Encounters With The Famous

I’ve never been one that cared all that much for meeting famous people. Unless, of course, your name is Jessica Biel, in which case I’m very interested in meeting you, say for dinner, 7pm, your place? Call me.

But otherwise, I never really understood the appeal of meeting someone only to marvel over how great a singer they are, or how wonderful they were in that movie, or about that sick slam dunk they did, and then have them sign their name to your CD or baseball card or face. In fact, once I chose sleeping over a friend’s house to going to a Celtics practice and meeting the Celtics. And these were the awesome 80s Celtics, not one of the scrub teams. (In retrospect, I kind of regret that decision.)

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate some of these people for what they do, it’s more just that I often feel that they don’t need one more person gushing the same old “I love you so much” platitudes they must hear day in and day out. Maybe their egos appreciate it, but my own doesn’t want to provide it.

That’s not to say I haven’t met any famous people, just that I don’t typically go out of my way to do so. Last week, a friend had managed to score us not only tickets but also backstage passes to see Kiss. So while standing around backstage, my friend points out, “Hey, there’s Gary Cherone! You want to talk to him?”

Me: Nah, I’m cool.

Again, just a case of feeling like nothing I could say would be that interesting to myself or him. While I’m sure everyone appreciates some praise or recognition for things they’ve accomplished, I just feel like once you’ve gotten so much of it, it becomes stale. I’d much rather try and relate to these people on a more regular level, but by the nature of celebrity, theirs and my lack of, that’s also not really possible either.

That being said, a few of my celebrity encounters include:

1) Meeting Hulk Hogan when I was a young boy. I was one in a sea of youngins surrounding the Hulkster, clamoring for autographs. (Back then I was more into the whole thing, obviously.) There’s a pretty funny picture of it that I would add to this blog, if only I had it. But I don’t, so you’ll just have to use your imagination to picture me standing next to someone approximately 15 times my size and looking somewhat bored by the whole thing. (Note: that same night I also hid from meeting Jimmy “The Mouth Of The South” Hart, because he was a bad guy in wrestling and kind of scared me.)

2) I once met Ty Tabor, the guitar player for King’s X. This was a few years ago, outside the Middle East in Cambridge where they had just played. Their bus was just behind the building and me and two friends had to walk past it to get to my car, so we decided to stop for a few minutes just to see if we could meet the band. They all come out, and Ty has this group of guitar players around him extolling his every virtue. So when it comes my turn, I decide instead to ask a question that had been on my mind for a while.

Me: Hey, Ty, what’s with the sunglasses you wear when you play? Is it a Corey Hart “Sunglasses At Night” kind of thing?

My Brain: Heh, heh. Good one!

Ty (dead serious): My eyes are very sensitive to light.

My Brain: Quick, make a lupus joke!

My Mouth: I want to, but there’s a foot inside me.

3) I met Butch Walker (formerly of the Marvelous 3, now a solo artist and producer of pop and rock acts) when in Los Angeles. I was in line at the Whiskey to see L.A. Guns, because what else would you do when in Los Angeles? A woman who worked there, comes out and starts talking to the guy behind me.

Woman: Hey, Butch Walker! Blah blah blah something about Southgang.

My Brain: Heh, someone from Southgang is in line behind me. L.A. is funny.

(Note: Southgang was a B-level 80’s hair rock band, and at the time I had only just gotten into the Marvelous 3 a couple months before and did not know who Butch Walker was.)

Woman: And how’s the Marvelous 3 thing going? Wait, let me see if I can get you inside.

She walks off, and I turn around.

Me: Butch Walker? From the Marvelous 3?

Him: Yep.

Me: You guys are badass.

Him: Thanks.

He is then escorted inside. I did see him inside the club later (the Whiskey’s not that big), but didn’t talk to him again as he was busily conversing with C.C. Deville and I didn’t want to interrupt. (Again, in retrospect, I probably should have, as a conversation, no matter how short, with C.C. Deville, I feel probably would have been blog material all by itself.)

3) There was this time that a recently reunited Ratt was playing a club in Weymouth, Me and some friends went and after the show was over, hung around the club for a while. The good thing about this place is that the back was a music club and the front a sports bar, so when shows were over, if it wasn’t too late, you could hang around in the sports bar part and still drink. Eventually, members of the band come out. A few of us decide to pop a very important question to Warren DiMartini, the guitar player.

Us: Dude, the guitar tone you had on Detonator was sick!

Him: Thanks.

Us: What kind of pickups did you use on your guitar to get that tone?

Him: Oh, it was a combination of a bunch of things, the amp, the guitar, etc.

Us: Yeah, but what kind of pickups did you use?

Him: I don’t remember.

My Brain: Bullshit! Tell us! Why are you lying?

(I remain convinced to this day that he did indeed know what pickups he used. It’s the type of things guitar players usually know about their own gear. Why he didn’t want to spill, we’ll never know.)

4) I have a friend that worked for Paula Cole for a few years. And while I saw her several times while he was, I never met her. However, one of those times was when she was on the Lilith Fair. So I go to see the show in CT, and am standing around backstage with my friend. He knew I was a big Sarah McLachlan fan back then and had said he would try to get me to meet her.

My Brain: She’s probably too busy to meet a friend of one of the opening act’s road crew. She’s running this tour, performing, it probably won’t happen. But it’s cool hanging out back here.

My Friend: Wait here for a second.

Me: OK.

My Brain: Hey look, there’s Fiona Apple. She looks sad. Maybe if I got her a sandwich, she’d cheer up.

My friend returns after a minute.

My friend: OK, come on.

My Brain: Where are we going? Am I going to meet Sarah McLachlan? Really?

We walk through a door into a hallway and there’s the person I thought would probably be too busy to meet anyone….hacky sacking.

My Brain: Wha? Uhh? Shutting down now.

Point in fact, this is probably the one time I was unintentionally tongue-tied around a celebrity, as opposed to my semi-normal quiet self. She must have thought it nice that my friend brought his autistic buddy to meet her.

5) And then there was the time me and a few friends met Bruce Kullick, one of the former guitar players of Kiss, when he was playing with his new band. After the show, he was standing by the bar, so a we went over and pestered him with a few Kiss-related questions. What’s Paul like? Is Gene really like he seems? What was it like being in the band? All of which he answered with: If I wrote a book about Kiss would you read it? Would you buy a book I wrote about Kiss? What about if I wrote this book?

I’ve yet to ever see that book.

But sure, Bruce. I’d probably read it.

The Horror!

I saw the trailer for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake yesterday. I’m conflicted about this one. It’s being done by Michael Bay’s company, the same one that did the remakes of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th, if I remember correctly. As far as remakes go, those two weren’t terrible. Friday the 13th wasn’t as good as the original, but it was decent. And to be honest, I may have liked the TCM remake better than the original for two reasons:

1) I was quite a bit older when I saw the original TCM. I’m sure it was plenty horrifying when it first came out, but almost 30 years later, and to someone who was then a grisled horror film veteran, it just seemed hokey, and

2) It starred Jessica Biel’s awesome stomach.

However, Nightmare On Elm Street is somewhat of a sacred ground for me. It was my first real introduction to horror movies when I was growing up, and it scared the ever-loving piss out of me. In fact, I vividly remember my first time watching it, and “watching” is a term I use extremely loosely. It was at my cousin’s house. Two of my cousins were in the basement watching the movie, while myself and another cousin were huddled on the stairs, peeking around the corner at the TV. Later, even when I was finally able to bring myself to be in the same room as the movie, it terrified me.  More so than I can remember any other horror movie doing. Sure, you can chalk that up to the fact that I was young and as yet unfamiliar with the genre, but the fact remains that it will always hold that special place in my heart. Especially nowadays when most horror movies do not scare me anymore.

And therein lies the problem. Even though the original doesn’t have quite that effect on me anymore, I still want my Nightmare On Elm Street to be terrifying, even if it is in remake form. And most horror movies nowadays already have two strikes against them: I’m harder to scare now (strike one!) and most  of them just aren’t that good (strike two!) Sure, I’ll see the remake, but I’m going in expecting to be disappointed. And if I’m not, bonus! But when I step into that theater, it’s going to be bottom of the ninth, two outs, those two strikes, and no one on.

***

Speaking of horror movies, we’re fast approaching October, which means it’s time to start bumping up the horror films in my Netflix queue up to the top. This has been a running tradition for the past few years, as I like to do this to celebrate Halloween and the onset of Fall.

In the past, I’ve gone the theme route: J horror one year, zombie movies another, etc. This year, I’m thinking it’ll be a little more of a free-for-all, as I don’t have any specific themes in mind. A dark horse possibility might be Schlocky B horror—classics like Chopping Mall and Silent Night, Deadly Night, stuff like that, but I’m not sure if I’m up for a full month of stuff like that. But either way, I’m looking forward to my month of thrills and chills.

The Land Of Ice And Snow

Within about an hour of arriving in Iceland I was party to two European experiences: the Continental breakfast and seeing naked dudes in the shower.

For all that Europe has to recommend it, the breakfasts are not on that list. Having now been to Europe—and yes, Iceland counts—twice, I’m obviously an expert in these matters. They’ve got the basic ingredients in place, but in entirely the wrong way. There are eggs, but they’re hard boiled (and in one place scrambled, but with an odd texture.) There are meats, but in cold cut form. There’s toast, if you want to make it yourself (a.k.a “bread”). And forget about home fries; the one time they were even available, they were tiny cubes of bland. So, while at home I could have a couple eggs over easy with some toast, home fries and either bacon or sausage, over there I had a hard boiled egg, slice of ham or salami and piece of bread. Like I said: right ingredients, wrong combination. It’s like hydrogen and oxygen. H20 equals water and you drink it to live; it’s the right combination. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide, and you’re better off not drinking it, not even with a Continental breakfast.

Immediately following breakfast, and blatantly ignoring the “no going in the water for an hour after eating” rule, we crossed the parking lot to the Blue Lagoon spa. Being Americans, we live on the edge like that. The Blue Lagoon spa is the built around the outflow of a geothermal power processing plant and is one of the more popular tourist (and local) destinations in Iceland. The main concern most vocally remarked upon by my mother was the rule that you had to shower before entering the spa. Now, apparently group showers are more the norm in Europe in occasions such as these, and generally speaking Europeans apparently are more comfortable than their American counterparts in this type of situation. (Don’t forget, I’ve been there twice so I’m an expert.) Maybe it’s just that they enjoy the space, as home and hotel showers in Europe are so small that even Clark Kent would have trouble making a Superman transformation in one. I’m moved to paraphrase Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child: “Only a man who’s ass is narrow can fit in this shower. And if mine is such an ass, it will be cleaned.”

My mom’s fears of a communal shower turned out to be only partly true, at least in the mens’ shower room. It was a large shower room, but each individual shower was partitioned, and some even had doors. This, while not excluding sightings of bare ass and the unfortunate occasional penis if one’s head was downcast to avoid making eye contact with other naked men—which is a quandary all it’s own: do you look another naked man square in the eye or look elsewhere and risk seeing something else you’d rather not?—did at least minimize it. Luckily, while I’ve never had to participate in high school gym, I was a Boy Scout for may years, and the reality of a communal shower is not entirely new to me. Their motto well could have been modified to read: “Be prepared…for in every life a little bare ass must fall.”

However, the shower gauntlet had been run, a test if you will to determine worthiness of entry to the soothing heated waters of the spa. Wayne and Garth might not have made it, but the Venetos and Gradys did. And it was well worth it. We had landed that morning, after flying overnight, to a 55 degree drizzle. By the time we reached the Blue Lagoon, we were wet and weary. Speaking for myself, fairly miserable. But nothing like a nice long soak in what amounts to a giant outdoor bathtub to cheer one up. The next hour or so consisted of walking around the lagoon, hanging out by the water spout (for hotter temperatures), putting some of their special silica mud on my face, going over to the waterfall for a water massage (from the actual water, not from a masseuse; they did offer in-water massages from masseuses, but unfortunately not until later in the day), repeat. And it was damn refreshing.

(Note: If you think this is the least manly I can get about the trip, you’d be wrong. That incident would be on the flight home. In David Sedaris’ new book, there’s an essay where he talks about how being on a flight somehow makes it easier to like movies that you normally wouldn’t I decided to put this to the test by watching The Devil Wears Prada. Not just some of it, all of this terrible film, and spending at least half of that time wishing that the plane would go down like an Oceanic flight. The Sedaris Airline Movie Myth? BUSTED! Maybe I should have watched 27 Dresses instead.)

***

I didn’t think I was going to like Iceland much when we first arrived. It was dreary and the landscape between the airport and Reykjavik, while interesting, was kind of depressing. However, I noticed that as we progressed eastward across the country, the weather got progressively better. At the airport in Kevlavik on the west coast, gray and somewhere in the 50s. By the time we got to Jokularson over on the eastern side, it was mostly sunny, clear, and about 60 or so degrees. Iceland actually encompasses a lot of different types of environments in a small area of land. This is the country where U.S. astronauts practiced their moon landing before actually attempting it, after all. We saw moss covered terrain, plains, mountains, a city, farmland, waterfalls, the ocean, a black sand beach, glaciers, and a forested state park, all in the span of three days and about 300 miles. I went through 6 AA batteries on my camera (and not just because it’s a power hog) and filled up half the memory card, to the point where I had to delete some old pictures to make room for more new ones.

Reykjavik itself was kind of a blur. By the time we arrived there and checked in to our hotel, all the physical goodwill I had won back for my body at the spa was pretty much gone again, and given a choice between walking around and exploring or taking a nap…well my body didn’t actually give me that choice. It was nap. Actually, it was nap, brief exploration of the nearest blocks of the city, and then nap again, dinner, sleep.

As much as I would have liked to have seen some Reykjavik nightlife—Icelanders are supposedly heroic drinkers—it was just not in the cards for this trip. And being that we were leaving early the next morning, that was essentially the extent of my Reykjavik experience.

The next day was spent largely traveling and sightseeing, including pretty much all of the various terrains I mentioned above. Now would probably be a good time to address the issue of pictures of said terrains for you, my faithful readers. Luckily all three of you are already friends with me on Facebook, and if you go there, you’ll see I’ve already uploaded my pictures from the trip. You may also be wondering why there are no actual wedding pictures, as that was the reason we were all there. That would be because the bride and groom has asked that we refrain from posting them until the reception at the end of the month.

Unfortunately I did not get to actually stand on a glacier (not allowed), or see the northern lights (not the best time of year for it) or any puffins (also a bad time of year). I did however get to stand behind and more or less on top of a waterfall (cool), touch the north Atlantic (cold) and see a Asatru wedding ceremony. Yes, that ceremony would have been my sister’s. Although she was raised Catholic, Catholicism is not really that big in Iceland, and someone needed to officiate the wedding. I’m not sure where my sister hooked up with Johanna, the Asatru priestess (??? Not sure of the correct title here, but priestess sounds badass), but the result was a wedding that included some ceremonial wreath holding, a ring of fire and drinking of wine from a horn. Some of that wine, a spicy Spanish vintage we had purchased from the farm we were staying on, was then poured on the ground in respect of her homey, Mother Earth, who she had earlier thanked for “being with us here today”; the remained of that wine was poured down my throat with the spaghetti dinner back at our guest house that night.

Does this make me one with Mother Earth? I’m still working that one out.

***

You would think that a country like Iceland that is known to have produced some hearty-type folk would be able to produce a good beer, but you’d be wrong. This was really my one real disappointment of the trip, and one that I tried to assuage with the purchase of plenty of duty free alcohol on my way home. Specifically a bottle of 17 year old Glengoyne scotch and a bottle of the Icelandic national schnapps known as Brennivin, which translates into “burning wine”, is known as “black death”, and was remarked upon by someone in line behind me when she asked: “Are you buying that for your enemies?”

Sounds tasty, and I can’t wait to try some. Hopefully it will put a softening haze on my beer disappointment. But really, with beers named Viking and Thule, I’m at a loss how they could be such total failures. I was expecting full-bodied and flavorful beers brewed from the blood of vanquished foes and what I got were slightly less skunky version of Heineken.

Luckily the food was better, Continental breakfasts aside. In that department, Iceland is known for three things: hot dogs, fish, specifically arctic char, and lamb. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to try the lamb at any point. Not because I really like lamb, which I do, but more out of spite. Upon first arriving at our guest house in Hali, I walked over to where the sheep were grazing nearby to say “Hey” and take some pictures. They immediately all walked off behind the building. Who would have guessed that sheep were nature’s antisocial assholes. I vowed that I would “show them” by eating one of their number, but from that point on all our meals were either preset or just didn’t include a lamb option. The horses on the farm were much friendlier, which made me grateful that the restaurant we had visited the night before in Reykjavik, while having horse on the menu, was all out, because I had seriously been considering trying it.

Instead, I went with the “wild sea bird” that came smothered in a delicious game sauce, some of which is still residing on the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I’m trying not to think too much about what a wild sea bird might actually be, because the only thing I keep coming up with is: seagull. But whatever it was, it was damn tasty.

Also on this trip, I was really hoping to see some puffins. Supposedly they migrate to or from (I don’t really know the details) Iceland over the summer, and in the town of Vik, where we stopped for lunch one day and home of the black sand beaches, there was a good chance of seeing them during that migration. Well, I did see some puffin, but unfortunately it was on a plate in appetizer form and not live, as we just missed the migration period. My verdict is that puffin is more adorable than delicious, being a fairly fatty and tasteless meat that definitely benefited from the liberal use of mustard.

The vaunted hot dogs, which can be purchased at any gas station? OK, but nothing to write home about.

The arctic char was very good and marked my return to any seafood that didn’t come in a can of Bumblebee in eight years. That’s how long it’s been to the Great Shrimp Food Poisoning Incident. I’m happy to report that the arctic char was delicious going down, and moreover stayed down once there. There was a brief little bit of stomach discomfort after that meal, but it could have been any number of things, including a psychosomatic response, bad Icelandic beer, or a combination of the courses aside from the char, which included a cream of mushroom soup that was delicious but heavy, and a rhubarb dessert that had the consistency of jellied snot. But even that was pretty good.

***

That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Sure, I could tell you about how Cool Ranch Doritos are actually called Cool American Doritos over there, or about the two French couples that used our guest house kitchen to cook and eat dinner one night, as their rooms didn’t have one, or about how Icelandic wool is really scratchy. But that would just be a cheap way of me trying to fit in a few last observations that didn’t sit well anywhere else on this blog. And I would never stoop to that.

Black Tie Optional?

What does one wear to a wedding on a glacier?

Although a question I never thought I’d be asking myself, nevertheless it has been going through my head quite a lot in this last few weeks. This is all thanks to my sister, who is getting married next week, of course. That she was getting married was no surprise; that it was a destination wedding was the worst kept family secret; what that destination was, a much better kept secret until the big announcement about a year ago.

Iceland.

Said announcement came in the form of an email, the length and scope of which could probably have used some professional editing—I’m pretty sure there were subplots and character arcs involved. There were also rationalizations, facts and pictures involved. For, you see, not only was the wedding going to be in Iceland, it was going to be in a part of Iceland that was not it’s one major city. In fact, we will be driving approximately six hours out of Reykjavik to the Skaftafell national park, which is centered around the Vatnajokull glacier. Where, in just a few short days, my sister will be married.

Why Iceland? Why a glacier? Why a ceremony performed by a minister of the Asatru religion? Why not? Aside from eccentricity that’s the only answer I can come up with at this time, as I’m not quite sure of my sister’s reasoning behind this. But I’m also not complaining.

To be honest, had you asked me a year ago what my top five destinations outside the country that I’d like to visit were (Japan, Prague, Spain, Amsterdam, and a return to Italy), Iceland wouldn’t have cracked that list, it probably wouldn’t have even been top ten, possibly twenty. But the more I’ve gotten to thinking about it, the more excited I’ve been getting for this trip, even despite the fact that the weather looks to be 20 degrees colder than here and raining for the entire time. I’m welcoming the chance to see someplace I otherwise probably would have never considered visiting. And there are some potentially new experiences on tap here.

Some things I will/hope to be experiencing:

1) The Blue Lagoon spa. This is in the “will” category. In fact, after breakfast, it’s the first thing we’ll be doing when we land in Iceland. So despite the fact that it appears it’ll be only mid-50s at best, I’ll apparently be packing a bathing suit.

2) The Aurora Borealis. Yesterday, a slow day at work, I took some time to calculate the corrected magnetic latitude of Iceland and factored in the estimated planetary Kp over the next few days, and determined that: I will never work for NASA. Somewhere within those calculations, I should have been able to figure out the likelihood of my seeing the northern lights while in Iceland, but I’ll be damned if I could make heads or tails out of it. At this point I’m just crossing my fingers and hoping.

3) Active volcanoes and, of course, a glacier. I’m not a fan of the cold, or of dying in fiery lava-related death for that matter, but provided I survive both, it’s going to be pretty awesome to say I’ve experienced them.

Some things I’m considering/will have to experience:

1) Brennevin. This Icelandic schnapps was recommended to me by someone, and although all I’ve read about it doesn’t make it sound all that appealing, I still may give it a try. I don’t know if it’s the fact that it is sometimes known as “black death”, or the fact that it loosely translates into “burning wine”, or perhaps the fact that label was originally designed to discourage people from drinking it that has me wary, but somehow I am still somewhat curious to taste a liquor that supposedly tastes like rye bread.

2) Arctic char. Generally speaking, I’m not much of a seafood fan. I feel like I never developed the taste for it, and at one point in my life when I was at least trying a little bit (in the form of calamari and shrimp), I had the misfortune of getting food poisoning from some shrimp. Nothing kills your desire for that somewhat ubiquitous seafoody taste more than an evening regurgitating it into the toilet; somewhere around the 15th time that night with my face inside the bowl—I’m guessing as I’d lost count in the early teens—I decided that I was never having seafood again. If not for that experience, I’m sure I’d have revisited seafood a least a few times in the intervening years, as I have no objections to it otherwise. This trip, however, there may be a meal or two that I won’t have a choice. There is at least one set meal where the only option is going to be arctic char, which according to my dad is pretty good and not too fishy tasting. So I’ll probably be trying it with a little trepidation, hoping that my last seafood experience was indeed food poisoning and not some kind of allergic reaction.

Something I definitely will not be trying:

1) Putrefied shark (a.k.a rotted shark). Despite the fact that I’ve been told that it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells, a dubious compliment if I’ve ever heard one, the name alone ensures I won’t be trying it. It could taste like a kiss from a Jessica Biel wearing ice cream flavored lipstick, and with a name like rotted shark I still wouldn’t eat it.

Luckily, I think it should be easy enough to avoid.

Anyway, this is quite enough of this. My flight leaves tonight, and all this blogging about my trip means that I’ve yet to actually start packing for it. I suppose I should get started on that. Including trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to be wearing for a glacial, pagan wedding ceremony.

That Low A Point

I was leaving band rehearsal last night, an empty water bottle in hand, destined for the dumpster outside. However, a complication arose once I got there: someone was inside it, rooting around.

Well, self, I think to myself, I can’t throw this away now.

And I couldn’t, I just felt too weird throwing something in the dumpster while someone was in there. It just felt like it would be too rude. He obviously looked like he was intent on his job of searching for something, specific or general I couldn’t tell; a lost piece of gear or as many five cent recycles as possible, who knows. I mean, I don’t want someone walking by my desk while I’m hard at work explaining to someone from an insurance company in Indiana that I’m not their Help Desk and can’t bring over a new keyboard—at least not without filling out an expense report—and dumping a trash barrel’s worth of used tissues on my head, do I? Not really.

So I held on to the empty and threw it in my car for future disposal.

Of course rethinking it now, it seems kind of ridiculous. If someone’s at that low a point where they’re physically inside a dumpster, nothing I can do is really going to make their life that much worse. It’d be like me sneezing on a cancer patient and worrying that I’m going to give them a cold. What can they really say, even if I were to have hit them with an empty plastic Poland Springs bottle, “Hey thanks, that’ll go great with the half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich stuck to my knee”?

I suppose, however, it’s all for the best. That plastic bottle is better served going in the recycle bin anyway, where I can do my little bit to save the earth, and perhaps a sliver of that poor guy’s dignity.

Some Like It Hot

Every now and then we lose hot water in my apartment. I’d say this happens, on average, 1.3 times a year. Usually it’s because of some problem with the boiler in the basement—a clogged pipe or broken valve that didn’t indicate that boiler was, in fact, out of oil. But these explanations are provided so vaguely from my landlord that I’m dubious as to their accuracy. Either that or I just choose to believe that she wouldn’t just replace a piece of hardware that was about as reliable as Axl Rose making it to a concert stage.

So I was only slightly surprised that the first shower I tried to take when I returned from South Carolina a couple weeks ago was lukewarm at best, and that slight bit of surprise was based only in the fact that we usually lose the hot water in the fall or winter, not the middle of summer.

But I called right down to my landlord to let her know that we once again appeared to be having problems with the boiler. I’m a dutiful tenant that way. However, this time I’m told it’s not a mechanical issue. She tells me that she had a plumber over recently and he had told her he had it set too high, and she was worried that we could potentially get scalded.

That’s nice of her, looking out for us. She must have finally realized that all that resigned screaming in pain she was hearing from upstairs was a result of us not realizing that we could turn the hot water down in the shower.

My sublettor didn’t seem to mind this change in water temperature. When I asked him about it, he shrugged it off, saying something along the lines that he had only noticed that the water was no longer piping hot.

Well apparently I like piping hot showers, or at least the option for them. This is America, land of freedom, right? I’d like the freedom to clean myself with first degree burns please. So I haggled with my landlord a little it until she agreed to turn the temperature back up partway. She said it might take a day or two to kick in, and I told her that was fine. Those couple days turned into a week where my showering experience was a macrocosm of each night’s individual shower: waiting….waiting…waiting for the water to get to a level I’d like. Standing under the nozzle thinking that any minute now that blessed heat was going to kick in. And to be fair, the water did seem to go from slightly south of lukewarm to fractionally north of it. But when, a week later, my landlord called to inquire about it, I finally had to break down and admit that, “It’s a little better, but I still wouldn’t mind if we could go hotter.”

She said she’d bump it up a little further, but we’ll see. I’m keeping my soon to be hopefully scalded fingers crossed.

Does Rage Burn Calories?

This is the question I find myself pondering as I’m standing in line at the Pearl St. branch of the U.S. Post Office in Braintree. Because if it does, then I’m getting one hell of a workout. This is the thought that crosses my mind as I’m finally getting close to the counter, envelope in hand, ready to be mailed, after forty minutes of waiting in line. At this point there are only three people ahead of me which means I will probably only have to wait another ten minutes, fifteen at the most.

But let me back up a little ways because before the light, the tunnel.

Tomorrow is my roommate’s (in absentia) birthday, and I had a present to mail off to her in California. This is pertinent to the story only in that it explains why I was willing to wait in a line so long that that it made my typical Friday evening rush hour commute home look like a drag race on the Autobahn instead of walking off in what is technically known as “a huff”; the gift was going to be late anyway, and this was the only time I would be able to visit a post office before the actual birthday.

“Isn’t that your own fault for waiting until last minute to mail off a present, dumbass?” you may be wondering. That would be the case but for the fact that it was only ready to go as of last night. There was writing and re-writing, and drawing involved, and it took a little while to put this gift together. But that’s a story for another day; this particular blog is not about my exceptional gift-giving abilities.

I walk in the door of the Pearl St. USPS office to a familiar sight: a long line. You see, I am all too familiar with this particular branch of the USPS (a.k.a Hell On Earth). It is the nearest post office location to my work, and since I can’t always make it to the post office after work, it is the one where I occasionally have to spend my lunch breaks. I knew then what I was in for. All the signs were there: only one employee working the counter, the sour looks, that vinegary reek of exasperation that tinted the air. Sighing, I abandoned all hope, entered, and took my place in line. Counting heads, I see I’m lucky number thirteen.

Let’s jump ahead a bit, as we don’t need to detail my every thought as I waited…and waited…and waited…

Thirty minutes have passed and, counting travel time, I was supposed to have been back at my desk ten minutes previous. There are only five people ahead of me now, including the man currently at the counter that looks like he packed up his entire life and was mailing it somewhere. It is at this time that a second post office employee emerges from the back room and looks like he’s going to open a second register at the counter. Judging by the time (12:40pm), I’m guessing he’s not just coming on shift. This leads me to believe he was doing either one of two things: 1) Taking an oblivious lunch break in the back, or judging by how he looked 2) Clawing his way out of a grave.

Of course, he does not get right to work, that would be too much to hope for. He wants to tease us a little first, to bask in stew of our battling hope and despair. The undead are perverse like that. He returns to the back room for a couple minutes, then emerges again with a cash register tray. Hallelujiah! Nope, wait, he’s heading out back again. Another few minutes pass and he returns again. Now he’s ready to take up his post. Welcome to the party, half-corpse.

It is at about this point that I start my ruminations on the fitness benefits of rage. I’m sure the fact that “Under The Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is currently on the radio wasn’t helping; even on a good day that song makes me want to jump face-first through plate glass. The front window is looking like an appealing option, but I decide to channel my anger another way. Turning to the woman behind me, I say, “It would have been faster to hand deliver this.” Big laughs, I am the comedian of the seventh level of Hell. Thank you ladies, and gentlemen, don’t forget to tip your succubus.

However, salvation is upon me. It is my turn to step to the sacred counter. Angels sing and the sun breaks through the clouds. The clerk says, “Hi, how are you?” I briefly wonder if he’s serious then I briefly consider my numerous possible answers. However, I bite my tongue as I want my package to reach its intended destination, which is California and not the trash barrel. Our transaction is concluded as quickly as I can possibly make it, and I hightail it out of there as I am now thirty minutes late in getting back to work. But in the end I think it was worth it. I’m looking at the bright side. My present has been successfully (knock on wood) mailed, I’ve seen children grow up before my eyes (they do it so fast), and got to witness the beauty that is young love blossoming into the deepening respect and devotion that only comes with the passage of many joyful years together.

Total errand time, including travel: one hour and ten minutes.

It felt longer.

The Perils of Reading (featuring interior monologue)

Today was far too nice out. After a month of rain, we finally get another beautiful weekend. As such, I immediately decided to take full advantage of this and made  plans to spend the day inside, at the movies. I saw The Hangover, which was both pretty funny and well put together.

Afterward, I was walking home, fully planning on heading right to room and working on learning some of the songs I need to know for a Black Crowes tribute show my band is playing in August, but, as I mentioned above, today was far too nice out. I made the executive decision that while I would still head home, it would be just to pick up my book, hop in my car, and drive over to Harvard Square, so that I could go down to the Charles and do some reading.

Arriving at the Charles, I walked a little ways along the Memorial Drive side, noticing that all the benches and trees (for leaning against) were already taken. I did, however, find a small raised section of concrete that provided some better measure of leverage for sitting, so I claimed it as my own and got to reading.

Some minutes pass, and another man walks up, book in hand, and decides to share my concrete island.

Hmm, I think to myself. This is a little weird

And it was. At this point, it was close to 6pm, and the banks of the Chuck were not overly crowded. There was plenty of sitting space that was not right next to me, on a slab of concrete that was approximately the size of a large doorway. (You really need to understand the relatively small size of this concrete slab to the relatively large amount of open space surrounding it to understand why I will eventually have been so weirded out; I can’t stress it enough.) Using my superpower leveled peripheral vision, I sneak a quick peek.

Hey, he’s not even reading that book. Dude, you’re uncomfortably close to invading my personal space here. But I’ll give this a minute. Maybe you’re just taking a quick rest and will be on your way shortly.

I go back to my book, and get through another short chapter. By the way, I was reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Pretty much the only way you’re going to get me to read anything by Jane Austen is to have it rewritten with the element of zombie carnage. I’m still struggling with the writing style in it, but at the same time—

Hey, what the fuck?!? Why is this guy now lying down? Ummm…..

Yes, at this point, said gentleman, known from this point on as CW (Creepy Weirdo) decides to lay back and get comfortable. The biggest problem with this is now his head is all but touching my leg. I scoot over a few inches, attention conspicuously and resolutely stuck in the pages of my book.

Is there something I should know about this little concrete slab? Is this like the Charles river version of going into a rest area men’s room, sticking your dick in the hole cut out in the bathroom stall wall, and waiting to see what happens? Maybe I should just leave. Fuck that! I was here first, CW.

I continue on through another chapter or two, but it’s getting harder to concentrate. The adventures of Ms. Elizabeth Bennet, single young woman and expert zombie killer. At this point I think she’s decided not to behead Mr. Darcy. Really, if all Jane Austen’s books were like this, I’d have—

Oh, thank God. He’s sitting up. OK, it was nice sharing my slab with you. Have a good day, CW, and see you later. Wait…what are you doing? He’s not…yep, he is. He’s taking his shirt off. And lying back down.

Fuck it, I’m out of here.

That was pretty much the last straw. Post hast, I made my way to another section of the river where I could continue my reading unmolested, in several senses of the word. I even found a tree to lean against, so I guess it worked out in my favor in the end.

Who knew that reading could be fraught with such uncomfortableness.

R.I.P The Veneticle?

I feel like my car is facing an impending and unstoppable doom. Death is coming for it, stalking it like out of a Final Destination movie. Oh sure, with some quick reflexes behind the wheel I can probably dodge it for a little while, but those movies always end up the same: with Death getting his man. In this case, the Veneticle.

You’re probably wondering why I think this. After all, I do drive a Toyota, and it’s only at 110K miles. Toyota’s have a reputation for reliability, right? With some regular maintenance I should be able to double that mileage before I have to bury her. It makes sense to think this, history has borne it out.

But you need to take into account one other factor. I just paid it off. That’s right, I am now the sole owner of the Veneticle, no longer sharing that honor with the Toyota Financial Services. I made my last payment last Friday, and it must be official because when I went online to check my account today, it was closed. No more monthly car payments. An extra $300 a month to play with. And I have plans for that money. I could go into great detail how I hope to throw $200 of that into my savings account every month and use the other $100 as additional payments on a credit card to start clearing away that debt. I could tell you all about how, although that extra saved money should probably be going towards something responsible like an apartment of my own or even maybe ownership (GASP!) someday, that I already have daydreams of new guitars, vacations, and a bitchin’ collection of quality liquors. But the sad fact is that I should probably resign myself to the fact that this money will probably have to be thrown into new car payments sooner than I’d like.

But why? I’m sure this is what you’re all wondering. The car’s in decent shape, isn’t it? More or less. No major problems with it? Not that I know of. You even think it’s trustworthy enough to take it on a road trip to SC in a few week, don’t you? It’s true, I do.

Then why do you think it’s not long for this world?

Simple answer: Fate.

I think Fate is looking down on me right now, seeing me rejoice in my happiness that I paid off the car 10 months early, watching me revel in my plans for all that extra cash, and he called up his buddy Death and told him to get on the job. This is not all baseless supposition either, I’ve got some evidence to back it up.  For instance, driving home from work today, someone almost backed out of their driveway on a busy road and right into me. Some artful swerving on my part resulted in a near miss. (Or as George Carlin would more accurately describe it, a near hit.) And that’s not all. I made it safely to the highway only to be stuck in horrific rush hour traffic for the sixth day in a row, prompting me to seriously consider crashing off the upper deck and sending my car, and me, plunging to a fiery death. I believe it was only the fact that I’m anticipating a delivery from Netflix of the next Battlestar Galactica DVD that prevented me from doing this. But as we all know from those aforementioned Final Destination films, Death is patient, and creative. A piece of debris from the International Space Station plummeting down from space, a stampede of elephants resulting from some jerks down the street playing Jumanji, or maybe a tornado whisking away the Veneticle to Oz — I’m not going to be able to save this car forever.

But I’m knocking on wood and crossing fingers, because hopefully, just hopefully, I’ll be able to get a few more miles out of it. Because I’ve got my eye on an excellent bottle of scotch.

What It Means To Go To Maine

I have some odd vacationing prejudices. There are certain states that I just never want to vacation in. It’s often a quick, somewhat subconscious denial that flashes through my head if someone were to say, for example: “Hey, we’re going to Vermont. Want to come?”

NO!

But then when I sit back and analyze why I have that reaction, I realize that I have no real logical basis for this denial. Which is not to say I don’t have a reason; I know exactly what that is. It goes back to childhood—big surprise—and has to do with what I considered to be boring family vacations.

Ask me if I want to go to Florida and I’ll be a lot more positive about that then I would be if you asked me to go to Vermont. Why? Because family trips to Florida when I was a kid involved going to Disney World, and family trips to Vermont involved dead birds in our rented house and the inability to locate that fine cuisine known as McDonalds anywhere in that state. Granted the dead birds make for a good story and I’m not really a big McDonalds fan anymore, but those childhood prejudices still remain, even if only peripherally.

Same things goes for Maine. My family never actually vacationed in Maine, but we did drive through it on our way home from Quebec once, and my main impression was that it took, in layman’s terms, “fucking forever” to drive through that state.

So if you ask me if I want to go to Maine, my response nowadays  is: NO!….wait, I mean yes.  See, m vacationing tastes have changed somewhat in recent years. It used to be that I exclusively preferred “busy” vacations, the type that often revolved around big cities with plenty to do. And I still like those types of vacations. But I also have been developing quite the taste for a more laid back trip. In fact, for the third summer out of four, I intend to spend some time at my parents’ house down in Nowheresville, SC and doing a whole lot of nothing. And damn but I’m looking forward to it.

But to get back on track: Maine. I went to Portland for the second time in as many years over this past weekend. Luckily it: 1) did not take fucking forever to drive there, and 2) was a great time, even if it didn’t begin as auspiciously as I would have liked.

I arrived in Portland around 1:30am on Saturday morning. I had driven straight from a Black Crowes concert I had attended in NH, and was to meet my friend, Bill, who was already at the hotel. And he was. Already at the hotel. Asleep. Which I deduced with Sherlock Holmes-like precision as my numerous phone calls both to his cell phone and the room phone went unanswered. This presented a two-fold problem as I: 1) needed to pee, and 2) am too tall to comfortably fall asleep in the back seat of my car. After a few minutes deliberation I decided to rectify these situations via: 1) the woods at the edge of the parking lot, and 2) checking myself into my own room for the night.
Saturday was much better. How could it not be when it included brunch, beers, indoor go-karting, more beers, minor league baseball with beers, and capped off by dinner and beers.  The rain was even kind enough to hold off until late in the evening, leaving us only to contend with fog, coolness, and seats that became increasing less easy on the ass as time passed at the baseball game. Sunday was less eventful, consisting of a drive home, a stop at the NH state liquor store to buy discounted bourbon, and a decision to unwind from a fun weekend with movies and the couch.