Happy August 16

August 16 has always been one of those “jump off the calander” dates for me, for many reasons. Babe Ruth, Elvis and Robert Johnson all died on August 16. The first Ramones show was on this date, and Pete Best was, as the Brits would say, “sacked” on August 16th. I just read that its Madonna’s birthday today, so we’ll see what “Her Genius” has in store for us today. Kathy Lee Gifford too, who I still wanna do. Whoa…Frank Gifford’s birfday too! Okay, now maybe I see why that kid is gonna be so creepy. Well, besides having a 90 year old father at your Little League games. But I also have personal reasons for always noticing August 16th.

1) August 16, 1989 - Bought my first car. Was a 1978 Ford Fiesta. I believe it was made out of Pepsi cans and…Diet Pepsi cans. Bought the thing for $400 from my friend Ryan, though I could have had it for $350 had my irrational fear of water not made me chicken out of riding on a jet ski. Of course I later found out that Ryan paid about ½ that when he bought it, but hey. I had some wheels. I remember it had an electric fuel pump, so it constantly made ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba sounds while I was cruising the strip for trim, and it also smelled like maple syrup. Well, maybe that was me. Amazingly enough, it had a sun roof. I have no idea how that came to be. Also a sound sytem that was worth WAY more than the car itself, complete with a separate equalizer. This was hot shit back in 1989, people. Also I managed to go about 8 months with no working tail lights or brake lights, which was overshadowed by the fact that my muffler was unattached on one end and was literally dragged around for about 2 months, sparks flying. Of course after I finally had it fixed my father casually mentioned that the sparks could’ve ingnited the gas tank and blown me to bits. Thanks pop! My girlfriend hated this car, she maybe rode in it twice. Which was great – I’d go to pick her up, start walking towards my car until I’d hear the inevitable “…ummm...let’s take my car.” Bling! That’s gas money in my pocket, which is no joke when you’re paying 96 cents a gallon and your car only gets 60 miles to the gallon, peeps!! Actually that was smart on her part, as it left more money for me to spoil her with at Pizza Hut. Smart girl (obviously – she dated me!!) On a side note, this reminds me that I probably paid for the cheapest prom dinner in history. All my friends chose some super-fancy French joint across the river called Windows. Great. I basically have to choose between dinner at this place or, you know, going to college. But I’m young, dumb and in love and this is where my girl wants to go, so I knock over a bunch of Girl Scouts during cookie season and we’re in. As for once God was smiling on me, it comes to be that this place is a seafood restaurant, so I’m off the hook – I hate seafood!!!! And through some other stroke of luck, my girlfriend isn’t in love with seafood either and ended up choosing some $4 shrimp appetizer thingee. “Keep the bread coming” I motioned to our waiter while my friends ordered clams casino scampi with extra saffron drizzle and sliced almond grenadine niblets in a pesto flecked with the earring Molly Ringwald gave Bender at the end of the Breakfast Club. My bill? $4.00!!!!!!! Of course God made sure my life still sucked by me not getting laid that night and sitting on and breaking the $75 pair of glasses that her mom had insisted on me buying before being entrusted with her Mercedes for the night. Ah well. I just noticed that if you quickly glance at them, can you tell the words “prom” and “porn” apart?

2) August 16, 1993 - I also bought my first real, new car on this date, a 1994 Jeep Cherokee. I don’t remember much about this one, but it did cart my ass back and forth between Tappahannock, VA and Oxford MS on many an occasion. When I left Oxford for the last time on my way to NYC via Tappahannock I had about $800 and a job waiting for me. I also had no car insurance, no tags, and an expired license. My plan was to park my car at home where no one would notice and then take care of all that shizzle later on, after I got settled in NYC etc. I somehow drove 1000 miles (in a driving rain, if I recall) without getting busted for these things listed above. I tucked the car off to the side of Rrthur’s house (yes ladies, THAT Rrthur!!) when I drove in at about 2am and figured I’d escape to NYC without anyone noticing, $800 and the big city ahead of me. Needless to say at 6am I was awoken by a furious Rrthur’s dad and next thing you know I’m at the DMV. Long story short, when I arrived in NYC the next day (January 1, 1998) I had $3 on me. And, just to make sure that NOTHING would go right for me, the guy that had hired me had completely forgetten about me and ta-da!! No job. I did get my last paycheck from Mississippi sent to me soon after though. You can imagine how that stacked up here in Brooklyn. A side note – I was down to my last $7, no job, wandering the streets of Brooklyn, where do I decide to say fuck it and cash in all my chips? That’s right - I could barely see the cashier through my salty tears and the greasy 4-inch thick bullet-proof glass as I laid down my fiver and 2 singles, but boy did them White Castles taste good.

3) August 16, 1995 – the day I moved to Oxford. How the fuck I stayed there for over 2 years is a mystery. I lived with Ryan in an apartment on Christman Drive; right next door to us were two typical Ole Miss frat fucks, but one interesting thing about them is that along with their two dogs, they had a pig. And, EXACTLY like that movie, the pig thought he was a dog, that he was “one of the guys.” Whenever I’d drive up the driveway, the 2 dogs would come tearing around the corner furiously to check out the action, and then….about 7 seconds later the pig would come chasing, belly swinging as he’d try to keep up, trying to look as angry as the dogs. “What the fuck’s up, guys!??!” Later in the evening I’d see them out in the yard trying to look like street toughs on a stoop, waiting for cars or people to come by to heckle, and you knew the pig was Horshack to the dogs’ Barbarino and Washington. Awesome. Another highlight from Oxford was Thanksgiving 1995. Ryan and I decided we were gonna stay in Oxford and make our own big Thanksgiving dinner. No, we’re not gay. Anyways we go to Kroger that morning to get everything, and as we’re about to check out I decide I should grab a case of beer. Since you couldn’t buy beer cold in Oxford, you kinda had to plan ahead. So I come strolling up with a case and Ryan FLIPS out, yelling at me for wanting to get shit-faced for Thanksgiving Dinner. No, we’re not gay. I try to explain to him I wasn’t gonna pound it when we got home and piss all over the Pilgrims, I was just gonna have it in the fridge for later on. Doesn’t matter, he’s furious, BOOM!! We don’t say one single word to each other after that. We go through the machinations of making a huge Thanksgiving Dinner, sit down and eat it…all while aggressively not speaking to each other. No, we’re not gay. And, even better, we filmed the whole fucking thing for some reason. It’s all on videotape. You see us silently making this huge dinner, silently eating it. Our silence does not end then; it goes on for 2 solid weeks. For two weeks we pass by each other wordlessly, live next to each other in total silence. The type of simmering rage you can only have for your best friend, I suppose. No, we’re not gay. Finally at the end of two weeks I’m sitting on the couch in the living room and he strolls in to the kitchen and grabs a box of cookies. I’m not paying attention, but because of my 14-day seething rage I can tell he’s looking in the box and strapping on his “I’m fucking incredulous!!” face. Then he does the ol’ look into the box-look up at me – look back into the box – look up at me routine.

“What?” (heeey…I broke the silence!! hooray!!)
“You ate my fucking cookies!!!!”
“What?”
“You ate all my fucking cookies you fucking shit!!!” (box thrown on the floor)
‘What the – shut the fuck up, I didn’t eat you precious fucking cookies!”
“You ate my fucking cookies!!”
“I did not eat your fucking cookies fuck you!!!!”
“You fucking shit!”
“Yeah, I got your cookies, ate them all, closed the EMPTY box up, carefully put them back on the shelf and chuckled ‘ooooh, he’ll never suspect a thing!!!!’!! fucking dumbass!!!”

This went on, screaming for 2 more minutes. Finally I stormed off to my room with a big “fuck you!!” and slammed my door. After about a 10 second pause I opened the door, saw him standing in the living room and shouted “You know what? Yeah, I ate your fucking cookies! And guess what – they were fucking AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” slam!!!

This of course was so ridiculous that within minutes we were on the floor laughing at our our ridiculousness. Rolling on the floor, entwined with each other in our youthfulness, young skin on young skin as we suckled each other’s neck. Okay, that was gay.

It’s been almost 11 years and Ryan, and I can confess…I have no idea what happened to your fucking cookies.

4) August 16, 1997 – the day my first girlfriend got married. Sigh. Woke up, had a bottle of gin waiting for me, guzzled. Not that it was any loss or whatever – we see each other like once every two years, we were just kids etc but I guess you gotta mourn a bit when your first love gets married; you gotta give them that much respect. I assume after I get married she’ll do the same for me. Well, if her husband gives her the go-ahead. And if she remembers I’m alive.

So Happy August 16th peoples! Maybe something noteworthy will happen today.