The world of NFL football after two weeks

Some of you crazy math majors out there, might find this fun. We only have an 1/8 of a season completed thus far, which means, we have one crappy college pot dealer's stash left of games. Now let's smoke 'em. The only reason I point out the relative infancy of the NFL season is for those blowhards that have A) Talked shit about how incredible their fantasy football teams are. B) Talked about their hometown team making the Super Bowl. C) Completely given up on their hometown football teams. D) Completely given up on their fantasy football teams.

People calm the fuck down. Let's go through these one at a time.

A) People are already talking shit about their fantasy football teams. A few things to keep in mind when someone brags about their prowess as a fantasy football manager. It's fuckin' fantasy. A real fantasy football team looks like this


Close to 99% of all fantasy football comes down to luck; witness Tom Brady going down after 7 minutes (I will come back to this). This is not to say there is no strategy employed, but if you think spending 4 hours scrolling through available players, checking NFL headlines, and being the first one to get drunkard Koren Robinson on your team after he signs with the beleaguered Seattle team with no wide receivers, then you need to check yourself in the mirror to make sure that you haven't inadvertantly turned into an actual douche (I have no idea what douche rags look like, but I can spot a douchey person within a radius of a square mile).

That's not to say Koren Robinson might not be a great pick up, but unless your wide receivers are looking like Seattles (local baggers at the grocery store and recently paroled sexual predators), then you are probably OK. Also, this ties into those fantasy owners that feel the need to make 400 moves before the waiver wire and over think the decision to start Larry Johnson or TJ Houshblahblah in your flex position even though ONLY TWO WEEKS HAVE GONE BY. Calm the fuck down, and try not to have a mid twenties heart attack over a make believe football team.

B and C) I heard so many Jets fans lamenting their poor team after losing to Matt Cassel and New England, that I almost started to argue before realizing I was talking to Jets fans and my verbose rhetoric would make them angry with confusion. I have also heard Bills fans talking playoffs and some even say Super Bowl (these claims I repudiated immediately, to prevent further jinxing). SLOW. THE FUCK. DOWN. Again, only two weeks have elapsed. That's not enough time to know if someone is girlfriend or boyfriend material, and it's certainly not enough time to decide the fortunes of your team. Why not watch and see what happens? I never understand this. Redskins fans used to get me so fuckin' riled up when I lived in DC because they were more emotionally juvenile about the 'SKINS then an ADD 8 year-old that found out they aren't getting the new Wrestling Buddy (I know that is a dated reference so I included a picture of what an old school wrestling buddy looks like).

First the 'Skins were going to the Super Bowl, then the next week they needed to scrap the current team and re-build, then they were playoff bound, then they needed a real QB, then they needed to stop fucking around, then they need a new coaching staff. It's like talking to an impulsive teenager debating a new outfit for the first day of school. 'Skins fans probably have the perfect owner in Dan Snyder too because he makes completely irrational moves and has the money to pull them off. Keep wasting your money to remain mediocore in the NFC East Dan, I love you for it.


Just be a fan. Try and be a realistic fan too (I'm looking at my fellow Bills fans here). The Bills haven't made the playoffs in eight years, so before you say "Super Bowl," let's just make the goddamn playoffs. Also, Jets fans, the Patriots haven't lost a regular season game since Obama was still just a glimmer in liberal's eyes, so please try and stay up-beat about the Brett Favre era and your suddenly realistic chances of contending for the AFC East crown. You are not out of this mainly because of this guy:



D) A few women joined one of my fantasy football leagues, and this has led to some strange incidents (strange to a chauvenistic mind like mine). My girlfriend now knows more than anyone about the fantasy potential of the waiver wire QB's since Tom Brady went down and she has been scrambling to shore up that position. A fellow co-worker, an uber competitive girl that I will call Hustler, is spending more time watching football than I am. And my various buddies are basically throwing in the towel because their teams didn't perform so well in the first two games of the season. This is premature, but people need to stop taking this shit so seriously. I know money is involved (both my leagues cost $50), but you need to remember this is supposed to be fun, so relax.


Last year, I had Brady and Moss on my team and after starting the season 11-0, I ended up losing in the semi's of the playoffs because those two ended up shitting the bed and Adrian Peterson got injured at the worst possible time. What this embarassing anecdote shows, is that early season success bares little on the overall fantasy league, and a lot can happen, just like in real football. Have no fear, things will change, so everyone just take a deep breath and stop freaking out. No amount of analysis can change certain things, so sometimes you just need to leave your team alone and let the football gods decide.

Now, let's just watch some fuckin' football and stop bitching about things so early. I already need a drink and it's only 10:30 AM.

Ramblings are back

Homeless people sometimes look happier than me.


Sometimes I spend more time wiping my ass, then actually emancipating my turds. Needless to say, I am anal about my asses cleanliness.

I don't think anyone that has done reality television has ever really had an orgasm.

I actually dislike the Hills more than Golden Girls, but if I posted something about the hills on my blog. I would have to kick my own ass. Shit.

After writing a post about masturbating at work, I have since learned that this is a common practice, and I am not sure how I feel about that.

Out of an office of about 75-100 people, I think about 30 know my name. I have been there about a year.

I don't care how poor I get, the only malt I will ever drink is single malt Scotch over 12 years old. Unless I was homeless. If I am without a home, I would drink malt liquor just to fit the role.

Bragging about how much you can drink means you drink like a pussy. My girlfriend just told me I brag about how much I drink, so I must drink like a pussy. She's so wise.

No amount of convincing will ever allow me to concede that I am doing anything of importance in life. And no, I did not just smoke Salvia; although, I am curious about it.


Degeneracy is not rampant drug use, promiscuous sex, and lack of etiquette, degeneracy, is something akin to Chuck Berry installing video cameras in the women's bathrooms of the local bar.

When the sky turns grey, human beings are much more likely to assault each other. I always wondered why there wasn't more violence amongst humans in the Matrix. I mean, even Zion has got to have some pick-pockets and rapists right? Maybe the only way to eliminate crime is if artificial intelligence takes over the world after a large scale war drives us underground.

Kristen Dunst has never looked attractive in any of her movies.

A-Rod will never win a world series if he continues to spend ten minutes each morning making sure his grundle hairs are of identical length.

Celebrities make me want to BM with their picture hugging the porcelain bottom of the toilet.

Women who brag to me about their man's sexual prowess in bed are just informing me that their man has never really pleased them.

Internet porn has made the world lazy masturbators.

Any hand job past the age of 18 is pointless. Any hand job between 12-15 is awesome. Any hand job between 15-18 is a little irritating.

Anal sex is a more decisive issue than abortion could ever be. But anal sex with an aborted baby is probably something we could file under abnormal degeneracy.

I don't know what position would be the best way to fuck Jessica Biel, and for some reason this bothers me.

Anyone that smiles all the time should either pull a Richard Manuel, or try and raise their IQ above a score of 50.

The Lion is the king of the jungle, but the elephant is the lion's fraternity brother that can probably drink more from the keg.

Spencer Pratt is the single biggest reason you see people in the streets of NYC holding signs about the end of the world.

If you are out of high school, please put less books in your book bag.

If you have to ask someone: "How am I in bed?" you are not going to like the answer.

Proof (RIP) from the Detroit Rap Group D-12 is actually Rasheed Wallace from the Pistons. Have you ever seen them in the same room? I didn't think so.

Subway musicians should never perform in finely tailored suits.

Women that never wear underwear are easier to sleep with, but more prone to urinary tract infections.

Not having cable as a child was the single most detrimental and productive thing that has happened to me.

Riding the NYC subway without an Ipod is akin to the scene in A Clockwork Orange where they force open the protagonist's eyelids during a series of horrific video montages.

No one should have to be ugly, but if you are, then if you are anything other than a misanthrope, you are being disingenuous. I'm a misanthrope.

Women should never get mad when men glance at their breasts.

The Buffalo Bills can be blamed for all my character deformities.

People who talk to their families every day will never be alone in this world. They will also never be able to survive a nuclear holocaust.

Girls...never lose your virginity to Tom Jones.

It's always better to be an unemployed writer or musician than to be an employed salesperson.

Wealthy people are different than you and I; they don't hear the truth as much.

Park City, Utah Continued

Editors note to readers: If you don't give a shit about about a vacation I went on with some friends of mine a few weeks back, stop reading now. I promise, this will be the last post about this trip, so come back as soon as possible because I will have something else up tomorrow.


Before I get into the other events that transpired on my trip, let me make some addendum's to the Hiking post. Renews and Nonsequitur both held their own on the hike. I did not mean to imply that they couldn't do it very well. And, Papawawa, who had the most trouble by far, and who we eventually had to leave, well, he made the smartest decision of us all and brought a radio, so when we got to Desolation Lake we could rock out and get stoned with some music. It was a needed luxury after all that climbing.

I know I gave some context to the hiking in Utah post, but I had some more thoughts about the trip. The hiking was just the first activity we did. To summarize the trip. We participated in extreme mountain biking, fly fishing, saw a concert, and went down a luge track in a bobsled going about 70 mph and reaching 4-5 G forces when going around the turns. All in all there is a lot to talk about, so let's get started.

After the exhausting and exhilarating hike to Desolation Lake, we were so psyched up, we decided to go Mountain Biking the very next day. Already sore from the hike and tired from the time change, we wanted to do an activity that was fun and didn't require any up hill biking. We succeeded.

The name of the complex was Deer Valley Ski Resort and we got five hour passes for the chair lift. We hitched the bikes to the chair lifts, and then let them bring us to the top of the mountain. Again, the views were incredible. I smoked a cigarette and relaxed as we slowly dragged up the mountain. It went pretty slow and we only got two runs in all day, but it was worth it so we didn't have to bike up the hill.

First off, I was talking a lot of shit about this extreme mountain biking. I was bragging about zooming down black diamonds with ease. The woman who helped us set up the Chateau was so concerned about my cocky attitude, she was notifying other people about what an idiot I was and how much I was going to get beat up by the mountain. I was under the deluded impression that anyone who drinks a crap load of Mountain Dew and says things like: "I'm roasted" is easily someone I can mimic on a bike. So, before our first run began, I got pretty stoned with Voldemort and Renews (this was also my way to get into the stereotypical biker mindset) and we set off with me hollering like I was doing a skateboarding commercial. It was a fuckin' blast, but Papawawa almost died. Here's the scene, and what I saw:

I was leading again down the trail (in fact I led the whole day), so I did not have a good view of what was happening behind me. The path was a middle level Orange square. Behind me I heard a shout, and saw Papawawa way off the path in the middle of a thicket of shrubbery. I called back to Voldemort to see what happened. He said that Papwawa was taking a crap. I have seen Papawawa crap off the end of a dock, so I was not surprised at his impromptu bowel movement. Actually I was a little impressed, but I couldn't help think of the unlucky bastard that couldn't get through the turn we were on, and tumbled into his excrement. Well, I found out once we all got down, that Papawawa was one piece of shrubbery away from really hurting himself. He had done basically a flip over his bike and down a steep embankment and luckily was uninjured except for some scraps and bruises. Obviously it shook him up and Nonsequitur who was behind him was ever more terrified of going fast.


The first run was just an orange square and we still all fell (I took a couple of spills). Well, I had certainly misspoke with my earlier boasting, but did this new challenge prevent me from trying a black diamond with Voldemort? Of course not, so the next time down the mountain we took a fuckin' intense trail. We both did pretty well as we are decently good at biking. You have to keep your speed up or the roots, rocks, and debris might knock you right over your handle bars. I am really glad I didn't do this with the whole group, or someone would have had to walk their bike down the hill (shameful) or die trying to keep up (not as shameful, but still something you want to avoid). Either way, there was only one real mix up for Voldemort and I. And that was Lilas Lair.

Lila's Lair was after the black diamond, and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves at this point. We hadn't fallen or killed ourselves and we did it without slowing down (I cannot stress enough how intense it was, so not slowing down was commendable). Lila's Lair was an off-shoot of the black diamond we had done and it is for free styling tricks etc. At one point there was a fork in the trail, and after discovering "Walk the Line" was the other road, we went back and decided to give it a try.

"Walk the Line" almost killed Voldemort and actually brought me close to pissing myself. There was a deep ditch maybe 6 or 7 feet deep and a 15 foot board that traversed the length of it. "Walk the Line" asked the rider just how committed he or she is to riding and whether he or she is talented enough to stay on a narrow little board. It tests your temerity and your skill on a bike. Voldemort road across it nicely the first time, but he wanted a picture, as he was going to come back over it. I got a picture as he was on the board, and the picture after he almost became hospitalized. He landed on the other side, but his bike fell off the board midway through and thankfully his momentum prevented what very well could have been paralysis. His camera did not have a memory card, so we didn't even get a picture of his fall. A fall into that ditch is, at the least, a broken bone. Not wanting to be a pussy, I tip toed across and got ready to meet my maker. I made it on my only real attempt, but just barely, and I am not ashamed to admit I was terrified as hell after what happened to Voldemort. That section being done, we thankfully road Lila's Lair down the rest of the mountain and I was convinced that I was the greatest first time rider that had ever road in Park City Utah.

The other three joined us at the bottom of the mountain about 30 minutes later (the black diamond was obviously a much faster ride), and we prepared to drink our night away as we recovered from the bumps and bruises that we had all accumulated. The moral of this story is that I am an idiot and a narcissistic turd that needs to get his ass knocked to the ground before I believe I can't do something. And I still fuckin' did it. HUZZAH. HUZZAH. HUZZAH.

The next day we chilled. We blazed, drank all day, barbecued, sat in the hot tub, and discussed the breasts on that rare US Gymnast whom has actually gone through puberty: Erica Sacramone or as we took to calling her: Thayters. The Olympics were going on, and besides Thayters, we scoped the sexily svelte volleyball players and Dubya's hilarious exchange when one of them offered her backside for a slap before the gold medal match commenced. His expression of confusion and titillation perfectly summarized his Presidency.

That night we went to a local concert. We brought some beer and were having a good time. At one point I went over to the side of the grass enclosure and started to smoke a cigarette. A man in his fifties walked up to me and offered me a toke on his pipe. EVERYONE IN PARKY CITY, UTAH SMOKES. And, everyone looks like me. I was offered pot on two other occasions besides this one. I loved it. I felt like I had met my people.

Now, after the concert we invited a couple of women back to the Chateau. Hilarity commenced as these girls were fun and we were playing some beer pong. Also, Mormon jokes started to occur because only in Utah is this really relevant since they are theoretically everywhere. Voldemort got his dick wet with one of these girls, and as the other one was waiting with us, she told me this great anecdote about being drunk. We were discussing jerking off when you are drunk, and she said: "Yea, well, I bet you I have the best story." I gestured for her to continue.

"Well, I was really fuckin' drunk a few months ago when I was dating the Mormon" (yea she dated a Mormon and told us some funny rules about fooling around with the Mormon--I will get back to this), "and I wanted to masturbate." I love women that are open about their masturbation. She continued, "well, I was so drunk, that as I was going down to touch myself, I accidentally stuck my finger right in my ass." HAHAHAHAHAHA We all broke down laughing. Needless to say, it was a funny fucking night. As far as Mormon fooling around rules: she dated him for a couple of months, and never once touched or saw his bare penis. She said she touched it on the outside of the pants and it was obvious he was aroused, but any time she tried to take it out, he would stop her. He was only allowed to get on the bed if he kept one foot firmly planted on the ground...sort of like billiards when you are taking a tricky shot. Mormons are fun to talk about, and those I have met, have always been good people, so take all the joking with a grain of salt.

Thursday afternoon, we went fly fishing. I thought I was pretty good, and again our instructors offered me pot, which I gladly accepted--we all did. Fly fishing is fishing for ADD people, so I took to it right away. You don't just cast your line and then slowly reel it in. You cast and follow it along the river at the proper slack so it doesn't get lodged on the bottom, but also so it doesn't miss the fish, who just sit there and let food come to them. I got the hang of the casting etc, but I only caught a couple of fish. Nonsequitur, Voldemort, Renews and Papawawa all caught more fish than I did, but I am too stubborn to say I wasn't the best technical fishermen who got some bad breaks. Anyway, it was a blast, and all of our three instructors were pot heads, hunters, ski bums, and bartenders with a load of stories about stupid tourists and what a great place Park City is. I never wanted to leave.

That night, we went into Park City and checked out a couple of bars. A cougar slut flirted with Voldemort, and then went back to the pool table to find someone else to validate her attractiveness. We got beer in these large shells of glasses that had some cute nick name or some shit. Then we went home and drank copious amounts of Whiskey and passed out. I would give more details, but I find myself repeating the same train of thought, and I am sure that anyone reading already knows I enjoy a beverage or two, as do my friends.


The next day we went to Olympic Park. This was the area where they held a lot of the luge, ski jump competitions during the 2002 Winter Games. It is still America's largest training ground for winter sports (they can train there year round). There was a lot of cool shit to do, but it was pretty expensive, so Renews and Voldemort and I decided to do the craziest shit they had and forget the rest. This required us to taking a quick training video, and then a hop onto a bobsled that goes about 70 mph and reaches g forces of 4-5 around turns. It was pretty intense. Your head gets snapped around so fast you can barely see what is happening. We got down in about a minute, and it felt like 15 seconds. All in all pretty cool. Supposedly they say you can go about 15 mph faster in the winter time and it is much more dangerous, so maybe I will make a return trip. I am hoping to do it in the winter time. Nonsequitur and Papawawa were having no part of of the Bobsled, but it was fun for the short amount of time we did it. I found out later they decided to take some pictures, which I am not allowed to post since our faces are included. We neglected the rest of the park's rides, since we had all done zip lines etc.

The last night in Park City Utah, we went out to eat at Prime Rib, spent oodles of money on Steak and Scotch, smoked a few cigars, went out to some more bars, and generally took full advantage of this hippy town that just might be my full time home when I am older. It's such a condensed hamlet of bars and shops and restaurants, that you just walk along main street and stuff finds you.

For instance, on the last night, we wandered into a bar called Spur Bar and Grill. We went in, and a Karaoke night was winding down. Everything was mahogany or faux mahogany (I can never tell), and there were a few cowboy hates. Most of the song selections were 80's hits with some classic rock thrown in, but nothing that made me want to get up and dance. CRD was in full affect for those that were dancing. Well, after a bunch of shots and a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon, I get the crazy idea that I want to sing some fuckin' Band songs. I am a Band addict, and I had been humming "The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down" all day, so I went up to the DJ and requested that song. He told me that he couldn't fit me in since they were about to wind down. I went back to your buddies dejected. Voldemort shook his head, and said: "I'll fix this." It seems he was also excited to perform a Band song. He tossed the DJ a $20 bill and as always when money is involved he consented and we were allowed to perform.

I hate Karaoke. Absolutely detest it because I think most people sing like shit, and end up butchering my favorite songs. Because of this, I was unprepared to get up on stage and perform in front of a pseudo packed house. I say pseudo because one half of the bar seemed to be a birthday party for a bunch of handicapped and mentally challenged people. I am not making this up, and I am not Tucker Max, so I will refrain from making some crack about it. I did dance with a nice lady in a wheel chair, which was different.

The whole time I was on stage singing, I kept sipping from my Bourbon because I was so parched, and I was losing my voice as I sang the chorus of the song. I was not good, but my two co-horts were. Voldemort and Nonsequitur knocked it out of the park. Nonsequitur was sharing a microphone with me and Voldemort was belting out his part with a flourish to the left of us. All in all, we rocked the shit out of that glorious song, and even got an ovation from the crowd (up till that point they had not been paying attention). It might have been because we knew the song so well, but I think we did a good job providing our own twist to the Spur Bar and Grill with our inclusion of the BAND.

We got home (the Chateau) shortly afterwards, rocked out with the speakers at full blast, partied yadda yadda, and fell asleep. The vacation was almost done, and we were ready to go back to the daily grind. I for one, would like to make it my permanent home, and not just because the pot flows like water and everyone looks like me. The whole attitude about the city is perfect for me and I look forward to going back and maybe staying for good next time.

Hiking in Utah

The first day I spent in Park City, Utah (downtown pictured above) did more to make me want to quit cigarettes than all the nagging, holier-than-thou friends and family have in the 8+ years I have been smoking those cute little cancer sticks. My friends and I flew into Salt Lake City on a Sunday, and that following Monday, after an inexorable time in the grocery store, we finally decided to see what all this trees and nature shit was about.

We headed up a trail with an ending 4 miles in the future called: Desolation Lake. I know that sounds portentous, and it was. The first stretch was a passage up the base of the mountain overlooking the road we came in on from our Chateau. You read that right, it was a Chateau with a hot tub, an indoor elevator, flat screen LCD screen television, and a speaker system that played in every room of the mansion, as well as the patio which held the hot tub. Many a morning in Utah I would be roused from my slumber by a Kanye West song that implored me to "WAKE UP!" Sorry about that tangent, but I thought I should give some context to the mention of the Chateau.

That first passage up the mountain gave me a good idea of who was going to be leading: namely, me or Voldemort. It's not that the other guys in our group (Renews, Nonsequitur and Papawawa) couldn't lead, they just didn't want to set the pace, and I am not sure they were physically able too, at least one of them, but I will get to that later. So, we set off up this first ravine and we were having a glorious time. I was short of breath, and so were my cronies, so we stopped every twenty minutes or so.

Every time we stopped, after some of the heavy panting had died down, we would crack jokes about what degenerates we were (polishing off a handle of Dewar's and 50 beers the night before did nothing to contradict this assessment). It seems that liquor, beer, fatty food and cigarettes combined with turtle and Brett does not help a person to physically prepare for a long hike. The sweat was already building on my cohorts shirts, and I utilized the zippers on my pants to turn them into a much more comfortable pair of shorts. Also, the t-shirt, which was increasingly becoming a nuisance when combined with my back sweat was ditched.

Even though we were all struggling, we noticed the incredible vistas of the valley as we climbed higher. Every few hundred yards the verdant brush would clear, and this awe-inspiring view would come into focus. You could see the entire valley and surrounding basin from certain spots and we were blown away by the austere nature of it. Most of the people who read this stupid blog probably spend much of their time surrounded by the hard concrete of urban life. You are better prepared for a skyline with undulating buildings and smog, but these views take your breath away both for the change in what you expect and the pure primitiveness of the land.

Now is probably the time some readers are chuckling to themselves thinking about my scrawny ass with smoke filled capillaries in the fuckin mountains of Utah breathing that pure fine air, with much less oxygen, but I tell you, your soul soars when you see things so wild, and for all the cynicism of the city, the mountains and trees and especially the wild flowers make you want to move out of the thunder of civilization. The pastoral beauty aside (I am preventing myself from quoting Wordsworth or Coleridge), you probably want to really know how we were holding up and what our ultimate destination was: Desolation Lake.

Most of us were enthused once we got to the half way point of the journey (I haven't even mentioned that we would have to hike all the way back after we got there). It was about 2 miles up when we came to the fork in the road, and choose the destination for Desolation Lake. There was still 2.4 miles to go. I know that some readers are going to be snickering to themselves again because 2.4 miles isn't very far especially after we only did 2 miles before that, and it's not like we're running. A few things made this 2.4 miles different:

1) The air being thin in mountainous Utah is not a joke. I was gasping for breathe the very first day as I ran to a peak to get a better view of the surrounding basin. That was only 20 yards and I am still an athlete, so it shocked me into the realization that it really is more difficult. The others in our group with limited physical endurance were doing just as bad, if not worse.

2) The hike was elevated. In the first 1.5 miles, we traversed close to 2000 feet vertically: going from 7,000 ft to 9,000 feet above sea level. The air got thinner and we kept trudging up that mountain.

3) After the first two miles, Papawawa was close to collapsing, so we had to wait for him (which in hindsight probably helped us because we could rest).

4) The last 2 miles of the hike to Desolation Lake saw an even more pronounced jump in elevation. At one point it was so steep we were slipping in the dirt path as we struggled to get over the embankment. Eventually, we had to leave Papawawa behind because he was laboring so much.

5) All of the people in this group are pronounced degenerates. I mentioned the whiskey we polished off the night before in the excitement of our fist night in Park City, but we drink like that all the time. I know A LOT of people who claim to enjoy drinking, but after spending a few nights with us, they generally lament any proclamations they made prior to. I am not saying this to brag because at this point in my life it's not something to be proud of, just a fact. Plus, only pussies count.

So, we finally make it (Papawawa wouldn't arrive for another fifteen or so minutes, but he did make it and he probably deserves more credit than all of us). Around that last bend, there is a trail that goes through a 200 yard meadow and then directly into the woods on the other side. We all looked on in dismay thinking we hadn't arrived yet. After considering the possibility that Desolation Lake did not exist at all, we decided to keep going and lo and behold it was to the right of the meadow's clearing.

Desolation Lake is full of glacier water. This means you can't really swim in it because it is so cold. The glaciers, as any history and biology buff will tell you, carved out the Rocky Mountains that cross into Utah. Aside from being cold, the glacial water is removed from pollutants (we only saw two hikers the whole time and like it's name stipulates, there was no one at the lake at all besides us). The water was incredible transparent, and even though the depths go so steeply down, you could still see the bottom a few feet out into the lake.

After our arduous journey, we took this opportunity to get really stoned, go swimming even though we were warned with a measly sign that we were not allowed (who was going to stop us?), and talked about what we were going to do in the coming week. It really was a beautiful place, heightened perhaps by all we went through to get there, but beautiful nonetheless. City people just don't get to see that type of environment, so it was really cool for all of us to take a dip and remark on what we would have been doing if we had stayed in our respective cities.

After an hour or so, as the sun was dipping out of our ken, we started the much easier dissent back down the mountain. This proved much more difficult than I thought. I actually enjoyed the hike up much more because coming down some of those steep declines was murder on my knees. We got back in less than half the time it took us to get up there, and all piled into the truck we rented. Getting back to the Chateau and soaking in the hot tub, just reinforced what an adventure we had been on and what a week was planned ahead.

Golden Girls

Two of the most important people in my life, two people I am most compatible with personality wise, watch Golden Girls. This astounds me. At the very beginnings of the theme song, “Thank you for being a friend…” or fuckin’ Blanch’s erotic innuendos piping out of the television like hydrochloric acid being poured into my ears, I throw up in my mouth. I have thought long and hard about taking a shit on the television when it comes on. Obviously, I would have to clean the shit up, and my girlfriend would think I was into LSD again, but it might actually be worth it just so I can expunge some of my concentrated evil all over that smiling tranny’s face: Bea Arthur. Who enjoys seeing geriatric women sitting around the home they share discussing sex and post-menopausal head aches? I am getting nauseous just writing about the crux of the show. Anybody under the age of 30 that claims to like this topic should either climb out of their John Irving novel, or just admit that they don’t really enjoy sex very much and look forward to the day they are incontinent and get to wear a diaper. Once I realized I have an unnatural loathing for Golden Girls and I did a self-appraisal, I came to a not so stunning conclusion: it was the nursing homes.

My mother was a nurse for the better part of her life. After twins and moving cross country and setting up residence in one of the gloomiest cities in America, her body finally just wore down. Her arthritis was so intense that she had to give up being a normal nurse. If you have ever spoken to a nurse or spent time around one (especially one of my mothers quality), you know they are unusually self-assured and confrontational and always think they are right (and much to my chagrin, they usually are). Not being a nurse was difficult. Well, she tried to be a home nurse that went around and took care of those elderly folk that couldn't’t care for themselves and couldn't’t afford a nursing home. If you know where I am from, a lot of the affordable housing for the elderly makes the east of Harlem look like a sanctuary. Constantly fearing for her safety, my mother quit that job and went back to school to get a Masters Degree in Therapeutic Recreation. After graduation, she went to work for the nursing home in the area. A couple of years later, when I used to get stoned around there and drink because it was somewhat secluded from cops, I realized the nursing home sat adjacent to a highly foot-trafficked place where gay men went to get their jollies off. We stopped boozing there a short time later and it only augmented my fear of the place.

Strangely, I was in a lot of trouble in high school (actually getting kicked out of my house at one point). I either had community service to fulfill because of a petty larceny charge, or my parents continuing exasperation over my behavior facilitated a trip to this...this...place of horror as punishment. Being a rather precocious reader, I was convinced that Joseph Conrad was taking a thinly veiled jab at nursing homes when he wrote that genius line from Kurtz’s deranged mind (or Marlon Brando if you prefer Coppola’s movie): “The horror…the horror.” The horror, with which I speak, is not the barbarism of the Congo, or Cambodia, no, the horror was death itself and that nursing home stunk of it.

When you first walk into a nursing home, there is an odor that is not unlike your Biology class on “Frog” day. The formaldehyde they store your frogs in seems to emanate from the very walls. It reminded my little cable-deprived mind of the hospital in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Obviously my teenage rebellion placed my poor mother as Nurse Ratched. The interior décor of the nursing home vacillated between a smattering of water color paintings with a lot of grey and brown hues and fluorescent lighting that made every strange liver spot on these people come alive like some horrible leper colony. Everyone’s mood was listless, and you were pre-conditioned to ignore the infirmed that walked like specters in the hallways. Why talk to a ghost?

My mom though, always said hello to everyone and brought our incredible dog Barney in who would lap their faces whether they had liver spots or not (just to show you what a prick I was at that age, I didn’t even like our dog). My mom treated these decrepit walking dead like human beings, which I guess they are...kind of. Just like a toddler that doesn’t know how to eat or speak or use his opposable thumbs is also still technically a human (insert abortion joke here) even though they resemble a half formed blob of tissue and bone. It really was commendable how my mom treated these zombies with enough decency that I knew I was being cruel. Any time you convince an adolescent they are being cruel, then you are doing a great job with them. My mom would lead these poor people in arts and crafts classes, dances (hysterical in their music selection), movie nights, Bingo and any other activity that doesn’t raise anyone’s heart rate much past 80. She took care of them and I respect her because of it, but I also think it has made my life a lot shorter. It has become a race.

Part of the reason Golden Girls makes me sick to my stomach and I compare nursing homes to the atavistic horror of colonial Africa is because all of these people are so...well...old. They are going to die soon, and there is nothing they can do about it. They have lived their prime years and maybe raised a family if they are lucky, and that’s that. That is the single worst thing I can think of. If, by miracle of miracles, I last to an age that would require the services of a nursing home, I would pull a Hemingway/Hunter couplet and blow my head off with a .44 Magnum. Not because it’s poetic or because my literary icons did it, but because nothing in life, not even death, is more terrible than the inability to care for yourself with nothing to look forward too.

Once, you are old enough to be on your own, and trust me kids, it’s the only good thing about getting older, but once that happens, for me, there is no going back. Likewise, once you hit the autumn of your life and the upwardly mobile line graph of your existences trajectory suddenly plateaus and then dips; your intellectual and physical capabilities degenerate until you are little more than a child again (some people call it "the circle of life"); well, that’s when you gotta make a choice.

Do you take the slow, tumultuous route where you cease recognizing your family? Become afraid all the time? Lose all of your peers and friends to the “the Big Sleep,” and worst yet, slowly lose the ability to wipe your own ass? Or, do you say “fuck it,” write one last stanza to a loved one? Read that one last poem or passage that brings you close to tears (I am sure there is a television show or some other shallow contemporary activity that is analogous)? Have one last meal (if your diminished olfactory sense hasn’t already robbed you of taste)? Then pull the fucking trigger without a moment’s hesitation?

I would always take the latter route, and maybe it’s why I hate the Golden Girls and nursing homes. They so obviously take the former. Fuck raging against the dying of the light, I’ve been doing that already.

“I have called for executioners, so that I shall perish chewing on their gun butts.”
--A Season in Hell, Once if my memory serves me well, Rimbaud

Yo Climax, whassup

Recently, one of the few people I work with, that I don't want to strangle, informed me he is leaving the company. He is an aspiring hip hop artist who has some real talent (please note that the author never recommends music on this site, so it must be good) Check out his web page.here Since some of my readers are mentally challenged here is the link in it's entirety: www.yoclimax.com Don't get thrown off by the slightly juvenile moniker. He really is talented. Also, he is doing a blog on his website about the release of his record: "A World Full of Mannequins." Support the man, and maybe he will let you get with some of his groupie leftovers.

holy shit

I am more tech challenged than a geriatric, or as nonsequitur likes to call them septugenarians, but I am blogging live from tequila jacks. I have a lot of negative comments about this fuckin' blackberry but for now I have to say it's pretty fuckin strange and cool at the same time.