bedtime

ok, if you're reading this blog that means you've most likely stalked me on the f-book. this also means you probably now i'm leaving for americorps for a while. so...i don't know the frequency in which i'll be able to post. hopefully i'll have some chances, but who knows.

so before i leave, here's a poorly crafted entry to tide you over.



i'm horrible to sleep with. and not that way, perv, just in general. i'm not someone you want to be partnered with in a bed. i'm huge, i'm squirmy and there's a lot of noises coming from my body. said noises entail a horrible teeth grinding habit and a lot of incoherent dream dialogue.

the dentist just told me i have 'severe incisal wear.' that means my vampire teeth aren't looking that good. good news for transylvanians, bad news for me. now i have to sleep with a mouthguard. and by 'sleep' i mean put it in for five minutes and then immediately spit it out because i can't breathe. at least it's a step in the right direction.

but the main reason you probably don't want to sleep next to me is that i say some pretty wild shit. from what i've been told, it's not often long lines of dialogue or full sentences. oftentimes it's just quick, one word yelps that wake you from sleep and also put a healthy 4am fear into you. from what david has told me, whom i lived in a tent with for a summer, most of the nighttime vocal workout was things like "knife!" or "don't!" being yelled out into the crisp silence of a california night.

if this were a play rehearsal for streetcar named desire, then things may have seemed normal. but when it's you and another person alone in a wood-planked canvas tent, the last thing you want to wake up to is someone shouting out names of potential weapons - especially ones you know are merely feet away.

"shank!" "six feet of shorn extension cord!" "dave! dave! dave!" - all things you don't want to have pierce nighttime silence.

but even worse than me yelling weird stuff is that i've been told i sleepwalk. i'm not sure if it happens anymore, but i used to. quite a lot. my freshmen year roommates would tell me tales of me getting up at night just to slam open and shut my dresser drawers. i then tried the door to the hallway but by the hand of zeus it was deadbolted shut. the last thing i want to surprisingly wake up in is a dorm bathroom. scratch that, just a dorm period. that shit's worse than a nightmare.

so when i was little, my mom would oftentimes catch me sleepwalking. as a rule of thumb, i heard, you're not meant to wake people up if you catch them. just simply guide them back to bed, because they won't ever stop if you wake them up. it's like the saying 'teach a man to fish...' but instead its the uneasiness of knowing any jar of mayonnaise in the house could be demolished in a sleepy time feeding frenzy.

one time, i walked into my parents room. a dim glow from the hallway outlined my figure as i just stood in their doorway. feeling the presence, my mom asked me what was the matter. after saying nothing, she figured i was sleepwalking.

then i stepped shit up a notch.

carrying on with what i felt was sleepwalking business as usual i proceeded to treat their room as the room i thought i was in - the bathroom. the good old water closet.

i let rip a sleepwalking pee stream the likes of which are yet to be topped. a rich river of frothy urine cascaded onto their shag carpet as i stood with full sleepwalking confidence that this was just another pee.

but this was no ordinary pee. it was far from going into an ordinary toilet bowl. no, friends, this pee reached out and shook hands with the carpet, a pair of my father's shoes and a wool sweater soon to be donated to goodwill. it was the night sleepwalking turned into a tangible problem.

being smart, my parents didn't tell me what happened for quite some time. i would have felt very guilty and embarrassed and the whole ordeal would have just gotten worse. so they waited, and when they did tell me enough time had passed that it all seemed pretty funny.

upon hearing i voiced my apologies and found it it had never happened again. this was relieving. nearly as relieving as the sleepwalk pee that led me there in the first place.



well, i'm on nyquil and getting a little loopy. hopefully you enjoy it.
xoxo.

oscar buzz

So I’ve been thinking of routine pieces I can write for this blog. I’ve had a couple ideas but one that seems really good is a returning feature called “Forgotten Acceptance Speeches,” where acceptance speeches that never were given have been miraculously found. Now most acceptance speeches are reserved for winners, achievers and leaders in their respective fields. In “Forgotten Acceptance Speeches,” you will see none of these things. Enjoy.

“Forgotten Acceptance Speeches – Kevin Costner Wins Academy Award for Waterworld”

1995. Found crumpled and thrown into a back alley Los Angeles restaurant dumpster. Possible tears/blood found on lower corner of paper. Also, apparently stage directions have been written into the speech. They remain in the text to keep historical accuracy.

Oh, wow. I…I really don’t know what to say. This is truly such an honor for this to happen to me. I haven’t even prepared anything! (Rub hand through hair in astonishment. Fish out crumpled piece of paper with names. DO NOT READ. Proceed with memorized speech.) Well, that’s not true, I have only a few names on a piece of paper.

First, my thanks to Kevin Reynolds, the director of this masterpiece. When I think of him, I seriously consider him to be in a league with the best. Scorcese, Welles. Soon you all will be saying “Kevin Reynolds is the best American filmmaker that has ever lived.” And you’ll know where you heard it first. The fucking C-Man.

Also, I would like to thank David Rubin for casting me. Although I was not the first choice, I always had a saying around my house: “If at first you don’t succeed, perhaps the fourth time you try and succeed will be the time that you actually succeed.” And I feel we did that. Although I was the fifth choice.

At any rate, I would like to thank everyone that worked with me on this film. It truly was a ‘whale’ of a time! (Wait for water-themed laughter to subside.)

Now even though it seems like it was easy, making this film was rather turbulent. We went through our ups and downs, ebbs and flows, but we managed to make what I feel is the most important film made in this century. I truly do.

I mean sure Citizen Kane can be touted as one of the best, or even something like Casablanca. But you know what both of those movies didn’t have? That’s right, a renegade mutant mariner drinking his own urine and following a girl’s back tattoo to dry land. (Pause. Stare at anyone smiling. Like, really stare. This shit is serious.)

That is what tugs on the heartstrings. That is what people connect to. Because a world where the ice caps have melted and bands of tobacco renegades roam the high seas in search of dirt and saltwater foreplay is not far off, colleagues. It really isn’t. Have you watched MTV recently? (Wink at that RuPaul thing.)

I hope Waterworld could serve as not only my shining moment in thespian history, but a wake up call to those afraid of trusting mutants with the lives of our children.

The year 2000 is rapidly approaching, friends, and I for one am not taking it lightly. At home I framed a newspaper story where a child was born with three arms. Three arms. Do you know what that means? That’s two arms for holding you down, and one for fucking killing you. Now I am sorry for the strong language, but I am passionate about this. (Breathe from inhaler. Flex abs.) If we don’t take the film legend Waterworld into serious consideration as the future of mankind, then I truly did not deserve this award.

But if there are enough you out there, and I think there are, that feel the same way as I do, then together we can make the future a great place.
A place where more films like this great nautical epic can be made.
Which brings me to telling you the juiciest bit of Hollywood gossip your sweet ears have ever heard. (Pause for shocked murmurings to settle.)

Yes, friends, that’s right. A sequel. I won’t spoil it by telling you what happens, but I am at liberty to tell you the name….
Waterworld 2: Field of Wet Dreams.

strong enough for a grown ass man

so for the third day in a row, i'm wearing womens deodorant. not by choice, mind you, but because i ran out of my own supply.
unlike other things like underwear or shoes, opposite sex deodorant is actually something you can get away with wearing. it by no means feels right, but you can manage. if i attempted a "girdle tuesday" after i went through my clean boxers then there would be issues. but as it were, i've been doing relatively ok with the secret. the upside is that i don't have to buy new deodorant, and with my current financial situation that is a tremendous thing. but there's one big downside - and that is smelling like my mom.

if it were the anti-perspirant of a significant other, then maybe it'd be better. it'd be a cute thing i do in the morning as we both get ready for the day. she dressing up to tackle the working world and myself making a nest of blankets and knick knacks before price is right starts. i'd softly blow bubbles in my chocolate milk as she makes her lunch, gathers her things and, while walking out the door, makes sure i see both middle fingers pointed directly at me .

but thinking back, i actually don't really recall any of my past girlfriends' deodorant smelling, let alone smelling like my mom. is this some kind of cruel 50+ trick the deodorant company plays on women everywhere? once you have officially become old you have to smell the part, too?
i'm thinking yes, because if i snuggled up to a girl that smells as i do now we would absolutely have no future together. my armpits smell like smurf shit.

but perhaps there's some kind of unscented deodorant that i don't even know about. or my mom doesn't know about.

or maybe it's the whole "ph balance" thing secret always seems to harp on. you know, the whole "strong enough for a man, but ph balanced for a woman." maybe i have the wrong ph balance. maybe whatever balance is going on in my pits causes normal deodorant to smell like the open grave of liberace.

it's secret's male deterrent. "secret, strong enough for a man, but ph balanced for a woman. and if you're a man and you wear this, you have a 100% guarantee of not getting to second base. ever. because you'll smell like your mom. i mean, she's a great lady and all, but you're 24 years old. you should smell like the wilderness, bowling alley sex and an old catcher's mitt."

holiday sands was like the amsterdam of summer water fun

so i know i haven't really posted much recently, so here's a piece i wrote about holiday sands about a year ago. it's pretty rough, so don't expect a christmas miracle here, people. but i'm happy with the first half.

xoxo.

Growing up, my family lived just outside of Kent, Ohio. It was always easiest just to say we lived in Kent, but where we live is actually called Twin Lakes. It’s a nice part of Ohio that straddles a state route and offers, as you can guess, two lakes. They are by no means twins, but I have urinated in them so many times they do share some kind of special thread.

Among other things, this is something that you learn by living so close to a lake- public urination is usually frowned upon on dry land, but once half of your torso is submerged it is a veritable urinal designed for you and you alone. I’ve learned that in cold waters like California peeing in your wetsuit can warm your body and help you better acclimate to the chilly saltwater of the Pacific.

In Ohio, lakes can often reach temperatures of most baths, so warming yourself up isn’t really the desired effect of peeing in the water. Usually it’s out of laziness, to gross your friends out or an accident that can really put a halt on a game of Marco Polo – but rarely does it help you.
The amount of child urine that has touched the fair shores of West Twin Lake is something I’d rather not think about. Mainly because this is the same place I have swam underwater in with my eyes open, exposed a staggering amount of open wounds to and, on occasion, drank as a result of dehydration on my ragged catamaran. While this may seem utterly unhygienic and disgusting, I have yet to really see any side effects from it. Now and again something that I can only describe as “worm-like” passes across my eyeball, but for all I know that was there before I learned how to swim and is probably not the hatchlings of some northeastern Ohio bacteria. Here’s hoping.

While being exposed to what I’m sure is a wild assortment of lake germs may seem like a bad thing, living in close proximity to a lake really had its benefits. I never really needed a babysitter, drowning has never really been an issue and scouring my body for any piece of sand leftover from the beach has given me an impeccable sense of self hygiene. Impending punishment from your mother for tracking sand into the house really makes you completely investigate every nook and cranny.

But as much fun as the lakes were, special summer days called for a little extra adventure in aquatic fun. If we were lucky enough, my parents or a friend’s parents would take a day to go to Holiday Sands, a waterpark of sorts located in Ravenna. If you do not know of Ravenna, Ohio, then I would consider you lucky. I rarely use the term “armpit of America,” but Ravenna seems to aptly fit the description.

As bad as Ravenna is, Holiday Sands somehow took it up a notch. Holiday Sands was like the Amsterdam of summer water fun. Even though I was only a kid going there, I had this feeling that pretty much the craziest shit you could imagine was made possible. You wanna swing on a rusty chain into water that may or may not be deep enough to dive into? Go ahead. Want to know what a 100 foot spiral staircase made entirely out of slippery, decaying metal feels like soaking wet? Give it a shot.

I think the best description I can give of Holiday Sands is that there was rumored to usually be one fatality a summer, and everyone just accepted that as the cost of doing business. When you play with fire, you’re going to get burned. And in this case, it wasn’t so much fire as it was insufficient supervision in a waterpark made up of death traps.

The place itself was a freshwater lake nestled off of State Route 14, boasting an array of activities from shallow end monkeybars to a set of rings crossing the lake at one edge of it. It was a pretty good size lake, and from what I remember it was naturally made. But there were concrete walls on some edges so I think it was partially man-made. “Naturally made with some human influence,” you could call it. This human influence led to things like a platform with two rings for people to swing out and jump off into the water on. Now as simple as that sounds, I witnessed some nearly fatal accidents there in my childhood.

To start, the platform I think was made out of butter. Well, maybe not butter, but whatever it was the lifeguards on duty most assuredly waxed it down on an hourly basis. This slanted wooden deck was pointed down towards the water and potential swingers had to shimmy down it to grab the ring, which was dangling from two chains that had seen more service time than the entirety of the first Gulf War. If they were lucky enough to stay on and grab the ring, they had to go back up the ramp, this time with resistance from the chains. If nothing else, the ring swing was a vital lesson in applied physics with drunk, overweight hillbillies.

Once the ring was secured, then came a true test of skill. It was called trying to land on the people who had just gone and were swimming out of the way. If you got lucky, you had a lifeguard glancing away at a cute girl or a smarmy redneck, and believe me there were plenty of both, and you could take aim. Having been on both sides of this operation, it was never a good idea –but, like most ideas around the age of 12, it was there and you’d be damned if you were going to let it pass you by.

As a result of this, you learned what kind of power a lifeguard has, and being banished out of the lake until the next break was over was agonizing. I would try and sneak around to the other side, hoping I wouldn’t be seen, but somehow the eagle eye vision of lifeguard justice would find me. As mad as this made me, I was impressed. Being a fairly normal looking gangly boy without any birthmarks, rashes, glass eyes or missing teeth, this ability to pick me out from a crowd was a true testament to the caliber of the lifesaving Holiday Sands employed. Or at least their ability to hold a grudge.

While waiting for your sentence to end, or if it was break, Holiday Sands provided a small playground for kids to play on. It was fairly large, covered in sand and offered some pretty atypical playground paraphernalia. Now believe me when I say this, but there was a contraption there that could never have met safety standards in times before the Industrial Revolution, let alone the early 90’s. It essentially was a souped-up carousel, but instead of creating mild dizziness and laughter this brought pain and suffering.

The main structure was an elaborate set of bars making a circular wheel. The middle was then connected to a pole about 20 feet high with chains stretching up from the middle “spokes” to the top of the pole.

When turned around, the chains would slowly wrap up on the pole. This caused several things to happen. First, the actual wheel part would begin to rise up off the ground because the chains would begin to shorten as they were continuously wrapped around the structure. The higher it got, the fewer kids could keep pushing. So they had to just grab on and wait for everyone to finish. Some kids would begin sitting on it and let other people do the work. Those kids were assholes.

So, once the tall kids pushed the contraption as far as they could, everyone grabbed on and hoped for the best. To lend an example as to what was next to happen, I can give you a mental picture. Imagine placing a fan face up on the floor. Then boil a pot of spaghetti. Toss these wet noodles onto the fan and turn the fan onto its highest setting. Watch as noodles fly off, spraying in all directions. Some land on each other, some skid off yards away. A lucky few may have actually wedged their way in the blades and are somehow clinging on whether they wish to or not. Now instead of spaghetti, imagine it to be the supple bodies of two dozen children wearing nothing but swimming suits.

I had always learned that hourly breaks were meant to keep you safe and not let you get tired, but there was no such thing at Holiday Sands. After you spent a solid 45 minutes exerting yourself in the water, you had to stare death in the face as young bodies flew at you at speeds incomprehensible by a 10-year old.

Centrifugal forces caused you to become completely parallel with the ground as you held on with all you had. Then, when the sweet lord deemed it to be, your hands gave out and you soon realized the benefits of wearing a t-shirt while you tempt fate on a playground. Blood was all too common, as were the soothing sounds of tears and chains grinding against metal. But all of this seemed to be forgotten come next break. Looking back, I can understand why people ride bulls professionally. Not because they’re stupid, but because of the rush it brings them. For cowboys, it’s the glory of holding on for eight seconds and staying on a bucking animal. For the youth of northeastern Ohio, it was feeling that first layer of palm skin peel off from the rusty bar you couldn’t let go of. That, or the feeling you get when you blast a 7-year old in the chest as you zip around a steel monster created by Satan himself.

But I digress, because most of memories from Holiday Sands are in the lake itself. Well, not even so much in the lake as a hundred feet above it. The piece de resistance, if you will, of the entire water park was a huge metal waterslide, standing tall in direct defiance of safety considerations everywhere. Not only was it a terrifying piece of metal that would warm to unimaginable temperatures, but climbing up the beast was the scariest part. A twisting metal staircase led you up to the top of the slide, with nothing but a small railing to keep you from plummeting onto the hard cement underfoot. For a young boy, every step you take really lets your mind do some thinking.

The first dozen or so steps thoughts are simple, like “wow, I’m excited to go down this slide!.” Verging on 30, doubt begins to creep in. “This is very slippery. How far up am I? Was that a scream? Did I just step on bone marrow?”

Right when you near the top your mind is in full-blown pandemonium. I’ve seen many a person buckle under the pressure, making that long walk back down the staircase that just terrified them on the way up. Honestly, once you got to the top it was probably best to just suck it up and go down the slide, because walking down a spiral staircase capable of accommodating one reasonably small Asian man was a death wish.

But the most ridiculous part about the slide was the line. There was a constant wait of about 10 people once you got to the top, so you not only had to climb the stairs but then stay on them. When you are standing atop a huge metal structure that seems to barely be standing, thoughts start running through your head. Thoughts like morning newspaper headlines: “14 Dead in Waterslide Collapse” or even “Tall, Malnourished Kent Boy Plucked From Waterpark Wreckage.” A mind begins to wander as you notice every strong gust of wind a hundred feet above concrete. (Just as a side note, the slide may not have been 100 feet tall. Actually, I can probably guarantee it. But to a child, any height over 30 feet is intimidating.)

But as I would wait to go down the slide, I would get to see what new brand of stupid was being offered up by the Ravenna locals. I always got to see what new styles in cutoff jeanshorts were in fashion, and I even began to appreciate the intricacies of neck and calf tattoos. But what was truly astounding was these Ravenna natives who had apparently become content with their lives and wished to risk everything.

This was accomplished by something so stupid as leaping out above the slide at the top, “getting air” and landing several feet or even yards further than those of us simply sliding down it. Even as a kid, I knew full well that this was one of the dumbest things I had ever witnessed in my life – and this is coming from someone who saw his brother burn his nighttime orthodontic headgear in celebration of getting his braces removed.

The gasps that come out of you as you see a 40 year old man in shorn black denim shorts land five feet out and halfway off of the slide itself are truly disgusting. If it weren’t for everyone making the exact same noise, I would have been completely embarrassed.
The kind of embarrassment that can only be matched by the brutal wedgie I was soon to receive courtesy of a giant, hot metal monster.

But after each time I went down that slide, I would eventually get up and do it again. Why? It is the mystery of Holiday Sands. Like the song of the sirens, it always leads us back.

Whenever I think back about my times at Holiday Sands, it is much akin to junior high school. I shared a lot of good times there, but looking back I don’t know how or why any of us did it. Except instead of the learning process taking two years, as it does in junior high, one can learn a lot in just one afternoon at a small lake in Ravenna. Seeing the glistening, flowing locks of an inebriated man flow in the wind as he gracefully shifts his body back onto a metal slide high above the ground is something you can’t read in a textbook. No teacher can show you life like a poorly groomed man from Ohio can. The highs, the lows. Holiday Sands made sure you didn’t give up on your dreams. Not because it cared, but because it was proof that anything is possible – especially creating a veritable wonderland of things that could easily kill small children.

New Game Release “Sitar Hero” Receives Dismal Reviews

By Ravi F. Shankar III

Well, if I told you I expected this I would clearly be lying. This was my chance, the time was right and…well, as you can see by this bar graph representing video game sales, we fared lower than “Mathematics for the Incontinent,” an algebra themed game geared for the loosely-boweled. Christ almighty, I mean a diarrhea smart game beat us. I guess it is just painfully obvious the public is not ready to embrace the world of droning, 23-stringed gourd instruments.

I had the idea while I was touring throughout Persia. A ne’erdowell on the street propositioned me to purchase something called “Guitar Hero,” a game where Caucasians emulate their rudimentary and syphilis-laden music stars. After examining the game, which the man informed me “was a big time popularity game time in America,” I purchased it and went home. After playing for less than two hours, I had defeated every level on the hardest setting. This got my sitar wheels in motion.

“If mimicking a six string guitar is fun, and profitable, why won’t quadrupling the intensity produce quadruple the profit?” I, obviously, have only had limited training in both business and mathematics.

If I could only go back in time and kick myself in the balls, then I wouldn’t be thousands of dollars in debt, the laughing stock of my country and on the receiving end of a public “total body hair wax off,” customary in my village for those who bring shame to it.
But, as it were, my beloved “Sitar Hero” came into being and I did not have the foresight to know it would be so poorly received.

I mean, I understand that it may be a little “unorthodox” from other gaming controllers, but gaining dexterity on a 23-string pan lute requires time. But I guess time is something that none of these impatient assholes in America has. One time I spent a year just playing four notes on my sitar. FOUR FUCKING NOTES. During that time my wife left me, I was discharged from the National Sitarmy, a public music defense program, and had to start subletting a basement shanty. So don’t talk to me about “time.”

And they even try and tell me “the songs are too obscure” and “the advanced setting is a literal physical impossibility for any human being to do.”

I mean, I tried to pick out songs that people would know – believe me. I had one Beatles song and one Rolling Stones, other than that it’s all from the other side of the globe, baby.
But I was hopeful. Maybe playing sitar can be the newest “shitty idea actually gains popularity” thing, like that Dancing with the Stars or letting women vote. But boy was I wrong again, apparently if you’re not tattooed up or letting your vagina hang out of a limo nobody has any clue who you are anymore.

And in defense of the advanced setting, it IS setup to play with the skill and sanctity of a six-armed Hindu god, so you are right in saying that no human can play it. That’s the point. The advanced stage gives you a time to not only reflect on your gameplay thus far, but pray and meditate. It’s an added bonus to the game, douche bags.

So as I am receiving angry letter upon angry letter, I have come to an understanding that the world is not ready for “Sitar Hero.” It was my idea, it did not work, and now I am forced to live with the consequences. And right now those consequences are bubbling up a large cauldron of wax on the town square.