Banter? I just met her...
I think glass slippers would be way uncomfortable.
The summer was thick with hot. His shorts stuck to his legs. The grass was air conditioning for his barefeet. The lightning bugs waved their flourescence to an audience of cackling minstrals hidden in the night. He watched. He sweated. He smiled.
I never had a GI Joe with the Kung-Fu grip.
If I could save time in a bottle, I would smash it.
Happy Birthday Pop!
I won a pair of low top Nike's worn and signed by Paul Westphal of the Knicks for sinking a free throw at Hubie Brown Basketball Camp. Weeks later, my brother was chosen to sink a free throw for sneaks. He made his too. But he got Ernie Grunfeld's.
I hate Ted Danson's hair.
'Worry is an excuse for action.'
--Soothesayer Jones--
I went to a casino in Monte Carlo once. They wouldn't let me in because I was too young. Then a beautful woman with two froo-froo, she-she dogs walked by and the doorman let her and her dogs in. My dad's friend Bob went crazy. He yelled at the doorman that letting dogs in and not children was barbaric. So none of us went in. Bob was cool.
...so much...blue.
One post and a whole lotta blue.
Impressing comes easy to the impressive.
"Back to back
they faced eachother
Pulled their swords
and shot eachother."
My dad used to say that all the time, it's from a poem by some guy I don't know.
It's broken.
to me
i think clear
you can't steer
me away
from what is real
i think
what i think
so it's real
but that's just what i think
you may think
what I think
is unreal
but that's just what I think
who cares what i think
who cares what i think
My brother is coming to town!!
We made music about war in Cali and BMX bikes and hammers.
Pretty.
Back in 1991 I was at a crossroads. I had decided to transfer colleges after my sophmore year at the University of Texas to Emory University in Atlanta. The decision was made by the fact that I had no friends at UT. I got in a fraternity and realized it wasn't for me. The last straw was when Jane's Addiction came to town and I couldn't get anyone to go with me. The Ritual tour, I think Clint Black was in town and all my "brothers" went to see him. So I went alone. The same week the Ramones came, and I went alone. So as much as I dreaded going back to the ATL, it would be better to at least have friends. In the interim, the summer of '91, I had gotten a job as a housekeeper in Glacier Bay, Alasksa. I would leave in mid-May and return at the end of August. To Atlanta. To Emory.
This was the greatest, scariest, saddest, most beautiful, and traumatic 4 months of my life. I grew that summer. I grew out of Texas and grew into my own. I met kids from all over the US; Oregon, Virginia, Montana, California. I felt at ease. I finally felt like I belonged. These people were unlike the one's I knew in Texas. They didn't judge me, I was accustomed to being put in "my place" by what kind of cowboy boots I was wearing. I know it wasn't Texas as a state, but it was the fraternal brotherhood which was anything but. Alaska was it. Yes, I was cleaning heads and beds for 8 hours a day but I was in Alaska. Friggin' Alaska!
The summer was hard, light, and long. Towards the end people were ready to go, me included. I was ready for the finer things in life, cable, beer, girls, and hell the Braves were making their first run at a World Series and I was in Alaska, get me out of here! But then everything changed.
Myself, Chan and Lawton, my friends from High-school who came with me for the summer, were all psyched to join about fifteen of our co-workers for a concert in nearby Homer. A small fishing town just a few mountain peaks over. It was going to be a blast. That was until we had found out that the other housekeeping shift had already asked for the same days off. We couldn't go. We were pissed. So while everyone left for the show we were left to clean toilets, great. So the remaining skeleton crew at the lodge made due by having our nightly card game with whatever cheap liquor we could find. Then it happened.
Our friend Milton, I think, came running into George's room where we were and said,"Hey guys, I just got a strange phone call from Jennifer in Homer. Jenny asked if we had seen Sharon and Randy and Lorna and her husband and Kearney walking around the lodge. I told her we hadn't. She said well, their plane left before ours and they haven't shown up yet. We're a little worried." We all stopped. we were white as sheets. We all thought, we were supposed to be on that plane.
Their plane crashed. The plane was found atop a mountain range in a mangled wreck. There were no survivors. They were all dead.
I don't know how I felt. I had been bullshiting with Sharon and Kearney not two hours earlier, bumming about how I couldn't go to the show. Now they were dead. Dead. They were so alive, so full of life and now they were gone. I have never felt such loss. I knew these people for three months, we lived together, we slept together, we worked together, we smiled together, we became best of friends, now they are a memory.
I think about those friends frequently, much more often than I thought I ever would. They were "summer friends," people who I shared a bond with but I knew, after the summer, I would probably never see them again. But I was wrong. I see them more now that they are dead than I think I ever would have if they were still alive.
That summer I grew. I grew into the person I always wanted to be but was afraid to let out because of what my peers may think of him. That summer I became my own man. I realized just how precious and fragile life is and how each and every person I meet is something special. I learned that people are good, people make life worth living, people can teach people, can love and people, can help me be a better person. I have kept that with me ever since that horrible day in August 12 years ago. I keep my friends in my heart. They are the one's who have made me who I am.
I have this problem, see. I have been told by many of those close to me that I am a very energetic sleeper. I kick and roll and turn and spin. It's quite scary sometimes, I hear. But the worst part of it is that I "whimper." It's not a snore and it's not a gargle, but a whimper. Like, "Hmmmmm....Hmmmmm..." Of course I am none the wiser and for a split second after I wake up refreshed and ready for the new day, chipper, and my girlfriend or whoever is attempting to sleep in the room looks at me like, "I hope you slept well because I sure as hell didn't." Then I feel bad, well rested, but bad.
One time, in LA, Mat and Harper and I slept in the same room and they both thought I was having a catastrophic nightmare. They concluded it was an impossibility that I was having a good nights sleep. They said I seemed scared shitless. So they watched me to make sure I wasn't going to cut my wrists, vomit and drown myself, or just die in my sleep. I woke up the next day saying, "I slept like a baby." They looked at me with that, "Great, we didn't sleep a goddam wink because of your squirmy ass" look. Then I felt bad. But what was I to do?
My girlfriend wears earplugs and prays she fall's asleep first. Hell, I don't blame her one bit. But I want to look and breathe pretty while I sleep. Is that too much to ask? She sure as hell does. So why not me? Why must I be the "retartded, whimpering pile of fidget?" What did I do to deserve to be the autistic sleeper? And why is it that this fidgertry is the state of sleep I prefer, no, can't sleep without? Am I a freak? Is it directly related to the fact that I have no earlobes? Help me. I sleep deep and hard but that does not give me the right to be the only one who can do so in the room. Will nose strips help? How about snore aids? But again, I don't snore. That is so, grandpa.
It's just a helpless feeling knowing you have a problem that doesn't effect you one iota but others see you as a "freak when you sleep."
Yours,
Whimpering kicklog
I don't know why I let the stupid little things get to me. Usually it is some moronic situation I dream up in my head that makes me act like a total jackass. My friends aren't here to fuck with my head. They are here to share with me all things that are right and true and fun and real. That is why they are my friends right? I had a weekend in my head, and it wasn't until yesterday evening that I came out and realized I was fighting with myself. And getting the shit beat out of me. Then like that, I came to, and tko'd the pharsical opponent and just was. It was nice. My week has begun with my head up and a smile, rather than the bowed necked, frowning adversary I usually walk with on Monday mornings. It must have been the paint fumes.
I hate early.
Your Host:
jefe
San Francisco, California, United States
fishin' with firearms