Archive for October, 2002

Oh yeah! While I was at the dentist I was reading the new issue of Newsweek. There was an article about the soon-to-be released Journals of Kurt Cobain. The article had lots of excerpts and I found one interesting and completly ironic. In one entry Cobain was talking about how some pages of his journal were stolen and how it fealt like he had been raped. Just by reading that entry I fealt like I was violating him. It didn’t stop me mind you, I am on page 68. I hope someone doesn’t steal it from the dentist office before I get to finish it.

Life Lesson #47: Don’t ever become famous. The media will skull fuck you even after you have gone the way of the dodo.

Life Lesson #112: If you don’t want to get skull fucked by the media in the afterlife don’t write anything down, ever, and don’t marry Courtney Love.

First things first. Before I talk about Portland…I had to go to the dentist today.

The Adventures Of Timmy The Tooth

Now, I am embarassed to say that I have not been for a long long time. I had my cleaning last week and not to my surprise I had a few small cavities. I don’t know about any of you but I don’t find going to the dentist a very pleasant experience. Until today. I had my choice of CD’s, new Sheryl Crow or the new Springsteen, as background music. I picked Sheryl Crow. My dentist was so gentle that I didn’t even feel the needle for the novocain. I had two people diligantly working in my mouth to keep moisture and debris from lingering behind my tongue. I was done in just about half an hour. No droopy mouth and ready for some sushi.

While I was in the chair I had some time to ponder why I did not like the dentist. I used to have a 60 year old, sadistic, humming dentist with large hands. That is why I hated the dentist.

Friday, I get to listen to the new Springsteen.

Well the trip to Portland is complete. More…once I clear my head.

Two tums, a package of chocolate donuts, and a coffee flavored cup of battery acid for breakfest. Only 7 hours to my vacation. It’s due time to return back to the land of promise. Promise of microbrew and good times.

Portland, Oregon.

I consider the five years that I spent in Portland as my formative years. Five years full of laughs, tears, beers, and heartache. It is truly amazing the life lessons that a person learns after puking up cheese fondue in the women’s bathroom in a bar whose name I can no longer remember. For the next women who walked into that restroom….I truly am sorry.

Life Lesson #17: 8 Crown Royals and Cheese Fondue create a chemical reaction not unlike shaking a can of Coke and then opening it.

I am happy to be going back. My girlfriend will get to experience what I consider to be the most wonderful city in the United States and I get to see friends before the Portland mistique fades. Everyone is on to the next best thing, friends are moving away, like I did. The old bar haunts have different names and different faces. Even my old dog has a new identity. Some things are still the same, but I don’t imagine for very long. It feels like this will be the last time that Portland will still be the Portland that I know.

Why I hate the Marlboro Man

Smoking is a strange concept. Set fire to a bunch of dried leaves, put in my mouth, inhale, repeat for the next 12 years. Sounds kind of silly. Now I have read all the warnings. But I aleady know that smoking is bad, so it’s not like I am going to wake up one day and go “Holy jesus, these are bad for you!?!”

Here is the warning that would have stopped me pretty much cold turkey. “Smoking one pack of cigarettes a day for 12 years will cost you $13,140″ which is just about how much I have spent (either my own money or someone elses through the act of “bumming”) OK, so that is $13,140 (or the remainder of my student loans) that I will never see again.

So, I do the math and I see the light. Time to quit.

Well, another little warning that they don’t bother to put on the labels is “Warning: Smoke one of these and we own you. Forever.” I attempted to quit over the weekend. I made it almost a whole day. Then it started….the withdrawal. I am not just talking about the chemical withdrawal, I am talking about the physical withdrawal, the action of smoking. Someone that smokes a pack a day spends about 3.5 hours in the act of smoking. This could be a combined activity; smoking and drinking, smoking and talking, smoking and web surfing, smoking and reading, or smoking while writing about smoking. Smoking.

Nicotine addiction is one thing. You can eat the gum, slap on the patch, lick ash trays, whatever. But finding a cure for boredom, replacing that aural fixation, now that is my challenge. What the hell I am I going to do for the extra 3.5 hours. Eating is the natural replacement for smoking and I know I do not have to explain the ramifications. Unfortunately eating makes me want to smoke (trigger). Pacing seems to work but tends to make people around me nervous. You see, smoking for me, is like a commercial break. A 10 minute intermission between activities. A seque from one thing to another. The worst is that it symbolizes relaxation. Now this is something that nicorette won’t fix.

Time for a smoke.

I’ll let you know how it all works out.

I learned to be comfortable blowing my nose in public the other day.I am always striving to be a better person than the person I was the day before.

It has come to my attention, in the last month, that most of the rest of the world hates American Tourists!

Maybe, hate is too strong a word. Maybe, a strong contempt for our sophmorish attitude towards the rest of the world and its culture, followed by the sudden urge to spit. You hear the stories…loud obnoxious Americans…rude…demanding.

I call it culturally challenged.

Now, I am not making a blanket statement here. There are some of us out there that do not fit into the “American Tourist” mold. Unfortunately, when asked where we are from, we say “Canada”. Because no one hates Canada.

But it is true, I have seen my fellow countrymen in action, seemingly, oblivious that they have left the safety of their own country. Making comments in front of people, about those people, forgetting the fact that they actually understand….every….single…word….that….you….are…saying and that they are about to prepare the food that you are going to eat!

And I admit it, Americans are loud. You don’t notice it when you are actually in the country, because everyone is loud. Everyone is competing because “He who speaks loudest gets heard.” But when you take the same people out of this environment we do seem obnoxious. Everyone else is having civilized quiet conversation, and as long as everyone plays by that rule, it works. No one has ever really taught us the international rules of polite conversation. I blame the United Nations personally. I think there needs to be a U.N. Sanction that states that Americans have to speak within a certain decibel level and then send in an inspection team to make sure this is happening.

I know what you are thinking! “This will never work.” You are right. We would end up hiding our loudest people and not allow inspectors near those locations. Then a “No-Talk-Zone” would be declared. We would occasionally shout in this zone just to challenge authority. I also blame the U.S. Constitution. The Right to Free Speech. It is just too damn vague. We should not have the right to freely speak as loudly as possible.

Perfect example, Katerina and I are coming back on the train from New York City. A pack of drunk, white, 30ish, bitches get on the train. You know the type, the ones who think that the characters on Sex in the City are real. Even better, they think that they are the characters on Sex in the City and that we are all there on the train to watch them. These women were basically yelling at the top of their lungs. It may not have been so bad if they had of been talking about something interesting. And then some poor woman, who has probably traveled outside of the U.S. and understand the rules of polite conversation, decided to tell them that they were being loud. Unfortunately this encouraged a 45 minute spew on their “Right to Free LOUD Speech”

Well, what was I suppose to do, I was ready to throw myself off the train. As part of the international community I felt obligated to reinforce the rules of polite conversation and to support the woman who was bold enough to confront them. I lean over and look one of them in eyes, which creates a brief moment of silence, and state firmly “Actually, you know, I agree with her. You are annoying.”

I have done my part and I am prepared to pay the consequences. For the next fifteen minutes listen to the ring leader telling her fiance, on the her cell phone, the whole damn story.

Just kill me now.

When they got off the train all I could do was clap. The scary thing was…..they were social workers! Notice the sarcastic emphasis on social.

4/21/2002 – Life in Wallingford, CT – The Legend Continues – but not for long.

7 states, 3 countries, 12 time zones, and 20,000 miles.

I have found myself all over the world in the last 6 weeks. Chicago, London, Prague, Vegas, New York City, and of course Wallingford, CT.

Chicago, Illinois March 12th. 2002

Some people have a list of the places they would like to see and the things that they would like to do. I have such a list. The list is long. The list is what I live by every day and every night.

One of the items on that list was to go to, what I consider, the heart and soul of music, a place where you can hear the best Blues and Jazz music around. A place where if your foot ain’t tappin to the beat you have no pulse. Chicago. One night.

I stayed down on the Maginificent Mile. The theater and shopping center of Chicago.

The first club I made it too is called Kingston Mines, a place where the blues have been playing every night until 4 a.m. since 1968. A place where rich white kids from the suburbs with too much time and too much talent go to play the blues. Because even the rich kids from the suburbs have the blues. OK, well, not really, but I did mention that they have too much time on their hands. But it is a place where if you know how and want to play the blues you can. But beware if the audience doesn’t think you are playing the bues they will send you packing.

Next was the Green Mill, probably one of the most famous Jazz clubs in Chicago. You want a stiff martini, great jazz and a time machine back to the time of times, this is the place. Women can’t help but dance to that jive beat and waitresses could careless if I ever got another drink. They only take American Express (the official credit card of Jazz? Maybe.)

London, England March 21st. 2002

Next item on the list, London England. Get off of work, drive to Vermont, get the family, drive to Concord, NH to catch a bus to Boston, Logan International, check in, answer the two “NO’s”, hop a plane over the big pond, land in London, take a nap.

I woke up at 3 p.m. to meet my girlfriend, who I had not seen for months, in the heart of Piccidilly Circus under the Statue of Eros.

While waiting, I had a conversation with a Welch punk rocker who had a Guiness in one hand and one of my cigarettes in the other. He explained to me where he was from, which happens to be the longest word in the Welch dictionary. No shit. He pronounced it. I won’t. I gave him another cigarette, he went about harassing tourists, while I went about waiting.

Katerina, my girlfriend, arrived and it was one of those weird sweet moments where time seems to stop and it seems like an eternity between when I first saw here and when I actually got my arms around her.

We all seemed to be floating a drop of happiness, glad to have escaped our normal daily grind and make our reunions. Mother and Daughter, Mother and Son, Son and Lover.

All together.

All happpy.

All ready to celebrate. I think that Australian Chardonay became our favorite wine that night, having consumed no less than five bottles. We had a blast, we all needed a good dose of good time, it had been a while and well deserved.

We all spent the next few days sight seeing, and walking, and tubing, and walking, and sight seeing. Sunday we went out seperate ways. The family was off to York and Scottland, while Katerina and I were headed to Prague.

Prague, Czech Rep. March 24th 2002

A Bohemian Rapsody

Katerina and I arrived in Prague after, what some people would consider a “hellish” trip, to 25 wonderful people with noise makers and confetti in a restaurant called Club Architecktu. It was a great party, one that will never be forgotten.

After a good day of rest, Katerina gave me a tour of the city at night….amazing.

With so many hidden restaurants and pubs and small side streets, and a romantic walk on the Charles Bridge, Prague has now become one my favorite places on Earth.

Now Prague is an artist’s wet dream. A place of endless beauty and discovery, where you can live off 10� sausages and 25� beers. Where every new turn down a side street brings you into an entirely different Prague.

Las Vegas. Nevada – April 6th, 2002

Fear and Loathing

Las Vegas is and always will be the Disney Land for adults. Adults with habits.

Played my first $1 on a slot machine waiting for a friend. Won $120. I Managed to use all of my mental and physical restraint not to blow it at the Blackjack table.

The thing that amazes me the most about Vegas is once you have entered a Las Vegas casino it is almost impossible to find your way out again. It was 3:00 a.m and I am sitting with my friend,on the terrace of the Voodoo Lounge, in the Rio. On the brink of alcohol psyscosis, I decide to leave while I can still remember what my room number is at the Treasure Island.

I say my goodbyes and head to what I think is the way out. Nope another bar. Another door. Another bar. Another door and I finally make it outside. Only to find myself back on the terrace of the Voodoo Lounge.

Vegas has won.

I sit back down at the table and order another drink.