Ladybugs, an infestation of cuteness

So cute, So many! The late comedian Mitch Hedberg talked about Koala bears and the problem with an infestation of cuteness. Leaves were involved. Thats
peanuts to my inhouse problem!

I am overrun by small round red, some slightly brownish orange, wanna-be-beetles. The hardly fly, they crawl and hang out in door windows.
Yes, I have ladybugs. One ladybug, a good omen. Two ladybugs, cute. But I have hundreds, if not thousands of those little spotted bitches. And the
SWARM !!!

A coworker suggested I use dishsoap around the doors and windows. so after a "suckfest" of those little red spotted plague, I put lemon joy around all
the doors the beetle wanna-be-bugs were entering from. Either some of them hate the lemon and some like the lemon, or I wasted a bunch of dishsoap. In
an elapsed time, uncontrolled experiment I'm seeing less ladybugs, the ones I do see are walking around in individual lemon scented bubbles.

The leftover ‘herbie goes swarming’ multitude wander around nurturing my houseplants, bumping into each other, and doing nothing aggressive. As
punishment for this heinous behavior I have only one viable option. Talking to them has not convinced them to leave. Ladybugs don’t like to be blown on
and do not taste good. Apparently cheese does not excite them, nor does honey, and short of spreading Dish Joy around my entire home in an attempt
to cleanse the unwashed cuteness plague, I have no other choice-the vacuum!

Never before had I used the attachments with such ruthless efficiency. Sure some ladybugs escape but hundreds do not. I’ll take these odds. The
satisfaction is indescribable. Swwwip! Another member of the cute cult holding prayer sessions on the geraniums gone!

Problem has been contained.

Kilts work better at Ren. Faires than Halloween party’s

So I have this kilt, 30lbs of wool its like a pet more than a garment. I’ve been wearing it every occasion I get. I had really good luck with it at a Renaissance Faire so I wanted to know if it worked at a Halloween party.

I’m in luck I have a friend from school who likes throwing party’s and its been a while since I’ve seen him, he invites me to his annual Halloween shindig… I hear all sorts of outrageous stories from 3rd parties about these parties, never believing them myself I wanted to see if they really could fit 2 elephants into a townhouse, strippers come dressed as business people and if cops really don’t bust Halloween parties because of the lack of doughnuts regardless of how many trashcans get set on fire with tiki torches shaped like human skulls.

So I drive south like a (WARNING BAD PUN AHEAD) bat out of hell. I’ve got the stereo turned up so loud I can’t hear anything, which deosn’t really matter because the truck’s motor is extremely quiet anyway so the knob was probably up to 5 out of 70….

I arrive hungry 3 hours before the party begins… just enough time to help decorate, gorge myself on candy and grapefruit juice NOTE: not a good combination.

I try and get the lowdown on who and how many will be arriving. The answers are vague and inconclusive except that co-workers and ex-roommates are invited. Apparently there are a lot of both…no comment. I know the host, his roommate, and another visiting guest from New Jersey, we both have been promised prime spots on the floor to crash. (why am I always running into people from New Jersey?!?)

People start arriving dressed as the typical stuff. Dead lab techs, death, darth maul…one girl was dressed (I thought) as a fairy, turns out she was an angel-oh well the joke was on me. There was a dead soccer player, a surfer, a hooker (of course) and a big fat guy dressed in a Hooters girl outfit…that last one was just wrong…

Drinking games ensue, conversations begin, and I was referred to as ‘Irish’ more than once. Riot ensues, one guy keeps telling me “you dropped your rock” every time he sees me… The ironic thing is two Latinos at the party immediately recognized me as Scottish. I convinced them, the surfer and the hooters guy that I was actually Scottish which made the costume not as
amusing….

One guy, Irish in decent, grabs the angel’s ass, her husband Darth Maul objects, then the Irish guy pukes in the toilet and on himself. The rest of the night he uses me to stand up…NOTE he outweighs me by 100 pounds. I help him upstairs where he passes out, face down, and there he lays for the next 9 hours. The hosts coworker relay to me that this sort of thing usually happens…. But where are the elephants I ask? As if on cue, in walk 3 ‘pregnant’ girls pretending to be Brittney Spears and other social pop stars, fuck if I know… One tells us she is a member of a certain sorority that I know, so I respond with “I thought your ass looked familiar” This
does not go over well with the pregnant elephants

I get into a conversation and someone asks me about an AK-47. The angel looks over at me and says, “Oh yeah, I’ve flown on one of those before…” Oh boy, things are getting interesting.

People are now urinating on things that shouldn’t be urinated on like houseplants (sorry I really had to go) air conditioners and the floor. How old are we? I thought college was over, boy that smell is familiar… why do I see flying monkeys?

Ahh the wizard of oz contingent has arrived along with some people whom the host doesn’t recognize. It is now 4 AM and you learn interesting things while lying on the floor trying to sleep in between the yells and cheers coming from the basement. For instance: The angel has been married to darth maul a sum total of 6 months, is 22 and this is only her 4th time being drunk. He has cheated on her (with a wookie I hope) and she is bitter. The 250lb Hooters guy can’t believe the hosts 120lb roommate can drink that much without passing out like the Irish guy. Meanwhile he’s disappointed in me that I didn’t do my “Fat Bastard” impersination-which I don’t have. Oh BTW the front door is WIDE open and its like 50 degrees in the house with the
heat on. All windows are open and all stereos, radios and TVs are on at full volume. The cops have yet to arrive.

I met some interesting people, drank some things that would take the paint off a winebago and had to break up only one fight. Not a bad party for a guy whose nickname in school was “troll.” I am disappointed that no one tried to look up my kilt…except for the Irish guy…

Paul Goes to the Big Apple

The urge struck me, I still don’t know why, to go to a city where I must rely exclusively on public transportation. Because I fear property damage and/or theft, I must rely on public transportation to get to the city where I must rely on public transportation.

Enter the Amtrak “Express” service to New York City’s Penn Station. This is completely deceiving as the train stopped at every single small backwards assed town from wherever you happen to be and the place you’re trying to get to. In Philthadelphia the train stops completely and the power goes out. Everyone panics expect for you, who quietly wishes for some horrible death. There is a large ‘bump’ and then the power comes back on, the train departs, only now it is going backwards.

The train takes you (backwards) into a hole in the earth. It is dark, a man tells you to leave, you ask him if this is New York. He tells you it is, and you wonder why there aren’t more buildings, and what happened to the sun? You must have asked this aloud because the conductor is looking at you funny and pushing you off the train onto the platform.

You ascend a series of maze like staircases onto the main floor of Penn Station. I hope you weren’t sleeping, because you will be really disoriented. I was and I’d been up for four hours-roughly the time it takes the train to go 60 miles. Here on the main floor of Penn Station are more signs with more information than you thought possible or useful. If you want the NJTA go here, or there. If you want the LIRR, go here, or there. If you want some random numbers follow the arrows pointing at you. If you want colon cancer follow the other arrows pointing randomly. If you have to go to the bathroom (which I did) look for a wall, and then walk around following it to the universal sign of excretion-The ‘Bud Light’ sign.

You need the ‘subway’ but amoung the thousands of directional signs the words ‘subway’ are mentioned only half the time. Yes the ‘subway’ is omnipotent and omnipresent but if its everywhere how does it know where you want to go?

Answer: it doesn’t. You need to know what series of numbers and letters are required to get you to your destination. Like a safe combination. So after guessing I found myself on a subway platform waiting for a train to take me to destiny…a small area in queens I’m told.

Have a young woman walk past you, stop and then walk back to you asking you if this is the “XYZ123 train to middlecentralnowhere.” Congratulations you’ve been in NYC a total of 25 minutes and a complete stranger has asked you for directions. Is this good or bad?

…To Be Continued.

My Roadie Days Part 2: The Willys

So here we are roughly ten years later. There was a local band when I was in college made up of alumni called the Willys. They played popular hard rock cover songs like Neil Young, Steppenwolf, etc etc etc. They were a pretty wild bunch and did well in college venues…like when the frat guy who was doing jello shots for 56 minutes earlier is now ‘singing’ along with a song he’s obviously never heard of….2 inches in front of the lead singer….

So, I ran into the Willys a few years after college. They still rocked, but someone forgot to tell them that they got old…apparently all of a sudden. I struck up a conversation with the lead singer who remembers the gig I last saw them at and the guy “helping” him sing. We laugh, we joke, he asks the big question “So what have you been up to?” It’s a one sided question, because I know what he’s been up to, and its also a trap…because I’ve been up to nothing at all. So I go bold and lie: “I’ve been making doughnuts for the Pierce-Arrow Museum in Okalahoma. But they’re having an open house here so I came with them.” Not knowing my love for doughnuts, the bluff worked.

We made small talk as he was tearing down his amp setup. And then my question which starts the new saga “Hey, want some help with that?”
Sow I see places like “The Underside” “Boyds Bears” “The Ski Liberty Chalet” Mostly semi-swanky restaurants and bars, no dives or slaughter houses. Gone are the rednecks. Gone are the meatmarkets. All these places have their own employees with guys who take their covers. I walk right past the poor schlub collecting covers for the establishment with a “I’m with the band” thing. If I get hastled the next time the schlub sees me I have an amp or a drum or a
mic stand. The schlub then shuts up.

I sit in the back, or on the side. After the 1st set I say things like “sounds good.” “Too much bass, vocals are weak.” “Hihat on drums are tweaking.” Only these guys are trained sound engineers so they laugh at me. The bartender or people next to me ask, “Are you friends of the band?” I have to say “Yeah, I’m seeing the sax player, and the lead singer is my brother.” Because these places don’t have bands that need roadies. I try the quiche. What the hell is quiche? Where are the groupies? Where is formaldehyde girl?

These are the questions I ask at the Willys.

My Roadie Days Part 1: Manday Huge

There once was a band named "Manday Huge." they were a 3 piece hardcore fusion group, Rolo, Buddy and George. They played sort of funk with a metal edge. Very intense live, better than on the two albums they produced and sold maybe 200 copies of.

Manday Huge played venues as far away as Louisanna, and Gettysburg Pennsylvania, but usually they toured the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It was odd because thier style of music did not match thier core group of fans-seafood rednecks. At any rate the fans were fiercly loyal to 'Manday' and would follow them to whatever bar they happened to be playing. Sort of like Pantera's fans, minus the whole being so devoted to the band you shoot a member of the band for not being IN the band...at that moment...

The fan base was such that even though they were loyal, they were also incredibly lazy, so Manday had to set up and take down all thier equipment, and do all the other band related activities. This got tough when they played venues that wouldn't pay them expect allowing them to charge a cover. One guy would sing and the other guitar player would put down his axe to collect 5 bucks a head at the door...very disjointed....

Enter Me. I wasn't very lazy and enjoyed hanging out with George, a down to earth Romanian imigrant who learned english when he was 9 and by 35 managed to have a band a wife and two kids...I kept telling him he was living the rock n' roll lifestyle and I was envious...

So George had be join on as Roadie #1. I helped set up, tear down and collect the covers. In between sets I would say things like "too much bass, bring up the vocals" and "drums kicking ass, need more guitar" or "you totally are rocking this place" even "one of your fans stabbed another fan in the hand becuase he liked 'jumpshot' better than 'bitches' " (I knew nothing about acoustics or sound mixing, but neither did they so it worked out) They apparently appreciated it, and kept trying to pay me, but i'd only accept a T shirt here and there. I just wanted to be part of the band. I was 19-20 and on the road with Manday Huge, hanging out in "The Fishermarket" "The Green Dolphin" and "Neptunes"

I learned that most people going to bars can't read and generally don't want to pay 5 bucks a head to a scrawny punk at the door, but I managed to get money out of 95% of the people and favors from 2% of the 5%. I got promises from another 2% (I'll pay you when I get change, I'll come back tommorrow and pay you, I'll pay you next friday) from the remaining 1% I got
threatened. Being a representitive of Manday Huge I was unable to use my collection of "your mother" lines. So I let it go. I also learned that underage people when asked for proof of ID act differently. Its dark, I can't see, theres a line as big as a 63 Lincoln and you hand me a Texas
drivers liscence. I can't see the date, and won't take the time to check. If you stall or come up with some story about the bar you were at last week, you get tossed. If you hand me the ID and the money you get in. Simple. I think I should be in jail...

Nothing extraordinary happened to me except one night my sister, who was 15 at the time, begged me to bring her along. She sat at the bar and proceded to attract seafood rednecks like fish to a corndog "Hey, I haven't seen you around, you just move down?"

At 1st or 2nd break I went over to thier 5x5 corner. (they are probably the most dense band in history in terms of sound/performance for the amount of space they are given in which to perform) I said something like "snare drum is tweaking, flatten the high hat and bring the treble on the bass track down two clicks you're scarring the alligator in the bathroom...." the girl who was talking to the drummer at the time, looked over at me and asked "Who are you?" Answer-the Roadie...#1.

Now this girl/woman/witch (It was dark!) was wearing one of those white fuzzy fake llama fur waist lenght jackets that were popular for 5 minutes in 1984...aparently she hadn't heard PETA had outlawed fake Llama fur... That and it was like 120 degrees in the place and she was obviously hammered.

As I was speaking she started to half assed hug me, and then she stuck her tongue in my ear...

At this point I want to ask-Have you ever noticed scents smell different on different people? CK1 smells like CK1 in the bottle, but on Joe it might smell like Poison, and on Cheryl it might smell like White Diamonds... Body chemistry has a lot to do with the percieved scent on someone....

Apparently no one told this girl that, because the gallon of whatever 'perfume' she was wearing, when mixed with her sweat, smelled like fermaldahyde/formalin/embalmin

g fluid. Euch!!!!

I don't know whatever happened to formaldahyde girl, but I do know Manday Huge went on to nothingness and oblivion....and so did I.

The End, until Part 2.

Doughnuts: A Passion Gone 2 Far?

To tell this story properly I must start before the beginning.

Several months ago I got lost with friends who could not decide where to eat. We (I) picked the first roadside eatery we found somewhere between the “next to nowhere” and “fumbuck.” After dinner we stopped by the bakery in the diner, and I read a sign that said “Special: Apricot Doughnuts”

I am a sucker for doughnuts. I have been known to stop drag racing to go to Krispy Kreme for a dozen. I do goofy things when “on” or “feaming for” doughnuts. Like: have a conversation with a girl for so long that she is now forever known as “Krispy Kreme Kowgirl” Also, going out the night before a friends wedding in search of doughnuts, finding them and being so happy that I bought 3 dozen and I gave a dozen to the hotel staff and bar patrons. I had to force the maintenance staff to take some… It was 1AM I wanted doughnuts, fucking sue me.

But back to our prequel: So I bought said apricot doughnuts after asking the teenie bopper counter girl if they were any good. She coyly said they were very good, I then threatened to come back if they were not.
They were not, not good. I ate the dozen that night.

…..

Our story begins-

Months later. The Apricot Doughnuts were now part of the menu and so popular that they had sold out the day I went back. The girl behind the counter had not changed. My need for Apricot Doughnuts had grown. So you can imagine my anger which turned into depression as soon as the girl flashed a smile and an apology. I asked for a big box of dissapointment. The cook laughed. The other counter girl laughed. I overhear the two girls talking about a guy they liked. The manager comes out to see the commotion becuase I have not left yet refuse to order anyting else.

Manager explains that they make them and sell out quickly, and the baking schedule is up to the baker…whom luckily was not there lest he/she be drug across the counter, out into the parking lot and beaten until agreeing to make me all the Apricot Doughnuts in hell. … So, logically I ask if I can ‘reserve’ a dozen…or two. She says that I would have to make sure they had baked them, but if available they would place my order on hold for 24 hours…
No problem, I take a card and ask if I can call an order in. The kitchen starts laughing. Apparently as popular as the Apricot Doughnuts are no one has desired them enough to call in an order, let alone demand they hold a dozen for pick up.

“If you give me doughnuts there is almost no limit to the favors I’ll do for you, if you have doughnuts and are an attractive woman, I’ll follow you into hell.” –Me

So let the moral be: If you want me to come to your wedding, you had damn well better have doughnuts, lest I go out drag racing to get some.

Monkey Boy!

So say you have a coworker... a new coworker... picture yourself working for a horrible company that reminds you of the Vietnam Conflict. The people in charge are old, out of touch, and do more damage than good. The veterans have been there for a year or more, but no more than 2.5 years... here you are new-no one wants to know your name, they make it a point to vilify your honest mistakes... And then weeks later, you are over the hump, experienced. You've already seen 4 other people come and go, either being fired, or not coming back...or in the case of Vietnam, seeing them killed or maimed. They were the lucky ones.

You always work at night, you have this tired desperation about you. Work is 7 days a week, no breaks, very little pay, no hope for escape... But I digress.

Say you have a coworker, a new coworker, whose name you do not know. You make no effort to to know his name, because every time he opens his mouth to speak to you, he either tries to insult you in an effort to be funny that isn't, or he has some inane comment that has nothing to do with anything like "cheese is good." Other coworkers notice this behavior also, in fact one was so insulted the first time this new coworker spoke that the veteran has refused to acknowledge his existence.

You try to tell the new coworker how to do his job better, to help make your job easier. He looks at you with big black dumb eyes, not even blinking. So you name him Monkey Boy. He resembles a silver back gorilla anyway, and it fits. He moves slowly, plodding along, breaking things or ignoring them entirely as he passes, only stopping to utter some incomprehendible
statement that might as well be "Oog oogh"

This of course is extremely insulting to monkeys and gorillas because, as we all know, they are intelligent, articulate and coordinated. This man, Monkey Boy is like a human bowling ball. Round, unsophisticated, and good only to knock things over, in a ham-fisted Monkey Boy sort of way. And occasionally he will look over as if to say "who me?" as he is slowing everyone else down or destroying something else.

If this were Vietnam you would hope Monkey Boy steps on a landmine, or someone in the platoon would do everyone else a favor and shoot him in the back while on patrol. But then again who knows. Most people quit or are fired...but he plods along leaving pestilence and ill-will in his silver back wake.

Gas Shortage?

On the way back from the Faire.

So gasoline prices have shot through the roof. I am fueling up my dead dinosaur powered 4x4 that goes offroad and to the drag strip too. When I pull up I notice some genius has pulled forward 35 feet from thier rear bumper to the front of the pump. No problem I back it...

I also notice said car, a chrsyler convertible, is idling...with no one in it. After a minute a woman comes out, gets in the car...and sits there. I think she's trying to balance a checkbook on her nose like a trained circus seal...and failing miserably becuase I keep seeing her dissappear under the dash. The car windows up, AC blasting..idling...

Now I fuel up 33 gallons and 98 dollars later... Shes still there! Now that the checkbook has bounced, shes gone on to sorting a bag of M&Ms... apparently me loudly complaining about gas shortages and wasteful stupid people has not fazed her.

ok so there is a small child in the back seat... which i did not notice before, maybe she was helping with the checkbook?
Woman prepares to leave as I do, 15 minutes later. Apparently the 8 inches I gave her between our bumpers was not enough for her to pull out. Go figure... So she backs up. I see her drive off, in her convertible with the top up, kid in the back, AC on and WINDOW OPEN SO SHE CAN SMOKE A CIGARRETTE! I guess I should have thanked her for not smoking and blowing us
up...?