Pizza Box 2022!

4) You ever see a pizza box laying on the ground and think "hey…I wonder if there’s a slice in there"? Hell, for all you know there’s a whole pie in there. Maybe people leave full pies on the sidewalk and observe to see who looks in – if you’re the one that looks, free pizza! Of course I never do, as I know that the second I decide to start opening up trash in the middle of the street looking for food every girl I’ve ever had a crush on will turn the corner and be staring at me, but it’s really starting to gnaw away at me that I’m walking past all these empty pizza boxes that could be filled with pizzas all this time. - XMASTIME

I haven't had a pizza box posting in over 10 years (SEE MORE HERE) but here's the walkup to my hotel last night and I will say this....you're goddam right I looked.

National Pizza Day, III

Ah, free Office Pizza, I loved you!

We've had free pizza for about six straight Fridays now, and it's getting a bit strange.  I realize I don't even wait for the email to come anymore; instead, there is a moment wherein I suddenly notice an eerie silence has come over the office, meaning everyone has filed downstairs to the cafe where it's waiting, and I almost pop a hamstring jumping up out of my chair.

Also, the first few weeks I'd feel compelled to act surprised when I walked in - "oh, pizza? Really? Oh! Well, I guess I'll save the vending machine salad for another time!"  And as I was tearing a slice away and half the cheese got stuck to the mothership, I'd just shrug like it was no big deal and leave it.  "Too much cheese anyways; I prolly won't even finish this whole slice!"

By now I'm clawing into the box with my hand, scraping up all the cheese that's rightfully mine; I'm surprised I don't wipe up all the grease with the crust. I'm guessing I'm a week away from just sticking my face in the thing, and about three from dragging my genitals over an entire pie, marking my territory.

Also office pizza memories:

Dear Office Cafeteria:

Can you please just fucking put my slice of pizza in the same styrofoam box you do everything else? Anyone else walking by it’s like “oh, maybe it’s a salad, or a nice, healthy tomato sandwich with lettuce.”  But god forbid you get pizza, then it’s like a goddam alarm sounding off “hey lookit me everybody, Imma keep stuffing my fat face with grease, cause I’m an unhealthy fat fuck!”

 

Pizza Boxed

4) You ever see a pizza box laying on the ground and think "hey…I wonder if there’s a slice in there"? Hell, for all you know there’s a whole pie in there. Maybe people leave full pies on the sidewalk and observe to see who looks in – if you’re the one that looks, free pizza! Of course I never do, as I know that the second I decide to start opening up trash in the middle of the street looking for food every girl I’ve ever had a crush on will turn the corner and be staring at me, but it’s really starting to gnaw away at me that I’m walking past all these empty pizza boxes that could be filled with pizzas all this time. - XMASTIME

I'm really starting to think my neighbors are fucking with me.

Your'e Damn Right I Looked

4) You ever see a pizza box laying on the ground and think "hey…I wonder if there’s a slice in there"? Hell, for all you know there’s a whole pie in there. Maybe people leave full pies on the sidewalk and observe to see who looks in – if you’re the one that looks, free pizza! Of course I never do, as I know that the second I decide to start opening up trash in the middle of the street looking for food every girl I’ve ever had a crush on will turn the corner and be staring at me, but it’s really starting to gnaw away at me that I’m walking past all these empty pizza boxes that could be filled with pizzas all this time. - XMASTIME

Your'e Goddam Right I Looked

4) You ever see a pizza box laying on the ground and think "hey…I wonder if there’s a slice in there"? Hell, for all you know there’s a whole pie in there. Maybe people leave full pies on the sidewalk and observe to see who looks in – if you’re the one that looks, free pizza! Of course I never do, as I know that the second I decide to start opening up trash in the middle of the street looking for food every girl I’ve ever had a crush on will turn the corner and be staring at me, but it’s really starting to gnaw away at me that I’m walking past all these empty pizza boxes that could be filled with pizzas all this time. - XMASTIME

Today:

Emotionally Drained.

Just now I saw a woman drop a pizza box on the floor top-side down and of course I immediately thought the worst but people I am here to tell you what followed was the happiest I've ever been for another one of God's blessed creatures when I could tell upon hearing the sounds inside the box as she picked it up that it was merely leftover crusts, confirmed both by her immediately tossing the whole thing into the trash can she'd obviously been walking to the entire time and because she looked like she couldn't give less of a fuck about whole episode if you paid her, so.

We've All Been There, Brother

Bear breaks into house for a perfectly good reason:

Everybody wants pizza — even bears. A black bear entered a home in Oro-Medonte, Canada, and tore into an empty pizza box. The wild moment was captured by resident Sean Atkinson's Ring security camera. "Don't leave garbage out in Canada," he warned.

Reminds me of an old classic Xmastime series!  :)

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's a rumor going around that FREE PIZZA FRIDAYS are coming back to the office next week!!!!!!!!

I'm so giddy I wanna knock myself out with a bat so I can instantly wake up and it be next Friday.
Ah, free Office Pizza, I love you!

We've had free pizza for about six straight Fridays now, and it's getting a bit strange.  I realize I don't even wait for the email to come anymore; instead, there is a moment wherein I suddenly notice an eerie silence has come over the office, meaning everyone has filed downstairs to the cafe where it's waiting, and I almost pop a hamstring jumping up out of my chair.

Also, the first few weeks I'd feel compelled to act surprised when I walked in - "oh, pizza? Really? Oh! Well, I guess I'll save the vending machine salad for another time!"  And as I was tearing a slice away and half the cheese got stuck to the mothership, I'd just shrug like it was no big deal and leave it.  "Too much cheese anyways; I prolly won't even finish this whole slice!"

By now I'm clawing into the box with my hand, scraping up all the cheese that's rightfully mine; I'm surprised I don't wipe up all the grease with the crust. I'm guessing I'm a week away from just sticking my face in the thing, and about three from dragging my balls over an entire pie*, marking my territory.




* hey, I did it!  Hooray!

It's Alllllll Coming Together!

I've been having a feeling that 2011 is gonna be my year. Also, I found myself reiterating to a friend in VA that despite being in the pizza capital of the planet, I sometimes crave Pizza Hut, which is never available anywhere near me. Also, since I'm getting healthy starting on 1/1/11, I decided that over the next 32 hours, I'm gonna eat my face off.

So imagine how happily I am now clicking my heels together upon getting up to get  a cup of water and discovering an entire Pizza Hut pepperoni pizza with a "help yourself!" note  on the box?

Holy shit - maybe this IS gonna be my year!!!!!!!   :)

Things Are Good, Part XI

1) Was treated to the newest installment of “The Real World” this weekend, this time MTV is really sticking it to them and making the kids rough it out in…Key West. Hey, is “The Real World” the most ironically named show of all time? A few things that bother me about “The Real World”:

a. Unless you grew up under a rock in Siberia or, worse, Kansas, you’ve seen the fucking show. Every year they get some humungous, tricked-out fantasy house that’s amazing – has a pool, big aquarium, John Candy stuffed and mounted on the mantle, whatever. But EVERY FUCKING YEAR we gotta spend half the first episode watching these idiots sprinting from room to room shrieking “OHMYGODLOOKITTHISHOUSEITSAMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!” no shit, dumbass. So were the first 16 houses. Knock it off and hurry up to the obligatory first-episode hot tub scene so we can find out which chick is the one with the “serious boyfriend” who of course ends up fucking everybody in sight for 5 months – all part, of course, of her “learning to grow and like myself as a person, and learning to live all by myself.” Hahahaha!! I love how there’s always that one chick who decides she’s gonna “take time off” from her bf so that she can prove to herself and everybody else that dammit, she can be independent!! Ahhhmmm, sweetheart…you’re being propped up by MTV for 22 weeks- sleeping til 4pm every day, drinking a ton of free booze and fucking everything in sight while wearing a band aid over your titties in the hot tub. I’m not sure that’s considered “making it on your own” as much as “being a complete, filthy slut.” But hey, what do I know.

b. I also love these “jobs” they give these assholes. My two favorites were the cast of Las Vegas - “hosting” parties, wherein the girls would dress like sluts and get drunk and the boys would grind on said “employees”, and last season in Austin where they have to…fuck, did anyone ever catch what they were supposed to do? Something like photograph a band from SXSW. Hmm. Tough one. Other classics of course include San Diego (“Your job is to learn to ride around in a big boat”) and Paris, where they acted as “travel writers” meaning they went to bars thoughout the city and “wrote reviews” about them. Hmm. Has anybody seen this collection of works published? Yes? No? Does it really matter anyways, when Adam’s dad knows Lionel Richie? Just once I’d like to see where all the kids are sitting together all fired up about finding out what there job is gonna be, and then it’s revealed…ta-da! Slaughterhouse! For the next 4 months you’ll be pulling out pig rectums!! Welcome to the real world, fuckheads!!!! Ironically, of course, there’s always at least one douchebag that has to get fired from these “jobs” because he just cant get his ass out of bed after a night of pounding vodka and crying into his roommates shoulder how much he has grown to love/respect him over the last 4 weeks. Between that and puking, who the fuck’s got time for work? Hall of Fame Award here goes to Montana, who got fired for actually giving wine to children. God bless you, Montana. You’re ugly, you’re stupid, you’re worthless but you have managed to find yourself in the RW HOF for both “Best Reason for Getting Fired” and “Best Phone Conversation”, ie of course the one where she goes out on a date on Valentine’s Day and then pretends to be shocked/chagrined when her boyfriend Vaj screams at her on the phone for 15 minutes merely repeating the word “whore!!!” over and over while she tries to butt in with “but…but I…but…”

c. Enough with the token gay dude. We get it. Yes, you can start out a season of “The Real World” as a homophobe and after 141 nights out at the local bar pounding blue drinks you can be the big man and announce that you’ve decided to respect his gay lifestyle. Great! Shouldn’t we be past this now – wasn’t Pedro, the Babe Ruth of gay Real Worlders, all the way back in 1993 or some such? 13 years later and all I’ll learned from these idiots they send up every year is that gay dudes are incredibly boring, they smile a lot, and they all seem to know tons about girls eating disorders. Great.

2) Is Tom Cruise’s father alive? If he is, don’t you think even he’s tired by now with all the movies TopCat’s done with the ol’ “trying to follow up in his more successful dead dad’s footsteps” routine? Be great to see him in a press conference “No, I’m not dead, and yes, I DO believe he can be an even better gay Scientologist dwarf than his old man ever was – if he’d only stop driving so close to the edge!” It has been a while since he’s done one of those flicks, maybe pops finally wrote him a letter “Knock if off, freak.”

3) I’m starting to notice a lot of game shows are played by people that already have money. It’s always “Hi I’m Roy, I own a string of hardware stores back east…” etc. It’s never “Hi I’m Eddie, they told me there were some cold cuts in the back…” Wouldn’t it be more exciting if only poor people were allowed on these shows? People whose lives could REALLY be changed by small amounts of cash – not these guys who keep going for the million bucks cause fuck it, what do they care if they lose, they already own Tulsa. But saying to a poor person hey, you can go for the million bucks, or walk out right now with $7,000 – well to me that’s drama. And you KNOW if this poor guy goes back home having blown a chance to get some money, any money at all, his family will pound on him till kingdom come. We could even have follow-up visits to the guy’s house a year later, where his family tries to be nice but the resentment drips like it’s from a faucet. “Here, have some rice n beans…oh no, it’s not Rice a Roni…you know, some people just can’t afford the name brands…isn’t that right, Captain Asshole?” (icey glare at our hero, who gulps while pretending not to notice)

4) You ever see a pizza box laying on the ground and think hey…I wonder if there’s a slice in there. Hell, for all you know there’s a whole pie in there. Maybe people leave full pies on the sidewalk and observe to see who looks in – if you’re the one that looks, free pizza! Of course I never do, as I know that the second I decide to start opening up trash in the middle of the street looking for food every girl I’ve ever had a crush on will turn the corner and be staring at me, but it’s really starting to gnaw away at me that I’m walking past all these empty pizza boxes that could be filled with pizzas all this time.

5) One thing I do in restaurants that I really need to stop doing is physically pointing out what I’ve ordered from the menu to the waitress. And of course I always get a cheeseburger anyway, but when the waitress looks at me I always hold up the menu and point to it “yeah, I’ll have the cheeseburger deluxe…with fries…” as if I’m the first person ordering a cheeseburger. And I hear myself reminding the poor woman that “deluxe” means “with fries”, since I’m sure she’s spent most of the day serving people sliced-almond framboise with snow peas and cranberry moo goo gai pan and my order of a cheeseburger with fries is gonna throw the kitchen for a curve. I’m waiting for a waitress to grab the menu and look perplexed “The wha? What the…well. I’ll see if Tony can make this.” I’m such an idiot.

6) Anyone been watching this “I Love Toys” thing on VH1? Apparently the 7 fuckwads they talk to about these things (which also drives me crazy – we gotta listen to the same 7 dipshits over and over about everything –I love the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, whatever. Jesus Christ. How did this small group become the experts on every item of pop culture of the last 35 years, and are these the only people VH1 knows? VH1 is so lame no one else will answer their calls?) had every single toy that was released in the last 40 years. “Oh yeah, spirograph…oh wow etch-a-sketch…blah blah blah…” Am I the only kid on the planet whose toy budget every year wasn’t six figures? My brother and I never really had toys, all we really cared about was having a football, basketball and baseball. A day after we got our football I immediately left it next to a heater, so we spent the next ten years playing with a ball that had a huge goiter sticking out of it. And for some reason we built our basketball goal so that instead of ten feet it was eleven feet high. Tis prolly why it was so easy for me to play above the rim on other courts. As for baseball, this lead to our highest levels of creativity. We’d be all excited cause we’d get a new ball ($1.49 from White’s Auto), but inevitably it would end up in the cornfield behind our house never to be seen again. And so we would either wait another week or two before our dad would buy us a ball, or we would raise the money ourselves – sometimes we’d return bottles to the country store down the road for a nickel, or I’d go in the back and shit into a black dude’s mouth for a dollar. Either way. But in those long stretches between real baseballs we found ourselves inventing games, and there is one in particular that I do remember. We had an old shed in the backyard, where the batter would stand about 20 feet away while the other one of us pitched. If he hit one over the shed, home run. Hit the top of the shed, triple, then double/single etc. What did we use for a “ball” you ask? Well, a crushed up Coca Cola can of course. Which became a real treat for the person pitching, of course. As the game would go on the can would get more bashed up and by the end your hands are pretty much shredded to bits, blood everywhere. Looking back that seems weird, but at the time I reckon we thought it was normal. I guess when you grow up miles from anyone else your age and there’s no cable television yet you come up with weird stuff to keep yourselves entertained. But enough about shitting into a black guy’s mouth in the back of the store.

7) "Hey, Bobby come on...it happens to every bear from time to time...hey, you've been stressed out lately, it happens...."

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.

Belated August 16 Post

(posted yearly since 2006)

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.

Happy August 16th

(This post was first posted exactly 2 years ago today. Thus making it the first ever "Xmastime Classic" post. Hmm. Like my hopes and dreams, sounds posthumous.)

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.

Happy August 16

(This post was first posted exactly a year ago today. Thus making it the first ever "Xmastime Classic" post. Hmm. Like my hopes and dreams, sounds posthumous.)

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.

Maybe Something Noteworthy Will Happen Today

Speaking of celebrity death, today is a pretty big one, what with Robert Johnson, Babe Ruth and Elvis all having died today.

What's that, you say? You wanna hear MORE about my fascination with August 16? My original post from 2006? Aww, how sweet! Here ya go, lil jagoffs!!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
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.

Happy August 16!

Speaking of celebrity death, today is a pretty big one, what with Robert Johnson, Babe Ruth and Elvis all having died today. (Also - Pete Best was sacked on August 16, and the Ramones first show was 38 years ago today!!!)

What's that, you say? You wanna hear MORE about my fascination with August 16? My original post from 2006? Aww, how sweet! Here ya go, lil jagoffs!!
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006

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.

Pee Eye Zee Zee Ayy

Saw an empty pizza box in the hallway.  You're gotdam right I looked inside.  (empty)

Frozen Pizza Slize

The folks at Serious Eats are asking what great frozen pizza is. To me, there is only one answer: Jeno's!

There are no small roles in social protest, and I took my place along with the other angry people horrified at the Jena 6 debacle by buying 6 frozen Jeno’s pizzas on the way home tonite. I’m telling you, I’m not even kidding, I’ve been obsessed with these things for about a month. And I don’t really know why; I’m looking at one right now and I see no cheese, the sausage looks like pencil shavings and the crust is apparently made out of crackers. But something about when you bite in....it’s like the first time you’re about to munch on a girl’s twat, you look in and are like “oh, HELL no!” and then next thing you know you’re out in her father’s boat in the middle of the river with her sitting on your face and not even her family dog licking your newly infected big toe can make you stop, know what I mean? Makes no sense when looking at it, but there you go. Life in a frozen box.

And another thing I love is no matter what or how many toppings you get, it’s the same price. Real pizza, you gotta pay extra for each topping. Not Jenos. “Whaddya want, the plain cheese, nothing on it? Great, that ‘ll be 99 cents....the pepperoni? 99 cents...hey, this one has truffles sorbet and once touched Princess Di’s nipple...tell you what, gimme 99 cents for it....”

Fucking Jenos. Slice. Of. Slices.

Pizza Box Porn

Just like with fried chicken and the shower, remember: there's fucking all around us, people.

Things I Think: I Think Them. 😔

I think the world's first trillionaire will be whoever figures out how to make a pizza box that can be carried like a briefcase w/o disturbing any toppings.