-{ redgeek.net }-

I’ve had my fair share of debaucherous days through the course of my life, all pale in comparison to the one I’m about to relate. It’s brief, but entirely true. We’ll call the guy Brian, because he looked like a Brian and I never caught his name. He was already drunk enough to be in the “already friends with everyone” stage, so I don’t think introductions were the first thing on his mind.

Anyway, Brian was in Detroit, gambling large sums of money – “the kind of money we don’t like to talk about” – and losing. So, he proceeds to slam back a shit-ton of beer and tequila. Prior to passing out, he calls his cousin, a tenant of his that we’ll call Paul, and tells Paul that if he buys a plane ticket to San Diego with his credit card and packs his bags, Paul’s next month’s rent is comped.

Paul complies.

Brian wakes up on a plane mid-flight, and has to check his ticket to find out where he’s going. After a few more mid-flight drinks, he arrives in San Diego, where a friend lives, but his buddy is working so he sleeps half the night on the driveway of a stranger’s house. Upon waking, he realizes he’s still drunk, and heads down to PB for more drinks and ends up with two fresh tattoos on his arms – “Honor” on one, and “Pride” on the other. After ten more shots of Patron, he asks one of the bartenders to go to Hawaii that night. After her shift is over, they walk out the back together.

Alas, they didn’t go to Hawaii.

They went to San Francisco.

Halloween evening a few of us were training in the park – one of my traditional activities, although I usually work more on the meditation and visualization side of things. We were working with the bo, well after dark, when someone suddenly hefted a bo as if to throw it like a javelin. There was a furry little bunny rabbit that’d ventured out onto the grass about twenty feet away.

I chuckle.

“I think I’d probably get it.” He sets down the bo.

I push some ego buttons. “I don’t know, those little fuckers are pretty quick.”

He considers, perhaps testing himself, then heaves the stick forward, hitting right where the critter was nibbling grass before it scattered, scared as shit. When he retrieves his bo, there’s a chunk of fur on it.

“At least you know you could survive on wabbit stew if you needed to.”

“Yeah, but now I feel bad. Karma’s definitely going to bust me for that one.”

“Fuck. I goaded you into it. Now I feel bad too.”

“Yeah, it really is your fault. I’ll tell Karma when I see her.”

Thanks.

Every once in a while I think it’d be cool to own an antique Japanese typewriter. It’s got a very novel quality about it, and you’d be joining an elite and respected “club” of people that own them. People would be impressed, and probably give you a little extra lee-way with your assignments. As an antique, it probably wouldn’t have an owner’s manual, and even if it did, I probably wouldn’t understand it, and half the instructions would be translated incorrectly anyway – or very possibly, be self-contradictory. It’s bound to be an adventure.

You’d have to coddle it just to get anything done with it – but in my mind there’s no reason to own it just to keep is stashed in a sterile environment. There’s a certain responsibility to caring for antiques, and this would be no exception. Considering it’s extreme complexity (and surely, it’s a delicate beast), I’m sure it’d required an undue amount of attention just to keep it alive. But there’s still that craving … sometimes I think it’d just be so damn cool to have. There’d certainly be moments of profound joy, having the simple beauty and depth of Basho reproduced from such a beautiful blank slate. Or, perhaps, just a little bit of me out in the world, a expression of myslef that will surive long past my body.

On further analysis, however, I probably wouldn’t really like having one. I’d probably get frustrated quite quickly. I’d find that it wouldn’t quite do what I want – I’d constantly be performing the wrong action, and next thing you know, it’d be spewing ink all over my new carpet, have wads of paper stuck in it’s maw, and the only thing it’d successfully spit out would be nonsensical and profanity-laced. I wouldn’t know where to get supplies for it, nor which ones were the best given a selection. Invariably, I’d end up sacrificing time with my friends and family just to figure out how to get a 17-stroke radical to print, just because I don’t under the language too well. Knowing me, I’d probably even lose sleep over it. I’d worry about it being stolen, or spontaneously breaking, or just tripping over it in the middle of the night when I’m going to get a glass of water. I’d wonder why it came with so many god-damned buttons, and who in the hell ever thought it’d be a good idea to create one of these things.

It might just be better to borrow one from a friend for a bit – I’d still have to be quite careful with it, but at least I’d have someone to ask questions of; someone to query about the operation and, in the worst case, someone to return it to when it acts up. Even so, it’d only be an occasional thing, and in retrospect, I don’t even know that I’d go so far as to ask a friend for the favor – it’d probably just be hoisted upon me.

Wait, no, I’m talking about children.

Never mind.

This is fucking hi-larious. It took a fair amount of control not to laugh out loud at work.

Alright, this one’s not mine, but it’s so representative of my friends, and Brad in particular, that I have to share it.

I’ve known Brad since before Cub Scouts (yes, I was a Cub Scout for a short while), which means we’ve been friends for over two decades now. He was in town a few weeks ago and shared this story over a couple beers. First, some helpful background: Brad is a pretty physically fit guy, funny, hard to rattle, and has a successful law career going. He’s been wanting to do some ultra-marathons and triathlons lately, so when our friend Matt came up and and told him about an upcoming triathlon, he jumped at the chance.

On the last day.

Without having trained.

Since this was in Phoenix, there’s no ocean swimming, so the swim is done in a pool, the cycling in a circuit, and then it’s topped off by a street run. First thing he notices is that that everyone else is in competitive swim suits, i.e., Speedos.

He’s in board shorts.

Since he registered so late, he’s one of the last to start. Undaunted by the extra drag of his suit, he dives in when his number’s called and starts swimming. He’s churning along, thinking it’s been a while, but this isn’t so bad …. But pretty soon, he’s starting to get winded and worn out.

Before he finishes the first lap.

Out of twenty.

Somehow, through shear will power I suppose, he finishes his twenty laps. He’s one of the last to finish, aside from the few people that signed up after him and are in worse shape, but has trouble getting his socks on eventually he tosses the socks and goes shoes-only – which will be a very poor decision when arriving at the running portion – but Brad has a another problem before that.

See, Brad didn’t have a road bike. In fact, Brad didn’t have anything but a beach cruiser he uses to ride the occasional half-mile around the neighborhood. So Brad had to borrow a bicycle. Considering how late he signed up, all he could find was a mountain bike.

The spectators snicker as he hops on the only cycle in the race with big fat bumpy tires, wide handlebars, and shock absorbers. He ignores them, pushing through the first quarter mile or so, when he realizes there’s something … different … about this bike. The brakes are on seat-side of the handlebars. Hmm, he thinks, I remember the brakes being on the front … well, I haven’t ridden a hi-tech bike in a while, maybe this is the new style or something ….

Minutes later it hits him.

So he stops, dismounts, and turns the handlebar around 180 degrees.

As it happens, one of the seeded racers is lapping him at that very moment, and upon seeing this guy in swim trunks and no socks having ridden a half a mile with the front wheel backward, almost eats it from laughing so hard.

God, I love my friends.

(Yes, he did finish the race. With blisters.)

I was recently at a party that consisted primarily of people I didn’t know. I’m pretty comfortable with that; I tend to make friends rather easily. Two of the gents I met there were T—- and G—-, a gay couple in San Diego. We chatted for a bit, and they seemed like pretty cool guys. Anyway, I wouldn’t bring it up if there wasn’t some interesting … repercussions.

I am a gay boy porn star.

Well, not really, but it came back around to me that the two of them a pretty sure they’ve seen me online. In pictures. Performing lewd and lascivious acts. On a porn site specifically by and for gay men in San Diego. Now, I can’t ever recall fucking for money while sober, be it with guys or girls, and while I’ve been pretty drunk before, I’m pretty sure I haven’t tried that. I’d put it up there at five nines: 99.999% – the other %0.001 is just to account for parallel universes, time-space singularities, and a sundry of other things that may have spun me briefly into gay porn and back to my regular self without my knowledge. (These things happen, I hear.)

I find this absolutely hilarious.

However, it does change some internal dynamics. I’m not necessarily the best looking guy, but I have gotten to odd wink or smile from guys while dining out in Hillcrest with friends. Normally, I’d get a little ego boost – I don’t care if it’s from guy or a girl, it’s a compliment – but just politely smile or nod and continue on, making it clear that I’m not down with the man-booty. After all, just ‘cause you think I’m cute, doesn’t mean it’s reciprocal, and I’ll take your compliment while trying to indicate that I’m not interested. I unsuccessfully pick up on girls all too often, and I’m sure some of them wouldn’t have even noticed me if I hadn’t introduced myself, so we’re just running the same scenario with different players. No harm, no foul.

But now I have this voice in the back of my head, this one that whispers to me when I meet a gay man, that there’s this small chance a wink or handshake might be saying, “so, I saw you online ….”

And I find this even funnier.

Chris, Frenchie, and myself are in some Tahitian-themed bar in the Village at Mammoth, sucking down drinks after a rough day on slopes. The snow had been great, but the wind was hellacious. At mid-mountain, there was so much snow blown around we had a maximum of 10-feet visibility. You couldn’t tell the ground from the sky and the drafts were strong enough to push you uphill when you thought you were going downhill. Never before have I felt so disoriented and isolated. A complete white-out.

As it turns out, we’d all eat shit near the top, but none of us would see each others’ falls (which is always good for a laugh), and we’d get separated on this run. I slid off a catwalk (that I couldn’t see) while carving left, slamming my head sideways into the snowpack. By the time I got up, I didn’t know where anyone was, so I followed gravity, albeit a little more carefully. Not finding them at the bottom of the lifts, I ventured off on my own to the leeward side of the mountain for some fresh snow and tree skiing. (I did have one incredible back-scratcher drop-in from the top of a six foot cornice – enough to get cheers from the liftline – but ended up with face-first belly-up yard-sale slide for the next forty feet. I’d scoped the site earlier, though, and it was pillow soft. Great fun, great snow.)

Eventually we met up for some powerbars and water before finishing up the day on the slopes and dropping in the hotel hot-tub to relax our muscles. Dinner and a few beers later, and we cut to the present: shooting the shit at a soon-to-be-happening nightclub. Until the cougars walk in. Big cougars. And damned if they don’t think we’re the hottest and/or easiest guys in the bar.

Big, Big, Big, Cougar opens it up with “Want to see me pole dance?”

“Um, not really, thanks.”

“No, really, I’m a really great pole dancer.”

At this point, I’m thinking she has a custom-made reinforced pole at home. It sounds mean, but really, she’s huge, way to big to swing from some brass pole – perhaps high-grade aluminum. Fortunately, there are no poles in the bar, but unfortunately, she doesn’t let that stop her. She mimes holding a pole while slamming her body against it, and proceeds to spin around onto the dance floor, and shoves four fingers in her mouth before sloppily massaging her crotch while gyrating. God, is that image ever burned into my head, despite turning as soon as possible.

Another cougar in the group takes advantage of her absence to pounce and tell us, at least three times in the course of a conversation, how she can hang a coathanger from her erect nipple. Okay, I call her and her ample breasts on the bet, and fashion a little hanger-esqe triangle our of bar straws. Right there in the bar, she flops her breast out, ices it up with a cube from her drink, and hangs the triangle from it. Twice. Once from each nipple.

By now we’re trashed, they’re trashed, and we’re torn between finding some cute girls our own age and watching the trainwreck of a spectacle in front of us. But we don’t really have a choice anymore, it’s coming fast and furious; it’s hard to keep up or even disengage. One of the other girls has her hand in Chris’s hair and is asking if he “trims his hedges,” while another one, one seemingly normal aside from the rich patchouli scent, pulls me forcibly out to the dance floor. After about thirty seconds of standard run of the mill dancing, she grabs my hips and slams her crotch into mine ten times, then stops, apologizes, and says, “had to be done,” before walking off. I’m completely shocked. It’s so violent I think I may have pelvic bruising.

I stumble back to the bar where one of the girls has grabbed one of Chris’s or Frenchie’s legs and is attempting to rub her crotch against it while whoever it is that’s getting molested is trying to pull away. Chris gets mauled by Patchouli Cougar – literally, she’s clawing his face and biting his ear – BBB Cougar is up on stage grinding an imaginary pole beckoning to Frenchie, Irish Cougar is slamming my fists against Coathanger Cougar’s breasts King-Kong style while Coathanger Cougar is has a Kung-Fu grip on my crotch.

Eventually, I get to tab out.

I awake hungover as all hell. It’s even colder and windier and dumping snow. I have to pull my beanie cock-eyed down over my smashed goggles, and the wind is even worse on the hill, but the snow is fresh and continual. Never has the mountain seemed more inviting.

I met up with the crew at The Pub for another night of 80’s covers, shots, and beer. There’s a fair numbers of cuties around and our groups dissolves periodically as one or another of us approaches a girl. I’m in my element: relaxing, catching up with friends and employees (which are not mutually exclusive groups), and generally just joking around. In walks K——, the girlfriend of a one of the aforementioned friends/employees. K—— is one of the sweetest, coolest girls I’ve ever met. She’s intelligent and genuinely cares for those around her, with a quick wit and resiliency I’ve rarely encountered. She’s also dressed to the nines, a knee-length flowing black dress replete with plunging decolletage and black stilettos, all crowned by her bright blue eyes.

“Wow, I mean … wow! What’s the occasion? You look absolutely fantastic.”

“Thanks! Some friends and I went downtown to the House of Blues tonight to catch some up and coming bands. How’s your night going?”

“Pretty good, just getting out.” Through more such small-talk and catchup, I see my friends slowly scatter to give me space, not knowing that I already know this girl.

“You know, it’s kind of funny, my friends don’t know that I already know you, so they’re clearing out ‘cause they think I’m hitting on you. Of course, I totally would be if you were single.”

“I’ve been single for a year.”

I was shocked into utter silence. A chasm even Evil Knievel couldn’t bridge. She just stood staring at me. Talk about capturing my mind.

“Um, then I am hitting on you.”

She laughs it off. “Yeah, we kept it pretty low-profile. We’re good like that. So not everyone knows.”

We spent most of the rest of the night chatting, from the serious to the superficial, people watching and closing down the bar. We trade numbers but she’s not ready to start dating again. It’s too premature, she’s still in recovery mode.

For now.