Keeping This F*cked Up Country Together

some Xhosa history

2009-03-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

from way back in the day:

- Females were prohibited from pronouncing the names of any of their husband's male relatives in the ascending line, or any words whatever in which the principal syllables of such names occur.
- The Xhosa could describe events only as happening before or after some remarkable occurrence, such as the death of the chief.
- Battles consisted of a series of individual encounters, in which the bravest combatants on each side challenge each other by name, and when one falls, another is called upon by the victor to take his place.
- They kept chickens, but made no use of either their flesh or their eggs.
- They had no idea of reward or punishment in a world to come for acts committed in this life, and each of the commonality denies the immortality of his own soul.
- When a common person died their body was dragged away and left to beasts of prey.
- Sometimes a person intimates that he has received revelations from the spirit world. He is really a monomaniac, but if his statements are believed his power at once becomes greater than that of the highest chief, and his commands are implicitly obeyed.
- No one pretends to know anything about a trade which does not belong to his own family.
- Stealing cattle is not a crime; when caught the thief must make ample restitution, but no disgrace attaches to it, and they have no religious scruples concerning it.

question of the day

2009-03-05T23:54:00.000-08:00

What's more ornery, that I have a maid, or that the first thing she does when she comes in is makes herself a sandwich?

25 Random Things About The Asshole At My Coffee Shop

2009-02-17T12:10:00.000-08:00

location: Norfolk, VA
more specific location: Fairgrounds Coffee, Colley Ave.

statistics:

1 (jerk-o)

Rules:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about that regular at Fairgrounds who annoys the hell out of you.

1. I can hear you slurping your cappuccino from 20 feet away. You sound like that machine at the dentist that takes away the extra saliva.

2. We all see you bring the Pilot into the bathroom with you, all folded up and semi-hidden against your side.

3. And we all know what you do in there.

4. You think you’re flirting with the baristas. They think that you’re being affected by some combination of your girlfriend breaking up with you/you’re on uppers/and you developed a case of asperger’s syndrome.

5. Once you were sitting there doing nothing and Hollywood came up to me and said, “That man nasty.”

6. I asked, “Why do you think that, Hollywood?” And she responded, “He just look chewy or something.”

7. Once when you were little something super embarrassing happened to you. You’ll never get over it. And people from your hometown still know you by that nickname.

8. That child you bring around and say is your kid isn’t. It’s a rent-a-kid. We all know it.

9. But fuck, that kid is one hell of an actor.

10. Where does one hire a child?

11. But I digress.

12. The person you’re talking to on your cell phone is actually treating their phone like a choo-choo train when you talk, and is running it along their arm. Anything is more interesting than you.

13. I can’t lie: you have a lovely gait. You’re like a deer skipping around from berry to berry, trying to find the right fruit.

14. Please put your shoes back on. For real. They’re like the feet of some old wizard.

15. I feel your eyes on me. They burn my skin but I’m afraid to look because I’m not sure my retinas can withstand the stare of your gorgeous green eyes.

16. I bet you like going to adolescent dance contents, don’t you, you perv?

17. We all know that you’re really just a money-grubbing yuppie masquerading as a hipster. Stop referencing Bon Iver. Please.

18. If you have to reference something, reference my leadership. For fuck’s sake.

19. I secretly love having fresh flowers around my house.

20. Shit. Forgot this was about you.

21. I’m so selfish. And needy. And sometimes I just feel like no one will ever love me, and if they did I wouldn’t have the self-esteem to let that love in. It’s like my heart is buried under a pile of scars and pain and steaming poop. Or at least that’s how it feels.

22. (crying)

23. (deep breath)

24. (shudder)

25. Can I by you a coffee?

poem: Derek In The Sky With Diamonds

2009-02-14T12:03:00.000-08:00

location: Cape Town

Derek In The Sky With Diamonds

Derek the coloured bulldog
'I'm rough, me bru,'
he tells me.
A dozen stab scars
burnt toast crust
on his honey whole wheat skin.

He quit his job
making 250 Rand, full time, per week
(look it up do the math deal with it)
'My hands were so sore
I couldn't hold a cup of tea.'
'I told my boss I would work
for him the rest of my life.'
'650 Rand.'
Derek grew up panhandling and snatch and grabbing and sleeping on Long Street
and sometimes on his family farm
the times his family
decided to be family.

Did I mention that Derek's one of the
funniest people I know?
(Nevermind).

Shame kept him
from admitting to the house mother
he quit his job.
Shame forced him home to the streets for
two weeks when he was found out.

'Why do you look so skinny?'
I asked him when I got off the plane.
'He'll tell you later,' someone said.

The definition of manhood:
6:30AM
unannounced, unwanted, unloved
he shows up at work.
As he approaches his boss
the white man's head shaking No, no, no
Derek keeps pushing forward
extends his hand
(his stubby little hand)
says he's sorry
shakes the man's hand
apologizes again
'No, no, no, you're too late. Job's gone.'
and Derek walks away
smiling and proud,
tongue wagging
if you could see it through his teeth.

What I've been writing

2009-02-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

I've had a couple stories posted on a cool new website, 24SevenCities.com. Check them out.

Some movie reviews:
http://www.24sevencities.com/features/entertainment/film/films-to-make-you-believe-in-films-again-2.html

A fun story about ODU trying to start up a marching band:
http://www.24sevencities.com/features/entertainment/sports/making-the-band.html

I'll post a little something from Cape Town in the next few days.

Love, thebabyjesu

If I was a comedian

2009-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

I might tell jokes like, When you have a big poop, and the toilet is having a hard time flushing it, do you root for or against that thing?

The people that make NyQuil are badgood

2009-01-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty sick right now, so I just drank a bunch of NyQuil. Did it always taste this good? I just got some Italian bread and dipped it in the dose cup. Delicious. I'm probably addicted, but I don't care. Maybe I'll care in, like, a year, when I'll have to write a teary goodbye letter to cherry NyQuil. But until that day...

enjoy the queen responsibly. (Queen is pictured above.)

The Legacy of Sex & The City to Men

2009-01-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

While the sad old pigs that made up the cast of Sex & The City seem to have put on their favorite pastel capes and are running to the hell that will be the rest of their lives (as seen in this photo of the girls taken by TMZ.com), their legacy to men will be felt for years to come. I'd say it breaks down into three general categories:

1. Loose Gooses
I've long argued that us men should be ardent supporters of Sex & The City. Why? Because it made girls of our generation, well, maybe a little easier than they should be. That show created a direct link between the feminist/independent woman movement and the act of sleeping around for frivolous reasons. Did the editors of Maxim hatch this scheme? Seriously... imagine if an individual dude tried to use this logic.
Dude: You should sleep with me.
Girl: Why?
Dude: Because it will prove that you're a strong, independent woman.
Girl: Really?
Dude: Yeah sure, why not.
Girl: That sounds logical. I'm in.

See, it just doesn't make sense in real life. But somehow this show got this CRAZY logic into the blood of girls of my generation. And for that, we should all tip our hats. Which brings me to legacy #2.

2. An Obsession With Shoes Named After Asian Men

Who is Jimmy Choo? I sure as hell don't know, but girls seem to really want his... they're shoes, right? Or are they handbags? I don't even care enough to do a Google search on this.

My stance on fashion is that, for all people across cultures and socio-economic spectrum, looking good is connected to feeling good. So there's no news here. But what Sex & The City added to girlculture is a certain utter ridiculousness to fashion. Honestly: Sarah Jessica Parker looked like she was dressed by a gay drunken spaceman assisted by a retarded person from 1985.

Anyway, Sex & The City forced us guys to nod and smile at a lot of stupid outfits but, given Legacy #1, and the likelihood that our girlfriend would want to have sex with us in the dressing room just so they could brag to their friends... Yeah, that 3-foot wide yellow sailor hat you're trying on looks fantastic, baby!

3. Relatioships By Committee
But the unabashed goodness of #1 just might be negated by this one. If Sex & The City taught girls anything about how they should interact with each other, it is: "You need to give each other bombastic, baseless advice, even if you don't fully grasp the situation or the guy's perspective or what half-truths your friend is telling you, and without consideration to your friend's goals, and no matter the results of what you say it doesn't matter because you're just looking out for your friend and that can't be wrong."

I find this one so frustrating that I can't even write an articulate sentance about it.

I know, girls gossiping and giving each other advice is nothing new. What Sex & The City did, though, is give girls license to base their entire friendships on giving each other advice. And when anyone gets that much advice, their heads are going to become soup, they will never be content, they'll always be searching for happiness... which kind of brings us back to #1, right?

Which, if I might be honest, really isn't such a good thing for the girl or society, or men. Us guys should all also watch less porn, because porn truly gives guys a twisted view on sex. And... (trying to think of one more non-sexist thing to say to save myself from being lynched...) men should also focus on listening just to listen, and not on problem solving.

And now if you'll excuse me I'm going to watch the shit out of Brewster's Millions.

a poem of hope for Christmas, 2008

2008-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

location st. louis

statistics 1 (jesu who would like to try harder next year)
1 (semi-serious poem that could go either way)

St. Louis, Christmas 2008

All my friends
by now I thought they'd be sell-outs
but instead they are desperate.

On the verge of 30-years-old.
Barely any of us married.
One child among my great circle.
For what do we wait?
Or have we decided to end the race?
A generation that just said no
to future generations.

The one true piece of advice
I ever remember my dad giving me
was, "Don't ever go bald."
As a boy I used to say
"My dad's hair" flooop! "flew out the window."

All my friends
only care in bursts
late nights, last calls, post-love.
Without marriage and family
we need a new destination.

We haven't figured that part out yet.

I remember a second piece of advice from dad:
"If you think you're going to get into a fight,
swing."

Twice a day I wear a plastic glove and put on the
chemicals. And I keep my hair.
Is this what he meant?

I will text my friends this Christmas.
I will say a prayer for my dad.
Almost 30, country is rivers of
dollars on fire, alone, lonely us all
beautiful brave only with words, alone
I say to us all, Rejoice!
We are our families.
We are raising
each other
brothers + sisters + mothers + sons by concurrently being alive
(and that enough proof of our relations).

Knees and palms and foreheads
pressed to rugs
in infinity prayers

alternate Christmas gift idea (non-joke)

2008-12-18T08:06:00.000-08:00

location Christmas time

stats 26 (disadvantaged kids you could make happier with one small gift than you could make anyone you know happy with a big one)

pictures are of on the right is the house. on the left is a pic of the townships, where the majority of South Africans live.

Christmas shopping is the worst, right? You can get somebody what they want, but does your chubby Aunt Sadie really need any more Kit Kats? (I think not.) Or, you can get somebody what they need. But I'm not sure buying Aunt Sadie extra-support panty hose is exactly in the Christmas spirit either.

Oh Christmas miracle! Your buddy Jesse has the answer to your Christmas shopping dilemma!

So... I'm heading back to South Africa this February to do more volunteering at Beth Uriel, a home for boys and young men from the streets and townships of Cape Town. These boys come from a place of poverty unfathomable to most of us. Even in our toughest economic times we know that we will, at least, never know true hunger. We know that someone will always take us in. For these boys, being at a place like Beth Uriel, where they are fed and can sleep in peace, it is like Christmas every day. To a man they say that Beth Uriel is the best thing that ever happened to them; in fact, many will tell you it saved their life.

Just as an idea, I'd like to suggest getting your Aunt Sadie (and anyone else) a gift for the boys of Beth Uriel for Christmas. Don't you think this would make Aunt Sadie feel good, maybe even better than that after-Kit Kat-high? Unlike a lot of charities, where the bulk of your donation goes to administrators and other 'costs,' the money you donate will go straight to the boys. There is no middle man. Just your old pal Jesse.

There's two ways of doing this:
1) Donate (tax deductible) directly to Beth Uriel.
http://www.bethuriel.co.za/howtohelp.htm

2) You can send me a check and I will make purchases for you. (Every penny.) If you make specific purchases for the boys I will make sure to send you a picture of the boy with his gift, and to also write you (and/or Aunt Sadie) a little scene about how the gift affected the individual.
Here is my address:
Jesse Scaccia
9 Bon Price Ter
St. Louis, MO 63132
(Just make the check out to me (sorry, simplest way).)

Here are how much some things cost. I'm more than happy to buy exactly what you want me to.
School uniform $30
Trip to KFC (you get bet they Love KFC if I'm giving you this figure) for entire house $60
Trip to KFC for one $4
Button down shirt for job interviews $10
Soccer boots (their favorite sport) $35
School supplies for one family member $25
Sneakers $10
Baseball hat $5
Dinner for two at a restaurant (there's no way they can afford a date on their own) $8

And, of course, if you were planning on getting me a Christmas gift, this is what I want the most.

We. Are. All Blessed.

With love,
- Jesse

Good Lord, 'O' Magazine Readers

2008-12-17T12:54:00.000-08:00

location Oprah

Sooooo... I was sending an email to Oprah (WHICH IS MY GOD GIVEN RIGHT) when I noticed this important message at the bottom of the web form. Before you read that, hear me now: If you have a medical emergency and your instinct is to go to oprah.com and send her a message, well, I don't mind you dying. Submit away, sucker! Anyway, how little fucking respect does this woman have for her readers if she has to put this. Or-more likely-what kind of idiots are some of them.

LORD!

IMPORTANT MESSAGE: If you are seeking immediate assistance on a matter involving urgent health care, personal safety, the safety of others or any other issue requiring immediate attention, please do not use this e-mail or website. Instead, IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING OR HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF AN EMERGENCY INVOLVING IMMEDIATE DANGER OR PHYSICAL HARM TO YOU OR TO ANOTHER, PLEASE CALL 911 OR YOUR LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES. If you are experiencing any other type of emergency situation with which you need assistance, please click here.. Please note that we cannot reply to all e-mails sent to us or guarantee that your e-mail will be or will be immediately read. We cannot always review every e-mail that we receive.

Ha Ha! (This Isn't Funny Anymore!)

2008-12-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

So this morning I walk into the bathroom to find my step-dad putting on just a touch of eye shadow. His hair was already carefully coiffed, and he was wearing my mom's red "Saturday night satin" blouse.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"I'm gonna be famous!" he told me.

"How?"

"Internet, stupid," he said, and added just a touch of rouge.

When I asked him what website he sent me to this link. Apparently he is dreaming big:

http://menwholooklikeoldlesbians.blogspot.com/

After I checked the site I went back to the bathroom, where I found him puckering his lips and taking picture after (ugh!) picture of himself with his digital camera. So I was all, "Dude, if you want to be famous you should just be in an episode of House."

Oh, and what do you know?

2008-12-15T21:09:00.000-08:00

Tonight I walked in on my step-dad trying to teach our German Shepard how to 'back that thing up.'

I was all, "I haven't even heard that song in years!"

And he was all, "I know!"

But in the end, seriously, all I wanted to do was watch a little House.

Things I've Walked In On My Step-Dad Doing

2008-12-14T12:54:00.000-08:00

Today I caught him lighting his farts in the living room.

That really really sucked.

I was like, dude, all I wanted to do was watch a little House.

Websites I Like

2008-12-13T13:35:00.001-08:00

location st. louis

stats blah blah blah

Soo... I've been working hard on my story about organic farming and self-sustenance, specifically in Ireland. I'm calling it All That Will Remain We Will Tear From The Ground With Our Fists. I am hopeful that a draft I feel okay sharing will be done in a couple weeks.

I've also been working on the proposal and manuscript for the book of advice for new teachers Alistair and I are writing. The newest look for the concept is The 86 Essential Questions New Teachers Should Be Asking.

And everyday I consider quitting it all to become a Buddhist priest of some sort. In any case, I've been saving my words for these two book projects, and thus no blog. But, for those of you who need shit to do all day other than the even shittier stuff you're paid to do, here is a list of the websites I like best. I realize that many of you are nothing more than different versions of me, so many of these will be familiar. But for all you ultra-religious Republican hunting Hummer drivers out who read my blog, there might be some sweet cherries to pick from this list.

The Go To
nytimes.com (make sure to check out the Magazine, which you have to find on the menu to the left)

News Stories the Populace Likes the Most and I Sometimes Like:
http://www.reddit.com/
http://digg.com/

Smart Daily Political/Social Commentary
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.salon.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.slate.com//

Smart Longer Form Journalism
http://www.aldaily.com/
newyorker.com
http://nymag.com/

Finding Knicks Games Online:
http://www.justin.tv/

Laughing
http://www.funnyordie.com/

Feeling Sentimental About Ex-Girlfriends
http://dearoldlove.tumblr.com/page/3

Inspiration From the Everyday Schmucks of the World
http://learningtoloveyoumore.com/

Pretty Pictures:
http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/usa/?isource=usa_chp_main_moodstream

heart attack article

2008-11-25T16:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11064338?source=email

Check it out for how to talk to a relative who might be at risk of heart attack.

A Writer's Wall

2008-11-24T08:35:00.000-08:00

location norfolk, virginia
statistics 1 (baby jesu's leaving here first thing in the morning)
3 (lines of note cards on the wall)
0 (how it feels to get no yes, no no, no nothing from an editor or agent after i query them)
tops (how it feels when they say yes)

For those of you curious what it's like to be a writer trying to make it in the big bad world, here's how I get by:

So... in my room I've devoted a little wall to my ideas. There are four sections: Ideas, In Progress, Ready to Pitch, and Published (just to remind myself I'm not a total schlub). In any case, as I prepare to pack and take down the wall, here's where a semester here at writing school has gotten me. Any thoughts on which Ideas you'd most like to read? Any suggestions on how to tweak them? Any thoughts on where I can pitch the done ones? Any and all words are welcome welcome welcome.

Ideas
- What children of abusive marriages can do to break the cycle
- It can't just be because they're selfish... What's the real difference between Democrats and Republicans?
- Palin as Eliza Doolittle (obviously out-dated now)
- The culture of complaint
- Recruitment of the PETA army
- How I lived before I was rich and famous
- How to save the newspaper
- Book written for 9th graders explaining, in a fun, entertaining way, why a high school education is essential to happiness and success in life
- Why is there no US Oil?
- Europe on $0 a day
- Origin of the sin tax, and what else should apply
- How to save the marriage: marriage certificates expire every five years
- Profile of a local Hindu monk (who has been declared insane by the government)
- Re-thinking "Rushmore" as a play
- "We Own The Streets," a graphic novel about activist bike riders
- "Citizen," a non-fiction book about how to catalyze American's sense of citizenship, a meditation on what happened to the collective American spirit, and a search for real citizen groups among us
- Re-living and re-writing "Travels With Charley"
- How teachers can get their pay increased
- If I were president (good things we all should do like couch surf, only get dogs from the shelter, eating breakfast in cars is made illegal)
- How to be a citizen journalist (with all these newspaper lay-offs, good citizen journalists will become essentially to a thriving democracy)
- A dreamy, ironic, first person account from a girl, uhm, having group sex with a bunch of men (satire)
- Why is it so easy for politicians to lie?
- Craig of Craigslist: The Man Who Killed The Newspaper
- Who needs music education in schools when we have rock band?
- Why sex without condoms is so dope
- Humerous poem about my dad's funeral
- Poem on my thoughts on pregnant women
- The things I've stolen

In Progress

- Tales of Suburban Deviancy (book with the Masturbation thing, roommate list, poems, etc.)

- Script about Internet dating

- Script about two crack addicts on a road trip

- Organic farming in Ireland

- Please don't sex the crocodiles (and other lessons from a South African home for boys)

- Sailing/mourning in Holland

Ready to Pitch
- "Hey Dumbass, You've Got Chalk On Your Pants; The Stuff They Don't Teach You In Teacher School" (book of advice for new teachers)
- "How The iPhone Will End Cheating"
- "The Basket Pass" (memoir/essay on how my dad assauged his guilt through donating money at church... or faking it when he felt like he was good enough)
- "Learning to 3-step in Louisiana"
- "15 Rules for Happy Hitchhiking"
- Other stuff from this blog such as the poems, Roommate list

Published/Accepted
- "How To Talk To A Parent Who Is A Heart Attack Risk"
Danbury News-Times
- "Travelling: South Africa" (a travel article)
Mercedes-Benz Travel Guide
- "Is American Free Speech Worth South African Blood? The Affect Of 50 Cent On The Townships of Cape Town"
The Peace Corps Magazine
- "Local Resident Celebrates Birthday Hollywood Style" (profile on local mentally disadvangated woman)
Virginian-Pilot
- "Ghent Tailor With A Fine Hand, Big Heart, Will Be Missed" (story on the passing of an Italian immigrant/location institution)
Virginian-Pilot

open letter to a past high school student of mine

2008-11-03T20:04:00.001-08:00

(this is from the book of advice for new teachers i'm working on with my buddy All-Star.)

Dear Student That I Failed,

This is Mr. Scaccia. You probably don’t remember me. I was your English teacher a few years back. I was the one who dealt with your outbursts in class by docking you one point off your final grade each time. Even though you have A-level intelligence, you ended up with a low-level C in my class.

I want to say that I’m sorry. I failed you. My teaching was mediocre at best, so I failed you in that sense. But that isn’t why I am apologizing. I was a new teacher and I was trying my best. Teaching is a craft that takes years to master, so I don’t blame myself for bad pedagogy.
I failed you in a much worse way than that. Clearly, there was something going on in your life beyond your control. That’s why you would shout in class. It is why you would not turn in assignments and act like you didn’t care. It is why you would tease the slow students. But rather than get to the root of your problems, I addressed the symptoms with my juvenile point system. I chose to deal with the surface of the problem- discipline- and ignore the deeper issues inside you.

I apologize for not calling your parents. I apologize for never setting up an appointment with the guidance counselor. I apologize for never keeping you after class to ask, Hey buddy, what’s up?

I apologize for being afraid of the pain that lay just below the surface of your outbursts. I am sorry that I was too much of a coward to learn if you weren’t getting enough attention at home, or if one of your parents was an alcoholic, or had cancer, or if you were being abused.

The worst part for me, Student That I Failed, is that I went into teaching to help, maybe even save, kids like you. Sure, I believe that teaching my subject matter is important, but I became a teacher to be the one adult who did ask you what the real issues are. To be the one who did bother to intervene. To be the one that changed your life forever.

I could give you a laundry list of excuses, Student That I Failed. I was overwhelmed. You intimidated me. I wasn’t sure what the appropriate boundaries were. Was I allowed into your life? Did you even want me there? Might I have been making things worse by meddling?
Now I know better, Student That I Failed, and I apologize. People talk about the system failing students. But there is no ‘system.’ There is an inter-connected web of people like me- parents, teachers, guidance counselors, coaches- and we make the combined choice to save or fail a student. And sometimes, maybe with you, we all choose to fail.

I know this apology cannot undo what I have done. All I can do is try to do better with the next student who cries out for help.

I promise you, Student That I Failed, I will do all in my power to never have to write one of these letters again.

With love,
Jesse “Mr.” Scaccia

serious thoughts on socialism: booooo! hissss!

2008-10-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

location middle america

statistics 3 (forms of government that are, in reality, pretty different)
1 (states I live in which Obama is going to, against all odds, actually win)
1 (really odd pictures of Yao Ming I found and couldn't resist posting)

I had an Irish friend ask why Americans are so afraid of the word socialism. Here was my answer:

Why Americans Hate Socialism

I would say that America's aversion to socialism is four-fold: one, we don't get it. Too complex a concept for a born-capitalist mind to digest. That is the simplest reason.

Second, we supposedly fear big government, which is unavoidable under a socialist government.

Third, in our schools and in our zeitgeist, fascism, totalitarianism, and socialism are often implicitly linked, and these are systems that have been actively stomped on through government propaganda since at least World War I. So when we hear 'socialism,' some part of our brains thinks of Mao, Hitler, and poor Russians waiting in bread lines.

But the most complex reason is ingrained in the American dream. Immigrants (today and my grandparents) come to America hoping for, in many cases, riches, or at least a bright economic future. In a true socialist system, from what I understand, one can be wealthy but not extremely, wildly rich. So when the average America cheers when McCain derides 'redistribution of wealth,' they are really impassioned by the prospect of the protection of their own future (and thus imaginary) wealth.

Or maybe we're just selfish assholes.

In other news, I just got a call from Danny Glover asking me to vote for Obama. As long as we've got Roger Murtaugh on our side, we're going to be okay!

How Little Boys Learn to Masturbate

2008-10-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

How Little Boys Learn To Masturbate

Who is teaching all the little boys to masturbate? Because for me, it was not intuitive. Someone needed to “alert” me to the process. I am sure I’m not alone, so this means that there are hordes of people running around out there teaching little boys how to masturbate. I’m not sure how comfortable I am with this knowledge. I think CNN (or someone) should have an interactive map that shows all the masturbation teachers in my area- little red blinking dots or something- so that we can all keep tabs on their movement. Imagine the horrible revelation of such a map! The masturbation teachers swarm our communities undetected by the naked eye, like bed mites on a sleeping body.

I didn’t masturbate until 8th grade. For the first ten years or so of my life it never occurred to me. I asked a friend today how he came up with the idea, and he wrote back: bathtub. Another friend blamed a hot tub. So showering had something to do with it, apparently. Then from about 11 to 13 I didn’t masturbate because Phil Rannieri convinced me that you get a year in purgatory each time you did it. He said he did it anyway, and one day he felt so guilty about it I watched as he stepped on his right-hand fingers and then tried to break them by lifting up his hand real fast. Can you believe this! You should have seen it. Nuts.

But then I moved away from Phil and his masturbation lovefear, and out of his semi-psychotic influence I found new clarity. It was in 8th grade and I was talking to a friend we’ll call ‘Smeff’ on the phone. Apropos of nothing he asked, ‘You know that hand motion people make when they think something is lame?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Try it on your dick.’ It was that simple. I guess before that I’d never considered the logistics. I hung up, locked the door, and got down to business.

You know what? That rascal Smeff was right. It felt good… real good. Until the end when a horrible thing happened that I couldn’t stop. It was like when you’re balancing a couple plates of food as you walk to the living room, then something happens and you have that moment when you know they’re going to fall but there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s how it felt. ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Stop the bus!’ Except the bus has already passed your stop and is now in the middle of the intersection. Pointless.

But the army of Smeffs out there… how many are there? In 2005 there were about 6.5 million 10 to 12-year-olds in America. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that all boys learn to masturbate within this age range. If only, say, 15% are ‘teachers ,’ that means that at any given moment there are nearly a million red dots scampering about, for some godless reason encouraging their friends to whack off. Why would they do this? What do they gain, honestly? If you found out your son was a teacher, do you spank him? Praise him? Force him to keep frozen peas in his underpants while around his friends? I have no idea the proper response to this.

And what do these conversations sounds like? I asked my South African friend Giles. He said, and I quote, ‘My friend said you must rub your cock real hard until you get tbe feeling, and you can best believe I shot into my bedroom like a bullet (to try it).’

See, I wish I never asked Giles. I don’t like that little boys talk like this. What happened to trading baseball cards? Sheesh! I asked my childhoodfriend Mike who told him about masturbating and he said- get this- Smeff.

‘He brought a porn to my house. “Fashion Passion.” I’ll never forget it.’

Come to think of it, Smeff made me steal a porn from my dad. It was called “The Raw Raw Girls.” It was about cheerleaders who were apparently fairly misguided about appropriate means of encouraging the quarterback. But that’s not the point. The point is, Smeff taught me how to masturbate, and then he convinced me to time it while watching “The Raw Raw Girls.” Isn’t that crazy and weird? What else is a mind that deviant capable of? Isn’t the oddness of that enough that I’ve convinced you that CNN should have a webpage devoted to those little deviants? I’d put that widget on my iPhone in real time. I hope that in the future we are all sort of like Terminator creatures, where we can see a room and it turns into a 3-dimenional grid and all the aliens turn a different color. If/when society reaches that point, you can rest assure I will be sending a scientist an email making a much more useful suggestion that aliens.

Because, no matter what you think of aliens, surely they will not come to teach our little boys to masturbate. At least.

I'm serious about this! I still haven’t convinced you? Two last rhetorical points:

1. Enjoy purgatory.
2. So Smeff timed himself too. You want to know who won? Him. I didn’t and still don’t know what ‘winning’ meant. He just declared himself the winner and that was that. The madness of it all!!! So just on that point alone, I rest my case. And if you’ll excuse me, per the advice of another friend, I will now go jack off into a sock.

a serious poem... Booo!

2008-10-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

location America

statistics 150,000,000 (clean dollars donated)
1 (inspiration, seen at left)
a lot (of fire left in my belly that I didn't know was there
anymore)

For Fall 2008, Onward

The man who has claimed hope parades
streets of blue states, bleeding red
with a newsprint catastrophe
a calamity bestowed upon us like swirling lollipops
to children weeping weeping weeping
On the Joint Resolution (H.J.Res. 114 )
vote is 77 Yeas (what are they cheering for?)
23: Nay
the Senators jump into tiny laps and are coddled by the weeping children
and I weep too
back of hand brushes morning stubble
the man who will save America with parades

"We are the change that we seek"
magnifying glasses, oblong rectangles, size of Constitution Avenue
November, when the instasweat weatheranger internlovebreed of Spring
forgotten, the condoms weep, Republican babies born in Diet Coke cans
wait for the cherry blossoms
Cherry Blossom Coke, weeping of hope
Ty Ziegel sits weeping, too,
will he bother to vote?
germane?: voting machines make no sound of recognition
when you left your ears in Iraq

The Candidates Vie For Pieces of Changing Map
the blackbird, go, whisper same to mountains
the weeping rivers we create
the nothing from our eyes
binary tears, currents of 0-1-1-1-0-0-1, feet wet with numbers
anesthetized fingertips
Mac mainframes are born and die every breath
my heart can't officially break
until Oprah agrees to televise it

Oh madness!
Oh acceptableness!
Oh the holiness in the complete lack of holiness!
the snake dips its tail in Botox, insert in mouth
the weeping rivers are parades of hope
that lead, a New America, Soul Alive, ah, oh, my, It's easy.

October 18, 2008

Roommate Check List

2008-10-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

A List of Things I Have To, For Ethical or Practical Purposes,
Inform A Roommate of Before I Move In With Them

By Jesse Scaccia

1. I am a vegetarian, but I'm not all preachy about it.
2. I don’t smoke, but I am “420 friendly.”
3. I’m straight but have some gay friends, so if you’re not cool with that I’m not cool with you.
4. I might from time to time ask you for certain favors, like water my plants while I’m away, drop this envelope at the post office if you’re going there anyway, or put me in your mouth.
5. I like to listen to opera, usually in the evenings, bound to a chair with my eyes taped open, while time lapse photography of rotting corpses is projected on a bed sheet nailed to the wall.
6. For all practical purposes your feet are my feet (but not vice versa, of course).
7. You won’t want to sit on that chair, at least not in your white chinos, or if a new, frisky strain of venereal disease is something that “bothers” you.
8. My skin tends to get dry and flaky in the winter, moldy in the summer, and stigmatas in the ‘tween seasons.
9. When I’m feeling moody I might nag you about things like how you fold the towels in the bathroom, or I may threaten to have you sent to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off.
10. I moonwalk in my sleep.
11. My favorite way to spend a lazy Sunday is opening all the windows up wide, putting on old Elton John records, applying a full face of make-up (the way Delta Burke used to wear it on Designing Women), weeping for invented memories of the antebellum South, then calmly taking the make-up off, and playing a spirited game of Ping-pong.
12. The documentary about birds Winged Migration is my “jam,” and if we are roommates it will be requested that you get your damn hands up while it’s onscreen.
13. I recommend that you back-up everything on your computer. No big deal, but if I happen to kill someone during the course of the lease, the Feds totally legally have the right to take your Dell.
14. I’m not myself until I have my coffee in the morning.
15. Even though I know that technically the Underground Railroad isn’t necessary anymore, and probably no longer exists, I respectfully request that we spend Tuesdays chanting Negro spirituals, just to keep up on the latest clap codes, and what not.
16. It’s sort of a family tradition of mine that on the 14th day of each month we should take some blood and place it on our doorposts and on the beam above the door of our condo. But I mention this more in passing, a conversation starter of sorts, because I can’t imagine you having a problem with this.
17. I shit everywhere.
18. Like, everywhere.
19. That bobcat you will see roaming around the kitchen is my pet, my love, my inspiration, my soul mate, my partner in becoming conversationally fluent in French, and one day it might eat me, so I should probably give you my mother’s phone number and you should keep it in a safe place, far away from the bobcat.
20. What’s mine is yours as far as groceries go. Just leave me the last beer, a glass of milk for my Special K, and enough Teddy Grahams to fit between all my fingers and toes in case it’s just “one of those days.”
21. As far as the bathroom goes, it’s all yours. I don’t want it, I don’t need it, and the God-honest truth is I have no idea what it’s there for.
22. You might find me in your bed when you wake up, but that’s only on opposite days, and what are you doing there, anyway? It’s opposite day, buddy!

Norfolk: The Poem

2008-10-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

statistics
1 (poems that should be read all serious and ornery like Maya Angelou)

NORFOLK

I am from
the Northeast,
which means
that I am
an
asshole
and that places like
Norfolk
bring forth images
of used condoms on lawns
and ignorant whites
and unrefined blacks
on their porches
drinking moonshine in 40 bottles
and sliding condoms off their
giant Southern black dicks, only to fling them
on the lawns
of their homes.

I also picture
jade green fields of swaying, bursting white cotton buds
but such a beautiful image
goes against my theme
so I will
ignore it.

I also think of iced tea.
Which is sort of neutral
because sometimes iced tea is great
and sometimes not
so I'll leave that out
too.

In any case.

I moved to Norfolk
expecting a bunch of boring, ignorant, artless,
couthless, physically deformed,
possibly with one leg shorter than the
other, many fat, many who have sex
on the perilous leather curves
of tractor seats
and then also some black people
condomed and otherwise,
but on my first night in Norfolk I met Malcolm
a black poet
a brilliant guy
who actually has
one leg shorter than the other
so shows what I know.

I stood on the hood of a car and yelled
(because don't Southerners do such things?)
'But where are the gays?!'
and who should appear but Marco,
not only gay but Mexican,
and not only gay and Mexican
but some sort of pharmacist,
three things that don't fit well in my
head,
forcing me to later masturbate into a book at the public library
like a confused middle school
student.

If all this
wasn't enough
to sell me on this place,
this Nor-
Folk
(get it?)
(did you really get it?)
(because)
(there's nothing)
(to get)
(I'm trying to fool you)
(with senseless line breaks)
(you jerk)

So
Like I was saying
on top of all this
I met a cool Filipino girl
who could actually read
which is hilarious
when you think about it
because Asians
are better known
for math.

Finally my roommate
a buxom Virginia native
told me she used to be a madam
for Super Sexy Strippers
and Norfolk was okay by me
because even though I didn't feel safe
or accepted
or warm enough
or well fed
now at least I found a place
where there's a buffer between me and the hookers
because too easy access is dangerous
when you're a lonely Northerner like me

and now I fling my condoms
out the window
and watch them fall
like jelly fish throbbing, breathing through the atmosphere
onto my lawn
and I am
officially
a Norfolkian.

the old man

2008-09-29T05:38:00.001-07:00

just walks around and around the traffic circle outside my house. I live in such a charming Virginia neighborhood, awash with water, old homes, and tiny girls on bikes that wave at you even if you're a grown-up, and but this man in his tucked-in T-shirt just keeps with the circle. How you like that?

...
Funeral today for my roommate's dad. Pray for us sinners, now. (At the hours of our deaths save it for somebody who could really use an Amen.)

quick thought on gestures that pantomine masterbation

2008-09-26T08:00:00.001-07:00

you know that hand gesture people do that mimmicks a male masturbatory? and you know how that is supposed to say, 'Hey, I don't favor the idea you're speaking about!"?

what i don't get is, shouldn't that hand signal be a sign of support? (because who doesn't like masturbating.)

it should be peace sign, thumbs up, and the jack-off gesture. three options when you're A-OK with something, walking down the street, just being cool with everything.

get out my face, pregnant woman

2008-09-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

location brooklyn, new york
statistics 1 (very patient girl)
1 (dude broken down by lindsay's years of silence)

soooo... my friend Lindsay is engaged. Lindsay is one of the cooler, tougher, sarcastic girls i've ever met. in college she didn't shave her legs or armpits, and once she kicked me in the shins.

that's why i was so shocked to hear that not only is she engaged, put she punctuated the sentence as follows:
"Oh, here's some news: Adam and I getting married next year!"

in the name of decency, here was my response:

FIRST OF ALL, i must point out that at the end of your wedding news sentence was an exclamation point. !!!! i... am.... ENGAGED!!! HOLY SHIT EVERYONE. EVERYONE EVERYONE EVERYONE look really quick, it's awesome and beautiful and romantic and magical I
AM
ENGAGED
!

i'm your friend, and my job is to point these kind of things out. but i'm glad. and i'm also excited for when you send me a baby shower invitation, the cover of which is a graphically intense photo of your pregnant belly. i prefer if you're wearning a tank top that you've pulled up, are caressing the bottom of your stomach as if it might fall down to the ground if you don't keep holding it up, and if you could be by a mirror that would be FANTASTIC.

- end of dispatch-
it angers me when women are proud of being pregnant. a joke here about all it taking to get pregnant is a sailor would be too obvious, but still. come on. some women act like they created a miracle. you created nothing. you got laid... actually i need to do some research. is it usually ugly women who prance around all proud of having been impregnated? because that would make more sense, if they're actually using their fetusized belly as a symbol of pride that somebody wanted to be "inside" them.

oh MAN! does it make me angry when girls take a bunch of pictures of their pregnant stomach. what else could they be showing off? having gotten laid... that they're still 'fit' even though they've gained 20 pounds of baby parts? if this hypothesis is correct, then that means they're using their baby as an excuse to show some skin, and the double excuse of also having a reason to send those skin pics out to their contact list.

now i'm beginning to question this whole pregnancy thing altogether. on a serious note, if your stated reason for wanting children is to teach, give love, have a family, blah blah, etc., then you should adopt. you can acheive all those goals with an adopted children, plus you save a soul from the foster system, and don't add to our population/eroding planet/enough ugly people already issues.

THAT SAID, if anyone reading this is pregnant, and pretty, I've always been curious about making out with a preggerlady. email me, baby.

programing note

2008-09-22T13:58:00.000-07:00

Sooo... I'm going to start posting something on this every Sunday night or Monday morning, for those of you who (so kindly) check in from time to time.

The previous post appeared on Sunday in the paper here, the Virginian-Pilot. When searching for it online, I did a Google: "Jesse Scaccia" Norfolk. What should come up? Porn sites. But of course.

In any case, that story was about my new friend Hollywood. It's 'straight' but still a decent read. Mangia.

- Jesse

Hollywood, always up to no good

2008-09-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

location ghent, virginia
statistics 25 (friends)
1 (not-necessarily-welcome baseball hats)
1 (and only, Hollywood)

"MAYOR OF GHENT" CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY, HOLLYWOOD STYLE

Linder Lue Lawrence has been blessed with many inter-personal gifts, but reacting with equal enthusiasm to all presents at her birthday party is not one of them.

Upon receiving a baseball hat, she looked at it quizzically and put it back down without so much as a grin. But the next present, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. t-shirt, that she liked.

"Dale Junior, Dale Junior!" she screamed, turning every head (and smile) in the room. "I love NASCAR. I'm gonna be famous."

But then again, what would Lawrence, better known as Hollywood, do with a baseball hat? She already has one with her name written in all capital letters on the inside of the up-turned bill, and when she's not wearing that there's always the wig of long, flowing blond hair to fall back on.

Hollywood, 52, has a cognitive disability, but this party was not held at a group home or organized by social workers. Like many Norfolk residents, she gathered with friends at a local restaurant. She ordered cold beer. She danced and, oh man, did she sing.

"Hollywood is my best friend," said Diana Ray, organizer of the party and a barista at Elliot's Fairgrounds in Ghent, Hollywood's favorite hang-out. "She's the most emotionally salient of all my friends. My mom invited me to Thanksgiving in Louisiana this year but I told her no, I have plans with Hollywood."

Hollywood lives on her own in an apartment on Spotswood Avenue, near Elliott's. She is looked after by Hope House, an organization that provides supported living services for about 125 adults with developmental disabilities in the Hampton Roads area. Hope House's goal is to assist cognitively disabled people become integrated in their community and to make real, natural connections. Hollywood has been involved with Hope House for 30 years.

"Hollywood spearheads making connections and initiating relationships. She is our poster child," said Debbie Knowles, a team leader at Hope House who works closely with Hollywood. "She's the mayor of Ghent."

Hollywood's birthday party, which has been an annual tradition for years, is a symbol of Hollywood's success. One friend drove her, while another organized a red carpet from the street to the doors of Tortilla West. No less than a dozen digital flashbulbs popped as Hollywood made her spinning, hip-shaking entrance, in front of some twenty-five of her friends. At one point she fell from all the hair flips and Marilyn Monroe poses she was doing for the cameras.

On the ground, she just laughed and shouted her own personal catch phrase. "To the moon!"

"Put this on youtube!" she said. "Put me in the New York Times. I'm gonna be on Entertainment Tonight."

One place where Hollywood is undeniably famous is Fairgrounds, where she spends many of her days.

"She's sort of the social centrifuge of Fairgrounds," said Brian Parris, 28, a research scientist and regular at the coffee shop. "She's so likable and approachable that if you meet her and you're not somewhat charmed, it's like 'What's wrong with you?'"

Hollywood greets everyone she knows with a hello and a broad smile. She always orders the same thing- cold tea with liquor- before busting out with a laugh and saying, "Just kidding. That's crazy." Hollywood loves NASCAR, painting, and has a hot and cold relationship with Maury Povich. If she thinks a man is handsome, she tells him he looks like a race car driver. To Hollywood a beautiful woman is- what else could they be?- a movie star.

"Hollywood is always happy," said Corey Castelow, 17, who Hollywood calls Big Bird. "After you see her your tummy hurts from laughing so hard. She's my legal drug."

For Ray, who considers herself a certified member of Hollywood's entourage, their relationship is deeply meaningful.

"She has made me a lot less shy, a lot more open to meeting people," Ray said. "Hollywood can't read or write, so television and movies are something she can understand. I think she wants to be famous so that more people can know someone like her."

Hollywood, who was born in Virginia Beach and suffered a childhood of abuse and group homes, is no longer in communication with any of her blood relatives. But she does have her "soul sisters," as she calls them, her friends from the coffee shop. Her date to the party was her friend Rosa, a cognitively disabled friend from Hope House.

Someone asked Hollywood what she would do with all that money if she ever did become rich and famous, like she wishes.

"I'm gonna buy Rosa things," Hollywood said without hesitation, grabbing her soul sister's hand. "I'm gonna take her to Hollywood."

For more information on Hope House visit www.hope-house.org. Hollywood's art work will be on display at Hope House's Stockley Gardens Arts Festival held on Oct 18 and 19.

poetry hour

2008-09-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

hey y'all
this is my first try at serious poetry in a long time, so take it easy on me. it's a theme i've dealt with before as well.

Naked Goat Farmer

Possibly never in history
has there been a human so adroit
at bringing the conversation
boomerang-whip back to
hanging out naked.

It was a Yahoo! messenger
conversation with a farmer
I was meant to work for
in West Cork.

I'd ask for dates.
He'd ask if I knew about naturalism.

I'd ask for daily responsibilities on the farm.
He'd say that there's a well-secluded sauna.

Thinking myself clever, I asked
if he played chess.
No, but I'll play you
and the loser has to-
(wait for it)-
milk the goats in the buff.

I was writing about the organic movement
and since nothing is more organic
than a grown man's dirty balls,
I said
Yes.

On the agreed upon day he picked me up
in town.
His pants fit funny and were hiked too high,
but why bother trying on pant after pant
if you're just going to throw them off.

His shirt was tucked too tight,
but then again, tight things are
easier to full-fistedly rip
off one's back.

I'm somewhat disappointed to report that
he remained remarkably clothed
for the entire duration
of the ride home.

I digress to remember a scene
in the classic movie Airplane!,
when the pilot asks the little boy,
'Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?'

Joey, not only have I been to
that brink, I've gone beyond.

My naked man had hips
like a woman,
a slightly concave chest,
and the bush of a wildman.

That night I tried to appease him
by splitting a Bailey's
in my underwear,
while he, naked, crossed
his legs tightly,
possibly against the laws of
physics, I could see for myself.

At bed time I locked the door.
Then I checked it.
And then I did that thing where
you open the door, and then lock it,
and then check from the other side
to make sure it's really locked.

And then I was locked out
Naked.

Slightly drunk on Irish liqueur
I went outside to climb through my window
but the window was locked
and trying the front door...
now I was double locked out.

Leaving me feeling
double naked.

And it was kind of cold out
and even though naturalism
isn't about "size," well,
you always want to put on a
good showing,

you know.

Worse than the nudity
or my 'I was in the pool!' moment
was feeling horrible
about waking up my new host,
because sometimes when you
wake someone up
they have a hard-on like
the flag pole at the White House
and maybe he also had to get up early
the next morning
to go to the market
or something.

With the innate humility
of a mid-transition transsexual
I rang the door bell.

Ding
dong.

Rustling.
A light goes on in the back of the house.
The moonlight casts the shadow
of a man
behind the shades.
A rusty key turns.
The slow shifting of lock gears.
And the door flies open!
As if taken by the wind!
And...
And...
And...

There stands the Naked Goat Man
in slippers,
a plush (is that goose down?) bathrobe and,
you won't believe me but it's true,
even a night cap.

'It's bloody freezing out,'
he admonished me.
'Get some damn clothes on.'

on unicorns and polygamy

2008-08-21T19:33:00.000-07:00

location frankfurt, hamburg, koln
statistics 1 (little german boy who is funnier than the next)
1 (smiles created by each smile, even in germany)
5-10,000 (times i was looked at like a common criminal)

FIRST OF ALL, if these kids above here don't just kill you then, well, you ought to take a lap around your house and start fresh. Because they're hilarious. (I highly suggest clicking on them for a closer view.)

What the kid on the left is thinking: "Well hello there, mouse."
What the kid on the right is thinking: "My name is Bjorn. How you like it so far?"

After two months in Ireland I spent about nine days in Germany, which is like moving from your crazy cousin Steven's apartment, (where he thinks the cat pooping in the fern is 'a riot' and cigarette ash fills the air in an eternal indoor fog), and being forced to go live with the principal.

And the principal probably shaves his sideburns so high that he takes away some of the normal side of the head hair everyone is supposed to have. Which is COMPLETELY gross. Who knows why that is so gross. It's just one of those small nasty things.

Ireland to Germany is going from a land of unicorn sightings to a place where polygamy was once supported to grow more boy soldiers. Let's just say it is a hell of a culture shock considering how close the two countries are.

ANYWAY. I flew into an airport called Frankfurt Hahn. Would anyone like to guess how far an airport with the word Frankfurt in it actually is from the city with the word Frankfurt in it? No... Another guess. Shit. You got it. 2 hours. That wasn't very fun. Moving on, I tried to hitch hike to the city, but I got the old 'criminal swerve,' where the driver serves into the oncoming lane to avoid even a whiff of a scent of Dirty Hitcher through their air conditioning system. Obviously things wouldn't be as easy here as they were in Ireland, where picking up hitchers felt almost like a national obligation.

I walked back to the airport and caught the damn bus. I got to my buddy's train station and as I waited for him I watched more grown adults in business attire run than I'd ever seen collectively in my collective life. They mostly ran from the T-esque local train to the major commuter rail, but they also ran into the parking lot, to idling cars, etc. Man, what a sight. High heels clopping. Briefcases swinging in hands like bloated leather batons. Ties all over the shoulder, Dilbert style. I must be some sort of anti-rushing elitist, because I feel like running should be reserved for athletic events and maybe to the toaster, because even a jihadist hates a burnt bagel.

[writer's note: apparently my looming move tomorrow to writing school in Virginia has left me scattered and manic. A thousand pardons.]

Normally I would brush off this flock of running men and women as an aberration of timeliness, or even an apparition after my long day of travel, but I have a second example of Germany's commitment to being on time. Two days later I used one of the 'official' 'hitching' websites to get a ride to Hamburg. 6 of us in the car, meet at 9. I arrived at 8:55, last of the bunch and I was, judging by the glares I received, somehow quite late.

Only in Germany.

Once the people relaxed they ended up being quite warm and friendly, as I've found all Germans to be once their hard (chocolate) shell has been cracked. Another difference between IRE and D:
Irish people you fall in love with; the Germans you learn to love.

For those of you who have never spent time with an actual German, they are, in general, intelligent, worldly, embarrassed of their country's history but proud of it's present. The men are moderate but consistent drinkers. The women still look like they are being bred for farming, as the last line of defense in wars, and for being fucked very hard from behind.

In Hamburg I stayed with my young gay friend. He essentially put me through the gay Olympics. We went to the gay section of town where he got some fruity drink at the gay cafe, we watched Brokeback Mountain (seriously), I helped him write some DOPE emails on mandar.com (think that's what it was), and then I went with him to get the results of his HIV test. (I won silver medal).

From Hamburg I went to Koln. Stayed with the perfect German family. The son a brilliant little soprano at the cathedral. I came to think of him as Das Gentleman. His tiny little sister with that German blond blonde hair. Etc. The mother told me why the boy was so sweet: "He always smiled as a baby, so everyone smiles back. It creates a circle."

Sounds like one German momma might have figured out how to save the world.

I walked back to the Autobahn singing along to Beck. I passed these crazy regional German flags, one with referee stripes, another like the quilt of a hundred unlike-minded mothers all sewing hand over wrinkled hand at once. 'Give the finger to the rock and roll singer as he dances upon your paycheck.' I forced myself, come hell or moral high ground Germans, to hitch back to Frankfurt. No Germans picked me up (of course), but I made it to F with the help of a Syrian, a Turk, and a Mongolian woman who made me sit in the back with the car seat.

I thought, alone in the German rain, with all that happened in the past six months about to come to an end:

It is seldom these days that I feel like I'm spinning out of control, but those times, they are glorious.

"I will be your preacher teacher

2008-07-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

anything you have in mind."

Just what the fuck is George Michael talking about? Yes, the George Michael pictured stage left, who, by any reasonable guess, appears to be smelling himself on the cover of the album which this song can be found.

Let's break this down just a little: so the first half of the sentence is an offer of mentoring, while the second half is thick with pervish innuendo. Was this George Michael's way of posting for a sexual intern, like they used to have in the olden days? Was he hoping to find an orphan to teach everything he knows about arm pits, namely his arm pit? Who knows. Oldest mystery ever told. Moving on to the real posting...

location: dublin
statistics: 2:1 (ratio)
2 (completely superfluous references to screwing in this chapter from a book of advice for new teachers)
about 15 (chapters left to write)

Soooo me and my friend All-Star, who I've been close with since we worked and lived together in Yosemite National Park some ten years ago, are working on a book of practical advice for new teachers. We're calling it 'So You Wanna Be An F'in Teacher?' (As you might have guessed, All-Star is also a teacher, him in rough and tumbling Oakland).

The nexus of the project was a conversation we had with our buddy Mose (also a Yosemite alum, by the way), who was on the eve of his first year teaching. Over pints we told him all the things they should have taught him in teacher school. I was taking notes on napkins, and by the end of 3 rounds I had a list of about 75 chapters. It was one of the most satisfying and organic artistic/writing moments of my life.

As the title of the collection suggests, the advice leans toward the raw, the stuff no professor with dignity would say out loud. Completed chapters include 'Teach Hungover,' 'Don't Be Afraid to Threaten to Knock a Student Out,' and 'Quit and Go to Law School, You Jerk.' So we're not exactly playing by the rules. And that's a good thing.

Anyway, I just wrote a new chapter. It's not the best one by a long shot, just the most recent. Thought I'd share with the group.

MAKE POSITIVE CALLS HOME

It is (I hope) as close as you will get to hearing the sound of one of your student's parents having an orgasm.
The sound?
When you make a 'call home,' and the parent realizes you called for no other reason than to praise their child.
The noise is like a mix between a dove's coo, a kitten's prrr, and the audio to this month's top rated youporn.com clip (the one with the Asian kid and the ladyboy).
In a word, it is inspiring.
On the night when I do my parent calls I make sure to keep a 2:1 positive to negative call ratio. The benefits of a call home are generally self-evident, but a few anyhow:
- Works toward getting both the parents and the students on your side.
- Shows that you care.
- Wins redeemable points with the students. (i.e., 'Billy, remember that nice call I made to your dad, the one that got him to forget about your crystal meth addiction for an hour? Yeah. Now shut up and do your work.')
- Opens a channel of communication should you need to make a critical call later in the term.
- These conversatioins tend to turn into a gush-fest of sorts. You praise the child, the parent praises you, and we're all in love again. Quite simply, these conversations are rays of light. I've had positive calls home that practically ended with the teenagers-in-love tango of 'You hang up...' 'No, you hang up...' 'We'll do it together...' 'You didn't hang up!' 'Neither did you!'

So use that parent contact list you made on the first day of school for good rather than the typical evil. The self-esteem of your students, their parents, and yourself will be better for it.

- 30-

Goat Men

2008-07-21T16:42:00.000-07:00

location Béal Atha'n Ghaorthaidh Ballingeary

statistics n/a

‘It’s time, Jesse,’ he says, and I know just what he means.

Wellingtons. Blue bucket red bucket bottles. The metal contraption that holds four bottles at once because lord knows we can’t very well ask the goats to form an orderly line. The Lassie dogs look up with hope, see the equipment, and bow their heads. We climb the hill. The herd charges the gates.

The oldest one’s tats hang heavy, one shorter than the other, the nub done in by a case of gangrene that nearly killed her last year. The five kids, all white as clouds, nuzzle together by the latch. They learn quickly, these. The one spotted like a brown cow watches us with one eye. The farmer swears- no, he thinks- that the brown one can watch the hill with the one eye and us with the other.

‘They get mad when we’re late,’ he grumbles at me.

Over coffee at the restaurant in the hippy town on the way to the farm I told him that I like goats. ‘They’re ornery, have a real mind of their own, and I like that,’ I said.

‘We’ll get along just fine then,’ he returned, earnestly.

We do the high knee dance through the gates to keep the girls from barging through to the two boys next door. 'What will happen if we let them through?'

'They'll fuck, and it's not time for that.' It's not season and plus, they haven't consumed enough of the apple cider vinegar the farmer has been mixing into their feed to produce more (profitable) female offspring. Apparently, the Y sperm hate acid, they shudder from the taste of it.

But now: it's time. The farmer drags the old one into the barn by the ears. They hate having their ears pulled. The young ones don’t like it when you mess with the pubescent pile of bones spilling out between their eyes.

‘What’s a rookie mistake?’ I ask as the farmer settles down for the evening milking.

‘Pulling.’

The goat’s neck is strapped with a leather dog collar to the post. The farmer squeezes and I’m shocked by the force with which the milk shoots out. Tsssssss! It is foamy and warm. Thick grey cobwebs that look as strong as uneven bars hang between the rafters. I dip the plastic cup I snuck out from the kitchen into the blue bucket. It tastes good. Goat milk is the healthiest for babies, country doctors say. Both to get babies to grow and to get them to sleep. Milk just like this: unpasteurized, unfiltered, not from an animal to a tank to a truck to a refrigerator to a back seat to a smaller refrigerator to a bottle.

Like this: Tsssssssss! From pink flesh to pink lips.

Parker and I feed the kids first. They bully and fight. We keep the bottles waist high to emulate their mothers’ tats. I swear that Number 26 looks at me with genuine longing as I feed him.

…

Later. It’s so dark I can’t see the road and for reasons uncrystallized, ungraspable at the moment I want to cry.

I am running and something of the darkness overtakes me. Thoughts spill out ungoverned. Most pass. One sticks: eternal sunshine of my spotty mind.

My lungs beat their desperate cadence against my ribs. Still here, motherfucker. We’re not going to let you die, motherfucker.

I still dream about my dad every night and I want to cry.

I had to leave my boys in Cape Town before I was ready. Days after my best friend told me he was Positive and I promised I would be there for him but my sister, when I told her I was going to miss the funeral she wouldn’t stop crying, she could barely get the words out:

‘Dad needs you,’ she said. Even though dad was dead she said it again in the thin space between heaves.

‘Dad needs you.’

We don’t talk anymore, my sister and I, and I don’t know why.

I speak more to my dad, in my dreams, than I did the six months before he died. In my dreams I hold him every chance I get. I hold his hands, I rest my head on his shoulder. I tell him I’m sorry so many times and I grip him so hard that I wake myself up.

I’m on a ship on the lake that spills from the North Sea. I’m on a train past the sheep fields with my mouth wide open. I’m in Amsterdam on the floor of a hotel, tucked between the bed and the wall, stoned and shaking. I am nowhere. I am in bed with a Hungarian whose boyfriend is in Barcelona. I fall asleep next to a Swede and she snores against my neck and she must be lonely, she’s holding me so.

I am nowhere and he is everywhere.

I like the second one better and I believe the second one.

‘Where should I run?’ I asked the farmer.

‘Run the lights,’ he said.

So I do. Down the dark dirt road. Past the grocery store that has no blueberries and the bar next door and the bridge that is the end of the farmer’s world. I run until there are no more lights and it is no longer safe.

Finally- and if I said this before I was lying- but I am finally falling. The buried me is rising from eggshells and compost and fresh dirt and is meeting the me to whom the gift of gravity has been returned. The zombie me, the version you’ve known of me since February (or long before? since we met? since the beginning?) cannot fight both fronts. I am forced to love myself and I do.

While the farmer was still milking I dropped to my knees on the flakes of red sandstone. One-two-threefourfive the kids formed a semi-circle around me. I lifted my hood and I butted their heads. I could feel their back legs straining as they pressed. None of us moved- the balance of opposing forces- and I knew that, some day, I would be a goat man too.

My mom is reading my blog

2008-07-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

location inis mor, aran island, ireland
statistics 2 (eyes, watching, judging)

Sooo, it turns out that my mother is now reading my blog. She asked if she could. I said yes, so technically it's my fault. But now there's no turning back. I either have to swallow hard and continue to write like myself, or I have to go all domesticated up in dis piece.

Let's see how long I can play it straight:

A DAY IN MY LIFE HERE AT THE HOSTEL
* Morning. *
This morning I bit into a tangerine and it tasted funny, dry. I looked down and there was a tiny greenish/pink worm emerging from the new crater in its home. It wiggled either its tushy or its head at me. Who knows which. I decided it was the worm's rightful home, put the fruit down, and then started drafting a list of the demands that I would later nail into the glass door of the Spar.

After breakfast I was supposed to be painting Room 12 'water lily,' which apparently is some shade of yellow. At first they told me the room would be pink. I got excited about painting the whole thing- walls, floor, ceiling- pink. Then I would add a sub-woofer that played a constant, dull heartbeat. I asked a girl I work with, Annie, if she had anything umbilical I could borrow, but she had nothing to offer. I took pride in maybe being the first person in history to ever use the word 'umbilical' as an adjective, so...

(Hold on. See, knowing my mom is reading this is fucking everything up. Above is a picture of my mom. (Still want to read, mom? Yah bahastahd?!?!))

Anyway. All this scheming to construct a womb themed dorm room got me thinking about how much I want a sleep pod like everyone uses in Jah-pan.

Which led me to watching The Last Samurai. I found two dvd options here at the hostel: The Last Samurai and Frasier. Yesterday I tore through Frasier like Geraldo entering Al Capone's hidden tomb. Except Frasier really paid off for me. In spades. I'm telling you. That dog should have won a Pulitzer or something. Moving on, it embarrasses me how inspiring I find The Last Samurai to be. CLEARLY it inspired me to great heights, including writing a blog that includes a joke about a (undoubtedly now dead) tv dog winning an award for writing.

*Afternoon*
There was still no paint so I checked out the communal fridge and ate a bunch of whipped cream from the can. I offered some to Annie, who declined. But she's home schooled so you can't blame her for being out of her fucking mind. Who doesn't like eating whipped cream from the can? Immigrants, faggots, and home schoolers. That's who.

(I'm sorry.)

Then I wrote emails and the like for far too long. I wrote this to my friend Lindsay:

"oh, and the next time i see you i'm going to take all my jewelry off, put it in a neat pile, and we're going to rumble.

jesser

ps
and after i win the fight, i'm going to steal your neat pile of jewelry."
This is a reference to our friend Davide, who liked to tell this particular fight story, where he always made sure to emphasize the piles of jewelry with zero shreds of irony or self-awareness. This still makes me chuckle. How'd he know they even liked the same style of jewelry? And ring sizes, what of that? I do see where he's coming from, though. If I was in a street fight and my chandelier earrings got knotted with my adversary's ankle bracelet, man oh man, would I be embarrassed.

I also "chatted" with the girl I've only met once a year ago but none-the-less am spending multiple hundreds of dollars to fly to my sister's wedding in August in St. Louis. She has to be out of her mind too, this smart and lovely girl. Top 5 reasons she must be crazy:
1. Any rational person can plainly see that I must be crazy for buying her that ticket, so she is crazy by association.
2. She knows about my dad, and how I'm walking my sister down the aisle... talk about an intense first date. For crying out loud.
3. She's very tall. (And y'all KNOW how I feelz about tall bitches.)
4. Her name is Angela, and she was born at the peak of the Who's the Boss madness that swept the western hemisphere during the 80s. The only reason a father would do this is to be able to refer to his own child as 'Angeler,' like Tony did in the show. And, ahem, I think I've proven my point and I don't even need a 5.

*Evening*
I was caught eating cookie dough ice cream straight from the bin. And then I was ashamed.

I also emailed the nudist goat farmer who I'm staying with next week. God bless us nudist goat farmers, one and all.

And now I'm supposed to be writing about the organic farming movement in Ireland. Hence, this: stalling. I will leave you with what might be the first paragraph:
If the organic movement is to succeed in Ireland, it will need the help of naked goat milkers, modern day white slaves, mono-syllabic Ukrainian men who treat their young French co-workers like beaten-down wives, babies that don't cry and rotten little farm girls, a butterfly genocide, silk suit wearing lobbyists, sell-out vegetarians, brothers and sisters saying Rosaries as they're huddled in the corner of their thatched houses during storms, pig races, synthetic ewe vaginae, and, most importantly, the kind of widespread fear and panic not seen in this country since the Great Potato Famine of 1845.

2008-06-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

location: craughwell, ireland

statistics: 2 (pig murders i am aiding and abetting, per year)

1 (tons of giant stones i moved my hand the other day because the farmer made me)

1 (chicks i killed today because i thought it was a fresh egg and i stole it from under the hen and brought it to the fridge)

Soooooo.... For these two weeks I've been living on a small, organic family farm near Galway, Ireland. It's been lovely, soul-building, sometimes back-breaking, but it always feels like God's work. I'm going to write a long piece about this (in the same vein/voice as my hitching story from last year). But, for those that have been asking what I'm up to here, what follows are some rough thoughts from my notes:

- conversation between two local farmers:

'who'd you hire?'

'a brazilian.'

'which one?'

'the one that's been shot.'

'oh, he's good.'

'i asked him what happened to the other guy... 'oh, he's dead now.''

- the little girl dips her pink-socked foot into the chicken's water. 'want to swim with the chickens?' long, enthusiastic nod. 'uh huh!'

- i spend a lot of my time blasting the render off the cottage with a mini-jack hammer. underneath is the original stone work, some 200-years-old. today we found the archway from the old stables. 'holy shit, this is awesome,' the farmer told me. the stones are too good for a common farm. the farmer says the original owners did the stone work for the railway, and that they probably stole these stones during their lunch hours.

- me: strawberries don't really have any self defense mechanism, do they?

farmer: that's the idea, isn't it? they're so sweet you can't resist them, and that's how their seeds get spreads. sometimes seeds get spread through you.

- i'm helping to build a pig sty. in fact, i kind of pressured the farmer into getting pigs. i am horrible, horrible vegetarian.

- the old bull from the next farm watches me pee through the window. when he sees me flossing i swear he thinks, 'oh god, what's that asshole doing now?'

- my first morning a baby dove was born. two days ago there were chicks. tonight tommy down the road is killing his cockerel.

- YET, tommy wants to be a cock in his next life. he says this after the farmer's wife mentions how their cock has been raping the feathers off the hen all week.

- the wife grew up in a thatched house. 'when it stormed we'd all lie on our bellies in the kitchen and say rosaries, hoping the roof wouldn't blow in.'

- i'm here because, essentially, i didn't want to be an Italian club promotor. i love this life. for years i've talked about wanting a farm, and 4-5 foster boys to help me with it. i feel like i'm getting closer and closer with each bit of knowledge i take in, with each strawberry i pick from the vine and eat straight away, with each walk i take where the momma cow next door growls at me, chews her cud, and blinks slowly as her baby takes in the milk that was made for her.

more to come...

Feeling like a man, blogging like a woman

2008-06-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Sooooo...

As you all know, at one point I had a relationship with a beautiful South African ballerina/aristocrat. I chased her across the world more than once, her family threatened to kill me, and the like. Real Romeo and Juliet kind of stuff. Anyway. It's been a long, hard process for me to (gulp) accept that it's over. I'm a fighter, you see, and I like to consider myself a winner... so unhappy endings are never easy for your boy Jesu to accept.

But that's not the point of this blog. In the past few weeks I've had dreams that I was going to marry Winona Ryder and Tina Fey (separate dreams). In both cases I thought (in the dream), "Well, at least I get to marry Winona Ryder/Tina Fey. That's pretty cool."

Why would I have such ornery dreams? Maybe...

a) I'm a retard.

b) I believe that when people go through hard times they are repaid with good times (see: Even Steven).

c) Being a vegetarian has turned me into a woman who actually dreams about getting married.

This is all very troubling. I'm staying on this family farm right now, and they've got a tiny-ass baby. I love the little guy. He's a real sweetheart. Every time I hold him I think about having one of my own. Once when I was holding him I even looked at myself in the mirror. This kind of thing isn't supposed to happen to men. Men aren't supposed to pretend other people's babies are their own, and at age 29 they're not supposed to dream about the girl they had a flame for WHEN THEY WERE 10, and, in general, I should probably care more about kicking people's asses and maybe even NASCAR.

Go Jeff Gordon. I love you Rainbow Warrior!!!!?!!!

Shit. That's not really any better.

Letter from Eindhoven Airport... And some new laws for society

2008-06-11T03:40:00.000-07:00

location Eindhoven Airport, Holland

statistics

1 (nightly gay forest orgies)

1 (boisterous Buckies)

1 (airport policemen who clearly learned English from Nick at Night)

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here at the Eindhoven Airport, I came across your recent statement calling my activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas, but since my flight doesn't leave for 30 hours, and it is raining outside, and since the buses are on strike so I'm stuck here, and since the mean policeman won't let me sleep in peace behind the KLM Royal Dutch Airlines desk, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

What follows are my ideas while confined here at the airport. I am here because the injustices of being fired as a sailor and rejecting a job as an Italian club promoter have brought me here. My brothers, here are some new laws for worldwide society:

IF cops are going to be assholes, they should at least use ridiculous phrasing with a straight face

When I was trying to get some sleep by the KLM desk, all comfy on the blow-up camping mattress I carry around with me, the craggly old airport cop nudged me awake.

'Can't sleep here.'

'Where can I sleep?' I asked.

'Outside,' he said.

'Really? Right over there?' I asked, pointing out the window.

'Not unless you want to get arrested for vagrancy,' he said.

Did he learn English from the Andy Griffith Show? Vagrancy? The only way he could have done better is if he had threatened to to take me to the county line where I'd be Jessamine County's trouble.

THE accommodation of napping should be enforced by a general societal will, like the way a herd of buffalo will risk death by rallying together to save a baby buffalo from a lion.

Aren't we all on the same page that napping is good for man and beast? We're all still babies, anyway. When we're upset most likely its just that we're hungry or tired. Facilitating napping is, like, a half step away from buying malaria nets for poor Africans.

I decree that there should a simple code to make things easier. The Napper should approach the other person who has a reasonable napping space in their midst with large, saddish eyes, hands pressed in prayer against one cheek, and engage in a wary, gypsy nod. Each type of person has rote responses.

Older woman: Sure thing, hon.

Older man: It's a friend world, kid.

Younger woman: Totally!

Younger man: Go for it, dude.

But let's not ask children if we can nap with them. Unless they are are child beauty pageant contestants and are dressed anything like hookers. In that case, we should sex them to teach them a lesson about dressin' decent. New rule:

LET'S all agree to get sexy with the child beauty pageant kids to teach them a lesson they'll never forget

This rule is kind of obvious, like how we should all return a dollar that we see fall out of somebody's pocket, so I don't even need to talk about it.

MARKETERS should never use common nouns in their jingles

In my endless hours at the airport I heard their theme song over and over. The tune was nearly exactly the music that would come on when Job from Arrested Development did magic. Except with one twist. Every few seconds somebody would shout 'Airport!' Now this is just asinine. They didn't even say Eindhoven Airport. Just bloody 'Airport!' That's like Nike making a commercial where they just yell 'Sneakers!' over and over. Stupid.

MOMS should have come up with better ways of criticizing their kids

While sitting around drafting an email (in my mind) to my ex-girlfriend (which I guess is something that happens when you're doing nothing for so long), I considered using the phrase 'You pushed and you pushed and you pushed too far.' This is something my mom used to scold me with when I was little. This got me thinking of other things she'd say. 'I don't think you're cute and I don't think you're funny' was one of her favorites. When I got a little older she used to call me 'Little Hitler.'

Shit. No wonder I'm a secret cutting, trying too hard, self-hating Jew that is afraid of push-pops.

UNRULY, PAINFUL CAMPING BAGS SHOULD ALL BE THROWN IN THE RIVER

Who am I kidding? Where am I going where there's not flat ground for suitcase wheels?What, I was planning on climbing trees in Europe and needing all my stuff to make a life in the upper boughs? Honestly.

THE SELFISH gays of Eindhoven should not have their sex orgies in the woods by the airport

So not having money I was going to put my bags in a locker and sleep in the woods. When I mentioned this to the nice girl at the information desk she shook her head.

'That's where the gays go at night to do their thing. Sometimes we drive by and flash our high beams at them and watch them scatter,' she said, giggling. 'You'd be in for a very interesting night.'

So I had to find a way to town and get an ornery hostel where a straight couple kept me up half the night having completely unabashed sex on the top of a squeaky bunk. And I didn't even catch a flash of skin! Ornery.

IF YOU'RE going to have sex with your girlfriend in a hostel room full of dudes (and only dudes), please have your girlfriend be louder than you. Please. Please, fella.

Seriously.

MORE PEOPLE should be like R. Buckminister Fuller

I read about him in the New Yorker. He's an excerpt:

"Bucky was a boisterous but hopelessly nearsighted child; until he was fitted with glasses, he refused to believe that the world was not blurry. Like all Fuller men, he was sent off to Harvard. Halfway through his freshman year, he withdrew his tuition money from the bank to entertain some chorus girls in Manhattan."

Bucky also invented a dome that didn't really work. He wore three watches at all times. He was one of the original proponents of tiny cars. And that's about all I have to say from this stupid airport.

Yours for the cause of peace and brotherhood,

Jesse Moses Scaccia

My career as an Italian club promoter ends before it begins.

2008-06-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

location (theoretically) Rimini, Italia

statistics

1 (Fabrizios)

1 (souls to lose)

3 (afternoons off per week, but no nights off)

Sooooo, in light of my untimely death as a sailor (picture a big, bony, seaweed covered hand reaching up from the sea and grabbing me from the front deck), I had to find a new European job/home/life and fast. My former boss (and friend) Konrad's new guests were arriving in five days and I would be kicked out onto the streets. The romance of being down and out in Hoorn and The Hague notwithstanding, I was eager to find someplace to be.

Of course, there's a place (I think) I can always go back to: Momma's house in St. Louis. But oooooh, Doggie! might that make me feel like some sort of pooch with its tail between its legs. Upon entering the living room at 9 Bon Price Terrace I'd fully expect my step-dad, Jerry, to rub my fleshy ears and say, 'It's okay, Puppers,' like he says to the German Shepherd when he's spooked from the rain and embarrassed about it.

Bad scene, best to be avoided.

I started with looking for fruit picking jobs. I emailed grape farms in France, strawberry farms in Ireland, and even a potato hatchery in England. Somehow, hidden among the list of picking jobs was an offer to work as a club promotor in Rimini, Italy. It was like finding a tab of ecstasy and a DOPE silver crucifix in the middle of a Cobb salad. Who was I to not email "Fabrizio"?

(Fabrizio's real name is Thomas, and by all evidence in his emails he's pretty normal. Please disregard this past sentence and picture the above man in the picture, know that his name is Fabrizio, and know that he bangs so many 19-year-old Americans that he just calls them all Jenny, and all the Jennies love it anyway because, Holy shit, Fabrizio is fucking hot, y'all.)

So Fabrizio tells me that the disco is called "Life." Instantly I'm taken in by the club's modesty of purpose. Just a club? No no no. I read on. "At LIFE, we offer a unique way to live the Summertime," Fabrizio tells me. I stop reading and immediately start to write him back:

Dear Fabrizio,

Ciao, bello!!!

Job sounds great, but it turns out that "summertime" shouldn't be capitalized because its not a proper noun, and I'm not even sure its a proper conjun...

Then, BAM!, it hits me: Fabrizio gets it. I mean, he gets it. I don't get it. I don't get anything. I look down and I have received the stigmata as penance. I keep reading.

I'll have to "promote" from 3-5pm and 9-12am, and then be club atmosphere (dancing, looking hot, the usual) from 12am to closing at 3am. I will get paid 65 euro a week. I will life in a house with the DJs. "UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU GO TO ANY OTHER CLUB IN RIMINI!" Fabrizio writes that the party can't go on forever.

"I do not recommend staying longer than 1 month, usually after 4/5 weeks you will begin to feel tired," he warns.

Of all the jobs in the world, (and those of you who know me will agree), this sounds like the perfect job for me. I write Fabrizio back saying Yes Sir! I'll take it if you'll have me! And I book a flight that costs half my salary for the month.

Two days later I go to the airport. If my mother had been with me I would have thrown myself on the floor, pounded my fists and feet, and cried, 'I don't want to be an Italian club promoter." So instead I bought a ticket to Dublin and here I am.

German Riot Cops Attack!

2008-06-08T03:28:00.001-07:00

statistics

2 (minimum number, German riot police pretending to be hookers, from time to time, living with us)

1 (picture of Jesu at German anti-film dubbing protest, as seen right)

countless (beautiful fish, wasted, due, in a roundabout way, to dutch hash)

5 (paragraphs at the beginning you may as well just skip)

Trying to get over your father’s death is like attempting alchemy after the practice has been proven scientific heresy.

You try any number of senseless things. You quit your job. You take up running. You go to a psychologist, as if a PhD has anything to do with how much you miss the man who taught you to throw a baseball. You break up with a girlfriend. Or you marry her, either one, as long as it feels like a difference large enough to rebalance your life into a stable, sane place.

The problem is, losing a parent is just so tiring. Every day is an emotional marathon of digesting what they gave you and what they took with them. Every day you are forced to re-define your identity now that you have lost one of your creators.

As Konrad and I are waiting for the next set of guests to arrive, I try coffee.

I load up on it. Cup after cup, quick swallows to take the heat. Anything to get the juice back.

It’s 8 p.m., and Konrad and I are watching Oude Doelenkade for cars with German plates. The peaks of the buildings cast a row of pyramid shadows on the streets. The buildings all teeter forward at tipping points, or lean together like drunks in love, or, as if proving that even stones can find life untenable, they lean apart, making alleyways darkened caves. Slowly, the sea is taking back the land the Dutch have ‘reclaimed’ with their windmills. Quickly a big yellow van comes to a stop near our ship.

A man with short-cropped hair hops out, walkie-talkie pressed to his lips as he scans the area. He gives the impression of a thrift store version of Collin Farrell, except with eyebrows like someone might have glued rodents to his face as a practical joke on the long drive from Frankfurt as he drooled against the child safe windows.

I follow his line of sight to a tall, chinless man wearing Ray Ban Aviators. They frown, nod at each other. With no words I can hear spoken they form a perfectly spaced line from their cars to the gangplanks. Bags are passed with optimal efficiency. Knuckles flex white. I stand on the back deck ready to help but I’m just in the way. Konrad sulks over to me after consulting with Hamster Farrell.

‘They’re cops,’ he tells me. ‘They’re fucking German cops.’

‘That’s not necessarily a bad thing…’

He interrupts mid his sentence, or at least the one I assume he’s screaming against the inside of his skull.

‘’Just doing my job.’ It’s the most bullshit sentence of all time. It’s a choice to want to control people,’ Konrad informs me, saying the C words like they are two thirds of an unholy trinity along with his favorite word, well, you can guess it.

It makes sense that Konrad would hate cops. If Konrad’s world was an SAT analogy, sailor is to police as, say, beer is to a mouthful of shit.

There’s ten of them. Eight men, and two oddly alluring women. Once their gear has been appropriated to the assigned bunks, they ask us to show them to a restaurant in town. Turns out they’re not just cops, they’re riot cops. When they’re not busting up soccer hooligans they’re taking down drug dealers and prostitutes.

Hamster Farrell pulls me aside as we near Hoorn’s killing stone. Of course this is what he asks me:

‘Is there a coffee shop around here?’ He comes back five minutes later with a half-smoked joint hanging from his lips and a piece of hash as big as my thumb wrapped in white wax paper.

‘Don’t tell the chef,’ he says, cryptically.

‘You got it,’ I say.

They buy pizzas and eat them out of the boxes. Konrad is upset like Curly from the Three Stooges, the kind of furious mania that can only be subdued by Moe and Larry feeding him cheese.

‘They’re on vacation, for God’s sake. At least use plates. Wouldn’t you at least use plates? You’d think one of them would care enough to make a salad. Fucking cops.’

He stews for a minute. ‘Remember how I told you that you weren’t allowed to mess around with the guests?’

‘Sure.’ It was one of the cardinal rules he repeated over and over.

‘I want you to fuck them both. Sleep with both of the girls. Anything that will upset these fucking cops.’

Does Konrad think the job is called fuckingcops? I’ll have to ask him later. He’s too upset right now. He soon falls into a deep hatesleep, but is woken up at 11 by our guests talking and drinking in the cabin. He lets a deep, pained, self-righteous sigh, as if he has to be up to perform cleffed lip surgery on Indonesian orphans in the morning. He violently slides open the hatch.

‘The harbor police are patrolling. You need to be quiet or we can lose our docking license,’ he tells them with all the consternation he can muster.

I laugh out loud. He was up until five a.m. with the last group, in this very spot, hooting and yelping as he taught them how to lasso pint glasses.

‘I’m a fucking hypocrite. Good night.’

***

All of the German riot police have nicknames. Bond. Chuck Norris. Brokeback. They’re especially proud of that one. ‘Do you get it?’ they ask me with their very German giggles, like all their bellies are suddenly full of delicious chocolate.

As the cops are untying the sail covers other crews stop to chat, as they often do. Konrad tells them about our guests. Jeffrey, a lifer who scares me even when he’s talking about being in love with his girlfriend, says, ‘It wouldn’t be the first time I kicked the shit out of a cop,’ a statement that is apropos of absolutely nothing. Parked next to us is Guy. I tell him they cops are planning a raid in 20 minutes, but he didn’t hear it from me. Guy looks a little like Paulie Shore, if you get what I mean. His eyes go wide and he urgently turns toward his cabin.

‘Just kidding, Guy.’

He found my joke so unfunny that I’m not even worthy of a ‘Go fuck yourself.’

It’s pouring rain as I throw loose the headline and the spring. The wind is heavy, 6 knots, just a couple knots from being too heavy for our little girl to sail through. But these German riot police, man are they ready. They all have boots, gloves with the fingers cut off, rain gear, and a seeming hatred for all things ‘rope,’ as they pull our halyards and sheets harder than I’ve ever seen them pulled. They raise our giant sun-blotting mainsail in the time it takes most groups to figure out how to untie the 8-8-9 knot that keeps the ropes on the pegs.

But there’s trouble with the jib. One of the hooks is stuck on a bolt of the cliverboom, the 15-foot-long telephone pole emerging from the nose of the ship. ‘Fall back!’ I yell to the German police as I climb out there. With the mainsail raised without the jib we’re too back-balanced, the wind rocks us side to side. I climb farther, my grip on the heavily lacquered wood tenuous at best. I shake the bottom of the sail. I sqeeze the steal. Finally, whoosh! And we’re sailing.

I have never had human follow my directions more closely or with more energy. I ask Jon to hold our largest fender, the big blue one that’s almost as fat as him, over the nose, and he reacts like I just told him to tackle that crack smoking prostitute with the Chelsea jersey on. I consider asking Jon to do my laundry, a request I’m positive he would fulfill, and that I know Konrad would approve of.

The weather keeps getting worse. Waves as tall as short men are crashing over the guard rails. When the wind changes quickly the jib flaps with enough violence to knock me over as I try to steady it. To keep us from tipping the top of our swords into the water we have to tack, or change the sail direction and point the nose through the dead zone of head-on wind, at a moment’s notice. I jump and slide across the cabin to save time. We lose the water stay, a thick steel cable that reinforces the cliverboom.

‘If the water stay gets tangled with the rudder, we’re fucked,’ Konrad tells me.

A German named Christian and Hamster Farrell hold me over the front as I stretch down. ‘A little more!’ They lower me farther, literally each of them gripping one of my balls to keep me from falling into the water. A big hot wave catches us all in the face and the Hamster grips me tighter.

‘Pull me up!’ I say, because, really, enough is enough.

Some of our guests are vomiting from the ride, so we pull into a town called Merken. Ever the little devil, Heir Hamster spikes the hot chocolate with hash. Chuck Norris, the oldest of the group and a drug virgin, drinks three cups before anyone notices. The group wanders Merken for a good lunch spot, but Chuck Norris takes off. Konrad and I find him at the 1 euro fish sandwich stand.

‘Where are the others?’ we ask him.

‘I’m not sure. All I know about is this fish, and how delicious it is, and how I’m going to eat all of it,’ he tells us.

I get to know some of our guests. They love pepper spray in an odd, eyes-lighting-up, re-crossing-legs-to-hide-hard-ons kind of way. When the hooligans are fighting each other in great enough numbers the cops just watch, let them get it out of their systems. Sometimes they make the prettier girl walk the streets like a hooker so she can get intel on the prostitutes, who are committing an illegal act, unlike the johns- the grandpas, men with child seats in the back, even one of the team’s father, once- who are doing nothing wrong by German law. Our guests are desperate to have tazers added to their belts. They are embarrassed when the chief tells them to pull back from a fight. Anything not to look soft.

The weather is more calm as we pull away from Merken. Konrad steers us directly into the waves. The stoned cops take turns sitting at the nose, getting splashed like they’re at a water park. Chuck Norris pukes the afternoon away.

‘My beautiful fish!’ it is reported to me he wailed between wretches. ‘My beautiful fish… and that lovely sauce! All wasted.’

The wind all but dies. Rather than turn the engine on, first Konrad forces the cops to do a long, strenuous, and utterly unnecessary tack. He even forces Hamster and Arnie to drag buckets on either sides as bush-league oars.

The best part for me is, I’m finally getting it. For the first time I understand how sails use the wind to propel us forward with the same principles airplane wings find lift. I know what Konrad means when he yells that we’re falling or climbing the wind. I can see the difference between dancing and killing in the jib. I feel like planting a god-damn flag on the front deck. My territory. Mine mine mine.

In Enkhuizen we run into the crew of the Northstar. Their mate, a kid we call Face, had a rough day. There’s no bathroom in his room, so he pees into a bucket. The rough seas spilled his personal refuge over his floor and bed.

‘Guess he’s PeeFace now,’ Konrad says with a shrug.

I come to kind of love the cops, their energy and their predictable thought patterns. Konrad stays up all night arguing with a few of them about immigration reform and culture mixing, of all things, while I make out with the one who pretends to be a hooker for a living.

Like I said in the beginning, its alchemy. For some it’s melting down horseshoes and frying pans. For others, you use Azrael to help capture Smurfs to make gold. For me, my alchemy of finding myself after losing my dad, today at least, its all about coffee, calling someone PeeFace, mastering the wind, and having a German riot cop look at me all doe-eyed.

Whatever works.

On sailing and hope, from the new story.

2008-04-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Location: Monnickendam, Holland

Statistics: N/A

Category: Diatribe

<------ <------ The Boat

Background: I wrote this about my first day sailing, which was a complete disaster with a golden moment at the end. The tone is heavy because a lot of this story keeps coming back to my dad.

I'm not a fool. I know that everything will never be okay. I know that life isn't some grand cosmic funnel, where all of the excess and bullshit and pain is squeezed to this one moment of purpose and clarity, a final Destination on this mottled path from goo to grave. Things don't happen for a reason. They just... happen. And they keep on happening and happening whether we like it or not, until one day we don't have a choice anymore and we're gone for good. Donezo. Roger, over and out. But there are moments, like that one tonight, where, without impossible levels of conceit, the pieces appear to fit. A has travelled to B, C has revealed D. For just a flash, the pain feels purposeful. These are the moments we need to hold onto. We label them Hope. They are what push two-ton sailboats through 8 knots of head wind and impossibly bring us home. Somehow, these moments allow us to accept ourselves even as we are dripping wet failures; they keep our hands steady and eyes clear when our mortality fails to keep its facade of conceptuality any longer; they embolden us to re-imagine ourselves as men even when our fathers are buried; and they push us, force us, demand that we keep trying, keep expecting, keep living, when all forms and manners of death are sniffing us out too. Even though we know that for all our running the road- not ourselves- will eventually fail us, we keep sprinting, keep breaking our lungs, for that next moment of hope.

Maybe I am a fool. But at least I know enough to drink beer when it's cold, and mine still was. I drank it without swallowing. All on its own it just slid and slid and slid.

Why Sailors Are Drunks

2008-04-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

Location: Hoorn, The Netherlands

Statistics:

1 (cliches proven true)

1 (ankles twisted after too many Duvals)

1 (walls shimmied up by my skipper to steal the flag of Hoorn)

So it turns out that the image/ideal/song about sailors is, indeed, correct: damn, do sailors like to drink. Last night I was at a bar near port where a lot of the fleet likes to come to wash the salt out of their throats. I asked Koenraad, my skipper, and a female mate from another boat why it is sailors are such drunks. Here's what we figured out:

- Liquor keeps better than water, thus, in a way, its safer to drink while at sea.

- Sailors tend to get paid in lump sums at the end of their trips. This leads to alcoholic splurges at the end of trips.

- The tradition of 'aanlegbiertje,' where immediately after the boat is moored and tied, the crew shares a beer. (The owner of my ship informed me the day we met: The rule is no drinking at all while sailing, and as much drinking as possible when you're not.)

- The passengers on ships are on vacation, and likely wanting to party. On a ship like ours, it is actually in the contract that the guests share all their food and drink with us.

- Historically, according to Koenraad, as a punishment criminals and drunks were forced to work ships. This was, in part, what established the culture of drunken pirate mayhem that ensued ever since.

- Sailors dock in new towns at night with nothing to do. What, they're going to take posed pictures by some 15th Century church? Come on.

- 'Getting laid,' the mate said, and then she downed an entire Duval.

- Sailors might naturally be a little socially awkward. (See: choosing a profession that brings you into the middle of the ocean for months at a time.) Koenraad estimates that about 85% of sailors have ADD or an autism spectral disorder. 'I'm pretty sure they all have one or both.' When Koenraad went to get his physical to be a skipper the doctor said that technically he should fail Koenraad, but 'I can't disapprove you because I would have to disapprove the whole fleet.'

So I guess that settles that.

Why Old Men Should Fight The Wars: 5 Questions With A Soldier On Break From Afghanistan

2008-04-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

Location: Bar, Flying Pig, Amsterdam

Statistics:

2 (hookers 100 euro richer)

1 (number of me a little bit worse for the wear of this conversation)

30 (college credits this kid might die with)

When I started to ask him if he’d visited any prostitutes he interrupted me mid-sentence. “Two. I really banged the crap out of them.”

The bravado was as false as the orgasms he claimed to have given the hookers. I pictured his scarecrow body naked, shivering. It was easy to imagine him putting his clothes back on, stopping at the door, and asking to be held until his time ran out.

Yes, the prostitute would have answered. Of course.

I met him at a hostel bar in Amsterdam. He was 23 and had completed one year of school before joining the service. He left me with no doubt that wars should only be fought by old men and the men who give the orders to go to war.

I asked him 5 questions and wrote down his answers. I’m not sure why. The first question is a carry-over of a story he was telling:

1. You get solicited by male prostitutes in Afghanistan?

I was just walking along and he comes up to me like a panhandler or a cocaine dealer and he says, ‘Are you dirty?’ Except he said it in a Middle Eastern accent. ‘You want to get a dirty hotel?’ Dirty means that you’re gay. I just kept walking. He was wearing traditional Middle Eastern clothing, a little hat and a rope type thing. They look at you and have a big smile on their face. Really creepy.

2. Have you been in fire fights?

A few. I’ve had bullets fly past me. They’re not very good shots. It’s more of a harassment. They want us all dead as far as I’m concerned. The lower level guys, they’re uneducated, they do what they’re told. They’re just like me.

3. What do you do for fun over there?

They have a special tv program. Have you heard of Trailer Park Boys? It’s about guys in a trailer park trying to smuggle crack or something. It’s always small crimes. They’re not real, but it’s made to be like reality tv. It’s funny. The Internet is very restricted. It’s like going online at a high school. No porn sites. Very slow. You can get Internet in your room but you have to buy it from the Americans.

4. Are you proud of what you do? (I let him write the last two himself)

Of course. Who wouldn’t be glad to help out a failed state get back on their feet so they have the same amount of freedoms to most people in developed nations. Understanding they are Muslim, but let them have as much as possible. They are people too.

5. Do people get/appreciate what you do?

I find it’s hard for people to understand the situation in Afghanistan as the regular population (not military) cannot know all of the information, as it would give away things of operational security, which is in place to keep soldiers safe. So, I find there is a great mix of people: people who support the troops, but not the mission; the mission and the troops, or no support at all. I find a lot of people are misinformed simply because they form an opinion not based on facts, and don’t read into the complexity of things.

Bonus. (He wrote the question and answer himself)

Do you get homesick?

Yes, quite often, because you don’t see any of your family for many, many months of the hardest times of your life. I must make it clear that it’s not only hard for the solder, but his family as well. Your comrades become closer to you than ever, because you can talk to them about ANYTHING. I think that’s where the term brothers in arms came from.

Fantasy Draft Recap 2008

2008-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

location: Associated Press Building, New York City

statistics:

9 (dudes heavy breathing in a maintenance room)

at every turn (plagiarisms)

1 (stories about a mysterious 'Pigman' Bubsy pitched to the city editor)

So we're all sitting around the naked draft board, toasting some marshmallows in its eternal warmth, wondering where Big Snake is so we can do the damn thing, when I notice that Josh looks horrible. Scraggly beard, not an lick of fat on him, hollow cheeks, he looks like the kid from Into the Wild. 'You okay, Josh?' I ask him.

'Yeah, B,' he says in a dry, guttural whisper.

'Why do you look like that?' I ask.

His eyes widen and glow a little red, like he's a raccoon in the flashlight light. 'Since I got the first pick I've been in the woods near Ipswich, just guarding this thing.'

All of a sudden the sound of a bugle fills the room. A tiny mouse dressed as a 16th Century courier enters the room. He unrolls a piece of parchment paper and grandly reads something no one can hear, and the end of which a fierce wind throws opens the door. Enter Big Snake.

'Why are you late?' Mikey asks.

Big Snake takes his time disrobing. Then he answers. 'As commissioner I exercised my Draft Night Right to bang one of Adam's ladies until she loses her mind.' He snickers and adjusts his mighty crotch. 'Adam, you may want to take Ms. Idaho Falls to see the doctor when you get a chance.'

The little mouse laughs his ass off. The menacing sound of nine grown men shuffling 75 pages of draft notes each fills the room. And I behold when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there is a great earthquake; and the sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon becomes as blood.

Some notable picks:

ROUND 1

1. Josh takes Alex Rodriguez.

2. Bubsy's iPhone takes Jose Reyes.

6. James isn't here, so we take the best 2B in baseball for him, Chase Utley.

9. Jake has the choice between Cabrera and Ryan Braun. 'I wasn't expecting this,' he says, worriedly. Jake sits quietly alternating between smiling like the Joker and placing his hands to his cheeks like 'The Scream.' Luckily his brother Pat is there to give him a Sipps.

10. Its my turn, and holy shit, has there been a lot of speculation about this pick on the net. One of those overweight divorcees that works at TMZ.com has been following me around all week. I ask Jeff for advice, and he tells me that with fame comes the fishbowl, my man. I pick Santana. I turn around, expecting to see a lot of flashbulbs and flesh, but everyone is gone.

ROUND 2

5. We give James slugging 3B Ryan Braun, setting off the first chorus of, 'That's actually a really nice pick.'

8. Mayhew takes some 2B from Cincinnati. The smell of warm challah fills the maintenance room. 'Is that coming from Mayhew?' Adam asks. 'I sure hope not,' Mikey says.

ROUND 3

2. Bubsy takes Ichiro. Holy mackerel is his team fast.

8. Jeff takes C.C. Sabathia and then leaves to move his car. 'I'll be back by my next pick,' he says cheerfully. He is not seen again for 10 rounds.

ROUND 4

4. Adam takes the oldest of pigs, Magglio Ordonez. When somebody tells Adam that Magglio has been on human growth hormone the past few years and probably won't be very good anymore, Adam looks like he is in great pain. Getting out my little vial of morphine pills, I give him one and tell him to let it dissolve on his tongue. Never have I seen such a wonderful change in a man. I feel like I have done the kindest deed in my life.

5- 10. Bubsy leaves to smoke a cigarette. Jake gets nervous and searches for him, and that's when he finds Bubsy pitching his Pigman story to the city editor. Jake takes Bubsy by the loose skin of his neck and carries him with his teeth back to the newspapers spread on the floor in the corner. Jake kneels over and whispers something to Bubsy, who responds by licking Jake's nose just once. We are all in love again.

ROUND 6

5. We give James Carlos Guillen. 'That's really a phenomenal pick,' somebody says. 'Precisely,' the rest of us say. Somebody (WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS) logs into mtv.com, pulls up a story James wrote about some singer-songwriter/orphan from Bayonne, and he humps a hole through the screen.

ROUND 8

8. Mayhew takes John Lackey. He's a top-10 SP, nice pick. Mayhew smells like a marble loaf. 'You know he's picking well when starts reeking like Jewish-favored breads,' Mikey points out quite astutely.

ROUND 14

5. We give James up-and-coming SP Adam Wainwright. Just as the Pats is grabbing the red marker the lights go out. Cacophony. The intolerable sound of Adam crying. The little mouse goes screaming down the road, waving old racing forms in the air. There is a yelp then a crash. The lights come back on. Most everyone is where they were, Mayhew and Jeff are naked on the ground, but no one can find poor Josh. When Mayhew and Jeff get up we find him. Apparently the lads were trying to do some maneuver and Mayhew was tossed from the table, crushing all of Josh's bones.

(Later, when Adam calls the hospital to check on Josh, the doctor is furious. 'We've started an abuse investigation on this,' the doctor says. 'And, oh, your cat is dead.')

ROUND 17

2. At this point Bubsy hasn't heard of any of the players left so he starts taking people he knows. With the second pick in the round he takes his landlord, George Sherrill.

ROUND 21

2. Bubsy is out of people he knows, so he starts taking movie characters. This round he goes with Michael Bourn.

6. We realize that James' team is legitimately good so, like the gallant gentlemen we are, we decide to ignore his slot for the last three rounds.

9. Everybody is losing it. Jake tries to take 'towels.' We try to convince him otherwise, but he insists.

ROUND 22

Josh, Adam, and the Pats are dead. Using a rope Jake ties several bodies together and has Mayhew drag them down from the mountain. It saves us a lot of energy.

8. C.J. Wilson, Pirates, by Jeff. Not a bad late-round pick.

After the draft we do a lot of this

<- - - - - - -

Overall, it was a great success, considering nobody's mom was called a whore and my team is in good position to repeat. Many thanks to Jake for scoring us the AP. The Pats looks to have he best team, and the fact that he's dead really shouldn't hurt him. This is fantasy. You don't have much control when you are alive. When you die, you won't have control of your roster either.

Time To Shoot The Hound

2008-04-04T13:52:00.000-07:00

location: Washington D.C. Greyhound Station

tone: Nasty

statistics:

1 (tickets to Charlottesville purchased)

6 (times I was convinced I was smelling my own boogers)

1 (people who, without a doubt, were teenage runaways on their way out of town)

More than stars in the sky (dogs disrespected)

I feel like a fat man just sneezed wet and productive all over my freshly shaved head. Of course I do. I just came from the Greyhound station.

Now, unlike most people I know who consider riding the Greyhound to be grosser than eating used gum, I have been on and off the Hound my whole life. She took me from the Connecticut winter to the Florida endless summer, onward to the St. Louis flatlands, and back home to Ridgefield at least half a dozen times, all 24 hours (+) trips. Shit, the Hound half saved my life when I was 19. Old Girl brought me home from the middle of the Mojave after a botched hitch trip. but. buT. bUT. BUT! There comes a day in all dogs life when the pup has got to be put down. It's my unbiased, heartfelt, sing-song opinion that we all chip in and buy the Greyhound Corporation a giant treat, let it sleep on the bed for once, and then tell the lady folk to take a stroll while we shoot it out back.

Here is a list, in no particular order, why it is time to shoot the Hound.

1. Just outside the door leading to the Atlanta bus was a stack of boxes labeled '30 dozen eggs' that was at least 6-feet-high. Not sure this is a reason to shut down a bus company, but I feel like you'll agree that this detail somehow services my point.

2. The Peter Pan Bus symbol is a magnet for pedderasses.

3. The chubby black man in line behind me danced with his hands while we waited. He had no headphones on. There was no music playing. His hands looked like graceful and beautiful chubby brown dolphins. It inspired me to song, and screw all that.

4. That same man was chatting to another woman in line. He said, 'Man, the Greyhound can take you anywhere. You know if it's international yet?' I turned around and told him there's a new bullet bus to Prague. I didn't, but still, we should discourage movement among people such as the dolphin hand dance man.

5. The man in front of me in line was wearing a bright yellow life jacket. He had grey, unwashed hair. A rat tail hung over his life jacket. He was shaking. He must have had Parkinson's, one of those really sad diseases. He was the type of guy the Beatles were singing about in Eleanor Rigby. If we shut down the Greyhound maybe this man will die, which would be good for everyone.

6. A fat man was sleeping on the benches with his mouth wide open. TOTALLY gross.

7. There were wet spots on the floor everywhere. I tried to dry them. they.would.not.dry.

8. Then there was the issue of those runaways. Greyhounds make it easy to be a runaway, therefore aiding and abetting runawayism, also known as Tater Tot Syndrome.

9. The Greyhound station had at least 45 video games, all flashing and beeping, none being used, none I've heard of. Here are the real names: Arctic Thunder. Rush 2049. Time Crisis III. Fatal Judgment. There was one I had heard of: Ms. Pacman. There she was, lounging like a circular tramp. She was the sexiest thing in the room. Which should be No. 10.

10. Any establishment where Ms. Pacman is the sexiest person therein is bad for America, and should be boarded up by the sheriff post-haste.

11. The woman at the counter was a fucking idiot. Maybe she was retarded. Her accent was so thick who can tell?

12. A man who clearly was going nowhere and coming from same said nowhere stared at me as I walked out. He was wearing Kurt Rambis goggles and a flannel shirt. If we do away with the Greyhound, we can force fellas like these to work in the mines, like they used to do in the good old days when America made sense.

Blessed art Thou, Lord our God, who takes away the Scourge of the Greyhound of the Earth.

On the Advent of Sponge Table Tennis Paddles

2008-04-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

(from the archives...)

Location: Bombay

Statistics:

1 (Pigeon-toed table tennis players)

0/0/0000 (year)

MARTY REISMAN AND THE TOURNAMENT THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

You could hardly blame Marty Reisman for being a little bit arrogant. Forget that he was the odds on favorite to win the world championship. Forget all about the fortune of gold Marty had just smuggled over the border and which was now glowing in a velvet-lined suitcase under his bunk back at the hotel. It was sometime after midnight and Marty was about to score with the Maharishi's mistress, the one with the eyes like a kaleidoscope and the Persian smile. And get this: The Maharishi was passed out on the couch twenty yards down the grand hall while Marty got stoned off his rum and was trying to make it with his girl.

Yeah, you might say that Reisman had an excuse for having some skip in his step.

.. .. ..

The next day was so hot you could lose twenty pounds of sweat just by opening your eyes. Bombay was a toaster oven on broil, and Marty Reisman wasn't in the mood to lose. It was 1952 and Marty was playing the best table tennis that any American ever had or ever would. Not one player on the sub-continent- and the best group of players ever assembled was there- could claim to be on a hot streak like Reisman. Marty had won the last four U.S Opens, was ranked in the top five in the world, and had just come off a proper throttling of all comers at the British Open, a tournament that at the time was tantamount to winning the Worlds. The 24-year-old version of Marty Reisman was the kind of guy who could pull off a white-on-white suit, and you better believe he was strutting it on the way to Brabourne Stadium that day.

Marty waxed his first two opponents before their paddles were out of their sheaths. This gave him a little bit of time to stroll around the grounds. Marty decided to scout the sucker he was supposed to face in the quarterfinals of the round robin. It was a slick Brit by the name of Richard Bergmann, a tough draw for Marty since this guy was also ranked in the top-five.

As Marty swaggered up to the door that lead to the main stage he heard something funny. It sounded like somebody was playing table tennis against one of the Maharishi's purple feather mattresses. There was the familiar pah-thop of the ball hitting Bergmann's hardbat. Reisman could recognize Bergmann's pah-thop in his sleep. See, table tennis is just as much about hearing the ball as it is seeing it, and by now Marty knew pretty well the sound of Bergmann kissing the ball for a short goodbye. But the other sound didn't make sense. It did sound like a mattress. But it also sounded like celluloid smacking against a car tire.

The scene he walked into made almost as little sense to his eyes. Bergmann was getting undressed by the mascot of the Japanese squad. Hiroji Satoh was supposed to be there to fill out the roster. How in the name of Ruth Aarons was this happening?

Satoh was'.t moving his pigeon-toed little feet any faster than usual, and he sure wasn't swinging his chicken wing with any more force than normal. But somehow that ball was rocketing off his paddle with what Reisman would later call an 'atomic blast.' Bergmann was pressed against the back barrier the entire match. Being a world class hustler Marty had an eye for somebody taking a dive, but that wasn't what he was seeing. Satoh was beating the seven-time world champ so bad that this geek even had the balls to turn to Riesman mid-point and smile his gaptoothed smile as if to say, "You..re seeing right, motherfucker. And fool, you're next."

Rumor has it that the other members of the Japanese team offered to coach Reisman on how to take down Satoh and his magic paddle. The Japs were ashamed of the way Satoh was compensating for his junior high school skill with some M.I.T worthy technology. See, Satoh was right then and there introducing the sponge paddle to the game of table tennis. Before then everybody used hardbat, the same stuff you probably got sitting on your table down in the basement. What Satoh was doing against Bergmann was changing the fate of the game from dining room ballet to high velocity sporting event. The date is almost biblical in the table tennis universe: 0/0/00 in the year of our sponge, when our Satoh was resurrected from the ashes.

Marty looked across the table and thought to himself, "I can beat this guy. I'm supposed to beat this guy..." He was able to combat Satoh's aerospace well enough to take the first game. He won using adrenaline and guts. That's about when the bottom dropped out.

Not being able to hear the ball as it ricocheted from Satoh's paddle was the equivalent to boxing blind. Since Reisman couldn't hear it he didn't know how much velocity to expect or what kind of spin. He sprinted forward as a deep strike darted past him. He faded back when Satoh undercut the ball for a drop shot. The power was what really did him in. Marty had no idea how to reacclimatize his swing to that kind of authority. It was like trying to hit a Nolan Ryan fastball using the splinter they give you on bat day at the stadium. You're going to get humiliated; you just hope it isn't in front of 10,000 people and one seriously unhappy Maharishi.

.. .. ..

There was no way to win, not on that steaming hot day in India. Marty ended up keeping his gold, but that was no consolation. He flew home with his head hung low and his white-on-white suit stowed in the overhead compartment. Marty Reisman had made the wrong kind of history in Bombay. He wasn't coming home the first American world champion. Marty was returning not as a man but as a human asterisk, the answer to a ping pong trivia question: Who was the man that was supposed to win the tournament that changed everything?

Angelle's Whiskey River Landing

2008-03-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

location Henderson, Louisiana

readability of post mild

stats 3 (steps)

1 (cavemen)

25 (holes in the piping)

The ceiling and the floor are made of the same 2-inch thick planks. After a drink or two has replaced the sweat lost from three-stepping, it is easy to see how the joint could look just fine upside down. Two or three more drinks and it becomes perfectly reasonable that a guy known as Caveman can end up in the middle of the dance floor with the whole bar serenading him with the hope that he ‘gets some action tonight’ to the tune of happy birthday.

In is own honor the Caveman passes around a cigar as big as a carrot. A male friend grabs his arm and they dance down the line. The women folk, de facto Bayou paparazzi and official gossip hounds, snap pictures. The Caveman’s belly bounces underneath his tucked in purple t-shirt. His eyes seem permanently bloated and closed to slits, giving him the visage of a Louisiana Buddha.

Welcome to Angelle’s Whiskey River Landing.

I ended up here sort of the way a stick on a river ends up anywhere. Since my dad died it’s been hard for me to make choices. This has left me somewhat defenseless to suggestion. So when JoJo mentioned going to a music festival in Austin, I said okay, and when she suggested we see Caroline in Lafayette on the way back to New Orleans, well, that was fine too. I was, and am, desperate for motion. New places and all the stimuli virgin to my senses have a way of putting the brain on tumble dry, a welcome state in these days when I’m afraid of accepting many of my life’s truths.

The problem with saying okay to everything is you can end up in uncomfortable situations. You can end agreeing to dance with Caroline.

To postpone the inevitable I take a walk around. I read the graffiti on the wall and learn that JEB had been here. I smile gamely at the bartender. An elk with a silky blond wig hangs over one of her shoulders. There’s a hog with Oakley’s riding low on the snout above her other shoulder. I wonder what conflicting advice the animals give her as I naively ask her for ‘something different.’ She slides me a bottle made by Budweiser. I tip her a dollar. She rings a fishing bell in appreciation.

To steady myself I run my hand along the coarse knots of wood on the wall until my fingers are stopped by the daggers of alligator teeth. The rest of the skeleton is glued to polished oak, but the teeth, they laugh out loud.

Caroline smiles. That’s a nice thing to happen to me, because Caroline has a beautiful smile. She also has wary and alert Mary Louise Parker eyes and a big old bouffant of silver and black hair. My cousin JoJo says that it’s great how Caroline, 32, ‘owns’ her grey hair. Caroline is a social worker, plays the stand-up bass in a band, and she recently realized that, despite her wandering heart, what she wants more than anything is to have a husband and a baby.

‘I’ve been coming here since I was little,’ she told me as she was driving over the soft, grassy slope of the levee. Caroline’s dad had taught her to dance at a bar like this one. I feel an instant kinship to Caroline when JoJo pulls me aside to tell me that Caroline’s dad passed away a year ago.

The townies circle the room like a school of bluegill in one of those great tanks at the aquarium. Cowboy hats. Tight jeans. Done-up make-up. Men made of coarse leather and nail heads dance and dance and wipe their sweat with handkerchiefs. Sweat stains rise on the back of shirts like Rorschach splotches. It’s amazing the way the partners on the dance floor move in unison. How do they know what each other’s feet are doing as they make love with their eyes, right in front of everyone? It is a sense not embedded in the genes of boys from Connecticut.

All of a sudden Caroline pulls me off my stool. ‘You promised me’ she lies in her sweet Cajun accent. She pulls me close. I don’t know how. I can’t. I won’t. I stagger back to the wall. The old man with the blue eyes and turkey neck takes my wrist. ‘You ain’t gonna learn nothing over here. You’ve got to be out there.’

Caroline follows me. ‘You can’t quit. And I like it when you hold me close.’

The tendons in the singer’s forearm flex as he massages his diatonic accordion. There’s a guitarist, a drummer, a bassist (one of the best in the area, Caroline tells me), and a man whose job is to constantly strum the washboard fixed to his chest. Half of the room is dancing. The other is laughing. There’s a break in the music.

‘We got people from all over here tonight,’ the bass player announces proudly. ‘That one guy, he’s all the way from Texas. And he’s feeling good too, I can tell. What you drinking, buddy?’

Backwoods Louisiana, it seems, suffers fools just fine. It’s a person acting like they’re above other people she can’t stand.

I sneak off to the bathroom. The urinal is a stainless steel cattle feed. PVC piping with jagged knife holes keeps the water flowing constantly. Along the bayou are shacks where some people still live to the rhythm of the water. A flag on the wall celebrating Vietnam vets says ‘Our Cause Was Just.’ Next to it are the three Bud Lite frogs.

Growing up in stuffy Connecticut left me uncomfortable just about everywhere as a child. But I feel good, right, here among these people. It’s funny. It took me nearly 30 years to get comfortable in a room like this. My dad, who spent much of his youth in places just like this in Virginia, it took him 30 years to get to the place where he had me raised.

On the levee I told Caroline that I was tired in my soul. I told her that at least I still had hope. She talked about her problem with living in the present. Seems like she’s always pining for the past or inventing the future.

‘I’ve never had that problem,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘Hope ain’t nothing more than living in the future,’ she said.

I watch Caroline dance with an old man. The beat is fast and his dancing looks like a series of tiny seizures. His cowboy hat seems to be growing from his skin like a fleshy tortoise shell. It is perfectly conceivable to me that this wooden box hidden in the curve of the Atchafalaya Basin Swamp has spawned a new species of man that carries their bodily organs in the well of their Stetsons.

Caroline takes my hand and I don’t have the will to resist. ‘It’s just like walking’ she promises. I watch her feet as she counts. 1-2-3. 1-2-3. I see the 1 and the 2, but not the 3, and the dance doesn’t work without the 3. ‘Don’t watch our feet. Look at me,’ Caroline says.

I think she’s going to explain the mystery of the third step, but we just watch each other. It comes so natural for her, this dance her daddy taught her. I wonder if she’s thinking of him. She’s holding my shoulder. She’s leading me in the circle. How, I wonder, has she found a way to re-own this dance her father gave her? Me, I’m every bit my father’s son, his boy. I know that it’s time for me to be a man, to own myself, but I don’t want to. Not at all, at least not now.

My feet land on hers as much as they hit the dirty ground. I hope I’m getting better, though I know I’ve got a long way to go. Caroline is gentle. Patient. The bayou moves slowly at the whim of the wind as Caroline smiles in the past.

###

Pretty girl I don't think you can take it; SXSW Review

2008-03-22T17:32:00.000-07:00

location Austin, Texas

event South-by-Southwest music festival
stats 1,700 (bands)
1 (weak burritos)
50,000 (hipsters happy as housewives at the alter of RachelRay)
travesties occurred too many to count

Soooooo, my friend Sundari convinced me to go to SXSW. Wow, that sounds fantastic, I thought, so I bought a ticket down south. And you know what that Sundari did? She backed out. She said she couldn't get away from the corporate job she hates where they make her work in a Batcave all day. But Sundari is from San Diego and her parents are spiritual gurus, so you can't get mad at the kid. Plus, she's got a super cute Muppet face on her. Am I wrong?
<--- There she is < ------ The good lord loves a working man, so my cousin JoJo Brown came along. Rather than write a narrative I thought awards might be appropriate. Here goes.

Worst Kennedy Eunice
JoJo picked me up in Houston Thursday night and we headed on a straight shot on I-10 to Austin. We got tired immediately and stopped in a town called "La Grange."
Me: Isn't the grange a disease that dogs get?
JoJo: I don't think so.
Me: No, I know a dog that had it.
We pulled into the Cottonwood Inn where we were met by the most tired Indian grandpa of all time. His pajama bottoms were hanging low and his snow white hair was raising high. The sign clearly said $29.99, but he charged JoJo's credit card $45. He was easy to love. I think the reason its always an old lovable Indian man that answers the late bell at cheap motels is because they know you can't get mad at him when he over-charges you. You think to yourself, He's somebody's grandpa! And he probably makes great malai kofta! $15.01, pish posh!

Anyway, we turned on the tv to find a news report about some poor girl and how Eunice Kennedy convinced her to give all her bah mitzvah presents away. It was an utterly insane story that the woman somehow reported with a straight face. The girl said she was "inspired" by Eunice, but what does a 13-year-old know? And what will retarded people do with an iPod? That Eunice Kennedy needs to check herself. Obv.

Worst Lyric
First thing on Friday morning we stopped in the town where they shot "Hope Floats." JoJo nearly passed out. She kept fanning herself, all a-flutter, saying "Kathy Najimy acted here, Kathy Najimy acted right here." I chalked it up to a case of the vapors and we moved on.

We parked just over the bridge from downtown Austin and walked into the first bar we passed on 6th Street, called the Dirty Dog Bar. We watched one band. The chorus of their last song, their big out, was, "I'm bored. The chairman of the bored." What an shitcan line. "Do bands have to pay to play at SXSW?" JoJo asked as we were walking out.

Most Terrifying Lyric
We wandered from there to an offer of free beer in what looked like a futuristic cattle shed, to a calming 4-piece group from L.A. via Ecuador, to a rap show in a tiny bar. The rapper was jumping up and down, urging the crowd to get their hands up, and, well, he seemed to really care about people getting their hands up, because that's all he talked about for maybe 10 minutes. And you know what? When JoJo and I finally begrudgingly raised our hands the young rapper didn't even seem all that content. What's the point of life, I wondered, but I kept it quiet.

At one point the DJ cut the music and the rapper kept on a cappella. Without the music I could understand his lyrics. Boy, was he angry! This is paraphrasing (but close, ask JoJo), but at one point he rapped: "My dick is so big it will strangle you/ it will kill all the Ugandan refugees if they front on me too."

Man, I wished for our society's future I made that up. We left and went to the Pasta Warehouse. Noodles!!!

Most Over-Hyped Band Vampire Weekend
Neither JoJo or I could afford the $600 for a 'badge' (which everyone wore around their necks in a very geeky way) or a $150 wristband, so we had to wait in line for the bands we wanted to see. We waited 2 hours in hopes of getting into the Vampire Weekend show, maybe the hottest ticket of the weekend. Man, was that line buzzing. The teenage girl next to me was so hyped up I thought she might grow a new pimple. I felt like I was waiting to see, in the least, the new Strokes. (Note: I've been out of the country for a while so I hadn't heard VW yet). It genuinely felt like "An Event."

So... we got in and then hid in a corner during the three opening bands. I read an indie music mag that had a sickeningly fawning interview with the VW boys. They're Ivy League kids, they say their music is more classically influenced than anyone gives them credit for, and they're 'not really surprised' by their quick ascent to the top of (insert witty adjective and then subversive noun). Bad start.

When we stood up that crowd was thick. All of a sudden there was a mass squeal, and out trot four kids that looked like they just came from the upper-middle class white kid factory (which also happens to make those delicious Easter treats 'Peeps'.) So the pretty boys in their Polo shirts (literally, with the logo and everything) start playing this lighter-than-air music, and everyone is going nuts. I don't get it. The music might be good while sipping a cold drink outside a cabana, but it ain't rock and roll. True fact: Upper-middle class white kids cannot make rock and roll. It's the music of the underclasses, the proletariat, of the oppressed. The unifying message of all great rock music has been: Fuck you, I won't do what you told me. But these guys, man... In their defense, I have to give them credit for one essential element of rock they do unquestionably possess: they're genuine. These guys are what they are, right down to the penny loafers, and F you if you don't like it. So I guess that means, well maybe they are rock..., hey you! SHOVE IT!

Best Band Devotchka
After VW the crowd surged toward the door like they were giving out free bottles of starch on the sidewalk. JoJo and I stayed to hear the next band, Devotchka. I don't know anything about them except that they made the song I most often put on repeat last year, "How it Ends." While we were waiting we met a nice lonely girl that looked like Miranda July. But she'll get her own award later. Moving on. Devotchka came out like the most dapper, musically gifted Balkan army of all times. Unlike VW, they were modest, a bit serious, purposeful. They then proceeded to blow the damn roof off the place. They're like a mix somewhere between Beirut and Arcade Fire. JoJo wanted to marry the lead singer, who looks like the bad guys from a good Humphrey Bogart movie. Everyone in the room was in love with everyone else, and the world spun, quietly, humming, re-assuring, on its axis just as the lord intended.

Stupidest Question Asked of a Rock Star Me
We took lonely Miranda July with us to see Tilly & The Wall, a band from Omaha that might be best known for having a tap dancer instead of a drummer. Man, was this band an inspiration, a revelation, a reason to Believe. At one point between songs the guitar player grabbed the microphone just to shout 'Fuck yeah,' and god damn if it wasn't one of the most earnest two-words I've ever heard.

After their last song the crowd did its cheering thing and Tilly walked back out. Somebody from the venue jumped up, hugged them all, then pulled out every plug he could find. Show over. One of the singers, a knock-out pixie of a blonde, took her time off stage then ended up next to me for a second.
Me: Bad deal.
Her: I know, right?
Me: How old are you?
Her: 29
Me: That's awesome.

Anyway, here's the video for my favorite song of theirs:
http://tillyandthewall.com/home/videos/bad-education-video

Most Ungrateful Lonely Girl That Looked Like Miranda July
JoJo explained to our new friend in no uncertain terms that all the hotels in town were booked and we had no place to sleep except our car that night. This girl, who'd we had spent about four hours with, told us how she lived alone on the other side of town. Yet! she did not invite us to sleep on her floor. What a kind, lonely, cute, I miss her was she wonderful, jerk.

Cooking Show Host at SXSW Most Likey to Cause Diahrea Rachel Ray
We ended up sleeping in left field of a local high school ballpark. We woke up to two old men playing tennis, who, for some reason, JoJo thought were either going to a) call the police on us or b) bludgeon us with their Princes. Then we drove to a Starbucks and splashed off in the bathroom. Good as new.

JoJo got us on a guest list to a party held by Rachel Ray so we went there. We started out by mocking all the people excited to see a her ("RayHeads"), but that made us lamer than them so we joined in. We loudly made up a hard-luck past to make Rachel's ascent seem even more heroic.
JoJo: I heard she was forced into child prostitution before a Cooking Channel executive found her.
JoJo also said the funniest thing of the weekend. I asked her what she thought was the funniest question to ask Rachel Ray. Without hesitation she said, "Rachel Ray, can I get pregnant from anal sex?" Hilarious. As penance her food gave us both bad stomach issues. What a wizard! Rachel Ray and Obama might be my dream ticket in 2008.

Best Quote From a Stranger at a Bar
It was damn hot in Texas, so after that we hid inside the first bar we found. It was actually a club, it seemed. Every girl in there (literally, every girl) was wearing a short skirt and had breasts, as my friend D would say, 'to the elbows.' Naively, I wanted to get to the bottom of this.
Me: This is an odd question, but why is this bar so, I don't know, boobalicious?
Girl Next To Me: You've never been to Texas, have you?
True story.

Best Quote From a Stranger Outdoors
We headed to an outdoor Talib Kweli show. We moved toward the front where we saw this highly disturbing sequence: Mother hands baby to a man who appears to be, at best, a stranger; Mom smokes a joint; Mom takes baby back. Hooray! I think live rap shows are mediocre 95% of the time, and this was not in the minority. After the show we were waiting for the bus when we met Sullivan. Sullivan appeared to be about 5o, and was really proud of his shoe shine business at some important building downtown. Salt of the damn earth, that Sullivan. Anyway, an attractive woman asked him for a cig, and Sullivan, who was out, gave her the rest of his along with a spirited barrage of compliments. She walked away shaking her miss thang as Sullivan and I watched. Once she was out of sight he grabbed my shoulder. "Jesse, Jesse, Jesse. That's a dude, man."
Me: Then why'd you give him a cigarette?
Sullivan: It's the South. We've got a thing called manners down here.

And so on
The Lemonheads bailed on their show that night, we saw a lively Jewish hip-hopper named Socalled, we slept in a church parking lot, and we plan on renting a house same time, same place, next year. And that's how I felt about that. Anybody want to come along?