Blunt and generalized is usually a little to absolute for me.
It doesn't exactly thread the needle, know what I mean?
If I have a problem with concision, it's usually because I'm trying to be deliberate.
Everything that's here is meant to be here.
Nothing's going nowhere.
Tomorrow's more useless than today.
Need to walk on fire or something.
To turn the tide my way?
I visited the San Gennaro Festival today and, yet again, bore witness to the wonder of a strange strain of Italian pride. I’ll focus this vignette on the dudes who were working the rigged basketball toss game while my friends and I were downing sausage and pepper sandwiches.
OK dudes who are working the rigged basketball toss game. We know that there is a hidden trampoline at the bottom of that laundry basket. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book. I know. I used to work the Pt. Pleasant Beach boardwalk.
But do you have to conspicuously change your shirts in unison while trying to get old naive Asian grandmoms to play the game because everyone else on the planet knows your scam? Once you sink one, that ends the first dollar and you have to get the next one starting on another dollar in consecutively?
C’mon. I mean, y’all were fucking hairy and fat, with bigger tits than some of the hookers working the row. Trust us, the Big Pussy look is no longer in, if it ever was. And the writers of the Sopranos probably called it that look for a good reason. But you guys actually made an old Asian woman gag while she was playing when you proudly set forth your back hair. These women are not used to such macho displays of pubic hair on the shoulders. You made them associate guido with licking a clogged drain. Nice going. I’m sure all the cool people at the festival are looking forward to your next man boob sighting.
BTW, thanks for the $20 to hang out and make your game look legit.
Had a family gathering today. I always feel so awkward at these things. I guess that’s because it’s different than altering my consciousness and trying to get laid.
Anyway, I got to see my aunt, my sister and her husband, my two nephews, and, of course, mom and dad. It was fun.
The first thing that happened when I got there was the timely emission of a decibel-rocking, seismometer shocking blast of fart gas from my youngest (3 years old) nephew’s ass. So, technically, he had to say, “Excuse me,” before he got to say hello. That’s baby raising for you. According to my sister.
Then all the adults gushed about how well each other looked. I felt like I was at a Jewish wedding. Leave it to the Irish…Honestly, my aunt looked fantastic for having battled cancer for the past two years. I kind of re-bonded with her at this visit. I think after her most recent trials and tribulations she’s much more forgiving of my record of “troubling” behavior. I put that word in quotes only because unstable would have been a better choice.
Anyway, once all pleasantries were aside, I realized that we all looked good. It’s in our fucking genes, mang.
OK, so I settle in for this 4-hour visit (iPhone is countdown timing it.) Once the fart smell dissipated and I stopped wondering if it was a fart or if he layed a hot one in his BVDs, my mom brought out the food. This is always a cool moment in the family visit because I’m usually getting over a hangover, slightly stoned, and wired from driving 90 mph and listening to a mix of NIN, Nirvana, and radical sports radio for a half-an-hour on the GSP and I-287. It’s usually something nice that she just whips up and decides to serve and it’s all gone in 5 minutes. I guess she was tired today. She tore open a bag of pretzels and tossed it onto the table.
They were gone in 5 minutes. Mom’s getting wise to me.
Then came the watching of the kids playing with toys. (Damn, those kids dig trains.)
Then came the watching of sports. (Why do I keep calling the US Open the Tour de France?)
Then came the showing off of cell phones. I won. Wasn’t even close.
Then came the telling of movies recently seen. (My contribution was the last 20 minutes of the Blues Brothers), and the bragging of the book currently reading (I think my Unbearable Lightness of Being barely beat out a copy of a listing of random Surnames of Ireland some douche probably hacked out before the internet was born.)
Then came dinner. We ordered pizza. Thank God. Two plains, one pepperoni and one sausage. Dad and I went to pick them up. The pizza joint was in the next town over. It was cool having dad drive. I complemented him on the state of his car and we discussed our relative mileage. He’s put on 100,000 over the past decade. I put on half that. But, then again, I slough off car miles by submitting to the city train every day. It all adds up, the miles we travel.
The ride took us by the street of the house where the girl I dated (and now has a boy named after me?!?) used to hook up. I didn’t tell my dad about that.
The pizzas were coming out of the oven as we walked in. I thought about offering to pay beforehand, but then forgot once we were being handed the 4-box tall order. I think it might have had something to do with him driving and me thinking about the shenanigans that went on at the nearby house where a girl I dated (who, I believe I have mentioned) has a baby boy named after me (?!?), used to go on. Major indiscretions. Band practice in the basement. 420. Acid. Graffiti. Sodomy. Marlboro Lights. Unused Trojans.
We got home, set up the pies and devoured them. (Mind you, 5/8ths of the humans there, at my parent’s house today, are not lucky enough to live in the only area of the country where fantastic pizza is a given…)
So we’re all full of pizza and the kids have to poop. That ticked off a quick hour.
Then came the presentation of the birthday cake for my mom and me. We’re a week apart. Her’s is coming up Tuesday, so I guess they wanted to sneak mine in, too. I was surprised.
My iPhone is ticking seconds by, at this point.
But it was all cool. I got birthday cards from everyone and a gigantic Stone Pony keychain from my parents, who visited Asbury Park this past week. “Wow”, was all I could say. My parents always knew what kind of hip key chains the kids were wearing. So I have that going for me again.
BTW, if anyone reading this wants one I’ll hook you up. Maybe we can start a Stone Pony keychain club.
I went to the beach today with the best of intensions – to swim and get some sun and generally be outside. I went to Sandy Hook, fought the local traffic, drove past the naked people beach and hit the north side.
There were 200 cars in the usually barren parking lot, so I started to get a little bummed. Then I saw a parade of swingers with rolling coolers making their way south. The naked people beach lot had filled and the 200 cars in my lot were the spillage waiting to flash their pubes. Or intentional lack thereof. Anyway, they were the people who had no intentions of baring ass on my beach. They were willing to walk half-a-mile south for that thrill.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. Read on.
I hit the beach and sure enough, I had about 2 square miles of sand pretty much to myself.
The 10-minute walk with a chair, towel, sunglasses and 6-pack set me up for bliss. I baptized myself in the Atlantic for a few moments then downed a couple of Coronas in my south-southeast facing chair.
A beer buzz soon got the better of me, so I peeled out of my trunks. No one was here, so who the fuck cares, right? So I’m lying there in my chair and soon I’m feeling a little too baked in a certain area of my body. Brilliantly, I decide to hold an empty Corona bottle over it to block the sun.
Big mistake. Clear curved beer bottles can act as magnifying glasses.
Bonus: I think there’s a refracted lime shadow on my inside right thigh.
No blisters, no peeling, just a tad pink. Already TMI, right?
That is all for now.
Alysia is moving to FLA next week, so I hit her up for a final bit of hair styling today. It was funny, sad and mysterious, The only people in the salon were her, her friend – a bra-less blond in a white t-shirt, and me. The sound system was blasting 80’s music, normally a good thing, but I changed the channel.
To make a long story short, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros was eventually boom blasting through the speakers. We listened to the song “Home” 3 times in a row until we could sing the song together.
[Her]
Moats and boats and waterfalls,
Alley-ways and pay phone calls,
I've been everywhere with you.
[Him:]
We laugh until we think we’ll die,
Barefoot on a summer night
Nothin’ new is sweeter than with you
[Her:]
And in the streets you run afree,
Like it's only you and me,
Geeze, you're something to see.
[Both:]
Ahh Home. Let me go home.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Ahh Home.
Let me go ho-oh-ome.
Home is wherever I'm with you.
Tears were shed and smiles were beamed. The small scene segued into a somewhat sunny clamorous commotion and my heart is now three times the size it was yesterday.
She's been a wonderful friend for four years. That's almost a record for me. Thankfully, she's leaving with a clean snip, rather than a jagged complication. That portends friendship long into the future. That is what I like. That is what I value.
Bittersweet is the emotion I feel. I'm so happy for her, but I will miss her. I watched her smoke a cigarette like it was gonna be her last.
My hair is very relaxed tonight.
Can you see the fight to influence gravity bending two disparate thoughts together toward a random sinkhole?
Think about it…the question just posed.
Apply it to anything. Like toast and seashells.
Or a female
Snail
Having a Cytheria moment.
*
If I remember correctly, this was her fave song.
Very high school year book.
But well-suited for that time and place. She used to whisper the last three lines all the time.
That, now that I think of it, might explain a thing or eleventy bizillion.
Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Her legs spread out before me as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn
Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything?
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed Everything...
I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away
And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...
All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be...yeah...
Uh huh...uh huh...ooh...
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why, why, why
Can't it be, can't it be mine
Can you name that tune?
You have an iPhone, right? Good. Now, go to the apps store. There? Good. Now search for the game “Orbital.” Found it? Good. Now pull up your couch cushions and dig up 3 bucks in change. Have it? Good. Now buy “Orbital.” Prepare to be addicted to digital heroin.
