Thursday, March 11, 2010

Roommate Responses #2





Once again, loyal readers, here are actual responses to my craigslist post for a (one) roommate.




Hi, just saw your ad and was wondering if you were still looking for people to rent out any rooms? We are a gay couple living in Baltimore and looking to move out of the city. We are definitely cat friendly and I work right in your area. We would love to come see the place sometime this week, if you are available. Please let me know what day/time works for you.




Jim and Brad (names changed to protect the gay couples that seem to swarm outside my house trying to move in, politely)




Seriously? ONE roommate! ONE! Not, one roommate and the fella who handles his goodies! My friend, Steve, always told me I had a gay aroma. I'm starting to believe him and I also believe that this aroma can be detected through the internet. Maybe I need new body wash.




Here's my favorite one so far, though:




Hello want to move in on Sunday. (That's not a good start, but go on.) Please send me your contact so we can discuss the deal. (Who does he think I am? Jason Bourne? "Send me your contact?" If I had a contact to send him, I'd need to ensure his safety first. He'd meet you at Pont Neuf, take off his jacket and face East. When I was certain you came alone, only then could we discuss "the deal.") My number is 4435555555. (Well that isn't as secretive as you sounded earlier. What the hell kind of spy are you, anyway?) Hope to hear from you. (I said my contact would meet you IN PARIS! Sheesh, get on the ball, here.) Move in immediately. (Was that a command? Did you just tell me you were moving in immediately? You sure are a go-getter, aren't you?)




And that was it. No name. Just an email tinged with secrecy, urgency and violence. Perhaps I should call. My life needs a little excitement. Who knows? Maybe my phone would self-destruct and I'd find a box full of money and passports on my back porch.




A man can dream, can't he?




My lips to yours.

People I've Been Told I Look Like

I mean no disrespect to anyone on this list for
their involvement with looking like me or anyone
else depicted here, but from what I've been told,
I look like these people.








































Granted, I'm related to three of these people, but these are the people I've been told that I look like. Usually I get mistaken for random people, such as "this guy I went to high school with" or "my friend, Doug. You look EXACTLY like him! Can I get a picture of you?"
This all started, dear readers, when I was twelve years old. I was unchaining my bike at the local swimming pool when two girls were calling for some guy named Dave. It took me about 45 seconds to realize they were calling to me, and at that age, being what I thought was relatively invisible to the opposite sex, I briefly contemplated being Dave for the sake of conversation. However, the girls soon realized their mistake and informed me that I looked just like their swimming coach and skipped along on their merry way, the way young girls do.
Ever since then, at least once a month I get mistaken for some random person. I'm sure lots of people hear "don't I know you" from time to time, but this is absurd. I've had to answer that question so often that I normally respond, "no, but I get that all the time." This has led me to an interesting conclusion.
Everyone knows someone who looks just like me. For some people, that person is me. But for everyone else, it's someone different. In China, somewhere, is a bearded and/or bespectacled Asian man running around impersonating me, of all people. Look hard enough in the tribes of the aboriginal bushmen, you'll find a me.
So what does this all mean? Am I just so super awesome that the world needs more me? Or am I still invisible, hiding in a large mass of me-alikes? It's all very confusing.
I think the answer is simple. I must find THE ONE. The original me from whom I and my ilk were cloned and demand ANSWERS! Maybe we could turn this into a movie.
What do you think?
My lips to yours.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Hippies and Why I Can't Stand Them



I hate hippies. I love the 60's, love the music, the colors and the air of revolution and optimism... well, I like the music anyway, but I just can't stand hippies.




More than a few years back, the band I was in, Sons of Buford, were booked at a hippie festival somewhere outside of York, Pennsylvania. We drove into the woods because hippie DNA comes from ferns and that's where they like to congregate, and there we truly discovered the meaning of the phrase, "the unwashed masses." We met people with names like (and I'm taking a few liberties here, it was a long time ago) Grapetree and Hucklemoss who looked like they wouldn't be bothered much if they accidentally pooped their pants. One fellow greeted each of us (there were 6 members of our band) with the words, "peace, man." This doesn't seem unsusual on paper until you understand that each time he said it, it took him about 90 seconds. His soiled cutoff jeans and a bandana that looked like it had taken a few dips into some animal food troughs were the only garments he chose to sport that day and although I don't think he was actively smoking anything at the time, it did appear that pot smoke was pouring out of his dreadlocks. His half-forced laughs at nothing were indicitive of years of chronic marijuana abuse and there were many more like him strewn about in the woods, trying to plant themselves in the mud.




We decided that we might try to enforce some rules for while we were playing, such as "no twirling," and "no hackey sacks within 100 feet of the stage," but we were on their turf and didn't want to appear ungrateful.




Speaking of grateful, they did give us some really good beer. One thing I have to hand to hippies is their taste in beer. Sam Smiths, Hop Devil, Troegs... they drink the good stuff. I worked at a liquor store near Merriweather Post Pavillion and everytime Phish came to town we'd run out of our high end beer. I was always a little confused by this because I've never known hippies to actually have money. Oh sure, the ones that become hippies because they don't like their CEO fathers and drive around in Mercedes Benz's have money, but the real hippies always seem to just be scraping by. But when it comes to beer they'll shell out big bucks. However, I digress.




We played our set and sold some CD's and listened to a couple other bands jam on two chords for 17 minutes at a clip and then it was time for dinner, or"supper" as they called it.




I'm not sure why I was surprised that all hippie food is vegetarian, but I was. I've never been a big fan of vegetarianism (or vegetarians, for that matter) and the reason is that I'm convinced that vegetarians become vegetarians because it has become a socially acceptable way to be picky and obnoxious. "No, I don't eat that" is not something you're supposed to say to someone who has just offered you a meal, but vegetarians can get away with it and it makes them feel superior, those snooty little bastards. And they do it all in the name of sunshine and happiness, but really they've just found a loophole to being allowed to act like turd. They feel higher and mightier in their "cause" than we meat-eaters, but as Maddox once wrote, "For every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat three." (see end note)




Even more surprising than the menu was the method of acquiring said vittles. Some girl named Rainbowmoonbeamshine or some such nonsense told us that since we were guests we could go in line first. But before we did, we had to obtain Bliss Bowls. It was at this point in my life when I began to despise hippies because this instruction begged the age old question, "what the shit is a Bliss Bowl?" They are literally inferring that the container which will hold the stew of roots, lentils, ash and mud will bring me Bliss. When was the last time you poured yourself a bowl of Captain Crunch and became elated that you didn't have to pour the cereal and milk into your hand? THIS is what brings HAPPINESS to these people? What planet are they on? How high do you have to be to think that a bowl, plate, cup, pot, pan or tupperware makes you JOYFUL? I wanted to punch a kitten right in front of her.




When asked to explain what a Bliss Bowl was, Miss Starmuffinlovedust replied, (and I swear this is an exact quote) "You don't know what a Bliss Bowl is? It's a rainbow thing."




Well that cleared everything right up. I couldn't believe that I was actually having this conversation. I was trying to obtain information related to the proper protocol for eating dinner with hippies and was given a mathematical equation that only makes sense if you've been huffing spray paint for a solid hour. Bowl = Happiness = Rainbow. And with logic like that, who could argue? So I picked up an old dirty pot, had them pour some slop into my Bliss Bowl and ate my supper perplexed. I suppose it was better than them pouring the slop into my lap, but the fact that I even had to consider this scenario was maddening.




They're always looking on the bright side, aren't they? Penniless, covered in grime, reeking of body odor, patchouli and marijuana, and dating a girl who has more hair in her armpits than Jimi Hendrix had on his head, a hippie will likely tell you that "it could be worse." Yes, I suppose you could be actively on fire, but what about looking to the future a little bit? Maybe things could be BETTER? He then would probably make a joke about making pot legal and give his classic stoner laugh while you die a little inside.


Sigh. Well... My lips to yours.


Reference: maddox.xmission.com


Monday, March 1, 2010

Kickball Team Name Suggestions



Greetings, gentle readers.


These are my suggestions (so far) for my kickball team's name in no particular order:



-If Daniel Larusso and the Cobra Kai had a Baby, It Would Be This Kickball Team

-Sauron, the Kickball Team

-Flynn's Arcade [an obscure reference to TRON]

-An Obscure Reference to TRON

-We're Your Huckleberries

-Sam Elliott's Mustache Ride

-Beyond Pacifism

-Remember "Quick Kick" from G.I. Joe?

My personal favorite from this list is "An Obscure Reference to TRON." Your thoughts?



My lips to yours!