the point of shunning the "alternative" culture.

Had I stuck with the culture I began following when I was 14 I may have actually heard of Daniel Johnston. In my transition back to mainstream culture, I somehow missed him completely. Saturday night I watched a documentary called The Devil And Daniel Johnston. It was the first time I've ever heard of him. He was an alternative singer/songwriter/artist that popped up on the Austin music scene in the early 1980's. His musicianship was terrible, his singing ability was non-existent, but his lyricism was pretty good and his drive to be famous was fueled like no other and guided by mental illness.

He found himself in and out of the spotlight. Into it as a result of good luck, great timing, persistent self promotion, and few but severely loyal fans which included other musicians like Sonic Youth, Velvet Underground, and Kurt Cobain. Out of it because of his fight with manic depression and drugs, and as a result, violence related crimes and hospitalization kept him from living in the real world both physically and mentally. He was never able to maintain a stable career, musical sucess, or life in general.

Every episode in his life which may have really started him on the path to a real musical career was coupled with episodes of serious psychosis which lead him back to hospitalization. He was vexed his entire life with religious guilt and an infatuation with a girl he met in college. The themes of his songs and artwork are based largely on these two things. He still performs music and displays his art today (or at least at the point this movie was made in 2005), but is limited by his mental handicap and will likely always be considered an underground musician and artist.

While watching the movie, I found it hard to make a connection with him. One reason is that there are a couple people in my life inflicted with severe mental illnesses, friends that I've talked about on this blog. When you're around these people, you wish you could help them, you try, you fail repeatedly, and at some point you just have to turn them off and try to let qualified people help them. You are left with a bucket of guilt t0o heavy to lift. I saw my friends in Daniel and instantly found myself disconnecting from him.

Another reason I had trouble connecting is that, I don't fully get music like his. Some people call it genius, but it's the same people that call Bob Dylan a genius. As a musician it's hard to appreciate those types. Though, it's easy to see that his potential for growth as a musician was restricted by his mental condition and that there was real art there trying to get out, mixed with incoherent psychobabble it would all shoot out in spurts too fast to control and often difficult to separate.

I loved the movie, but didn't get the music. That is until the credits rolled and they played his song "Some Things Last A Long Time" and then I kind of got it.

Fun With Flickr

2006-11-02T16:34:00.000-08:00

Make your own caption! (this is what I do when I'm uninspired to write and bored at work)

It's time for your favorite game! Guess who's got the dreadlocks!

I guess I'm gonna have to go with Trick.....give me the best you got, punk!

2006-10-31T16:05:00.000-08:00

Ding-Dong. "Think anyone's home?"

"Try again."

Ding-Dong "I don't think anyone's here."

"Is there a self-serve bowl on the porch somewhere?"

"Dude, there isn't even a pumpkin. This guy is not very festive. We may have to teach him a lesson."

"Let's try pounding as hard as we can on the door." ::::POUND POUND POUND::::

"TRICK OR TREAT!!!! C'MON, OPEN UP!!!"

"OK ASSHOLE, YOU ASKED FOR IT!!!" ::::egg smash:::: ::::shaving cream spray:::: ::::paint thinner splash:::: ::::Molotov cocktail explosion::::

Little do they know, I'm home. Every year. Listening to them knock. Silently pretending I'm not home. Laying in my bed, watching TV with as little volume as possible. Remembering what it was like to be 5, standing on the next porch, dreaming of yet another beautiful piece of candy, waiting to scream "Trick or Treat" and then look a cute as possible in your Bumble Bee attire, hoping that if you looked better than the other 50 superheroes and princesses that came by that night, he will dump the whole bowl in your bag, because "your costume is WAAAAY better than all the rest!", and having that dream crushed because no one at that house was home.

That's right bitches, I was home last year, hearing your pleading knocks on the door and eating a whole bowl of Milky Ways by myself and watching Jeopardy.

This year I am going to miss those fun times because I have to attend band pratice, so my one-legged roommate is going to have to fend for himself. I hope he lays by the door, pours ketchup all over his stump, opens the door and screams "JESUS CHRIST! DON'T JUST SIT THERE LOOKING ALL CUTE IN YOUR BUMBLE BEE OUTFIT! SOMEONE'S CUT OFF MY FUCKING LEG, GO GET HELP YOU LITTLE SHITS!"

The Forge In The Forest

2006-10-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

So, I got this puppy last week and because I had forgotten how hard they are to take care of and because my roommate is doing a little back-peddling on his promise to help, my friend April offered to take my older dog, Soldier, for the week. I drove down to Monterey yesterday to drop him off and April and I decided to get some lunch and see a movie while I was down there.

I got to April's house about 1:30 pm and after a few minutes of letting April play with the new puppy, we left the dogs in her house and went to get some food. We did the usual responsibility-shuffle over who decided what and where to eat. You know the dance. "What do you want to eat?" "I don't care, I can eat anything, what do you feel like?" Rinse and repeat. No one really wanting to take credit if it was a bad choice.

As we were driving aimlessly, trying to decide, April had this great idea to call and see if The Forge In The Forest (TFIF) was open. TFIF is in Carmel, the home of Brad and Jennifer while they were together. It's a cool little (and super wealthy) beach town just south of Monterey, famous for being the only town in America brave enough to let the outlaw, Josey Wales be its mayor. The Spanish also built a famous mission (Mission Carmel, duh) there, since the arrival of Brad and Jennifer and the mayorship of Dirty Harry, the Mission does almost nothing for Carmel's modern tourism trade.

Carmel also fancies itself a dog-friendly city. The beach in carmel has poop bags for your convenience at every entrance and all the shops downtown allow dogs inside. There are also many dog friendly restaurants. We decided to turn around and get the dogs. TFIF is an upscale restaurant which has a dog patio where you can dine while your dog sits at your table. When they bring you your water service, they also bring a bowl for your dog(s). They give away free dog biscuits and they even have a doggy menu, which is actually reasonbly priced considering its for your dog. It includes grilled chicken, hamburger, and sirloin steak.

I was a little worried about Soldier, because he gets nervous and aggressive when he's on leash and other dogs are around. He likes to be able to go wander around and play with other dogs and it upsets him to be restricted. At first I left him in the car until I could see the conditions and when I saw that we weren't TOO close to other dogs, I brought him in. He did really well, especially when his hamburger arrived.

Rebel wasn't bothered at all he just sat there chewing on his Kong, which I kept restuffing with chicken and hamburger. He got a lot of attention from the waitresses at the restaurant. Puppies are a total chick magnet.

April and I split two appetizers which I thought were only mediocre. We had fondue in a sourdough bowl with apples and bread for dipping. I thought it lacked flavor. I had to add salt to every bite and I'm not a big salter. We also had a deep fried onion flower and I thought it was cut too small. Every time you tried to grab a bit of onion, there wasn't enough substance to the piece of onion to pull it off before the batter slipped off the petal and left the onion on the stem and the fried batter in your fingers. It was annoying and I think both Chili's and Outback Steakhouse do it better and I hate those places.

We also split a sand dab sandwich which was just okay. I think we may have just ordered wrong. They probably have food on their menu that was better than what we ordered. It sucked that we managed to pick three bad ones. I really hope those are the only bad ones, because I do like the idea of the restaurant. I also have friends who have been there before and loved it. So, I say give it a try....pooch or no pooch.

Slow Week

2006-10-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much this week because:

A) Work has been super busy.

2) Puppy has been demanding much of my time.

& 4) Nothing brilliant on my mind (not that everything I post is brilliant, but I haven't even had any mediocre thoughts this week).

I have come up with a pretty good Halloween costume that I'm not going to use, so if you are looking for a last minute costume that will make everyone laugh and give you a good shot at winning the Halloween costume contest at your local pub, then try this:

The Human Twister Board - wear all white, T-shirt or Turtleneck, white pants or sweats, if you can find an all white rain poncho even better (but not necesasry). Write or wear a sign on your shirt that says "Human Twister Board - //opposite sex// players only". Make a spinner or get one from a twister game you don't want or need anymore. Make a hat into the spinner or wear it on your back. Make all the spots on the wheel green and on each divided quarter of the circle write "Right Hand". You want to make it so the spinner ALWAYS says "Right Hand - Green". Then put a big green dot on your crotch (for women you could also put a couple dots over your boobs).

There you go. Go out and win yourself some free drinks.

Have a good weekend. Don't forget to set your clocks forward.

My Itunes Thinks It's Funny

2006-10-20T15:14:00.000-07:00

I listen to my Itunes at work and I keep it on shuffle. I like variety and the randomness of the shuffle feature. Today, Itunes thought it could prove to me that I have two songs on my Ipod of which I can't possibly like both.

I'm sitting there listening, working, not thinking much about it, humming (not singing) along to Jim Croce as he tells us he's "gotta get outta here" 'cause New York's not his home. And I can totally get into what he's talking about. Too many people, too much bustle, too many lessons to learn.....just too much city for country boys like us. Umm...I mean him. I grew up in San Francisco, so I hardly count as a country boy. But I totally get it.

Then as I'm about to get on with my day of work and New York-hating, the next song comes on and I hear the tinkly little piano intro from my friend Billy Joel, because you know...I'm in a New York state of mind. WAIT! No I'm not....just a second ago Jim and I were despising New York. But then...Billy and I have so much in common. And by so much I mean only that we've both been high in the Rockies under the evergreens (everything else not so much, except that maybe we've both had deep feelings for Christie Brinkley at some point in our lives).

So, now....I can't stop humming (not singing) along with Billy and realizing how much I like New York, despite the rough times the Jim and I went through there. Instantly, I'm thinking "HA HA HA Itunes! Veeeeerrrryyyy funny!" My Itunes is trying to prove me a hypocrite!

So you tell me....who's right (or more right) Jim or Billy? You can't say both.
If you don't have an opinion on that or if you have an opinion in addition to that, tell me what songs make the most compelling arguements for going to or staying away from a particular place. Does Tony Bennet make you want to visit his heart in SF? Did Frank Sinatra make you believe Chicago is your kinda town? Is it possible that Carole King actually made you want to go back to Caanan, if you've even been?

Yup, He's A Puppy! (4 mos)

2006-10-20T10:19:00.000-07:00

REBEL & COW

REBEL RIPPING COW A NEW ONE

REBEL & COW TUCKERED OUT

UPDATE: I think this post may be corrupted. More than one person had problems commenting on it. If you want to tell me what cute puppy I got, feel free to do it on any of my other posts.

A new family member!

2006-10-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

As of today, Soldier has a baby brother. He's a mix, but we're not sure what....maybe shepherd. He has a brindle coat and his new name is Rebel.

Sorry Lisa, I can't post pictures until tomorrow, maybe the next day. You'll just have to wait.

Jerry

Apparently a half sandwich is nothing more than it claims to be!

2006-10-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

I actually had the following conversation with the guy who runs the deli at my gym today (and he was serious):

Me (only wanting half a sandwich, but not seeing that option on the menu, and settling on buying a whole one): I'll take a turkey sandwich with jack cheese on sliced wheat, no onions or peppers.

Deli Guy: You want half or whole?

Me: I didn't realize half was an option. I'll take half.

Deli Guy (Doing his best Charades version of making a sandwich, then chopping in half with the side of his hand): You know you only get half. Is that ok?

Me: Uhhh? Yeah? (thinking "Wait, no... expain that to me again?")

WHO KNEW?

Your Questions Answered

2006-10-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

Because your google searches led you here, I don't want you to waste your click without having your questions answered...so here you go:

"what's in your wendy's chili - finger"
That was a scam. You don't need to worry about eating a finger. At least not a human finger. Maybe rat fingers, but they're tasty, especially with cheese and onions.

"careers to avoid after a kidney transplant"
1) Professional Kidney Donor
2) Ultimate Fighting Champion
3) Suggestions anyone? This might be good for me to hear, too.

"tj dancing, mexico, dance studio"
The closest Arthur Murray Studio I can find to Tijuana is:

San Diego
8303 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. #205
San Diego, CA 92111-1326
Phone: 858-499-0180
Fax: 858-499-0150

But if you are having problems crossing the border for your mambo lessons, you could try this one:

Brasilia
SHI/SUL CL
15 Bloco G, Acesso 74Salas 101-110
Brasilia, DG, Brazil 71,635-550
Phone: 55-61-248-6814

Sorry there isn't one closer!

"bass player wanted"
Sorry, dude, we found one. Know any good drummers?

"doctor said to take nystatin and spit out"
I think that question answers itself. Are you certain you know what a google search is for?

"boobs at papas and beer"
Yup, they got em.

And...you're all welcome!

What makes you sing?

2006-10-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

No really....and I'm not talking about the few of you that read this that fancy themselves "singers" (although I won't ban you from commenting). I'm also not talking about karaoke-ers, where some drunk friend in a bar writes your name down on piece of paper with the song "Baby Got Back" written underneath it, so that the KJ (Karaoke Jockey) calls out your name and a bunch of people try to push you up on stage to hear your masterful rapping styles.

I'm talking about when you pull up to a stop light, window rolled down, with your favorite song on the car radio blaring, the rest of us in traffic experiencing hearing loss while you sing along louder than the original. Or when you're in the shower and you forget that you have roommates and the water flow from your RotoMassageJet hits the exact spot on your ass that makes you feel the need to test the reverb of the bathroom walls with your loudest rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner". Or when you're your just sitting in your office and eyeing the Post It notes on your desk makes you decide to sing out "The Post will come out TOMORROW!" intentionally butchering the lyrics for no apparent reason.

I just wanna know what it is that MAKES you sing? I don't get it. Once in awhile I may be caught mumbling the melody of one my favorite tunes as it plays on the radio, but putting it out there for the world to hear me never happens. Did you just fall in love? Quit the job you hated for the last 10 years? Watch your child walk for the first time? Eat a really good piece of baklava? C'mon give it....what's up with you?

Is there something wrong with me? Seriously, I've been looking for a reason to sing but nothing does it. And I'm not saying there aren't great things in my life to sing over, I just don't do it. I use to?

Next time your catch yourself singing, ask yourself "why?" Then tell me the answer, please.

The Talentedest People I Know

2006-10-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

As a child, your natural talents earn you labels. Jimmy "The Soccer Kid", Emily "The Painter Girl", Killer "The Farter"....and so on. From age 8 or so I was always Jerry "The Musician". I was happy to have a talent to be associated with, but at age 15 when I met my friend Brendan, I instantly felt underserving. While I had a natural talent to pick up many instruments and play them with extreme mediocrity, I never had the ability or drive to put mastery to any of them. Brendan was the complete opposite as a musician. Anything he did musically, and many things he did otherwise, he always did with amazing command. He was a better musician at age 15 than most people that have been playing music for decades.

Brendan and I became great friends. Though music was our main connection, Brendan possesed many endearing qualities that were hard to find in people. Endless happiness, mild naivety, honesty and openess with no limits to everyone. Always putting forth an extra effort that limits the distance in friendships. He would call when you hadn't spoken for a while. He would make plans with you when you hadn't seen each other in awhile. He always showed more interest in events of your life than his. He was the only completely genuine person I knew.

We had played in various incarnations of rock bands together, but Brendan had musical interest beyong that. He wrote a musical in high school that he performed his senior year and asked me to play in pit band for it. I could not imagine a time, then, that we wouldn't be playing music together. When I was 19, we put an original band together and made a demo in a extravagant SF recording studio. We (probably more me) had great hopes of success with that project.

I and the other bandmates were let down hard when Brendan abandoned the project to go to college in Southern CA. I mean, sure, it was the right thing to do. It was a safe move. Ask anyone what's smarter, go to college or try to play in a rock band? C'mon, no brainer. It was more of let down, that Brendan wouldn't even give us an opportunity work on it while he was in college. Maybe we could move to LA and he could do it on the side while in school. Its been done before. He (seemingly through his mother's encouragement) said he couldn't.

While he was in school, Brendan revamped his high school musical and performed it his college. Again he asked me to play in it. He knew I was hurt when he went to school and its seemed he was making it up to me by including me in projects he was working on . We had also managed to co-write some more songs during the summers and make demos of those. Brendan did most of the writing, but for my minimal input, Brendan gave me 50% credit for the song writing. He had written some amazing songs at 15, but his work was getting better with age. As his schooling progressed, Brendan made it more and more clear he was not going to pursue a career as a rock musician.

He had developed his own major at his school for "Musical Theater Composition" and that's the direction he wanted to head. I began to realize I needed to work on options in my life that didn't include trying to be a rock musician with my best friend. At age 25 I opted to work for the family business selling electrical equipment, limiting my music playing to a hobby. At various times it has been a more serious hobby than at others.

When Brendan graduated, he opted for grad school at NYU. A natural move for someone who was going to try to compose musical theater. Definately the right place to be. Our contact during these couple years was limited. I think I talked to him once before he left for New York and then again after he graduated. The funny thing was....Brendan got his masters in Musical Theater Compositon from NYU and then decided that wasn't what he wanted to do. He wanted to play in a rock band. In a conversation I had with him after he graduated, he effectively said "Why don't you move to NY and play in a rock band with me?"

Don't think for one second I didn't consider it.....repeatedly....for years. But I couldn't. I couldn't leave the only home I'd ever known, give up my job, medical insurance (which I needed), dissappoint my family and friends to move across the country and play in a rock band. Is this decision sounding familiar to you? I was faced with a similar decision at this point that Brendan had to make at when he was 18. Only now I had more security to let go of and a kidney disease. Fuck yeah I wanted to move to NY and play music, but ask anyone what's smarter? Give up a secure future or try to become a rock star? No brainer, I thought. It was ths same no brainer decision my friend made when I wanted HIM to risk something (and he didn't). There are those out there that will tell you "fuck that, follow your passion". Try following your passion when you have failing kidneys and presume you will need a transplant in the not so distant future. I couldn't. I regret not trying...and probably that regret most defines who I am today.

It doesn't reduce my regret to any degree that the following happened:

Brendan met a simarly, uniquely uber-talented musician, Valerie. She plays rock violin and sings like not many others can. They formed a band, Groovelily. They scratched and clawed at the rock/folk music industry trying to make a go of it. Got married. Caught glimpses of success. Shared stages with some very famous people. Then managed to make something of themselves in a very original manner. They brought the rock band concept to the musical theater stage. Apparently Brendan's schooling came in handy.

They wrote a winter holdiday musical, "Striking Twelve", about a lonely man on New Years Eve, home alone, reading the fairy tale "The Little Matchstick Girl". It is a cross between a "musical" and a rock concert. The story is told by the rock band through dialogue and song while on stage, Brendan on Piano, Valerie with her Flying-V Violin, and their drummer Gene. The three tell the story together each playing characters and narrators, all of them playing instruments and all of them singing.

The show had runs in various cities over the past 4 or 5 years. They have had so much success with this format that they have concentrated on writing new musicals in the same format. Last year their co-writer of "Striking 12" won a Tony for "The Putnam County 25th Annual Spelling Bee". Also, "Striking 12's" director won a Tony for "A Light In The Piazza". How cool is that? One of my good friends is working with not one, but two Tony Award winners.

This year "Striking 12" will be off Broadway in NYC for the first time. Every stage writer/composer's dream. I couldn't be happier for my friends. I have seen the show and can tell you its great! If you are in the NYC area this winter, please go see it. Not just to support my friends, but because it is a terrific way to spend a few hours.

What's with the friendship now? Well....I don't know. Last couple years, Brendan and I mutually made an effort to be more active friends. "Striking 12" was in Palo Alto a couple years ago and I went to see it. After one of the performance I went to drinks with Brendan. It was the first time he told me that he lost respect for me when I opted not to move to NY and play music (or make some other risk to do it without him) and that my consistenly choosing security over the years was a big let down for him (and the first of the deep wedges driven into our friendship). It was also the first time he heard that my kidneys were failing (so I mostly forgave it). It was hard for me let go of the fact that he'd chosen security when I was ready to take a chance and that it was at least mildly hypocritical for him to look down on me for making my choices, a point I made to him that night.

Then a couple summers ago I went to NYC and visited Brendan while I was there. I got to see his apartment and music studio. We also had drinks one night. It was...luke warm? On both our parts, I'm guessing.

Then next time I saw Brendan, was while he was touring on the West Coast. I went to see one of their shows in Marin. I had dinner with them. I also fucked up after the show and said something too personal to the wrong people and made everyone in the bad mad at me. I was embarrassed that I forgot for one moment that best thing and worst thing about me is that I usually don't say much. I think I lost my Unlimited Groovelily Backstage pass that night and drove in another wedge.

Brendan made a couple of attempts to contact me when their son was born. It was around the same time I was going through kidney failure and transplant. Due to that major event in my life and my inability to get over the fact that I fucked up, I have not responded in kind. I think I have sent him one email since.

I figured out that I love Brendan, who he was then and who he his now. And I miss Brendan, but mostly only the Brendan of 20 years ago. Many of the qualities about old Brendan (among them - endlessly happy, mildly naive, honest and open with no limits to everyone) seemed to have gone. My take on it is NYC will do that to someone. I'm sorry to those of you love the big city, I just think it has a way of adding layers of bitterness to people that didn't have it before they lived there. Native New Yorkers may be immune.

So....friendship? Probably not so much anymore. Love, respect, admiration without bounds for a person who deserves more of it then I can offer? Hell yeah. Go see the show, it's worth it.

I'm sure when Brendan finds this link on his site meter he will take it in all kinds of the wrong way.

Sorry man, the thing about you that rubbed off on me the most is "honest and open with no limits to everyone" including the wrong people at your show and including the internet.

That's one good fucking mop!

2006-10-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

My former roommate, Anthony moved out about a year ago. I see him frequently at work because my company shares a building with his. Since he moved out, I may have spoken a total of 10 words to him, 6 of them being "What's up?" (three times). We have almost nothing in common outside of sharing a house for a year.

A couple of weeks ago, Anthony approached me with a very serious look on his face and asked me "Hey Jerry, you know that red bucket and mop I left in the garage? I was wondering if you could bring that into work so I could get it back?" Always the busy body at work, I didn't have time to give it much thought and told him it wasn't a problem. It was his mop. If he wanted it, he could have it. I told him I would bring it in the next day and quickly let that thought out of my head to get back to the project I was working on.

Either from the three years of massive pot smoking as a teen or from early senility, my short term memory isn't what it used to be. Said mop never made it to work with me and a few days later I was approached by Anthony again. "You got that mop?" I apologized for my poor memory and, not willing to commit to "tomorrow", told him I would bring it in soon.

A few more days past and I hadn't seen Anthony, but his mop was always in the back of my mind. Though it never quite seemed to make it to the front of my mind at the right time, which was just before I left for work everyday. I began avoiding Anthony's office, taking detours through the building and finding myself waiting until I knew he was gone before using copy machine. I managed to put the mop so far in the back of my mind, I think the thought actually had escaped out the back of my head. After several days had passed, I ran into Anthony in the parking lot. He put his hands together in front of him, grabbed an invisible mop handle, and did his impression of Marcel Marceau cleaning the black top parking lot with his invisible mop. As he was doing this, he looked at me and made a look that can only be explained as "Question Mark Face". I silently shook my head back at him, doing my mime version of "No I didn't bring your fucking mop." Some of my best work. He gave a frustrated chuckle and we both got in our cars and left.

Anthony then took to borderline harassment tactics as a way to get his $10 mop back. He left me a phone message about the mop (I took advantage of my caller-ID and didn't answer). Then he borrowed a phone from a mutual friend so that when I saw "Doug" appear on my caller-ID, I would pick up and Anthony could again bug me about the mop. Here's where I begin to take a new stance on the issue. Look Dick-wad, I have more important things to worry about every morning than your stupid mop. I just had a kidney transplant, I'm lucky to be alive (slight exaggeration). Mother-Fucker left his mop at my house and he knows where the house is and why is he giving me shit for not bringing him his mop when he could get the piece of shit himself. I turned bitter. I actually thought about bringing the mop one morning before work and decided I didn't want to. Bitch-face could get it himself or wait until I was damn good and ready.

It has now turned into a game for me. He approached me about it yesterday. I reached in my pocket offered him a ten dollar bill and said "Why don't you just buy another mop? I'll pay." I mean...I could give a shit about his mop. I don't even mop my kitchen floor myself. I have a maid, cause I'm lazy like that. I think I may have pulled the mop out one weekend when I was between maids and the kitchen floor was filthy, but I really have no desire to even own a mop, let alone use it. Except now I am really beginning like this one.

He explained that his mop was special and he couldn't find another like it. It has this cool twist lock thingy on it so you can really wring it out. I agreed that was a cool feature (although I never really figured out how to use it). I let him know it was a damn good mop, but as monumental as this floor cleaning device was, I always have other things on my mind in the morning and have a hard time remembering to bring it to work (today I actually had to move the mop away from my car door so I could get in).

At work this morning, my first visitor of the day was Anthony. "You look tired," he said,"You got that mop?"

"Ya know?," I replied, "You know where the mop is and you go near my house every day. Any reason you can't just pick up the mop on your own time instead of harrassing me about it on a daily basis? Paul is always at the house. One of us is there 24 hours a day."

"Yeah, I never thought of that."

He was smart enough to figure out how to disguise himself on my caller-ID, but didn't realize he could just stop by and get the mop anytime he wanted. Brilliant. I'm guessing the mop will be gone when I get home. Goodbye sweet mop.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Eight)

2006-10-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

(Its part eight because we're back in the USA now, not because I don't know that the word for eight in Spanish is ocho.)

The TV news on Monday morning indicated that planes had begun flying. There were many flights cancelled, though. There was such a long delay in flying, the airlines didn't have all the right planes in the right places to correctly accomodate all their scheduled flights. It would take them a few days to shuffle all the planes back to where they belong. When I called our airline, they let me know my plane would be going out.

Jim and I cabbed over to the airport and did all the usual things people do when they arrive at an airport to board a flight. Check bags, get boarding passes, get coffee while making your way to the gate, check in at gate. It was all very routine. I had spent so much time out of the country, participating in celebrations, and working out my plans that I never really thought much about how wierd it would feel to sit on a plane the first day they flew after 9/11. The very second I took my seat I cried. I cried hard and I wasn't the only one.

I was done making plans. The next part of my trip was already in order. Once the flight took off, there were no more question marks. I hadn't realized how much time and emotion the planning, helping, schedule correcting, etc. had occupied. Worrying about my plans and the plans of others had blocked me from giving too much thought to what was going on in the world and now I had a 3 hour flight to really let my brain air it out. I didn't read, watch a movie, eat, sleep, or listen to music. I just sat there and let my body and mind work out a week's worth of suppressed emotion. And it was impossible not to feel some connection to the passengers on the planes that died. As little as I will ever truly undestand about their pain, just the view of the seat-back and thinking how it was the last thing they saw was enought to make you think you somehow understand.

Sometimes, when I'm reading or listening to other peoples' accounts of their 9/11 experiences, I feel like they're telling me to say "look how connected I was to that day". That's exactly how I felt right at that moment on the plane, but now I think of the hours I sat their crying, connecting myself peronally to the events and I shamefully look back and wonder why I felt like I had any right to make such a connection. I don't feel it now. I couldn't be any more of an outsider to the events of that day. I don't know anyone who died and it feels selfish to think of my own pain on these days. I am hoping that by the morning of 9/11/2011, I can awake without this memory being my first thought of the day.

This is the last part of my story*.

*It will cost anyone who wants to hear about the 70 lb. tuna and the dangerous stripper incident a couple beers to hear the tales of Cabo San Lucas. And believe it or not, those are not the same story.

See why most people hate me?

2006-10-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

Today my cell phone rings:

:::ring ring:::

Me: Hello?

Audrey: Is this //othurme's very official name//?

M: Yup

A: This is Audrey with Wells Fargo Bank.

M: Hi, Audrey.

A: I need to verify a charge on your account.

M: Okay.

A: First I'll need to verify your identity by having you give me your social security number.

M: Well, why don't YOU give it to ME? I mean...you called me. How do I know you're really with Wells Fargo Bank? I'm not in the habit of reciting my social security number to strangers that call me on the phone.

A: Sir, I can't go any farther with this phone call until I verify your identity.

M: And I can't go any farther until you prove to me you work for wells fargo bank. Can you fax me your 1099 and a picture ID with your name on it?

A: :::silence:::

M: See? Similary I don't want to give you any of my personal information. This could be an indentity theft in progress.

A: How about the debit card account number associated with this account.

M: First of all I don't know what account you're talking about. I have multiple accounts with Wells Fargo. Secondly, if you think I'm giving out my debit card number instead of my social security number, your thought process is moving in the wrong direction, unless you don't really work for Wells Fargo. Why don't you give me a phone number I can call you back at and I'll verify you work for the bank by having you give me the combination for the big vault and the hours that the security guard takes a break?

A: :::silence:::

M: No? Do you want to give your mother's maiden name?

A: :::silence:::

M: Do you even understand how ridiculous it is that you work in a high security industry and you call people on the phone and make them tell you their social security number?

A: Could you give me your birthday?

M: Not unless you are planning on getting me a present.

A: If I give you the account number and you just tell me the mailing address on that account, will that work for you? I don't think anyone can steal your identy with just your mailing address. If they stole on one of your statements, both of those would be on it.

M: Sounds good.

A: ///perferct recitation of othurme's checking account number///

M: ///perfect recitation of othurme's mailing address///

A: THANK YOU! Did you write a check to Joe Schmoe in the amount of $X? The signature on the check doesn't look like your normal signature.

M: Yes I did. Now, is there anything else I can help you with today? Can I interest you in a low interest car loan?

A: No thank you. Goodbye. :::hang up::: (The word "Asshole" echoed in the sound of her phone disconnecting)

For those of you that display your personal photos on FlickR for everyone in the world to see....be warned....

2006-10-04T16:05:00.000-07:00

There are bored, immature people like me in the world that will take your photos, put their own little personal graffiti on them, then display their work proudly on their blog.

Its what I did with my text books in high school. Its what I do now.

Just so you know.

And any of you who may know me from high school? Its what I did with your pictures in my yearbooks.

I knew I could reuse this picture someday*:

2006-10-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

Today I received an email from a friend with the following subject heading:

Subject:
Clicks Down From Last Year! Help Fund Free Mammograms Today

My first thought was "Fund them? Who needs funding? I'll give them for free!"

*And also because I'm too lazy to write anything serious today.

Old Loves (In More Ways Than One)

2006-10-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

When I was a sophomore in high school, I couldn't have been cooler. Always walking around school in my ripped jeans and Salvation Army flannel shirts. The shaved head and skateboard rounded out the look. I practically had my choice of any girl I wanted. Well...any freshman girl. Well....any freshman girl that liked skaters (much less a fad then it is today). Well.....let's face it....there weren't too many willing to swim in my dating pool.

Though, there was a girl named Jen that was willing and I actually had to talk her into breaking up with her boyfriend to go out with me. Probably my biggest dating victory ever. Sophomore high school male that I was, we dated for about three and half weeks before I felt like I was being smothered. I didn't realize at the time it's not so bad to have someone love you too much.

My memories of that relationship have been frequent lately because I ran into Jen's best friend (best friend in HS, not anymore), Angela. She was always super nice to me and I think she had a crush on me while I was dating Jen. She always showed a little too much interest in our relationship.

I have spent the last couple Mondays hanging out at the bar where Angela works. You see, the tides have turned. The crush is now crushing the opposite direction. I will probably never do anything real about this attraction (I'm a little too passive in my love life, probably just life in general), but I want to put it out there because while this longing exists it will be hard for me to show affection for another.

Especially Dill*.

I'm sorry Dill, it won't work. I have too much invested in Angela to let go of it just yet. I didn't mean to mislead you . It was fantastic when you got down on your knees and serenaded me with "You've Lost That Loving Feeling". I know that hanging out in a karaoke bar just off Polk St. in San Francisco may have given you the wrong impression, but I'm just not up for a moustache ride (even as magnificent as yours was). Another time, another place, things could have been different. Wait.....no.....no they couldn't have.

*Tales of Dill and I, with pictures, will surely begin to pop up all over the internet. Especially in the blogs linked on the left here. For those of you not in attendance tonight, I think I will leave a little mystery surrounding the episode where I left my comfort zone of Angela's bar and opted for Monday Night Blogger Karaoke Madness. I'm sure though She Walks and Jester will fill in all the blanks for you in upcoming posts on their sites. Jester will for sure?

UPDATE: Because my transition from Angela to Dill may have been a little too cryptic. The story of Dill is: Monday night some of my band friends and blog friends and their friends and I went to Karaoke at The Encore in San Francisco. A drunken night of singing madness it was. A highlight from that night was when a strange, old gay man with a huge moustache serenaded me on his knees with "You've Lost That Loving Feeling". Torture for me, hilarity for everyone else. See She Walks for the entire story of the night.

Because I'm Too Lazy To Write Today.....

2006-10-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Anyone else seen this? I like the story and love the performances of both lead roles. Though, I don't think the director did enough to achieve the effect he was looking for out of his ending.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Siete)

2006-09-28T16:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday morning, I awake after a night of pretending to be the best man at the reception. If you can imagine me in a tux, a bottle of champagne in one hand, spinnin' the maid of honor in circles with the other, on the dance floor shakin' my ass to Doin' The Butt as played by a Mexican cover band, then you obviously don't know me at all. This image with me in it should be a complete conundrum for you. I hate dancing (I know typical straight male thing to say) and I didn't really do much more than sit at the head table talking to people and drinking.

News on TV that morning said planes were still grounded all over the US and no one was sure when they would fly. Calling the airline only lead to a long wait on the phone to hear "Officially your flight is still scheduled, but we won't know if the FAA will lift the flight restrictions before your flight. You should come to the airport and check in as usual."

Jim (off another night of being the human ant hill) and I, completely fed up with The Oasis, ate breakfast and got ready to go. Steve was going to take all the tuxes and drive my rental car back to San Diego, then pick up my truck at San Diego Airport's long term parking and drive it home to SF. I was going to ride with Jim in his car, forego the second leg of my return flight from Cabo and drive home with Jim from San Diego, week in Cabo or not. The plan was set. Tentative, but set...if that's possible.

As Jim and I were loading the car, we realized that we weren't the only people in a big hurry to get out of Mexico. It seemed everyone we had spent the night partying with was loading their cars and peeling out of The Oasis driveway as fast as possible. The combination of wanting to get back to the safety of their homes and hating the resort was enough to make everyone leave each other with little more than a wave goodbye from a rapidly accelerating car. No time for "weren't the flowers beautiful" or "how are you getting home", just the sound of doors slamming and the smell of burned rubber in the parking lot.

We had been warned by experienced Mexico goers that crossing the border on a busy weekend can usually take a couple hours, but since so few people had come to Mexico this weekend it shouldn't be bad at all. As we were headed back to the border crossing, I had remarked to Jim that I was surprised how little traffic there was and it looked like crossing the border may not take that long. By the time we had reached Tijuana I thought, "Man! Traffic is clearer than I thought it would be. Considering how close we are to the border right now, I can't imagine this taking more than 10 or 15 minutes."

As we approached the last 1/8th of a mile, brake lights came on. No big worry though. We could see the gates from where we were and there were 25 or 30 lanes with gates (much like a toll booth). Sweet U. S. of A. was in sight. Jim and I looked at each other and conversed about how quickly this should go.

As you sit there in grid lock, the native Tijuanans walk up and down with various business opportunities for you. Such as, for no money in advance they will simply spray liquid on your windshield from a bottle with something murkier than water in it, proceed to smear said liquid all over your windshield, and then negotiate a price for the washed (washed, but not clean, in fact dirtier than before) windshield based on your satisfaction, allowing you to renegotiate while you turn on your windshield wipers and hit it with wiper fluid so you can actually see out of it. None had managed a dollar out of Jim, not even the guy with no arms who managed to flop himself up on our hood and wipe our windshield with both nubs as he sprawled himself across it. I was impressed, but not a dollar's worth.

Other solicitations involve the sale of gum (a big one for the little tykes to approach you with), blankets, sombreros, toy guitars, puppets, bobble head Jesuses, Margarita glasses, maracas, and various works of ancient Tijuanan art. With all the things there to focus on (or be afraid of), you almost forget that you haven't moved ONE foot in the last 20 minutes. Then you start to do the math and calculate, that at the rate we're going, the last 650 feet of your journey is going to take us 6 hours. And a long 6 hours it will be. Six hours of little kids trying to look as pathetic as possible to get a dollar out of you for anything they might be selling. As you nap in your seat you are constantly awakened by some 6 year old rapping on your window to offer you yet another box of Chiclets.

When we finally got to the US customs officer manning the gate he asked where we were going and where we were from and then said "OK, go ahead." That's it? Don't you want to see an ID? I almost volunteered Jim for a cavity search as a joke, but thought better of it. It was beyond me how it only took us 10 seconds to pass through customs gate, but we managed to only go the distance of a football field in the last 2 hours.

I made us a reservation at a hotel near the airport. One with clean showers and no ants in the bed. Don't doubt for one second I didn't actually ask for these room amenities specifically.

We left The Oasis at 10:30. Later that day we arrived at our hotel in San Diego, only about 25 miles away, 7.5 hours later. Jim and I checked in, went to dinner, had a couple beers in the bar, then sat out on our patio smoking cigarettes for a couple hours, mostly saying nothing to each other, both just happy to be back on home soil. It was a feeling so warm and secure that we might have just decided to skip our trip to Cabo and stay in San Diego for the week, if not for the fact that we had to meet people at our next destination, if in fact we were going to get to fly there at all.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Seis)

2006-09-26T21:47:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning I woke up and checked the news on TV first thing. It had been four days since 9/11 and planes still weren't flying. Everyone that attended the wedding had given up their flights and driven the long distance to Rosarito, but Jim and I still had a flight to take. Monday morning we had to fly to Cabo San Lucas. If I couldn't get there this whole trip would be a big waste of time, time that I could have spent at home with people I care about. Although, the truth was I was scared to fly. I had spent the last several days wondering it was like for the passengers on those planes. I may not be ready to get on one myself.

I met Jim and Steve for breakfast. Jim mentioned that he woke up with a trail of ants in his bed and on his face. I don't think Jim would be writing letters of recommendation on the Oasis website. He complained to the front desk and they said they would take care of it. We couldn't figure out how, though. Jim had visions of sleeping Saturday night with his head buried in a pillow-ful of Raid. Both of us were unhappy with The Oasis and were reconsidering our plans to stay until Monday.

The wedding was that night and most of the guests were driving home Sunday morning. The only reason we decided to stay until Monday is we wouldn't be flying to Cabo until Monday and we had a much different vision of how this weekend was going to end up. Going into this weekend we mistakenly assumed we would actually enjoy another day at the (un)glorious Rosarito resort. We made the decision to drive back Sunday morning and get a hotel room in San Diego somewhere. Somewhere with clean showers and ant-less beds.

The decision to have the ceremony and reception all the place we were staying was convenient, but as the wedding was to take place at sunset, it made for an awkward day of just drinking beers by the pool and waiting anxiously for the sun to go down, so we could get this over. I hate weddings as it is and to wait around all day for it to happen was annoying. At least my ushering duties will be over after the ceremony. No one would miss me if I disappeared early from the reception. I could eat dinner and then slip out to my room to get out of the tux as fast as possible and enjoy a quiet night of American TV with Spanish subtitles.

I sat by the pool most of the afternoon, mostly by myself, while others were getting ready. I waited until the last minute to go to my room and dress then made my way back to the pool area where guests had begun to congregate for the wedding to be held in a gazebo along the beach next to the pool. I sat escorted women to their seats as instructed and let the men find their own way. I had done a perfect job. No one was without a seat thanks to me.

The ceremony went off as planned as the sun set over the seven up cans and dirty diapers that made the Rosarito beach so beautiful. When it was over, I walked off to the reception to find my seat and wait for dinner. As I was walking along the path to the reception hall, I was stopped by Steve who told me I had to come back for pictures. What? They want me in their pictures? I went back and suffered the hour of "OK, you in a little. You tilt your head that way. You stand in the front row. OK....BEAUTIFUL! SMILE!"

After the pictures Elena told me there was a seating change. I would no longer be sitting with my friends at a table far off in the corner our of the spotlight. Grant, co-best man, wouldn't be sitting at the head table, and I would take his place next to the maid of honor instead. The subtext being that Grand had to sit with is wife (who was not in the wedding party) and sitting next to the maid of honor would make Grant's wife jealous. She was super hot after all, which made this conversation a good-news/bad-news sort of thing.

Good news - I would be sitting next to a super hot female while eating my dinner. One who I actually liked and had pretty good conversations with over the past couple days.
Bad news - she doesn't drink.
Bad news - I don't have any ruffies nor the time for a trip to downtown Rosarito, so getting in her pants would be unlikely.
Bad news - leaving early and unnoticed would be much harder.
Bad news - Everyone at the wedding thought I was the best man and someone unsuccessfully suggested that I make a speech.

Did I mention how much I hate weddings? Hell has many levels. Several levels of my hell include weddings.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Cinco)

2006-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I got up as early as possible to eat breakfast. I was already kind of annoyed with the many of the people that were there and I figured the way they had been drinking my best shot at avoiding them in the morning was to make sure I ate before their urges for bloody maries kicked in. Breakfast was decent. I had egg covered in some tomatillo based sauce. When I finished I headed to the pool and read my book until I saw signs of Randy's friends wandering around looking for some hair of the dog. That's when I, in true introverted form, headed for my room to take a nap.

When I got up later that morning, I had messages from my friend Jim letting me know he was on his way down. He was someone that I would not need to avoid and whose company I would prefer. The night before, Jim volunteered to pick up the maid of honor and bring her down with him. It wasn't exactly a straight line for him. He had to go a couple hours out of his way, but he was a hero for it. Jim arrived at The Oasis about 7pm and we went downtown to get some food on our own after the rehearsal. We would catch up with the weddingmen later in the evening as they were having a party in the Presidential Suite. The weddingwomen were not allowed and before I left for dinner, Elena pulled me aside and said "I have something important I need you to do. I need you to make sure Randy and the other guys don't get too drunk. I trust you the most out of those guys and it's important that you make that happen. "

I hoping this point has been made clear in the story, but I'm a total outsider in this wedding. The fact that I was wearing a tux and showing people wear to sit was more shocking to me that anyone. Really, anyone at that wedding would think "Oh, you must be one of Randy's good friends." Had anyone actually asked that I would have been tempted to answer, "No, you probably know him better than me."

Another interesting fact about this situation is that Randy and every guy in the wedding party except for Steve and me went to California State University Chico. I haven't seen any recent polls lately, but when I was in high school and college. Chico was the #1 party school in the country and anyone who went to Chico was more proud of their best beer bonging time then their degree (if they graduated without having their parents force them to transfer because 5 trips to the hospital for alcohol poisoning is just too much in one year). Now, I know everyone that goes to college has been to some wild parties, but Chico is just one big wild party. Not too much schooling actually goes on there. In fact the school has no real specialty. Usually you can name any school and someone will say "Oh they have a great broadcasting department," or something like that. Not broadcasting, not sports, not biology, not anything. Tell someone you went to Chico and what you hear is "Wow, you must be able to PARTY!" (and you wouldn't be wrong for thinking that either, because most of the girls I know that went to Chico can drink most of the guys I know that didn't under the table).

Now skip back a couple paragraphs. Remember when Elena said "Don't let them get too drunk?" I think maybe Elena overestimated some things about me. Maybe my strength. Maybe my intelligence. Maybe my willingness. She asked me, an outsider, to keep Randy and 7 Chico buddies from getting too drunk. I could not contain my laughter. Had I been drinking anything myself, Elena would have surely been covered in my beverage having only taken the short trip from my glass to her face via my nose. "I'm serious, Jerry. YOU HAVE TO! I can't ask anyone else." Truth was she couldn't ask anyone and I explained that to her and went to dinner.

I came back to the hotel after dinner, checked in on the Presidential Suite, was surprised not to see any hookers (although that doesn't mean they weren't there), drank a couple beers and went to bed. From my understanding, later that night, Elena and the girls violated the "No Women Allowed" policy set by the men and managed to get themselves a little too squiffy in the Presidential Suite. The next morning Randy looked energetic and ready to go. Elena, well let's just say she did not attemd CSU Chico, and probably should not have attempted to party with a bunch of people who did the night before her wedding.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Quatro)

2006-09-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

A bucket of beers at the pool later, I finally got my room. It was nicer than I thought based on everything I had seen so far. Everything looked clean, it was larger than I imagined, there was bar in it, a view of the beach, the TV worked and had American programming.....BUT....the bathroom, not as clean.....um....ok....I'll just wear flip flops when I shower.

A six pack of beer would usually be enough to give me a good buzz, but not in Mexico. It seems that they don't really understand what the % symbol means in that country, because while it shows a typical number of alcohol % by volume on each Corona bottles there, you can typically drink about 1000 more than in the USA without puking. With almost no sign of a good buzz, I laid down on the bed to watch the latest episode of "Amigos!". The one where Rachel monkey-sits Marcel and loses him and Ross can only respond with "Aye Carumba! No puedo creer que usted perdió a mi mono!" It all ALMOST works out when they find Marcel in Mr. Heckles apartment, convince animal control not to take him away, and Rachel and Ross happily continue back on their path towards love until Barry bursts into the apartment and announces "Rachel, todavía le amo!" spoiling their hopes of being together, for now. I drift off.

Randy calls me to let me know that cabs are picking us up for dinner in town and after we would walk over to Papas and Beer which should be "off the hook". I shower (careful not to touch the tile walls), get dressed and head downstairs. By now, members of the families were arriving. I was introduced to, and then immediately forgot the names of, several of Elena's and Randy's relatives. Steve and I split another bucket of beer at the pool until it was time leave for downtown Rosarito. Introvert that I am, I managed to keep the handshakes to a minimum. I was really looking forward to getting this part of my trip over with. I wanted to get on to the next leg of my vacation where I would be hanging out with friends I really care about in a part of Mexico I would rather be in, fishing and drinking and eating cheap lobster. But for now, its off to downtown Rosarito.

Dinner was unexciting. Surprisingly enough we ate Mexican food and believe me you can get Mexican food just as authentic all over California, so it wasn't any new experience for anyone at the table. It was a co-ed celebration with both sides of the bridal party in attendance, at least the ones that had made it to Mexico so far. Randy and Elena were on and off their cell phones the entire time helping to resolve transportation issues for people who were trying to get to the wedding. The biggest issue so far was that the maid of honor had no way to get there. Apparently the day before she and her boyfriend were supposed to drive down, he broke up with her, leaving her with no ride to Mexico. Nice timing, dude.

After dinner we walked over to Papas and Beer. I was actually excited to see it. It was the first thing I was excited about since 9/11. I had been to Papas and Beer in Ensenada, but its nothing like the one in Rosarito, the original. Ensenada's is not built on the beach and is much smaller, but is a fun place for people to hang out for 4 hours while in port off their Princess Cruise Line 4-day boat trip from LA. While having a blast in Ensenada it was not uncommon to hear from other partiers, "You think this place is fun? You should go to the one in Rosarito! WOOO!" So, this was the part of Rosarito I was most looking forward to.

I had no idea how big this place really was. You walk through the doors and there is bar to your left, a bar to your right, a bunch of tables, stools, fire pits, and then about football field's worth of beach dance floor. It is completely walled in, its not really open beach to the water, but there is no roof over most of it, so it has a very open, outdoorsy feel to it. Along each wall are multi-level stages to dance on and overhead there are multiple catwalks going in different directions to dance on and observe from. Just when you think "OH MY GOD THIS PLACE IS FUCKING HUGE", you realize you've only seen the front half of it. On the back side of the South bar, there is another whole football field's worth of beach, stages, fire pits. Papas and Beer in Rosarito, on a regular weekend, has about 5000 screaming college kids from San Diego partying their asses off. Its the spring break location for kids in San Diego that couldn't afford to travel to Ft. Lauderdale. However, this was not a regular weekend. This was a weekend in which people were afraid to leave the US. A simple drive across the border was both terrifying and inappropriate the weekend after the tragedy.

There were about 10 of us in our party. Including us there were about 30 people in Papas and Beer. Being thirty people in a 50,000 square foot dance club feels like being 30 ants in a gymnasium. A gymnasium with really loud music. I found, you can really only be entertained by your friends (loose term still) and a couple buckets of beer for a short mount of time, when you're hoping that at any moment the Girls Gone Wild bus will show up followed by 400 girls in bikinis. You're thinking, "Man if that would just happen, the guy to girl ration would be INSANE!" Sadly, that didn't happen. All we could really do is walk around and be impressed by the size of this place, look at the empty stages and catwalks, and dream of what it must be like when this place is full. Then hope that the four female Physical Ed majors (cheerleaders), that made the mistake of thinking they wouldn't be the only ones at their schools driving down for a long weekend of sin, will get back up on the bar and dance like strippers, just like they did when Girls by Beastie Boys was playing. Sadly, they never did and we left.

The men and the women in our party decided to split ways. After the women got in cabs, the men came to quick consensus to head across the street to the strip club. I don't know if you've ever been in an customer-poor strip club, but you can lose a lot of money when 25 strippers are trying to empty the wallets of only 7 lonely men. I had previously experienced this phenomenon in Vegas once, and decided to skip the strip club and head back to the hotel, dejected about my Papas and Beer experience and the night in general. Hopefully there would be an episode of Amigos on where I got to hear Ross exclaim "Estábamos en un resto!"

Abraham Christopher, I Pray For You (And I'm Not Even Religious)

2006-09-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

I will finish the Mexico story soon, but the subject of today's post has weighed so heavy on my brain that sleeping was not possible last night. Also, since this seems to be National Every-Other-Person-That-Jerry-Knows-Is-Crazy Week, I feel I should do my duty to post a story of yet another highly abnormal person I'm connected to. My lack of understanding and patience for this person along with his ability to suck every amount of energy out of me (presumably with his lensless pair of glasses that he sucks peoples' souls with) will prove that I was not cut out to be a psychiatrist (so I may have saved myself a bunch of unnecessary schooling).

While I'm sure this makes for a boring read, who cares this blog thing is more for me than you and I need a place to vent, but I will try to make the long story as short as possible. Yesterday, my band's drummer, Don finally decided it was too tough for him to commute 3.5 hours for band practice each week. By "finally", I mean that he's only been with us for a couple months, but he should have decided this long ago, like before he joined our band. At the time he auditioned, he was supposed to be "in the process of" moving to the Bay Area from Mount Shasta. Literally, all of his shit was in his car when he tried out for our band. We would not have hired him if we thought he would be driving that long each time he came to practice. Though he's not really the topic of this post, I could probably give a couple thousand words on him, too.

Don's timing is not very good though. The band has scheduled two rehearsals this week (Tues & Fri) because two of our singers have been on vacation the past two weeks and we have an important gig on Saturday. Don, only telling us on Tuesday morning that he won't make Tuesday night rehearsal, was the one who most needed the rehearsals and left us in a tough position. He did agree to rehearse on Friday and play the gig on Saturday, but could we trust him to make it work? Will he be ready? Or do we try to find someone better that can step in and play the gig with two rehearsals? Who could we find on such short notice anyway? Eric, maybe?

Eric was the drummer (and once a fantastic one) that actually put the initial members of the band together. Right around our 7th or 8th rehearsal, on the day of practice Eric, while on a short trip to LA, decided he wanted to stay in LA permanently and that he couldn't make rehearsal, and he was quitting the band (anyone yet realizing that drummers are the worst kind of flakes?). He did this on the same day that Lisa (singer extraordinaire) tried out for our band. She showed up at her audition and got to hear how our drummer just called from LA and said he's never coming back. Only she could tell you why she doesn't think we were all a big bunch of flakes and why she joined our band regardless of the drummer situation (this is her first band, so I think we've got her fooled).

Eric was 5 years sober at the time after a tough battle with drugs as a teen and young adult. A battle that I had witnessed most of first hand as Eric and I had been friends since age 4. Somewhere in our early 20's, after witnessing the after effects of an LSD experience gone horribly wrong(of which Eric had either had too much, or bad stuff) and the schizophrenic episodes it had induced*, I had to distance myself from him**. After that episode, Eric began to ramble on about anything, was not able to maintain one conversation, throwing out random topics from one sentence to the next, and he was convinced that he had married Stevie Nicks. He had gone some place far inside his brain. His parents sent him away to his grandparents for some space and help. He turned to NA.

I reunited with Eric at age 33, right before the band was formed and Eric had been sober for a long time but was fighting with his sobriety, convincing himself he could have a beer here and there, be a normal person, and not be the addict that (x)A (12-step program x inserted here) tries to convince that you are***. Eric, at that time had managed to get rid of (or seemingly suppress from my current view) most of the psychotic ramblings from his past. He was still a little off (not the Eric before the drugs, but not psychotic either), someone who just met him would simply think him an mildly (maybe a little more than mildly) odd bird. He could hold conversations and keep his mind in the now. Sobriety had helped him greatly. On the trip to LA he would throw it all away. Eric gave up on the idea of the "occasional beer" and went back to his comfort zone. Pot, acid, shrooms, I can only guess what else. He may also have been doing coke, speed and the like, but where Eric is concerned I feel the hallucinogens have done him the most damage. Any mental illness that Eric may have had inside of him, was surely released by these drugs and I imagine they help to enhance and sustain whatever illness he has.

Our knowledge of Eric as of yesterday, when we were in bad need of a good drummer, was that he came back from LA, met a girl, and possibly got married. Those of us who knew Eric in the band had been tentative about calling him, unsure of his current mental stability and not really wanting to deal with it. Eric had managed to remain a great drummer throughout his worst of times and it seems that he always made sure it was the one thing he could do right, be professional about, maintain focus for hours at a time (even at his craziest), and be proud he owned that talent. Our thought yesterday was that if Eric had maintained that professionalism about drumming and was, at most, only mildly unstable, it may work out that he could be our drummer again. After all, he had been home for awhile now, near his family, the support that got him sober in the first place. Maybe they had done it again. Also, how unstable could he be if someone would actually marry him?

The answer is completely bonkers. Crazy to the gazillionth power. Eric is worse than ever, although he managed to hide it pretty well in the initial phone calls from both Paul and me yesterday. During these calls Eric explained that he was excited to hear from us and looking forward to playing with us again. He even convinced me to carpool with him to practice. When he picked me up, I knew almost instantly we had made a grand mistake. A mistake to the gazillionth power, if you will. The hour long car ride was interesting and painful at the same time. Eric was everything he was at his worst and more. Constant chatter, lots of talk about killing things/people, his love of Foghat, his hatred of dogs, his newborn son Abraham Christopher's massive cock****, 80's music, his brother, purple goldfish, his supermodel-esque wife, bongo drums, insects, coca cola, and his previous marriage to Stevie Nicks. All mixed up, like a big Conversation Gumbo. He stopped a few times to roll down his window and begin similar rants with people stuck in traffic next to us.

Though he is not exactly how I imagine schizophrenics. He's not disconnected or distant, rambling in his own little world, the way they are portrayed in movies and on TV. Eric is right there in the world with you and demanding you pay attention to him. Waiting for responses to ridiculous comments and if you ask him a normal question he will usually give a real answer to it. At times you feel like its an act and that he's doing it for attention. That's really how it feels, but when the act lasts forever, you soon realize there is no act. It doesn't stop and its unbearable after about 30 seconds or after the first comment about raping a pit bull, whichever comes first (and its usually a close race). The fact that he demands your attention is draining. I sat quietly most of the way to practice, just listening. I had actually not moved a muscle and I was physically exhausted by the time we got there. My blood pressure was about 235/150 and my brain was on fire.

I got out of the car and got as far away from Eric as possible. We proceeded to have practice and everyone determined within minutes of playing (probably beforehand even) that Eric was not going to work out as our drummer. His "Hello, nice to meet you, I hate peanuts, are you a slave to your TV?" introductions (or something similar, if not verbatim) probably lost him the job before he even hit a drum. Eric had flashes of brilliance last night, but the focus he once had to play drums which he held onto so tightly over the years was gone. Several times Eric got up in the middle of a song to walk around aimlessly, get coffee, or tell the dogs how much he hates their tails. After a near physical confrontation with James (the bass player) over the tempo of the song Tempted by Squeeze, Paul decided to call a break to let everyone cool off and get some fresh air. Poor Lisa was so scared of Eric, that when she stepped outside for break she brought all of her belongings with her. I'm guessing she was afraid that Eric, still inside, would either steal them or sniff them (the latter more likely).

Exhausted as I was before practice, the guilt of exposing my friends to Eric coupled with just dealing with him myself drained me of all I had by the time rehearsal was over. I had reached new levels of frustration and exhaustion. I wouldn't be surprised if my new kidney was actually damaged somehow from the experience. I hurt less after my transplant than I did last night after rehearsal. Paul, who lives an hour in the opposite direction from me, offered to drive me home to save me from another car ride with Eric and I somehow managed to fool Eric into thinking I didn't need the 35 minute ride home because I would be hanging out with Paul, Michael, and their (non-existent) friends "who live in Berkeley." We needed some excuse because Eric wanted to hang out with us after practice and he wanted to know if we "wanted to go to Denny's or something." We did indeed want to go get something to eat, but the time it took to cook and eat a meal was more than we could continue put up with him. He had worn out everyone. When I got home at 2 am I plopped myself in bed, hit the pillow hard, and then stayed awake all night thinking about it.

Not one bad word was said about Don (the usual focus of the band's bad energy) all night.

*I fully believe that mental illness may exist in someone but be triggered by drugs and that they are not completely independent of each other, as many other people do. I've personally seen it happen with two of my friends (Eric being one). My childhood friend Aaron Hull is another and his newsworthy story may be a topic for another post later. You can probably find stories of his arrest online.

**This would be the second time I chose to distance myself, guiltlessly, from someone in my life battling mental illness (drug related), Aaron being the first. For them, they already had better support group than I could offer, and it would have been inappropriate for me to be a part of it. I was not their family. For myself, I could not witness what they were going through, it was too hard. Also, I had my life, full of problems of its own, to deal with. If they had been family or friends with nowhere else to turn, my involvement may have been different.

***I'm not a big fan of AA, NA, OA and the like. I believe there are lots of people who need them and are saved by them. I also believe they are willing to tell anyone willing to walk through their doors he's an addict without responsibly assessing whether or not that is the case. Some people are not sure if they're addicts. AA makes efforts to convince those people they "definitely" are. I just don't think that's always the case. Although with Eric it was the case.

****that was for you Paul.

Security (Guarded) Blankets

2006-09-18T16:35:00.000-07:00

My friend April regards herself as something of a quilter. Whenever I'm at her house, she asks me to poke through Big Coffee Table Book Of Quilting (or something like that) and tell me what patterns I like. She usually thinks she is being subtle enough to make me believe that she's asking me for no specific reason. All the while I realize that she is asking because in case she wanted to make me a quilt for a present, I might possibly give her some indication of what kind I like. To foul up her plan, I always tell her I like the most complicated and labor intensive looking pattern possible. I try to pick the ones that look well beyond her skill or patience level. I figure, I'm either saving her the trouble of making me a quilt or giving myself the opportunity to get a totally awsome one.

She, however, got the last laugh. She gave me a quilt for my birthday, that on one side was a piece of fabric that had cards and dice on it (people always think I'm a gambler for some reason). For the other side she took one of the quilts in the book that I liked which had like 50 small squares of a complicated pattern. She made one square of that pattern and then made the rest of that side some very basic patten, saving herself much time (maybe years) trying to emulate the entire pattern from the book. This way she was able to say she gave me a quilt like the one in the book (but not really).

April called early last week wanting to know if I was free on Sunday to hang out. I was, so she said she would pick me up at 10:30 am. She wasn't too specific about her plans, but they usually involve some type of antique shopping (I call it buying other people's crap at the Salvation Army Store), a movie, and a meal of some sort (I supposed lunch for this day, based on the time that was chosen). Because April is from Monterey, about an hour and a half from me, we usually meet in San Jose (approx. the middle), but for some reason she wanted to come all the way here this time.

Yesterday when she got to my house she asked if I knew how to get to the De Young Museum and if we could go there. "Why do you want to go there?", I asked.

"It just sounds like a fun place to go," she replied.

"Ummm....why?"

Knowing she couldn't play dumb for too long, she confessed "There is a quilt exhibit there I want to see. It's a bunch of old black ladies from Alabama that make these awesome quilts. They're really old, like from Civil War times and they still get together all the time and make quilts. Isn't that cool?"

"Wow! They are old!" I said, knowing I was the only one in this conversation that realized it was not possible for anyone from the Civil War times to still be making quilts, giving her a look that made her aware something about what she just said was ridiculous.

She giggled..."Shut up! Do you know how to get there or not? How far is it? Let's go."

I did know where it was. I explained to her it's right in Golden Gate Park and it's about 15 minutes away. I agreed to take her there and made her go with me to get my car washed and have breakfast as punishment. When we finished, I headed for San Francisco, but before we even reached the freeway, April asked "Hey! Is that Golden Gate Park?"

"No. That's a playground," I said pointing at the swing set and slide we were passing. "Do you know how big Golden Gate Park is?" She didn't answer.

We reached the De Young, went inside and bought audio tours. It really was a neat story. Over the last century or so, the women of Gee's Bend, Alabama have become famous for quilt making. Gee's Bend is a very poor community, separated geographically from neighboring communities, it's always been the kind of place where people make due for themselves any way they can. The women would not let old clothing go to waist. They would take any scraps of old fabric they had and make beautiful quilts for warmth in the winter. The tradition has been handed down from generation to generation and is still going strong today.

One might argue, that their low education levels prevented them from following traditional patterns, which led them to the distinctive style they are famous for. Then again you can say that anyone with any artistic sense finds a way to reinterpret and reinvent estabished forms and makes original work in spite of tradionals styles, and that's all these women were doing. Either way their style is fantastic. See here.

While the exhibit was pretty neat, I couldn't help thinking the entire time that I really like sleeping. And I was woken up very early this morning (10am is early for Sunday morning). And the quilt that April gave me is my most comfortable blanket. So....while April is walking around checking out all these quilts, I should just rip one of these very comfy looking blankets off the wall and go curl up in the corner with it and catch up on some much needed Z's. However, every time I got close enough to touch one, the Museum Nazi's would lurk over me and make sure I didn't fuck with the precious blankets. Its almost like they knew I'm not the type to show up at a quilt exhibition.

Wierd Story

2006-09-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

This is a break in the Mexico story just to say that my mother's cousin, Mary Jo, died yesterday. I don't know what relation that makes me....2nd cousin or something? Our families were not that close. I had never even met the woman, but my mother did know her and in the past couple years had to deal with her quite a bit because when Mary Jo's mother (my great Aunt?) died, she had left some money to my mother, aunt, and uncle. Mary Jo was the executor of the estate so there were many dealings with her during that settlement of inheritance. My parents had visited her home in the past year or so and really enjoyed Mary Jo's company. She seemed like a very nice, normal lady.

It turns out that Mary Jo, age 60, was taking medicine for depression. I'm not sure which one, but apparently one of the side effects of this med was that you can become paranoid/delusional. Wenesday night, while she and her husband were sleeping, she sat up straight in bed and said, "Ted, I will not allow you to put me in an institution." Ted was confused. There had never been any talk of institution. Ted never regarded her has either crazy or unable to take care of herself, and had not ever even thought of the idea. Mary had never shown signs of the above mentioned side effect before. This was the first time it ever came up, and Ted was surprised, but it was the middle of the night. Tired, confused, and not sure how to react, he calmed his wife, laid her back down, and went back to sleep himself.

When Ted woke up in the morning, Mary Jo was no longer in bed. It was not really that uncommon as she usually woke before him. He did his morning rituals, bathroom, kitchen, coffee. Ted couldn't find his wife anywhere. He looked around, front yard, car still there, back yard. Back yard. I have no way to describe what Ted saw in the back yard, I doubt very many people on earth have seen what Ted saw. All I can say is that what Ted saw was a result of Mary Jo waking up in the middle of the night, pouring kerosene all over herself, and lighting herself on fire.

WHAT? LIGHT YOURSELF ON FIRE? FUCKING SHIT! NO FUCKING WAY!

I can't fathom a scenario led by depression or delusion that could lead someone to commit suicide by SETTING THEMSELVES ON FIRE. I completely understand there was motivation for suicide. I've been there.....but slit your throat, shoot yourself, jump of a bridge, pour a bottle of anti-depressants down your throat.....how the fuck can you decide to set yourself on fire? I don't get it. I can't even imagine what DELUSION you could have that could lead you into that. Maybe you think your body is covered in bugs and you're trying to burn them off? MAYBE???

"Mother fucker" is all I can say and I almost never say that unless I'm driving.

Ted, I never want to see what you saw.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part Tres)

2006-09-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

That's right, baby! Part Tres, cause we're in Mexico now!

All I can think is....let's get to the resort, try to put aside what the rest of the world is handling for us right now, enjoy ourselves, and celebrate the coming together of our friends (and I use this term loosely). We'll check in and the get some beers at the swim-up bar. There should be plenty of babes in bikinis to check out and maybe we can catch a baseball game on the poolside TV. Easy livin'!

We pull into the driveway of The Oasis at around 5 pm, get out of the car to stretch our legs, and take a quick look around the immediate area to see if anyone we know is in the vicinity. I light up a smoke while Steve goes into the office to see about checking himself in. As I'm puffing away, John (the best man) walks by carrying two buckets of beer, 1 of Coronas and 1 of Pacificos. Already half a heat on, John lets me know, " We (4 or 5 of the groomsmen and the groom) are staying in the Presidential Suite and it's awesome dude, with a hot tub in it, and its room 410, but don't go there, because we're all out at the beach playing volleyball. Dude get some shorts on and meet us out there. It's awesome! Oh....and bring some more beer!"

I stomp out my smoke and make my way into the office to get my key. I decided to get my own room as I'm not a big fan of sharing (at least hotel rooms). As I'm making my way to the desk I already hear the clerk explaing to Steve in broken English that his room is not clean yet. What? It's 5 pm and check-in was at like 2pm. The clerk says, "Gib me one mas hora".

Wow! This place must be packed if the maids are 4 hours behind schedule cleaning the rooms. "We'll come back in an hour."

At the Oasis, the 4 stories of hotel rooms are separated from the beach by the pool area. The restaurant, offices, and convention areas are set off to the side of the pool area, also along the beach. To get from the office to the beach we had to walk by the pool. We thought we would stop at the bar and get some beers but when we got there, it was closed. The pool was desolate? Where is everybody? This place should be jumpin'? Maybe everyone (I mean in addition to our friends, and I use this term loosely) is at the beach? Steve and I walk back over to the restaurant (also desolate), grab a bucket of beers at that bar, and head back out through the pool to the beach where our friends (and I use this term loosely) were.

As we approached the opening in the windbreak wall separating the pool from the beach, we were able to get our first view of the beautiful sandy shores of Rosarito. We were able to find our friends (did I mention how loosely I'm using this term?) pretty easily as they were the only seven people on the beach. Steve shouts, "Hey guys! Where are all the people at?"

Randy answers back, "You're looking at 'em! Isn't this great? We've got the whole place to ourselves!"

Um...yeah Randy. Great. Considering you're the only one here with female companionship.

Not having the ability to change clothes, volleyball didn't sound like much fun. I could just sit on the sand and drink beer. I'm never opposed to that! OK....where to sit. Well, if I push that old bike tire and a couple of those old beer cans aside.....that area might be clean enough. "Hey are you guys really playing in your bare feet?," I ask. "Have you seen some of the things that are on this beach? You might want to put some shoes on. I think I see a disposable razor in the middle of your court!" Apparently the streets were not the only thing that didn't get cleaned in Mexico. The sand was littered with bottle caps, coffee filters, milk cartons...."Um...I'm gonna go hang out by the pool."

Randy replies, "But we're all HERE!"

I grab a beer and say, "I'll see you guys later. I don't think too many people actually do beachy type things on this beach."

There was absolutely NO ONE in sight. No one swimming in the water, no surfers, no fishermen, no people walking their dogs, no lifeguard towers. I've lived within a 2 miles of a beach my entire life. I've been up and down the California coast. I've been to beaches on the East Coast. I've been to beaches in Hawaii, Canada, France, Spain. I've even been to beaches in MEXICO. I've experienced them at all times of day from early in the morning to late at night. As many beaches as I've been to, I've NEVER been to one where I couldn't see another person in any direction. From my experience, people flock to beaches at all hours, either for fun or solitude depending on what time it is, but not Rosarito. There was no one in sight except my stupid friends (and this term gets looser and looser as this story goes on) playing barefoot sandsports on a beach full of hypodermic needles.

At least I'll get to see what downtown Rosarito looks like tonight. Papas and Beer, here we come!

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part 2)

2006-09-14T00:47:00.000-07:00

If I was going to take time off work to be in a wedding in Mexico that I didn't really care that much about, I was going to make sure I got a real vacation out of it. A couple months before the wedding, I decided to turn that weekend into a couple weeks off, dedicate one of those weeks to the wedding, and then do some traveling for myself the second week. I invited Jim and Mike (lifelong friends) to join me that second week in Cabo San Lucas. Both agreed and Jim also invited John, another mutual friend. Jim would also be attending the wedding, so the only thing we had to worry about was connecting with the other two after in Cabo.

My plan of attack was to fly to San Diego on Thursday, rent a car, drive across the border to the resort, and Jim would do the same on Friday. We would attend the wedding on Saturday, stay in Rosarito until Monday, drive back to San Diego and catch a flight Monday morning from SD to Cabo. Mike and John would separately catch flights on Monday to Cabo and we would meet at the hotel, spend the week partying and fishing and all fly home together the following Saturday. That plan all fell apart on Tuesday with news of air travel suspension.

Tuesday was, needless to say, emotional. Rushes of indecision came in waves. During that tragic time, could I really justify A) going to a wedding I don't care that much about? B) going to Cabo San Lucas and trying to have a "good" time when death and destruction was on the forefront of the collective world mind? C) crossing the border, not once but twice with rumors of more terrorism, bombing in Afghanistan, borders closing and the thought of being trapped in Mexico for an indefinite amount of time? Or......do I (and this was the actual thought and not just a sound bite I picked up on TV) not dare let the terrorists achieve their secondary (arguably their primary) goal. They had already killed thousands, but what they wanted additionally was to scare millions. Change our way of life. Destroy our comfort. I couldn't. I had to carry on, whatever it meant. Would it be an enjoyable trip on any level? Probably not, but if for nothing more than principle I couldn't let it stop me. Not that it would really make a difference to anyone but me, but I would not be lead by my fear. I was going.

So, plan changed....air travel was a HUGE question mark. No one knew when planes would fly again. Would it be hours, days, weeks? Airlines were offering speculation. "Maybe tomorrow" was heard often. "Just show up for your flight like normal (?) and we'll let you know what happens when you get here." Right, that sounds fun. Anyways, I approached it much like Randy and Elena, which was.....deal with each thing as it comes up let the plan develop as you go along. First thing, get myself to San Diego....no wait Mexico....well.....at least to San Diego. Tackling the fear of crossing the border would half to happen when I get that far.

My friend Steve, Groomsman #6, tagged along. He was supposed to fly down Friday with his wife and new born daughter Emma, but decided to come alone with all that was happening. Wife and Emma stayed home. Steve would figure out how to get back home later. We drove the 6 or so hours to San Diego on Thursday, parked my car at SD Airport long term parking and rented a car to drive across the border. I didn't really want my car to go across the border, but additionally it was nice to have a car at the airport for either Steve or me as our travel plans would be in question and one of us may need the car there.

I had flown into Mexico before, but this was my first time driving. We didn't really think too much about it. Steve and I were like minded about our principles and how we would let terrorism influence them. There was no real conversation about it, we just crossed and knew we had to. I was surprised to find out that no one really cares if you go TO Mexico. No border stop (going that direction), just a big sign saying "MEXICO". There is no mistaking that you've crossed over, though. After your first visit to TJ, you will never again take for granted the street cleaning and litter removal your government provides.

There are lots of things to buy when you get to Mexico. Even before you reach Tijuana, you have plenty of opportunity to stop and purchase all the sombreros, pinatas, Jesus statues, and Mexican car insurance (which is what most of the cars are stopping for) you ever wanted. The drive from the border to Rosarito takes you through Tijuana, but its mostly freeway, and deprives you of the scenic downtown area. Fear not, though all the treasures of TJ (hookers, strippers, buckets of Corona, cheap leather, cheap sliver, prescription(less) drugs, tiny kids harassing you to buy Chiclets, and cheap dental work) can be had in Rosarito just as easy. I had yet to discover what a pit Rosarito was. For all I knew it was a tropical paradise. Once your through TJ, the coastal drive to Rosarito is deceivingly beautiful, so I still had hopes.

The long drive from SF was confusing. Spending that time with one of my best friends was great, but the fear of crossing the border during the shakiest political climate I had ever experienced was overwhelming. How would the US respond? How would other countries be impacted by and react to that response? Are we going to war? For Christ's sake, Steve just left his one month old baby and wife at home. What the fuck are we doing? The pressure on our minds that had been building throughout the drive was released went we crossed into Mexico, though. After we crossed the border, Steve and I looked at each other and acknowledged conversationally that we were here and there was nothing that we could do about it now. We should just make the best of it and have the best time possible. If Bush closes the borders and we get stuck here, let's hope the place we're staying is as beautiful as it sounds. Let's hope The Oasis Resort is nothing but palm trees and Mayan princesses feeding us grapes by the pool. Yes, let's hope.

From Hell To Hell and Back to Hell and Back Home Again (Part 1)

2006-09-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

In the year or so leading up to 9/11, my friends Randy and Elena were planning their 9/15/01 wedding, to be held in the glorious town of Rosarito Beach, Mexico. For those of you that have vacationed in and are familiar with the spectacular beach resorts in Mexico, please know that Rosarito Beach is not one of them and nothing similar to your memories of Cancun. Those of you who have only experienced Mexico via border towns like Tijuana will have a firm grasp on what its like to be in Rosarito. It's a pit. Its 10 miles south of Tijuana on the Pacific coast of Baja, but not far enough from its neighbor to have developed any of the charm you find farther south in Mexico. Its famous only for Papas and Beer, a 50,000 square foot dance club built on the beach. You would commonly find waiters coming to your table and for $5 pouring a shot down your girlfriend's throat, turning her upside down, shaking her, turning her back over, unbuttoning her pants, pulling up her underwear, bending her over, and doggie dancin' her until you give him another $5 to stop, all the while blowing a referee whistle as loud as possible. Still thinking you might want your wedding there?

Now Randy is a friend, but not one I consider very close. We went to high school together, attended similar parties, generally liked each other, and had high school girlfriends that were "bestest" friends, but all my life I wouldn't have expected even to be INVITED to his wedding let alone be asked to be IN it. Though estranged through college years and early adulthood, Randy and I had re-explored our friendship a couple years leading up to his wedding because we worked in the same industry. During that time we had began a tradition of Tuesday night beers and trivia at a local pub, and on occasion Randy would have a party (typically Halloween) and I'd be invited to attend*. I met Elena during that time, Randy's long distance fiancee who he met at a party in LA and maintained a relationship with for 5 years. She had taken a liking to me and regarded me as her favorite of Randy's friends. I think this distinction earned me the following invitation from Randy over beers: "Um...Jerry, I wanted to ask you if you would be an usher at my wedding. It will mean you have to wear a tux and stuff. I know it's kind of weird for me to ask, but I don't have any other friends to ask that aren't already one of the 8 other groomsmen and Elena would really like you to be a part of it." Well, that was a warm offer. How could I say no to that. The wedding was to be held 9/15/01.

The weekend of 9/7, Elena had been up in the Bay Area to do some pre-wedding celebrations with Randy's family and friends, so that many of them who wouldn't make the trek to Mexico could get some pre-wedding bride/groom love. Her schedule was to fly home Tuesday morning and then drive that day to The Oasis Resort, which was not only our hotel, but the also wedding location. Randy was supposed to follow on Wednesday and they would be polishing up last minute details until Saturday. Elena's flight didn't go out that morning. The news of the attacks came early on the west coast and not very many planes got out of SFO that day. Elena and Randy were panicked. First they had to worry about how to get themselves to Mexico. Secondly (and more of a concern in the days to follow), do they cancel their wedding? Will the guests arrive if they don't cancel? Can people coming from long distances get there at all? They ended up deciding not to cancel. It became a "deal with each issue as it comes up" scenario and the first thing was to get themselves there. They drove that day from SF to Rosarito (7 or 8 hours, maybe).

...to be continued.

*a couple of my best Halloween costumes were worn for these parties, including a hiker from The Blair Witch Project with a trail map hanging out the back of my pants like stray toilet paper.

Today I will remember....

2006-09-11T00:43:00.000-07:00

It is not what's on the outside, but what's on the inside that counts.

French Uno Anyone?

2006-09-08T15:17:00.000-07:00

When I was young, my family would take late summer trips to Klamath, CA with a couple other families. We would stay in a lodge at Camp Marigold, play lots of cards, walk up the street to pick blackberries, and freak out every year when the bear cubs would get brave enough to fish through our garbage cans. My father and his friends would wade into the Klamth River and catch enough steelhead to stock our freezer for the year. The mothers would sit on the river bank and gossip. The kids would catch frogs and bury each other in the sand. At the end of each day we would get a fire going, listen to the dads tell fish stories, and eat a bunch of burnt hot dogs and marshmallows.

These trips were usually a week or two. This was a long time for a kid keep himself occupied with frog catching and "The Trees Of Mystery". We could only stand playing the French card game Mille Bornes so many times and entertainment options were few with only one viewable TV broadcast from a local channel in Eureka. But we could always count on the MDA Jerry Lewis Telethon to mark our vacation with one night of entertainment. Us keeping track of the dollars Jerry was racking up and hoping each time he went to the tally board it would hit whatever milestone Jerry was shooting for.

Because Klamath is SOOO far north in CA, it was always a little colder than home, where the SF Bay Area would usually be experiencing Indian Summer. Even though it was a still couple weeks away, it always felt like Fall when we were there. I always associate the MDA Telethon with the coming of that season.

With the telethon airing this past Monday, I had been feeling Autumnish all this week, but the past few days the weather in SF, while foggy in the morning, has still managed to remain Summery. The fog had been burning off by 11 am and the sun was providing enough warmth to keep it in the 70's. Today, though, was a different story. The fog was upon us as usual, but the moisture was a little heavier. There was enough mist in the air to make my back porch look like it had been rained on. Maybe it had? The fog did burn off, but only to reveal some pretty thick looking clouds above it. With a pretty decent wind blowing at noon, finally the weather had caught up to my Fall attitude.

This time of year is my favorite. Returning from these trips usually meant I had a couple days, maybe a week to enjoy the Summer schedule before getting back in to the swing of school, which I actually looked forward to by this point. I would spend the last few days with no school riding my bike to the park, rough-housing with a few other kids that were no longer on their Summer-end vacation, and shooting off the remnants of my fireworks from July. My mom was a little more lenient with curfews than other parents, so I would usually end up the last kid on the playground.

Just as it was getting dark, I would say goodbye to my friends and try to figure out what to do with the hour or so more time I had left to play. I would give the monkey bars, the slide, and the swings all another go, but would find them much less exhilarating without a partner or two to share in the playground's glory. I would realize that the wind whipping on my neck had a chill to it that had not been there before my Klamath trip.

As the park was connected to my elementary school, I would end the day walking up to the school yard as my house was in that direction. After firing off the last of my bottle rockets and jumping jacks, I would consider heading home, though I hated the thought of giving up my last 45 minutes of freedom for the day, knowing that once school starts, I wouldn't get any minutes like these again until next year. So, I would get myself a sip of water from the school's half-working 6-faucet trough and sit on a school bench (usually next to the classroom I would be attending once Summer ended) just thinking. Thinking about nothing in particular.

The wind would continue to bite at me. Stirring up goose bumps on my exposed forearms and squirming its way up my T-shirt's sleeves to remind me that I forgot my jacket. I hadn't gotten in all my "thinking" time, but I needed to find a wind break to get a little warmer. I rode my bike around the school testing the wind conditions of each corridor. Every wall. Every fence line. I just wanted to find a place to sit quietly. I wanted a place where I could make myself as small as possible. Somwhere that I could watch and listen to the schoolyard, but not really be a part of it.

I always ended up in the same place. I tucked myself into a corner where one wall of the gymnasium met at a right angle with one wall of the library, overlooking the entire schoolyard, park, and playground. Sitting Indian style on the ground, I would curl myself into a ball, shut my eyes, and listen to the wind wrestle with the playground, rattling the chains that hold up the swings, blowing sand across the metal bottom of the merry-go-round, and creaking the 10" spring as the wind pushed against some saddled metal circus animal the spring held up. I could never find the perfect position or combination of sticking my arms inside my shirt and pulling my collar up over my chin to completely stave off the chill, but I wouldn't have chosen another place to be for those 45 minutes.

On Oct. 1, I will be taking on another roommate to live in my currently unoccupied spare bedroom...

2006-09-01T00:38:00.000-07:00

Interesting facts about my household upon the arrival of Scott (the new roommate):
1) My house will not be growing anytime soon.
2) I will no longer be the person in the house with the fewest amount of transplanted body parts.
3) I will no longer be the only person who doesn't crawl from room to room (probably).
4) Scott will be having hernia surgery prior to his arrival, but couldn't be moving into a place with two less likely candidates for sympathy.
5) On rainy days, you may see Paul and Scott huddled together in my back yard trying to get a pipe lit.
6) The bathroom in my house will achieve yet another level of proof that only men live in this house.

Interesting facts about my household prior to Scott's arrival:
1) My house is only 950 square feed (small for just two people. amd Scott makes three).
2) My current roommate Paul is another transplant recipient (and he got a new kidney and a new pancreas at the same time).
3) My current roommate Paul is also an amputee (Drunk Scott may also be crawling from room to room at times).
4) Paul and I have collectively racked up more hospital bills than any other two people I know.
5) Paul is not allowed to smoke pot in the house. I don't smoke it, and I don't want the smell in my house.
6) One may not believe the bathroom could further prove that only men live in this house.

Now on the US Postal Service's Top Ten Most Dangerous list...

2006-08-31T16:32:00.000-07:00

You have been introduced to Soldier before. You may have figured out from the introduction that he comes to work with me. He pretty much lounges around all day until lunch, when its time to find to anyone with food and try not to beg. Then its more laying around until its time to go home for the day. Soldier is good at what he does. Note that he is free to roam around the entire building as he pleases. Everyone in the office loves him.

The only potential interruption in his state of lounginess may be a delivery or two throughout the day. Wherein he needs to go see who's here and bark as loud and long as possible if he doesn't recognize them. You can tell how ferocious he is from the above picture. Most people are not bothered by his approach, even when barking. Ahh....but we have a new mailman.

Today I received this letter from the Post Office:

Dear Postal Customer,

Your letter carrier is intersted in delivering your mail promptly and without inconvenience to you. To do this, he/she must be able to approach your mail box/business without interference.

On Wednesday, 8/30/06, your dog appeared to threaten the carrier's safety. Although your dog may not be inclined to bite persons entering your property, you will appreciate the carrier's concern for his/her safety. Each year several thousand letter carriers receive painful injuries from dog bites.

To provide efficient mail deilvery and at the same time to protect postal employees, the Postal Service has issued instructions to letter carriers not to deliver mail where a dog interferes with normal delivery.

Will you please assist your carrier in making his/her regular stop at your residence/business by confining your dog, either in the house/business or fenced outdoors, out of path of the carrier. The city and county leash law requires that your dog be on a leash when he/she is not on your property.

Your carrier has been instructed to continue delivery of your mail, provided his/her safety is not again threatened by your dog. Your cooperation in helping make his/her deliveries without interference will be appreciated.

Thank you,
Smoking A. Bong (name changed)

Let's see. Where to begin? On the date in question the dog was not only inside the building, on my property, he was confined to my office (away from the entry hall), because I had seen how much of a weenie the mailman had been the few days prior. I would like to make clear.....the dog is INSIDE THE BUILDING all day (a singly occupied business address) and not anywhere in the path of the mailman's approch to our door. The weenie was only "threatened" after he ENTERED THE BUILDING. We are violating no leash laws.

In order to assist you in your deilvery of my mail, I would like to point out the following HDA's (Hey! Dipshit! alerts):

#1) Hey! Dipshit! - If you are a mailman who is afraid of dogs, why would you enter a building to deliver mail when there is a BEWARE OF DOG sign on the door? Espeicially when,

#2) Hey! Dipshit! - We have a mail slot!

A sampling of average conversations with my friend Allyson....

2006-08-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

Note that Allyson has declared previously that she does not like cheese (except on Pizza).

Me: What did you have for dinner tonight?
Allyson: Wendy's Chili
Me: I once made Wendy's chili from a mock recipe I saw on Donahue.
Allyson: You're dating yourself.
Me: Yeah, I know.
Allyson: Why would you need to MAKE Wendy's chili?
Me: Um.....? I don't know. We made it for a bunch of people and I think it probably cost less to make it yourself, or something like that. I think we just thought it would be fun.
Allyson: It costs 99 cents.
Me: Right. Whatever, it was fun and it tasted exactly like Wendy's chili.
Allyson: It would cost more to make per person than to get it off Wendy's 1 Dollar Value Menu. I think the ground beef alone would cost more.
Me: I don't think they had the $1 menu when Donahue was on, but you're probably right. Did you get cheese and onions on it? (I know she doesn't like cheese.)
Allyson: No
Me: Why not?
Allyson: Hi. I DON'T LIKE CHEESE.
Me: That is completely deranged. I think you have a brain cell turned the wrong way in your head somewhere. Who doesn't like cheese?
Allyson: Me.
Me: That's like saying "I don't like bacon." Its just impossible.
Allyson: It's not much different than your aversion to cucumbers.
Me: Yeah, except that cucumbers are disgusting.
Allyson: Name one other person that hates cucumbers.
Me: Name one other person that hates cheese.
Allyson: Right, that's why I said its NOT different.

So, I'm putting it to a vote* by my readers. Would the 5 of you please decide what is stranger? Hatred of cheese (obviously)? Or hatred of cucumbers (not as obvious)?

*Lactose intolerant votes don't count, but cucumber allergy votes do.

NEW! From your friendly, neighborhood smokeless tobacco conglomerate....

2006-08-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

Because chewing on an apple aint worth spit!

(...and because its not quite gross enough for my roommate to leave a

rotting apple core next to my computer keyboard, so instead he chooses an

uncapped diet coke bottle full of lovely brown tobacco-saliva muck.)

A sampling of average conversations with my friend April....

2006-08-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

Today, April and I saw the movie Invincible (a pretty good movie, a great soundtrack) which is a true story about 30 year old Vincent Papale (puh-PAW-lee, played by Mark Wahlberg), a substitute teacher that shocks himself, his friends, and his family by trying out for the Philadelphia Eagles and making the team. At the end they show footage of the real Papale in all his glory. The following conversation took place as the credits were rolling:

April: Wow, the real Vincent Papale is much taller than Marky Mark.

Me: Yeah, but I bet he doesn't have his own Funky Bunch. :::pause::: Well, he might, but I think it might be a different kind of funky bunch.

--------------------------------------

As we were eating dinner a lady walked by our window in a half shirt whose stomach looked like this:

April: Geez.....do you think she's pregnant?

Me: No, I think she had a baby 8 months ago and just stuffed it back in today.

------------------------------------------

:::Flash back to about a year ago when April and I were at the Gilroy Garlic Festival:::

At the end of the day, as we were waiting in line for the shuttle back to the parking field, April was enjoying a Banana Shaved Ice. Apparently I had some look on my face that made her laugh....the fun part of this is that she had just inhaled a huge bite of said shaved ice and banana juice shot out of her mouth and into my face with her burst of laughter. I was not amused, especially since I didn't get to enjoy whatever funny look I had apparently made AND I think Banana Shaved Ice is disgusting especially when mixed with someone else's saliva AND neither of us had anything to wipe it off with (except my shirt).

:::Flash forward to dinner tonight:::

Waiter (as he tied on April's bib to save her from Cioppino droppings): Can I get you guys anything else?

Me: Yes, I would like one of those bibs.....she spits when she eats.

Dear Manager At Office Depot,

2006-08-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

As I entered your store, I was quite prepared to walk straight to the section of the store I was familiar with, pick up the items I usually do, pay for them and leave, only to forget that I had ever been there. This being my regular experience at your establishment.

However, I was having too much fun watching people yell at you to do the usual "get it and forget it" thing. As I entered the section where the report covers were, you walked by with a customer in tow, showing her the way to some other part of the store. The two of you happened to pass another customer, an old guy with a MAJOR chip on his shoulder, who was desperately in need of a microphone(?). Just as you passed him he exclaimed "HEY! Why are you helping her?!? You WERE helping me and I'm waiting for you to get me my DAMN microphone(?)!" Your desperate response of "Sir, this should only take me a few seconds," didn't seem to appease him and it only made him yell at you louder, "Getting me my f*%king microphone should only take you few seconds, then you can help her!" I was about to tell him to calm down, but you seemed to have the situation under control by sweating profusely from your forehead and saying rather meekly, "Yes sir." I grabbed my report covers and moved to the section of the store where the insertable dividers should be just as the other lady was about to yell at your for ceasing in the middle of helping her and going to grab a microphone(?).

I couldn't find the dividers that I came for, but I noticed you had recently rearranged the store, so I figured I would wander around and see if I could find them. I did find SOME dividers, but not insterable dividers, the most common dividers used today. The kind that you probably keep in stock by the thousands. I finally gave up and made my way to the counter to ask where they might be. Probably in the back somewhere. On my way to the counter, I noticed you had finished helping the guy with the microphone(?) and the lady before/after him. You were now in the middle of another interesting conversation. Some soccer mom (teen at her side) was reaming you for not price matching Comp USA on a printer she wanted to purchase from you. She was mad because your price was $15 dollars higher than your competitor's. She didn't realize that you were a savvy salesman, and that you were betting that she was not willing to go to Comp USA (5 miles way) just to save $15. As she ripped your hole into a million pieces you stood your ground, calling what you thought was her bluff, and telling her (also meekly) "I'm sorry ma'am. I don't set the prices." You didn't even flinch when she turned to her son and said, "C'mon Jimmy, they're all f*%king crazy here! Lets go!". I mean, sure, you didn't make a sale, but you certainly didn't have to bend over for that lady for a measly $15 either. I mean, we all know you could've, but not to HER!

As I stood at the counter, talking to checkout agent #1, I was half-listening to your microphone(?) buddy complain about you to checkout agent #2 and your low level of customer service, him not realizing that usually the 16 year old checkout agents are not the store superiors and can do nothing about it as they take THEIR orders from you. When checkout agent #1 didn't understand what I was looking for or the fact that they were not on shelf....when she directed me to the shelf I told her they were not on, and then you decided to intervene. I explained my situation and what I was looking for. Insertable Dividers. You usually have tons of them as they are a very common item used in businesses and schools all over the world. You told me, "We sold out."

Now I realized that you were having a bad 20 minutes at work, and that you probably didn't want to look in the back, but I really needed to finish a report at work. TODAY. So I politely asked, "Are you sure there are none in the back? Its a very common item." You responded, feeling the weight of your last few customers and no longer willing to give your answers meekly, "Look man, we're sold out. Its back to school time and they cleaned me out!" ..... ok?...... right.... the students who have not yet been assigned a single report, have cleaned you out of report divders. I understand what's going on here. You, sir, are a very bad man. I was not willing to tell you this at the store, because I noticed your a-hole already spread out all over the printer and microphone(?) departments and I was feeling a little sorry for you, but.......f*%k you!

Sincerely,
New Staples Customer

PS......microphones? At Office Depot?

Come & Get Me Punks!

2006-08-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

So for anyone who knows me it should come as no surprise that I have been known to make a wager or two. Black Jack, Craps, Football, Girls High School Field Hockey, whatever.....I'll bet. On more than one occasion I've been known to host a poker game. My games are small potatoes, though (probably large potatoes for some, but small potatoes for real poker players). $20 buy in, tournament style, 6-10 player, pay the top 2 or 3. Its fun, no one goes broke, and there's usually enough beer and Red Bull to get everyone to the mood they want to be in.

A couple times a year, my old roommate Zack invites me to a poker game with higher stakes. $100 buy in, 30-40 players, pay the top 6 or 7, pizza, chips, and again, enough booze and energy drinks to get you to your own personal high. My friends and/or I usually contend at the final table. There are lots of players that are not card/gambling savvy. We are not among them. None of us are slouches. On average, we probably understand more subtleties of the game than the average player. No pros among us, though.

Last time, Kevin (the host) instituted a new rule. In addition to your $100 buy in, you have to give $20 to the person who knocks you out of the game. It TOTALLY sucks. The tension of a good poker hand.....one man against another....each thinking they are going to hit the right combination to double up or get fatter......you wait to see the cards....here they come.... you need a 7.....only a 7 will help you......there it is....its a......SIX! SHIT....one card away....."Thanks for the game guys, I almost hit my card." As you start to walk away the guy who just took the last of your chips says......"Dude, you gotta give me a 20 spot!" CRAP THAT'S A TOTAL SUCKER PUNCH!

So there we were, all playing our game, none of us doing very well. My roommate Paul got knocked out on the first hand. I had to give my $20 in the first round, too. Doomed to just sit around and root for my buddies, or pick up a side game. But I wasn't really in the mood for any more poker. It was actually my second day out of the hospital after a kidney transplant. I opted to throw back some Vicodin and watch my buddies lose their money.

So, like I said, there was lots of dead money* players in the game. One of them was Kevin's grandmother. She usually shows up to these things to watch the kids, but apparently she decided to play this time. "That's cool," everyone says to themselves, "I'm happy to take her money." But this dead money was on a streak. Playing any two cards, any time, no strategy, no betting skills, no sense of when to back down. She had no need to back down though, she was the luckiest old gal I've ever seen. Filling in straights, setting her pocket pairs, full houses. I'm pretty sure she made four of a kind once that night.

Here's the thing, when you see a loose cannon like that, you're waiting for the time she does something stupid so you can bust her for trying that shit on you. These are the players you want to be all in against with a good hand, but no one could take her down. All you heard from that table was Player say "All In"....cards drop, Crowd say "OOOOOOH".......Granny say "Give me my 20 bucks!", over.....and over......and over. Knockin' em all down.....good players heard "Give me my 20 bucks".....bad player heard "Give me my 20 bucks"....Kevin heard "Give me my 20 bucks" all from the gristly voice of one old lady who's been smoking for 50 years. "GIVE ME MY 20 BUCKS....:::cough:::.....:::cough:::...NOW!" I don't think she won the tournament, but she placed in the money, and made out like a bandit knocking people out of the game.

So, the game is coming up again in a couple weeks, same buy in, same rules, same basic stuff. So I have approx 2.5 weeks to find a place where I can buy 7 (one for all my friends and I) large-Xlarge T shirts that say the following:

Front: GUNNIN' FOR GRANNY!

Back: THIS TIME ITS PERSONAL!

*Dead money is a poker term used to describe someone who has no chance to win the game.

Two Worlds Collide = Dented Fender

2006-08-21T14:58:00.000-07:00

Once at age 6, I was walking up the Avenue with my mother and I talked her into taking me into Wollmer's Music Store. It was fantastic! All the brass things (horns), the wood things with strings (guitars, violins), even the silver things for $5 on the counter next to cash register (harmonicas) had captivated me. Thus began my "career" as a musician. Big plans I tell ya. I had a goal to be rock star. Not like my sister who was probably playing with Hello Kitty or something.

I got my first guitar, an acoustic thing with nylon strings, perfect for a six year old on a mission to become the next John Denver (John Denver? Really? Kid needs a new record!). Got me some lessons and by the time I was 11 I was playing in my first band, a group my guitar teacher pieced together from all his 11 year old students. We were called (I tried blocking this from my memory, but apparently the transplant has allowed it to resurface) "The Juveniles". We played at Rec Centers, Street Faires, Walk-A-Thon Kickoffs....We even played at the Concord Pavillion (a local concert venue for real acts) and a couple members of Journey walked out on stage while we were playing. BIG SHIT!

We were also on TV.....local programming, a show called Superkids, hosted by Gene Washington (ex-49er football player). That was my debut on TV and the place I felt necessary to declare (when asked about drugs) "I don't ever wanna do drugs. I don't even wanna try them!" This statement may have been a little premature. Here I was with big plans, fame, fortune, backstage parties with.....um....well....who knows, (not drugs) but its gonna rock! Big plans for a 12 year old.

The thing about the band is that it required me to abandon the acoustic guitar and get an electric. Fender...that's what Wollmer's sold. I needed to get me a Stratocaster. They are the shit! The Shit for Big Shit (like me, the next Righteous Brother! A definite improvement!). But see....I can't afford a Strat, so I get the knock off look-alike "The Lead II", also made by Fender, also looks like a Strat, also 1/4 of the price (for you guitar buffs, it was the Squire of the 70's). Whatever, its a Strat. Red with a black pickguard.

After a few years The Juveniles went their separate ways. We thought we could do better on our own then with that guitar teacher/manager holding us back. I formed a new group in the 7th grade. We did it the way we wanted, the music we wanted, we took the gigs (no "s", just one gig) we wanted. We were The UnXplained! We were the next Police or U2 or Sex Pistols (anything but John Denver or The Righteous Brothers!).

One of the members of the UnXplained quit and the rest of us found a replacement and changed our name to Scarlet Macabre (ooooooh). We were no longer that happy crappy modern rock shit....we were Death Rock! We put on eyeliner and took publicity photos in cemetaries. We were the next......well.....lets just say we were along way from Rocky Mountain High! Once Scarlet Macabre broke up, this was the end of my guitar playing days....

I went on to play sax, tuba, piano, bass....just about anything but guitar. I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Strat. I have since grown to like other guitars better, but there is nothing like a Strat.

I didn't really tell you this whole story for any particular reason....I just wanted my post to be long enough, so there would be a huge impact when you scrolled down to see THIS!.......

NO!!!! JUST, NO!

Benji's Reaction When Told He Would Have To Listen To Celine Dion For The Next Year....?

2006-08-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

Yeah, me too, buddy! By the way Benji, America wants to know if you made the following deal with the devil:

Devil: I'll let you win SYTYCD if, and only if!....you kiss your finger and touch it to your ass in every dance routine!

Benji: Done!

Things That Are Almost Always...

2006-08-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

(1).....underneath my desk at work:

a) Garbage can
b) Lots of power cables for computer equipment, adding machine, etc.
c) Random things that have fallen so deep under that I'm too lazy to bend my ass over and retrieve them, ie a binder clip, a plastic cup, a light blue highligher pen.
d) What else? Oh yeah, and this.......

SOLDIER!

(2) ...right next to my foot in case I want to kick them.

SOLDIER'S STUFFED BALL!*

*1D makes sure that 2 constantly gravitates to my right foot throughout the day. He is considerate about making sure I don't have to go far to throw/kick 2 so that he can run as fast as he can after it in order to make a miraculous catch off the wall or something of the like.

What Would A Caveman With A Seafood Allergy Eat?

2006-08-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

With nothing better to talk about today I'm going to write today about how I think the cavemen of the Northern California coast were geniuses. I was thinking about what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight. Frozen crap sucks, eating out as often as I do gets too expensive, I have hamburger meat, but nothing to go with it. I think I'll stop at the store and get a vegetable. How about an artichoke?

I love artichokes, but I really want to know how the first person to eat one figured it out?

Scene: Caveman sitting on a Monterey Peninsula beach hungry and thinking about what to eat for dinner (sound familiar?)

Errrgh (Caveman): Uggh.....me not want no fish no more! Me sick of abalone! Me want something green to eat!

Uggh (Caveman's Wife): Errrgh, how about one of these delicious fresh vegetables native and plentiful in our homeland? Also, with the exception of that green prickly flower pod thing, all very easy to prepare?

Errrgh: No, woman. Me want the most difficult one to eat! I get pod thing.

Uggh: Men!

(Errgh makes way to the artichokes and grabs for one)

Errgh: OW! These hurt Errrgh. Prick Errrgh's finger! (picks one anyway and takes a bite like an apple)

Errgh: Very tough....much like dried mammoth hides!

Uggh: Let me boil that for you (throws it in boiling water).

Errgh: (takes another bite) Still not good! Hurt Errgh's jaw to chew. And what is all this crap in middle? (spits out stringy choke at center)

Uggh: Honey, try an avocado.

Errgh (determined): NO! Errgh want green stringy tough pod thing with prickly things on outside!

Uggh: Men!

How anyone ever got through all the crappy layers of artichoke to discover the delicious meat at the heart of it is beyond me. I'm off to dinner!

2006-08-11T11:26:00.000-07:00

I am completely unable to fathom how much shit I can accumulate, without realizing when I obtain it that I live in a 900 square foot house (with a roommate) and that there will likely be no good place for me to keep said shit. Fashionista that I am (not), (somehow) I have too many clothes to fit in the dresser, night stand, and 3 closets I have to keep them in. I have more computer wires than I have devices or necessary connections for and when you factor in that I'm a musician and I feel the need to buy a new cable everytime I'm at the music store, my spare bedroom/computer room is electric-spaghetti hell. I also don't understand why I have 5 (very useable) comforters and only one bed. Then I remembered that since I've moved in to my house I've been to Bed, Bath & Beyond about 5 times. Not so coincidental? Apparently every time I'm there I feel the need to buy a new comforter.

I've taken a good long look around my house and have decided to put it in order. I mean, where am I going to put the next batch of shit I need to obtain. Where to start? Okay...how about taking 4 of those comforters and putting them in the storage shed? Well, I can't just throw them in there, I need to put them in something to keep them clean. It's not like I was smart enough to keep the plastic cover they come with. I'm sure I could find something to store them in at.....oh shit.....Bed, Bath & Beyond. Okay... go, but walk in, get what you need, and walk out...no new comforters.

Hey look! There's a parking spot right in front! I grab my cart, walk through the doors and .....:::HAZE:::. Hey, I could use one of those. And those too. I like that too. Hey, Paul (my roommate) needs one of those. I better get two.

Apparently I need one of just about everything BBB sells. I went for storage bags and ended with $200 worth of this:

2 of these Which in the process of writing this post I discoverd I could have gotten at half the price at OfficeMax
1 of something that looked like this except with a red shade
1 of these In an attempt to increase my drawer space
1 of these Which a friend told me I could get at 1/6th the price at Target
1 of these For some idiotic reason I thought this would maxize the space in my 3 full closets
6 of these WHAT I CAME FOR
1 of these Shopping makes me hungry
2 of these Butter is an issue in our house and I plan on solving it. Don't ask.

Hey, look! NO NEW COMFORTER?!?!

So it amounts to this:
1) I have issues.
2) I love/hate Bed, Bath and Beyond.
3) I don't have any idea how to bargain shop.
4) I can't enter a store without buying more than I came for.
5) I apparently really love comforters and now I have enough storage bags to buy 2 more.

"What Are You Asking Me For???"

2006-08-08T11:38:00.000-07:00

Going into this transplant I was told by my pre-op nurse coordinator that I would need have an acute sense of when my body is feeling "you know, just off". Those little changes in how you feel can be symptoms of much larger problems. This is something I've taken seriously. I mean, yeah, I'm not on top of all my monitoring (i.e. blood pressure, temperature, weight) as well as I could, but I do think I have developed a keen sense of how I'm feeling, noticing the small changes daily and honestly reporting them to pertinent people.

I'm not a person who is generally wary of doctors. In fact, I'm probably more trustworthy of them than most. I'm able to recognize that everyone at the hospital that I'm led to deal with probably knows more about what's best for me than I do, be it the parking valet, the elderly volunteer that runs the information booth, the admission registrar, the orderlies, nurses, interns, residents, fellows, or surgeons. Surely at any level of care beyond their duties, they wouldn't overstep their bounds to give me advice or service beyond their knowledge.......and I trust (maybe falsely) that from each of them. Also, since the surgery, I can only say that the team of people who transplanted my new kidney are nothing short of amazing. The fact that they provide a high level of service to 60-80 people a year, plus the carry-over complications from prior years only adds to their amazingness.

This past Thursday, the surgeon (or as everyone else calls him The Head Honcho), who has been dealing with my follow up personally and from what I can ascertain this is not standard operating procedure (you usually get handed off to a follow-up nephrologist), told me that because my white blood cell count is dangerously low, I need to be even MORE aware of small changes in how I'm feeling because any bacteria, virus, or other infections would hospitalize me IMMEDIATELY.

Since Thursday, I've completely avoided bacteria-ridden raw foods (not just meat....fruits and veggies too) and also shyed away from all you germy people as much as possible. Friday I came down with a MAJOR migraine that knocked me out of commission for the night at 7pm, along with a fever of 99.9 just low enough to keep me from bugging the on-call nurses over the weekend. Saturday, right after I ate dinner, I felt a sharp pain develop in my abdomen, high and towards the right side, definately not my new kidney (which is in my hip). It kept me awake most of the night, tossing and turning and I almost called the hospital for this one, but I thought I would wait it out until morning and by then it had gone away. Monday night (different than the stomach pain of Saturday), I had a very* upset stomach, along with it several trips to the toilet for.... well.... nevermind.... I don't want to search for a picture of something would be relevant here. Let's just say it wasn't pretty and I am still feeling it today.

The things I've been feeling lately are a far cry from small changes in my health. These were huge. They limited my weekend and are proposing to hinder my week. Among these problems I've been having, I've been to the hospital twice, a follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Monday and then again today for another shot of Neupogen. Yesterday the doctor dismissed my headache and stomach pain during the first part of the weekend as nothing to act on immediately. If either persist he may check it out** This morning, on the way to the hospital for my shot, I was determined to report Monday night's stomach troubles to the nurse coordinator, and when I reached her by cell phone, she made it sound like no big deal and that she would tell the doctor and call me if its a problem. HI! I have 3 white blood cells in my body, don't you think this could be from a bacteria of some sort and shouldn't I hightail it to the ER? She called and he didn't seem concerned as long as I don't have a fever (which I don't), but I should call back if it gets worse.

All things said about loving my doctors being true, I still feel I own the right to express the following complaint. Everywhere you go at Stanford Hospital....doctor visits, ER, infusion center (where they give me my shot).....the first thing on the nurses' questionaire is "Are you having any pain?" You open your heart to them, humbly expressing embarrassing moments of pain in personal places, trying to be as informative as possible, hoping that whatever it is they mark on your chart will set off a miraculous series of events throughout the hospital that will start you feeling better before you walk out the door. But what do you get from them instead? And from the doctors sometimes? And even the parking valet on rare occasion? The look shown in the picture above. Its not comforting.

Moral of the Story: After a kidney transplant, as critical as it may be to report minor changes in feeling, no one cares if, in the middle of the night, you scream loud enough wake your roommate up from the other side of the house while you're sitting on the toilet. Apparently that's not important. Except for maybe your roommate.

*When writing I try to avoid using the word very. It often slips into my writing, only to be edited later, if I do any proofreading, that is. A composition teacher once told me that if I had to use the word very before another word, then I probably wasn't using the right word to convey what I meant and to find another word. I don't think I know another word that will politely convey how VERY upset my stomach was.

**The surgeon didn't really dismiss my problems. He attributed the headache to being a side effect Neupogen, which will stop. And Saturday's stomach pain sounds like gall stones, but he doesn't want to investigate it unless it happens again. It could have just been gas or something. I trust him to fix everything he can.

Here's Where I Dazzle You With My Dual Function Blog

2006-08-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

I will now attempt to tell you the status of my health since yesterday while concurrently proving that my father is senile (if not completely, at least partially).

Cell Phone Transcript from noon today:
Father: Where are you?

Me: At the hospital, where I told you I would be this morning.

Father: What did the doctor say?

Me: Well, he said that he's not too worried about the blood in the urine. Based on the description I gave him, that the blood only came at the very end of urinating and not from start to finish, he said that it was most likely a surgical scab coming off where the ureter meets the bladder and then bleeding into the bladder. If the kidney were bleeding, all of the urine from beginning to end would be red. But, he is worried because my white blood cell count was even lower today and its at a dangerous low right now. If I get a virus, I'll need to hospitalized right away. So he's going to prescribe an injection of Neupogen which is drug that will quickly stimulate the production of white blood cells. They use it alot for HIV and leukemia patients.

Father: Well, what's causing that???

Me: The doctor says that after the transplant, sometimes people slow their production of white blood cells especially considering I've been taking Cellcept which also slows WBC production. It happens all the time, apparently, but some people get it worse. I guess I hit the jackpot. Anyway he wants me to stop taking the Cellcept for awhile.

Father: Yeah, but WHAT'S causing it?

Me: Um....I just told you. I gotta go.

(hang up)

Me: (talking to disconnected phone) I could CHOKE you!

Keep in mind that I work with my father, so we talk on a daily basis. I don't think a single day goes by that he doesn't ask me the same question twice anymore, although they are not usually consecutive as they were above.

Sorry to be graphic...

2006-08-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

At this blog I try to switch it up betweeen talking about my health and joking around about other things.....today I'm going to try to combine them, sorta, I guess.

So the headline apology is for this....(squeamish or breakfast-eaters STOP READING!)......today I found visible blood in my urine. And it SUCKS! I just had a trasplant less than three months ago. I haven't seen blood in my urine since I discovered my kidney disease as a child. Nothing good ever comes from finding that there. It can only lead to invasive examinations in BAD places of which I'm not a big fan.

So I see the doctor tomorrow about it, and until then I have to keep a positive attitude.....so on the lighter side of things here are the good? things about finding blood in your urine (feel free to give me some more, if you can think of any).

1) No more blood draw with your urine sample collection. One stop shopping!

2) The right to dismiss the complaints of almost everyone I know.

3) No more worrying that I MIGHT see blood in my urine someday soon. Its here, yay!

4) The right to grab my crotch baseball-player-style anytime I want and just say "Ow" if someone is looking.

5) The eternal hope that the only solution for this problem is long hours of gentle (but not too gentle) physical therapy for the region in question by a licensed (and smokin' hot) therapist.

Here's to New York!

2006-08-01T13:12:00.000-07:00

The US Census Bureau has determined that Seattle is the most educated (let's just say smartest) city in the US, followed by a close second place of San Francisco. While I'm sure they must have gotten it backwards, one thing is for sure, New York is NOWHERE to be seen.

When I think of smart places, I skip right over New York (#?) and think of Lexington, KY (#9). Kentucky is a place of free thinkers, individuals with more than just horses and whiskey on their minds. Similarly, I gotta say "HEY BRAH!" to Honolulu, HI (#16) for making it on the list. The people who make up this metrpolitan paradise are more than just beach loafers and wave riders, and are far more culturally advanced than any New Yorker could ever hope to be (clearly the list proves it!). Also, Red Sox fans can feel secure in calling there nemesis Yankee fan a "Stupid Idiot!" as Boston (#8) made the top ten. Even Washington, DC (#4) is honored by the Census Bureau's list of smartes places, despite some of its occupants, like the current White House administration.

While blog browsing each day, I come to find that most of the popular ones are written by New Yorkers, and now I'm really wondering WHY? New Yorkers are stupid! Even the US Census Bureau says so. I'm currently in the process of deleting all the NY-based blogs from my list of favorites, and I'm on a mad search to find blogs based in Virginia Beach (#19). I don't want to get any stupider from reading NY blogs. I is already dumb enough.

All Cover Bands (and DJ's) Please Note The Following....

2006-07-31T16:51:00.000-07:00

If you ever find yourself playing a gig that happens to be a private party on a five acre lot for 200 rugged bikers* after they just finished a 250 mile ride and are feasting on deep fried turkey and baked beans, the actual way to make them get up out of their folding camping chairs, throw off their skull-airbrushed leather vests, and boogie their steel-toed boots off until wee hours is to play Material Girl by Madonna, and not Honky Tonk Woman by the Rolling Stones, as you may have thought. Yeah, I know....I don't get it either, but just trust me**.

*Not the bikers of the new millenium that simultaneously own a BMW 530xi Sportswagon & a Screamin Eagle Fat Boy. The real kind......the kind that make choppers louder than got by piecing together their bike from old soup cans and chain saws parts with a motor from an old Chevy Chevelle that has been modified to fit in their bike frame.

**I'm really not just trying to get you beaten up or elimate the competition. This is actually a proven technique by my own band.

Health-O-Meter

2006-07-28T12:24:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks since my second surgery, I've just been feeling kinda crappy. Between having surgery, having bowel problems post-surgery, and taking umpteen thousand medications since my transplant it has been hard for the doctor to pinpoint why I'm feeling this way. I can't even really put it into words how I'm feeling for him.....kinda blah-ish doesn't really work for a doctor. Chronic mildly-upset stomach? Dizzyness, sorta? Lightheaded, sorta? I feel ok, but not great....I tell everyone I feel about 85% (of what, I don't really know). Whatever it is.....I felt better right after my transplant than I feel right now, and it really seems to be since my second surgery that its been happening.

Last night the nurse coordinator called me with my lab results from yesterday and it turns out my white blood cell count is unusually low (even for someone who is immunosuppressed).....so they want me to stop taking one of my immunosuppressants for a couple days, then go get blood drawn again to see if it helped. It could explain why I'm feeling shitty.

They may not have even looked at my WBC count if I didn't say something.

Morbid Realization (This post makes me wonder why REAL is at the root of realization?)

2006-07-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking the past few days about the consequences of me being immunosuppressed. For some reason the following scenario actually scares me a little.

Let's say its the year 2015, and some new dumbass president of the US decides to press THE button. You know which button I'm talking about. Now let's pretend some other world power strikes back . Doomsday, right......so now what.....well, some of us survive (and of course I'm one of them). Let's say its safe to surface in month or so (not because that's realistic, but because that's when I'll run out of medications).

So in a month, we all put on our camouflage clothing (that's apparently the only kind of attire that makes it through in post-apocalyptic Hollywood movies, so that's the image I'll stick with here), and head out to see what's left of the world. I'm totally screwed. The rest of you will all be foraging for food and water, but the first thing on my mind is how am I gonna find a lifetime supply of Cellcept and some other stupid study drug that hasn't even been approved by the FDA yet. How am I gonna keep my kidney working so it can clean the blood that has to flow through my new prophetic baby head (sprouting out of my side from the high levels of radiation), which is supposed to lead the resistance against the robot army the world's computers have created to rid the planet of human existence? (I name the head Moby).

First I will have to start looting the drug stores, but of course I won't be the first one to get there. Some other asshole will have emptied out all the shelves, kept the pain killers for himself, then will have thrown all my immunsuppressants into the day glow green river on the edge of town. Of course the same will be true at the hospitals, doctors offices, and drug manufacturing plants. You goddamn drugstore cowboys! My new nemeses!

My survival potential will be severly curtailed during the earth's rebuilding period after a nuclear war. Can you believe this is what keeps me (and Moby) up at night?

All The Cool Kids Are Doing It!

2006-07-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have glimpsed the future, and I want to let everyone know that if you weren't popular in high school and always wished you were, you get a do-over. Your opportunity to start again, is by playing bridge. That's right....bridge, the card game. You know...the game your gramma played with all her friends over canned cookies and cocktai.....ooops I mean tea.

Some friends and I started playing bridge a few years ago.....around age thirty. We were always amongst the youngest people in the bridge club. We probably will get to keep that distinction for another 30 years. When we began going to the club, one of the first things I noticed was that the best players were always pointed out to you. Whispered about with reverence as a warning to be careful when you face them....not just careful about your play, but careful about aggravating them, because the best players are not to be pissed off. Don't talk too much, don't play too slow, don't chew your canned cookies with your mouth full. Those are the cool kids (septuagenarian kids), don't fuck with 'em. When they walk in the room, the air intensifies and a noticeable drop in sound takes over the room for a few minutes.

So, here's your chance....if you didn't get to be the quarterback or head cheerleader when you were younger....be cool by playing bridge. Not just playing, dominating at it....start early, learn alot and by the time you are in your sixties you will have a leg up on all the late comer, old farts who started in their fifties. No one tells you how to be cool as a teenager, you just have to learn on your own. So I am spreading the word to the people I care about (both of you who read my blog), bridge is the way. Get on it.

Talent? Shows!

2006-07-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

Before I write any further I must make a confession. I am a 30-something straight male, I watch sports, I eat brots, and I leave the toilet seat up (about half the time). Men stuff...basically. My admission to you now is that......I like American Idol. There I said it. I'm not sure if that makes me more feminine in some way, but I'm comfortable with that.

Fox seems to have gotten the talent show genre locked up. They just do it right. The judges are honest, the competitors are real, the talent really is there, and the outtakes are hilarious. I even watch the non-singing version, So You Think You Can Dance. I AM sure that makes me a little more feminine, but whatever, I'll deal with that in therapy if I need to.

I've found the genre particularly appealing because.....well, I'm a musician in a cover band. This has been a hobby of mine since I was very young. Years and years of trying to put and keep bands together requires hours and hours of auditioning. I can tell you from experience the outtakes on AI are very true to life. There loads of people out there that think they can sing that are just simply tone deaf, ignorant, and overly-confident. I have lived my own little AI over my course of playing music. I cannot tell you how many auditions I've been in where the discussion in the room shortly after the person left amounted to "Can you believe how terrible that was?" followed by several sarcastic comments a few rounds of hard laughter. If only I had thought to video tape these, I could have been years ahead of Nigel Lythgow.

The other networks, though have gotten completely insane over this genre, though. One night this week competing networks aired: So You Think You Can Dance, Rock Star: Supernova, Making The One, and America's Got Talent. ALL competing against each other in the same time slots. How many different ways do the networks think they can divide up the pie that is the amount of femininity inside me I'm comfortable with.

Sure, I watched the "sword swallower with wings and platform shoes" on AGT as I was waiting through commercials of So You Think You Can Dance. And, yeah....I stopped watching the baseball game the other night, so I could see the season premier of Making The One, because they suckered me in with all the "see what goes on behind the scenes" crap. And, of course.....the remote automatically stops on any channel that has Brooke Burke on, so I may often catch glimpses of Rock Star: Supernova.

A quick review of each one:
America's Got Talent: Crap
Making The One: Crap
Rock Star-Supernova: Crap
(Will this stop me from watching them? Of course not)

All this usually happens while I'm trying to watch Big Brother, American Idol, Survivor, Real World, Road Rules, Real World/Road Rules Challenge, Solitary, Project Runway, or Battle of The Network Reality Stars. So I may have a problem. Yeah.....the problem is TIVO only records two things at once. HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO WATCH ALL THIS CRAP???? (Forget what it may be doing to my brain)

So, a plea to the networks.....please learn to stagger your programming better so I can watch all the shit you are trying to shove down my throat.

Or better yet....stop airing all this crap completely. Just cut me off!

Drive to write some more?

2006-07-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

I think so.

Not sure what my topics are yet. Probably more medical stuff.

I've pretty much neglected my blog for awhile, but since I've been gone....

1) I've had more surgery to correct a minor complication (no big deal).
2) I've not been feeling 100%. More like 85%, but not getting any better.
3) Discovered my tastes buds have changed. Things I used to live to eat, I am indifferent to now.
4) I have been back an forth from my house to my parents, mostly at my parents as they are closer to the hospital, but think I am going home permanently tonight.
5) I am in whirlwind of TV watching and can't keep up with all the "talent" based (or lack there of ) reality shows that are on right now.
6) I am losing weight without excercising and I'm not sure if that's officially good or not. The doctors seem unconcerned.
7) Still take lots of drugs, and I really am beginning to love sleeping pills. I intentionally don't take them every day, but sleep 10 times better on the days that I do. I only got 15 of them so I am using them sparingly.

That's all for now. Maybe now that I'm at work regularly I'll find a few minutes a day to keep up the blog.

8=12?

2006-06-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

I got the following recipe off another blog, and I'm very much looking forward to making it....although I a have question. If you cut it into 8 equal triangles, how does it make 12?

Lemon Scones
Makes 12

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 sticks butter (3/4 cup), unsalted, cubed
2 6-ounce containers lemon yogurt
2 teaspoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons lemon thyme or lemon balm, chopped

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda in a bowl and whisk to remove lumps. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or in the food processor until the butter is pea-size. Add the yogurt, lemon juice and lemon thyme or balm. Mix together gently with a spoon and then turn out onto a floured board. Form into a round as pictured above (about 3/4 inch tall) and then slice into 8 equal triangles. Bake until brown on top, about 12-14 minutes.

Mars Has People (and they love soccer!)

2006-06-10T09:11:00.000-07:00

Source: KNTV Channel 11 News (San Francisco/San Jose)
Date: 6/9/06, 11:25-ish

Female Newscaster (throwing it over to sports): So, Jim [name changed to protect the stupid], it looks like a lot of people will be watching soccer this weekend.
Sportscaster: That’s right, Anne [also changed], approximately 30 billion people will be watching the World Cup. More on that when we return.*

Thoughts: 30 billion! Wow! This does prove human life exists on other planets! And they have TV’s! Either that or China is growing faster than we thought.

*I wish I could say this was taken out of context, but when they returned from commercials, he repeated the number 30 billion again.

TWO KNIVES!?!?! NO WAY!!!!!

2006-06-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

I was watching the Food Network the other day (I know....there is a pattern to my TV watching habits), and Gianna “What’s Her Face’s” show Everyday Italian was on. I watch this channel to get inspiration for dinner and/or get useful cooking tips. Gianna was making some sort of gourmet sandwich of which I had not too much interest in, but she did have a tip to offer. She was going to be putting mayo and mustard on this sandwich and she had this to say: “When I put mayo and mustard on sandwiches I use two knives, one for the mayo and one for the mustard. That way I don’t get mayonnaise in the mustard jar.”

To the Food Network audience who actually needs this advice*:
1) If you have actually made it this far in life without making your own bologna and cheese sandwich, I applaud your laziness. Please let me know if your mom will adopt me and/or your spouse will divorce you and marry me.
2) It may be time for you to give up on your hopes of cooking and change the channel to the Cartoon Network. And, please, stay away from knives altogether, especially two at the same time.
3) Never, ever……EVER!.....make me dinner.

To Gianna:
1) Did you actually go to a fancy cooking school in Paris to learn that little gem of culinary advice?
2) You’re still hot as hell, but c’mon REALLY? Did you have to go and say that on national TV and ruin my thoughts of you being the perfect woman?
3) Never, ever……EVER!.....make me dinner. OK…scratch that….you can make me dinner, but please leave all the cutting, chopping and slicing to me.

*This excludes anyone who may be mentally challenged/impaired and children under the age of say....10. No....9. No.....6.

Thoughts? Yeah, I have some thoughts....

2006-06-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

Thought one - the auther is a complete bigot. Charging one group of people a different price than everyone else because of their lifestyle "choices"? Are you fucking kidding me? I think this is exactly where nazis started with their ideology. Lets just charge the Jews more money for being Jews. And gays. And Black. And.....wait....why stop there. Lets just burn them all.

Thought two - I would think the commenters would be less "on board" with the whole idea of the blog entry. That some collective voice of reason would say "that's discrimination, and it's not funny." But the collective voice was on the side of the author. "Yeah I hate fat people, too! Good writing, author!" Is this really 2006?

Thought three - No one chooses to be fat. Its not a simple result of "eat too much, excercise too little" and you end up fat. That's a complete oversimplification of how one ends up fat. There are so many factors about how people get fat, I can't possibly name them all, but all the ones I can think of are: how you eat, when you eat, why you eat, what you eat, how you were raised, social class, where you live, what the climate is, what food is available to you, whether or not you were abused as a child, genetics, social conditioning, advertising, medical conditions that prevent you from being active, side effects of prescription drugs, addiction, age, metabolism.....I'm probably leaving out about 100 other reasons. Anyways, my guess is that with all the reasons there are one can end up fat, possibly only 10% of fat people can be held accountable for the "eat too much food, excersize too little and you end up fat" reason. If that.

Thought four - um, author....the medical community doesn't define diseases as "something you can catch". Just because you can't "catch" obesity doesn't rule it out as a disease. I didn't "catch" my kidney disease from someone who coughed it on me. And you can't "catch" cancer because didn't wash your hands enough. You're an even bigger moron for thinking diseases are only somethig you can "catch".

Thought five- I love how young people think they are going to be skinny forever. Last I checked our nation was fatter than ever. Every news article you read about obesity in America tells you that there are now more people overweight in America then there are not. Logic tells us Author (age 24), that if we were to place a bet in Vegas that you will end up fat by age 35, we are more likely to win that bet than lose it. I hope you are still writing about discrimantion of fat people then.

Thought six - one commenter said "It's called a joke, people. Jeesh." I can take a joke, dipshit.....but when you start defending your bigoted views seriously??? I gotta call out. Wake up asshole.....a joke is not a joke anymore when you tell the world you actually believe what you are saying.

Thought seven - political view is a funny thing. I'm not Republican and I'm not Democrat, and I didn't vote for 17 years because I couldn't find a party I can actually align myself with. The very simplified base of my political views are this: (1) The less government involvement in my life the better (this is the financial basis of conservatism, but for some reason when it comes to social issues, conservatives are all up in your shit.....conversly this is the social basis for liberalism, but of course, financially.....they are similarly all up in your shit). (2) Be tolerant of others (something liberals profess profusely). It's really pretty simple. Government - stay out of my life as much as you can, police the world around me, defend my country, and charge taxes fairly to cover the cost of all that. The rest is just bureaucratic bullshit. I don't know what that makes me, though....conservative or liberal. I don't even really care to put a label on it. But I will say shame on you so called "liberals" who preach tolerance and can still manage to discriminate against someone. And fuck you RAW!

And while we're at it, conservatives? Fuck you too. (but at least you don't hide your bigotry, and we can all see it coming).

The comments are better than the orignal post....

2006-06-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

The names below have been changed to protect the GUILTY (of bigotry). ***notes are my own personal thoughts as I went through these comments. Keep in mind that these people are discussing the NYC subway. We are talking about the "most progressive city" in the "most progressive" country in the world. I bet most of these people consider themselves liberal:

Commenter #1 said...
and along those lines, shouldn't particularly narrow people get a discount? if you're shifting the distribution in the other direction, there should be a kickback, yeah? "Kids under 12 and people under 105 ride free!" sort of thing...

The Author said...
Exactly! I should also ride free if I sit on someone's lap. (Just me though - applied to everyone else it would promote sluttishness.)

ONE COMPLETE MORON said...
Ahh, I love public policy! (love bubble butts more, but enough about that...)such a regulation will never pass and i'll tell you why: disproportionate effect on neighborhoods. which neighborhoods have the fattest people? the poor ones! when i lived in the heart of bed-stuy i saw obesity like crazy. the A train had tons of people spilling over that divider lip thing. try to enact a law like that and you'll have democrats pulling the class card, Al Sharpton pulling the race card and class action lawyers pulling out business cards...it'd just be a total mess.and yes i realize that was way too serious an answer for a tongue-in-cheek question.

Commenter #1 said...
Perhaps a total mess, but also much more spacious! nothing like a little righteous indignation to free up some seats...

Commenter #2 said...
I've moved by subway as well! I moved all my stuff from 137th Street down to 12th street one very hot August. I only took a cab once and that was to take the "bigger" stuff like stereo and tv. I'm not sure why but once I was finished I has such a sense of accomplishment...however I don't think I would ever do that again.

Commenter #3 said...
I think perhaps the subway seats should be redesigned, like bra cups: A, B, C, D, etc....and have the pricing to go along with it, that way if you have extra luggage you have to pay more.

Commenter #4 said...
We're living dual blogger lives. Not only am I moving, but I had a "fat person on the subway experience" too. If your next post is about a dream you had involving Mayor Bloomberg in a bikini this is going to be crrrrazy!

Commenter #5 said...
I think they should just have both regular seats and supersized seats , that was we can all avoid being the person who's responsible for going up to the big person in a regular seat and having to ask them for a dollar to pay rent for that ass. Yikes.

Commenter #6 said...
There is no practical solution, but ideally there would be separate trains, buses, and planes for those who are overly-endowed in the posterior region. Personally, its the people who sit with their legs wide open that bother me.

The Author said...
Well, this really ties into the last post, but I think there's a key difference between a "fat ass" and a "phat ass". Mostly that the "fat ass" goes out, while the "phat ass" goes back. Those with the "phat ass" aren't taking up any additional space, just sitting a little higher. Maybe there could be some model to provide subway riders with perspective, like when you board an airplane. "Your ass must fit within this compartment". And I really like the idea of cup sizes. I think jeans should come that way.

The Author said...
and Commenter #4 - I was wondering when you were going to notice that I'm cribbing your entire life. At least our rotund subway people had different fat distributions. (Mine has a lower risk of heart disease.)

Commenter #7 said...
when you start talking policy, you know that the world is in serious troublei would like to point out that the public health costs of obesityfar out weigh smoking and involve the same kind of politer than though PC public interactions but smokers are spawn of the devil (and i am proud to be one) while fat people are just plain old honest Americans.

Anonymous said (***this was the first real voice of dissention, too bad it was anon, gives it less credibility)...
I wonder how we could start charging for supersized rudeness -- like maybe when you wake up in the morning you should have to pay a rude tax -- $1.00 for rude - $2.00 for really rude - but then who would determine the difference - lets just call you really rude to make it easier on your size small brain.

Commenter #8 said...
Having been squished by the asspillithovers on many an occassion, I'm feeling this post. My other pet peeve of subway space hoggers? Those idiots that lean their entire body on the pole I'm trying to hold onto. Hate them with a passion my 'accidentally' jabbing my knuckle deep into their spine just doesn't fully communicate.

Commenter #5 said...
Author - what do you mean by cribbin my entire life? *I'm having a slow day :P

othur-me (this was my comment, when I wasn’t that mad and wasn’t taking this too seriously, before The Author started defending her bigotry) said...
It seems to me that anyone with "plenty of wiggle room" should be charged extra for wasting space. My fat ass fits in the seats perfectly, so I should never be charged extra. What they should do is make different size seats and charge the same price for everyone. Then fine people who sit in seats that don't exactly fit their butt, bigger or smaller. Anyone who's ass is so skinny that they still have wiggle room in the smallest seat should stand. And if someone is too tall to stand they should chop off their feet.

Commenter #9 said...
So if I understand anon's post, then I can pay a licensing fee for rudeness? If so, I'll take a year's of extra rude and run a tab for The Author. Smartest $730 I've ever spent. Aside from my divorce lawyer. Which was more than $730. But worth every penny

The First Voice Of Reason said...
Perhaps one of the biggest problems in the world today is intolerance. (I actually have trouble thinking of problems that couldn't be solved with more tolerance... but I digress) Think of the obesity as a disease, because it is one. The individuals suffering from obesity will also be victims of complications made by the extra weight they carry around. So if a shorter life wasn't enough punishment they also endure the ridicule of your blog. I'm not at all suggesting you become more PC, just trying to "make-you-hmmm" .

ONE COMPLETE MORON said...
The First Voice Of Reason, obesity is not a disease. you eat a lot, you get fat. plain and simple. labeling everything a disease helps people shift the blame from themselves for things. "It's not my fault, I have a disease." and i love how you give the most pc comment i've seen a while, then sum it up with "I'm not at all suggesting you become more PC" Uhhhh...yes you are! :) The Author is fine the way she is.

The Author said...
Hi The First Voice Of Reason: I have no problem with the obese - only when obesity starts to infringe upon other people's quality of life. (The butt groove has very little to do with this, as one could not be obese and still surpass the groove. When I talked about having 'wiggle room' I meant two inches of clearance, tops. That's an inch on either side of my butt and, phat ass aside, I am a very small person. If jeans were sized like bras, I'd be wearing about a 24-B. Maybe a B+)I find the "disease" label very interesting, though. I'm with ONE COMPLETE MORON on this one: People aren't catching obesity. I see it as more of a social problem than a disease. A lot of kids coming out of bad schools in the Bronx can't read, but we don't (and I think shouldn't) label illiteracy as a "disease", treat them like the permanently disabled, or plead for tolerance from people that think they are plain ol' stupid. The kids are fully capable of reading, they just haven't been given the right tools. Illiteracy is a social issue that has identifiable causes, affects certain groups disproportionably, and is rectifiable through education. I think obesity is very similar and should be treated the same way. *whew* Damn. I think that's the most sincere comment I've made yet!

Commenter #10 said...
something nobody has mentioned yet is that the grooves on subway seats are only on some lines, and even then only some of the time. all the new cars on the 7th ave line, the lexington ave line and the L train have benches with no grooves. and all the really old cars on the 6th ave, 8th ave and broadway lines have no grooves. so maybe people with giant asses should just have to wait for the really new or really old trains.i also have this theory that the only reason the lex and 7th ave lines have new cars is bc they are the ones tourists ride the most often, so that sort of ties in with all the class issues above, but i could be totally making that up - however, when's the last time you saw a family from oklahoma on a train that doesn't go right through grand central or times square?

Commenter #11 said...
First of all, enough making fun of fat people. It's a social disease after all. It's not my fault. Society made me this way. As for the added revenue of the fat tax, it would be lost because you'd have to pay a union wage for someone to stand there and measure someone's ass to see how much they had to pay. So, all would be for naught

Commenter #12 said...
Heck, why don't they start charging more for clothing size 16 and up? After all, if a size 16 was to buy the same silk shirt, 200 silk worms had to die in the making as opposed to 100 for a size 8.

First Voice Of Reason said...
I didn't comment on the blog to cause problems, I was just making an observation. Just to be clear though "A disease is an abnormal condition of the body or mind that causes discomfort, dysfunction, or distress to the person afflicted" from. Now if obesity doesn't cause discomfort and distress, then it's not a disease, but let's be honest it most certainly does. Pathology is the study of disease, but more specifically defines the 'disease' as a departure from a normal condition, ie. overweight, anorexia (both diseases) I could certainly get into a discussion where we define Pathology and Disease... but then that's semantics and really really boring. I'm sure everyone's first impression is that I'm very boring so I will chill out. All of that said, I really do like The Author’s blog, and though I will continue to read it, I promise not to just start some arbitrary arguments

Commenter #13 said...
I just plain don't like those grooves! Same as the arm rests at airports designed to control us! I like the bench style buses and subway cars. I really have a pet peeve with the folks especially guys whose balls are SO BIG they have to keep their legs spread all the time. It is nuts! Territory people territory! Close those legs in bench or booths or stand up with your ginormous equipment. Actually, I take that back, sit next to me, no closer big boy...I have no right to really complain about anybody else on public transiy. I have a disease myself. It's called loudvoice. I try to talk quietly but I am super super loud. One time there was a vibration in my purse, everyone on streetcar could hear it. I was like, oh my god what is it? Then I realized it was my electric toothbrush. Then I realized what everybody else thought it was...I proceeded to haul my electric toothbrush out of my purse making a big todo about "It's my toothbrush MY TOOTHBRUSH."I should just stay at home with my phat voice.

Anonymous said...
good lord people. it's called a joke. sheesh.

Anonymous said...
If you can't fit in it, don't sit in it. " When is the MTA gonna put that ad up?

Commenter #14 said...
If yo butt don't fit, you must acquit!

possibly anonymous said...
disease my ass! or their ass. obescity LEADS to diseases. So stop eating the damn twinkies. get off your damn couch and walk a mile. and finally, if you sit down on the 4 train, and you take up 2 seats,i'm not saying you should get up, but use that shame, pain and agony to get your fat ass to a gym.

Anonymous said...
So if we're paying for the groove, does that mean anyone standing rides for free? Awesome. And I agree that sliding into the next seats groove is irritating, as is hogging the pole, sitting spread eagle and yelling. My personal favorite is someone chomping on some nasty food behind me at 7 am.

Commenter #15 said...
my question is, what if people like sitting on the groove. I don't think that's so much of a stretch that a little groove in the crack might give some people a jolt (get to it!) on their way to/from work. And those people should be charged as well, or maybe those responsible for overspilling get al ittle kickback from those who like groove in the crack.

Commenter #16 said...
Size 16 and up already is charged higher prices. Also, obesity may not be a disease in the pure sense of the word, but it certainly is a disorder for many people. For many, it is a compulsive disorder linked to other problems or issues within a person's life. Just saying get off your ass and exercise is like telling an anorexic to eat a sandwich. It's just cruel. And, by the way, I spin five times a week and ride several miles on my bike each week. But I still have a fat ass, which you can kiss.

ONE COMPLETE MORON said...
"Just saying get off your ass and exercise is like telling an anorexic to eat a sandwich. It's just cruel. "No it's noy. If she's anorexic, someone needs to give her some tough love and tell her to eat! Screw that airy-fairy new age stuff, the last thing she needs is more hand-holding, enabling and excuses. Maybe I'm just too old-school like that.

Something from another blog....

2006-06-01T18:00:00.000-07:00

The words below come from another blog for which I have no intention of identifying the author because I think she is a moron. I had been reading this blog for a couple weeks and enjoying it, but I will no longer read it as she is intolerant of fat people, the group of people for which it is politically acceptable to make fun of, even by people who consider themselves "liberal". Please read on, and I will discuss more in my next entry after you have soaked it up.

Aftter that last post, I think I have big butts on the brain.Yes, I've been thinking about supersize butts. And when I haven't been thinking about supersize butts I've been thinking about the subway. (This preoccupation actually makes a bit of sense, as I've decided to economize my move by making it as painful and inefficient as possible.) Here's how I do it: I make a few subway trips a day - zipping between my old and new apartments with a huge suitcase. I fill the enormous suitcase with old-apartment crap, haul it back downtown while sweating and swearing, dump crap, and then repeat. I feel pretty smug at the end of the day. Why has no else thought of this?Given the amount of time I spend enduring angry looks from people who are annoyed by my big suitcase, it's no surprise that I would try to shift blame away from my cheap self and persecute other people who take up too much space. So, here's what I'm thinking: New York subway seats have grooves. I can only imagine that the grooves were designed after some research, and that they are based on the dimensions of regulation-sized asses. The average New Yorker butt fits the groove, and the honor of placing your ass in the groove (or at least the opportunity to try) costs you $2.00.But some people take up more than one seat! Their butts spill over the allotted width, throwing off the whole system. Now the person next to them has to scoot over and straddle the peak between grooves, and so on and so forth. The result: an unfair seating distribution, wasted space at the end of each row, and a loss of dignity and comfort for everyone involved. (Not to mention a loss of revenue for the city, and indirectly, our nation's public schools.)I'm no policy-maker, but shouldn't subway riders, like obese airline patrons, have to plunk down another $2.00 if their butts exceed the groove? Or maybe just another $1.00, if their butt is merely peeking over the lip of the next seat? I mean, it's not like the groove isn't plenty generous. I sit my big butt in the groove and still have plenty of wiggle-room. Thoughts?

Dear final bidder,

2006-05-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

The reason you didn't get to go on stage with Bob Barker when they "called you down" on the Price Is Right is because you are too stupid to figure out how to bid $1 over the lowest bidder in your price range. When you bid on the sofa and the first three bids were $1100, $1, and $700.......$985 was a terrible bid. I'm only writing, because when Bob revealed the price of $850, and the hyper frat boy from UC Irvine got to go on stage and win the car, and you didn't, you looked surprised.

Your friend,
The Collective Voice of 2nd Grade Math Teachers Across America (TCVO2GMTAA)*

*This was actually written by a person forced to stay home during recovery from a surgery and watch daytime TV for the first time in 18 years, which is the last time I actually watched the Price Is Right. I'm sure there are entire blogs devoted to this topic, but I felt the need to get this off my chest as I've seen it happen moron after moron for the past 13 weekdays in a row. I hereby declare to not watch the Price Is Right again for another 18 years (unless its on again tomorrow).

Some quick thoughts on the American Idol finale....

2006-05-24T23:07:00.000-07:00

If they removed the "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" portion by Bucky, the entire Burt Bacharach set would have been awesome.

All of the "Idols" got a lesson in stage presence from the celebrity guests. Especially Elliot. When Mary J grabbed his hand and started shakin' it for him. He looked befuddled. She was all...."GET A CLUE ELLIOT, IF YOU'D JUST MOVE A LITTLE YOU MIGHT'VE WON THIS THING!"

Prince! Showin' 'em all how its done.

Paris sucked hard.

Kat was overplayed.

Taylor deserved to win, but that's not saying much. Ask yourself if you would ever buy a ticket to see him in concert. Or any of 'em.

Drug Regiment

2006-05-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

For anyone intersted in what drugs have to be taken by a transplant recipient, this is what I take, starting the day after the surgery:

Study Drug (Immunosuppressant) - 100 mg twice a day
Predisone (Steroid) - tapered dosage starting at 100 mg the first day and down to 5 mg by day 42
Cellcept (Immunosuppressant) - 1000 mg twice a day
Bactrim (Prevents Bacterial Pneumonia) - 1 pill a day
Valcyte (Prevents Viral Infections) - 450 mg every M-W-F, once those days
Nystatin Mouthwash (Prevents Mouth/Throat Fungus) - 5 cc in 10 cc of water, three times daily
Iron Supplement - 325 mg, three times a day
Vitamin C - 500 mg, three times a day
Multivitamin - 1 pill a day
Aspirin - 81 mg, once a day
Metoprolol (Blood Pressure) - 100 mg, twice a day
Minoxodil (Blood Pressure) - 10 mg, twice a day
Pepcid - twice a day
Docusate (stool softener) - twice a day
Lovonox (blood thinner) - 1 injection a day

On MWF when I take more pills than other days (on other days subtract one pill from 8 am), it amounts to:
14 pills at 8 am
14 pills at 11 am
4 pills at 2 pm
6 pills at 6 pm
14 pills at 11 pm
Give myself one injection in the stomach each morning
Rinse, gargle, and swallow mouthwash 3 times a day

UPDATE: On Monday May 15, the doctors added 40 mg of furosemide (water pill) once a day to help with getting rid of some water my body was holding onto. They also increase my study drug to 120 mg.

15 pills at 8 am
16 pills at 11 am
4 pills at 2 pm
6 pills at 6 pm
16 pills at 11 pm
Give myself one injection in the stomach each morning
Rinse, gargle, and swallow mouthwash 3 times a day

UPDATE: On Thursday May 18, they removed the pepsid and docusate because I wasn't having any problems with heartburn or constipation which ususally occur immediately after tranplant surgery. They also cut my minoxodil in half because my blood pressure numbers were "ok". They also increased my study drug to 150 mg.

11.5 pills at 8 am
19 pills at 11 am
4 pills at 2 pm
3.5 pills at 6 pm
19 pills at 11 pm
Give myself one injection in the stomach each morning
Rinse, gargle, and swallow mouthwash 3 times a day

UPDATE: On Friday May 19, done with lovonox injections.

11.5 pills at 8 am
19 pills at 11 am
4 pills at 2 pm
3.5 pills at 6 pm
19 pills at 11 pm
Rinse, gargle, and swallow mouthwash 3 times a day

UPDATE: On Monday May 22, they reduced my study drug to 140 mg twice daily.

11.5 pills at 8 am
18 pills at 11 am
4 pills at 2 pm
3.5 pills at 6 pm
18 pills at 11 pm
Rinse, gargle, and swallow mouthwash 3 times a day

The whole point is to remove as many drugs as possible. The eventual goal is to get down to only the immunsuppressants (you have to take those for life) and most likely I will have to keep some form of blood pressure medication, but my doctors want to get me off minoxodil because they say its not a good drug to take long term.

Inch-Pebbles

2006-05-22T22:10:00.000-07:00

G2S Still Rocks....and so does Sue: Amendment to this post. I'm sure that somewhere out there is a nurse named Mary that works in a Post-Op Care Unit somewhere, but not at Stanford Hospital. In my drug induced, surgery prompted haze, I seemed to have mis-remembered my nurses first name. I SWEAR IT WAS MARY! It wasn't, it was Sue. Thanks Sue!

Back in GS2, Oseas grew tired of feeding me ice chips and went home. Denise was my next nurse. She was really nice as well (the entire staff at Stanford Hospital was seemingly more super than most hospitals, all my friends agreed). She often spoke to me about myself in the 3rd person rather than the second and used "it" as the pronoun to describe me. "If it doesn't take its pills, it won't get any lunch", mostly making to reference to all the tubes and wires coming out of me, like I were Frankenstein's monster. She explained to it that in order to graduate to water from ice chips, she needed to make sure its digestive tract is back in action. Meaning, if it heard rumbling in its stomach....it might be able to have water. Even better, if it passed gass....it definately got water.

Now, I have set myself some lofty goals in my life: losing vast amounts of weight, amassing very large sums of money, teaching my dog to fetch me very cute girls in the park (none of which have ever been achieved successfully). I now have a new task at hand, one I'm sure I can do. I mean, I 've done it before many times. Hardly worth calling a "milestone" in my recovery. I prefer to think it as an inch-pebble. My goal all morning is......to fart. Yup....I said...I did it...I had to actually tell someone about it....but.....job done, water drank.

It seems that is pretty much what recovery from major abdominal surgery is all about. Little tiny goals....like farting. Other inch-pebbles, there were many and there were rewards for each. If I could have a bowel movement, I got to eat solid food. Should I get up, walk all around the unit....I get the catheter out. When I can manage to stop using the self-induced pain control, I get to take the little things taped to my finger off. All of these rewards usually include disconnecting a tube or wire from me, making me feel less constriced. Basically when you get down to zero tubes and wires, you get to go home. Now it was just a matter of figuring out which reward I wanted most and making them happen.

The thing that mattered most to me was the catheter. I asked every nurse and every doctor that came into my room when I get the catheter out. Denise was the first to tell me, "Ya know....it shouldn't hurt. If it does something's wrong." Well....it hurt and apparently something was wrong. Denise managed to make a very minor adjustment and make the pain go away completely. This made the catheter tolerable, but.....still less than enjoyable. It still thanked her hugely.

I spent the week trying to achieve these little, tiny feats, each one of them a HUGE struggle. But I did it. I farted. I pooped. I got up, walked around. I got my tubes and wires removed one by one, and I got myself out of there by Friday. Two days earlier than all best case scenario predictions. The fastest quote I had been given was to get out the Sunday after the surgery (which took place Monday). The doctors were all happy with my recovery, the nurses were all happy with my recovery, and I was anxious to get home. I was happy to go home Friday afternoon. Having to sit in the passenger seat with my father driving us home is a whole other story.....not happy.....not happy at all.

Tonight I Went Out For The First Time

2006-05-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

I decided to try and venture out of the house for the evening for the first time since my surgery. There was a poker tournament at a friend of a friend's house. I don't like to miss this tournament because the competition is ususally pathetic. It was the usual round of pathetic players, but I was pullilng shitty cards all night and ended up short stacked and losing to a guy who beat my top pair with his kicker. I actually didn't mind because the drugs were getting me a little weary and I was tired of thinking about cards, especially against a group of people make it not matter what you think. I also got tired of watching people try to figure out how to count out their $125 bet with 4 different color chips. 1 green, 2 rd, 3 blue and no wait....2 blue 4 red and wait.....no....makes the game last forever. I was happy to see my friends.

I did make the mistake, however, of trying to run across the street to avoid traffic....and it turns out I'm not ready to run yet. My stomach made sure I knew that when I got to the other side. For those of you who need to know....it turns out it really hurts to run 12 days after a kidney transplant. You think I would have known that. I'm sure they told me at the hospital.

Completely Out of Context TV Quote #1

2006-05-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

Who: The Barefoot Contessa
Show: The Barefoot Contessa
Episode: Lunch For The Boys
Channel: The Food Network
Date & Time: 5/20/06, 9:40 am PST

Quote: "I'm so looking forward to seeing Dick in the windmill."

Observation: Is this some new sexual maneuver I've not yet discovered?

G2S Rocks!

2006-05-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

My new home after recovery was Unit GS2. As they wheeled my gurney past the waiting room full of my parents and friends and into room 201, Mary began her goodbyes. "They'll take good care of you here Jerry." I knew they would, but I would miss Mary. My throat dry and sore from the breathing tube shoved down my throat during surgery, I squeeked out the best thank you and good bye I could muster.

Oseas (oh-say-us) had already started getting things ready for me. I arrived at 10:30 pm and he would be my nurse until shift change at 7:30am. I was quite comfortable for someone who just had a major abdominal surgery, especially after Oseas explained the PCA button to me. A wonderful little single-button, wired remote control that delivered pain medication to my IV everytime I pushed it. It wass on a ten minute timer so I couldn't go crazy. Yet another wire dangling from my bed to go with the medical spaghetti described here*.

Oseas told me if I needed anything he would be there. And he was. All night long he sat in my room and made sure I was completely cared for. He was awesome. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything because your intestinal tract basically falls asllep when you're under general anesthetic and until it wakes up you're stomach is likely to push back what it can't push forward. At this point all I wanted was something to drink because my throat was so completely dry and irritated. It was the 2nd worse pain I had, only to the pain of the catheter which was bothering me in the worst way (and in the worst place).

When the doctor (surgeon's assistant #12 or intern #22, I can't fully remember) came in to check on me, he denied me the priveledge of a glass of water, despite my pleas. Osaes, obviously well versed in the art of doctor manipulation, lobbied on my behalf for a glass of ice chips, aware that I didn't know to ask for them myself. He instantly went down in my book as "one awesome guy" as those ice chips were sent from heaven and I requested them all night long. Poor Oseas was doomed to spoon feed me little shards of ice every hour on the hour, because I didn't sleep well. Not because I was in pain or anything. I just wasn't that tired. The doctors said it was common the first night, because you have basically been sleeping all day thought the surgery.

In the morning, Osaes informed me that the doctors had put in an order to move me to Unti E3 (the transplant unit), but it was full. So, for the mean time, I would stay here in GS2. Whew! I like it here. And then my very cute nurse Denise came on shift and I liked it even more.

I hope I get to stay here. I really hope I get to stay here.

*When you add to this scene the wired TV remote and my CPAP (which is a mask that goes over my face when I sleep and forces air up my nose to treat my sleep apnea), I'm sure I was a vision in life support. Anyone stranger that may have meandered into the wrong room would have truly thought they were witnessing a coma awakening when I sat up, ripped off my CPAP and asked "Who are you?" A MIRACLE!

The day before the surgery...

2006-05-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

...although I was not yet on any drugs, was very surreal. I remember most of it, but I really just checked out of my brain for awhile. I didn't want to think about anything, because anything would turn into transplant. So, I just sort of wandered through the day happy as could be, not letting a thing get to me.

The day started with breakfast with my parents and my best friend Mike. Christoper, the nurse coordinator who met with me a week before, told me to have a big breakfast because once I checked into the hospital I would be on a clear liquid diet. I would later find out that this would save me from a "bowel preparation." Now, I have no idea what exactly happens at a bowel preparation, but I'm almost completely positive its nothing fun.

I rode with Mike to the hospital and my parents drove separately. Just as we were walking up to the admitting desk, Matt walked up by himself, no parents, family, friends. Just him and his backpack walking in like its just another trip to the library or something. He had informed us that his father dropped him off and then went to watch Stanford play Cal at the Sunken Diamond baseball field (at Stanford). It all seemed very casual.

Then we checked in and made our way to unit ATU? ACU? A-something-U. Ambulatory Care-something-or other. When we got there we both asked for non-smoking rooms. The nurses informed us there was some mistake and we can't stay there tonight because they close at 7pm on Sundays and all the nurses go home. Don't you think someone at admitting would know this? Anyway....they sent us back to admitting and we waited there for awhile until they found a place to put us. Apparently the transplant unit (E3) was full. We ended up at F3...dear old F3.

The nurse at F3 took me into my room where a man in a hospital gown was being attended to by some other nurse. He didn't look all that happy to have a new roommate. I'm absolutely sure I returned the vibe. The only thing I remember about him is that he complained alot and needed vast amounts of attending to. Easy for me to say before my surgery, but I'm sure I complained at least half as much as him after my surgery as well. My nurse, whose name I need to leave out of this completely, began her check in routine.

She did her nice-to-meet-yous and isn't-it-a-great-thing-what-your-friend-is-doing-for-yous and then began filling out her paperwork which involved asking me questions. Name, DOB, Allergies, Medications...you know...that stuff...and then something weird happened....obviousy deviating from her questionnaire, she asked "So are you getting 2 kidneys or 1?"

NO!! Did she just ask me that? Is she joking? Look in her eyes....no....she's not joking. "One," I said. Did I just answer that question to a nurse who will be taking care of me? Can I still opt out of this? I mean....its a good question.....for a third grader. And, bless her heart, she was just generally showing an interest in my problem, but c'mon....where's the camera? Who's fucking with me? This would be the most memorable moment of my week in the hospital. I would later tell other nurses about it, who would try to convince me she was joking. She wasn't. She went on with her questions and stuck to the paperwork from there on.

Then blood draw. EKG. Chest X-ray. The lunch tray was on my roll-away counter top when I got back. A bowl of chicken broth. A juicy cup of grape juice. A dish of yellow jello (yellow is the worst one). And a frozen lemon icee thing. Then a round of people, endless people, came by to introduce themselves. Interns, fellows, med-students, nurses, coordinators, surgeons....none of them my actual surgeon. I shook alot of hands and heard alot of names that night, I remember none of them. I had checked out earlier in the day. I watched TV. My parents and friends (Mike & Louisa) sat in the waiting room not knowing whether to come in my room or not. Eventually my parents went home and said they would see me in the morning. Mike & Louisa came into my room and hung out for awhile, well past visiting hours, and left only at the point when the nurse (a different one after shift change) came in and explained I had to take a shower, change into my gown, and she had to put an IV in my arm so they could start pumping me full of fluids.

Audrey...my new nurse (cute as hell with her Lisa Loeb glasses and eastern Euro accent), struggled putting the IV in. You see....I'm a phlebotomist's nightmare. I'm well known in Phlebotomy Journal and Blood Draw Magazine as "the toughest stick in the lab." None of my veins pop and thanks to blood pressure medications I've been taking for the last 5 years there is a fresh coat of hair on my arms that help to camouflage all the veins and arteries buried deep within. So, Audry spends a few minutes trying her best to find a vein, wipes my arm with some alcohol, and sticks it in.....STRIKE ONE! She missed....and I'm okay with it. Needles don't really bother me that much and most trips to the lab for me end in multiple sticks. I was willing to have her pull it out and try again, but she decided to save me the pain of another stick started wiggling (a technique I've seen used by many blood drawers). You can see the look of desperation on their faces when they realize they've missed and think they're close enough to wiggle it in, but it always ends in 9 or 10 seconds of useless needle wiggling and to be honest its hurts way more than another stick. Audrey decided she wouldn't let my left arm beat her. She wiggled for about 3 full minutes. "Sorry" and "I hope it doesn't hurt"....she was embarrassed and feeling my pain with me. FINALLY....she gives up....tries the right arm, gets it on the first stick, and puts a bandage over my left arm (my still badly bruised left arm). Can I go to sleep now?

No. Now that I'm settled, in walks the surgeon. THE surgeon. Dr. Stephan Busque. Regarded by most people in the hospital and by all his previous patients as a genius* (and a hell of a nice guy with an endearing little French-Canadian accent). Dr. Busque came in, checked me out with some very basic stethescoping, told me the surgery would be a little later than I originally thought, and told me I was being invited to take part in a drug study. I could have the option of taking a new immunosuppressant drug (not yet FDA approved) that was a modified version of another drug they are using now. They rearranged one of the molecules and were able to make the drug 10x stronger. Meaning they could give you 10x less of it and therefore reduce some of the unwanted side effects by 10x, including the nephrotoxicity of the drug. Meaning, if it worked, I may never need another transplant (most kidney transplants only last about 10 years because the immunosuppresants are nephrotoxic). He, while trying to sound impartial, was obviously very excited about it. I had tons of questions and he had tons of answers and now I would have until morning to think it through. Now I had to check back in. I have something serious to consider. Dr. Busque assured me everything would go well with the surgery and I believed him. I lay awake for only a few minutes considering my drug options. I already knew the answer.

*Dr. Busque apparently uses innovative techniques that other surgeons don't use to minimize post-op pain for the patients. Matt and I both regard him as amazing and will gladly give testimonty to the success of these techniques. Also, he really is a hell of nice guy.

Jerry! Wake up! It's over.....

2006-05-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

what? where am I? what's that pain? oh that's what a catheter feels like. I feel great....but, ouch...where's my pain killers? Damn my throat hurts! What are all these things hanging off of or going into me?

First stop....recovery room. IV in my neck. IV in my arm. Bandage on my wrist from where a third IV was. Blood pressure cuff on my left arm automatically taking my blood pressure every half hour. Both my legs wrapped from toe to crotch in some sort of pad that fills up with air and then deflates at random intervals every 5 to 10 seconds, apparently something to keep the blood flow going through your legs. A tube across my face blowing oxygen up my nostrils. This thing taped to the end of my middle finger that measures the oxygen saturation in my blood, and makes the end of your finger light up red like ET's. Oh cool....there's another one on my other hand....I can actually touch them together and recreate the "ouch" scene all by myself. And the best part....a 1/2 inch tube coming out from my underparts running to some sort of urine-o-meter to measure the output of urine from my brand new kidney.

My nurse Mary interrupted her endless amounts of tasks to stop and tell me that Matt (my donor) just left recovery and that he was doing great. She was his nurse and she will be mine. Matt had apparently found out that she was a big Giants fan and told her about my front row tickets at AT&T Park. Apparently I was alert enough to have this conversation with her, although I would later forget about 98% of it. I figure I must have spent about 4 or 5 hours in recovery, although I don't know for sure. I'm mostly guessing from how long my surgery was supposed to be and at what time I ended up in my unit following recovery. I know almost nothing about Mary, but I remember how much I loved her. Maybe because she was a big Giants fan, or maybe because she was the source of my pain killers....but I just remember Mary was awesome.

The anestesiologist (sp?) had told me before the surgery that because of my sleep apnea they wouldn't be able to put me as far under as most people, and that it would probably mean that I would wake up in more pain than most people (um, thanks doc, great news!). I really did feel the pain right away, but more than anything I felt....good. I don't remember feeling this good. I lived with failing kidneys for so long, I didn't realize how much of my feeling down was attributed to it. It just felt like me to be low all the time and now I felt GOOD (10" gash and catheter pain excluded).

It felt like I was awake the entire time in the recovery room (although I'm sure I slept through most of it). I remember pain, then Mary, then no pain, then feeling good, then.....OK...bye Mary, thanks.... and off I went to my home for the next three and a half days......Unit G2S.....hey, there's my parents....Hi MOM! (Bear with me, the connection of these memories won't transition well for awhile). Hi DAD!

T Minus Zero More Blogs

2006-05-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

This will be my last writing until after I get a new kidney. In less than 36 hours my surgery should be complete and I will be laying in a hospital bed doped up and peeing normally again (as long as you consider through a catheter and from someone else's kidney normal).

Tonight I went out to dinner in what seemed like the grand finale of love fests I've been experiencing over the last couple weeks. My best friend drove in from Reno and I went out to dinner with him, his parents and my parents, all of whom have been friends for about 23 years, but don't see each other enough lately. It was the best one (dinner with a friend to celebrate my new kidney) so far. Mike made the drive from Reno, NV to Foster City, CA in 3 hours and 10 minutes (a very fast time) and arrived late for dinner.

Mike says he's getting divorced. It's not the first time he's said it, but it is the most convincing time. Maybe some time away from his wife (here to help me through my surgery) will change things. We'll see.

"Are you getting scared yet?" seems to be the question of the day. The truth is, I'm not afraid to have surgery or get a new kidney. I'm most afraid to give up control of my life (even for a shor time). I don't want other people doing things for me. I want to do things for myself. It's actually a huge source of tension for me. About 10 years ago, I had what I believed to be a nervous breakdown and it all stemmed from not being in control. I will try to glide through this without caring too much, but I don't think I'll get past it until there are some very good drugs in my system. Bring 'em on. If anyone who knew me was actually reading this, they would probably think that last sentence sounded funny. I don't do drugs....I don't even drink anymore. To hear me say "bring on the drugs" would probably make a lot of people laugh. But......bring em on.

Since I don't want the last words of my last blog before the surgery to read "bring on the drugs" I will type one more paragraph. Good luck, Jerry and Matt. Get healthy, be healthy, stay healthy. Thank you, Matt, I will never be able to re-pay you, and I will never stop trying. I love you Mom, Dad, Shari and Mike, Morgan and Scotty, Mike, Chrissy, Chance, Kai, Louisa, Jim, Elaine and John, Steve and Dawn, all of my friends and family. (Now, bring on the good drugs).

Waaaah Waaaah Waaah!

2006-05-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

I find myself thinking (and writing) too much about the things I will miss. I have to get over this funk. This feeling that my life is terrible because my kidneys failed. I have tons to be thankful for, but don't have much time devoted to that feeling lately. It's all spent feeling sorry or scared. The truth is I have it better than most. I've never really been "sick" until now, and even at that I'm still managing. I've never been on dialysis and I've heard enough horror stories to know its a terrible thing. I don't know....I think it's because I'm not religious, that I don't have that "thanks for the things I've got" spirit.

Things I will be grateful for:

1) Not being sick.
2) A new working kidney
3) Having a great friend that would give me a kidney
4) Family still around
5) Friends still around
6) Career
7) Having this phase of my life over, and a chance to get over this road bump and go on.
8) My dog

I will probably complain a bunch more, espeically when I'm all hopped up meds. But I wanted to have this post to read back later. Hopefully it will provide me with balance.

I'll have an unagi hand roll, hold the eel!

2006-05-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

One of the things I'll miss, at least for awhile, after the surgery is sushi. As an Immuno-suppressed Person (ISP), I'm not supposed to eat raw meats. Bacteria and all that. Being the sushi lover that I am, this will be tough. Seemingly feeling my pain, my in-patient coordinator said it might be ok on rare occasions once I get my drugs stabilized. I hope by rare occasions he means once a week.

Tonight I went to the sushi bar for dinner with my father, trying to take advantage of the few meals I have left with no restrictions. My father is funny. When I was sixteen, any talk of sushi with my father would end up with him saying "YUCK RAW FISH NO WAY NOT ME" or some combination of those 7 words, but he liked cooked Japanese food....he could eat teriyaki anything and absolutely loved tempura, so he was constantly exposed to watching me eat sushi in front of him. The last twenty years or so, I've been able to slowly talk him into sushi, the same way most sushi-resisters start.....california roll, ebi nigiri, cucumber rolls, avocado rolls. As long as there was no raw fish, he would try it. I even tried to get him to eat eel before raw fish because the eel is cooked, but he said there was no way in hell he would ever eat eel. The next thing you know, he's picking up pieces of my salmon and tuna, and off he goes into the world of raw fish. One of my favorite things about eating sushi with my father, is that he never knows what's in the rolls, he just picks them up and eats them. I love seeing the look on his face when I tell him he just ate one with eel (even though he didn't...I never actually let him get that far with the eel, cause I know he will be mad). Its priceless to watch him reach for his napkin to spit out whatever it was he just swallowed even though there was no eel in it. Funny, it tasted fine when he didn't know, but as soon as he thinks it, it's the worst piece of sushi he's ever eaten. He then spends the next ten minutes asking me if there really wasn't any eel in that last piece he ate.

I will miss torturing my father with sushi as an ISP.

BIG YAWN!

2006-05-03T16:42:00.000-07:00

I am supremely tired today. I'm really feeling the effects of having failing kidneys. I'm tired all the time. I slept regular hours last night, slept in a little, and then continued to sleep in some more. I arrived late to work, only to doze off about a dozen times at my desk today. It must be funny for other people around the office to walk in on me sleeping upright at my desk.

Because I am running out of work, I spent much of today watching a movie on my computer at work today. I watched "Ordinary People". It was the first time I've seen it. Donald Sutherland was great, but I hate Mary Tyler Moore. Also, I don't think Timothy Hutton was a very good actor. At the very least, this wasn't his best role, but he was young.

Tonight I have to take my work computer over to my parents' house and see if I can plug it into their TV, set up the wireless keyboard and mouse, and plug in the new printer, so I can work from my recovery bed. I want to do it as quick as possble, though. I can't remember the last evening I've actually been at home. I could use some rest (rest, not sleep). I hope it works on the first try.

Last Normal Day

2006-05-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

I think this will be the last day that feels normal before my surgery.

I worked today. While I'm officially working the rest of the week, it will be all wrapping up loose ends. No new work. No new problems to take on. Just sit around and wait for work to end mostly.

I paid my bills today. For the next month or two other people will be paying my bills. I've given one of my friends a bunch of cash and redirected my bills to her house. Hopefuly she will actually pay my bills and not go shopping with the money. Either way, I'm won't be that concerned about it. I will be loaded up on immunosuppressants and pain killers for awhile. I won't be that concerned with anything.

Tonight I have band practice (last time for awhile). My band is trying out a new drummer even thought I won't be there after tonight. Luckily we don't have any gigs coming up until June, but even when that happens, other people in the band will have to help me. I'm not supposed lift more than ten pounds for 3 months. I'm not sure they'll even let me play my bass by the time the June gig comes around. I think I will tell people I'm not allowed to carry more than ten pounds for 3 YEARS.

I'll go home and watch TV after that. The rest of my week will feel like a very slow gurney ride into the OR.

Another strange thing for me to think about....

2006-05-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

....in exactly one week, someone else's kidney will be cleaning my blood.

Who's urine will be coming out of me?

Time Keeps on Slipping

2006-05-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

I have so many things to get done, Its so hard to actually spend time writing. I have loads of thoughts in my head throughtout the day for which I would love to write about and then I don't find the time to actually write it, which is a shame, because I really would like to have this blog to read back after I've been through everything.

I think most people who develop fairly serious illnesses probably feel alone and isolated....and while I've definately felt my share of that over the last few years, as I draw closer to the surgery relationships with other people are becoming warm and fuzzy. Everyone is nice to me....nicer than usual. And I reciprocate in kind....which is nicer than usual. I'm sure that on a regular basis, I see my parents more than most people, and yet....it feels this week in particular our time together is so much...almost too much considering how often I will see of them after the surgery, as my recovery will take place in their house.

Friends who have been through it, are giving me lots of advice, almost too much to handle. More than just the usual, be healthy, drink lots of water, don't smoke, take your medicine. I mean little tiny details, like make sure you bring a back scratcher and order your hospital food off the kids menu. Great advice, which I'm sure will be invaluable, but way beyond my thought processes at this moment.

Yeah, warm and fuzzy right now, but still confused. What do I do next and why am I sitting at this stupid computer?

Prime Rib Is Never Enough

2006-04-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

After 36 years on this earth I have become the perfect gift giver. I always know the perfectly appropriate gift to get someone based on the level of our friendship/relationship and the event at hand. For the rest of my life (after transplant) I will be faced with the dilemna of not ever knowing exactly what to get Matt, my lifelong friend and kidney donor. I'll never be able to find him an appropriate present for any occasion, but more specifically, for a thank you present. I'll forever be trapped in the world between "hollow gesture" and "absurdly too much," and often a little of each.

Have you ever considered the person that would give you a kidney if you needed one? What would be an appropriate thank you for that person? What if that person turned out to be someone different than you thought it would be?

I always thought it would be a family member that gave me a kidney. My parents....my sister...my uncle.....someone that I share unconditional love with. A person that would know without a doubt that I would give them a kidney if the roles were switched. For various reasons, it ended up not being my family, but my friend that would be giving me the kidney. A lifelong friend?... yes. A very good friend?.... yes. My best friend?.....no? While Matt is someone I greatly respect, admire, and appreciate, I believe he would agree with me that our friendship is not one of those that is one of unconditonal love. No one would blame Matt for thinking he might be giving a kidney to someone that might not return the favor. But then, I've never really had the real ability to consider it. I've known my whole adult life, I could never be a kidney donor.

Tonight I'm having a "Thank You Dinner" for Matt. Twenty or so of our mutual friends are going to a nice prime rib restaurant to thank Matt for what he's doing for me. That's not enough, right? Will everyone at the dinner be able to see its as hollow a gesture as I think it is?

What am I supposed to for Matt to repay him for what he's doing for me? Am I supposed to find one grand gesture to make and then forget about it? Am I supposed to realize that no one thing will compare, so I should make smaller gestures, over and over for the rest of my life, and hope that the collectively they add up to be enough when our lives are over? Should I start a cult in Matt's name, relinquish all my worldly possessions, and recuit people to follow Matt to the end of the Earth? I think that would be awkward for both of us.

My roommate says the best thing I can do honor Matt is to just be healthy. Be the person that deserves his kidney, and don't be someone who will let it go to waste by contributing to my poor health in other ways (like smoking, drinking, and driving intentionally on the wrong side of the road). I know he's right, but to do that is to make no ACTIVE gesture whatsoever. It's like doing nothing.

Prime rib's not enough, is it?

2nd Friday Before

2006-04-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

It feels like I have endless amounts of tasks to complete before my surgery. With less than 2 weeks to go, I'm not sure I'll get everything done I want to get done. Still, tonight, I'm not going to accomplish anything on my list because I have tickets to the Giants game, and thats important to me as well. I won't get to go to many games this year after my surgery, so I better get some in before.

GO GIANTS!

Lunchtime Dribble - The Devil's Nectar

2006-04-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Carbonated Water, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Natural Flavors, Caffeine

Above is the magical formula for the most delightful potable I know. If you told me as a child this concoction had healing qualities, I would have believed you. This, my friends, is the recipe for the almighty Coca Cola. Not Pepsi or RC or any of those strangely flavored colas like Dr. Pepper or Mr. Pibb, nothing generic, and for Christ's sake, not diet or caffeine free, or Coke-Lite, or whatever they are trying to sell you as cola alternatives these days. GOOD OLD FASHIONED COCA COLA CLASSIC!!!!

OK so I'm a cola snob. I admit it. Now I'm ready to move on. I have to. As a child I drank WAY too much of this stuff and while I don't doubt it may be (althought impossible to prove) the #1 factor in poor state of my health and well being today, I really did believe it made me feel better when I was ill as a child. Stomach ache - a coke will help. Headache - a coke will help. Allergies, common cold, depression, kidney disease???? - a coke will help.

As a adult, I probably cut the cola consumption in half, yet still drank way too much. Then the biggest change in my life happens: I find out my kidneys are well on their way to failure. The kindly Dr. Fred Lui (pronounced Louie) politely introduces himself and gets right to the point of "there's nothing good about what I have to tell you".....so there it is....my kidneys are failing. Soon I will be faced with.....what?......I don't know yet......illness?....death?.....a life of dialysis?......transplant? Everything is surreal....none of it sinks in......and here comes Dr. Lui with "this is how your life will change right now"....in order to preserve my kidney function I need to go on a low protein diet. WHAAAAAT? I just started the Caveman Diet. Maybe you've heard of it? Its the one where you eat all the steak and bacon you want as long as you don't have any wheat bread with it? You see....I'm fat....I need to lose weight....no way I can do this low protein thing.

Fred points out my kidney function is more important than my weight at this point....although both are very important to my overall health and here's the name of a nutritionist that can try to help me with both. Well.....if I'm going off my Caveman/Atkins/Southbeach/Sugarbusters diet....I'm drinking my favorite drink again. Now I have an excuse People who love me, hear this....I can drink coke. The Dr. said it's ok as long as I don't eat too much protein. (that's not what he said). Anyways...go on Dr. Lui.....how else will my life change. Low potassium....fucking great.....my favorite fruit bananas, out the window. Ok....so now I'm crossing steak and bacon and bananas off my list...this is the shits, but at least I have my coke! OK....one last thing and this is the biggest one....you need to stay away from phosphorous.....which is found mainly in legumes....you know...nuts and beans (ok....I'm being reduced to eat lettuce and Coke, but at least there's Coke). Also, phosphorous is prevalent in the dark colas. SSCREEEEECHING HAAAAALLLLLT! Dr.....surely you've been reading my mind and are fucking with me. You can drink orange soda (YUCK) or 7-up (YUCK) or even root beer (YUCK and although its literally a dark brown soda, its got no phosphorous). Pretty much you can drink whatever soda you want except for COLAS! THIS SUCKS MONKEY NUTS!

I know.....its weird when you're sick....yeah, your life expectancy shortens significantly, I'm going to be very ill at some point, and most of my life will be inconvenienced by dialysis or multiple major surgeries, and all I an think of at the time is I can't drink Coke ever again. Believe me, the little things are worse to bear when you're in the moment and its probably better that way. It helps keep your mind of the big things that are really going on.

So onward in life....I manage to work in all these changes.....low protein, low potassium, low phosporus, althought its not easy. Doctors and nutritionists don't really have many answers for you.....they leave it up to you. I went to the nutritionist hoping she would say.....can't eat this, don't eat this, can't eat that, do eat this and this and that....thank you that'll be $100. Instead I got....shouldn't eat this, that's ok once in awhile, eat this sometimes but not all the time, and its really up to you to make the right choices, and thank you that'll be $150. That's bullshit....don't tell me I can have a banana once in awhile or that in the grand scheme of things, a coke won't kill me every now and then.....cause here's what happens. One day, I think.....she said I could have a banana....so i do......the next day, she said I could have some bacon....so I do.....the next day, she said a coke won't kill me once in awhile....so OF COURSE I DO! Now even though indvidually speaking, I am practicing a low potassium, low protein, and low phosphorous diet.....collectively speaking, I am eating a lot of potassium, protein and phosphorous. And its all my fault.....yet I managed to control it for the most part and stretch out the remaining life of my kidneys out over 4 or 5 years.

Now....here I am, a little more than a week from transplant. I'm thinking all this time....once I get my transplant I don't have to be on this restricted diet. I can eat all the potassium, protein, and phosphorous I want. And its true.....after the the transplant the recommended diet is merely low fat and low sodium (that's what they recommend for just about every human on earth, transplant or not). YAY! There were moments over the last 5 years I had almost convinced myself that the only reason I'm getting this transplant is so that I can drink Coke again.

I went to my pre-op meeting with the in-patient coordinator earlier this week. He had several hours of dialogue to give me about what my life would be like just before, during, and long after my surgery. I discovered from this meeting that Coca Cola cursed. For reasons other than the phosphorous, I cannot drink Coke (on a regular basis, spoken much like my nutritionist). Due to the immunosuppressant drugs I'll be taking....I can't have too much caffeine or alcohol. These things dehydrate you and when you lose the water in your bloodstream, the density of the drugs in your blood increases....and this is bad for your kidney(s).

I have figured out that my time to drink Coca Cola is now. A week or so before the surgery. There's no point in saving what little remains of my kidney function as they will be disconnected in a week, so today with lunch....and probably everyday for this next week. I'm having a Coke (and a smile).

Survivor Update

2006-04-27T23:51:00.000-07:00

Cerie has gone from "Melinda's going first, and then you're next" to being the mastermind behind Courtney's surprise departure. Cerie even managed to beat Shane in the Immunity Competition (carrying a percentage of your own weight for as long as possible). Please, Shane, you should feel pathetic. In my opinion, she would be the most derserving winner of Survivor, possible or all seasons of the show. No one has gone from such weakness to such strength. Cerie should win it all....although the person that should usually doesn't.

First Entry

2006-04-27T16:56:00.000-07:00

So...I'm getting a kidney transplant. Lucky me! (really) On May 8, 2006 the amazing surgeons at Stanford hopital will open me up and fix me with what amounts to a completely new transmission. One donated by my lifelong friend Matt. Too EFFING wierd!

I wish I had begun writing about this much sooner in the process. I'm really waist deep in it now and I wish I could read this back later and see where my head was at much earlier in the process. I mean, just about 5 years ago I thought I was normal (or more normal, at least). Although, I knew I had kidney problems as a child, all indicators pointed towards normal kidney function by the time I was 18. At 30, I had all but forgotten the childhood woes of discovering I had a rare kidney disease (IGA Nephropathy). Back then 1982, they called it Berger's Disease, and while I delighted in telling people I had "Ber-zjay's" Disease (very French sounding)....I was never to sure it wasn't really just pronounced "Bur-ger's" Disease, much more the disease of a common 12 year old kid like me.

Around age 30, things in life were going well. Granted nothing was perfect....I wasn't rich, in love, religiously grounded, or overly motivated to solve the problems for all mankind....none of those things seemed that far out of reach. Not as far as they seem now. Funny how those things get exponentially further away the more you want them. There I was....just a bought a house, making pretty good money, not really feeling the impending financial crash headed my way (whenever the stockmarket crash happened around 2000 or so, just a short time before that)....and I'm about to purchase my first life insurance policy. I'm going to protect my future loved ones. The biggest concern I had at that time, was that I would have to reveal to my mother that I smoked because she was basically filling out the forms. While it was a dramatic revelation for me, it matter to her very little. I didntt know that what I really had to be concerned about was not yet revealed and when I found out it would rule the rest of my life (at least so far, but I'm pretty sure from here out as well).

The insurance company politely refused to offer me coverage due to a detection of protein in my urine. While it was a little upsetting that I would not be getting insurance, it was not a big surprise....this was an indicator in my childhood that I had IGA Nephropathy. IGA Neprhopathy is a kidney disease for which there is no cure, but by all indications, 50% of the people who get.....it just goes away on its own....the other 50% end in kidney failure. By the time I was an adult all of my symptoms had disappeared, so I operated under the assumption I was in the luckier half of the draw. I went to the doctor, and guess what he told me....guess what he told me....(he didn't say "son you better try to have fun no matter what you do")....he said I had to go see a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and soon. Weird....because I had been to the doctor on a fairly regular basis, and surely if this was some advanced form of IGA Nephropathy someone would have noticed it sooner. But that's what it was.

My kidneys were operating at 15% function. Failure was inevitable....my life would from hence forth be about dialysis and transplant. Both shitty options by comparison to having your own working kidneys. I managed to stretch my 15% out over about 4 or 5 years, and I've pretty much reached the end their functionality. The old transmission is stuck in 2nd gear and I'm on the autobahn trying to 100 mph. I'm getting sick....tired, nautious, skin irritations, tired some more. You will get to read here about my last few days leading up to transplant....probably not very many days of my time in the hospital.....the boring 5 to 6 week of my recovery time, and then my life as an Immnosuppressed human walking the earth trying to avoid infections.

I'll try to keep it up beat.

Jerry