i went to fry’s discount electronics today. i am a 30 year old white boy who’s always been the one to install my friend’s stereos (whether home or car), set up home theaters, and now i work with computers. i am their prime demographic. i am their marketing departments wet dream. i thought the place was cool, but i do have a gripe or two (imagine that).

first off, they do have a good selection of stuff (plus odwalla fruit juice in the coffee bar–BIG bonus points); and they are well staffed. almost TOO well staffed. i’m used to shopping at dillard’s (because i am a TOTAL label whore). now, at dillard’s you have to find what you want, then FIND someone to check you out. sometimes you have to wander a while. a long while. like a moses-style wander. actually, ‘migrate’ in the same style as the tribes that used to follow the buffalo herds. But at fry’s, swing a dead cat, hit a sales associate. once I’d stiff-kitty-wallupped a rather thin teenager, i figured i was on my way to getting out of there. oh, how wrong i was.

i went up and asked for eight items. the guy said, “no problem,” and put my order into the computer, and handed me ONE item. tease. then, he said, “be right back”, and returned with two more items. were now three for eight; not enough to get you in the play-offs, ya know? then, he handed me a book. he SAID was a sales receipt, and when i checked out, they would give me the rest of my stuff. so, at three for eight, i headed to the check out…trying not to feel like less of a man as a result…

at checkout, you wait in line to wait in line. it was when i saw this i realized where the discount comes
from; this place MUST be government run!!! once i’d filtered through line one to get to line two, i was checked out by a trainee. she disappeared for a few minutes to get my other five items so i wouldn’t feel so inadequate as a human being. then, she gave me my total. i gave her a company check, hand-signed by the owner, and one of my business cards to help seal the deal. i paid with a check. i broke commandment number 11. now i’m going to hell (yeah, like i wasn’t already jet-skiing there as was)

she copied down everything off of my drivers license, and sketched my picture. she copied down everything off of my business card, and made me stamp my thumbprint on it. i then had to give her my shoe size, blood type, mother’s maiden name, preferred brand of condoms, three personal references, a small urine sample, and the names of my last six employers. then i had to fill out a couple of more forms (i think i’m in the communist party now…or the gay and lesbian alliance…or some kind of porn-star actor’s guild) then, i got my receipt, and headed for the door. free at last, free at last…thank GOD all mighty i’m fr…

“sir, can I see your receipt?” was my greeting at the exit door. so close, yet so far away. they look at
the receipt, look at the cart. receipt. cart. receipt….you get the idea. “sir, what’s THAT?!?!?” i get as they pointed at a small cloth bag in the bottom of the cart. “those are my oakleys,” i said, picking up my sunglasses, “i came in with these”. “oh, sorry…” was what i got in response, and out i went. good store. good prices. pack a lunch, stay for the day. don’t bring a canned soda, though…they DO have odwalla…:)

(2022 note – exactly nineteen years after this bit was posted (in 2021) this store shuttered operations for good)

i don’t mean for this to sound like some kind of racial generalization…
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so, hit a chinese buffet with kramer tonight. i grubbed on the usual….

sesame chicken (my ALL time fave), pepper steak, etc…and kramer ate CRAW-FISH. would you put something called a “mud-bug” in your mouth? me either. but he did. LOTS of them. apparently they’re a delicacy in louisiana. of course, so is a second cousin TWICE removed, but never mind that now. (it should be noted, i’ve never set foot in LA, and while i’m sure i will eventually, my boss told me never to go….we used to ticket the miss teen usa pagent, and all the guys from the office always wanted bob to drag them along due to the “hot chick” factor. i HATE people that don’t read between the lines…between the line “miss” and “usa” is the line “TEEN”…which i’m pretty sure is even illegal in louisiana…although now that i think about that backward-ass berg, maybe it’s not…but i digress) anyway, i sat here looking at the crustacean carnage on the plate he so eloquently put dead center of our table. i love me some sesame chicken, and while it DOES look like chicken meat, it doesn’t look like little chickens. crawdads LOOK like fucking crawdads…and the jargon gets worse.

“bite the tail, suck the head”

that ACTUALLY came out of his mouth. i said, “dude…that’s how i got my last girlfriend”

okay, so maybe that’s not TOTALLY accurate…but there was some biting, some sucking, and some tail..and i woke up the next morning and no longer felt single. but i was DAMN happy, and that’s what matters, right? what was i talking about? oh yeah..that’s right….

so i told the officer, “man….why are you hassling me? that little kid’s peeing on the fountain too, and he’s bare-ass naked.” then the officer pointed out to me that the “little kid” i was referring to was made of cement, and actually PART of the fountain. tequila shooters can be some evil shit.

so this, i don’t get…lately for me, making plans with more than ten minutes of advance notice is a futile attempt. back during mercury’s michael jackson phase (i.e. moon walking backwards through the sky), when communication goes to hell, it was SUPPOSED to be worse. but this weekend was a definite “shout out” to the merc issues (if you will allow me to ghettofy astrology for a moment). this is the weekend night plans at a glance…

thursday: talk to my buddy james, and he ask me to go see carlos mencia with him on friday night. says he HAD asked a girl, but she hadn’t called back, and he didn’t think she would. so plans were set for friday.

friday: after office time (which was WAY stressful for the most part), i’m on my way to work the hockey game, and call james to make sure all is still cool. he says so far, so “me”, but if anything changes, he’ll buzz the mobile. i get done with the hockey game, call him to let him know i’m on the way to the studio (he DJs where i used to at 101x), and he says, “dude…i was just about to call you…she called. and tits win”. lovely. so, i flip a bitch back to the hockey stadium to find junior to see if he wants to grab dinner. me, him, and his girl go hit macaroni grill, and decide that the three of US wanna go to see carlos on saturday night.

saturday: after a semi-scheduled work appearance (that REALLY dragged on later than it was supposed to), i go to pick up carlos tickets. two shows saturday. sold out. two shows sunday. sold out. i found out later that all of these shows (which were not promoted till 24 hours before the first one) happened because carlos HAD been hired to work a private ENRON party. guess you all know what happened with THAT check, huh? so i walk away from the club, thinking that that’s it. can’t happen. then, i get a wild hair, call james, and he says he’ll make some calls, but is doubtful. let’s do it time-line style for a moment…

1:30 – initial call to james
3:00 – correction call to james, telling him we weren’t looking for hand-outs, and would pay for tickets
4:40 – first call FROM james, saying things didn’t look good, since NOBODY was calling him back
6:00 – i get to the hockey stadium, tell junior, and he says it’s okay, ’cause linda went to SA to see her folks – so i say, “so, IF we get tickets, we only need TWO?” he says, “yes”, so i call james and tell him two instead of three, but he still says, “haven’t heard back…don’t even know if ONE is possible”
6:03 – yes, THREE minutes later, james calls back to say me and junior are hooked in…for free. AND we get to skip the line (which was approximately two blocks long)
6:05 – junior calls linda, just to say, “hi”, and finds out she’s in san marcos on her way BACK to austin ’cause she thought we were all going to see carlos that night. mercury flashbacks, anyone?

she finds out we only got two tickets since we thought she was outta town, she’s cool with it, and me and junior go see an AWESOME show. carlos is a comedic firestorm. a three hour set, where you almost NEVER stop laughing. we got seated so early, junior, me, and carlos were practically the only people in the room; so i went up and talked to him, and we hit it off pretty well. now the crowd files in. a couple of thousand people it seemed. the owner, who i know by face but his name escapes me, comes over, says hi, and comps me a round of drinks. then the manager keeps bringing me absolut shots (including two round in the last five minutes of the set…has he never heard of a DWI before?) and even CARLOS came by the table, and said, “whussup” at one point. at the end of the night, a girl at the table behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “the owner keeps coming up and talking to you. the manager keeps bringing you vodka. carlos came by your table. his manager sat with you for part of the set. WHO ARE YOU?!?!?” i just smiled, and said, “just a guy with mother-fucking charm”. and to think, tonight’s the system of a down show. on MY home turf. for all the crappy stuff this weekend, maybe it won’t turn out all bad after all…tell you about THAT show tomorrow…

okay, so by the time this is being read, it’s valentine’s day…which kramer made allusions to my opinion of in his recent journal entry about us going to el arroyo; and in MY opinion made me out to be some sad, depressed, drowning-my-sorrows-in-a-sea-of-frozen-tequila sort of guy. not true. AND i was misquoted…
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so, it’s 8:00 am sunday morning, the morning AFTER the mardi gras experience described in kramer’s web journal (i didn’t get to sleep ’till about 4:30 or so), and the phone rings. i look at caller i.d., blurry-eyed, and see a dallas phone number. figuring it’s my boss (at the time en route back to austin from OKC), or a buddy in dallas wanting to see how much i can cuss in the early am when he wakes me up, i answer it…
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okay, so i thought commercialism had hit it’s high point. or low point, if you wanna view it that way. i got this vibe a few years ago, when i was at a place with bad food but cute staff (hooter’s), and the 32oz coke decided it was time for it to go. i went to help it out (so to speak), and looked in front of me to see an ad…and if that wasn’t bad enough, the agency who set these up right over the urinals had the slogan “bringing your message to a captive audience”. wonderful…

about a year ago, the heb near my place started handing you stuff with your receipt. like it wasn’t bad enough that the BACK of the receipts were solid ads, now you’d get this second piece of paper. occasionally, it’s a coupon. or a voucher for gas. but more often than not, it’s an ad. they just hand it to you, ’cause they KNOW you’ll look at it. and as long as you look at it, they’re halfway home.

but now they’ve gone TOO far. they’ve invaded something sacred. something they ought not touch. they have boldly gone where only ancient wisdom had gone before.

fortunes. yep, fortunes. those little pieces of wisdom that end a good (or bad) chinese meal. believe in ’em or not, they’re kinda like horoscopes – when they say what we wanna hear, we take ’em at their word. but when they DON’T, we say we don’t believe. but this offered no wisdom; it just said:

“Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today.”

WHAT?!?!? what riddle does THAT solve? should i be happy with my job? make some investments? what about my love life? it’ll all be better, just buy more cookies. and you KNOW the last one in the box will just say the same thing, so that they get the repeat business. i quote the godfather, “every time i try to get out, the keep pulling me back in”. i took the advice, to a degree. i bought a box of cookies. two boxes, actually. GIRL SCOUT cookies. and then gave one of them away to someone i thought could use some cheering up. now that’s good eating. and the money goes to a good cause. plus, now i just don’t feel right going to my favorite chinese place in san marcos. when i needed their words of wisdom, where were they? think maybe i’m taking this too personally? me either….:)

okay, so i PROMISED myself i wouldn’t do this. i did. really. swore i would NOT go off on drivers and car stuff twice in a row. “break it up,” i said….”give them some variety”. but i figure at this point, my hit count can probably be measured by a sea world employee who hand-feeds sharks on an amateur basis, so what have i got to lose?
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02/05/2002: “”

ah, rain. waterer of lawns. filler of rivers. ruiner of suede shoes. (at this point, after that last statement, i would like to add that YES, i am straight. and can provide references…
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i’ve always been kind of a “do-it-yourselfer”…

two things have bred that in me over the years. the main one, is poverty. the second is the male ego that makes me think that i can do just about anything i want if i set my stubborn-assed mind to it. such is the situation with my home. i’m mid-remodel, and every time i think i can work on it, something happens. it rains. i find something better to do with someone i really wanna spend time with (i TOLD you you’d get mentioned here). or like today; no plans, no rain, day off. kinda chilly, but not TOO chilly. rolled out of bed at the crack of 9:00, got all ready to work, and saw that i had a message. figuring it was a “good morning” call from the aforementioned not-so-mentioned someone, i checked it, saying, “hi honey” as i hit the button to play the message.

turns out i referred to my BOSS as “honey” this morning (NOT to his face, thank christ), since he was the one who called before the crack of 9:00.

now i’m stuck at work for 10 hours on a gorgeous saturday that i’d rather be ANYWHERE else. three words will help improve my day, and it starts in mere moments….i have to go set up for the cowboy mouth show at la zona rosa, and the trip to the venue is gonna include a stop by twins liquor store. then it’s back to the office for me, and there’s NOBODY here but me. to show how my “day off” has been, i’ve had to field almost a dozen calls just in the time it took me to type this entry (16 by the time i proof read), and this is a SLOW time compared to earlier. i’ve dealt with over 150 whining people today, and the sun’s not even down yet, but soon all will be well, and at 9:00 i’m off to meet kramer “the man” wetzel and a few others to catch janine garofalo at the paramount in the opera box that i had set aside for us.

oh yeah….and the three words that’ll make the night complete in the next hour? make it all better; and make the sting of tech support calls lessen? crown fucking royal…and lots of it…