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Well If That Don't Beat All.

When you sell bikes for a living you hear a lot of stories. People have all kinds of reasons for buying bikes. Sometimes there's a big life changing thing that happens, or someone needs to get in shape for something, or someone is out of shape because of a life changing thing, and so on. I've heard a lot of them now, and a lot of different kinds from "I just got divorced, and I really deserve this" to "I was pronounced dead, but lived and the doctors said I'd be a vegetable." But today I heard one. A kind that I'd never heard before. This wasn't even my sale, but I had to listen in, because it's wins the pot.

This middle aged guy, and a younger guy were in the store together. Both of them were weird. The older guy was slightly overweight, he was wearing "fitness clothes," and he had a tattoo of a lone wolf howling at the moon. The other sales guy working with them mentioned in passing that the older guy was a Vietnam vet. So, right there... Then I over hear him saying he was up way late.

"Out partying?" The salesman asked.

"No. I got a Xbox." He replied, and followed with, "I've been clean and sober for 21 years. If I'da had one more drink I woulda gone to jail, an' my brother went to jail same way, an' he died there. I haven't had a drink since June 23, 1988."

"Oh, man. Good for you." The salesman sounded off uncomfortably.

The man went on to say some other things I didn't really hear about growing up in New York? Owning a bar? Living in England? Something else, and then:

"... two guys escaped from Chino, an' they came broke into my house, they killed my wife, killed my two kids, an' cut 'em up wit a chainsaw, I came home from work that night an' had to identify their bodies, that was twelve years ago, then i wen' up to 300 pounds, started goin' to the gym, work out early in the mornin' before i go to work..."

The story goes on as a personal narrative of his struggle with fitness, and the difficulty he's had finding a quality fitness establishment (like one that will stop charging his dead wife a membership fee) and how he's just going to ride a bike from now on.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm trivializing this guy, because (if all that stuff is true) I am amazed and impressed by his desire to even be alive, let alone his commitment to A man who served combat in an horrific modern war, who fought a hard battle with alcohol, whose brother died in prison, and whose family was left horrendously murdered by escaped prisoners for him to see. A man like that really is a lone wolf. A pack animal without a pack, who can survive, and persevere.

I Fucking Hate Rockabilly. Vol.2

A little while back I made an entry about how stupid rockabilly: music, style, culture, and fat chicks are. Well, if you're starting a rockabilly band or are already in one (both of which I highly disadvise) and you need some names you can purchase any of these from me. They are registered DBA's, and they range in price from $45-$700. This list is ongoing, and if you need help with a name for your shitty fake 50's band just let me know.

The Flaming Backfires, The Grease Mops, The Hellcat Rollers ,The Chrome Peelouts, The Shop Rags, The Jackboot Bandits, The Tailpipe Tallboys, Los V8 Vatos, The 57 Shimmies, The Cherry Violence (Chick band), The Leatherettes (Fat Chick band), The Southern Undershirts, Cuffed and Creased, The Suicide Door Suicides, The Crankshaft Frankenstiens, The Cheater Prank Creepers, The Checkered Flags, The Pink Slips, The Switchblade Burnouts, The Rumbleseaters, The Jet Cats, Kitty Crimson (Chick band), The Alleycat Rumblers, The Cobra Sharks, The Drag Strip Fakeouts (Cross dressers), The Flag Chasers, The Rockin’ Horrors, The Scary Dead Guys (Psychobilly), The Coffin Cruisers, Los Grease Fires, Rosy Thorn and the Dress-Ups (Female Fronted), and The Black Eye Girlfriends.

If any of these band names are what you call your band, you can purchase the right to use the name from me, or cease and desist. Also, I'm sorry you chose such formulaic and unfortunate names if you are currently using one of these (I would have browsed myspace, but they didn't have that in the 50's.)

Sean Yseult.

I just realized the other day that there is some leftover 13 year old in me that is still in love with Sean Yseult, bassist for White Zombie.

An issue of Metal Edge magazine had this image of her, and an interview.

I love her.

So much.

I would fan out so hard if I saw her.

Perfect bass chick. Ibanez, and everything.

Here is her geocities fansite (awesome.)

And here is her Wikipedia page.

Dark of Heartness

It's been almost a month since this happened, and I keep thinking about it.

I went to Kroger one night after 10:00, a fairly regular occurrence for me. I was there with Kelly, and we were rounding up various vegetables and some Topo Chico for that evening's dinner. I wandered through the produce department picking up vegetables and setting them down, cursing the hard avocados, cursing the smushy avocados, and having that what-the-shit-am-I-supposed-to-be-looking-for thought when I forgot every ten seconds what I went there for. While idly holding some vegetable that I surely didn't purchase something caught my attention. I was somewhat startled as it sounded like THIS was rolling down a cobble stone hill at me, but it was just the voice of a man. A visual of him was not much more settling: he had a weathered face, gnarled hands, he wore a hat of some U.S. Navy ship and he carried a giant stick in his motorized shopping cart. His question finally made it to my brain after passing through a water like barrier in my ear canal that had been caused by my dumb and momentary stare at him: "Are you a fisherman?" Another moment of dumb staring and I was able to say "No. Well, I used to..." I didn't want to finish that statement. "But, you like the sea?" he asked. My confusion only lasted a few seconds before I realized he was commenting on the tattoos on my shins. One is a sailing ship, and the other is a shipwreck. Normally I don't care to converse with strangers about my tattoos. This was different. "Yes." I responded.

I take great lengths to avoid these kinds of situations usually, but something about this gruff old man was strangely difficult to avoid. "Do you read books about the sea?" he asked. "Yeah" I responded having not actually completed a book in over a year. "Like what?" He followed. At this point I couldn't tell if he was trying to break my balls over these tattoos, or test my knowledge of the sea, or what, but I couldn't stop talking to the guy. I listed a few of the books that I've I particularly enjoyed, and he listed a few titles and asked me if I'd read any. He was sort of giving me a litmus test: asking me what I thought about Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and assured me that it's a quality tale. We had a little bit of overlap, but I really peaked his interest with In the Heart of the Sea. He squinted at me when I said the name of the book, and he asked me to elaborate. I told him that it's a nonfiction account of the first known ship to have been sunk by a whale, and that some of the events were the basis for Melville's Moby Dick. He was a tad incredulous for a moment about In the Heart of the Sea being a recent title, like somebody cheated him or slipped something by him, then he asked me to repeat the title, and then the author's name. He started to look for a pen and paper with some urgency, while doing so he mentioned that he wouldn't remember the name of the book because of his condition.

Before I knew it I was walking to the front of the store in search of a pen. I spotted one in a recently accumulated dust/debris pile and I picked it up before the pile could be swept into the trash. I walked intently back across the store to find this guy just to give him this pen so that he could write down the name of this book. When I found him again I tried to just write down two titles and authors on his coupon sheet, but he couldn't read my handwriting, so I stood there and spelled out the two titles while he wrote them down. He had a dry, violent, coughing spell for a moment that made me think he was going to shoot handfuls of pea gravel out of his mouth. He mentioned something again about his condition, and then he asked me what Sailor Song is about. He snickered a little bit when he realized that it is from the author of One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest and made some remark about living in California around the time that Kerouac and Kesey were creating their movement. With very few words he identified that he understood it, but that it was so passe´. I was being paged over the intercom at this point to come to the front. He touched for a moment again on Moby Dick right before he reverted to his original question; he wanted to talk about fishing, and for no reason that I can possibly imagine I wanted to indulge him.

I had already mentioned that I used to fish, but I wasn't going to elaborate on that just the same as I didn't want him to elaborate on his "condition," which was clearly a limiting factor to what was certainly his biggest passion. He was asking me what kinds of fish I had caught. "Speckeled and rainbow trout mostly, flounder, redfish..." As I recited my list he nodded, and made some gestures of approval. "You ever catch any snapper?" The question itself was morsel of bait at the end of a 60 lb. test leader. "No, almost all of the fishing I've ever done was in the bay, or in the surf. I've never gone offshore." "Well what's the biggest flounder you ever caught?" I really didn't know, so I made a conservative guess (which I realize is not very typical of fish-story-telling). "Maybe 8 lbs." I answered, recalling one particular large flounder my grandfather was so excited to see me bring onto his boat. This stone voiced man, who shopped in a motorized cart, who was propping himself up on something the entire time we talked had a literal knee slapper of a laugh at my 8 lb. flounder. He had already been searching through his wallet for something, giving it a really good once over. The man said that it was nice talking with me and that... "WAIT! There it is!" He held a trimmed down piece of color photo paper up for me to see, and he handed it to me. On it was the same man, ten years younger, holding a giant red snapper in his arms, wearing some kind of PVC bibs, with the unmistakable look of joy on his face and in his eyes. I flipped it over to see the weight of the fish and the date, "That's a big fish." I said, and when I looked up to hand it back, he was leaning casually on the frozen food case in front of me, with his arms proudly crossed, joy in his eyes, a smile, worn down.

It's characters like him that make it that much more unbearable to see limp-dick-jerk-off-douche-bag-goobers like this guy holding some fish in some vacation destination with their Columbia hat, and PFG shirt, and neon mirrored sunglasses, and crocs, and Livestrong bracelets, and vacation stubble while shitting their pants.

Things I've Learned Recently:

Some people old enough to attend or graduate from a university and own a car do this:

Scrabble is hard with only vowels.

Izit catches tags with sidewalk chalk and may be younger than I thought (glad I got this one before it rained.)

I eat at buffets a LOT, and sometimes get them to go.

Nutrias were brought to Louisiana from South America for Tobasco sauce pets, and came to Houston to get away from Hurricane Katrina. (a little inside, I know.) They are STILL awesome.

Bowling is still fun when the bowling alley tries to close 15 minutes early.

Rocks and minerals sometimes fight? or have court cases? I'm not really sure it counts as learning if I'm still confused.

I could have figured that one out, but sometimes it helps to see it in print.

Where to get fresh ideas for sick ink tatz.

Cricket larva is apparently the same thing as Doritos.

What Madonna's pussy might look like.

Beef In The Streetz

I saw this near downtown the other day. It is awesome.

A classic case of graffiti-heavyweight-beef. What do we have here? Jenkem: a name that references a DANGEROUS DRUG, it's written in primitive cursive with a curvy underline in brown marker or possibly shit. And, Izit: a clever way of putting the words "Is" and "It" together by misspelling one of them, the lollipop "I" of a kindergardener with a clever arrow for a "T".

So spiteful, this Izit. The line running through the Jenkem tag goes back and forth, like three times. You might even say that Jenkem got totally crossed out.

This could get really heavy, Houston, so be careful what spots you pick. There might be somebody high on shit fumes with their eye on the same spot, and who knows what someone high on shit fumes would do to someone else, considering how they get their kicks?! I don't even wish to speculate what could happen if you ran across an angry Izit; bad kids are scary, the really young ones don't care about consequences, and cleverness is like an extra bullet. Just be careful out there.