Aunt Mary's All Alone

My dad's funeral was on a Saturday. I left work early the previous Monday when I got the phone call and spent the rest of the week in a daze. I obviously knew he was gone, but it didn't seem altogether real, that someone I knew for my whole life (and had known me even longer) had just been sort of disappeared from the earth.

I spent a lot of time on the couch, sort of halfway paying attention to movies we had watched together, texting and talking to family and friends, and trying to wrap my head around his death.

Before my dad died, I had planned to drive down to Gainesville for a Radon reunion show that weekend. While by my estimations I have seen about 46,000 Radon "reunion" or "original lineup" or "final" shows, it's always a good time, and it brings all the oldsters out of the woodwork so we can drink and sing and act the fool away from our responsibilities and set the clock back about 20 years or so to recharge our worn out batteries.

While I obviously wasn't going to go to Gainesville Saturday night, I decided to spend Thursday night in Tampa, catch Radon in Ybor City, then drive down to Bradenton the following morning.

I was a bit conflicted about this plan. Should I really be having fun so close to my dad's death? Sure, I could tell myself that dad would want me to have a good time, but that seemed sort of hollow and somewhat disrespectful. In the end, I decided that it would be good to have a little fun to step into normal life for a little while and to steel myself against the funeral. Sure, that was a pretty cheap rationalization, but it was what I was going with.

I had a great afternoon; sure, sadness lurked around the corners, but I hung around band practice, drank some beers and talked with great friends that I haven't seen in a while, some of whom had gone through losing a parent and offered whatever advice or sympathy they could.

Remember that band in college, that one who might not be technically proficient, and maybe the drummer would slow down halfway through the set, or the guitars might be out of tune, or the singer might forget a verse, but it didn't matter, because after a few songs you and your friends transformed into a single organism, jumping and singing and making the wooden floor creak and bend under your weight while you could transcend, just for a second, the day-to-day cares and frustrations and become one, unified mass of humanity? Well, Gainesville was (and still is) lousy with those bands, and I was counting on Radon to bring that feeling back for a few minutes that night.

And they didn't disappoint. I knew the song that was going to kill me. "Grandma's Cootie," a song about an aunt left alone by the death of her husband who takes a ride on a roller coaster and sees the beach from the top of the coaster.



They played it about halfway through the set, right before "Stepmother Earth," a song that always made me think about the complicated relationship between fathers and sons, even though there's not really anything specific to that reading in the song.

Tears welled as I sang along with old friends and strangers, but they were different somehow. They were sadness mixed with that feeling of transcendence along with a bit of happiness. I could almost grasp a theory about loss and death and the power of friendship and love, but the music and gin and tonics clouded my thinking and it remains just out of reach.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Most people freeze their musical tastes in their 20s, and while I have continued seeking out different genres and styles since then (just ask anyone who has had to endure my "Summertime Reggae/Ska/Rocksteady/Dub" playlist at a cookout), the music and friends I made in my 20s have a special place in my heart. You can use that feeling to live in the past and moan about how things aren't as exciting now as they were back then, or you can take a bit of that feeling now and then to jump start your heart, to realize that you are part of something, that you have friends and family who love you, and that no matter how shitty life can be at times, you will endure and thrive.

I'm not saying that that night cured me, I continued (and continue) to have bad moments and bad days. But it did help, and if the suits at the American Psychiatric Association will ever recognize my groundbreaking research into punk rock music as grief therapy, I feel many more people will be helped.

Go Gators!

The University of Florida's mascot is the noble and terrifying gator, which was picked because of the reptile's scariness and ferocity. As with most college towns, the mascot is everywhere - painted on the sides of stores, formed into mailboxes - if you can picture something, there's a gator on it, or in it, or holding it.

Which was fine by me, since alligators are cool and aesthetically pleasing. In fact, I had one staring at me every time I looked out my second floor window for a few months while living in Gainesville.

Years ago I was hanging out on the front porch with some friends and roommates. It was Gator Stompin' night. Gator Stompin' was a Gainesville pub crawl where you won a T-shirt and alcohol poisoning if you finished all the stops.

Our house was a block from University Avenue, so we'd get stragglers staggering by screaming out the official call of the drunk: "Whooooooo!" Naturally, we'd have to "Whooooooo!" back. You have to answer back. It's just good manners.

We passed some time on the porch, hanging out, watching drunks, and trying to figure out what we were going to do with the rest of our night. Then we hear a "Whooooooo!" louder than any "Whooooooo!" we had previously heard.

We saw a sprinting guy grasping a five foot fiberglass gator statue in his arms, Whoooooooing all through the night, running and clutching the gator like his life depended on it.

We had seen that alligator before. He stood at the entrance of a liquor store on University. We were happy that he got the chance to finally see the outside world, so we put a little more oomph in our return "Whooooooo!"

About a minute after that we saw two cops chasing the guy and his alligator. The night was getting a little more exciting.

The guy dropped his alligator during the chase. The cops yelled not to touch it. Fine by us.

Of course, as soon as the cops were gone, someone re-stole the gator and hid it.

About 15 minutes later, we see the guy running in the other direction, Whoooooooing through the night, a free man again. I seem to remember he had a pair of those twist tie handcuffs on, but that could just be dramatic license.

Brushing my teeth the next morning I looked out my second-floor window and saw the gator in his new home, nestled in a tree so he could look in on me and my roommate Scott, making sure we had adequate amounts of school spirit.

He stayed up in the tree for a few months. The landlord always thought we did it, but this was one of the few hijinx we were actually innocent of. One day he was gone, which was sort of sad. I had really gotten used to his reassuring grin.

Over the years, I would see that same statue in a variety of different stores in Gainesville, with a variety of different paintjobs. But I could tell it was him.

Oh, and the guy who stole the alligator in the first place? Well, the cops swore us to secrecy, but I can now reveal that he grew up to become one of our nation's finest vice presidents.

Tales of Rock and Roll Glory

A disclaimer: as with many of the stories here, I can not 100 percent verify the following tale's accuracy. I'm almost positive one of the band members told it to me right after the tour, but my age-ravaged memory could be making that up as well. I don't want to submit it to my usual thorough, hard-hitting investigative reporting, because I really like this story, and want to believe it is true.

Let's proceed.

Panthro United UK 13 were a Gainesville punk rock band in the late '90s/early '00s with a long name. They were awesome.

Jimmy the bass player had been growing a beard on one of their tours. One day out of boredom or funniness, he shaved it all off except for a mustache. The band pulled up to play a show at some little bar in the middle of nowhere. While the opening bands were playing, Jimmy sat silently alone at the bar with his mustache and some aviator glasses, drinking, and occasionally blurting out, "Don't look at me. I'm an undercover cop."

Now I might be a simple country lawyer, but I'm pretty sure most undercover cops don't usually yell out their status in bars.

Here's Jimmy in some snazzy blue pants. Picture by elawgrrl.com.

Most of the people at the bar/show were younger than the band, and they were starting to get seriously weirded out by this older mustache guy. They were pretty sure he wasn't really an undercover cop, but he was still being a big ol' mustached weirdo down there at the end of the bar.

Meanwhile, the rest of Panthro is getting ready to play. The kids are still eying Jimmy, wondering if they're gonna have to do something about this guy before the band starts. Finally, Jimmy finishes his drink, runs up to the stage, puts on his bass, turns around to face the bar, hits a chord, and the kids start gong nuts. Crazy undercover cop guy was a rocker!

I'd like to think that those kids learned a lesson that night. That maybe even the quiet square (or weirdo calling attention to him/herself) might be an undercover star, ready to rock faces off at a moment's notice.

Even if they didn't learn a lesson, they still got to see an undercover cop play bass.

EXTRA BONUS STORY!

Since I can't completely verify that story, here's another Jimmy story from an earlier tour with Don's Ex-Girlfriend and Highway 66 that is 100% true:

This tour was so long ago we used covered wagons to cross the country, and once we got to Chicago Jimmy was running out of money. We were in Chinatown and he's counting his remaining funds, and says, "Alright, I can't buy any more stupid stuff." Ten minutes later he bought a $15 T-shirt with a big smiling face of Andy Lau, with huge letters saying ANDY. Of course, the largest shirt they had was designed for a Chinese girl, so you could see his lungs working through the thing. He wore that shirt for years, and it was always awesome.

All We Are is Dust in the Wind

I'm not sure how I ended up getting a minor in anthropology.

Actually, I do. Back in pre-computer days you had to register for college classes manually. By the time the scribe etched out your schedule on your tablets, most of your day was gone. When I got to the front of the line, all the classes I wanted were full. So I ended up in anthropology.

I should have seen this coming -  the same thing happened on my first day of high school. I showed up with everyone else, but somehow my registration wasn't there. The principal said, "Well, it'll probably show up tomorrow. As of now, we have no record of you. Maybe you should just go back home." So I walked back home and missed my first day.

Hey, maybe I was the problem.

Anthropology wasn't too bad once I got over the fact that I wasn't going to minor in art history (where the real money was).  Except for Folk Medicine.

Folk Medicine was one of the classes I got stuck in because nothing else was open. The workload was insane - I still have a suspicion that I somehow ended up in a graduate class. There was a ton of reading, and none of it was what I thought it was going to be - helpful hints like, "to get rid of a cold, take half an onion and bury it at the crossroads at midnight while petting a black cat." No, instead, we read a lot of dry articles about epidemiology and other words I didn't understand.

There was a cool section of the class devoted to a disease spread through cannibalism,which kept me interested in between ...jeez, I don't remember anything else about that class, other than my thinking I was in way over my head.

Speaking of over my head, our final paper was supposed to be 30 pages. I had never written 30 pages before in my life. Just thinking about made me feel like I was supposed to turn in "Moby Dick" or "War and Peace."

Somehow I was able to do it. I have no idea what my topic was. Maybe something about cannibals or cavemen. I was pretty proud of myself. I mean, 30 pages? With an opening and ending and everything? There is no way I could pull that off today. As you've probably noticed, after like 6 paragraphs I get bored and trail off, post whatever I've done up to that point, and go to sleep.

This was also in the days of word processors, where you couldn't save your work. Well, you could, but not that much. Saving a 30 page paper at that point would have taken one of those huge NASA room-size computers, far beyond the processing capabilities of my Brother word processor.

I put the finishing touches on the paper while visiting my parents in Bradenton. It looked pretty impressive in the front seat as I drove back to Gainesville. I imagined I was a respected and famous author delivering his latest manuscript to his New York editors. "This is your best stuff yet," my sexy editor would say. "Let's celebrate by buying some new leather patches for your jacket for your Letterman appearance. Then we'll drink some martinis and have some sexy, literary sex."

But before that could happen, I had to stop in Tampa to buy records. I was still in the throes of a fairly serious record collection habit, and had to stop in Tampa every trip between Gainesville and Bradenton to get my fix.

I rolled down the windows as I pulled off the interstate, possibly in an effort to sniff out vinyl treats.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch weeks' worth of work fly out of my open window onto Fletcher Avenue. As I watched sheets of paper that I had worked on floating in the breeze like a parade, I had a sudden revelation.

Like Bill Murray taught us in Meatballs, "it just didn't matter." Sure, these pieces of paper represented hard work, but in the long run, what did it really mean? Would anyone remember how I did in some class I didn't care about years later? And why was I knocking myself out in school, anyway? Why not just relax for a few years - maybe I should mellow out and wander through America, having real experiences, exploring my feelings, and communicating deeply with other searching strangers.

Then I remembered that I don't like exploring my feelings or talking to strangers and realized I had to corral that term paper.

I screeched into a gas station and ran out into traffic, frantically trying to grab the floating papers.

I straightened everything out as best I could and tried to reassemble my masterwork. I was missing a handful of pages in the middle, and there was no way I could find them.

I stayed up all that night trying to recreate the linking pages from memory. It would have been easier if it were the beginning or the end where I could pad some stuff, but the middle was a lot harder to figure out.

I eventually came up with enough filler to finish my paper and ended up getting a C+. There were no marks on the paper. I'm not sure the professor even read it.

I don't think I've ever written anything that long since. I never got a sexy editor. You know how you'll have nightmares of being back in school and having to take a test you haven't prepared for? Every once in a while I'll have a dream I'm chasing those papers down Fletcher Avenue in Tampa.

Smashin' Trash

One of the apartments I lived in post-college had a dumpster about 15 feet from my door. This was awesome.

It was awesome because we didn't have to put our trash cans out in the street like regular chumps, we could hurl it into the dumpster from the porch like kings. With a regular load of trash, you'd sort of swing it in your arm a few times to get some centrifugal force going,* then watch it fall in an inspiring arc into the dumpster. And if some of the garbage didn't make it in to the dumpster, well, that was some garbage guy's problem. We tried.

Over the winter, my roommate and I instituted "Gin and Tonic Winter." This meant that we bought a huge bottle of Kash and Karry gin and made gin and tonics around a fire that we made by burning sticks and pallets, sometimes grilling hamburger patties that he liberated from his job at Burger King. It was classy and sophisticated.

One of my hazy memories from Gin and Tonic Winter was going around to every woman in attendance (which probably wasn't too many) and saying, "You wanna come inside and see my new widescreen TV?" To which my friend Pat would say, "Hey, you don't have a widescreen TV," to which I would respond with a comical "SHHHH!" This line/routine did not work.

Around this time, Gainesville had become a magnet for the homeless. Not regular down-on-their-luck, Brother-can-you-spare-a-dime homeless, but homeless wrapped up in countercultures. There was a big Rainbow Gathering in Ocala, and several of the Rainbowers stuck around Gainesville for a while, begging for change looking like a costumer took all the dirtiest elements from hippies and punks with a little bit of raver and threw them all together with a little Pigpen dust.

They never seemed to come around our gin and tonic bonfires, probably because the class and sophistication I spoke of earlier would have made them feel unwelcome.

The day after one of our parties I was cleaning up, gathering bottles and whatever other trash was left in the house. These were pre-recycling days. I took my first bag and started swinging. This thing was heavy, loaded up with who knows how many beer bottles, as well as our usual weekly trash. I got it swinging pretty high, but decided maybe I should just walk the 15 feet over to the dumpster and act like a normal person just this one time.

I walk over with my trash and hear a noise before I dump it in. Holding my breath against the garbage smell, I peek in. Looking up at me like Gollum was a dirty face-tattooed dumpster diver who narrowly missed getting brained with a ton of bottles.

I always checked the dumpster before throwing stuff off the porch after that.












*Honestly, I don't know if that is centrifugal force at all, but it sounded very sciencey and smart.

I Have Become the Worst Thing in Showbusiness. I Have Become a Ham.

Mid '90s: It's about 2 AM and I'm walking home from a sophisticated social engagement. It's a nice fall morning, and I'm slightly drunk, doing what will later be termed my "gay walk," which is sort of a lumbering, shuffling, pigeon-toed Frankenstein gait that comes out when I get drunk or really sleepy or tired of wandering through fabric stores.

Even though it's easy enough to get a ride home, it's always nice to sneak out alone from a party or show and walk home alone through the cool night air with my ears ringing, my head spinning, thinking up ideas and plans, feeling alive and young and at one with the universe, thinking that I've found exactly the place I need to be at, here in Gainesville, Florida.

I'm shuffling down the sidewalk a few blocks from my house. I'm thinking of a Radon or Spoke song and kicking stuff out of my way. "Out of my way, trash! I'm walking here! Out of my way, stupid can! Look at that big piece of burnt driftwood in the sidewalk. I'm gonna kick the hell out of you, just for being in my way, and because I'm young and drunk."

I connect with pretty good force, but the driftwood doesn't fly away. Instead, making a gross "thunk" sound. Hey, this isn't driftwood at all. And, come to think of it, why would there be driftwood in the middle of a sidewalk in Gainesville, miles from the ocean? Oh, this driftwood has teeth.

Holy crap, that was a burnt pig head.

I look at it, all black and burnt. I'm pretty sure it starts crying at me. I'm sort of grossed out, but also bewildered. Why would there be a burnt pig head in the middle of the sidewalk?

Early '00s: I spend early Christmas Day morning in my in-law's guest bathroom reenacting Evil Dead 2, at least the parts that deal with fluids exploding out of a sweaty, sleepy body. "It was the ham," I think. "That evil, evil ham."

The ham had been sitting out for a while the night before, and I thought that it should have been refrigerated. Guess I was right, but winning doesn't feel so good.

So if you invite me to your house and serve ham, I'll eat the leathery, salty, inferior-to-turkey meat. But I'll be thinking of sad burnt pig's heads and terrible Christmases.

The Day I Realized I Was Dumb

Years ago I would gather with my roommate Todd and our friend Pat to watch the human chessmatch that is professional wrestling. From the blatant rule-breaking of Ric "Nature Boy" Flair, to the high-flying acrobatics of Rey Mysterio, Jr., to the mush-mouthed commentary of Dusty Rhodes, to the terminally uptight antics of Lord Steven Regal with his hatred of American commoners, we would watch every weekend.

Lord Steven Regal. How could you not love this guy? Look at that sneer! And that monocle!

There was also The Laughing Man. He wore a leotard with question marks and would break out into insane laughter after he'd defeat someone. He might have thrown joker cards around his unconscious opponent, or I could be remembering that completely wrong.

The Laughing Man's "real" name was Hugh Morrus, so he'd be referred to as "Hugh Morrus, The Laughing Man." Todd and I thought he was some sort of Joker-like character, an insane man so warped that everything is funny to him - his opponent's pain, the booing audience; everything was one big cosmic joke to The Laughing Man.

One day as we heard him introduced as "Hugh Morrus, The Laughing Man," for about the thousandth time it finally hit both of us simultaneously. Hugh Morrus. HughMorrus. Humorous! It all made sense now!

I can't remember which one of us actually voiced our revelation to Pat, but I do remember him just sort of staring at us for a couple of seconds, as if we had actually short circuited his brain with our shared stupidity.

"You guys really didn't get that until now? Hugh Morrus?"

He seemed to ask the question more in astonishment than anything else.

I seem to remember him just walking out of our house in quiet disgust over his two friends' shared stupidity, but again, I could be remembering that completely wrong.

We both ripped up our Mensa applications right after that.

The Coldest Winter Ever

It can get cold in Florida. I realize I've already lost a good portion of you with that statement, but it's true. Most of the houses I've lived in were built before the invention of insulation and had spaces around the windows and doors that let in gusts of arctic air, so you really notice when the temperature gets low. We also don't have a lot of cold weather clothes. Well, maybe some people do. On my first trip to Chicago I had one glove that I would turn inside out and switch back and forth depending on which hand was cold, sort of like a hobo Michael Jackson.

I think I've mentioned my post-college nighttime heating system, where I had an ancient space heater with a duct taped cord propped on a milk crate and a board about an inch away from my feet. That was dangerous but highly effective, and it was like a greenhouse in the Amazon compared to the Storm of the Century.

What was the Storm of the Century? Well, every couple years the weather will get weird for a couple days and local newscasters will throw the label around as frantically as national news throws around  Trial of the Century or whatever-Gate. But the specific one I remember was in the early '90s, a wonderful and magical time.

I was driving the band Spoke around on a mini-Florida tour over Spring Break*. It was pretty fun. The last night of the tour was in Sarasota, close to my parent's home in Bradenton. The day before in Miami most of us had gotten really, really sunburned. I was also pretty fevery from some sort of sinus infection or the grippe or smallpox or something.

Naturally, it being a punk show, the starting time of 11 really meant closer to 2, and by the time Spoke was over, I was done. I was a man, and a dude, but I was going home to sleep in my own bed that night, instead of trying to doze off on some cat-stained couch while Misfits bootlegs blared in another room. The other guys could pick me up tomorrow.

It was raining pretty heavily as I drove home, and the sky was a strange glowing purple color, but I didn't care. I was shaking with chills and I was going to sleep in my actual bed.

After about three hours of sleep my dad woke me up.

"You've got to move your car." 

The river had risen in the early morning and had flooded my car. It was close to coming in the house, pretty remarkable since we were 3 houses down from the actual water.

So I moved my car to higher ground, then spent a few non-sleeping, sunburnt, feverish hours moving furniture and ...I dunno, sandbags? No, we probably didn't have sandbags.

Proof that everything written on this blog is 100 percent true and not exaggerated at all.

P

The band picked me up in the early afternoon. The rain had stopped for the most part, but we had to dodge limbs and street signs falling in the road, then we saw a car explode on the side of the interstate. It was some real Mad Max shit. I was still struck with the brain fever in the back seat with the drums and possibly a couple other people. I can't remember. I do remember a long tunnel with light at the end of it. My Aunt Tiny was talking to me. It was nice.

We finally made it home. While the storm spared Gainesville for the most part, it brought an unseasonable cold snap and managed to knock out the power in our neighborhood. Since they were in a band, the other guys had girls who would put them up and vanished, deserting me as quickly as I deserted them the night before. It was still Spring Break**, so there weren't that many people around.

In fact, out of the nine people who lived in our house, only Dave Frank, my next door neighbor, was around. With no electricity and no roommates, it was very quiet. And cold. Very, very cold. We could see our breath inside, something Floridians should never experience. The only source of heat we had was an old voodoo candle I bought in Ybor City years ago. Dave and I huddled around the flickering candle watching the sun slowly set, knowing we would soon be dead, sort of like the final scene in The Thing.


We were half thinking about gathering up whatever wooden items we had in our apartments and building a fire in the oven (which probably wasn't even in the top five of bad ideas that we came up with in the year that we lived in that house), but it seemed like too much work. Plus, my Aunt Tiny was telling me about a wonderful place where I'd see her and all my old pets again, so it was sort of hard to concentrate.


Actually, after a few hours Dave called some friends we knew in the dorms and we spent the night hanging out with girls and watching cable, but I swear we were only minutes away from leaving two frozen corpses for our roommates to find later and feel really bad about.







* SPRING BREAK!! WHOOOOOO!!!!!

** WHOOOOO!!!!!

Word Bird

My first professional job was writing press releases for UF. If you read a newspaper story in the early '90s that started "GAINESVILLE (AP) Researchers at the University of Florida have ...," there's a chance it was one of mine.

The job was great, even though I was only making about 5 bucks an hour and was never going to get hired full-time. I got to interview a lot of interesting people, heard some amazing stories, and it was a step into the professional world. For instance, I learned it was probably better to shave and wear a button-down shirt instead of a ratty Antiseen t-shirt when conducting interviews with department heads. Hey, I thought it was going to be a phone interview.

I would interview a professor, write up my story, run it past my editor, make corrections, then send it back to the interview subject for approval and more corrections. This was usually fairly simple. I did have a business professor tell me my story sucked once because I had the gall to interrupt his golden quotes with AP style ledes and summary paragraphs. I hope that guy got busted for insider trading.

But for the most part, the professors were cool - they wanted to get published and so did I. They would occasionally suggest different wording or phrases into quotes I had for them, which was fine.

One time an interview subject faxed back his story with the word "cornucopia" written beside a paragraph with an arrow pointing to where he thought it should go. I didn't remember him using the word in our interview, and my editor gave me a raised eyebrow when he saw it.

I spoke to the professor who replied, "Oh, I just try to fit the word cornucopia into everything I write. It's sort of a game."

Not being one to stop someone's fun, I told my editor, and the word survived.

When recalling that story a couple weeks ago, I wondered if I had a favorite word, something I try to cram into sentences or stories no matter if it fits or not. Sadly, I don't think I do, or if I do, it's nowhere near as cool as cornucopia. Then I remembered, I do have a list of words that I think are funny and/or awesome.

Off the top of my head, my top six would be:

Ghost - I just think they're funny.

Beast - Don't know why I like this word so much, but it sounds cool.

Treat - If you've been around me for more than a couple hours you've probably heard me use this. A treat (or tasty treat or treater) is generally some sort of food, but is more widely used to describe, well, anything good.

Creep/creepy - Pretty self-explanatory.

Ape - Who doesn't love the apes?

Boner - Heh.

You'll notice that with the exception of boner, they are all one syllable words. I'd like to think that is a remnant of my journalistic training, that I'm looking for sharp, fast, effective action words, but it's more likely just that I'm immature (heh, boner), and I have a poor vocabulary. I don't use these all the time, but appreciate them when they show up. Naturally, combining these words are even better, like a giant Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of language. Check it out: Ghost Ape.  Ghost Boner. OK, maybe just putting Ghost in front of anything is awesome.

Now that I have identified the greatest words of the English language (it's true - just remember Shakespeare's immortal "The Ghost of the Creepy Ape." Or maybe that was a Hardy Boys book), please use as many of these as you can when writing or conversing with me. It will ensure pleasant conversation and will mark you as a gentleman or lady.

Hee. "Ghost Boner."

The Power of Positive Drinking

It's been a bad month. For a variety of reasons I've been feeling like a failure both professionally and personally. I sleep like I'm on watch - sleep two hours and stay awake two, all through the night. The hours I'm awake I catalog a litany of mistakes and missteps and future problems that snowball until I either fall back asleep or wake up and trudge through another day.

So I've been getting out of town on the weekends, which has been pretty great. Went to Chapel Hill two weekends ago, which was amazing. Lots of beer drinking, man talk and pork eating in one of the greatest little cities I've ever been in. I don't understand why all of America isn't trying to move up there.

Gainesville, Florida was up next in my tour of our nation's finest college towns for this big music festival thing. I didn't really care too much about seeing the bands, I was mostly in it for another big Gainesville group meet up.

As both of my readers might remember, these tend to happen once a year or so, when a group of about 20 or so ex-Gainesvillians gather for a wedding or music festival or whatever. A few have them have also magically lined up when I've been in the middle of some tough times, and have managed to pick me up and recharge my batteries for at least a little while.

I'm not really comfortable around a lot of people. I tend to hide different aspects of my revolting personality around different groups, and I generally stay quiet, feeling that people wouldn't want to hear whatever I would say, so it was nice to be around a group where I could be completely comfortable. Judging from the memories that flash through, perhaps I was a little too comfortable.

And the weekend seems to have worked its magic. Three days and nights surrounded by some of my favorite people in the world, full of eating, drinking, music and laffs, which naturally, I didn't get a single photo of. Official photographer Leila Campisi did get some pretty awesome photos, including this one of me eating some money. It made sense at the time.


How am I still single?


You could say that this is all a bunch of middle-aged Big Chill-type nostalgia, and I might agree, except that none of us were really bringing up the past at all - we were focusing on what we were doing now, catching up with each other, that sort of thing. I don't mean to make this sound like some therapy session or something, I was frequently laughing so hard at some nonsense that I felt I had ruptured my appendix or something.

As loaded as I was through the weekend I still had trouble sleeping until Saturday night. I slept like a log and woke up at 7:30 feeling more refreshed than I had in a long time. I went ahead and packed up and drove back to Jacksonville, feeling...I dunno, peaceful somehow, knowing that all my problems (which would be ridiculous to 90 percent of the world) can be dealt with or ignored. The sun was still rising and looked beautiful, every song that came up on the ipod sounded amazing, and I was on the road.

Sure, I might be a single middle aged guy who is frequently broke and has a lack of both marketable talents and social skills, but I've able to pick some goddamn amazing friends, and I'll be able to take whatever life dishes out, as long as I can keep in touch with them to remind me that I'm not as weird and out of place as I sometimes think I am.

And I can still eat the hell out of some money.

A New Record!

Went to a record show down in Gainesville yesterday, mostly just for something to do. I only have a few records left. My turntable has lived in the top of my closet for about 6 years now. I am a terrible hipster.

Years ago I was faced with the problem of how to save 6 crates of vinyl from Mother Nature during a hurricane evacuation. Realizing they wouldn't all fit in the Civic with two cats, a wife, a computer and several essential bins of fabric and beads, I realized that maybe I didn't really need all that stuff after all, and started replacing most of my collection on CD, which took up a hell of a lot less space.

But it was still fun digging through the crates on a Sunday on the grounds of the old Hardback Cafe, even if I had to endure what my friend Pat dubbed scenester smell. "It's all full of sweated out cheap beer and cigarettes and unwashed armpits," was pretty close to his exact quote. I should have written it down.

I hit up the dollar and 2 dollar records for some wall decoration for my still barely furnished bachelor pad and managed to score a nice looking For A Few Dollars More soundtrack, The Impressions' Gone Away, which I might actually have to try to listen to, and some some exotica record with an evil nekkid Hawiian lady throwing bowls of fire at you:



Pretty boss, huh?

Cynics might wonder why I expended precious fossil fuels and my free time to spend a handful of money on stuff that I don't really have a use for. Well, if I hadn't, you never would have seen this:



Poor sad clown. I know the feeling.




I have no idea what this is, other than the possible inspiration for Fishbone's awesome Christmas carol "Slick Nick, You Devil, You," but I expect it will remain an integral part of my Christmas displays for years to come.

Straight as Arrows

Some night back in the late '90s I was walking with my friend Pat back to his apartment after buying a bunch of beer at Gator Beverage to get the evening started. Many nights started like this - drinking beer and listening to records, then heading out to find adventure at the Hardback or at a party or whatever.

We walked behind Checkers, probably discussing the merits of the Effigies or why there was a Surf 2 when there was never a Surf 1, and why didn't someone release Surf 2 on VHS yet, anyway (I told you it was the late '90s)?

At some point during our conversation 2 or 3 big gangsta guys approached us.

"Are you straight?"

This took us by surprise.

"What?"

"Are you straight? Do you like women?"

"Uh...yeah."

"OK."

Question answered, we walked the remaining way to Pat's apartment where I drooled over his record collection and we drank our beer.

Later I wondered what that was all about. No follow-up questions? They just took our word? What would have happened if we said no? Would we have had dates for the evening? If we were gay, couldn't we have just lied? These were all worthy questions, but ones I have never successfully come up with answers to.

Working Men are Pissed

I can't believe I wrote a whole story on crappy jobs and neglected my Kash & Karry experience.

My roommate Todd and I were in our late 20s. I had just moved back from Atlanta and was writing press releases for UF in the morning, then delivering campus mail in the afternoon. Neither job would hire me full-time, which is understandable, since my job habits were fairly relaxed at the time. As long as I turned in a story a week for my first job, I was good, and I could usually do that with little or no problem. As for the campus mail job, I had a 3 hour shift, and could usually complete my deliveries in 20 minutes. The rest of the time I generally held court in my friend Pat's record store, or drove around in the minivan running errands or listening to tapes. I helped a lot of people move in that minivan.

Todd and I were always on the lookout for extra money to finance our record buying habit and had somehow heard there were opportunities awaiting us at the Kash & Karry deli. Not only would this job enable us to buy our hold bags currently being held at the record stores throughout Gainesville, but we'd also be able to indulge in our passion for free food.

Visions of Scooby-Doo sandwiches in our head, we applied and heard back within days.

A manager lady took us upstairs and made us watch training videos. I'm almost certain one had a clown who fell down a lot to teach us about safety. I thought it was weird that all her comments were about bagging groceries and not quizzes on delicious deli meats and cheeses, but I assumed someone else would teach us about that later.

We were told to always take customers' "buggies" out to their cars unless they strongly objected. As an example, Manager Lady adopted a gruff tone and said, "I'll take 'em out myself, what do you think I am, some kinda queer." We quoted this for years.

After we passed our training, we were dumped by the registers and told to start bagging groceries.

"But we were promised the deli," I wanted to squeak.

Bagging. That was the first real job I ever had, and over 10 years later I was back to asking people for their paper or plastic preference while my college degree sat at home in a cardboard mailing tube. Taking the buggies out to the parking lot, I was sure I would run into a professor I had interviewed earlier in the week.

"Well, he said he was writing for the press services, but I'm almost positive I saw him at Kash & Karry."

My next shift was Halloween night. I would work from 11 PM til 7 AM. At least I'd be spared the embarassment of running into anyone.

We went to a party where we were dressed, rather awesomely, I'd like to think, as Devo. I had to leave early, change out of my cool-looking Devo suit and start my 11shift.

When I got to the store, I was given a razor blade on a 5 foot pole. My task was to walk up and down every isle and scrape the gum and ground in crap off the floor so they could be mopped later on that week.

I scraped throughout the night, a mixture of self-pity and hatred fueling me. Every few hours costumed college students would come through buying beer to keep their fun times going.

"Oh look. There's a sexy nurse, a slutty Dracula and a hot kitty cat. I wonder if they need a guy with an apron and razor blade pole to complete their gang."

By 1:30 my mood had soured considerably.

"More beer. Yeah, that's just what you need. What sort of half-assed costume is that anyway? Better have all your fun now, because you'll be joining me on the night shift in a few years."

Walking out to my car at 7AM, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, my hands were withered into arthritic stumps after scraping and mopping, and I knew I had to quit.

Todd was fine with quitting, and we returned our aprons to Manager Lady that afternoon, who wouldn't even look at us.

We kept our nametags with the names "Shits McCray" and "Balls" ...something or other on a privileged spot on the refrigerator for the rest of the year. Later we would add our second checks from Kash & Karry Co, two checks for 65 cents and 78 cents.

Festival Seating

So there's this Gainesville Fest thing. A bunch of bands play all weekend long. I've usually heard of like three of them. But I made it down this year. Sort of. Due to employee emergencies, I couldn't take the weekend off, so I could only make it down for the Thursday before to see Panthro UK United 13 play. They were awesome.

So anyway, this Fest is a pretty big deal; people fluff their beards and buff their star tattoos for months in anticipation. I gotta say, I was a bit apprehensive. My girlfriend (yes, girlfriend. You don't know her, she's from Canada.) drove down there, and I was sort of worried that seeing me around a bunch of my old, drunk friends might make her reconsider the whole thing. But I guess I passed. One of her observations: "Guys sure hug here a lot."

So the whole night/morning was pretty fun, but you know how I know I'm getting old? No, I was right up front for the band, I might be old, but I'm not a wuss. I know I'm getting old because here are some of the conversations I remember:

A pretty boss sale at J.C. Penney - two for one Dockers!

Different ways to write up/discipline problem employees

Astonishment that it was after 11 on a Thursday and we were all awake and out of our houses.

Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

My roommate Todd and I were hanging out at our friend Keith's apartment one night around '95 or so. We were all supposed to head down to the Hardback for some show that, from what I can remember, none of us were really that psyched about, but there was always the possibility of adventure, and we were getting in free so what the hell? Plus, after working at my friend's store earlier that day I had an extra 20 bucks that was ready to be converted into fun.

We drug our heels leaving Keith's apartment, reluctant to leave whatever kung fu or weird video he was playing for us at the time, but it was close to midnight, so we started our walk.

We usually walked down 2nd avenue. At least I think it was 2nd avenue. Whatever street the Covered Dish was on. We had all walked down 2nd to the Hardback a million times, in groups, alone, whatever. Yeah, it probably wasn't the safest thing to do, but nobody ever had a problem, so we didn't think anything of it. Even those of us with cars rarely thought of driving down there. In fact, I loved walking home from the Hardback on a nice night, my drunken footsteps clomping down the street like Frankenstein while I sang to the sleepy city (I distinctly remember "Kids Don't Follow" by the Replacements) on the way home to eat half a pizza, play some records too loud and pass out. Many was the time I would sneak out early to walk home like this, enjoying being young and drunk, my ears still ringing from Spoke or Radon or Don's Ex Girlfriend or whoever I saw that night, happy and content from the night's fun.

This night we were walking one street over. It was dark.
Periodically, one of us would mention that we should probably get on 2nd, which had traffic and streetlights and stuff. The other two would agree, but for whatever reason, we kept walking.

I was telling this amusing story about this panhandler trying to get on my good side by asking about Barney Fife when two guys jumped out of a side street. The guy in front pointed a gun at us.

"Get on the ground, motherfuckers."

I suppose this is one of those moments where your life passes before your eyes, but I felt strangely detached, like I was watching the whole thing on a movie screen or something. I was obviously terrified, but still felt strangely calm about the whole armed robbery thing.

"Throw your wallets on the sidewalk."

We emptied our pockets and threw them on the sidewalk in front of us. Somehow in the confusion I was able to keep my wallet, but did throw my 20 dollar bill on the sidewalk. This would end up being a major chunk of our muggers' bank, since Todd and Keith had like 2 or 3 bucks apiece and some maxed out credit cards between them.

"Count to 10. You get up before 10 and you're dead."

I'm not sure if we counted all the way up to 10 or not. I do remember Todd and I were so broke, even pre-robbery, that we scrambled for the change we left on the sidewalk.
When we got to the Hardback, everyone was buying us beer and pretty girls were telling us how glad they were we weren't dead and hugging us.

I could tell Todd and I were both thinking of a way to keep these good feelings going. How suspicious would it be if we said we got robbed next weekend?
The next morning, as I put on my shoes for the Walk of Shame back home, my hands started shaking.

"Holy shit. I could have been shot last night. Or I could have seen one of my friends shot." I wouldn't really say it was a panic attack or anything, but I remember being almost paralyzed with...fright? Delayed reaction? Who knows. These feelings would fade later that afternoon and be replaced by all the Jackie Chan moves I should have inflicted on our muggers.

"You wanna mug us,? You're not so tough now that I kicked that gun out of your hand, huh? Now hand over your wallets."

We had filled out a police report and everything, so we went down to the police station later that week and got to look through folders of mug shots. It was obvious we wouldn't recognize the guys, and we ended up laughing at the mug shots after like the third folder. Our favorites were the people that were smiling proudly like it was a school photo or something.

So remember, stay on well-lit streets, and if you really don't want to go somewhere, sometimes its better not to go.

Gainesville Commercial Help

While pulling weeds in the backyard yesterday, I had a commercial stuck in my head on repeat. I haven't had occasion to recall this commercial in years, and I actually managed to stump Google with it. It used to run in Gainesville on Fox, one of the 3 channels I got (the other 2 being PBS and The Box, where you'd vote on the videos that played; "Pop That Coochie" had something like a 3 month winning streak that year).

So there's this guy walking through a parking lot full of mobile homes. He's giving out prices and whatnot and telling you how awesome his lot is. At the end of the commercial he looks straight into the camera and points. Then, in a tone I'm remembering as a little more angry than determined, says, "I still wanna sell you a mobile home." Some of you might remember it as the ending of the Radon song "Chinese Rednecks," and it is entirely possible that I'm basing my memory of the guy's phrasing from Brent's version.

I'm also picturing the guy as looking sort of like an evil Kenny Rogers, which might not be right at all, but it makes me happy.