The Beast in Me

Occasionally while employing ancient Himalayan meditation techniques to probe the deepest recesses of my psyche to recall some funniness I can write up so you'll have something to use to waste time at work, I am struck by two blinding revelations.

One, I can write a mean run-on sentence.

And two, I was a terrible, shitty person during my adolescence.

I can take solace in the fact that most adolescents are terrible people, and for the most part, I didn't really hurt anyone.

Also, I am now a responsible adult, a pillar of the community, and generally follow society's rules, even the stupider ones, and I feel my many years of law-abiding have overshadowed my crappy past.

But sometimes, like Nicolas Cage driving out of his way to gaze at convenience stores in Raising Arizona, I can sense the devil whispering on my shoulder, reminding me just how much fun it felt to commit stupid, pointless acts of badness.

Sure, there's the everyday daydream that you know you'd never actually do in a million years, like when you think about just how easy it would be to slip that bored security guard's gun out of  his holster and drive away with the bank truck parked in front of the grocery store and start a new life somewhere.

No, the recurring bad daydreams I have are more mundane but more easily realized if I don't rigorously guard my behavior. Most of these occur while driving, mostly because like Gary Numan, I feel safe in my car, and I know I can make a quick getaway after my funny.

Like if I'm driving somewhere, sort of bored and not really paying attention to the music or podcasts I'm playing, I think how hilarious it would be just to start flipping people off.

"Hey, check out that dude in the Affliction shirt and ugly tattoos waiting for a bus. I'll bet he'd lose his shit if I just gave him a big ol' grin and a bird."

"I wonder what would happen if I just stared at the person in the car next to me til they were forced to look over and I just busted out with a musical Little Richard-esque "Whooooooo" and upraised middle finger."

Or I'll look at a bag of trash in the seat next to me and ponder how funny it would be if I just opened the window and threw it all out behind me on the highway instead of taking it home to my trash can like a responsible citizen. Sure, I'd make a noble Native American shed a tear, but for some reason, just the thought of a bunch of trash bouncing down the highway starts cracking me up.

And yes, I realize that now I'm a square middle-aged man, all my crazy, rebellious fantasies deal with junior-league stuff like littering and flipping people off, but what do you expect? I'm reformed.

Here in My Car

I do a lot of outreach as part of my job. It's actually pretty fun. I go to health fairs and retirement homes and senior centers and tell people about the talking books program and whatever events we're doing that month.

I also do a radio show every Tuesday morning. It's only for blind people who have a special receiver, so it's not like any of my friends can hear me, which sort of sucks, but it does give me a funny little chip on my shoulder I never tire of using.

I'll stop to talk to a co-worker for a while on my way out to the radio station. Then I get to end the conversation by saying something like, "Well, that's nice, but I'm going to go read to blind people. I'm sure what you're doing is important, too."

I don't get invited to many work parties any more.

Even cooler than the fact that I get to read to blind people on the radio, and thus get assured a place in Heaven, I get to use the city car at least once a week.

Walking through the parking garage looking for my assigned car, I feel like James Bond, if James Bond had to drive a Ford Taurus station wagon.

I drive the car so much that it's usually in the same space every time I go to get it; in fact, I get sort of pissed if someone else has used it in between trips and has moved it or adjusted the seat or mirrors. "This is MY assigned secret agent car! Don't be messing with my ejector seats!"

Years ago I had a work-study job where I delivered campus mail in a minivan. It was a three hour job that I had figured out how to do in about 20 minutes. I'd use the remaining time to take the minivan to the record store, help people move, or sometimes just drive home for a much-needed nap.

I don't do that with the city car, because now I am old and responsible and afraid of getting in trouble. They would probably take away my license to kill, and I can't have that at my age.

So I drive the speed limit, obey all the traffic laws and use my turn signals (hey, I'm not an animal), and secretly pretend I'm on a mission to track down a turncoat government agent. Sure, it's childish and kinda stupid, but I think I've sort of earned that right.

After all, I read to blind people.

Photo Finish

A bright light flashed in front of my eyes for a few seconds.

"One more."

I was at the DMV renewing my license about 10 years ago.  This was my fourth attempt at the photo. The first three hadn't gone too well.

"Your eyes are still closed. This is the last one, OK? No matter what happens, this one is the one we're going with."

I am not what you'd call photogenic. I'll see group pictures and think, "She looks like she usually does, and he looks like he usually does, but what is wrong with me? I don't look like that all the time, right? I mean, I look in the mirror and I look OK, sort of dashing and rugged, actually. How do I end up looking like a combination of Tom Arnold and Nathan Lane in photographs?"

So I was used to bad pictures. I don't know how many people throughout my life had said, "Why did you have to make that face in the photo," when I didn't have the heart to tell them that that was actually my normal face.

"OK, keep your eyes open this time. On three. One. Two. Three."

Flash!

At this particular DMV there was a screen where the workers would see the photograph as it was being processed behind the counter. I'm standing there, blinking the sunspots out of my eyes when I hear the entire staff start laughing.

That's never a good sign.

"Here's your license, Mr. Adams," the woman behind the counter said with barely controlled laughter.

I looked at it, expecting the worst.

I wasn't let down. I was so afraid of closing my eyes, that I kept them open as wide as possible. I resembled an excited Mr. Furley with about 30 extra pounds.

My driver's license from 2000

It worked, I guess. Cops always did a double take when pulling me over, and it was always a winner whenever a group was playing "check out my terrible license photo." I really should have scanned it, but when I got it updated a few years back they gave me a new photo, one where I looked like a Russian mobster.

I just got a replacement license this morning after losing my wallet in Bradenton over Christmas. The photo is OK, but I do miss the power of having a driver's license photo that cracked up a whole office of hardened DMV workers, even after the thousands of terrible photos they had seen.

After five attempts at a photo this time, the woman behind the counter said, "Well, at least you have a better picture than your last one."

If she only knew.

Help Me, Loyal Readers. You're My Only Hope.

You know when you get a song stuck in your head? How it keeps playing over and over again, ricocheting through your grey matter like a pinball? Well, the past week or so, I've had a story rattling around in my head. Normal people get that, right?

This happens fairly often. I'll be riding into work or mowing the yard or running and a phrase or story will appear out of nowhere. It is then my job to write it up until I get bored, embellish it with some jokes I probably stole from old Simpsons episodes, get sleepy or distracted and not write an ending, hit 'publish,' and cringe over the typos the next day.

This story, however, is haunting me because it doesn't have an ending. Even more so than all my other stories.

Somehow I vaguely remember a story from high school (I think) about someone, either a cool, older student or a celebrity who replaced the windshield washer fluid in his car with Jack Daniels.

This has been bugging me.

I narrowed the celebrities down to Burt Reynolds or David Lee Roth, but that's probably because those are about the only two celebrities I think about.

As the people I have decided to share this tale with have pointed out, I have no idea why you would want to do such a thing. Why would you want whiskey all over your windshield, instead of in a handy carrying case, like say, a bottle or glass? Wouldn't your car smell like alcohol all the time, resulting in more hassles from The Man? You couldn't even use the fluid to refresh your drink unless you got out of your car and were standing on the sidewalk or garage or something.

So obviously, I'm fairly sure this story is fake, but it still haunts me like a ghost. An alcoholic ghost doing that David Lee Roth "Heeeeey-yaaaah" scream. Or possibly that Burt Reynolds' laugh.

I thought it might have been in one of the crappy movies I've seen, possibly something with the word Moonshine in the title, but I don't think so. An exhaustive* internet search has pulled up nothing. So was this a high school urban legend? Did I dream it? If anyone has ever heard this story before, I'm begging all both of you to let me know.



*Exhaustive search = One Google search that took 0.55 seconds yielding no answers.

Highway Star

Like many of you, I can do some embarrassing stuff in the privacy of my car. Singing, talking to myself, air drumming, you name it. Unlike the majority of you, however, I have fancy tinted windows, so you can not see what I'm doing.

I packed up the bike on New Year's to go to the Baldwin Trail. I usually ride the bike down there since it's an easy way to add another 12 miles to my ride, but my tires are worn down pretty smooth and I didn't feel like getting a flat on the way there in the crappy industrial part of town.

I usually go in the early morning but I screwed around until late afternoon, and was lazily packing the car with all the stuff I'd need. I'd leave the trunk open and go find my water bottles, leave a back door open while hunting down something else, just a lazy, footdragging load in.

I finally started driving. I kept hearing a noise in the back, but figured it was just the bike shifting. It did sound a little more organic than that, but it was probably just some crap I left in the floorboard shifting or something.

I couldn't really be bothered with backseat noise, because I was playing a live Thin Lizzy album really loud, and if Homer Simpson has taught us anything,it's that rock music achieved perfection in 1974.

Now, If I'm alone, I'm not going to just wussily hum or nod my head, I'm gonna sing the crap out of some stuff. I'll pull out the guitar face, the pelvic thrust, the pointed finger coming off the guitar riff, anything to give my imaginary audience a thrill. And the audience was loving it. I mean, it was "Cowboy Song,", a song scientifically determined to increase rocking by 75%.

I stopped at a light, and continued to give my imaginary audience 110 percent. Right before the light turned green, as I caught the eye of a particularly fetching audience member in the front row, I felt something heavy and needle-y fall into my lap. The concert was over. I jumped out of my seat, somehow keeping my foot on the brake.

When I had the doors open, my ancient cat had climbed in and fallen asleep in the backseat. He had managed to sleep through quite a bit of noise, but eventually my rocking had caused him to jump up and join the party.

I don't really give a crap about people catching me singing in the car, but catching me singing in tight biking clothes with a cat on my lap while letting out a girlish scream was just too much. I turned around, let the cat out at my house, then continued back to the trail. I played the music lower on this trip.

Drivin' and Cryin'

I used to be someone. I had promise. I had a Porsche. No, seriously, I owned a Porsche for about a year. Actually, I guess technically my ex-wife did.

My dad had a hobby of buying old cars and restoring them. He'd be driving around and see a wreck with a for sale sign on it or start talking to a guy at a yard sale and end up buying a car and then spending months fixing it up. How he did this on a teacher's salary, I have no idea. All the way from a Model A to an MG like the one he used to have as a swinging single to a 1981 Porsche 924, he'd be obsessed for a while, then move on to another car.

About the time my ex-wife and I were first married, he had finished restoring the Porsche enough that he could drive it to work occasionally or drive it around the neighborhood now and then. We were down in Bradenton for something and he offered it to her as sort of an extra wedding present.

Well hell, who were we to turn down a free Porsche? I think we had just gotten rid of her car, a Geo that was on its last legs, or maybe we got rid of it after the Porsche offer. Who cares! We had one reliable car and a piece of German engineering, something that was befitting of our new life as one of Jacksonville's power couples. And it was a convertible, too!

I soon discovered there was a big difference between driving the car two or three miles every other day and depending on it to safely transport your wife to her job about a half hour away, especially in the days before cell phones. Well, at least before we had cell phones.

Here is a transcription from memory of about 87 calls I would get pretty frequently:

"Hey, I'm at Publix. The car just stopped. I can't get it started. I hate this car."

I can't even remember all the mechanical problems that car had. We were brand new in Jacksonville with no friends and had no idea which mechanic to trust. We called around but the only place that would take it was an import place, and because of the age of the car, they couldn't find parts half the time.

I did like the smell of the car's interior, though. It had the same smell those old VW convertibles used to give off - a mix of plastic that suggested the action figures I had as a kid, as well as a fresh bag of plastic fishing worms or brand new cassette tapes, mixed with just a hint of gasoline fumes.

Oh yeah, those gasoline fumes were probably bad.

That car was a major source of friction in the early days of our marriage. It didn't help my relationship with my parents, either. If I mentioned the problems we were having with it, I could feel my dad getting more and more upset. I mean, shit, he gave us a free car, you know? And his ungrateful son was complaining about it all the damn time.

I had (and still have) a tendency to grasp onto the smallest pebble of a problem and through a combination of worrying and anxiety, transform it into a house-sized boulder that crushes me down until I can't sleep or do anything but worry about the most ridiculous possible outcome. So when there's a real problem, say a car that we've dumped over $3000 into that we didn't really have, I've already planned my future in the poor people's nursing home, where I'm mistreated by hateful minimum-wage immigrants while my friends are enjoying their mansions and yachts, while they mention every once in a while between bites of caviar, "Hey, I wonder whatever happened to Scott? Eh. I'm sure he's alright. More champagne, Jeeves."

I don't remember when we finally decided to cut our losses. It might have been after we figured out how much we had spent on repairs. It might have been after we finally couldn't afford to fix it any more. I remember it sat in our apartment's driveway for a long time. I'd look down at it occasionally, sitting down there mocking me.

We finally ended up donating it to some charity, something I only though rich people did. Like I said, we ended up paying over 3 grand in repairs over the life of the car. Sure, it would have been smarter to take that money and use it as a down payment for another car, but it's not like we ever had all that money at one time.

We were a one-car family for a long time after that. That had its own set of problems and stresses, but at least I didn't think my wife was going to die every time she went to work, and even waiting for the bus for over an hour was much less stressful than waiting to hear from another mechanic as our checking account took another hit.

So if anyone ever offers you a free sports car, run far, far away.

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Got me a new car this week. My old Civic was closing in on 240,000 miles and had a number of small problems that I had adjusted to over the years. The air conditioner made a noise like a lawn mower plowing through a field of rocks if you put it on the two settings that (sort of) worked. It had started to leak oil. If I didn't put water in it every week, it would come close to overheating when idling for over a minute or two. This weird indoor snow was coming off the sun-destroyed visor.

Still, we had a past, and it took me much longer than I should have to let it go. Mostly because I am cheap, lazy, afraid of change and have an intense hatred of people trying to sell me things.

I got the car back in 1998 as a signing bonus for getting married and finishing grad school. It was the first new car I have ever owned, and probably ever will own. It survived 6 months of daily commuting back and forth from Gainesville to Jacksonville, a whole bunch of long trips, a failed theft attempt, a couple of moves, a hurricane evacuation, and dozens of neighborhood cats sleeping and peeing on it. All the dings and problems with it were all mine. This new car, who knows what the pervert who owned it before me was doing in there?

I actually found maps from my honeymoon in the glove compartment, which was pretty sad, both as a reminder that I have a failed marriage to my name, and as a reminder that I haven't been bothered to clean out the glove compartment since owning the car.

The new car is pretty nice, another Civic I can run into the ground (I'm not giving out too many details. I don't want you internet freaks tracking me down). It's very strange to be driving something so quiet; something where I'm not constantly looking out for the next smell or sound or light telling me something's gone wrong.

The buying experience went much better than I feared since the salesman was brand-new and hadn't been fully indoctrinated into salesman mode. I was able to knock close to 2 grand off the price, which is funny, since I'm a worse negotiator than President Obama. Usually halfway through I realize I'm playing a game, the salesperson is playing a game, we both know it, and it just seems sort of stupid, so tell me what to pay and let me leave. But I was able to channel my dad and it worked. My dad could get deals on like, stereos and stuff just by asking, "So how much is this really?" Whenever I tried that, I'd just get embarrassed and write a check for an extra 50 bucks just to apologize for taking up the salesperson's time and subjecting him to my pathetic bargaining attempts.

I also liked when the salesman asked me to pick a radio station and I turned it to NPR, then switched over to Jones College Radio. I could feel him getting all flummoxed next to me but not wanting to say anything that would possibly blow the sale.

So I'm pretty happy, I suppose, and this new car will slowly take on a character. This new car also means I can't use my unreliable transportation as an excuse not to get out of Jacksonville any more, but luckily cheapness, laziness and comfort of being stuck in a rut will work just fine.

Dear Lady in the Black Accord

First off, that red thing a block ago? That was a stop sign. You were supposed to apply the brakes.

Secondly, in America, when making a turn, we generally only use one of the two lanes in the road (i.e., not the one that might contain another car or bicyclist on his way to work). I'd go into how easy it is to make a turn signal in today's modern car, but I've given up on that. The savages have won.

You did look very happy talking on your phone, but did you ever stop to consider the person on the other end? Do they really want to listen to your bullshit at 8:15 in the morning?

"Guess what? I'm driving to work!"
"Daddy's little girl has certainly grown up."


"How's your day going?"
"I dunno. It's 8:15. It hasn't started yet."

However, if I hadn't stopped to yell at you, I might have missed seeing the following things on my way to work:

A black cat wearing a fluorescent pink cast chasing a bird

A fat guy with no shirt on, man boobs out in proud defiance of the laws of both God and man, pushing a dog in a baby cart in the 40 degree weather. He looked a lot like a younger version of this guy:



A woman in a '70s Cadillac singing along to the Eagles with the window open

A woman on the Riverwalk singing over and over again, "Jesus, Lord almighty."

It was like I was in an art film (the kitty with a cast represented my soul), or perhaps you actually did hit me like you wanted to and I was stuck in some sort of weird purgatory until I could absolve my sins.

So actually, thanks for running that stop sign, making a wide turn with no signals and almost hitting me. It started the day off on a surreal note.

I'm Your Garbageman

My trash can was left rolling around out in the street this morning. I am at the age where this results in letters to the editor and decade-long speeches on how nobody takes pride in their work anymore.

Truthfully, I can't say anything. Back in high school my friends and I came up with a game. I drove a huge '77 Lincoln Continental. Think of a tank, only faster and a bit more maneuverable, piloted by a 16 year old blaring out Bad Brains and the Clash.

Every Thursday was trash day. Every Thursday morning I'd pick up my friends to drive to school, and we'd cruise the neighborhoods looking for trash cans. After spotting one, I'd floor it, sending the trash can either into outer space, or frequently being dragged under my transmission for a half mile or so.

Naturally, this was hilarious to us.

There was one house that constantly put their three garbage cans out in a sort of pyramid shape, which was pretty much asking for us to drive through it. Looking back now, considering it was Bradenton, the owner could have been a WW2 veteran, a guy who served his country honorably and whose only solace now came from arranging his garbage cans once a week.

Being teenagers, we didn't think about any of that or even consider what pains in the ass we were. We just liked seeing all the trash cans fly away when being hit by a huge chunk of Detroit steel.

Man, was I a shitty kid.

So today when I have to lug my empty trash can from the street in the rain, or I have to stop the car in the street because the can has blown into the driveway, I figure it could be a lot worse.

If the Van's A-Rockin,' Don't Come Knockin'

I hate driving. Actually, that's not exactly true. Long drives are awesome. Driving alone through the sunset or late at night all caffeined up, eating boiled peanuts and listening to the Minutemen, or Thin Lizzy, or Naked Raygun, or Ted Leo, or any number of CDs I have to have on a long drive, or just half-paying attention to NPR? Man, that's some fun tymes.

But daily driving to go to work or the store or whatever? That shit's for the birds. This could be because I'm a terrible driver. I get lost easily, even in areas I've driven through thousands of times. I'm prone to road rage. I inspire road rage in others. There's a reason I ride my bike to work.

But if I had a van I'd be a much better driver, as well as a whole lot cooler. I had the chance to watch Supervan recently, a van/car chase/CB exploitation flick. While it didn't have the same effect on me as King Frat or The Greatest Movie Never Made, it was definitely worth watching.

There's this guy on his way to compete in this big van contest, see? His original van gets smashed up, so he gets Vandora, an experimental solar powered van this big company is trying to keep under wraps so they can keep selling gas guzzlers. He picks up a young woman along the way and they eventually fall in love. The CEO of the company is trying to stop him from entering Vandora. You can tell the CEO is bad because he looks like Ted Knight and doesn't like rock and roll. They all make it to the big van contest and see noted American author Charles Bukowski hosing down girls at a wet T-shirt contest. That's right, Charles Bukowski is in a '70s van movie hosing down girls in a wet T-shirt contest. You don't see Thomas Pynchon doing stuff like that.

All that plot stuff is OK, but what really makes Supervan worth watching is the footage of vans on display. While a lot of them just look like regular family trucksters or windowless molestermobiles, the few that don't are shining monuments to '70s awesomeness. Shag carpeting, fantasy airbrushing, chandeliers, pretty much everything you'd ever want in or on a van. The only thing bringing down the visuals is the lame country rock being played over it. Just imagine how awesome a bitchin' Fu Manchu track would be over all this. Here, you don't have to think too hard.

I love how exploitation movies act as time capsules for their eras. Churning movies out on the cheap, most used real people and sets, giving the movies a life and spark not seen in generic, sterile modern blockbusters. Watching the stuff filmed at the van contest brought me back to hundreds of flea markets, auctions and fairs my parents took me to at the time. I also learned that women were not allowed to wear bras in the '70s, which I guess I didn't pick up on as a kid.

Riding to work this morning I was thinking about vans, and their distant, snootier cousins, the Hummer and the SUV. A van is always inviting (except for those windowless ones). It says, "Hey, man, come on in. Ladies, check out the shag carpeting and waterbed. I don't know exactly where we're going, but dig this picture of Dr. Strange on the side. Let's get some beer and hang. You like Cheap Trick?"

SUVs and Hummers say, "I got mine. Fuck you. Out of my way, I'm on my way to a neighborhood association meeting."

I know which one I feel more comfortable with. As soon as the Honda dies (which probably won't be long, I'm close to 300,000 miles), I'm getting a van. Screw the fuel economy. I don't drive that much anyway. I just have to find someone who can airbrush a Conan the Barbarian mural on the side.

Ever Get that Not-So-Fresh Feeling?

Got back from a library conference in Washington, D.C. last week. I had never been before. Got to check out some museums, saw some bands and monuments, and kept seeing the Capitol Dome looming down the street from the motel. Naturally, it reminded me of that Bad Brains cover.



D.C. is hot and humid. Really, really hot and humid. I knew that before, but figured, "Hey, I'm from Florida. How hot can it really be? I'll run a marathon up there, just to show those Washington fat cats they can't push me around."

That was not the case. My clothes were constantly soaked. I went out to see the monuments one night around 10 o'clock and I was still bathed in sweat, but you know, I'm an American, so I couldn't let the humidity and heat stop me from checking that stuff out. And hanging out at the Lincoln Memorial with a big group of tourists with the Washington Monument in front of me and the full moon to the right made me want to give my own "I have a dream" speech, so it was worth it.

On the last day, I woke up early, saw author Dennis Lehane give a really good speech, then took off for the airport. I'm naturally oily and sweaty, and airports and trains and stuff always make me a bit nervous, thinking that I'm going to lose my boarding pass, or I'll be shipped off to Guantanamo for trying to carry too much toothpaste on board or something, so I was not at my freshest. Oh yeah, and I had pretty much worn the same pair of jeans for most of the trip.

I get to the Jacksonville airport to my car with its half-assed air conditioner and find I can't get out of the economy lot. So I wait and wait until they send someone to manually take my credit card and let me go home. Meanwhile, I'm sweating like a pig.

You know how when you bring home a pizza or something and then a day later you get in the car and it still smells like delicious pizza? Yeah, that's awesome. Well, a bit later I got in the car to go somewhere and notice this smell. Not overpowering, but definitely nothing you'd want to subject anyone else to.

Somehow all my stink and sweat had seeped into the car and was reminding me what a horrible smelling person I can be if left to my own devices. It aired out after a couple of hours, but it was yet another reminder that I should not be around respectable people.