So It's Only Been A Year?
Really?
Well happy birthday then.
Well, honestly, I never thought that FTTW would ever become what it is today. I mean really. This hasn't really been my thing. Typing on the internet. I knew I could like write funny stuff and do a bunch of neato things, but I never really wanted to actively pursue anything like this. I've been out on stage too many times to really want to jump back in so soon after I left. I was just happy making bullshit responses on other sites while trying to get the Cult of Turtle ever larger each and every day. But not on a website. There couldn't be that many people out there who would actually enjoy this. Much less take a part in it. I mean, I knew people were out there who would like to read something like this, but I never thought it would involve me.
Or any of you.
Since the beginning of this site and still, a little bit, today, I have been in kinda of awe at what you guys do everyday to keep this thing alive. Yes, I edit this stuff at night and in some cases put pretty pictures in them, but for the most part, this is all about you. The writers, readers and the lurkers. With this site, I have inadvertently made a bunch of friends and found out how really strong a friendship on the internet could be. It was only a year ago I was on the West Coast with just a few jokes and a few ideas. Now for some strange reason I am in New York with a bunch of friends all striving to be creative. Believe it or not, I do read all of these articles submitted. Cept the ones where Deb goes a little too Anti-Anaheim Ducks, but the other ones I read and with reading them, I feel as though I know all of you a little bit better. Even the commentators. And that is you. And you.
So yeah. It's been a weird, strange and fun year. Tiring, exhaustingly and frustrating as well. Sometimes I wonder why we all do what we do and sometimes I wonder why we never did this before. So see, it's confusing. Hated something and loving it at the same time reminds of my old drug days, but with this FTTW drug, I really don't see an end to it anytime soon.
So thank you everyone for having a good time doing whatever it is we are doing. Reading, writing, commentating or just lurking. Whatever it is, keep on doing it.
FTTW was a site that started on having fun and it seems like we are all still having it.
So what the fuck...
Let's do another year. - T
First birthdays are cool. Cake, ice cream, balloons, clowns.....wait, I don't want any clowns. I just want to party with all the FTTW writers and readers.
I loved doing FTTW from the beginning, when it was just me and turtle. But when we brought on a whole slew of writers, it became bigger than the both of us. It wasn't just a website anymore. It was a gathering place.
The writers have become my friends. I've gotten to know our readers, and a lot of our early readers ended up becoming writers. It's a big circle jerk of mutual admiration around here. Well, less messy than a circle jerk. But almost as satisfying. I assume.
A lot has happened around here in a year. The site grew more than I ever thought it would. Writers came, writers went, more writers came around. Turtle moved to New York and we were able to actually sit in the same room - same time zone! - and write together. The site had its growing pains, went through several designs and incarnations til we came up with this magazine format. I like it. It works. Having this many talented writers gathered under a site turtle and I created is both inspiring and humbling.
To all our readers, thanks for sticking around and for commenting and emailing and reading what we all write. Stick with us, we've got a lot more up our sleeves for the next year.
To our writers, past and present, thanks for all you have done to make this a great experience thus far. Thanks for all your articles and brainstorming and sharing the moonshine still and meth lab and potato chips. And thanks for letting us get to know you. You really are an eclectic, amazing group of people and we're lucky to have spent this year with you.
Let's do another. -M
If you have some friends around, it's like some kind of Grecian Roman He Man thing where you have the alpha males lifting the heaviest stuff whilst the womenfolk and childrens stay out of the way. Charles Ingalls worked in the yard. Charles Ingalls was a man. His family were a bunch of weak, blind breeders. Not farmers. When Charles worked on the farm, you knew he knew how to fuck. You could see it in his Mormon eyes. When I lifted cement blocks last weekend, the neighborhood knew I could fuck. And isn't that what makes a happy neighborhood anyways? I have to do it again this weekend and I am inches away from doing it naked to show Zeus and the other gods that not only can I fuck, I am ready to fuck. Fucking or pulling weeds, makes no difference to me. As long as the gods know, and by the cries I know they know, that I can mow a lawn or split a pussy with the best of them. The gods will be satisfied. Grab my shaft and feel my testicles shake as I start the Garden Weasel. Feel my heaving buttocks as I adjust my weed whacker. My penis will point the way to a clean and freshly mowed lawn. When I urinate on my newly mowed lawn, the gods will know that I felt like urinating instead of fucking. And they will respect me. For the gods will see that I can fuck, but I choose to pee instead.
But the race isn't over yet...Stephanie Colburtle now looks certain for second place far southeast of the winner’s course. George Shillinger, a sea turtle expert who tagged the girls at Playa Grande, explained how the competitors find their way to the finish zone.
Yes. Yes it is true. Sometimes we care. Sometimes we don't know what we care about until it is forwarded to us by a FTTW writer (Thanks, Ernie!) but sometimes it happens. We actually give a shit about something other than ourselves and our last cigarettes for more than one day a year.
I hate Peeps. I think they are disgusting little mobs of goo. Name one person that has never gotten sick on them at least once in their life. Everyone hates Peeps.
A motorcycle!
This weeks theme was suggested by Bonnie. We think it is a good one. For future reference, if any of you alls have an idea for a Group LNT, email it to us and we will use it. But, don't do it in here. Makes things messy and dirty. Mongo doesn't like mess and dirt. Mongo just pawn in game of life.
Well, that's the first one. And now that you know mine, doesn't life just make a little more sense?
"We're just going to be working on consistency. We've played some good games and some not so good, so we need to get four or five in a row that are played really well."
Ernie: Well I don't play a lot of video games so... The only video game I can think of right now that has women in it is the old X-Men arcade game. I think maybe Storm and Jean Gray are in that one? That works for me.
Josh: dude. pegasus = horse with wings
Turtle: There is also a That's So Raven video game.
Richard: I am so all about Raven's redheaded friend, whatever her name is, that's mine. If she isn't in the game then Raven or maybe Ms. Pacman; she's basically all mouth. Yes, they're all over 18.
Turtle: I don't know if this adds or detracts from the thread, but I just woke up from a dream in which Wayne Brady was the first black James Bond
So this brings me to what I want to do next and surprisingly, the Discovery Channel has thrown this pie on my plate. At around 11 or so in the morning, they show a program that calls to me. Something I need to do.
What do I still want to do with my life? Hell, I don't think I've really done most of what I want to do yet, so I have a lot of crap to do in a short amount of time. Not like I'm dying or anything, but it's not like I'm still in my 20s either. Or 30s. Got a long way to go and a short time to get there. And somewhere along the line, I have to teach someone that "trap" is not proper nomenclature, and using it in that manner will only result in someone putting Ex-Lax in your Hamburger Helper. Talk about opening the traps up....
have my book made into a movie, appear on Jay Leno, gutpunch him, become a pariah in Hollywood but a hero in my hometown. 
First car was a '77 Chevy Nova coupe. Primer gray. Red vinyl roof. Straight 6 motor. Very easy to work on. Often had to stick a screwdriver in the carberator to hold it open so it would start. Not my dream car but it was a car. I took the gay looking hubcaps off and spray painted the rims with some chrome paint to make it look like I had cool rims on there. Very Chip Foose.. Put a sparc-o-matic tape deck in it and some shitty 8 inch sparc-o-matic speakers in the back window. Crank up the AC/DC baby cuz it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Then the tape got stuck in the deck so that's all I could listen to. Either that or the radio. At least it was a good tape.. TNT. I'm dyno-myte.. Then the passenger side door became frozen shut and was no longer operable. So everybody always had to climb in the passenger side to get in. Great way to impress a date. Climb in sweetheart... It was nicknamed 'the gray ghost'.
Like most teenagers I'd asked for a car for my 16th birthday. Like most single, working mothers, my mom couldn't afford to give me the car I'd wanted, or even close to the car I'd wanted. BUT in true Mom-style, my mother did get me a car.
1973 Opel Manta 4 speed. 3rd gear was stripped, so I had to shift from 2nd to 4th. I dream about this car all the time for some reason. It's kinda weird. In most of the dreams, the car has been stolen. Which is weird cuz why would anyone want a 1973 Opel Manta but me?? I was driving down the street one night when this tick started coming from the engine. It got louder and louder. I wasn't smart enough to realize something was really wrong with that tick until the tick turned into a knock and then it was too late. A bolt on the oil pan blew out and so did all of the oil. Engine froze. I miss that car. 
I was the proud owner of a 1973 Oldsmobile Omega. This was in 1980. All my rich friends got BMWs and Camaros when they graduated high school. I had to wait until I saved enough money to buy my own ride. Maybe it wasn't sporty or fast or sexy or brand new, but let me tell you, that car was one solid piece of machinery. When I was behind the wheel of that thing, I felt invincible, like I was driving a tank. Nothing bad could happen to me in that car.
well, the first car my parents bought me (i wasn't even sixteen yet) was a 1979 pontiac firebird. fuck ya i said that. i was my dad's boy, you see, so he bought this car for me from a friend.
My first car was a red 1962 Jaguar XKE factory lightweight. I eventually sold it to a diamond merchant for 1.3 million in order to finance a much-needed coup in a small, African nation, back in the early '80's.
Let's see. My first car was an 89 Honda Accord, a 2 door. That was around 2000, maybe 2001. I don't remember exactly. The damn thing caused me endless trouble and I made the mistake of having the transmission rebuilt for about $2000--maybe a year before I finally got rid of the damn thing. On the other hand, I'd bought it outright and, if nothing else, it sure as hell could get up to speed quick. That was nice.
I would have had a really nice first car, but my parents' finances got tied up in some ugly coup in a small, African nation - apparently some asshole sold the authoritarian dictators a really nice car or something.
My first car was the truck of pain. Man, that thing was a piece of shit. It didn't have a grill -- we collapsed the box from a case of Busch light and put it in there to protect the radiator. It had no emergency break. The hood release cable came all the way out the first time I pulled it. Had a crappy AM receiver and a worse FM receiver. That was it. No AC. Power nothin.
My first car was a 1987 Mazda Pick-up with a cap on the bed. It was a stick and had no power steering so for a skinny little 17 year old this machine was tough to drive!! That good ole' machine got me back and forth to college (a 4 hour drive) for four years, one secret trip to NC to visit the boyfriend, a bunch of "road trips" with the girlfriends, and a whole lotta lovin' in the back!! That darn thing didn't let me down once...just one flat tire the entire time I had it! I finally broke down and bought a "real" car (a very girly dodge neon with pink and purple pinstripes) and sold the Mazda to a NY State Trooper for $200. He also got my husband out of a few tickets for that price! The trooper drives it everyday to the station and back home. Did I mention that I had let my little sisters make chalk pictures on it one day?? The black paint was forever scratched with pictures of rainbows and circles but it definitely added character!! Man I loved that thing! I have massive upper body strength from driving that thing!
Express, Trolley Happy Car!" I had alot of fun driving that piece of Shit!
1983 Oldsmobile Cutlass. Brown. Dented. I bought it from my cousin for seventy-five dollars and a mountain bike. It survived about 90,000 miles before everything died at once at three in the morning on Interstate 5.
it looks like you have found a home on FTTW. And welcome. If I didn't say that. Cause sometimes I forget. I blame hard drug abuse and Judas Priest for my memory loss.
Pantera--Cemetary Gates
"Space Truckin'" Deep Purple. When I was in high school one guy named Mike (there were actually so many of them that they went by their last names) had a blue Chevy van with a couple of carpeted benches and so forth, the, I mean THE PARTY VAN. Space Truckin' was qued up to begin a lot of mischievous adventures. I never drove the van, I used to jam on the freeway to Red Barchetta, give the chance.
Yea, there’s some intricate morality things going on here and Verhoeven kind of turns it into a gore and sex fest, as he is prone to do, and maybe at some point you do root for the bugs or wish for Jake Busey to just die already but god damn this is a fun flick. 
This was it. This was something to behold.
And then turn a chick into a cake and eat her. I mean... just damn.
The video also perfectly matched the song so perfectly, that it's almost impossible to imagine the song without immediately seeing the video in your head. It didn't hurt that it had a quasi-Indiana Jones vibe to it, either.
Well I was wrong. Not the first time in my life I was wrong and definitely not the last. If anyone remembers the "Midget porn might be kind of hot" incident, you will know just how wrong sometimes I can be. Cause midget porn isn't hot. It's interesting in a Marlin Perkins Mutual of Omaha type of way, but certainly not hot.
Granted, it's not like we are living in the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field here, but we are kind of used to 15 degree days. It happens. It's WINTER. We really don't need some "expert" staring at us from the tv telling us to wear layers and eat a good breakfast and warm our cars up. 
Turtle has a theory:
Maybe I don't like slapstick humor. I like my jokes subtle. Low key. I like humor that makes me think. Slapping someone upside the head forty times in half an hour only makes me think "Who the fuck is lauging at this and when did he get that lobotomy?" 
At this point I'd never drank in a bar before and I figured if I asked for a drink, they'd card me. Amy bought drinks for us. I had my first bitch beer in a bar and they thought I was over 21. So I rapidly got trashed with Amy and listened to her sing Black Velvet and some song by INXS. Se was good and everyone liked her.
surfing for porn on company time. See, my brain is on full go when there's a deadline coming up. Imagine if I poured a combination of Jolt soda, Starbucks coffee, crystal meth and a gallon of Kool-Aid into my brain. My mind gets kind of wired. Maybe even fried. Because instead of thinking about the thing it is I need to have done, my mind is going in four thousand different directions, none of them the right one. It's like my brain is firing off neurons or whatever you call them, these tiny little projectiles filled with random thoughts that keep me from keeping my eye on the prize. My eyes glaze over and I start thinking of what it would be like to have sex with Glenn Danzig, but not in a real sexual way, more out of curiousity than anything else. For instance, I wonder if Glenn would like a mirror on the ceiling so he can stare at himself while we go at it? And would he moan his own name when he came? Then I'll think about how it would feel to drive a fork through someone's brain. And that leads me to thinking about watching brains slowly slide out of someone's head, which leads me to thinking about lunch, which leads me to zombies, which is really, when you think about it, what it all boils down to anyhow. Zombies. Everything you know, everything you do, ends up being about zombies. 
See, when you start to get some recognition, you can start writing titles that have your name in it. It wasn't the cheesy low budget move from the 50's anymore. It was now the cheesy low budget John Carpenter movie from the 80's. Hey. Don't confuse one with the other, ok? This one had Kurt Russell in it. And maybe Scatman Crothers. Maybe Goldie Hawn. And maybe Donkey Kong for all the fuck I cared. This movie scared the living crap out of me. It dragged me down thinking of some poor guys trapped in an ice town just getting knocked off one by one. And also Goldie naked in the bathtub in "Wildcats". And Ernest Borgnine in "Escape from New York." Snake Plisskin. Issac Hayes. Naked Goldie. Cause we thought Snake was dead. 
"The fire's got the temperature way up all over camp... won't last long though".
I was in maybe first grade when my Mom got me hooked on Dark Shadows and Vincent Price movies. Other kids gathered around the tv with their family on Sunday evenings to watch Wonderful World of Disney. We stayed up late together on Friday nights to watch Chiller Theater. I think watching so much horror from such an early age sort of desensitized me. As I got older I realized that, while I enjoyed scary movies as much as always, I just didn’t get that frightened. I didn’t jump when everyone else did or scream when everyone else did. What I mean is, the movies just didn’t scare me while I was in the theater. It wasn’t until I got home and was by myself in the dark that I turned into a pussy. But I bet a lot of you are the same way. I’m just admitting it.
Three different horror stories, all starring Karen Black. Fuck if I can remember what the other two were about. I just remember the one. The tribal doll. That creepy, evil little doll with the knife and the leer.
When she hears the pitter patter of little feet in the kitchen, you know. You want to say to her, get the hell out of the apartment, woman, that doll is gonna spear you! But the doll says, fuck this spear, I need me a knife. He finds a butcher knife. As he torments Black, he repeatedly stabs the knife into the floor. With that look on his face. Mind you, this thing is only like a foot tall, if that. And he moves real quick. And he has this ugly, snarling face of pure evil. 
So after a few months of seeing me sit around drunk and high, an ultimatum was given. Get a job today or never come home.
You try to act comfortable, as if you belong there, but you know damn well that everyone is whispering behind your back about your clothes, your hair, your lack of experience, your shoes, your tits. Or maybe that's just me. I tend to imagine things a lot. 
you aside and teaches you how to slip merchandise out the back door, but hey, it's like a party in there and that's ok. Man, I miss that record store.
"The 1-0 pitch, swing and a groundball to second base, Pokey Reese has it, he throws to first and the Red Sox have won the American League Pennant."
Welcome back to another edition of Group Late Night Typing. Once again, if you don't know how this works, we think of a question at the beginning of the week and send it out to all the writers and see who responds. If you want to know how we come up with these questions, you can read 
BH: i like the idea of weird breakfast foods, cause i'm all about cold pizza and rooster sauce to get your day going.
I swear the teacher took those fuckers home.
BH: Ok, I got it. I'm calling Cheers. Yes. I want to live in the bar. I'll have my post done by Thursday.
But they won't have to worry. Because I'll be up on that roof with my old school Sony Walkman on, with a cassette tape of Slayer's "Season in the Abyss" turned up to 11. And I'm gonna do the most bad ass stage dive ever known to mankind. As soon as "Dead Skin Mask" starts off I'll fly right off that roof into the waiting arms of my new zombie overlords. And I will become one with them.
Sweet, it's "Dirty Harry" by the Gorillaz. That could have been much worse, like Maroon 5 or something.
My media player spat out Opeth's "Advent" from Morningrise. It's one of two Opeth albums I don't own, and I downloaded the song for a special edition of my radio show a few weeks ago where I did all instrumental tracks. Morningrise is the first Opeth album where they start to develop their signature sound of quiet, reflective parts interspersed with very heavy metal. Hell of a song, that's for sure.
"Theme From Don" is a theme song to a fictional TV show about an Indian detective who's part spy and part cop. It's a blast to wake up to and the album is great at parties.
1976. The bicentennial year. Everything was draped in red, white and blue and movie theaters were charging 76 cents admission and there were bicentennial quarters and tv specials and my mother, bless her American heart, went all out for this special occasion by redecorating the living room in a Colonial motif, complete with replica Liberty Bell. She also dressed my little sister in red white and blue bellbottoms. She tried this with me, but I was 14. She got a derisive laugh and a “what the fuck are smoking, lady?” look. She said something like “Where is your pride, young lady?” And I thought hey, Bellbottom Pride would make a great name for a song. Because when you’re 14, every semi-witty phrase you utter would make a good song title, even if you aren’t in a band and can’t write songs. It’s all about the titles.
The Levi Jacket.
Me, I was smart. I hired Matt to paint my jacket. Matt was a freshman and a pretty damn good artist. And cute. Really cute. But my sister had a crush on him so I had to back off. Besides, I already tried my hand at dating a freshman and that didn't turn out so well. 
Gloria - the self-appointed "leader" of our gang - stepped forward, staring down Murray. "Yea, well, Ricki and Larry are Jews and they're singing!" She pointed to the siblings who were now staring at the floor. 
That's where we were supposed to chime in with LIKE COLUMBUS! and get a nice round of applause. But during the "reindeer games" verse, the instructions came from the back to the front. No one was supposed to say the Columbus line. Everyone just stay silent. I shrugged and went along with the game. I just wanted to get my damn Slurpee and go home.
Oh yea. I'm gonna date myself here. Best Christmas present ever - An 8 track player. 
Jesus. What did I see in this thing? I swear to you, the Christmas I opened that player up, I thought I had died and gone to cool heaven. I was hip. I was in with the in crowd. Only the coolest of the cool people carried portable 8-tracks around. Someone with a player walked into the schoolyard or behind 7-11 or wherever we were hanging out and it was like The Pied Piper of cool entered the gate. Everyone swarmed around them, checking out the player, listening to the awesome portable tunes. It was like if you had a portable 8-track, you brought the party with you wherever you went. I was going to be that girl. 
Speaking of Journey, who the hell thought Steve Perry was cute? My god, he looked like a deranged girl. He reminded me of Kerry Anderson in my seventh grade class who had this It's Pat vibe going on - I only knew she was a girl because she was in my gym class. When Journey came around I remember thinking, Wow, Kerry Anderson is a rock star! But it was just Steve Perry, girly man.
Everyone always "supports the troops" when there's a war on, but once these people come back, they're pretty much ignored and forgotten, especially our disabled vets. They've got a tough road to hoe (tougher than most), and they deserve more than token gestures and empty support. I've worked with disabled vets in VA hospitals and other places. They're like a piece of furniture that's been put away and forgotten by their families and their countrymen, but most of them are still in good spirits and have positive attitudes despite of everything. They're great people who've gone and done things that
Such a tiny baby, breathing by means of machinery and hoses. My brother and my sister-in-law were able to keep us all updated via Caring Bridge, easily putting in updates and pictures as things progressed. It was incredibly helpful to our family to see things as they happened, and to keep up with little Will's progress.
A long day of working on the house, putting up Christmas stuff and working on the site has turned us into piles of goo. You might have noticed in the last few days, we have been kinda, well, slow. The reasons behind that are kinda simple. Christmas. Duh. Well, there are other reasons, but that is the main one. So by the time everything is set up for the next day and things are ready to fire, we are kinda blown out.
Well, I used to watch a lot of shitty movies in the theaters for like a buck, but they don't seem to have any of those discount theaters around here so I have to make due with Saturday afternoon flicks. And my main passion, as Michele found out, is martial art movies. The shittier the better. I know about the Wu Tang, Shaolin and Drunken Masters. I speak Seven Ways to ass kicking when I sleep so anything that is on works for me.
Well herein comes the problem. It seems every other motherfucker in this town had only one arm. Some weird ass atomic testing must have went off around this town cause it seemed like they all had some sort of missing arm or leg. The funny thing was people with two arms were hiding their arms and claiming to be the One Armed Boxer. I guess they didn't get that the Master of the Flying Guillotine was blind and his mantra of "I'll kill everyone with one arm" cause they seemed not to care.
And I'll say "No suckers in this house!" Sucker Free. The way to be.
One of the great traditions of Christmas is to fuck with kids' heads. Really. What do you think Santa is, anyhow? One big mindfuck. Aimed at gullible, innocent children.
So by blaming every bad or missing present on Santa, you just exacerbate the situation. Because one day in the future, at a drunken family gathering, someone will be telling the story about the time you got plastered at your office Christmas party and called your boss an ugly coont, and you got fired on the spot. A light bulb will flash in your son's head, at which point he'll stand up and shout "You god damn liars! You told me I didn't get the Ewok Village that year because Santa was disappointed in my report card!" Estrangement ensues.
I was a single mother. I hadn't had sex in over a year. Cobwebs were forming. I though to myself, "if Santa comes down that chimney and say let's make a baby, I'm going for it." I spent that whole night waiting for the sound of sleigh bells on the roof. Sure, I stopped believing in Santa when I was seven, but sometimes, when you are in the throes of desperation, your mind plays tricks on you. 
I'm not really into killing bugs. I kinda like them. Well, that's not totally honest. I don't particularly like bees and I have no qualms about smashing them into black and yellow paste. And I don't like wasps and I won't hesitate to corner one and spray it with whatever is handy, be it Raid or WD40 or AquaNet hairspray. Oh, and I don't like filthy, dirty mosquitoes and I take great pleasure in knocking them around with a rolled up newspaper. 
the cicadas crunched underfoot. We couldn't go barefoot that summer. We couldn't even eat outside. These things would just randomly drop dead and fall out of trees.
Anyhow. I don't remember the cicadas ever coming back, but I do know that I would have gone on a stomping rampage once again if they did. 
I work with my sister. She's this social butterfly, someone who lives to socialize and mingle. She's the one who organizes the office birthday breakfasts and holiday luncheons and any of those get togethers I try to avoid. I'm not what you call social. While everyone else is chatting and eating and whatnot, I prefer to sit alone in my office and mutter under my breath about everyone else. But because she's my sister, sometimes I have to partake in these things she organizes. Because I'm a good sister like that.
Fresh batch. I made them a little bigger; somewhere between a tablespoon and a scoop. This time they weren't rounded enough and came out looking like lumps of brown coal.
And then I see it, right there in my cabinet.
1.) Earlier this year, due to my own stupidity, three of my closest friends decided they didn't want me in their life anymore. The first gift I was given this year that really was wonderful was the completely random addition of 3 newborn kittens into my life; Spazerella, Greebo and Gilligan. Three, perfect, orange tabby triplets. Caring for them gave me a new purpose in my life. I'd been emotional beaten and bruised and making sure that these 3 kittens survived became my new reason in life. I consider them a great gift.
Book: Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel "Wintersmith" - third in the series about a juvenile witch and the mistakes she makes because she's kinda going it alone. Has one of my favorite Pratchett quotes about witches: "Some people think a group of witches is a coven. It's not. It's an argument." I swear that man is a witch!
24 - I'm teling you. Does this show get any better? I mean how many shows get the coveted "Don't talk to me while this is on" award? Not many. I mean Little House on the Prarie barely gets this award. And knowing that Chloe is a strong regular and they killed that fat guy who had a crush on her, nothing stands in my way to full on stalk her now!
TV show: Cash Cab (Discovery Channel). I am hooked not only on this show, but on Discovery Channel as a whole. But Cash Cab is such an awesome show. We watch it every day from 5-6 and let me tell you, I kick so much ass at this. But I know that if we ever got into this cab I would probably freeze up and not even be able to answer the simplest questions.
Best thing to happen to me this year was the birth of my baby girl.
2006 has been an interesting year... But it was loaded with good stuff and surprised me more than once. My favorites:
This is the follow up to Deja Entendu and pretty much the inspiration for my most recent Lo-Fi column. I was really excited about this, seeing as Deja Entendu is one of my favorite albums. I started out really liking Devil and God. Then I started to think that, while it was good, it wasn't as good as I had hoped. Now, about twenty five listens in, I'm in love with it. The album kicks my ass. It's dark and moody and emotional. It's different enough from Deja Entendu that it took me awhile to really get past that album and into this one, but now that I have, goddamn. What great music.
1. Adobe Flash - This animation program affords users the capability (if not ability) of a full fledged animation studio from the 60s. It rocks.
1. Shooting a .22, .36 Special and a 9mm Glock. Who says romance writers are all hearts and flowers? For that hot hot hot afternoon in Atlanta I was a fearless sharp shooter. The Glock rep was inpressed that not only did I hit the target, I took his head off...
I made some cool friends through doing this, and working so hard on this also helped Turtle and I realize how well we work together. It's helped us learn a lot about each other and gave us a chance to figure out how to compromise, cooperate and communicate with each other; lessons we transferred from working on FTTW to our lives together. Plus, I get to write every day, something I love to do, and share it with all of you.
Go figure.) So there I was. Sitting face to face with this strange talking family feeding me this soup. Man they talk funny. Have I told you guys how funny New Yorkers talk yet? I might have covered that once or twice before so I will move on to the soup. It was good. It had scallops. I didn't puke. So I guess I am over it. I don't know.
My cousin suggested that I might add something to the chow mein to make it more tasty. I figured I had to, because my dad had this rule about putting something on your plate and eating it. As in, if you take it, you eat it, or we'll stay here all god damn night until you wipe that plate clean because there are starving children in China. Ironic, I know. So my cousin passed the soy sauce. And the sweet and sour sauce. And the hot mustard. 
I ate some mashed potatoes to take my mind off of it. But the potatoes could not fulfill me the way some deep fried chicken parts could. I couldn't resist. My yearning was too great. 
Okay, I'll get in on this one. My favorite is the TV special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Why? Because (1) I grew up with Burl Ives records, and he voiced the snowman narrating it; (2) The Island of Misfit Toys; (3) a geek dentist-wanna-be elf for a hero?! Seriously, while the lesson kids take away from Rudolph himself is that you can be a misfit if you do something heroic and wonderful, the lesson they take away from the toys on the island is simply that it's okay to be a misfit, you're still entitled and worthy to be loved by someone. Not a bad lesson - makes me feel good, too!
I like all the standard Christmas movies, you know the ones I'm talking about. One of my favorites that does not seem to make a lot of lists is is 'Jingle All the Way' with Arnold and Sinbad. This movie cracks me up every year. I've seen it at least 10 times and it still
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - I don't know if this one really counts. I mean the movie is all Christmassy and stuff, but it really kinda sucks. I guess the only version of it I like is the MST3K version on DVD. God, I am a dork. And if you know what I am talking about, you too can join my dorkdom.
The Ref - So full of holiday cheer. Bickering family, runaway kid, Denis Leary getting off some of the best one liners ever (You know what this family needs? A mute.) Slipper socks, medium!
I like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I saw it many, many times before MST3K (or whatever the acronym is) ever had it. The week of Christmas on Los Angeles' Channel 5 with Tom Hattan (movies in the afternoon or something, i'm sure any other 30+ year-old Los Angelite would know what i was talking about), every year, had the craziest Christmas movies on it, and this was one i looked forward to. I know the words to the theme song. You had to feel sorry for the Martians, if they're lives were so miserable they had to steal Christmas and kidnap Santa. I sometimes think, and i'd have to watch it again, that there was some sort of corrollary to the cold war involved. Plus, it had Pia Zadora in it when she was, like, 7. Who can hate that? There were some other not-so-famous yet people in it, but i don't remember who they were. 
1. Its a Wonderful Life - I like this film because back in its day, Frank Capra made a neat little movie that was a little unconventional for the time and should even the guy who always did the right thing had failings and could feel like it all wasnt worth it. People like this movie for many differant reasons, i like it because its a sweet story about an honest guy almost getting crushed under the weight of the world for just being a good guy.
"Oh yeah? I heard it was inchworm." Classic scenes, like a nun practicing swordplay with a yardstick, and one of the girls catching a basketball between her legs. Supersoakers filled with holy water. Lipstick that crawls up a chick's vagina. Not to mention hot naked chicks, and a recognizable cast. Ever heard of Christine Taylor? Yeah, Ben Stiller's smoking hot wife. If I remember right, you get to see her tits in this movie. Or maybe some other chick's tits. Hell, I don't know. What about Darin Heames? You'd recognize him as a member of the Pit in PCU. And, a bunch of other people that have cameos in tons of cheesy sitcoms. So we watched this flick probably a dozen times the first time we rented it. I don't think any of us will ever forget my buddy Thomas screaming "That fool's bonin' Satan!" as one of the guys onscreen was, well, boning Satan.
Throwing myself into worrying about 2525 seemed like a much better way to spend the rest of the summer. I started to think about man v. machine scenarios and robots and an unthinking, unfeeling human race. Wheels were turning in my mind. The future, when seen through the eyes of a really bad novelty song, seemed pretty scary. I needed to know what other people thought the future would bring. So when we got home from Roscoe that August, I headed straight for the library and took out a pile of books on predictions for the future and some sci fi novels for good measure.
Hey, a girl's gotta dream. Some girls my age were dreaming about their first kiss or being a prima ballerina. I was dreaming about being entertained by a hologram David Cassidy or wearing rocket powered shoes.
Almost trained in their minds that even if this gift sucks, it doesn't really matter cause their birthday is in six months, so if it sucks they can just get the new one that will be out soon.
It doesn't have to be the Christmas season for me to loathe going to the mall, but it sure makes the pain and agony ten times worse than going any other time of year. I can't tell you exactly what makes my mallergy flare up so acutely, but I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I hate crowds, I hate people, I hate spending money, I hate roving gangs of giggling 13 year old gangs, I hate the senior citizen power walkers who use the mall as their personal indoor track, I hate the soccer moms in designer sweatsuits, their only workout of the day being carrying around several large Nordstrom bags out to the valet parking area. I hate the overpowering stench of the perfume whores in front of every department store, I hate the music wars that go on between clothing stores so the volume of whatever crap they are playing gets louder and louder as the day progresses. I hate the Hot Topic kids with their noisy pants and long bangs and petulant frowns who hang out in the food court all day and make faces at the people eating animal products. I hate the whiny little monsters in the toy stores. I hate the mall. I hate the mall. I hate the mall.
Nat Bussichio - The Peach Pit. This has to be burned down. Or did it already get burned down? No matter what happened back then, it happened again and now Nat is living in a cardboard box, sipping off his fortified wine waiting for the death of all cowards as he goes to sleep every night behind an old porn store. We could work with this. Steve, selling his goat porn, recognizes Nat in the alleyway.
But every year when I put that thing together, I would end up with scratches up and down my arm, some kind of puncture wound, a tree that looked like a drunk person put it together and a near nervous breakdown. Some of the branches formed a weird design and it looked like the tree was mocking me. I'm sure it was. "HAHAHA I foiled you again, you horrible tree-put togetherer! YOU SUCK!"
It makes me feel bad. All of the trees going to their death. I walk up and down the aisles and look at each tree and wonder if it will be chosen by a family or if it will suffer the cruel fate of being chopped down for no good reason at all. I imagine that the trees come to life, like a Christmas special cartoon, and they all sing a sad, forlorn song - complete with dance routine - about standing and watching while their friends get taken home by loving, happy families and how it feels to be the last one picked. Or not picked at all. Like the Island of Misfit Trees. I tell all the trees that I wish I could take every single one of them home and make good use of them. They cry a little and tell me how generous and thoughtful I am and that my Christmas spirit gives them a little hope and makes them feel a little less unloved. Then I remind them that either way, they'll probably end up in a fireplace or being smashed to pieces by the blade of a garbage truck. Because in the end, all the trees end up dead. Sure, some of them get to enjoy a week or two of bliss and get all decorated with pretty ornaments and have presents put under them and all that shit, but in the end, they are all just so much mulch. That's when the trees turn on me and I flee the lot screaming "The trees are sentient!! The trees are sentient!!" 
Hmm. They cost more, they don't smell like Christmas, they hurt like fuck when you put them together. But you don't need to remember to water it and with a fake tree you don't lay awake at night wondering if it's too dry and is going to spontaneously combust and set the house on fire,thus ruining Christmas for your family. Probably New Year's and Valentine's Day too. 
2) As I Am - John Petrucci (Dream Theater) - Dream Theater's pretty much every guitar fan's soggy dream as it is, and As I Am's solo is one of the best Petrucci's ever done, and boy is that saying something. I'm pretty sure in the 80-some-odd seconds that song is going on, he touches all 7 strings and all 24 frets of that beautiful Ernie Ball guitar of his.
1. Sympathy for the Devil - Rolling Stones - I just got done reading Paradise Lost.
They chose the lure of the filthy lucre over their loyalty to their own people. Errr...raisins. They signed a contract with their agent that said, in essence "we will allow you to exploit our musical talent, our dancing abilities and our acting skills by marketing us and our likeness in any way possible, be that records or holiday specials or pillow cases or cartoon shows or however you can possibly exploit a raisin and, in turn, you will see to it that we four, out of all the raisins in the world, will not be devoured by human beings." See what they did there? I wonder how they are looked upon the raisin community. I bet they are loathed. Hated. Villified. They go on tv and talk about the wonders and nutrients of the raisin and raisin products, and they never have to worry about being eaten because their talent agency hired some goon - probably a pickle or a banana - to act as a bodyguard for them. DO NOT EAT THIS HERE RAISIN. HE IS A MUSICIAN, NOT A FOOD PRODUCT!
Now. Let's talk about Mayor McCheese. Dude. Your mouth is made of meat and cheese? Doesn't anyone else find that a little offputting? Does the cheese ever get moldy? Does the meat ever go rancid? Is that bun head of his stale at this point? And how does one grow a hamburger head on a semi-regular body anyhow? What are his parents like? Did a woman fuck a cow and that's what happened? And how does that hat stay on his head anyhow? And how the fuck did a guy with ground beef for brains get to be Mayor, anyhow? 
Maybe because he didn't want to be eaten. It's a tough world. Sometimes you got to sell out to survive and if that means Major McCheese killin' off a few of his own to keep his ass of the flames for four more years, your cheeseburger ass is gonna go down. Never quite figured out what the hell Grimace was. I mean his fucking name was Grimace. You know what I think of when I hear "grimace"? Anal sex. I'm sorry. It just happens. I sure whoever decided to call him Grimace was not thinking about anal sex at the time, but, you never know....
I remember they made the announcement on April 1st and everyone thought it was a nasty April Fool's joke. We kept waiting for the punchline. There was none. 
Then he'll sort of trail off, as if he forgot what he was going to say or just lost his train of though. A lot of people don't like that about him, but I find it fits in well with his act and personality. I think it's kind of endearing. He also has a tendency to explain himself, how he got from one subject to another which, again, I find really works for him. I just really like the way everything seems off the cuff and thought up on the spur of the moment, often coming out as nonsensical. Hey, I'm a nonsensical kind of gal. And yes, he's a very pretty man.
which is what I loved most about him. I may not have always agreed with what he was saying, but I loved his intensity and the power of his belief in his ideals. 
We didn't wear shorts and tshirts to gym like most normal people. Or like the guys. We had to wear this jumper. Shorts and a shirt all in one. Snapped right down the front. Freshmen wore this ugly green color. And it had all these pockets. That was kinda cool. Until I was told that no, the pockets were not meant for cigarettes. Or to stash my nickel bag. The uniform was so hideous I can't even find a picture of it, so I drew one for you. 
Who knows. I never understood why kids started turning schoolyards into there own personal shooting galleries but it's way to late to blame anyone for that at this time of night. But, I blame Tom Hanks movies. Admit it. Anytime you see that bastard smiling in a press shot with fucking Opie from Mayberry, you feel like shooting up some playground too, dontcha? Give ‘em one for Aunt Bea and shit? 
The Band That Should Have Died: Van Halen.
Ripe for exploitation. It's like taking a kid with a peg leg and making fun of him every day until you are missing a bat during the recess baseball game. Then all of a sudden that peg leg kid is looking good.
Actually, it was kinda nice to turn my mind off the site for a few hours and just make decisions about the site, questionable columns and new writers on the cell phone for about five minutes a day. 
Not that he was Jack. I mean, he's on his way here to settle down, he's not exactly out there tracking down a rogue president or saving the world from terrorists. Then again, Jack is good looking, smart, brave to the point of foolishness, fearless and never backs down from a challenge. So yea. Turtle is my Jack. I'm his Chloe. Minus the whole smart as fuck thing. That girl has got it going on. It's no wonder Turtle has this huge crush on her.
Michele said no.
And the funny thing about following the wrong paths and making the wrong choices and taking the wrong turns is when you are in the act of doing them, you mostly know somewhere in the deep recess of your mind that it's not right. A small alarm goes off, or a whispered voice in your head tries to warn you, but you dismiss that and think to yourself, no path is every going to be perfect, so let's just take the one we are on and ignore the brambles and sharp stones and hope for the best.
Killer Klowns From Outer Space
City of Lost Children
See the city lights. See what it is like to live in the big time. Ok. I'll go. Well, I really had no choice. I was still a little kid. Wherever they said I go, I went.
He was hot, in that 70's kind of way. So when my aunt said she was taking a bunch of us to see him at Nassau Coliseum, I got pretty excited. A concert? Way cool. I may have only been about ten at this point, but I was already supplementing my Teen Beat reading with heavy doses of Creem magazine. So going to a concert was high on my list of things I needed to do. At ten, that list is pretty short. Eat ice cream for dinner, burn down the school, go to a concert, marry Lief Garret. The simple things. 
But I guess when you are going to see an act like David Cassidy, it doesn’t matter. And really, I was kind of excited to be there. A concert. A live show. This was pretty cool, even if it wasn’t The Who. 
That’s right. KISS. From the first time I saw this band on - I think - Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert I was hooked. Make up. Theatrics. Rock and roll all night and party every day. This is what all my time spent honing my rock fan skills had led up to. This was the big time. This would wash from my soul the still remaining black karma from my antics at the David Cassidy concert. KISS. Rock and roll. I had joined the KISS army and I was ready to serve.
A whole line of these statues called 
Victoria's Secret, eh? That pink one I liked so much? Really? Hehee
Overheard in a restaurant:
But honestly, I'm going to blame this one on my neighbor. She forced me into it, in much the same way UNICEF forces kids around the country to co-opt Halloween. It's supposed to be a day about grabbing fistfuls of candy and greedily shoving them in your mouth. Not about poor, hungry kids who need their shots. How dare the UN ask us to beg for loose change on this one time a year when we are allowed to beg for candy.
I mean, I compare vanillia ice cream to a woman's menstruation cycle and you guys are telling me about some kind of Napoleanic type of war over apple pie. Fuck man. I can barely brush my own teeth much less spell Napoleanwhateverthefuck War.
Ok, ice cream. That's where I was headed with this.
Taking a shower in the boys' locker room was bad enough.I mean hell, there only 20 guys saw your lack of manliness (is that a word?) but to drive one of these cars around, you showed everyone you were going out to buy tampons for your girlfriend or that you like to watch TV court shows. While I might be admitting I have done both, let me swear to you that My Cock is massive and thinks ahead. It is a massive cock. It is so big I fear My Cock will sprout legs one day and leave me. After all, My Cock can do anything. It has been talking lately about running for President because My Cock thinks things are going down the shitter in this country. My Cock has a seven point program to turn this country around and My Cock is the one to do it.
I don't know. I just know that when I went to mom's house to check out her setup and I walked by the styrofoam headstone that had Cobain's name on it, I felt weird. I tried to explain it to my mom, but I couldn't really articulate it. "Gee that makes me feel creepy, mom," just doesn't cut it. I mean, she had her hero Elvis in there. She certainly wasn't going to care if I didn't like Kurt's pretend grave. So I let it go.
Some were scared but they all knew that no one was going to make it out of this alive. There's no going back and there's no getting out. The feeling at looking at someone and realizing this is going to be it, you know, that's a powerful feeling. There's just something to having someone look back and know this will soon be over for us and them looking at you agreeing. This is the end. It's just a matter of time now.
Maybe breaking a few windows, stuff like that. But in this community, that’s almost like destroying Aalderan. Parents looking at their kids like “why the fuck did you do that? We gave you everything you wanted!” And the kids looking at their parents like “But we just wanted your attention, man!” Yea, that screws up my Star Wars analogy, but I’m really fucking tired tonight. Insomnia is a bitch. It makes me screw up my metaphors and it makes me remember scenes in movies that weren’t really there, like Matt Dillon standing up at the meeting in the rec hall and saying DO IT FOR JOHNNY!
The dead girlfriend zombie thing I could do without, but the rest of it was cool. Who wouldn't love waking up in the morning with a shotgun by your side. I'm lucky enough to find my shoes, much less a 12 gauge sitting on the floor. Maybe one day things will change, but for right now, I have to be happy with my chainsaw and 2x4 and non zombie girlfriend.
Why don't you call them instead of blaring the goddamn thing at 5 in the morning. Am I supposed to sit here and go "Hey wait! That one is for me! I need to go!" For christ sake, if you have 6 people beeping their horns at an apartment complex when you don't even remember your cell phone, how the hell are you gonna accomplish anything but waking me up?
I mean, if your car is so fucking big that you can’t maneuver it into a single parking spot, then maybe you should be thinking, hey this car probably wasn’t made for trips to Shop Rite for a quart of organic milk. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look driving through suburbia in a fucking Hummer? Because I’ll tell you, when we see you taking fifteen minutes to get into a spot and you end up just giving up and parking diagonal in two spots instead, we are mocking you. Hard. Especially when you need a fucking stepstool to get out of the damn car. 
Sure, we would get on our buses or into our cars and act like we were going to school. In fact, we actually showed up at the school. Met in the parking lot, separated into various cars and took off for the park.
Everyone is looking at me now. It’s one thing when you’re sitting in the classroom and there’s a knock on the door and the dean comes in and calls your name. Everyone looks at you, but eh, they’ve been there before too. Yea, you are about to get your head chewed off for cutting class, but everyone’s been there before.
Click. Clack. Click. Clack. Typing furiously while the slug in a cocoon talks to me. Her voice drifts in and out of my head. The timer ticks away on the desk. Type. Tick. Click. Lecture. 
The teachers circled the campus at 8:05 looking for kids making a break for it off campus. Seriously. They would circle the campus in trucks picking up stray kids who made a jailbreak. Wagons of kids would come back into school and be dumped back off after they were caught.
Instead, I ended up having some powerful panic attacks in the middle of the night while we were up there. I think it was all that quiet. The complete darkness. Kind of suffocating. 
Sticks these electrode pad things all over me. 
A boy, his tiger and a chance to see the world through the imagination of a demented but loveable child. Was Hobbes really alive, but only Calvin could see him? Or was Hobbes just a stuffed animal given a fantasy life with Calvin’s incredible imagination? Or maybe it was a whole Fight Club type scenario where Hobbes existed in neither real nor stuffed form, but was just an extension of Calvin’s personality. Maybe Calvin was a schizophrenic. 
She spends recklessly, probably buying handbags and hats she can't afford and justifying those expenses with phone calls to family members who will just agree with her justifications. She complains constantly about the little things she has no control over. 
things when the wood falls into your hands. Someone had a plan. Something happened. One of the things I think about alot when I go thru life. Somehow this place got from point A to point C. The question to me was, and always has been, "What happened in point B?" I thought about it for hours walking around and looking up at the sky. I had no answer. I never do. I’m no historian. I never will be. All I knew was something happened there.
Being in California stopped being crossing a line in the sand along time ago. California became a state of mind along time before any of us were born. Something that is in all of us yet is buried in some. 
The "we can do this better than you" attitude. As I said, sometimes it fails miserably, but at least we tried. 
Yea, we have laws against driving while talking on the cell phone and we have too many strip malls and no good radio stations and my hockey team might as well play dead and roll over. We’ve got high taxes and ridiculous housing prices and the trees and grass are slowly disappearing from our landscape as the suburbs become little cities. 
I think it is just the flavor from the Commies that get me. Sure, I'm not too political, but everytime I inhale, I feel as if I'm knocking down a piece of the Berlin Wall. Kinda like when you have to explain to girls why they are all bi-sexual separated by two vodka shots and a hotel room. That confused looked they give you as the shots go down. God, I love to watch girls kissing. 
My fond memories of the Olsen twins all revolve around that underrated, misunderstood Kirstie Alley/Steve Guttenberg masterpiece, It Takes Two. 
A not so famous person born on Friday the 13th
This is one cracked-out muppet that is not right in the head. I can imagine him being brought into some psych ward, screaming and roaring and making the orderlies mumble things like “lobotomy” and “shock treatment” and other pertinent Ramones lyrics. Whatever the hell was wrong with him, it made him a bit endearing to me. What can I say, I like troubled guys. 
Unsociable, mostly misanthropic, mean, obnoxious, sarcastic and a total slob. Hell, that’s what my last personal ad read like.
That's cool. Letting someone know that someone in here fucked up and it was up to them to tell him what was going on because no one here is walking away without their knees scraped. Everyone just kinda stopped and listened to him. Except for Paul Newman. Who just stopped caring at that point. 
My entire childhood was one long string of horrible Halloween costumes. The last good one was when I was -what?-Five? I was He-Man. That was cool. Then I became a little fat kid and it all went to hell. 
My mom almost had an orgasm watching Mr. Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore kissing before I told her it was really Whoopi Goldberg kissing her. A few rewinds of the tape and Mom turned white. I mean yeah, it's Whoopi making out with her, but hey, I'll fucking take Charo kissing Aunt Bee from Mayberry as long as my snake spits at the end of the night. You see, I have a very vivid imagination and can make anything into a fantasy. Too bad Aunt Bee is dead or we would have a cool reunion show on the Love Boat. Charo and Aunt Bee. On the Love Boat. Licking nubbins. I would have sticky socks for a week.
. Bronson Pinchott in an absurd scene with cocaine. Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken in one of the most intense scenes every put on film. Samuel Jackson. And Gary Fucking Oldman out villain-ing even himself. 
The neighbor is a young, dirty hippie who has a young, dirty hippie boyfriend. They tell the hippie couple, "hey, think you could throw this turkey in the oven for us at 4:00? kthnxbye." And they go out. And the dirty hippie teenagers smoke some of that evil wacky weed and get really, really stoned. At 4:00 they remember about the turkey and put it in the oven.
Then the wondering where I am at. Yes, I do that. I still need about 20 minutes to remember where I am at when I wake up. You should have seen me at Michele's house. That was a mind fuck.
Because another site has the ability to ban me when I start one of these threads, we decided to find out where our readers allegiances are. We are not talking about anything serious here; we just need to get this out of the way it is before our new site premieres next Monday. Might as well figure who has good taste buds and who is just weird.
Yea, shallow. I know. I found out pretty quick that having the same name as one of the greastest centers ever is not quiet enough to sustain interest in a boy. I also found out pretty quick that Bobby was a bit...hmm...let's call it obsessive.
Another underground will come out soon and yes, I will finish the last Disneyland story soon, but in the last week, getting everything together with all of your stories has kinda been a bitch. Hopefully, all of this will run smoothly and you guys can still see the same schedule on FTTW and even more stories on some days. And maybe even more as we still have more to put in. You guys better not break this fucking site when we are gone. Or we will be angry.
A lot of metal balls, too. This whole game looks like some sort of weird gay sex toy that was used for some bdsm action. "Oh no! The mouse is coming for my anus!"
Which Witch
Perfection
Sometimes the question would get asked. What can we do besides sit here and get wasted? Sometimes the answer would be: North Shore. We’d pile into the car and drive, away from our middle class town and toward the place where the rich people live. Sometimes the answer would be more specific. Sweet Hollow Road. When someone said that, you knew what was coming. Because that wasn’t just a suggestion. It was a dare. 
The sounds of honking as I kept going thru the streets. Back alley here and there. A few more obscenties yelled. A little more dirt on my car. Dust, smog and nicotine had formed a mighty bond on my windshield. I tried to clean it to see, but it really didn't matter. All I could do was look forward. Look into the future. What is coming up next. My hair was blowing and the night wind was sucked into my lungs. Stopped at a store and walked out to get something to eat. Prostitutes and gangsters sat around as I talked to a few of them. Just a basic "fuck you" talk as I pushed by them. This is California. This was good. My mind wandered. "So what will happen in seven days?" I got my cheap ass Del Taco and my mind went again. Light a cigar and pet the dog. Push down the accelerator and wonder how fast I could sell my car. Who would take my dog till I get settled and what the fuck was going to happen. I mean I've been everywhere, but never went to a place that I knew I was going to live for the rest of my life. 
Lip lady drums her pen on the desk. She puckers again. Anna thinks it could be a nervous habit.
thefinn will be the one who is running this ship called FTTW and he will set everything out. 
The Rogers. Loafers. Cool sweaters. A little train that takes him to some drug induced land with puppies and cats and owls and shit like that living in trees. Plus there is a ghastly looking Prince who is too retarded to figure out why no one likes him much less run a kingdom.
Fine. I'll admit it. I got drunk one night and did something on my leg. I still think it is cool, what I did that is, but it was something that you do when you drank too many beers and have a roomate with a tat gun. I think it still looks cool. Sometimes I regret it, but still, meh. It is a tribute to one of the greatest characters ever. I think. God, that sounds stupid. But at four in the morning, it was drilled on my......jeez. I'm just gonna stop now. I was drunk and I got it. Fuck, every day I thank god I don't have a Playboy Bunny on my ass or something like "Fun Hole" above my ass with an arrow pointing down. Wait. we are talking about toys here, right?
Or more specifically Donner Lake and the Tahoe Donner area. There is a house up there that I have full access to. Somewhere I go when I just wanted to get away from everything. Lake Tahoe is an hour away from most places in Northern California. 
Yeah, we all have our favorites and yeah, a lot of them have been cut to shit due to PC crap so the only way you can really get them is if you get them on DVD. So if you watched them anytime between the 70's and now, you got cut up crap that took all the shotguns out. And the mayhem. And the violence. I blame Clinton. Or Ford. Or Carter. Or Reagan. Or my mom overcooking my burrito. I can point fingers. I can do that. Because I'm the Governor.
This will be a quick post cause we are doing something bigger tonight, but the bottom line is, this made us smile. Most of this stuff is pretty much us, which is weird, but really who knows. 
This is another thing about FTTW. We will do anything you ask unless it involves anything about sheep sex. And that's a personal problem I have. Michele and I are working that out and I would kinda like to keep that between us. Cause sheep are just so sexy. 
The Clash and the Jam. Rush and Brian Eno. Cheap Trick and The Who. We pride ourselves on our eclectic taste in music (I think we would be called music snobs today) as much as we pride ourselves in what we didn’t listen to: Pop music. Disco. Bruce Springsteen.
From behind some fence. Light blue wall. I sucked in air to get my head somewhat right. Bummed a smoke off a worker. Sat down low. Crouched on my knees and just watched. Keep low and get ready to run again. Something either was happening or wasn't happening. I have no clue what the scene was but the entire cast of Snow White was marching out beside me. Snow White was telling me I couldn't smoke there. Shut the fuck up. She kept yelling. I flipped a cigarette at one of the dwarves and nailed him in the back. Snow White was fucking pissed. She came up and just yelled at me. I have no idea why, but she just kept yelling. I wasn't doing anything wrong. So why did I have this crappy, bad trip abomination from some shitty cartoon yelling at me?
Walk away. It was too much fun to have people think that my dad could order a hit on them if they ever got on my wrong side.
Tv warming up. Scatch my eyes and look what we have here. Toasted "o's". That's a bad sexual reference. Frosted Mini Wheats. Another reference. Althou I think that one is more of a bukkaki like move. Keep looking. Pirate. I need the pirate. Was the pirate here? Did he leave on another mission? Did he go off on some weird adventure involving the Soogies again? Or did mom just forget to buy it at the store? Its gotta be here. The yellow box smiled at me. It was Saturday. The Cap'n was here. He had landed ashore.
Last meal? I am in jail? Zombie infestation? Lex Luthor push the “destroy all humans” button? Well, for argument’s sake, let’s pretend that this last meal is being cooked for me and served to me. Because if I have to cook my own last meal, it’s gonna be a blueberry frosted pop-tart toasted for thirty seconds. Not that it’s my favorite thing, just the easiest. Takes even less strength than opening a can of chili. Really, the prison scenario is the most likely one that will get me this meal. I don’t think the cooks over at Runyon’s are gonna be making any bisque if Lex Luthor is on the loose. What am I on death row for? Let’s just say it involved a person who did not signal before changing lanes. And a signed Dan Pasqua baseball bat that I keep in the back seat of my car. For just such an occasion. 
The DJ was telling everyone to come to our house. Well shit. We gotta do something. What do we got? A frantic search of the house revealed two bags of ice, a bottle of Thunderbird, two bottles of Everclear, and a 2 liter of 7-Up. 
If you live in Southern California, there probably is one next door to you. If you live in Anaheim, you might wanna go into your kitchen and make sure they aren't burning the beans as they pass food out your driveway.
*
Like the pilgrims and the Indians, I walked over with my peace pipe. In this case it was a beer and a large pepperoni, but you get the point. Pizza was shared, beer was passed. 
Home of the slider. I need food. White Castle isn’t really food. But it will do in a pinch. We stumble in, I swear about 40 of us roll out of this Honda Civic like clowns on crack, and we’re full of noise and arrogance and vodka. Heads turn. I know, this is White Castle at 3am, whoever is in there is probably just as drunk as us, but still. We’re loud. And we have funny hair and our clothes are a mess. Is that boy’s hair...blue? Spiked? Is that girl wearing a shirt that says “fuck off and die?” No, not me. My shirt was just plain black and stained with toothpaste. Yea, toothpaste. How do you think we got Danny’s hair to stand up like that? Oh, Danny. Shit. What are you doing, Danny? Christ. He’s over in the corner. Puking. Inside White Castle. The manager comes over. We’re gone. We’re gone before we can even inhale the grease. Denied the Castle.
Don't ask me why my parents agreed to let me go, given my reputation for causing or getting into trouble. Maybe they figured the chaperones - Catholic high school teachers - were of high moral fiber and integrity and would watch us like Jesus watching down from the cross. Saving our souls from the dangers of Disney, I guess.
I had some ridiculous flavor of wine in my hand - not a glass but the whole bottle. Strawberry something? All I remember is that it was way too sweet and I kept washing the flavor away with shots of something that someone had stolen from motel bar. Might have been Goldschlager. Something that was like huffing gasoline through your esophagus.
Everything's unreal. I can't tell if I'm dreaming or awake or maybe dead already and God's really pissed at me and he's making me spend eternity at this stupid motel party in Kissimmee. I'm going under again. Eyes rolling back in head. This is not good.
"You have to keep her head up so she doesn't choke on her own vomit."
He would save the world. They knew it. He would. Yeah, pretty cheesy foreshadowing but hell, this was the early 80’s.
Ok, the movie. Yes, there was a plot to go with the gimmick. It had all the hallmarks of a disaster flick. Airport survivor George Kennedy. Skyjacked and Soylent Green hero Charlton Heston. 
Yes, I'll always remember the terrifying moment in Earthquake when the little boy almost got electrocuted, and I'll never forget Heston's torn between two lovers moment, nor the upside down cows in the truck or the elevator scene where the dead man takes a breath or Richard Roundtree's lightning bolt jumpsuit or Victoria Principal's oh-so-tight t-shirt, but it will always be Gortner's Jody that will define this movie for me. Hey, maybe he was a metaphor for the earthquake itself - a predator, a destroyer of lives. Yes, that's it! The movie was not as bad as you all think because it worked on so many different levels! Like an Iron Maiden song! Two levels! 
Something about a show and Cher and mom's brithday and mom and his not being able to handle crowds so he can't go and him only trusting me to take her and how he is so sorry to throw this on me but she is crying cause he told her couldn't take it........
He looked at me with a quizzacle stare on his face. Asked me what I said. I told him again. He looked at all of his friends. Looked back at me. Then slowly asked if that was a new sex postion or was that a new type of piercing.
So when he was arrested and it was all over the news I didn’t recognize the name at first. But then I saw the pictures. I knew that face. I knew that posture. I knew that guy. Yea, that will give you the creeps. And it’s not like I’m thinking “oh my god, I came so close to being murdered by him!” like some people do in situations like that, because I wasn’t a hooker and hookers seemed to be the only thing on his menu. That and turkey sandwiches with mustard and tomato. And sometimes a Slim Jim. That’s how you know people when you work at a deli for so long. You see them on the street and you say “hey, there’s pack of Marlboro, coffee two sugars!” When we saw Rifkin on tv, it was “hey, there’s turkey sandwich and a Slim Jim!” 
When it is turned upside down, a small amount is put into the head. The you just shove it up your nose and inhale. God, that sounds gay. I was also armed with a bottle of Afrin loaded down in about 50 bucks worth of dope. You want to see jesus? Knock a shot of that back in your nose. I fucking couldn't tell you if it was day or night. But, sorority girls dude. Sorority girls!
I guess it was for the waiters to come out to on a smoke break. So I sat down and just looked at the stars. I stared up and I stared down. The constellations were so perfect. The sky so clear. The air so fresh. The ti.....
I had a following. I was the Pinball Wizard. 7-11 wasn't quite the same as Pinball Palace, but Kevin had his portable cassette player and we listened to Thin Lizzy and Wish You Were Here while I worked the flippers. Every day. Bell rings. Class dismissed. Walk across street. Smoke joint. Drop quarters. Special when lit!
But, she kept coming after me. This wasn't supposed to happen. Crap. I have a dog. It took her a few weeks to get back up to speed and become a dog that was full on dog. But, she did it all on her own. Sure, she has some scars and a few bruises, but she is the greatest dog in the world. She needed help at that time. Someone to pick her up. I was there to dust her off. But, in the end, she could do it on her own. 
Another one. Me yelling at him to stop. Another one fires. Benny the 16 lights up in flames. Direct hit. My friend takes some bites when he grabs her. Puts her on the ground. Stops the burning. Looking up at me yelling that this needs to stop. Do something about it!
Did I mention I’m afraid of water as well as heights? And being sideways in a roller coaster car? Yea, this was working out well for me. Not. There were several times during the ride I was sure that I was having a heart attack. I was sure the track was falling apart. I was sure I wasn’t buckled in right. I was sure the train was falling off the track into the water. No, it wasn’t very deep water. But, hey, it was New Jersey water. That in and of itself is pretty damn scary.
Not a click. Not a rush of wheels on the wooden track as the coaster flies downward. Not a scream of delight. Pure silence. No movement. My. Fucking. God. My absolute worst nightmare has come to light. We are stuck on the absolute highest point of a wooden roller coaster. Holy. Shit. I am going to die. I am going to die. Ok, don’t panic. Yea, too fucking late for that. Panic city, baby. Don’t look down. Whatever you do, don’t look...what the hell? The car is shaking. What’s going on? I open my eyes, which had been squeezed shut and see that my friends are making all kinds of commotion in their cars. They are waving to everyone down below, crowds who have stopped to gasp at the stuck coaster car. They are screaming. With delight. Talking about getting out of the safety bar and climbing down the tracks. Laughing. Enjoying every minute of this. Me, I’m in the first car. I stare straight ahead because I don’t want to look down. But all I see is air. Sky. Empty space. I freak out. I start crying. I’m screaming something about wanting to go home, wanting my mommy, wanting off this crazy thing and not wanting to die in fucking New Jersey. I’m 17 years old. I have a life to live. A bright future ahead of me. I am not going to die in New Jersey. I am not going to die in a coaster. Friends yelling, laughing, rocking the car. My head in my hands, eyes closed again, shaking like I had been out naked in a blizzard. People don’t understand phobias. They don’t know the grip of fear when you are faced with the thing that makes you most frightened. They were all slapping me upside the head, telling me to get over it and have some fun with them. Pulling on my safety bar. 
They sat down. Stared hard at me. Wondered if I would follow through on that threat and then remembered the time I sprayed a purple and red rainbow of Boones Farm wine puke all over James’s beloved army jacket and they shut up quick. Just then, a park worker appeared beside us as if by magic. Yea, he used the labyrinth of wood underneath the coaster to climb up to us, but it seemed like magic. “Everyone sit down and stay still. We’re ready to bring you back down.” He was all professional and business like. Hands and arms inside the car at all times and all that. He disappeared like a rat in a tunnel and suddenly we were in motion again. The free fall down the incline did not feel so much like freedom this time. It felt like nausea. I wanted off this ride. I wanted out of this park, out of New Jersey. I wanted to go home. The whole thing took place in about seven minutes but it seemed like seven hours. When we finally got out of the car and walked away from the ride, I wanted to kiss the ground like an astronaut coming home to mother earth. Instead, I headed straight for the parking lot, to our waiting bus. There was only about a half hour left of this school trip, anyhow. I slept the rest of it off. 
Since we are tired today, the dog gets "New Chicken Flavor Alpo." I know it's more expensive but I'm outta nails. Plus nailing your dog to a 2x4 is something you only saw on those 70's "Made for TV Movies." 
1983. One of the most action packed years of my life. A constant stream of parties and clubs. So many nights spent in someone’s garage listening to our friends’ band practice and then driving to the club to watch them play, then out to another club to make some spastic attempts at dancing to punk rock and gothy new wave. The soundtrack to that time was a bizarre mix of The Police, New Order, Circle Jerks, Aztec Camera and Metallica. And Iron Maiden. Minutemen. Big Country. Suicidal Tendencies. Man, that was a good year for music. The The! U2's last good album! PiL! Kurtis Blow! Yea, that’s right. Kurtis Blow.
Dave’s pitching a no hitter. We sat mesmerized in the yard, squinting at the smallish tv, trying to see past the sun glares, drinking, eating and watching history being made. When the game was over and Righetti had thrown a no-hitter (the Yankees’ first since 1956) we all raised a plastic cup of beer to the Yankees, Dave Righetti and America. Oh yea, patriotism runs deep when you are drunk on beer and melonball shots and high on beating the Red Sox. 
Oh boy, it makes a whistling sound and then a small pop the end. If that’s your idea of excitement, then I bet Seven Minutes in Heaven is the perfect sex game for you. If you catch my drift. Anyhow, I remember thinking that it probably wasn’t a good idea for these kids to be lighting off fireworks so close to a gas station. Probably a really bad idea considering it looked like they were actually aiming the bottle rockets toward the pumps. I started to get nervous. What if one hit a pump? Would it blow up? Would I die right there in a ball of flames, screaming for help while realizing that my imminent death would mean that every subsequent Fourth of July after this would be ruined for my parents? I pulled myself together. Sat up straight. Watched the little numbers on the gas pump turn. Come on, fill up already, let’s get out of here. And then: A whistling in my ear. Deafening, like a jet plane was landing in my head. A pop. A sudden burst of pain. What the fuck? What. The. Fuck?? Pain. Pain. Pain. I’m deaf and in agony. My chest. My chest is on fire, I think. Let me tell you, nothing sobers you up quicker than the idea that someone just blew a hole open in your chest. Was I shot? Dying? I looked down and saw red. Red all over. My shirt was red and my chest was in pain and...holy fuck. I was hit with a bottle rocket? At first I thought I was bleeding out but quickly realized that the red was dye from the rocket. The pain? That was real. I could feel my shirt starting to stick to the burn underneath it. Shit. That hurt. I guess I had screamed when the rocket hit, but I didn’t hear it because of the whistling in my ear. My cousin was at my car window and the gas station attendant had come over. I was clutching my chest and hyperventilating and at first my cousin thought I was having a heart attack. The shirt I was wearing was a V-neck and I slowly pulled the material to one side and pointed to what I was sure was a gaping in hole im my chest. My cousin gasped. The gas station guy said “Ewww.” Nice. Well, it wasn’t a hole, but it was a pretty intense burn. I was shaking and in pain and the guy said he would run across the street to the firehouse and send an ambulance over. No. No. No. No ambulance. Fuck that. 
That or Natural Ice. And Natties hurt in the morning. Plus you could get a twelve pack of Pabst for 4.99. Hey dude. That was cool. Sure Natural Ice was cheaper, but man, that stuff hurt. 
Shatter of glass and plastic and the dreams of Archie Bunker and Alan Alda all went up in one amazing display of destruction. This was going to be good.
A piccolo pete hit me right in the eye. Exploded. Shit everywhere. I couldn't see. Dragged inside by three girls who were holding my hands back to keep me from rubbing the burned paper and ash deeper in my eye. Thrown in the shower and held down by a bunch of girls. Which is really kinda cool if you think about. Drunk off my ass, half naked being washed by a bunch of girls. That's like some really cool fantasy. Except for the eye burning part. That kinda sucked.
But anyways, Michele gave me the go ahead today to pick anything I wanted to write on. Usually she has a say in this, but she wanted me to pick one all alone. One topic. Hell. I just woke up. Being the meek little turtle I am looking around my table for an idea. Milk! Cheese! Milk and Cheese!!
Milk would just take a baseball bat to their heads and see what they were thinking when they asked that question.
Cheese. You know Laughing Cow cheese? This guy is the opposite. He’s a humanized wedge of hate, anger and violence. He’s always got this shit eating grin on his face, it’s fixated there like a mask of white death, all gleaming teeth and... well, its not really so much a grin. It’s more like the kind of smile a serial killer would wear. I’m thinking the guy from American Psycho. All smiles as he bears down on you with a machete. That kind of smile. Teeth clenched hard with built up rage. Cheese rage. Do you know what Cheese rage is like? No, neither do I. But I imagine it’s not something I’d want to be on the receiving end of. 
Four of us in a band. All living in a shitty apartment with no money, sleeping on the floors while the equipment took up most of the space. The most fun we had was betting how many roaches would be under a plate when we woke up in the morning. Just guessing a number and picking it up to watch them scatter. Counting them. Four roaches! I win! No dude, there were five. What? We are counting the babies too? No one told me this!
A plan was formed and I contacted a landlord. We shall just call him slumlord from now on. A big house that he said he was demolishing next year, so break anything we wanted. Smash the windows or break the doors. Didn’t matter to him. He wasn't going to fix it. Dude. Oh dude. That's the worst thing to say to us. Jesus. You are looking, no begging for trouble with that one. He explained it was a very popular house in the 50's and 60's. I surveyed the rooms and noticed the size of them. Little house in the ghetto. The rooms could barely fit a bed in. There were five of them. The layout looked more like a whorehouse then a Victorian. So I asked him why the rooms were like that and why it was so popular back then.
The only reason I played was when I was knocked off the pool table. There was a line like ten long to get on the table again. Shit. Let's go see what going on the other room. I would sit and just watch these guys play Mortal Kombat. It looks easy enough. I'll put my name up. The sheer joy and excitement these guys had for just kicking people's asses. I never screamed like that from playing pool. These guys were excited. Let's try this out. Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you guys. We had chalkboards everywhere. For everything. The only ones that were really followed were the game list, the pool list and the dartboard list. The dishwashing list was kind of a pipe dream to begin with so no one ever looked at it. It did end up with some pretty cool abstract art on it the end. But, that's another story. So I put my name on the game board. Thinking to myself, "Well hell. Maybe I should just go outside and sit on the couch and wait my time out." But that didn't happen. A scream of "turtle's here!" rang around the room. Covered the house in screams. This was like I was in some bad prison movie. I was in the wrong part of town. The controller was handed to me. The other names were crossed out. My roommate was the leader of the Mortal Kombat gang so he took the other controller. I was the leader of the pool gang. This was like a gang fight. The pool game stopped and people came over from the pool area. The music stopped and people swarmed us. Beers were cracked and I lit a cigarette. He loaded up his chew and asked me if I was ready. 
A dragon? A duck? We took to calling it a Drucken. I know it was supposed to be a fierce dragon but really. How much did that look like a duck? Maybe even a chicken? So at first I laughed at it. I mocked it. That thing is supposed to keep me from my quest? Surely you jest. Well, I learned my lesson. Do not mock Yorgle. See, Yorgle had this way of appearing out of nowhere. He was a stealthy bastard. But what made me respect/fear Yorgle and (and then Grundle and Rhindle) the most was that godawaful noise he made as he attacked you. It was terrifying. Some kind of chomping noise that seemed to echo in your ears and vibrate in your stomach for seconds after it sounded. That sound was like a iron gate crashing on your soul. I’d hear that and panic. He was right on top of me! Can’t let him eat me! Chomp! Chomp! Arrow, use the god damn arrow, you moron! And I’d have maneuver my character - well, my square - til it was in just the right spot with the arrow facing the duck dragon dude as he bore down on me and, ohhh yesssss. Right in the gut. The game made a satisfying noise as the dragon was slain. I’d stare at Yorgle for a second, gloating over my victory, saying out loud “chomp this, asshole.” Sigh of relief. Shake off the nervousness. Onward, soldier. There is a chalice to be found.
2. Peter Grows Hair on his Balls
I'm getting off track, again. But, I get to do mine now! Yeah. Big surpise. It's Little House on the Prairie. Here are my three favorite episodes that taught you that in the matter of one hour, cripples could walk again, alcoholics could get cured and shoplifters would get a stern punishment for their misdeeds. If only they could play the lotto, life would be heaven. Maybe they did in one episode. Anyways, here are mine.
A confused look. "What?" Mary is blind! "I think you mean Laura, dude." Really. I thought it was Mary. Oh well. My head is still into Jack Bauer having anal sex with Willy.
Pulling out his Mighty Mormon Machine. With his penis in his hand, he stared at her. Knowing she had just turned 18. She was legal now. He slowly started rubbing his cock. She was 18 now. Drooling saliva out of the side of his mouth. He made a sound. She noticed him. She saw the look in his eyes and swam over to stare at him. Looking at him. Gazing at his penis. Pulling her naked body out of the water and walking over to him. The sun glistening off of her body as she touched his face. A look in her eyes that said "You need to stop milking cows and let me milk your penis." Her touching him like only a woman could. Charles taking her hand and leading her to blanket he had put down for his afternoon nap. Laying down in the summer heat. Getting on top of her. Telling her how he always found it kinky when she pushed "half pint" into the mud. He told her it always made him happy. He couldn't wait till she was alone. He was going to plow her wheat field. He tore off his pants and entered her. Making love til they both passed out. Sweat pouring down. Dripping off Charles' brow and running down the side of Nellie's breasts. On the bank of the pond, the two had become one. She was satisfied. And he was too. 
2. Perfume comes in three odors. Strong. Super Strong and "What the Fuck Are You Wearing" strong. When you go into the bathroom and do some girl thing and lather up on the perfume like you were getting baptised by John, just remember: sex smells better then Calvin Klein. Actually, I don't know this for a fact. He could smell pretty good. But, that's beside the point. The smell of sex and cum and sweat turns us on. We don't think it's sexy to have to hold our nose while asking if you like anal.
You need to tell us this is a "slow down night." If you don't, your eyeballs are gonna be popping out as we push in before you can get the "I" in "I love you" out.
We need to know. Tell us. We are kinda smart. I mean we know things now like not to wipe our dick on your newly cleaned drapes. Yeah yeah yeah. But hey, at least it was better then using your cat. But we didn't know! You didn't tell us! The bottom line is we need to know cause if you haven't noticed lately, we have an outty and you have an inny that looks like some kind of weird Japanese oyster. Sometimes, I swear I'll find a pearl in there and some girl with an accent will tell me that it was her time of the season and we need to sell it to get beer money. What? I didn't know that. You guys do that with those things? Cool. Looks like rent is paid off for this month.
We would all just scatter through backyards, chasing after each other, pretend weapons in hand. The fun wasn't really in catching anyone. It was in that one moment when you put your back up against the side of a house and held out your arm as if you were really packing and peeked stealthily around the corner, looking for a "bad guy." Yea! Jackpot! Some kid from down the block was standing right there and you shoved the fake gun in his face and said.....what? We were like 13 and 14. We weren't about to make fake gun sounds. So we did the next best thing. We just clocked each other upside the head with our hand as if it were the butt of a gun. Hell, we had no idea what S.W.A.T. people really did. We just knew that it looked really cool on tv. And we liked hitting each other in the head. Hey, it was more fun than ridiculing hippies. Because the hippies never even tried to come back at us. But the kids we played S.W.A.T. with? They would clock you right back in the head. Man, that was fun. Thank you, Aaron Spelling. Without you, I probably wouldn't have that permanent bump right at the base of my head. 
"See those things? Those over there. In your dad's garage? They are called "levels." You use those to make sure the ramp goes up straight, cause even though I am kinda semi ok at skating, if I'm shooting off towards a wall because the top of your ramp looks like some bad acid trip, I'm gonna be pissed after I hit the ground. Sure, the rush of "Fuck Yeah! I'm in the air!" Is fun, but kinda loses it's cool when right after you get the "oh fuck! Here comes the grass!" feel. So make that damn thing straight!
Pushing through the crowd I started to see familiar faces. Mountain, Hosoi, Cabellero, Lucero, and yes, yes, Tony Hawk. The deck of the ramp was painted with chalkmarks of bodies. Like police outlines. All over it. A band was playing and the whole crowd was drunk. Yes, this was illegal. But this was fun. This was Mile High. A ramp built in an area of Tahoe where the streets were paved, but no one decided to move there. No houses were built. Might as well build a huge ramp here. Why not?.
But there was one father on there. Pure as the Arctic snow. Charles. Charles Ingalls.
Even if your father is kinda hideous looking and maybe spent most of his life blowing shit up and killing children and being just an arrogant prick, and even if your dad had the unfortunate experience of being portrayed by Hayden Christiansen and uttering lines like “Hold me like you did at the lake on Naboo,” you still need to remember that without his seed, you would not exist and for that, you owe him, buddy. You look him in his eyes and tell him, "Yes, dad. I will join you. I will help you." Lie to him if you have to. “Yea, dad, ok, I’ll take over. We’ll rule the world. Sure, dad. For Father’s Day I’ll buy you a new Death Star and a tie, ok? We’ll play golf on Corsucant. We’ll go skiing on Hoth. Yea, dad. We’ll rule.” 
So when Turtle and I were talking and the subject of video games came up and he said ‘let’s write about arcade game tonight’ I jumped at the chance. And then he started bombarding me with links to Pong. Yea, I get it. I’m old. Thanks. But let me tell you, dude. Pong ruled. You may think it was just a simple game where you hit a white dot back and forth against two lines that were supposed to be people, but there was a lot more involved. It was social commentary. It was all about the futility of life, the dawning awareness you get at 3am when you realize that this is all there is, just a back and forth, back and forth, never ending game of throw and catch. Well, hell. I had to find some way to make that game interesting. I tried to turn it into a game about the Cold War, but no matter how hard I squinted, I couldn’t make Player 1 look like Kruschev. 
Nothing could pull me away from that pizza place, or the 7-11 or the arcade. And especially not the local bar (whose name escapes me) where a game called Berzerk sat in a dusty corner, begging for my quarters. 
Evil fucking Otto was a bouncing smiley face. Oh, don’t let that smile deceive you. You could feel the evil oozing from Otto. You knew he was bad despite the happy grin. 
When I would actually kill all the robots and escape through an opening, the voice would say “The humanoid must not escape!” Dude, that’s kinda scary. I mean, especially if I had been smoking pot and was all paranoid about Evil Otto killing me in my sleep to begin with. Now this voice is yelling out that I must not escape? I would rather it call me a chicken. That’s freaking creepy.
Hey dude, you gotta dream high but you gotta expect the lows. When Andy Taylor came on? It meant Barney Rubble wasn't gonna get his cock sucked today. That's the rules of the game and I had to play them.
Anyways, he brought over the acid. Said we need to do this now. Like our fucking life depended on it. Like if we didn't fucking put this on our tongues now, Superman couldn't save Lois Lane and that god damn little Mr. Mxyzptlk would take over the world cause you were too sober to get het him to say his name backwards. Kltpzyxm. That's fucking hard to do.
How the hell could I do something like this? Forget car keys? Sure. Forget your mother's birthday? Sure. Forget your girlfriend in a park while police are surrounding her? Sure. But the beer? FUCK! What was I thinking? Someone could grab it!
