la pomme du ciel

A few weeks ago, I was given the honor of an invite to a friends’ wedding. My guest and I chose to make a full weekend of it, and planned to go to Cleveland, to enjoy an evening in my hometown before driving to Mercer, PA for an outdoor wedding that promised to be a wonderful time.

We never made it to the wedding. Thursday evening and on into Friday, I felt increasingly ill, but I’m young. I thought, fuck it. I’ll get my ass in gear and get to the wedding just fine. After a nice night out, ending with a quiet session of Pabst consumption in my folks’ backyard, I went to bed, and woke up literally speechless and in what could be termed as agony.

It would be easy to pin it on a hangover, but hangovers don’t test your intestinal fortitude for three days. I caught a nasty bug, which may or may not have been avoided had I been nicer to my immune system that week. We were forced to go back to Pittsburgh, and I was forced into bed for about one straight-laced forever. No wedding! No wedding cake! No wedding dances! No wedding stories! No wedding hook-ups! The heavenly missed opportunity hung heavy in my mind.

But something, at least to my mind, redeemed my absence. My friend and I, eager to kill time before the evening began, started our brief stay in Cleveland with a trip to a convenience store for a six pack of Great Lakes Brewery’s finest, a double treat for us Pennsylvanians. If you were not aware, I cannot saunter down to the gas station for so much as a forty. That requires a trip to the bar or other licensed dispenser, due to Pennsylvania’s monopolistic and arcane laws. So, it was a beautiful late afternoon, my old college friend and I, shooting the breeze, strolling through my old neighborhood.

Then we made a friend.

A long-haired tiger tabby, skinny as a rail, came out from a bush and demanded our attention, which we gave for a minute, before walking on, going by the pet store on the next block. My friend peeked into the window of the shop, and while I waited I looked at the missing pet notices. We both agreed that our new friend was potentially someone’s missing pet. We walked the last block to the store, picked out a six of Edmund Fitzgerald, a slurpee and some cigarettes. On the way back, our little feline friend’s cries seemed even more desperate.

I put down my load, told my friend to wait and watch the cat, while I went back and got the number and called the supposed owner.

The lady, whose name was Mary, was not much help. She seemed terribly confused, but happy, but also confused, and said she would call me back. After hanging up, I resolved to bring the cat back five blocks to my folks’ house to figure out the next move. Neither of us were a fan of that maneuver. The cat of course managed to get loose when my unwitting sister let two Newfoundlands outside. My folks’ neighbors, who were out gardening, helped track her down and provided me with a cat carrier. When Mary finally called back, letting me know her daughter (apparently in possession of the only means of transportation) would not be back for an hour, I commandeered my sister and her car to take the cat a good mile and a half back to its home.

My fear that I had kidnapped an overly friendly and needy cat vanished when Mary broke into tears at the sight of Munchkin. Munchkin. She gave my friend and I about ten hugs while poor Munchkin, who had been lost for four months, been carried five blocks, spooked by 300 pounds of dog, and forced into a box, tried desperately tried to get free of her owner’s gracious clutches. I rapidly became more concerned that we would get roped into a brand-new rescue mission, but as we bid our goodbyes to a lady who does not know our names, we watched her bring poor, wayward Munchkin home and into the bosom of a fully closed door.

It’s not the same as being there for my friends’ wedding, but it feels pretty good. What’s more, it sets the mind aglow with all the permutations of what ifs, whens, whys and what-have-yous.

To close this little ball of fluff, I would like to address another ball of fluff:

Munchkin, the next time a thunderstorm occurs (as they are wont to do around this time of year), please be sensible and stay the fuck indoors. Or at least have the sense to get back to your owner before she thinks you’re wormfood. It’s common decent courtesy. While I am amazed at the resiliency of an indoor cat (kudos, you furry fucker), four months is a long time to worry somebody, and I hope you’re learned your lesson.

This statement does not bode well for most.

I’m an avowed Welsh fan. I’ve read almost all of his stuff, and if you pair that my penchant for, well, basically, novels about drifters and fuck-ups, I would say I’m a pretty good judge of his abilities. That being said, while his star certainly has not reached its apogee, he is taking his sweet old time getting there. If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work is a collection of literary toys. While his first collection, The Acid House challenged, terrified and reviled, the short stories in this collection will likely leave you with a noncommittal shrug. Not to say it isn’t a fun collection, but it is a collection of toys. Not quite the stuff you would put on the mantelpiece. If you’re looking for something akin to the slender perfection of “A Perfect Day For Bananafish” or “Hills Like White Elephants”, you won’t find it here. Welsh came close to that mark years ago with his cerebral Acid.

“Rattlesnakes”, the first entry, is a page out of Palahniuk’s laziest gross-out writings. The characterization is just as bland as the character cliches employed. The tension builds with all the subtlety of a magnesium flare, and Welsh’s love of loose-string and ambiguous endings leaves an ashy taste in your mouth.

“If You Liked School, You’ll Love Work”, the titular entry, is a fairly lighthearted snippet, entertaining but not elevating. It feels more like a character exercise, or a left-over scrap from one of Welsh’s more developed works. All the standards of Scottish wise-guys are present- constant hunting for sex, dodging of responsibility and acting irrationally (and not only when completely shitfaced). Still, it’s a bit of a nostalgiac joy to see the Scottish dialect in print again.

“The DOGS of Lincoln Park” was built around a few clumsy and undeveloped plot twists, and it’s not challenge to figure out how to feel about the protagonist, an upper-crusty Manhattanite with little to no understanding of the intricacies (or simplicities). It was as irritating to read at times as it would be actually knowing such a character, but then, that is likely the driving point.

“Miss Arizona” was almost there. It was almost at that, sinister, paranoia-inducing level, but it sadly fizzles, due to a lack of development in the other characters and really poor pacing. The end will make you want to throw the book across the room, and it’s a good one. But Welsh could have taken a few notes from old school Gothic, rather than trying to reinvent it with a somewhat pork-laden fist.

“Kingdom of Fife”. How do I feel about a story whose protagonist bears my namesake and is a pervert and a drunken asshole? Pretty good, actually. If anyone can redeem the bottom of the barrel, it’s Welsh. Any doubters need to pick up Marabou Stork Nightmares and marinate on exactly how much we, as individuals, as a culture, judge people, and what that can do to people. Not that this is a preachy, inherent goodness of humanity trip- Welsh would never do that. What he does so masterfully is create convincing characters in need of a second chance, then he almost psychically persuades the reader that the character deserves that chance. Welsh goads you into rooting for people you would rather spit on at first glance. For as much as I enjoyed the story, however, it felt, like much of the collection, undercooked. I wanted more, and more could have been done with this. Hopefully, Skag, a full novel in the works, will give me the drug I crave.

This book is more for the Welsh monks rather than novices, and you should ignore anything on the cover of the book (a silly lesson we all seem to have to re-learn periodically), because, yeah, it will get you pumped up for a Welsh Odyssey, but this ain’t it. If you’ve never read Welsh, pick up Crime or, of course, Trainspotting, and come back later. You might be disappointed when you get to School, but you’ll love the work it took to get there.

Grade: C+

Two weeks ago, I managed to land myself in some poison ivy. As it turns out, my body no longer offers much protection from the havoc the evil plant is currently wreaking on my epidermis. I am in need of an ocean of calamine lotion. It might have been smart to talk to my doctor earlier, but I already had the appointment, and I was going to be a big tough man about the whole unsightly and hellish rash thing.

This course of action proved to be a poor decision, but the ordeal put a few things in perspective. To start with, I used to be immune to poison ivy. Never worried about it. Maybe I was lucky, or maybe it was part and parcel of being your run-of-the-mill indestructible child. Revisiting valleys and creeks, wines and rope swings, I started to wonder when the whole self-preservation instinct kicked in. My money is on 19 or so, when I became crazy boring. Or boring and crazy. Whatever. That timeframe locks up nicely with the end of a regular camping schedule that I enjoyed for the bulk of my teenage years.

The more I wander abandoned factory yards, the bowels of parking garages and the miniature jungle on the hillside behind my house, the more said self-preservation eased off. Sure, hurtling down a hillside in the middle of the night is made easier with some dutch courage, but not so much courage as to preclude a brief moment of hesitation, especially when faced with army-crawling through the underbrush. I swear there is a good reason for said crawling. Honest.

A week ago, while flailing about in the dark, running into trees and rolling around in who knows what, I managed to somehow compound my rash. And slice my left hand. And bash my legs up for the nth time this summer.

The point is, the more I wandered around, the less I worried about comparitively minor annoyances, like rashes, sunburn, or potentially impaling, breaking or ending myself somewhere in the dark green busom of the hill. I’m having fun, which unlocked the riddle of what happened to my childhood penchant for suicide missions: They never left, I had just been lazy. It was kind of like finding an old bike in a basement. Imagine that.

While it may seem preferred to chill out and watch Godzilla in the air conditioning (especially with this relentless heat), it is entirely more fulfilling to be Godzilla. Outside. Not that there’s anything anything wrong with AC, but is nice to earn it in a sense- especially if you’re coated in fresh scratches. Or lingering plant-based rashes. Or whatever. I mean, you don’t wanna die without any scars, do you?

This last weekend I returned to the fair shores of the Allegheny Reservoir to enjoy the rites of brotherhood, handguns, roof repair, bacon, cliff-diving and canoeing. I’ve written about the place before; it’s a fun time, and generally a safe place. This go-around, however, was a little soured by one drunken comment, among other things, and my own inferiority complex. You can have the most gorgeous painting in the world hanging on the wall, but if the frame is made of fresh, steaming shit, no one is gonna want to be anywhere near it. That’s what the trip left me with.

As the weekend went into full swing, I innocently jibed a buddy about his ‘fancy’ iPhone, to which he replied, “That’s what you can have when you have a real job.”

I’ve since let the sting of anger recede, but the stench of classicist bullshit remains.

As my mother used to tell me, “A job’s a job.” Now, I don’t think my mother even believes that, because it seems to me that only certain tax brackets feel that they are entitled to that distinction. I can’t help but feel that a number of my associates look down their nose at my life, and it’s not just because I’m shorter than some of them.

A real job is something with tangible results. In a world where things are increasingly frail, where your very identity can be stolen and rewritten, I like to focus on things with results you can touch at the end of the day. I wonder if I worked day labor trade job, if the same comment would have arisen. As far as I’m convinced, it would have, but I can’t fault people for not being clever enough to get out from under their upbringing. Right? Everyone I was with over the weekend, myself included, grew up with varying degrees of middle-class comfort, and all can fend for themselves with jobs of varying sophistication.

Hell, I was raised with the idea that community college was a joke, and I would be a failure if I landed there (amongst other elitist garbage), and I wouldn’t be surprised if the people I was with hadn’t broken themselves of that sort of lazy and habitual bourgeois thinking. The irony in this instance is that I’m taking my final class at Community College of Allegheny College this fall. Ha!

But back to a job’s sophistication, or lack thereof: I submit that there is no difference between shoveling code and shoveling shit. Both are a means to an end, and no more real than the other (although only one job can be fucked up with a few magnets and only one requires physical effort), the real point is that if you can fend for yourself and afford to make a trip out to hang with your friends, your job is as real as it gets.

Last time I checked, my bills were taken care of, and even though it meant taking one of my nights off (the square’s concept of a weekend is generally a foreign concept to bartenders), I could more than afford the trip.

As I’ve said in the past, if you hate your job, you’ve got no business being there, you should move on; but even that doesn’t change the fact that you are working as a means to an end. A job is a job. Furthermore, even if you love your job for the art it allows you to put into your world, it makes it no more real than a job that someone hates. As long as you can leave the office at the office and be happy at home, the job you have doesn’t really matter. With little exception, your job will never define you as a person. It’s just a job, a checkmark, a mark that billions of other people also have checked off. Your job will never make you inherently special. Nor does it entitle you to a penthouse in some illusory professional Valhalla where you can look down upon the plebes. Last time I checked, we all live on the same planet.

In closing, I will admit that I occasionally experience smartphone envy, but I am more than well aware that iPhones and their ilk are bourgeois tinker-toys; a swell way of showing people you have money to waste.  For my own part, I waste the money I could spend on an iPhone (yes, it’s true, I have done the math, and it is more than possible that I could be a part of the club) on tattoos, but only a dick would consider art a waste.

Besides, there’s something special in laying out cash for a treat like a tattoo, especially at the end of another sweaty 40+ hour week; on your feet and constantly scrambling, seeing exactly how many cases of beer you can get up the stairs at once each day. It’s something you know you’ve earned, something you can’t lose (barring a heinous accident), something that doesn’t require a c-note a month to keep. I guess I’ll never be cool (read: douchey enough to waste that kind of money) enough to have a smartphone, but there’s a lot to be said for passing up on the apple.

About 12 years ago, in the Cleveland Metroparks, I took a pretty nasty spill going downhill on a brand-new, shiny mountain bike. My grandmother, the gift-giver (along with grandad), was convinced it was because I had not read the instructions. To her credit, the idea of a suspension system on a bicycle was a wholly foreign concept. Sadly, the burden of the error landed squarely upon the pilot’s head. And ankle. My helmet cracked in two (always wear it, spilled brains are for nerds!) and my ankle swelled up to the size of a Florida grapefruit. Thanks to Boy Scout training and the company I keep, we managed to get me up the hill (my impatient self hobbling the last and steepest bit of the way) and to the ER. In the agonizing recuperative months that followed, the company I keep became better and better at mountain biking, and I resolved to post up and get back in the saddle ASAP. However, an unforseen consequence of my accident was that my riding confidence was FUBAR. I rode a few times after my leg mended, but with all the courage you would expect to find from someone who’s part French. I was terrified of going fast, going downhill, riding trails, even riding down the street. I never touched that bike again, unless it was to clean out the garage.

Last year, I found a bike in the basement of the bar where I work, which the owner encouraged me to remove, mostly because he had no clue how and when it got down there. Also because I am pretty sure he likes me, because I have yet to be shitcanned. The bike languished in my basement for about a year, until I finally got it fixed about a month or so ago. I bought a helmet. I bought a U-lock. I was equipped. Of course, two days out of the shop, I landed myself in a pothole, threw both wheels out of true and blew out my back tire. The learning curve on city riding is pretty sharp. I was nervous at first, but a month later, I’m more concerned with the fastest routes around town and buying new brakes. Because I apparently enjoy going fast. On a bike. Who would have guessed? Certainly not me- The only time I rode a bike in the last twelve years was a nerve-wracking trek to work a few years ago in Squirrel Hill (read: uphill), hungover and with no helmet. Now, I’m looking for excuses to ride and getting on my friends’ cases about getting their own wheels. The big downside to my bicycle hiatus is that I’m not skilled, and will probably get doored tomorrow.

I have lived in Pittsburgh for five years now, and I feel like a grade A pendejo for not getting a bike earlier. And for riding the wrong way in the bike lane several weeks ago. Oops! I am trying so hard to not be judged by the extensive cycling community. I shouldn’t be too worried though- as I was carrying my bike away from the pothole that christened my bike, Dude in a Subaru slowed to offer a ride. Judging from the roofrack or just using common sense, Dude was totally a sympathetic fellow rider. Thankfully, my lack of skills landed me in said pothole a mere two blocks from my house, but Dude’s gesture was an encouraging sign on a number of levels. With any luck and a little time, I’ll be the guy rendering assistance to a greenhorn rider, so long as I don’t get plowed by some jagoff, thus ensuring another riderless decade, or, horror of horrors, a Jason-less reality.

I dunno, Boomers. You tell me, I'm asking you.

Cynicism is healthy, at least to a degree. I think what kept me marginally sane throughout high school and the ID crises of college was an ever-crooked left eyebrow. The lyrics to the Dandy Warhols’ “Cool Scene” come to mind:

Well I’m just not making your scene
and I really don’t feel like I need
I really don’t mean that it’s cool
didn’t really wanna be in high school

I don’t mean to give the impression that cynicism is a thing a grew out of after college- more like my gaze became a good bit wider. Believe it or not, I’m an optimist, and that’s why this book on the decline of community and assumed societal values struck me as so much plaintive bitching, especially coming from a Boomer. I mean, really. Why the fuck are you bitching? This society evolved to present on your myopic, self-aggrandizing watch.

My grandmother is the one who bought me the book, based on some sort of Greatest Generation cultural buyers’ remorse- “Here, Jason, this stuff was never our problem, we didn’t have the internet, we had nothing to do with it. You fix it.” Merry Christmas. The basic gripe I have with the Greatest Generation and the Boomers it that it’s so easy to use the internet and what some idiot kids listen to or wear as a meter of society’s evils, but only if you forget who pays the t-shirt press, who signs the raunchy, wannabe be gangstas to record contracts, and yeah, who designed, then shoved (Welcome to AOL!), the internet down our collective throat.

If this book is a call-to-arms, it’s the most castrated, armchair-ridden and self-pitying one I have ever read. As soon as all you old fuckers apologize to my generation (currently reaping/choking on what you morons sewed), maybe I’ll give your whining some credibility. Kids are wearing “Slut” t-shirts? How’d they get the money, and how did they not get values?

The book does set up a good framework explaining how we Americans lost the values, but this is polishing the brass on the Titanic. Entertaining and helpful for conversation, but you’ve got more important stuff to do.

I think what’s more important is why this book doesn’t speak to me. All of the bullet points on the lack of church attendance and the decline of bowling leagues mean nothing to me. Yeah, it’s sad that people are so lazy they’d deprive themselves of the finer things in life (like bowling) in favor of sitting in front of the television, but what are you, personally, gonna do about it? Nothing. Who’s gonna read this book without having some of the same perceptions of society as the author? My guess is the choir members.

For my own part, I’ve got my own traditions, my own dart league, and a quiet watering hole (it’s a dive) down the street where I meet new people and friends alike on common ground. On Election Day, for example, we cook a big breakfast and march down en masse to the polling station. A lot of people in my generation already had your book written for you, but instead of preaching to the choir, they went off and found their own community. Obviously the older generations blew their chances, but we’re still young enough to have chances to blow.

To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut (a big reason I ended up this way), we’re put on this earth to fart around- forget efficiency. It’s totally cool to go to the postal office for a single stamp. If you get too wrapped in defining yourself, your generation, or whatever, you won’t have a lick of time to just chill and enjoy what you already have. I’ve got a dart league game tomorrow, and I can guarantee the evils of society (and this book) couldn’t be further from my mind. I might hate, but I also congratulate, and as long as you can do that, you’re all good.

Grade: A Gentleman’s C. Only because those don’t exist anymore, and it’s a pretty useful book if you didn’t already understand the concept.

About three years ago, staggering drunk at 8am on the Fourth of July, I called my mother to wish her a happy Fourth, unwittingly waking her up  to remind her of my somewhat hedonistic and unorthodox lifestyle. Dazed by the sun and a long night that had yet to end, I boldly informed her that I was going to join Mensa. To get chicks.

Why not? I lack the accreditation my friends and siblings have; waking up before noon is not the exception for them, it is the rule. Somewhere in the fatty space called brain, becoming a bonafide genius seemed like a swell idea. Something like that might make up for the fact that I am decidedly not the favorite child. Something like that might make it permissible to be more concerned with bartending than taking that one last class and finishing my degree. Something like that might totally get me laid. Someday.

The whole Mensa thing became a joke in my family. My half-cocked blast of hot air was called out, and being sarcastically called a genius is never any fun. The final straw was a 2009 Christmas gift of Mensa puzzle books. A few months later, I was taking the entrance test. If nothing else, I am extremely adept at finding new ways to give people the finger.

In the aftermath, I’m glad I did it, if only to remind myself and everyone else I know that if I actually feel like doing something, I’ll do it. So get off my back. Gosh!

Other than that, I feel damned silly, almost like I was tricked, carrying around a Mensa membership card. Other than posting up and showing some sign of life, I’m genuinely embarrassed to talk about it. Unless, you know, I don’t actually have to talk to anyone. Bless you, internet, for excorcising this foul demon.

Despite my grand intentions, I’ve managed to join an organization that for my purposes, is almost entirely useless, nearly elitist and superficial enough (I would feel more comfortable joining a Beautiful Peoples’ Club, but those fuckers won’t have me) to offend even my indelicate sensibilities, and cost 100 dollars to get in (you would think that after paying forty bucks to take a proctored scantron, they’d waive that first year of membership).

As for the chicks, I was doing just fine before my special lady friend knew the full extent and size of my, uh. You know. Then again, there’s not much reason to be impressed, I persist in doing a lot of essentially retarded things, which usually elicit a resigned sigh of, “You’re ridiculous.”

And I still feel, at times anyway, like I’ve been put in the corner by, you know, something. Life. My childhood. Whatever.  I just happen to be wearing a pointed hat with a different word on it now. But hey, at least I proved myself right. Even complete jackasses get to be right sometimes.

It seems I have eyes on this venue again, so it’s only appropriate to act with a bit of professionalism. At least, that’s the word of the new year, now that I am done celebrating the fact that for one reason or another, the human race and the planet have seen fit to keep me around for 27 wonderful fucking years.

They were actually wonderful, if only for the fact that it represents the mountain (or hillock) of experience upon which I perch. I still can’t see a whole hell of a lot, but then again, I might just be in a place where there’s nothing to see. To paraphrase both myself and Tom Waits, a new pair of shoes can change a lot of things (happy birthday to me, from me, for being such a good boy this year). I do have a decided spring to my step on this gorgeous May day. That newly-sprung step might carry me someplace new.

Last night, after our neighbor called the cops on me for shouting a fairly innocuous and decidedly isolated “Now, gahdammit!”, Bliss and I had got to talking about how much the neighborhood is changing, I think we both realized that we are perpetually bored by the activities that held our rapt attention only a few years ago. A snippet of lyric from “Fairies Wear Boots” (“Coz smokin and drinkin is all that you do”) has been floating in my head for weeks. It does, upon cursory examination, seem to have been a constant in my brief adult life.

What has also arisen as a constant is my penchant for projects. With the increase in projects, and despite my best efforts, I have managed to accidentally complete things here and there. It feels surprisingly good. Even, dare I say, more exciting than those beautiful moments listening to Bob Dylan for the first time for what seemed like hours. Three minutes later, it was time for some other excitement, something just as transitory.

So, with the twilight of my twenties upon me, I gleefully accept nobody’s challenge to build my slipshod giant’s shoulders up a bit more, maybe to some point where I can see something, anything. There is life, in any desert, and even with the dearth of posts on this site, there are still the sparks needed for a beacon to find out exactly where the hell I think I’m going. Someday, maybe even where I actually am.

Opportunity, or, as I am fond of saying, Opportronity, abounds in this land of milk and honey, as any student of PT Barnum will tell you. In equal amounts is a rampant self-defeatism. People with very tiny dreams allow themselves and, subsequently, their dreams to be crushed in equally tiny ways.

I remember a conversation I had in college with a friend from Ireland about the ease of living; doing and being whatever you wanted. At the time, we were both on a one-meal a day routine, smoking our faces off, then using alcohol to re-connect them. We had no money, but we had managed to carve out a lovely niche for ourselves. The gist of the conversation was that if you’re willing to give up on some of your creature comforts, you can do whatever the hell you want. When you let your comfort level get in to way of that, then you have failed.

I have a lot of friends who travel extensively, have lived in multiple countries, and generally been living some form of a life that I covet, and maybe, at one half-baked point, thought I would have for myself by now. My lady recently spent two weeks in France, one of many tiny dreams of mine. After the resentment and self-disgust subsided, I came to a pretty a nice catharsis.

I am a bit of a slow learner, it has taken me a while to get a design for life together. After figuring out why I have yet to get beyond Canada (and that’s not even recently. I have never used my passport), I realized that I am a bit more together, collected, and dare I say- less manic than some of my more subjectively successful associates.

Here’s the key difference, and it comes in something my lady said a few days before she left; “Whenever I have money, I travel.”

After I was ready to deal with her absence, after I let the classicism stew for a bit and was done bitching about friends that had plane tickets pretty must thrust upon them by doting parents at one time or another (to be clear, the lady paid her own way, unlike many of the folks I know), I realized that I could have been doing the same thing.

Anytime I have savings, I quit my job. Ever since I escaped Erie, PA, I have been consistently trading up in terms of income and overall happiness. Not to make my sig a case study, but she is a bit of a worrier. It gives her a reason to keep me around, because I am adept at convincing people that e’ryting goin to be eyeree. When she came back from vacation, underemployment was there to meet her, along with added responsibilities (sans raise) for being so competent and solid. She could probably single-handedly save the publishing industry (she’s pretty awesome), if one of those fuckers gave her the key to the secret club. Hell, I can name a half-dozen of my friends who could save the creative industry if those fuckers weren’t such circle-jerking assholes.

I had a few jobs like that, added responsibility for no real gain. At one point in my life, I thought the added trust and responsibility was worth something unto itself. Unless you’re a total moron, you ascertain, in short order, it’s really just way for this shitheel economic system of ours to keep us all down. You have a key to the backdoor, you say? That’s just great. Did a raise come with that, or do you just have to do inventory every shift now?

So, instead of swallowing the shit sandwich, I quit, on several occasions, although I’ll tell you myself, it was probably too late, and never very well planned- Par example: Last year, I ended up with no job for about a month solid in mid-2009, and it took me all summer to recover.

As much as I would like to swap travel stories with friends, I’ve had different priorities, mostly trying desperately to live the dream. Beyond a lack of healthcare, I’d say I have nailed it.

To put this into a more general context, to anyone who reads this, anyone who is working a thankless job (and most of us are) that also gives you no joy (heaven help you), get out and fix it. All the vacations in the world won’t fix what you have to come home to. It can be easier said than done, and in the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with throwing some money into stocks, taking a weekend off to a casino, or calling off for a week and getting baked. But don’t delude yourself into believing whatever trip you desire will be some end-all-be-all adventure.

Sounds like a solid deal!

As my friend said, “Just fuckin do it. It’s no a big fuckin ordeal. Quit bitchin abou’it, and fuckin do it.”

If it’s worth it, you’ll starve for it, at least temporarily. But you’re still going to have to work some sort of job to keep that starvation temporary.  Your life is going to be waiting for you, every time you put it on hold.

Never put what you really want on hold, but if your employment makes you want to die, forgo the vacation this round and find something better. You’d be amazed how easy it is to live comfortably, even when you give up NetFlix, full cable, and all of those little toys we value so much. If you think a high-paying  job you hate is worth the years it shaves from your existence, you probably aren’t worth your existence.

I have a friend who landed a very lucrative consulting job last year. She’s harried, confused, and borderline miserable (though she has recently, in her words, “managed to fit her life back into her life”). Everything has a price tag attached, and it’s not always in cash. The big cake is your day-to-day happiness- those grandiose trips, new televisions and expensive tickets are just the icing.

Take the money you had saved for your big trip, and invest a little in the big cake.

This picture decidedly confuses my crush.

Despite being a near-instant darling of the indie-rock scene, obtaining residencies with radio stations, and generally hitting every big festival ever, Giant Drag sort of curled up and went away, right when it seemed like it would be a good time for another release.

Annie Hardy, armed with a darkly suggestive album cover and sometimes-bandmate Micah Calabrese, has finally dropped something new for the masses, who have likely forgotten they ever loved Giant Drag. I mean, I pretty much forgot about them. It’s been four years since Hearts and Unicorns.

Hopefully this release is not truly as advertised, because Giant Drag is pretty awesome, and Swan Song is a solid reminder of that. Hardy’s lyrical skill and humor is in full force, even on the slightly annoying singer/songwriter “Heart Carl”. Get it? Hardy’s weirder quirks are present as well, with “White Baby”, a song about…having babies. White ones.

The dark, violent little heart of the album is on the ambivalent yet defiant  ”Stuff to Live For”, which is the best display of everything Giant Drag does right, and probably their best track yet.

While a four-song EP is more like table scraps than the full release we’ve all been waiting on (it’s in the works, according to Hardy), it’s definitely better than nothing. Hopefully this is just the appetizer for a main course in the near future, and not a true swan song.

Grade: B-

I feel a bit like a piece of old farm equipment when I admit that I discovered St. Vincent through an NPR special. You know, rather than one of my cool friends or my hip elder sibling. The sad fact is, my friends are not that cool (which is why they never  go to shows with me) and my siblings, although lovable in their own right, are neither hip nor elder. So I count myself lucky that I am enough of a pretentious ass to listen to NPR, if only for the fact that I found out about Benji Hughes and St. Vincent through it, among others.

I had planned on going to the show for a long while, since shows here in Pittsburgh are a bit like the mirage of an oasis in the desert, always just over the next erg. Or month. Or, for the most part, never.

I had my doubts about Diesel, because I had been there before, ostensibly to dance, but that effort ended up as a bitch session about the South Side in general, and bad DJs at large. I was pleasantly surprised; the management has figured out how to turn a profit with what must have been a dead night by bringing national acts in for early evening, all-ages shows. Thankfully, the upstairs was blocked off to the scabby teens. Rather than jostle for position at the railing overlooking the first floor, the lady and I relaxed on the mostly empty couches and enjoyed the music.

The opener, Wildbirds and Peacedrums, was a borderline jam band of two; a very proficient drummer and a lady with a magnificent set of pipes. A little too much warbling and drum-noodling at times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual album was better.

After the usual interminable wait and another gin and tonic, St. Vincent came on, opening a solid set with “Laughing with a Mouthful of Blood”. I had watched some live performances a few days earlier on the interwebs, and I was not disappointed. Despite the general lack of vocal effects and looping (there was a bit), Annie Clark’s vocals didn’t fail to rise to the occasion, proving all the production tricks in the book can’t really improve upon an angelic voice like hers. Where the studio tracks sometimes sound restrained and artificial, even contrived at times, the live band gave Ms. Clark’s computer-wrought symphonies the Lazarus treatment.

The noisy fury of “Marrow”‘s breakdown was especially intense, and the alchemy of improvisation turned some of the dull moments on the studio tracks into gold. Most of the set was from Actor, but they did manage to hit a couple tracks from Marry Me, including the Ophelia-tinged hopelessness of “Paris is Burning”.

The highlight of the show was a slow snowfall treatment of Nico’s “These Days”, done as a solo by Clark. It totally made up for her lead-in to the song, which somehow tied Ice Cube’s “Today Was a Good Day” to the song. You know, if it were sung thirty years prior, by a “morbidly depressed” woman. Artists have funny ways of stringing things together. With the icy hell we’ve come to expect outside for the last few weeks, taking the bounce out of a classic felt like just the right dose of just the right medicine.

I didn’t time it, but the set was around 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour, which is a little lame. To boot, there was no encore, which is total bullshit. If Pittsburgh gives you love, throw a bone. Judging by the fans’ reaction on last.fm to Diesel, a lot of people, myself included, swallowed our tongues just to be there. The venue didn’t even stay open past 10:30, cutting the bar off and hustling people out around 10:15.

On the whole, for 16 bucks it was a little under par. But if an all-ages show is the only way we can get any attention from national acts, I guess I’ll be at Diesel the next time someone decent comes around. I guess.

Grade: B

Since I was young, I repelled nicknames. My folks called me Jazz when I was growing up. I hated it. I pitched so many hissyfits about it that sometimes I think they don’t even remember the moniker.

In school, if it wasn’t the odd “four-eyes”, it was simply my last name. Later on, some shining example of humanity tagged me with Stuart, from the old Saturday Night Live sketches. You might not remember those. I barely do myself, but it was Al Franken’s character. He’s a senator now, imagine.

That was all kinds of fun, especially after the sportos picked up on it. There’s a number of reasons I got into so many fights throughout school, and that was one of them.

At one point, I tried to self-apply ‘Dok’, but never really with any conviction. Thankfully.

So, going into college, I was 0 for 4, but extremely jealous of friends that had nicknames. It became apparent to me that it was something like a badge of honor, a symbol of others’ affection and just straight up baller all in one.

I guess it makes sense that I finally got my time in the sun, so to speak, when I stopped giving a shit about it and just wandered around the fourth dimension doing my thing, which was mainly complaining, writing, and complaining, but mostly writing. This illustrious if ultimately dead-ended pursuit gave rise to my second imaginary friend and literary alias, Vick McNair, Private Investigator. A few of my friends in college still give McNair a holler, and I still have arguments with him on particularly drunken walks home.

It’s a divine irony though, that my best friend has more nicknames than Jehovah. While she’s understandably curious about our man Vick, that’s not a name she ever spits out. On the other hand, her nicknames seemingly number like species in a rainforest. Here’s a sample; Cougar, Skip, Noonan, Bliss, and Rooster. Again, it’s because she doesn’t give a shit and rolls on her own groove.

So I was secretly overjoyed that right before the holidays fell like a cloud of mustard gas, a friend of mine and regular at the bar called me Sunny J. I was even more pleased that the name later passed the test and has been uttered by friends. Again, it was because I was just doing my thing.

While this story and the happiness it might bring me may seem trivial, I submit that there’s no such thing as Big Happiness. If you can’t get excited about things like slurpees, fresh cigarettes, a perfect Manhattan or a slightly breezy sunny day (or a slightly rainy day), you don’t really have any business being on this planet. You’re probably one of those people concerned exclusively with the Big Things, like buying a house, or getting married, and you probably don’t have the sort of nice and easy natural rhythm a human life begs. And while you might have a nickname, it probably wasn’t for something you didn’t already notice about yourself. It’s like digging through a cereal box for the prize as opposed to forgetting there is a prize, and just basking in the natural arrival of wonderful things. Those kinds of things can’t just be taken from life, someone else has to reach up to the high shelves and bring them down for you.

As much as I hated being called Jazz when I was young, I kind of wish my folks would throw it out there every once in a while. I’m probably ready to appreciate it, as long as they don’t do it more than once or twice. I mean, really.

After dropping the ball on three really good pieces following the G20 here in Pittsburgh (yeah, it happened, but nobody really cared outside of the city) your faithful writer dropped the ball on the site entirely.

So, there’s a new approach, where I stop fumbling the ball.

Also, because this costs money, and I work moderately hard for that. Like right now, in an empty bar, half-watching the underdog Jets beat the Colts in the 3rd quarter.

While it pains me to watch friends leap and bound across the world, I never particularly had my collective shit together. Instead of being ready for liftoff, I was fumbling around in the swamps just outside of the launchpad. While I am convinced that I’m an expert at crafting excuses for myself, there is still overly compelling evidence that while I am not a leaper or a bounder, I have a distinct ability to steadily move upwards. Something like the construction of the Burj Dubai, and then the next Tower of Babel. And the next one.

So while many people I know catapult themselves around the world, they still crash land in a morass of confusion, something I crawled out of . I even have a map. It looks like an inverted California mixed with a roller-coaster.

To put it plainly, this is Sunday with Sunny J, and I don’t question it.

Upcoming:

-A lovely story about recording my friends’ conversations

-Scans of recent paintings

-A book review

-A small overhaul of the site, because the pictures are dated

-New writing, from a project I finished over the summer

-Finally, at least a post a week

Wednesday I went downtown with a friend to sniff out the fortifications, the giant medieval iron cages wrapped along the sidewalks and the reported sniper posts. And also to see how many businesses were boarded up.

Other than said cages and a palpable sense of dread, there was nothing doing. We were briefly tailed by…someone? while walking around and under the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, checking out the journalists checking in.

Pretty boring, but I got a Dozen’s cupcake out of the deal.

Then today rolled around, much to the chagrin of everyone in Pittsburgh. Day one of the G20 Summit.

To be clear, I completely support the right to protest. I even support most of what people are coming to my city for. I also support the right of the populace to vote on whether they want a giant clusterfuck dumped in their lap.

Even more than all of that, I believe that if you are going to protest, know what the hell you’re doing.

My neighborhood was a focal point of what I wish I could say was an effective protest against the fiscal policies of the increasingly real world government, or the lack of equal rights for all, or, you know, anything. Instead, from the comfort of my porch, I witnessed neverending troupes of grungy, white, 18-mid-20 year old kids, grinning with all the excitement a bountiful Christmas morning brings. A bounty, I am sure, many of them are well acquainted with.

I also was on the other side of the street when they smashed the windows of a KFC and a Mini dealership. I’m not going to lie; I disagree with destruction of property, but it’s already happened all over my part of Pittsburgh and elsewhere, and if it’s going to happen, shit…Those places have great insurance and corporate monoliths backing them. The same cannot be said for Pamela’s, and Lulu’s Noodles in Oakland, or Ritter’s in Bloomfield, just to name a few. Those are home-grown, and attacking those is pretty much an affront to the entire city.

Dear unwanted anarchists, the only point you are proving is that of a fear-mongering media. If you want the already suspicious older demographics of this beautiful city to be frightened, you win. If you want the younger folk who try to make Pittsburgh a better place pissed off and disappointed in the rest of their generation, you win. If you want the baton-happy, out-of-state, shake-n-bake police state we have in town for the weekend to use your actions as an excuse (as one local encouraged them on the news) to “kick some ass, boys.” you fucking win.

Some of my more metropolitan friends have implied that I’m whining, have gotten older and by extension, have washed out. Maybe they think I should be out walking around aimlessly with a bunch of clueless kids.

On that note, the local news remarked that the foreign media barely raised an eyebrow at the action on the streets today. This is an average day, a quiet day for them.  As far as some around here are concerned this is the fucking apocalypse.

The point is that this is Pittsburgh. We are not New York. We are not London, Moscow, Paris or any other fantastic travel destination with embassies aglow. We’ll never be, and we revel in that fact. As much as a backwater this can be, and as (charmingly) antebellum the people can be (there is nothing better than having a Yinzer realize you’re on the same team as they are). We didn’t ask for this clusterfuck, that’s the fault of our opportunistic megalomaniac of a mayor.

Before today, I think most of Pittsburgh was on that same page. After the petty destruction I witnessed and later watched on the news, I think the people that could have been won over to supporting the First Amendment unequivocally will now grin when they watch news footage of protesters being smoked, gassed and beaten. I think that despite the feelings of nausea I felt when I watched a fully mobilized (sonic crowd dispersal, SWAT trucks, school buses of riot-clad officers) army of police herd a group of protesters barely a hundred in number, a part of me is hoping they manage to break the jaw of one of those elusive bad apples.

Tomorrow is when the approved marches take place, the assemblies with actual permits. After the adrenaline both sides felt today, I wonder how civil the disobedience will be. I wonder how those entrusted to guard the safety of this nation’s citizens will interpret “Serve and Protect”.

I’m pretty sure my taxes don’t go too far in paying their salary. If there’s anything that crystallizes the disparity in wealth and power on this planet, it’s the fact that my city has been turned into a military base to protect a handful of world leaders from the rest of the world.

All I know is that tomorrow, I’m wearing a tie. And bringing my camera. It’s my day off, and there’s a world event in my backyard.

My apologies to anyone who’s visited in the past week or so, for both the lack in new and exciting things and the overall glitchiness of the site. My baby, it seems, had been accosted by some unsavory internet demons, which I have since excorcised (hopefully).

Since I have little of note to report (until after the Autolux show on Wednesday!), I’ll share with you the opening of football season for yours truly, beyond the dubious 13-10 OT win over the Titans. To keep this in context, I am originally from Cleveland and my immediate family all reside there, sisters in college notwithstanding.

A Thursday night facebook status of “Go Steelers!” yielded, in the following order:

My friend B. liked it. My Irish friend K. commented on the fact that Chairman Rooney is Ambassador to her country. My baby sister said, with all the eloquence one expects from my breed, “Fuck you.” My Cleveland friend A. said, “Go to Hell, Steelers.”

The end to this shower of love from Cleveland was my second youngest sister lamenting at what a disapointment I was to my father, a grizzled Browns fan.

To which I replied:

B- hooray! though i am still pissed the officiating in the first quarter was mostly bullshit.

K- yes! that was largely a result of stalwart republican chairman rooney breaking ranks and supporting the big O. even gave him an 08 steelers jersey. obama loves the 412.

My baby sister- yr mother know you talk like that?

A-scientists, running future scenarios on super computers, have determined that the steelers are humanity’s last, best hope during the hypothetical end of days. once a method for proving existence of, then transporting to hell is developed, the steelers will be sent to hell to beat the demons and circumvent the apocalypse. most experts believe the steelers will win. handily.

Sister 2-unless i’m mistaken, dad came home [from a camping trip] to the realization that he’s going to be forced to watch another season of browns football. that eclipses any feelings he has as far as me, i’m sure. that disapointment is older than all of his children combined.

In other news, this season I decided to try my hand at caring what happens in the NFL beyond my division, and have a fantasy football team. So far, I am intimidated, confused, irritated, and  excited at the entire process. Sort of like when I moved here four years ago and didn’t give a damn about football, let alone know anything more than it made my father (again, a Browns fan) very grouchy and loud on Sundays. Then I suddenly found myself watching games with rapt attention, all the way to the Super Bowl, which I was more or less conscious for.

Also, I am all around stoked that I drafted Drew Brees.

On paper, I’m easily impressed by movies. If there’s checkmarks for aliens, explosions, and sinister corporations and/or  governments, I’m usually in. I was raised on sci-fi movies, I am an unapologetic Star Trek fan, I fret about the potentiality of SkyNet and I still watch TRON (and was all kinds of jolly to see the trailer for the sequel). I am the perverbial fish in the demographic barrel Hollywood suits love to shoot at a couple times a year.

True enough to Mr. Barnum’s dictum, there is a (sad fanboy) sucker born every minute. Unfortunately, when you actually pay money for shitheaps like Alien Versus Predator, you’re only encouraging George Lucas to milk Star Whores harder.  I saw the preview for District 9 right before Terminator: Salvation locked my childhood in the basement for several hours and proceeded to abuse it (as if T:3 wasn’t bad enough). The logic that followed after I had expunged my rage in the parking lot was that anything had to be better than that: “Wait, that one trailer…District something…It’s got aliens, explosions, shit, what the hell? I love that stuff! I’ll be back.”

Niell Blomkamp’s film opens up with mock interviews, post-shit hitting the fan, letting you know that protagonist Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) had gotten into some shit, has disappeared, and that the people of Johannesburg hate the aliens living in the refugee camp/shanty town of District 9.

Good. Great. Aliens look believable (though I wish our imagination could go beyond the whole bi-pedal thing), sound cool, and then here’s Wikus, being filmed for a documentary, fumbling with new-found authority as the head toadie for MNU’s (MultiNational United) forced eviction of the aliens into a concentration camp well outside of the city limits.

Then Wikus gets into some shit. In the span of a few hours, he goes from a naive, loyal MNU stooge to guinea pig to a fugitive. There are explosions, lots of explosions, and the weapons in the movie are a sendup of every shooter since Doom. I am beginning to think that the R rating is the only safe way to watch movies anymore.

A lot of the footage is from the documentary, security cameras and the like, mixed in with some very striking shots of the arid squalor of District 9. Then there’s the nigh-seamless special effects. It was a treat to not have my intelligence insulted by hyper-real effects and a hyperbolic sis-boom-pow.

Plot, you ask? In full force, made all the more believable since not only are the actors all unheard of South Africans, but they’re damn good. From Wikus to the chillingly callous MNU executives to the trigger-happy head of MNU security, it’s all awful close to the mark, especially if you’re at all familiar with humanity’s history of medical research on itself, for one. It’s not too hard to concieve how blind of an eye would be turned towards the plight of non-humans.

The film is based on a short called “Alive In Joburg“, a six-minute short by the same director, which was apparently good enough for a studio to throw him a paltry 30 million for the best science fiction movie I’ve seen in awhile. It even trumps J.J. Abram’s Star Trek re-boot, suck it.

While District 9 is  a far cry from the gentle whimsies of the sci-fi films from my youth, I’m a big boy now, and I’ll take my screaming moral implications with gratiutous gibbage and Nigerian warlords.

Grade: A

It finally happened. I finally made it to a show. I haven’t been to one since, unless I am mistaken, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! What did I miss in the meantime? The Dears. And, oh, just Autolux. Just the Fiery Furnaces. Haven’t seen a local show since the Jenn Gooch CD release, unless you count bartending for the Beagle Brothers CD release show in June. Which I do. Not. As much as I love that album.

I’ve been a bit jaded about music as a whole, at least until a few weeks ago, when I discovered the Army behind Black Mountain. Ironically enough, I’d been pretty jaded about everything lately. I was about a fingernail clipping away from not giving a damn about a ticket I got in April. I mean, I was just hoping for a couple of my favorite songs from a band that put out one of the worst EPs I had ever heard. I hadn’t even bothered with the Hazards of Love, which kind of sounds like something the Arcade Fire would come up with.

I couldn’t think of a more perect mindset to go into a show with. My mind was blasted, blown and undone, as only the head of an apathetic can be.

First of, Heartless Bastards opened, and I was delighted to discover that they could be secret members of the Black Mountain Army, if their sound is any indication. It was a happy coincidence, and I was invested as soon as Erika Wennerstrom let those PJ Harvey-esque pipes soar. My favorite music will and always be the stuff you can let slip like the dogs of war in a bar that seems a little too sleepy for your tastes, and my fellow Ohians are now a part of that repetoire.

So that brings us back to the Decemberists. I had been content to give them The Crane Wife for a shark jump, especially after hearing “Valerie Plame” too many damn times. It took about ten minutes into their set, but then I figured it out- they were playing Hazards of Love in its entirety, which accounted for the two additional players upon the stage. So I settled in, and let the epic take me. I’m only just now taking my first real lesson to the album itself, nothing will ever compare to seeing and feeling it live.

While Wife had its threads and themes, the Decemberists had not really visited the realm of heavy consistent concept, at least in terms of making one long opera (Yes, I know they put The Tain (that is on The Tain) to music, but did you?).

The reviews are already out on the album, I know. It’s nothing like any other Decemberist album; comparing it as such is an insult to its sheer audacity and derring-do. It’s a landscape with oases and deserts, Cliffs of Insanity and blissful plains of purple buffalo, cracked crystals and hideous Nothings. It gallops, it stomps, it throws fits, its bones rattle to sublime dust. It’s a leprous healer with an axe to grind, because that chapel ain’t gonna build itself.

It’s an A.

Some bands manage to get to the part in the story where they can throw together a decent set, communicate on that higher level, and give the audience the best night they’ll ever have until they have it again. Other bands get past that part, where they so fully understand what the music is, and that they have less and less to do with the music the higher the audience is lifted; they simply let what they have crafted work for them. The Decemberists made it look easier than a dream.

As if that weren’t enough, they had a second set, something more along the lines of that former band, the one that does what they do with enthusiasm, but might never stride through the cloud deck like the giants do.

So we heard “July, July!”, my all-time favorite song of theirs, which was my only hope for the concert. You can see why I was floored by the experience. They also played “Shankill Butchers”, my second favorite song. I had heard in an interview that Meloy was a drama student, and that it came out in thier shows, so I was waiting a little on that, too. They re-enacted the Battle of Fort Pitt amidst the audience with a less than scrupulous or sensical account of history, halfway through “A Cautionary Tale”. Then got right back onto the stage for the second half with nary a beat missed.

With the song’s final admonition, they left the stage. I expected an encore, given the band’s flair for the dramatic, but was shocked and rocked by what they delivered:

Sadly, that’s the best of the videos. But you get the point.

I would be lying if I said the show didn’t provide an incredibly beautiful counterpoint to what my life is doing down here on the ground. As it goes with all inspiration, it tends to find you, slap you silly and get you imagining the day your head reaches above the clouds. Working towards it is another matter, but then that’s why we have heroes who risk, well, the hazards of love.

Grade:

The Decemberists at the Byham Theater, August 14, 2009: A+

The Decemberists: The Hazards of Love: A

(It’s a difference of seeing a play and reading it)

EDIT: It has come to the author’s intention that he’s a bit dim sometimes. And that yes, he likely became lost about three times because he doesn’t even know the name of the reservoir he was at. Please continue for a lovely account of a trip to the Allegheny Reservoir.

As much as I love the 412, I tend to get a little stir crazy. As hectic as my life can appear on the surface, it ends up being pretty routine. So any chance to break the cycle and get outside my head is a wonderful gift. The last week had been all kinds of what-am-I-doing-with-my-life and I was asking myself, “How do I win more efficiently?”

Let’s be clear, I know what I’m doing with my little l life. I have a five-year plan, I’ve got projects and goals. Hell, I even quit that stupid call center to make way for the trip account you’re about to read. I was concerned with the big L, and this last weekend was the capstone to answer my questions, if only for the fact that I was out of Pittsburgh. It gave me the perfect vantage point to strategize.

My buddy Hot Shot’s family has had a tiny cabin (more of a shack) a mile down the road from the Allegheny Reservoir for decades, and it’s become a large part of my orbit, sort of like I’m a comet that swings into view every year. A core group of five Eagle Scouts (Hot Shot, Sugar Ray, Flex, Shirtless J and yours truly), count ‘em, have been going up there at least once a year for the last 9 years to get silly, build fires and play cards. Before that, we went as part of Boy Scouts. It was a happy day when we managed to pull the beer and driver’s licences together for that first unsupervised trip at age 17.

We try and supplement our group with new faces; this time my good friend and roomate TCKTOCK came, and was gracious enough to not make me walk. He even let me pay for half the gas. He is a swell dude. The last few new guests never really stuck, but TCKTOCK took to it like a fish to water, and we’re all pretty stoked about the upcoming winter trip.

To paraphrase TCKTOCK, the cabin is refreshing because it’s just dudes hanging out. The standing rule is no women, only because the cabin is the only dependable time of the year when the five of us are together. And also because girls have cooties. We don’t need to muck up a good thing, so we don’t. Our phones also don’t work out there, unless your wife has you so whipped you stay on the phone with her so she can tell you about the shoes she bought. Suck it, Flex. I love your wife, but three calls a day is ridiculous.

We don’t worry about anything, we all chip in, we all take care of chores and projects with joy and vigor. Each of us values the chance to get the hell out of the day-to-day; ask me to dig up my back weedpatch and I’ll probably tell you to go screw. Take me to the cabin and tell me we need to level out a 14×10 patch of ground for a shack, and I will revel in how sore my muscles are, even as I type this.

Hot Shot relayed a pretty funny story to me when we arrived. He and Shirtless J  played Disc Golf courses on the drive up. Hot Shot was pitching to a hole right near a stream, but it wasn’t a tough throw by any stretch. Just as he was releasing, a voice in his head half sung, “Don’t throw it too ha-ard,” and the disc ended up in the stream. That phrase became the slogan of the trip and it was applied to everything, from the shed to the fire to the cooking to making Euchre calls. By the end of the trip we had all learned the importance of moderation yet again, but more importantly that sometimes it’s worth your while to throw too hard and lose some time  making up for your mistakes.

In recent visits, we’ve been working to improve the cabin. It started with some hardcore cleanup. Then we got a new awning to replace the busted-up aluminum one that kept you from opening the door all the way. Then we built an awning over the propane tank. Then we built two new sawhorses. This time, we built a shed for the new rider mower (the plot of land is about an acre) and got a composter-toilet to replace the filled-to-the-brim outhouse. Next time, we have to replace the roof.

My favorite job was the propane awning, because before that, every winter we had to heat up water on the pot-belly wood stove (which took like an hour) to melt the ice on the propane line outside. Every morning. Now we don’t even have to think about leaving the cabin until we’ve had breakfast.

Building the shed was a really cool excercise in problem solving and general gusto. Everyone fell into a role, and we all worked together pretty well. After we had hucked about forty cinder blocks into place and put the plywood decking in place, we were forced to confront the fact that we only sorta leveled the frame. Our solution? Shims, drill new holes in the frame and muscle the panels into place. It worked. For a modular sheet metal shed, I was surprised how often we had to muscle panels into place (even after we finally leveled it), and I am also surprised I only have one (superficial) cut on my hand. I am also surprised that Flex, an engineer, went to school for five years and still managed to put in the roof beams upside down.

I got to play with power tools, including a reciprocating saw. I had another opportunity to play Cups, and I also got a couple games of Cornhole in. On the first night, we stayed up all night drinking, drove down the road to the reservoir and swam around in the dawn and took a bath. We listened to Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” about a dozen times (Sweet Jones!). We took about eighty trips to Lowe’s. I made delicious chicken with a 160z can of Stroh’s, honey, pepper and garlic. Six guys hung out and threw their problems on the fire. As always, we all came out slightly better people. We’re almost tolerable humans now.

Remember, when you’re digging your own grave, don’t dig too dee-eep.

Despite the face that I’m generally envious of those who live at a slow plod (if only for the fact that it’s altogether more stable), I am wholly unable to function at anything other than sporadic bursts of living.

Sorry Ma, I’m totally excusing my penchant for alcohol and adventure.

This last weekend was no exception; my best friend M and I have since decided that our weeks would be better addressed compartmentalized into themes. Last week was her Slutty Week, she batted 3 for 7, as if that’s any of your damn business. In any case, we both go down together, and as such, PARTY was the party line. I can only imagine what would have happened to the both of us had I not been bartending for the first five days of the week.

Thursday, I was free for the first time since I accidentally took three weeks off, but this time I had money. It was time for Eighties Night at Belvedere’s, and it was one of the most packed I had ever seen. I learned two things interesting things that night. One was that that bar serves the most PBR in the tri-state region. The other was that they ran out of PBR well before midnight. Beyond the oppressive rush of hip kids, I really dug the new layout: the ability to play pool without asking someone to move six times during each shot is always a plus. The roving PBR girl is a definite improvement, too. What I really like about Belvedere’s is that it’s quintessential Pittsburgh. Sure, we’ve got clubs (I guess), but when it comes down to it, the action isn’t at a ritzy IDM club or a Manhattan-style joint, it’s in grimy old dude’s lounge type places like the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern for Drum and Bass night, or yeah, Belv’s for 80s.

The place was wall to wall- leaving meant you were never getting back in, stamp or no. As such, my face was only partially danced off. After the dancing was done, helped arrange a trip to the local after-hours, where I hung out with a some long lost friends and helped an ex by walking her home and cockblocking the dude that came after me at her request. I barely made it home, soaked in spirits as I was. I topped off the evening by talking ugly to M, who had decided to go to Shadyside, rather than accompany me. Anyone who reads this blog knows how I feel about that shithole, and I had no sympathy for her.

I spent Friday reconstructing the night before, and coaxing M and I both back into fighting shape. We rolled up to Qdoba in Oakland for something called Fishbowl Fridays, about a dozen deep. Imagine blue Long Islands, served in a beer pitcher with a straw. We reconvened at the Garage Door where M’s frisbee team, looking foxy/suave as hell, owned the dartboard. If you ever have the chance, hang out with some frisbee people. They’re some of the best. And they don’t even care if you play frisbee, they like just about any game.

The main cause for that celebration was a roomate and friend leaving on Sunday. We gave him a hell of a fun time, complete with a being pulled over by the cops for expired tags (mind you, they expired June 30. Do the math), and getting a warning, because Q does not ever drink when he drives. That’s only one of the thousand reasons I miss that ginger fucker.

Home meant pass out and prep for the real meat and taters, the fourth. M’s team had a shindig going on that I wasn’t going to pass up. There was Cups, my favorite outdoor game. There was also Mingle, and I shit you not, Duck Duck Goose. You have never seen people play that game harder. I am still a bit sore from laying out, sprinting and hucking people around.

M and I crashed out because we started arguing, about what we’re not sure. We have since threatened each other with never spooning the other again whenever an argument arises, which is pretty often. In the morning, we went to the Quiet Storm for some farewell Q breakfast, and thus ended a damn good weekend.

Relevent? Maybe. But the next weeks are Resuscitate J’s Libido Week, Hair Metal Week and Dyke Week. I’ll make sure to keep the progress on all that updated frequently.

Hope your Independance Day clebration was equally draining; it only happens once a year for a reason. If you’re gonna be a bear, be a Grizzly.

It’s been far too long, and I’m pretty sure that i’ve managed to lose whatever meager crowd I had been generating. I quit my job in March, prepared to enter the world of I’m never working in a bar’s kitchen for disloyal employers ever again. Or any employer. Never again will I work in a kitchen. That period in my life is dead. I’ll never miss another Steelers touchdown because I was busy with someone’s shitty food. I have since moved to the top of a very small hill; Bartending.

The job change and easing into period took out my savings and nearly devoured my landlord’s patience. Thankfully, after working my ass off for the last two months, I caught up on rent.

If there’s any advice I have for someone who wants to get a new job, it’s do it. You’ll be happier. Just get something lined up, and don’t be afraid of the telephone or pushing yourself to wake up at a decent hour to pound some pavement. This from the mouth of a dude who took a three week vacation because he was too lazy to showup at the office for trianing day.

That’s right, bartending, while generally lucrative, wasn’t enough to maintain my jet-setter lifstyle. The spending structure is pretty much this: Cigarettes, Alcohol, and Foodis OK Sometimes I Guess.

I work as a telefundraiser, calling on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund, Amnesty International, Public Television. Really the most exciting thing about it is that the staff are all interesting, mostly in my age bracket, and tend to visit the bar when I need money. And also concieving this tattoo idea:

Sarah Palin, buck-ass naked, riding a polar bear, toting a flame thrower and scorchin’ herself some wolves. Because she has it out for them, and my fellow caller and I were fed up of people telling us to go pound sand when all we wanted was thier money to save them. Sheeit.

I’ve let this thing languish for while, and I’m still proud of it. I am sort of a badass writer, and I need to create and maintain a viable portfolio and keep my skills sharp. So, uh, hi imaginary reader? I missed you, and will likely not leave home for so long ever again. Mommy and Daddy made up. Maybe Mommy will stop illuminating Daddy’s cultural insignificance, but Daddy’s totally not quitting the sauce.

That metaphor really bothers me, but I’m not sure if it’s because it’s silly and irritating, or somewhat true.