the crustacean sensation sweeps the nation: or how I learned to stop worrying and eat the crab

These crabs think they're tough. Truth be told, they were no match. It was like Willow trying to work inside game on Olajuwon, or Shirley Temple taking a coked out sack from Lawrence Taylor. A total mismatch. A crippling, never to walk or speak again, exoskeleton smashing, claw crushingly, grotesque mismatch.

*****mind you, the bay crab lovers had a great scare, what with our drunken sailors dumping 58,000 gallons of oil from the lower right hull of a cargo ship. relief washed over all of us to know that its all good now and crab are safe to eat*****

Jordan didn't even open the god-damned menu. He just says, "I think you know why we're here..."
"Okay two roasted Crab and garlic noodles."
"Plus a tanqueray martini, dry straight up," I say fuzzily warm with glee.
"Just water for now," Jordan says.

Fast forward half an hour; there is garlic, peppery oil glistening from below my ear to my lips and up the opposite cheek. Both of us are talking mad shit to the dead crustaceans before us and the nice, quiet couple next to us drops on the eaves, peering and leering over at us.

"You're no match for my strength, bitchcrab," Jordan says haughtily cracking a leg, pushing the meat out, juices of pepper and oil sifting all over his beard, tiny morsels of crab meat lodged into his scruff.

"I'm beating this fucking crab into submission," I say repugnantly, my greasestache stained with brown, salty oil and the fury of crab-death in my eyes.

Here's the thing; you gotta commit. You have to say, FUCK IT! I don't care if that family of five is staring at the puddle of grease on my bib. I don't care if small, half ingested sea horses are crawling up my long hair and into my ears. You can't care if your dream woman walks in and sees the trail of acne that will no doubt appear in a few days. You can't give a fuck and just close your eyes and commit.

After the grease bath they bring us warm citrus towels that we promptly order a second order of, plus a coffee for me. I use one on my hands and another on my face. That meal is so fucking satisfying that you feel the need to celebrate having finished it. Its a must. So, we went to a bunch of bars and got shit-hammered. Big surprise!

bookcase collapse chaos theory

new rule; when you wake and your goosedown pillow feels like a bag of bricks you may want to slow down with the drinking. there is a nice Filipino lady at work with sagging cheeks that would say "GOODNESS!" at that image. for real though kids stay away from mixing hot buttered rum with...well, anything. its so tasty and makes you so warm, but its like taking a chisel to your temples.

so moving on with the story portion here, it was friday evening, unassumingly drab as ever. i went to a friend's house then to kezar to watch the warriors play and eventually beat the lakers in the last seconds of the fourth. i celebrated with some cold lager. afterward i went to an ugly sweater party [let me just say that we need to come up with a new alternative for the fun holiday party] and consumed two small cups of hot buttered rum. it didn't do the drunk trick so i poured myself a double of bushmills. as i sat to sip my drink my ride arrived to pick me up. yes i drank the whole damned double at once and yes i'm stupid for doing so.

the rest of the night was blurry but i remember that i drank a lot more. more pints, more shots, more silly me. anyway i somehow mustered the good sense to go home at 1:02 am. thank the lord i didn't stay out any longer. i got home and blacked out, i have no idea what happened.

when i woke up my beanie was still on my head, my collared shirt and sweatshirt were still on but i had on no pants and no underwear, just my mismatched socks down below, the junk flapping in the wind. i imagined when i woke up that i had probably been sleepwalking as i'm liable to do when i blackout, that or i got raped. just kidding. i looked around my room and everything was in disarray. all the books in my middle shelf had shifted down and lay spines up, the wooden shelf sunken and caved in . the bookcase had been shifted about fifteen inches over and everything had fallen over that was on top, including an Asian flask my mother gave me that was now shattered all over the floor.

all this was a little disturbing, waking half-clothed-semi-nude a huge mess of my room and then the pain. this is the sickest i've ever gotten from a hangover, easy. i hurled, which was strange for me. so i was despondent to the temptations of my friends urging me to get up and go. i stayed in bed like a worthless piece of shit and tried to find the soft spot in my bag of rocks pillow.

cranes, sinatra and the litany

trying to think in smaller terms.  trying to escape the idea of size.  i look at this pond, actually a marsh adjacent to a lake that is actually the Pacific.  there is a wet beauty filling this mass.  a single crane, examines the scene of a thousand ducks, stationary and long, elegant and above the quacks judging.  i wonder through a window if they're cold right now, the way my feet feel after i drank too much coffee, sweat drenched and sandy in my toes.  the lite reverberation of caffeine draining out the food below.  pure diuretics inside as such like beer and wine, coffee and straight vodka with no chaser.

the crane is staring them down. the crane is a lofty objection, a thing to be desired, but i'm just a funny little quack, duck diving, not trying to stay dry.  I want to channel my inner Sinatra now, as an exercise in levity.  Sinatra tells me;

"Got my tweed pressed, got my best vest, all i need now is the girl.

Got my stripped tie, got my hopes high.

Got the time and the place and I got the rhythm. 

Now all i need's the girl to go with'em.

If she'll just appear we'll take this big town for a whirl.

And if she'll say, 'My darling, I'm yours',

I'll throw away my striped tie and my best pressed tweed.

All  I really need is the girl."

She's blank in my mind to be filled in later.  Her hair smells like cinnamon, her eyes are blue like sapphires, her face is carved out of soap. She's imperfect in all the best ways.  Her butt's big and thick with a tiny waist, her breasts are just a tad too big for her frame.  One of her teeth is crooked, but in that Lauren Hutton sexy gap-toothed way.  when she touches my face she rubs my beard against the grain with the backside of her hands and presses her cheek next to mine irritating the delicate skin of her face.  she doesn't mind my forty pound chin or the elongated features of my face. she toys with me though and says,

"why the long face?"

she's five foot six, give or take an inch or two, always has nice breath and wears clothes that are just tight enough.  she loves all the music i listen to even though she's barely heard of most of it.  she prefers wine over beer but can maintain regardless.  her apartment is immaculate and white, but she pays her rent with her own money.  she rolls joints better than i can which isn't saying much.  

she makes me want to stay in on the weekends.  she makes hangovers tolerable.  she holds my hand when we cross the street.  she dresses my wounds when i fall.  she pops the pimples on my back.  when we french kiss she doesn't jam her tongue down my throat. she bites my lower lip.  

i hold her hair when she gets sick and i don't laugh.  when she gets mopey we hangout and listen to depressing folk music that only makes things worse.  she loves dancing with me.  we go to bed at nine sometimes. she loves my natural body odor and sometimes sticks her nose in my armpits. she steals the covers from me in the middle of the night.  she's like a goddamned radiator in bed and i sweat when she snuggles next to me in the middle of the night.  in the shower she has amazing soap that makes me feel grotesquely clean.  i can be myself around her and she doesn't play stupid games.  

this is the litany. idealistic, i know.  I'm looking for the crane in the sea of ducks flying, whirling around everywhere.   i don't know where she is.  i don't know her name.

delay, steel and magnets

when you go to the airport to the ticketing counter, you ever notice those little poles connected by straps that define the never ending zig-zag you will no doubt be stuck in for what seems like eternity. I was at the hemlock tavern, one of my favorite places in the world to drink minding my own as usual. there was some sort of commotion or tussling that began at the opposite end of the bar. my curiosity got the better of me, when a friend of a friend joked that Ben [the person I arrived with] was being accosted by the bouncer. arriving at the site of all the drama i was relieved to see Ben was merrily entreating some fine young lady with his usual humor and charms. At this i began on my way back to the other end of the bar when suddenly wrought iron weighing easily forty pounds in the form of one of those poles from the airport, came flying from the front door directly onto the back of my knee, making my half drunk smirk of insipid joy transform to something all together ugly. reasoned contentment was morphed into agony and silence.

i'm thinking to myself, "uh...why me?"

lets leave this question in the rhetorical range.

this shit always happens to me. injuries are a part of my identity. its kinda cool to come back to work every weekend with some brutal limp and people can't help but wonder. it made me think about how tired people must get though, when they get a cast or a brace and every dumbfuck and stranger comes up to you and asks, "what happened?" today alone i had about four different answers to that question. when i went to get my afternoon coffee, this young girl behind the counter asked me what happened and i told that i got into a barroom brawl. a lie, yes, but composed of elements of truth, kinda?

anyway, after they kicked the shit out of the guy who threw the fucking pole at me the bouncers came over and offered to let me drink for the rest of the night for free.

"fuck yeah," i replied, thanking my unlucky stars that i was caught in the crossfire.

as a wannabe writer i must relish these moments as the ones that defined my desire to put thoughts to the page. every writer needs these bruises, broken limbs, limps, injuries of the mind, body and soul that scar them for life. these are mine to carry, so to that drunk fuck at hemlock with 80's metal hair, alpha-maling your way back inside, throwing hitless punches to the sky, throwing forty pound poles at my leg as an innocent bystander, I say to you, thank you. thankyou for validating my parking in the writer's lot. thankyou for five pints of pilsner, two rounds of fernett and a jameson "neat" for good measure. thankyou for the heavy limp in my left foot and the inevitable hyperbole that has and will ensue. 

the divine hangover

dopamine inhibitors fully ingested, slack-jawed like a yokel, light piercing through a basement of an acquaintance, not really talking as much as filling the silence with useless sound and with this i decide to be homeward bound. pounds all around, a nod, perhaps a wink and out into the big bright world, purple sheeted and veins pulsing from my eyelids covering everything. every creaking step, all the dust and dry dead leaves leaping and flying, whirling around at my feet, blades of grass wet with dew and me on my long walk home.

fugazi is in my head. Ian and Guy are in my head saying; 

"i'm so tired. barely see my breath, surrounded, by jealousy and death." I can't remember the second verse so i just rewind back to the beginning and sing with them.

uphill's a struggle, morbid struggle. in my hamstrings i feel all the grit and tenchun {sic} and there is a swelling sensation, boiling into my knees. Full House feels close, and it is, so i walk up to Alamo Square park. I'm moving so slow that the little man inside says, "move you, fuck." 

There is hope on a hilltop. I arrive at the top of the park as the moon sets on the pacific to my right and the sun rises over the Oakland hills to my left. I just stand there atop the park, letting my eyes dilate from the 7 am sun, dopamine flow shot, grime beneath low nails, a sudden shake out the neck via the jugular, sweaty hands that clench, steam and beauty rise off my tattooed back, breakneck speed is now draining through my sinus cavity, chest aches into nothing, all my leftover glory drowned knowing that 8 am is a bad bedtime. soundless forestation, wet dirt bonding with my slipons, not a sound or a murmur, till this nice old lady asks me if i saw the full moon set and I say,
"why yes, it was lovely."

a first; my first moonset of recent memory.

I look back at Full House and I can picture the whole family in there. I can see John Stamos counseling DJ on how to handle her rapidly developing breasts and the Olsen twins getting advice from Bob Saget on why its unfair to pee on her sisters bed. I think about TGIF and all of my innocence now lost in the subdued underground futility i find now on friday nights fueled by chemical dependence. i need the uncles to give me a talking to about my self destructive habits, but they're long gone. How sad...

the divine hangover is upon me and I know this because the shudders say so. "bluuuuhhhhhaaaaaallljahhh"
work with me.

everything is still purple but the heavy ache sets over everything waiting for my body to go horizontal. mr. 21 hayes moves his fat ass up the hill with that beaming, pinging repetitious sound buzzing up. i slide down the park grass, on my flat ass ruining my jeans. i hop on the empty bus and sit at the back waiting patiently for me to strengthen my resolve to stop this nonsense.

EPILOGUE
"...this epic problem's not a problem for me
and inside i know i'm broken
but i'm working as far as you can see
and outside it's all production

it's all illusion
set scenery
i've got this epic problem

this epic problem's not a problem for me"
-fugazi

my last great skate

We can forget all this and concentrate on what's important. Its a big step for me.

There are so many empty, wordless songs in my head overlapping. I can close my eyes this last time because I know the ground, the cracks, faulty pieces of pavement, manhole covers like the back of my hand. The ground, she trusts me like an old friend.

"Yes, old friend," I say, "its time to say goodbye."

Back to my mind, in the center combining both sides of my brain into one tiny membrane I can remember my love affair with skateboarding. The struggles, dedication and sacrifice I put forth through skating gives me the hope that I can do anything. I'm not an accomplished skater by any means, but I'm deft enough to impress. The accolades are personal and fleeting, of a time and place that only exists with the sensations as they are experienced.

With all of this I still ask myself why quit? Why now? Well, let's be real, its not like I'm never going to ride a skateboard again for the rest of my life, but I feel that my reliance on it as the only means for transportation maybe catapulting me toward an untimely demise or some other casualty. So I'm not "quitting" per se.

The reasoning is harder for me articulate. I believe my first real questioning happened on a date with this girl I was really digging at the time. She told me to meet her at Dolores Park. Turns out our date was more like an audition. When I got there she was surrounded by her two best friends and their boyfriends. Resilient as ever, I overcame the astounding awkwardness of the situation and got comfortable with her and the five heads of state peering down on our second date. I had skated to the park and as we were leaving she turned and looked at me.

"Only kids ride skateboards on the east coast," she said blankly, oblivious to the deep sting such a comment would have on my confidence.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, shrugging off the insult, looked away and then rolled my eyes.

She sensed my antipathy for her and began to qualify her statement.

"But here, you see guys your age still riding them all over the place."

I hope this girl does yoga so she can stick her foot in her mouth I thought.

-Dumb bitch is insinuating that guys who are 27 years old need to grow up and buy a bike or worse an automobile?

-Of course not. She's insinuating that you need to grow up and buy a bike because she feels like she's baby sitting little Bradley from down the block. Oh, and remember she's drunk.

-Phew.

I went on with the rest of my date, trying to negate my feelings of nausea and anger at her by being pleasant and drinking all the booze in sight. On the skate home that night, I bombed an old friendly hill that drops onto Divisadero and the thought of quitting, her dumb comments and the anger was wiped away by some cute girl winking at me as I cut her off.

My concussion was the second hand pointing me away from skating. The doctor told me not to skate for six weeks. I took the next two days off work. The doctor said I had to. She said that if I fell again I could go into a coma. She told me that I should wear helmet if I was ever going to skate again. I lasted about twenty four hours following her advice.

The third signpost was the whole Timmy and the piglets incident. Just as a small aside, they've posted a bench warrant for my arrest at 850 Bryant because I've neglected to pay my ticket. I've been hassled by cops all of my skating life so I didn't take the ticket or harrasment as anything to take too seriously.

The fourth was another injury, this one maybe the most embarrassing of my life and almost as painful. I was showing off for some friends and strangers, drunk and possessed by some strange will to draw, what a dear friend termed, "unnecessary attention to myself". I did a powerslide on fourteenth at Noe, going downhill too fast, too soon and too much. The board gave way to my ass and at the impact it felt like I broke my tailbone. So I writhed in pain, lincoln-logging across the road till I finally rested my nose against the pylons, as strangers and friends alike had a nice little chuckle at my expense. I deserved every sharp biting pain, every crumbling bit of bone fragment, all the excruciating blaring of laughter, sharpened nails attached to long creepy fingers pointing in my direction and the humility, the blood gushing out my elbow and everything afterward. My board continued sailing down the block until it stopped near the closest intersection. I gimped my way down the street and hopped right back on like nothing ever happened.

The last straw was my last great skate. It was one of those beautifully slow, dreary SF days where the fog and the sun are fighting for the city's affection. After attending a few birthday parties and bar hopping around till midnight I took a late skate to the chillier climes near my apartment. I found myself at The Transfer for their Frisco Disco party. It was a little too intense for my liking and once I ran into some friends we decided Amber might be more our speed. So I grabbed my board and when we got to the bar I placed in the same spot I always do, except when I left with a friend a little later it was gone. Stolen!

Enough is enough. Now, without a proper farewell, I'm separated from a part of me. A womb apart. A cloak of serenity. A skateboard was to Elliott what a security blanket was to Linus. At my age, I had a time machine. Once the wheels were pressed and the rolling thunder pounded down your block, making all the dumb dogs bark, I would breathe deep a man and exhale as a twelve year old boy, rosy cheeked and innocent, scabless fury and the gumption, ready to fail or to fall. And in an instant, breathless, many blocks from where and when it started, I'm walking like the rest of the sheep, ankles unrolled, concussion free, clean elbows and knees. No speed downhill, no coarse cement to bond with, just a memory of something simple that felt like home.

EPILOGUE

"If we never meet in this life,

let me feel the lack.

A glance from your eyes,

and your life is mine."

-Malik

The Injury Report

So in the past two months I have sustained what I like to term medium injuries from skating, or more to the point, showing off.

Empty stomach, lonely eyes full of acid drop dreams and the newly found hollowed heart push toe to heel away from the providential hell that some bitch that left me thinks is hers. On a bus with a crazy 180 degree turn to a 270 degree view to me burning urethane on the ground. Knees deep, the autumn late breezes warm against my stubbly face, Lexapro unofficially drains as the gradients become more and more. The smoothness, the friction, that sound like draining water or thunder before the storm is perfection unleashed tickling mine ears. Velocity increasing I make deliberate, cursive zigzags between the medians and spit a mouthful of spit on a Mercedes as it drives by. All this rush, the twinkling color in the sky, sensations of the calves, muscles quaking, cell division felt, the blood centrifuged from my rapid beating heart out my eyes swirling through my brain is mere preparation for the steep fall down Clayton before me.
"Ughhh," I grunt viscerally as I dig urethane against cement shoving my weight and my heels to the ground.

After the speed achievement check, all the poetic language stops.

Push, push against warm stubborn ground till I get up past Shrader.

Some lady is having trouble parallel parking I can see. She's coming in too acute or obtuse, I can't figure which. She's driving an automatic for what seems like the first time. She throws it into drive and sways almost across two lanes and clips me going backside. I fall long and landing on my left hip scraping against the rocky edge of the cement, then hit my head hard enough that I am zonked out.
I'm sprawled out in the middle of the intersection, my beanie has flown off my head and my skate lay underneath a truck, the wheels still spinning. I look up and the lady who clipped me along with a few other strangers are huddled around me.
"Are you hurt," this young lady asks me, seeing full well that I passed out.
"Yeah," I say not remembering at all what went down.
"Call hospital, 9-1-1," the lady who hit me says.
Lifting my head off the ground, I reach my hands to the back of my head, feeling a large goose bump on the top of my skull.
"No blood, that's good," I say looking at my hands. "What happened?"
"You hit your head on the street after that lady hit you," some guy says helping me to my feet.
"Where's my skate?"
"Here," this homeless man says handing it to me.
"Thanks," I say feeling wooziness. I turn to the lady who hit me and put my hand on her shoulder. She's shaking and obviously very scared. "No 9-1-1. Just take me to my house and I'll get your insurance information."
The relief in this dumb bitch's posture annoys me. I can tell she doesn't give a fuck if I'm alright, just that she doesn't get an increase in her insurance.

From that moment till the moment I'm at the top step of my apartment is blurry. The insurance information from the lady who clipped me was in hand, but I had no idea how I had gotten home, what I was doing at home or why I was there. My roommate comes walking down the hall and says I don't look so good. She says I look grey, pallid as the walls, like I'm going to be sick. She takes me to the hospital and they tell me I've got a concussion and I can't skate for six weeks. Fat fucking chance, I thought.

Assist Leader

this is funny...Capiche?

sweedish fish and the death of the voidgasm

From the point of conception, upward and onward, a shared feeling of joy has encapsulated and rallied around me and the friends. I'm omitting incredible, indelible hues of orange awesomeness, a glow that stimulates and unites, the peril and deception lost, downtrodden current of self loathing stymied, the hatred boiled over into furled eyebrows looks and the whispers beneath their breath now silenced, a significant sigh of relief, now measured and counted I call this catharsis a validation, the return of a self unknown to the gleaming limelight and the heat that radiates off my skin is warming me without the sun.

phew isn't the right word, but its the first word that comes to mind.*

I would like to write this blog like I'm receiving an award;

"There are so many people to thank I don't know where to begin. I would like to thank the Sweedish fish for their diligence and mesmerizing pirate attire. I would like to thank Elvis impersonating Djs plastered on stage throwing down bangers to get sweedish fish to jump into the water. I would like to thank the nice people at Norelco or Gillete or Nair Legs for shaving the incredlibly, silky, soft legs that wrapped around my body. I would like to thank Kieran for his blatant inquiry, because before he asked so publicly, I couldn't remember her name. I would like to thank drugs and alcohol, without which, none of this would be possible. I would like to thank myself, for taking the chance publishing the voidgasm and then eradicating the truth of it within the week. I would like to thank J Nougat outright for his planning and effort to get the party on wheels and even more for enlivening in me a grave feeling of humiliation for having posted the voidgasm. His determination and articulated insensitivity's made me feel horrible about expressing myself, effectively forcing me [by atrition] to dive right into the first willing participant i could find, and as luck would have it, let me just say, I could've done a lot worse.

Most importantly, I would like to thank Hope as it springs eternal in even in the autumn months. 96 hours ago I was jaded and repellent, looking at myself in the mirror ready to make my knuckles bleed to destroy the image before me. The power of intimacy to transform is uncanny.

And lastly I would like to thank the karmic spinning wheel that ended the darkness with a magnificent blinding light. As with all things I knew that it too shall pass."

The best part of all of this is that now I can make my private life, private once again and alleviate your disgust in hearing the gruesome details of my rollercoaster sex life. I would hope that most of you that took the voidgasm as a platform to draw unneccesary attention to myself could put it into perspective. There are real aspects of my life that I'm attempting to breathe life into. My self deprecating tone and hopless romanticism is meant to be entertaining and light not compelling and melodramatic. I see the foil relationship between these two paradigms, but I would encourage those of you that find yourself enjoying or disliking this blog to not take it seriously, because I'm certainly not. Making a satire of my life takes away a nice chunk of the pain of actually living it, that is untill I get to write something like this.

by the way hard crack was off the hinges. if you'd like to hear the sample and/or pick one up click here




*thanks chuck p...

cocktail onion breath

I believe the first person I ever saw visibly inebriated was my father. I remember I was probably nine or ten and it was after midnight on a Thursday night. My mother was distraught and furious because my father had neglected to call to tell her he'd be out late. She kept me up all night calling to his friend's houses asking where he was. She'd been crying and finally had a family friend go looking for him. I couldn't sleep a wink and when my father finally showed, I knew I was in for some fireworks.
My dad was humming this little ditty about somebody named Suzy Q, but her name sounded more like he was saying "SWOOZEE KWOO." My mother sprung from her bed ready to give my dad a good once over when my older brother came to her door, latching it behind him. I peered my head out and saw my dad woozy, doing what i thought was his impersonation of a clown's walk. I chuckled at his hulking mass bouncing from one side of the hallway to the other trying to keep his body upright, bouncing from his shoulders to his belly, to and fro.
"Hi daddy," I said as he bounced his big tummy off the linen closet right in front of me picking me up by my elbows throwing me up over his shoulder and back down again.
"How's tigger?" My dad always called me tiger when I was little. I loved it. 'Tigger' was close enough. Before I had a chance to answer, my mother broke through the threshold of the door having heard my giggling knowing that one of her beautiful, innocent children was being exposed to an intoxicated hobo, for all intents and purposes.
"Where the fuck were you," my mother said gnashing her teeth and tongue, twisting them into foreign, unlikely knots and grabbing my arms shielding me from my father's cocktail onion breath. I liked that smell. It reminded me of the smell of my grandma from England and the way her house smelled; like bourbon and Dunhill cigarettes.
"Iwuz houtwif Baab."
"Bob, who?"
"Gellam."
"Bob Gillim?"
"Yup."
I was confused and scared because my mother was so angry. My older brother interceeded again and told dad to go pass out on the couch, but mom wouldn't let it lay.
"You smell like perfume," my mother said rage still spewing out her eyes.
"I think he smells like nana," I said tugging at my mom's robe.
"We were at the Gentlemen's Club," my father said clearly, admidst a moment of pure clarity.
The fury of my mother began to make the floor tremble and crack. An earthquake split the floor in two and the fires of hell began to spit from jagged rocks. Backdrafting flames shot from between my mother's teeth.
"You went where," she asked sounding like the princess of darkness, deep and hollow as horns pierced through her golden hair. At this point I felt that my mother's anger might just boil over and instead of murdering just my father, she might unleash it upon me as well, so I ran back to my bed sticking my head under my pillow like an Ostritch burrowing his head in the sand. I was worried that my parents were going to fight all night until I heard my older brother reasoning with my mother.
"Just let him pass out. There's no point in fighting about it anymore because he's not going to remember anyway."
My mother seemed to take some small consolation in this and went and got my dad a blanket and told him to come back to the bedroom. The last thing I heard was my mother saying blankly, "you're sleeping on the floor," and my Dad replying "m'okey."

When I got home from school the next day my father was wrapped in a blanket like it was his cocoon, on the floor of my parents bedroom. The venetian blinds were shut and the room was dark and dreary.
"Dad," I said creeping around the bed.
"Shhhhh, daddy doesn't feel well, tiger."
"Okay," I said tiptoeing around the bed.
When my mom came home and saw how much pain he was in, how much he had already suffered, she dropped it. The hangover was apparently punishment enough.

the voidgasm

My friend Raya asked me a very probing and earthshaking question the other day:

"When was the last time you had an orgasm from sex?"

My dick and mind simultaneously went scanning through the minuscule populous of women I had slept with, my eyes fixed, flashing through every pleasure less, lustful unsatisfying session of blueballs that befell me and I realized it had been awhile since I'd gotten my rocks off post intercourse.

"Its been well over a year," i said pathetically, feeling very dejected by the sad truth.

"I don't get it, it's not like your ugly."

"Its the Jameson," my other friend Patrick said attempting to explain, "he only gets laid when he's drunk."

Then almost immediately, Patrick and Raya got into a cab and left me without any consolation, any advice, nothing. Let's be real here though, what the fuck are they going to say?


So questions began to flood my mind; do I need Viagra? Viagra at my age? Fuck me! Is my dick broken? Am I repellent? Will my rocks ever drop off?

I want to articulate the travesty that is my libido. Some of this has to do with the devices that must be placed upon my member. We all agree that the days of casual, unprotected sex are over, ruined by some sick fuck that thought jamming his dick into a monkey would be good for a few laughs. I also think that it might be that my failing to achieve an orgasm may result in a feeling of inadequacy for the women I slept with, thinking it had something to do with them. The alcohol obviously plays the double edged sword here. On one side it propels the woman in to bed with me [woo-hooo!] and on the other side makes me about as useful as a leaky water balloon once the jimmy hat application is complete.

In recalling the random various evenings which a fuck befell me, there were nights I made them get off [or so they said] and then my body falls flat against their bare breast, I kiss them and tell them, "sorry, I'm drunk" or "I'm good" or "I'm mad tired."

These girls aren't ugly, dirty or outside their peak sexually both in appetite and performance. My problem, my explanation, my excuse for this conundrum is that I need more time, more hours to familiarize myself with their bodies, to find their rhythm and match it with mine. To summarize, a one time fuck is never going to get me off. The last girlfriend I had was a very cute Cuban girl I had known for a few years. We slept together about ten times before I was finally able to get off. I'd been out of practice, no doubt and my inability to achieve was of little importance to her as long as she got off. Now, this is my type of woman, the one that treats me like I'm the stereotype of the forlorn housewife whose husband gets off in five minutes leaving her empty and unsatisfied. I'm reversing this for all of you ladies out there. The normal protocol is that sex is over after the man finishes and I say enough! If you have a little left over for your boy and want to help him unload over a year of strain, disabled grief of limpid struggling manhood then by all means, help me. Otherwise, I want to stick to this plan, "to know" them.

Timmy and the piglets

Saturday evening after mashing around in search of cheap, strong drink I found myself hungry and anxious. A word on pizza in San Francisco; everyone feels like the pizza here is so god awful and compared to a slice in Brooklyn that's been cooked in the same oven for a century you are probably right. I'm not quite ready to say that ALL pizza in SF is garbage though. Case in point is Arinell's Pizza on Valencia and 16th. I don't think I've ever been there when they weren't playing one of the Slayer albums which is a feat in itself. The pizza is the closest you're going to get to a genuine east coast slice so if you've never been check it out. Its quick, cheap and filling.
After my drunken romance with my pepperoni slice i called around looking for somewhere to go before i hung them up for the evening. I decided to head towards Hayes valley to a tiny annoying bar called Jade on my skateboard.
I was about two blocks from the bar when i popped a lite little ollie onto the sidewalk and then flashing lights, a beam of white light in my eyes and the voice of some bored cop over the monitor;
"STOP."
Out the window this cop with an 80 pound says, "hey Timmy."
Rising slowly non chalant out the car he aims his flashlight in my face "what's going on?"
"Ugh nothing."
"You know you can't skate on the sidewalk?"
"No, i didn't know that."
The design of a law like no skating on the sidewalk seems practical enough. You don't want people getting run over and that makes sense. I believe that a law like that should be enforced when appropriate but I'm looking down the block in either direction and there isn't a soul to be seen.
"So if I had been skating in the street you wouldn't have pulled me over?"
"That's right, Timmy."
"Why do you keep calling me that?"
"Have you done any drugs tonight," he says casually beaming my eyes with his flashlight.
"No," i lied, "but i did have a few beers. Is that a drug?"
"No that's alcohol. Maybe you're too old to be riding around drunk on a skateboard."
I look into the police car and see that the other officer is writing me a ticket.
"She's writing me a ticket?"
"That's right, Timmy."
"Aren't there actual crimes you could be preventing right now, instead of hassling me? This is a great use of valuable police resources."
Policeman alpha male and his small dick looks me up and down, nods slightly left and winces, "You should probably stop talking, Timmy."
The other officer approaches me and asks me to sign.
"What am I signing?"
At that point officer small dick, grabs my arm and puts me down to my knees.
"Put your hands over your head!"
"Okay."
"Run his ID and call for backup."
"You need backup," I say half smiling.
"One more word and you're under arrest. Have you ever been arrested?"
"Yup."
"For what?"
"Disturbing the peace and..umm...minor in possession."
"Are you on parole?"
I don't answer.
"All right Timmy, are you going to sign this?"
"Sure."
"You can contest this if you like."
"Rest assured, I will."

This is why people get shot and die in major cities in America. While some poor soul's stomach lining is being ripped open by a 9mm glock, the piglets are stopping me for skating on an empty sidewalk. FTC!

As the cops remounted their harassment vehicle, everyone's favorite local policeman, Officer Baby Dick, calls out to me, "goodnight, Timmy."
"Look at the ticket you just wrote me, my name is Elliott."

I feel sorry for guys named Timmy. It was really degrading to be called that.

weekend alluvion part ii

Saturday was a further exercise in useless time wasting mismanagement of precious people, namely me. After forcing myself back to sleep, restless i rose to the calling of a friend that had sold me out the evening prior to recover from his lack of sleep. He infused and conjured up various pathetic apologies and offered to make it up to me by buying me breakfast at any place i like.
Zazie is baby stroller, random-local-fucking-tourist, yuppy heaven. Located in the pert and bustling Cole Valley, Zazie always has the most crucial line. The wait is worth it most times, because the brunch in phenom. We stood outside, baked and shaky, from boulangerie du Cole Valley coffee, which is only second in my mind to Tartine bakery for baked goods and Blue Bottle for stimulants. I burned through my cup in less than five and I went to throw it in the trash. As i stood leaning against a mailbox an oddly dressed girl came strolling up yapping to someone on her phone about how the envelope she was sending them was the most beautiful envelope in the world. she sought verbal and visual approval from me and my friend.
"Isn't this the most beautiful envelope in the whole world?"
To which i replied, "You're the most beautiful envelope in the whole world."

She stayed on the phone blushing and giggling, giddy that i called her a beautiful piece of paper, looking back and posing. I got a good chuckle out of that and it kinda made my dick hard that i could simultaneously exude that confidence to make a girl blush and insult her. maybe i was getting somewhere with this whole "act". being a nice guy never got me anywhere but treated like shit and hurt and i have recent wounds to prove this.

Karl, another close friend, and his girlfriend Gillian both joined Nat and I for breakfast. Snaking his way in without having to wait nearly as long as us was Vince, a dj friend of Nat's that would surely steer the majority of the breakfast conversation to the world of the dj, i.e; records, promoters, other competing djs and clubs. I love Nat, he's a very dear friend and Vince is a good guy deep down, but listening to them talk about this shit is mad boring. i like it when the whole table can engage in the conversation. its a much more satisfying environment for everyone. instead, karl, gil and i are laughing while they talk shop. i don't let it get to me, but i do take note, another inconsideration, not with malice intended, but one none-the-less.

after breakfast we all split ways and i headed home to wait for company to join me at the bluegrass festival. though i have no desire to listen or take part in bluegrass music culture or the huddled masses that inevitably converge on such an event, i have to say that i'm impressed by their organization, and the fact that its free; it makes me sad that the people that enjoy indie rock, electroclash and rap can't organize such an event that would be free. given that most of my favorite bands would never play for free, promoters would never do something just for the fans and the city would never grant a permit to hear bands i actually like it will have to stay a pipe dream. nat and i met up, casually following this girl with a perfect ass into the festival then broke away hoping to find a smokey clime with a cold beer to wash it down. my complaint begins here; they weren't selling beer at this event! what the fuck? nat and i walked five blocks up to balboa and bought a twelve pack. we came back, finished the beer and listened to los lobos. listening to them made me crave a burrito and we made that happen. after we ate, nat was frantic about getting to some art show at stussy on haight. we tried hailing a cab to no avail. we ended up jogging, stomachs filled with beer and burritos, singing terrible songs about trees through the richmond district, the public haughtily bemused at our intoxication.

I went from my house to the mission for a birthday party for an aquaintance. I went back home after a couple beers and adequate supply of blank stares in my direction then headed downtown to go to some bourgeois club to let the temptation creep. I was saved by a good friend who abstains from all substances named Douggie Tats and his cousin Sasha. Doug's an inspiration. He doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, nothing. He's totally sober and he uses it to his advantage. Doug doesn't find the sloppiest girl in the bar and peel her, no, he finds the hottest one within reason and breaks her down a little at a time. Doug has what Harmony Korine might call a "marvelous persona".

The rest of the night i drank more, got real tired and then went home in a cab and sobbed into my hands because i'm alone.

a shit weekend, again.

weekend alluvion

this past weekend was painfully uneventful. when you are broke, you tell yourself that you're just going to take it easy, sit at home, maybe get stoned, make some mac and cheese and watch a movie. fat chance. i got home, in dire need of a nap. the beginning of my short slumber, my recharge of the batteries if you will, was interrupted by an onslaught of phone calls;
"Let's get a drink!"
"What are you doing tonight?"
"Happy hour at wherever..."
Finally after the fourth call, I turned off the ringer on my phone and decided i would nap, come hell or high water. Whenever i nap i have the most deranged repetitious dreams. the one i had that day involved cobras. I'm walking out by this small pond in the middle of a forest. as i walk around the pond all the water begins to dry. Then the trees start shrivel and die into the ground and as the pond dries, it turns into dust and sand. Seeping out of ground come a family of cobras surrounding me in all different colors, hissing, ready to spit their venom. I'm surrounded and ready to piss myself then i wake up, sweaty and lucid.
I rub my eyes and turned my phone back on. five voice mails, all the same shit;
"Let's get drunk."
"Thinking' bout drinking? There is no god!"
"Alcohol this, cocaine that."

Boredom is evil and breeds contempt for oneself. what a shitty fate, to be stuck with nothing but these shitty options. I'm so done with this same bullshit. I'm so bored that now I'm lying to myself.

So i get up, i take a shower, i skate to the mission waiting to meet up with my friend Nat. Nat's eating dinner with his parents and he calls me when he finishes. I can hear a faint exhaustion in his voice. Motherfucker makes me come all the way down here so that he can fall asleep as soon as I arrive? Very inconsiderate.

So i grab a bite, annoyed and flustered, then make my way over toward Delirium, my precious sanctum. I watched Manny Ramirez hit a walk off home run against the angels which helped me perk up slightly. Then the deluge of alcohol ingestion begun again. i drank, four tecates at delirium, two shots of fernett and two Jameson neat. i wasn't fucked up yet, but i was well on my way.

At the bar, some obnoxious, lightweight hipster pogue bitch comes up to me and asks me why I'm in a bad mood and if i want to fuck. she says that my jacket is very colorful.
"So you like it," I say attempting to engage her.
"I didn't say that."
I'm all for that type of brutal honesty but this woman was trying to get me in bed with her. she was one of those mediocre looking girls that came to the city to go to USF and in the process discovers she's different somehow, dyes her hair, switches from shopping at the Gap to shopping at Diesel, from wine coolers to Pabst, from Marlboro lights to cocaine hangover Sundays.
for the health of this blog i continue my dialogue with her.
"do you ride a fixie?"
"You'd like that wouldn't you?"
fashion, purely fashionable, in the moment, flash in the panhandle, fashion. form over function. i don't get the attraction of it. you put one guy with rolled up pants, a dirty tshirt, tattooed sleeves, and you put him on a bike with a front brake and he's just another filthy hipster. you put the same guy, same scenario but you take away the brake and suddenly he's every girl's random wetdream.
"no i ride a skateboard."
"well, that's hot," she tells me, "that'll always be hot."
she really started getting on my nerves at this point and i kept looking for an exit from the conversation, a minor lull in the action so i could slip away, a misplaced glance that takes her attention from me, if even momentarily. it seemed nothing could assuage her. she was vehement that i give her my undivided attention. while in repose i can rip this girl to shreds, in the moment i don't have the gumption to be that mean. its a weakness, i know. miraculously one of her girlfriends comes over, drunk and loud and distracts her. i turn around to see if she's spotted me and she's pointing at me and scowling because i didn't say goodbye.

The rest of my night was in constant motion skating from one end of the mission to the other seeking out strong drink, rolled spliffs and avoiding coke. its incredible to me that the mere presence of an individual carries with it an aura of substances to be ingested. a phone call from one guy means a cocaine dudefest, while from another means pothead potluck! what a bevy of randoms i know in this city and scattered across the board, they bring with them pockets full of vice, hollow conversation, best intentions and zero follow through, myself included. we're under a dome, a random functionless dome that protects from nothing and everything at once.
I landed finally on a couch in the mission waking early to the passive aggressive sound of my best friends roommate clattering her organic breakfast and the ding ding of the chat box on her computer.
i get on the bus at 8:15 and go home to the foul smell of mildew in the hallways. nobody gives a shit about where i live but me. another discussion all together. i took a pull off a stale old joint and went to bed.

I am Elliott

I am a blogger.