“i can predict the weather with my toenails…” so said kramer, on our way to dinner. to DINNER. kinda reminds me of back when my mom was alive. she used to have everybody asking her how she was, what the doctors had said, what they were doing, etc. as a result, she went into exhausting (nauseating) detail of various medical procedures i DIDN’T need to hear about; but did. often. and they always seemed to call her (and thus i had to sit through the stories) while i ate. NOT cool; but excellent for dieting.

why is it, we go to corpus, and stay at a condo that is SO close to the gulf, that one time i flicked a beer cap off the balcony and actually hit SURF. yes, THAT damn close…but we had NO water pressure in the shower or anywhere else. i live over 200 miles from the ocean, and have kick-ass water pressure (my house was done before all that water conversation stuff). and thanks to a trip to lowe’s earlier, the water can actually be HOT again, if i so choose….cool, huh?

last night i went and got my tribal texas tattoo re-done and re-colored. i’ve needed to have it done for about, oh, SIX years now; and could never coordinate with the artist who originally did it to get it done…and get the white (as i originally wanted) put in. so, yesterday being texas independence day, and me having nothing to do, i went and had it done. i learned that getting ink done on cold skin (the heater at the studio was on the fritz) REALLY stings more than you would expect (but once you’ve been worked on long enough to warm up it’s not too bad). i also learned (on the subsequent run to the bar down the street) that my left arm gets touched by stranger a LOT more than i would have guessed. of course, anytime i get inked or pierced, i notice that i get touched more there; with the exception of TWO certain piercings, but never mind that now. laugh out loud moment? when a.j. (an apprentice at sharp things) commented, “this weather is so unfair to us smokers…when you’re outside, you don’t know when to stop exhaling….”

so, today i go to grab lunch and get pounced. not in that happy, fun way. not in that, “give me your wallet” way. almost as bad, though. “dude, where ya goin’? lemme toss in..” so all of a sudden, i’m walking out of the office with a fist full of cash, and coming back carrying one SERIOUSLY heavy bag. for three blocks. kinda reminded me of those sacks of tobacco from my childhood…
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well, so far i’m four for four. that’s right..monday through thursday of this week, i have YET to plant my ass in my chair at work by 9:15, let alone 9:00. sure, i list my official office hours as 9:00ish to 5:00ish, but this is getting ridiculous. and it always goes down the same way…
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the cops just left my house. okay, so more accurately A cop just left my house. okay, so even MORE accurately, my buddy lance, who just happens to be one of austin’s finest (EAST austin, no less…the “hood”) just left my house. he wanted to borrow my laser thermometer (which i liberated* from a building maintenance guy at my office) i said no prob, since he’s a good friend, the thing cost me NO money, and he takes care of my dogs when i’m out of town.
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02/25/2002: “”

okay, so hit corpus with kramer this weekend, and had a fairly good time….spent most of the time stewing in my own juices, and thinking about things, which was good and bad in it’s own little ways. friday, worked all day, drove down, on the way got a good excuse to drink, and upon arrival DID, then promptly passed out. as for saturday…..

shopped. more sunday than saturday, but a lot of money was spent. the wallet is lighter, the wardrobe is heavier, and i believe kramer calls it, “retail therapy”…..fair enough. a few brief notes:

thing that would have seemed odd had i NOT been in corpus christi, tx: seeing a man compare shop expiration dates when buying a can of SKOAL. like he doesn’t already have THE most disgusting tobacco habit on the planet, and now you’re getting PICKY? whatever….

time i felt like less of a man: i bought khaki cargo shorts. no big deal, right? khaki looks good on me, and i’ve DEFINITELY got the calves to look good in cargo shorts. but they ARE from abercrombie & fitch, which made me feel whiter than ever, and a bit dirty as a result.

redeemer on the above: the shorts are DAMN comfortable, although i’m not sure if it’s $39.50 worth of comfort. my fault for going down to a beach community on a gorgeous weekend and only taking JEANS.

missed photo op of the day: sign on the way from padre island to port aransas, to denote name of body of water you were passing over: “fisher’s bluff”…with a sign right below it that said, “no fishing from bridge”…such a killjoy our state can be, huh?

fun dinner moment: water street oyster bar, where i almost made kramer launch a mollusk out of his nose when i referred to his appetizer (which he and the waitress called, “raw oysters”) as “spunk on the half shell”. also made me flash back to joking voicemail from earlier where i was warned, “not to sleep on my stomach” since i was sharing a condo with kramer. all of a sudden the advice almost seemed sound. eeeewwwww……….more on the ensuing tobacco quest and night out in the corpus “bonus part iii”

moment of zen on saturday: ate at a restaurant who’s address is, “mile marker number nine…on the beach” sat and listened to the surf, and the eagles, “hotel california” while i ate. ordered the fish basket, got the fish sandwich. an acceptable margin of error. now if i had ordered the rib eye, and gotten chicken strips, THEN we would have had a problem. got to the car to see missed calls and voicemail. tried to return to know avail. fired up the malibu and the song that comes across the cd player? sting, from his latest cd (THIS was the moment of zen):

“if you need somebody, call my name….if you want someone, you can do the same…
…if you love somebody, if you love someone….set them free….”

easy to say. easy to sing with. HARD to do….but seems to be my mantra, for at least a little while…
*raises bottle of ozarka to screen as if to make a toast*
here’s to hoping this one finds her way back…:) the sooner the better..

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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