You don't KNOW ME!

So I go to the Stop and Stab the other day on a beer/cigarette run for the folks hanging out. It's right by my house, so its an easy stop at like midnight. On a 'weekday'.

Anyway, the guy running the store is a modest Indian guy with a lot of class and is normally very nice. He must think I'm the biggest alcoholic and that I chain smoke two different flavors of cigarettes at once, as often as I'm there.

But the guy says, "see ya tomorrow." on my way out the door, and I was just like "pssh!! Whatever how could he possibly predict THAT!" in my head. I got all indignant, thinking, "you act like I drink everynight or something, GAH. You don't know me, fool, I might be going to yoga or pilates tomorrow, I mean, it could happen."

But, about two milliseconds later, I realized he's probably right. And he was. Such is life when you're this close to the store, and on the brink of self-destruction.

10 Ways to Skin a Cat

As you may or may not know, you can ask us to blog about anything by clicking the link in the top right. Especially if you remember a story from days gone by or just want to know...I don't know.....things. This question just came over the wire from 'Cornelius' and is getting an immediate response due to the urgent nature of the situation at hand.

"I have a question. I'm dating a smoking hot fine ass cool as shit girl. However, her demon cat gored my face earlier today. My face is bleeding, my pride is hurt and owning cats borders on pointless to me as I've been a dog owner my entire life. I would like at least 10 suggestions of things I should do. And when's the next time I can come over and drink away my sorrows?" - Cornelius


We've all been here, fellas. You meet the most amazing woman of your life at some random place, ask her out on a whim and there's nothing but fireworks the entire time.

It's all like, "You like food!? I like food!! That's so wieerrrrddd! It's like we're the same person! Wait - let me gues - did you go to high school? [shock and amazement] ME. TOO." (as you stare dreamily into her eyes)

Alas, you get back to her place, already thinking about where your harpoon will go in this new space, how awesome living together will be since she is - of course - your soulmate.

However, as you enter the dwelling, there is an immediate sense of cold. Evil. Death incarnate.

You don't want to admit to yourself that you just heard it, but you did. A piece of plastic with a bell in it is ringing somehwere. And that's when you realize, this is the place where relationships come to die.

"Say hi, Paris!! Teehee!" she says as she buries her face in its shedding, outrageously fluffy face, with its two demon emerald eyes locked on you at all times. Those eyes are saying, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. This is not your day to die. But it can be. I am the master of this domain."

The girl with the cat. An age old problem, and has been the silent battleground men fear to even talk about in front of their significant other. And we don't even talk about it with guys, for that matter, because "Psshh...it's JUST a cat, dude." but we all know it and fear it.

Cornelius, I'm sorry for your battle wounds, and I admire your courage in coming forth to this forum for guidance and support.

10 things to do about this situation:

1. My first thought was, of course: cat in bag. bag in river. This is NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS. Trust me. Because then, you buy the girl a puppy since Paris 'ran away' and you are the sensitive, loving, cat-hair-free man of her dreams again.

2. Many cats are exotic, from far away lands. The Egyptians even had cats, for god's sake. Call INS, have the cat deported. Your hands are tied here, it's THE LAW. Don't let a cat stand between you and the love of your country. Or between you and that beautiful woman.

3. If the cat wants war, give it war. The best and most difficult way to diffuse this situation is to fight and win. Staring contests with the cat, throwing it, and establishing an 'alpha male' presence in the house are all effective ways to handle this.

4. Feign allergies. Since you don't want to go around fake-sneezing and rubbing your eyes raw so they'll be red, be sure that you come up with a convincing yet low-maintenence allergy. Like, I don't know, rabies.

5. IMMEDIATELY BURST INTO TEARS. Don't look at the cat, curl up into a ball and start going on and on about your high school sweetheart, relative, or close friend that passed away. Talk about how she loved cats and you just can't stand the sight of them. Everytime you see a cat, your heart breaks all over again.

6. Ask her to go on a romantic vacation. Have someone burn down her house. It's risky, and its a felony, but its also a life sans-feline.

7. Also, now that you're injured, I say milk that for all its worth. I'm saying, she should fan you with palm branches and feed you grapes.

8. If you decide that you love this woman, this is a perfect way to guilt her into staying with you for the rest of your battle-scarred life. Just tell her over and over again how lucky you are to have her because - well - "who could love this face other than you after [choke up slightly] what happened with me and Paris."

9. Also, you should definitely make up a better story for other people about what happened. Depending on the nature of the wound and the people asking about your horrible disfiguration, you could have done anything from save babes from a burning building all the way to a bar-fight. Oh! You're a crime fighter. You're like - BATMAN or some shit. Just tell everyone you don't wanna talk about it because 'people might get hurt'.

10. If all else fails, or none of these sound good, there's one final resort. Space. I'm not sure if its out there, but I highly recommend looking into those companies that will fire your ashes into space, and seeing if they'll let you put a cat in the urn. Done.

And you're welcome to drown your sorrows here anytime, but don't forget - everyone prefers a happy drunk. :)

The 2171 Porch.

Matt's a Faggot

In the mail today, we received the next two movies from Matt's Netflix queue. They are:

1. Pretty in Pink
2. Some Kind of Wonderful

Really folks, I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

Everytime a car backfires a Rapper loses his Blings.

So, neighbor Luke. Remember Lawrence from Office Space? He's like that, only a lot less creepy. He comes over, tells his stories, cracks us up with his random southernness, and last night, while watching TimeCop on my couch ("oohhh, shit, bet they didn't teach that nut-shot in Karate!") informed me that 50-cent was a main investor in Vitamin Water!? Craziness.

Then we start talking about how rappers come and go, how they have to depend on a lot of marketing and freshness to stay successfu-- BAM!! a car backfires or a gunshot, can't tell.

Luke, without hesitation: Uhp...see...there goes another rapper, before he even had a chance.

It should also be known that since I didn't know this weekend is when SEC Football begins, Luke said: "I don't even know you...we're done." and then got me another beer. Good neighbor. Good, random, crazy southern neighbor.

Matt and Neal Tango with the Law - Part 1

The following is a very lengthy (and I am sorry about that! skip to Neal's funnier story below if you're in a hurry), but very true and accurate statement of the events that transpired between the times of approximately 1:00am - 4:00am on the morning of July 23, shortly after this story begins.

Date: Tuesday, July 22
Time: 11:55pm
Setting: 2171 College Street - Studio

PROLOGUE

The night began like many Tuesdays at 2171. Neal and I more or less to ourselves, drawing, watching TV, whatever. It has already been a sleep-deprived week due to the fact that we have no concept of "weekdays" as we've heard them called, and more than likely had a Margarita Monday the night prior.

So it should be said that Tuesdays are chill. We behave. Mostly.

Our dear friend Zach hosts a radio show at midnight on Tuesdays, and its an all request show. So Neal is going to stay up, and my plan had been to finish the last few brush strokes of a painting and head to bed.

However, when one of those Russleritas hits the table, there's no turning it down, even if its midnight on a 'weekday'. It's like someone just walked up and handed you a $100 bill, and says, "You can have this. Oh, I'm sorry, is this bad timing for you?" No. You take it with great pleasure and no questions as to why this is happening to you. Just accept the good graces of the fates (or Neal, as the case may be. The two are not mutually exclusive.)

So, an hour later, I decide against another batch and head to bed. Wait, I'm gonna step outside first, as my routine usually dictates.

It should be noted that every single time the radio show is on, the two of us go out back for any outdoor time. But this night, I decide to go out front. Neal comes along.

This single, arbitrary decision is the linchpin for what our lives would be like for the next month. The difference between living in irrational fear of death, or just going about our merry lives at 2171. Why oh why, didn't I pick the back......

PART 1:

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Taking a quick look around the area, almost immediately we see something we never should have seen.

There is an athletic-build African-American male looking through the trunk of a car. Innocent Enough.

UNLESS:

(a) its 1am

(b) it is our friend Stefania's car

(c) Stefania is in Hawaii

(d) All of the Above.

If you guessed D, you would be correct. Unable to believe our eyes, we watch this man take a ton of stuff from her car, and put it in his.

Me: "Do you...who is..."

Neal: "Is he breakin into her car...?"

Me: "I think...could that be a friend of hers? Surely not."

M: "yeah, that's what he's doing...."
[string of quiet astonished expletives, and 'is this happening like...for real?' in disappointed tones]

N: What do we do?

M: I don't know man Idon'tknowIdon'tknow

Guy hops in his car, and drives right in front of us.....and.....slows....down.....

As if our heart-rates weren't already about to top out, the car sputters like he's going to break down. The engine silences. Terror is too lax of a word. More like, pants-shitting-cry-for-your-mom-confess-your-sins-these-are-your-last-moments terror. Yeah. That'll do it.

A half-second passes of just sheer numbness. And he turns over the motor again and drives away. I decide to follow my gut, and we call 911, with the afterthought that we might be over-reacting racist bastards if we're mistaken.

Well, as it turns out, we were not.

Shortly after we called the cops, we notice that the window is broken, sparkling on the asphalt now amongst the CDs and the bugs and the beercaps.

Moments later, a black SUV crawls up. I'm on high-alert, so this is a big deal. However, seeing the caged windows and the bear-like german shephard crawling around in the back makes me realize this is the cop we've been waiting for. But not just a cop, one of those hardcore, camo-wearing, things strapped to everywhere G.I. Joe looking motherfuckers.

[edit: when telling this to Heather, she says, "I always want to ask them if they have any gum."]

After the usual clammer of questions and numbers barked back and forth in walk-talkies, we're asked if we could identify the man if we saw him again.

IF WE SAW HIM AGAIN. Well, we all know where this goes.

Moments later, after many cops have arrived on this life-threatening scene full of bombs, terrorists and rabid zombies (thanks, city of Montgomery, for spending my taxes wisely) one last cop drives up to the scene. With an athletic-build African-American male looking through the rear passenger window.

So, being the Citizen Heroes that we are, we immediately duck around anything we can (and keep our dignity intact) to avoid being seen by the 28 Days Later, Rage Infected looking 'suspect' in the back seat.

"Fellas.....this him?" says GI Cop.
In unison, in a grumble: "yeahyeahthat's himthat'shim..."

The only thing I even saw other than his obvious attachment to the scene of the crime was that he was dirty. He wasn't dirty when he was stealing shit out of Stefania's car....hhm...

I use neal's towering height to block my view and neal constricts himself to about 90 degrees of movement it's ok he's only going to be there for like 30 seconds......ORRRR ten minutes.

Cop, to suspect: "What!? What!? You need to shut yur fuckin mouth why didn't you stop when a police vehicle came up on you??"
Suspect: "mumblemumble lights wuttin' on mumble"
Cop: "I don't give one good god damn don't you know what a fucking cop car looks like!?? NO, of course your dumb ass doesn't know you piece of shit cause you're fucking trashed! How much you had to drink tonight? Yeah, nothing my ass."

Suspect, in reference to his arresting officers: "mumble.....mumble....they drunk."

Cop, as he slams the door with his foot: "you need to shut your fucking mouth cause you're in enough trouble as it is."

Needless to say, we're stunned and trying not to laugh or cry.

N: "You ok man?"
M: "aah....yeah, you know....just...taking it all in."
N: "....."
M: "....."

1:25AM (still standing on the street having to watch the cops do their thing)

M: "Hey neal?"
N: "Yeah buddy?"
M: "Can we get the hell out of 2171? Please?"

So they're completely baffled that Stefania is in Hawaii, so we got the same three questions over and over again:
"Do you know the victim here?"
"Where is she right now?"
[scoff] "What, she on her honeymoon or sum'n?"

Then, the 'main dude' shows up an old guy looks all kinds of old school but cool as hell....pats some guys on the shoulders...."good policework gentlemen"

Main Dude: "Are these the two that spotted that bastard?"
Us: Ah, yeah, that's us.
MD: "hhm..do you know the victim?"
Us: sigh yes
MD: "where is she right now?"
Us: She's in hawaii....
MD: "What, she on a honeymoon or somethin'? Hahaha!"
Us: No, just...on vacation.
MD [stands and chews for a moment]: "Hell. Wish I was in Hawaii. Lucky if I make it to goddam Lake Martin these days." and walks away.

The way he said it was so cliche and just....perfect. Like the newspaper editor in the Spiderman movies.

So we overhear the story from here....turns out, the man jumped from a MOVING CAR once they spotted him, CRASHED INTO A FENCE, and they had to catch him in a foot pursuit somewhere in the ghetto. Un. Effing. Believable.

But this is where the story takes a turn for the worse....I'm sorry for the length, but trust me, this is a quality tale.

Main Dude: "So gentlemen. here's the deal. Since miss....cue...cuemue... [looks at us like its our fault she has a complicated last name]"
Neal, correcting him: "Cumuze [cuhmoozee]"
MD: "Since she's not here....we're gonna need someone to file an official complaint. If someone doesn't go downtown and do that, we're forced to let him go."

....no comment...

MD: "Do you have everything you need to make the trip...or...?"
M: "oh! uh....I guess lock up and we're good to go?" I say to Neal.

Neal does so. Leaving ipod, sketchbooks, etc. We're under the impression we're getting a ride, the citizens-good-deed-ride, the tax-payers witness-taxi.

Well, that wasn't true. "Yall know how to get there?" was the first clue.

So we get in the car and freak out for a minute, and then get downtown to the station. And, there's absolutely no one there. Completely desolate. So we just knock on a random door that seems geographically linked to the meat of the building.... and then it gets fun.

After barrelling around the police station for a few minutes banging on random doors, someone finally presents themselves..... its this dumpy, short, too nicely dressed black guy who looks my age or younger, and has braces he looks like he just got woken up, just got punched in the gut, or needs to take a shit real bad. Scowl doesn't describe his mean, clean-cut pudgem face. You just wanna slap the "mama still cooks for me" right off his chubby little face, for real....

Pudgem: "whatchoo need."

M: "Ah, they told us to come here." [logic being, there are OBVIOUSLY very few crimes to deal with considering the desolate nature of this station]
P: "Who did"
M: "The officers on the scene?"
P: "Who were they. What fuh [for]."
M: "eh, we didn't get any names, see [insert story up to now, here]"
P: "gimmeyeaeyeD" [which i shrewdly deduced to mean, in english, "May I see some identification, please."]

Neal took my cue and got his out, also. (all this is through bulletproof glass, mind you) so we put the ids down and th-- "I only need ONE."

I could go on about this, but this post is long enough....

P: "Yall take a seat on the bench "

So neal slowly retracts his after we kind of body language through the whole "I'll deal with it, dude, go sit down" thing.

P:"mumblemumble"

Did he just say son of a bitch? I think he just called me a son of a bitch!

Me: "excuse me?"
P: "Yall take a SEAT on the BENCH!"

So - of course - we joke about him for a while, then he asks me to come back. We're the ONLY ones there. We get to the bench and I say, "Neal, not to complicate matters, but I swear to god I just saw a woman going through the trashcan outside."

N [astonished]: "shut up"
M: "sweartogod."

We sit for a minute. Neal goes and checks for her, and of course she's moved on to her next trash digging endeavor, we assume, because she's not there. A few minutes later we hear around the corner, the doors open, which is kind of terrifying because it could be anything at 2am Wednesday morning in the deserted police station.

In walks the green dress trash digging woman. She goes over to the doors [beep] and walks right in.

The point being, that we go from being complete non-racists - a guy was rummaging through a friend's car and we debated not even calling the cops - to complete and TOTAL racists.

Sitting, sitting, waiting...watching Neal saved a Roly-Poly's life...then I saved it...then he saved it again (the thing had a death wish.)

N: "This place sucks. The cells here really suck. You don't wanna be here roly poly."
M: "Everything you just said is funny on many levels right now."
[long pause, just sitting...]
N: "No ipod, no sketchbooks....fuck."
M: "No food. We could be here for days. I never said goodbye to my mom."
[long pause, just sitting...]
N: Hey....look at us....could we look any more different than we do right now?

I'm wearing a polo and khaki shorts, neal is in worn out jeans and a zero hoodie, his laundry day uniform.

[long pause, just sitting...]

M: "Of the countless times, how many more times am I gonna end up on a bench with you in a law enforcement situation before this friendship ends?"

FINALLY, Pudgem asks me to come back and after he literally thumbs through a law book for THIRTY MINUTES while I watch, he decides that we aren't even supposed to be here.

It's 3:00am.

I'm not even supposed to BE here!? What wait, no, there's gotta be a mistake...about this time an officer comes from upstairs, one of the guys from the scene, and he's like "hey where you guys been? that your buddy outside?" And we go upstairs to be recorded telling our story.

But first, Pudgem has been making me TRANSCRIBE THE EVENTS OF THE NIGHT. Luckily I was too tired and pissed to be a worried about dramatic effect. I summed it up with a "this is what we saw" kind of thing. He made me finish it, even after the confusion was cleared up as to why we were there, mumbling something about covering his [substantial] ass.

Upstairs, this old energetic tough but incredibly informal guy comes out. Gray/Bald, tight little detective 'stache, polo with a badge embroidered on it, the whole nine yards. He's wrestling with a fingerprint kit that looks like an ammo box from Vietnam, cussing if he pinches a finger or fails an attempt to 'pry the bastard open'. This goes on for the duration of the following monologue:

"Heeyyy there fellas. So. Here's how this is gonna - fuck - go down. [slams case latch] Cpl. Collins here is going to record your statements of the incident on tape, and separately. This here is a fingerprint kit we give the trainees. He's gonna get your statements...you're going to have to give testimony to the grand jury, as this is a felony case. [scratches his chin] the suspect will be present for those hearings. You'd think they'd make these cases easier to open, god dammit."

Now this is just great. Not only has he seen us, but he now gets to see us while he's clean and pissed. He's gonna have his friends come do things to us.

"Now. It's real simple. It's not that bigga deal. You guys go to AUM? My son goes to Huntingdon....[we talk about work and Huntingdon for a second] You boys want some coffee?" spoken like he just offered us black market cuban cigars.

"Get on over here and make yourselves at home." Spoken with the open hands and then onto the hips, like he's showing off a new car or something. He was a happy guy. I think he's quite the caffeine addict.

"Alright!" he says. "Yer up!" to me, so I go in the room and take a seat across from the detective, who is pecking one finger at a time at the keyboard. M-o-n-t-m.......backspace.....g-o-m-e-r-y

Detective: "how ya doin?"
Me: "Oh, I'm tired, but I'm here." (which is a loose translation on 'I'm pissed and I wanna go to bed' but whatever)
Detective: "Yeah, we all tired, for sure."
Me: "This is all kind of scary, being involved and all.."
Detective: "Oh is it? Why is that?" Like I'd just told him I like throwing babies. "Do you spell roommate with one M or two? It just don't look right."

I don't go for the definitive answer, I go for the "don't make him feel too stupid" answer

Me: "uummm....is it one? No, I'm almost certain its two. Yeah, its two. That looks right to me. That one always gets me, too!"

So he stumbles through asking me to repeat the story. which was rather unremarkable at this point. I'm sick of it. Ready to die. Or at least sleep.

Eventually he walks us out to the car, telling us how long the guy's rap sheet is, what a good thing we did, and how he'll see us in court. Wonderful. We'll be there this afternoon, sitting like we sat on that bench, for hours, talking about random stuff until our heads explode.

On the bright side, its like our apartment, sans alcohol.

Crazy Mary Update: 8/27

Our friend Heather has sent us a few requests. One of which is, she asks to be regularly informed of the activities of our neighbor, Mary (who, incidentally, is guano crazy). Many of you have no doubt heard the sordid details of our fractured relationship with our less-than-sane next door neighbor, but for those of you new to the crazy, I’ll give you a little rundown: Mary is a generously proportioned black female in her mid-forties from Detroit. She moved to Alabama as per her doctor's request, because you see, the cold weather in the north was doing her diabetes-ridden body no good (she’s on the cusp of losing her left leg because of it), so she decided to come live near family in the warm temperate Yella Hammer State. Mary has a cropped Sisqo-esque platinum hairdo, she has two large scars running horizontally on the right side of her face, and she frequently chooses to wear over-sized Tweety Bird t-shirts. She occasionally takes midnight trips to the emergency room to accommodate both her diabetic/crazy needs and the needs of her sickly mother (“She Ninety!”, so we’ve been told). Mary’s apartment features a ramshackled plywood handicap ramp (which has been the talk of the Old Cloverdale Committee since its construction) to cater to the hoards of wheelchair-bound miscreants she entertains. Mary has on more than one occasion asked me for a “cold beer” and has employed our other neighbor Luke to help her in a whole smorgasbord of household chores, including detonating bug-bombs and securing hard-to-reach light bulbs. She’s also very loud.

One morning this week, my car (the ever-disabling “Cheetah”) ran out of gas at the foot of my driveway, in the middle of College Street. It was my own damn fault, but that’s not the point. I locked the car, grabbed my iPod and started towards our local cut-throat gas station, dubbed “The Quik-Stab”. Seeing me, Mary runs out from her porch, clad only in sweatpants and an off-white sports bra. She yells “Where the ‘ell you goin’?” To the store, I tell her, to get some gas. “Oh shit, I’ll take ya!” No no, Mary, that’s quite alright. It’s only a block. I got it. “Boy, hang the fuck on! You gonna let me take you to the sto’. That’s what good neighbahs fo!” She ran inside, put on a Tweety Bird shirt, and came out with keys in hand. “Us olds peoples gots ta look out fo you youngah folks! If’n you cain’t help out the young peoples, what the ‘ell good are ya?” (Which, I must point out, I think she has that backwards: I should be helping her, because she’s old, but in my defense she’s old and crazy).

We get to the store. The details about her car are, it’s filthy. There’s a lot of rebar in the backseat. The radio is tuned to an early morning gospel station. The car is the same not-white color of her undershirt. I’m laughing at her thug-vernacular the entire 1 minute trip there.

Anyway, I get the gas can, I fill it up, I’m on the way back to the car, and I lean in and ask her if it’s okay to sit this in the backseat, because it may spill gasoline everywhere. Then, a rotten skeleton of a bum grabs me and says “Excuse me sir, is there a problem?” and leans in to ask Mary “Are you alright, Ma’am?” I tell the guy, I’m her neighbor man, it’s cool. Mary says “Yeah, yeah I’m aight. Get in the car, damnit!” I oblige.

Back within the safety of Mary’s car, she tells me “That dirty mothafuckah, who da fuck he thinks he is, tryin’ ah protect me and shit? He ‘bout got himselfah piece a hot lead in his belly! I don’t need no protection from shit!” Then she pulls out the .38 from her waistband. “You see this thang? It goes with me errywhere! If I get up and go the baffroom, you bettah believe this nigga-killa’s comin wif me!” She went on to tell me that the bum just wanted to get some money from me so he could score a blowjob off of one of his queer-crack buddies, and then how she has the utmost respect for karma: “That niggah’s life is Hell, ‘cause he don’t help nobody. I try ‘n help people, like you, and it always brings me good fortune. We neighbors, we gots ta stick together!”

In the end, I got my car running, and I thanked her. Now I probably owe Crazy Mary some sort of cosmic retribution for her kind acts, and my life got just a little bit weirder.

Next time she asks, I’ll just give her one of my cold beers.

New Movie List

Last year around this time Robin, Matt, Forrest and I compiled a list of upcoming movies that we were anxious to see, and it worked out rather well. I was dropping a grand a month at The Rave, but it was great. We were well entertained. There are quite a few promising films coming out soon, so here I've made an initial list of "must-sees". I realize I'm probably over-looking a few good ones, so feel free to update/judge my film taste as you please. All release dates are subject to change, because I'm obviously not a very thorough researcher. Anyway, here you go. Also, Robin, I wrestled with the idea of including Beverly Hills Chihuahua on here because I know how frenzied you are to see it, but I figured I'd spare myself and let you go see that one solo.

*Burn After Reading (Sept.12 2008)
*Ghost Town (Sept. 19 2008)
*Choke (Oct. 3 2008)
*Rocknrolla (Oct. 8 2008)
*Changeling (Oct. 31 2008)
*Synecdouche, New York (Oct. 2008, limited)
*Australia (Nov. 14 2008)
*The Road (Nov. 26 2008)
*The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Dec. 25 2008)
*Valkyrie (Dec. 26 2008)
*Watchmen (2009)
*Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
*The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
*This Side of the Truth (2009)

Hurricane Spider.

It finally rained here for two solid days, thanks to Fay. I can't remember the last time that happened. So, we celebrated. Like, we weren't going to celebrate SOMETHING anyway, like most nights. Hah.

Friday night at the house of the future (Amanda and Jon have an incredible home and are incredible hosts) and Neal almost accepted an agreement to eat this monstrosity for $50. Jon found it, dead, on their porch. It's larger in diameter than a beer can.



In the end Neal knew that Robin would disown him if word ever got back, so he declined the offer. But hey, it was worth a shot.

Saturday night was an impromptu 'hurricane party' that left me a mess, still unshowered at 5pm on Sunday. Sometimes the weekend is more taxing than the work week around here, I swear.

Russleritas

I ain't hardly bullshittin', folks: I can make the best damn frozen margarita in Central Alabama. Friends and cohorts agree...come have one of these immaculate concoctions one day, and once you go "frozen", you'll never go "rocks".

Here's Matthew, dousing his sorrows in frosty tequila bliss.

8 year olds, dude.

If you haven't had the opportunity to see our place, to call it a cornucopia of horror mashed unceremoniously with childhood, fine art, and beer. You can see Jack Nicholson as depicted in the Shining on the wall from the front door. There's a solid red animal skull on a shelf in the studio.

All of this I owe to my adequate friend and roommate, Neal. You never know what you'll find. I'm STILL finding stuff in public areas of the house, like "where did that COME from? Who owns/makes/wants that?"

Example: I'm walking through the house a couple of days ago, something catches my eye. No, its not slinkinstein, its not even the arbitrary map of the U.S. I say to myself, "I did not just see a miniature harpoon. I do not live in a reality where tiny things try to harpoon things, and I do not live in a world of 8-year olds with their action figures. Continue forward."

I did not.

I couldn't let the curiosity go, I couldn't keep this veil of denial over my world. If this is the world, so be it.

Confirmed. Harpoon. Miniature.

Matt, still staring at it: "um. Neal?"

Neal: "Yeah man?" and comes from the studio holding a pen in his latex-clad hands. He looks like some sort of sick surgeon and I rethink the entire prospect of letting him know about a sharp thing.

Matt: "Is that a harpoon?"

Neal, face lights up and he turns around and goes back to the studio: "Yeah it is! It belongs to [Jason/Freddy Kruger/insert horror villian here]!"


This is my life. It's not a life with 8-year olds, its not a life full of mythological shark-hunting fairies. Just a Neal for a roommate. And trust me, that's enough.

By the way, Neal, if you read this, there's a Prison Break action-figure/collectible set available, but Linc has a lazy eye, I think.

Auditory Misery is a Goldmine.

I’m all the time singing. At the house, in the car, at Winn-Dixie, Bud’s, wherever. Chances are, if I’m awake, I have a song stuck in my head and I want to share it with my friends. And I have an ethereal voice. Pajama-clad, dive-bar karaoke hags have told me this on numerous occasions. It’s an awe-inspiring treat when you’re around to hear me belting out a little ditty.

Beneficially, Matt doesn’t seem to think so. One Saturday afternoon, returning from some beer-errand or something, I started singing “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal in Matt’s car. He told me to please stop, that he’d actually pay me to stop. Naturally, I kept going just to see if he would. And wouldn’t you know it, it was so damn miserable to him that I ended up being paid to stem my incessant crooning.

Now, for the record, I must tell you that when I say “paid”, I don’t mean in cold-hard cash. Monetary exchanges have never taken place in the proverbial “zipping of my lips”. Matt bribes me with other things, such as Early Times, Triscuits, Camel Lights and TV on DVDs. But anyway you look at it, it’s still getting goods and services for hardly any work, just something that I would be doing naturally. And, let’s face it: probably, those are the kinds of items I would be spending my “free” money on anyway.

My all-time number one moneymaker is “Friends”, by Ween, but here are a few others that have proven profitable in the past:

• “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley
• “My Baby” by Mariah Carey
• That “Show Me The Way to Go Home” song from Jaws
• “I Don’t Know Much, But I Know I Love You” by Aaron Neville
• “Mother” by Danzig
• “I Keep Forgetting” by Michael McDonald
• “Muscle ‘N Flo” by Menomena
• “One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One Beer” by George Thorogood and The Destroyers
• “Ave Satani” by Fantomas
• “Since U Been Gone” by Kelly Clarkson

Hair-brained Schemes

Frequently, the two of us concoct new hair-brained schemes. Some are for wealth, some for fame, some for glory. Most are for fun and to see how long we can survive them. Many of these will be documented here, trust me. From how to run a mansion on meager lower-middle class incomes all the way to running your own formal awards ceremony that highlights your friends and their flaws, we've covered just about everything other than the trite and strange-feeling blogosphere. Pheh.

This whole blog thing is kind of foriegn to most of us, but there's nothing I can see as more valuable than an open, fun explanation of where I am from day to day. I like the idea that my grandkids and my grandkids grandkids will pick it up. If nothing else, 'grandpa was a douchebag, but his old roommate was awesome!'

Which, in the grand scheme of things, will make someone somewhere sometime laugh their ass off.

The blog is a nice way to be productive when suffering from an artistic rut.

Ugh. First posts are so strange. Luckily the wider public doesn't find out about this until well after we've established it. G'night.

For the record, she started it. Inspired it. Brought down the doom of running a blog upon us indirectly with her amazing success and clever quips. Whatever. Anyway, its another tuesday. Like Neal said, if this is the most exciting thing that happens tonight, we got off easy.

I'm mostly just looking forward to not having to remember this stuff for more than a day or so before it is immortalized on the web. :)

A Problem, for Better or Worse.

Me: Damnit.

Matt: What, man?

Me: I'm half-way through my first beer of the night, and I've just now realized that I'm drinking. It tastes great.

Tuesdays, historically infamous around these parts, almost always spell certain disaster for the two of us here at 2171. A few Tuesdays ago, we were accosted by the treacherous Tuco the Rat, and held watch over his vile rodent-hole (in the wall, not in under his tail) until 3 a.m. Next Tuesday my cat, Karlos Rambeau Russler died. The week after that, we were involved in the apprehension of a crackhead felon burgling bastard, which resulted in police station questioning until 4 a.m. The ominous third day of every week constantly shrouds our lives like a spiteful cumulonimbus hell-cloud. A safeguard we regularly practice on Tuesdays is heavy drinking sessions. While this is not an entirely infallible tactic, it nonetheless deadens the feeling of impending doom. That being said, it's 9:40 on the first night of this new blog, and Matt and I are drinking steadfastly. Cheers, all. Good night, and let's hope that evil shit doesn't happen again tonight. We both have to be at work at 8.

Footnote: The Tuco Story and the College Street Criminal Story will probably be transcribed for you relatively soon.