Half Past Awesome

It’s time to kick -aught nine to the curb and usher in the new decade. We’ll probably start with the host of false promises known as  New Years’ Resolutions. I thought that for a different perspective, my resolutions would be things that I would NOT do 2010 to the best of my abilities. This post also marks the 100th installment of Half Past Awesome, and I’d like to thank those of you who take the time to read my insane rants; at the least, I hope I can amuse you from time to time. So here you have it, 20 things that I intend to not to do in ’10. I’ll talk to you next year, amigos. Enjoy!

20 Things I Resolve To Not Do In 2010

I will not:

1.) Get any neck tattoos. While these may elevate your status in prison, they are somewhat off-putting and remind people on the outside not to trust you very much.

2.) Be featured on the A&E television show Hoarders. To avoid becoming one, I may have to set fire to my many random pieces of plywood and lumber that litter the shop. Nobody gets a birdhouse, but then, I don’t become one of those nutjobs. Bittersweet, I suppose.

3.) Let the hair on my back grow to any length. This is disgusting and requires only two words: consistent waxing. The pain is well worth the avoidance of the back sweater blues.

4.) Develop any sort of Ponzi schemes that might defraud hapless hedge fund managers. Those poor slobs have been through enough already, don’t you think? They deserve our deepest sympathy.

5.) Fall in love with Penelope Cruz. This is going to prove tougher as time goes by, but we must get over one another.

6.) Join a motorcycle gang. As tempting as it sounds, riding around all hopped up and psychotic, I don’t even own a motorcycle, so this should be an attainable goal. No promises on not wearing the leather vest, though.

7.) Ever, EVER, wear skinny jeans. This trend is stupid enough that I envision the next step will be wearing a wetsuit bottom around, and after that, just straight up tights. Way to go, Robin Hood wannabes.

8.) Be swayed by the hypnotic qualities of Dyson products. Whether it’s the vacuum ball or air-blade hand dryer, I must control the urge to fork out $1600 to dry my hands. But damn, their devices look so good, and when that Dyson guys pitches his inventions? His accent alone makes me want to purchase. But I won’t. Not this year.

9.) Mock Steven Seagal. This has become too easy, and he’s inches away from becoming a character on Reno 911, so I just gotta let them have it. Take care, Steven, I’ll miss haranguing you.

10.) Attempt a mustache. Previous mustaches I have worn always result in my looking like either a failed porn star or some sort of international sex predator, neither of which I can really feel comfortable sporting. No to the ‘stache.

11.) Purchase Crocs. Not unless I need some fancy footwear while shopping down at “The Wal-Marts”.

12.) Take sides, nor participate in the Edward vs. Jacob conversation. You ladies are all either necrophiliacs or pedophiles, and it’s more than creepy. Ps- vampires and werewolves don’t really exist, so this whole debate makes as much sense as arguing about who’s hotter: Jessica Rabbit or Betty Boop?

13.) Purchase a Member’s Only jacket. I don’t think I need to give a reason here.

14.) Challenge The Lyin’ Dutchman to a cage fight. To the death. Much as I am tempted to lure him into the Octagon, there can only be one result of such a fight; the winner would have to take on Aunt Viper, and we know who wins in that scenario.

15.) Go to Arkansas for any reason – it never ends well. Just ask Hillary.

16.) Insist that Christopher Walken play the role of me, on the off-chance that an epic movie be made about my shenanigans and debauchery.

17.) Accept Sarah Palin’s invitation into her tour bus the next time she rolls into Springfield – she only wants one thing, the dirty little minx. I learned my lesson last time, and I won’t be treated like that again.

18.) Beat up young boys who wear make-up and iron their hair. This one will be tough to uphold, as those kids need a decent slapping and a mirror shoved into their face. When you wear more make-up than most girls and you spend more than 10 seconds on your hair, then your sexual ambiguity should meet the back of my hand.

19.) Walk away from everything I know in order to be a roadie for Mariah Carey. Despite her proclivity for wearing stiletto heels 24 hours a day (which shows dedication!), I suspect that she may be just a little high maintenance.  We’d have issues.

20.) Use the phrase “I’m going to sell you for parts” as a threat to my children when they misbehave. Some people in the Division of Family Services might want an explanation for that one, and I get the sense that they are institutionally devoid of any humor. It’s incredibly effective, but I’ll try my best to threaten to sell them as whole entities instead.

Two days post holiday indulgence and my head is pounding to an unfamiliar drummer. It’s not alcohol induced, and I’ve had the cursory pot of coffee this morning; I’m beginning to suspect radon poisoning or maybe arsenic. I can’t decide which malady is striking me at this time, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

It’s 27 degrees out in the yard, The Heathens and I systematically euthanized the Christmas tree and I’ve spent some downtime with my collapsible back scratcher that was left in my stocking, so all should be on the up and up, but it’s not. It feels as though the boys are playing Dance Dance Revolution on my brain stem. I even got after some housework to try and shake this rattling sensation, but to no avail. Has it just been one of those kinds of years, where the sudden onset of a brainache is the consequence of twelve months of foolish behavior? Very possible.

We stand at the precipice of a new year, you and I. We’re going to have lots of choices to make in 2010, and in this, my 99th post, I declare that I’ll choose to have more Ibuprofen on hand. That should dovetail nicely with my other choice – the one in which I improve my relationship with Guinness. I might not follow through on the resolutions that sound so good on paper (ie. really, really trying to get some work as a writer, running a half-marathon, solving world hunger), but I’m pretty sure that if I set the threshold low enough, I can achieve just about anything. In the meantime, I think I might head on down to Patton Alley Pub and grab a pint of the dark stuff in an attempt to silence the jackhammering in my mind.

One night a year, I get to write this letter. It takes all of the usual ingredients of a normal post, alcohol, creative flogging and time spent staring at a wall, to name a few, but the whole process takes on a different meaning tonight. I try and shelve the cynicism. I leave the enemies list tucked into my pocket, ignore the normally-reliable cheap shots, and attempt to focus on this night of nights. I don’t get spiritual in the Christian sense but rather, I try and take the occasion to stroll across fond memories of the Christmases of my youth.

I remember my mom reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to me, the large, dog eared copy of the book the same one her father had read to her. I remember tucking in for a brutal Santa Barbara night, where the temps might hit 50 degrees, our obnoxious family feline, Fat Cat, running her motor on my shoulder until I dropped off into slumber land. I remember scrambling out of that bed to find what I’d been left by the mysterious St. Nick, who was always kind enough to leave me a couple of Clementine oranges in my stocking, along with a candy cane or two.

Christmas was a big deal around our house. My mother decorated like Martha Stewart when Martha Stewart was still running a catering business from her basement. We had the typical parties, punctuated by distant strangers pinching my cheeks while simultaneously blowing cigarette smoke everywhere; the kind of parties where I snuck off to try and make time with the Episcopal priest’s daughter, caring not that she was six years older than me. There was mistletoe….there was a chance. When scorned, I could always turn to listening to my new Beastie Boys tape, using it as a background for the sketches I’d draw of such deep topics as motorcycles and WWII-era bombers.

Before long I was loathing Christmas get-togethers, responding to forced interactions by showing up with a lumberjacks’ beard, a vest and a rebellious streak of alcohol permeating from my pores. There are few things in life as cynical as a teenagers jaded outlook on such urbane topics as “family” and “ugly sweaters”. I wanted out of there, wanted to jump in the ocean, wanted to head back to the hills, wanted to be anywhere but there. I’m sure my stance as an ingrate was noticed, and yet surprisingly I was allowed to continue to attend these functions, scowl in place. That’s the role of family, I guess – to tolerate you even when you’re going through that horrific phase, knowing it all.

Years later, I find myself longing for that embrace of family. They’re all in California, and I’m out here in Missouri where there is approximately a three percent chance of having a white Christmas. I’ve just finished reading the boys “Twas the Night Before Christmas” from a copy of the book from my childhood. We’ve started our own new traditions, including watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” several times, we leave a plate of carrots and cookies out for Santa and The Wife bakes like a woman possessed all day so that I’ll have something nice to take to the firehouse on Christmas Day. We’ll get up at 4:00am so that the kids can tear through their presents before I head out to work. I wish, though, that we were gathering at the familial home on 18th Street in Cayucos, California with family members numbering in the thirties, the teens looking sullen and put out, the kids running around like maniacs with their newly acquired toys, the elders just happy to be in the company of those they love.

When I take out the Clementine orange from my stocking tomorrow morning, I’ll be thinking of that family while forging new traditions with my family here in this house. It helps immensly that on the back of my handmade stocking, sewn so many years ago are my mom’s initials. Some traditions are meant to be kept alive, and I intend to keep it that way.

Merry Christmas, my friends. May your memories be forged in the happiness and joy that comes from those who love you the most.

*The following actually occurred the other day as I was changing in the Y.M.C.A. locker room. I thought it would make for a great short skit because it’s so fantastically nuts. It’s all true, except at the end where I beat the man to death with a shoe; it was just where I wanted to take it.*

Enter men’s locker room. We have a teenage employee who is trying to run a vacuum over the carpeted portions, clearly unamused by this aspect of his job. He is wearing a sweater of some sort that may, or may not, advertise a local Christian-based university. This is unclear.

In front of our intrepid employee sits a patron of the gym. Think Jon Lovitz but with much, much taller hair and about 250 pounds heavier. He is addressing the employee, who we shall call “David”, and in a state of undress. “Goliath”, as we’ll know him, is lecturing him on the evils of Los Angeles and the virtues of spending each moment of your life in praise of Jesus.

Off to the side we find Uli trying to find his lung that he is sure he lost in a cardio class a few minutes earlier. This is the conversation he catches:

Goliath: Yeah, you don’t ever want to go to L.A., man. Nothing but drinking and drugs. It’s all I did before I was saved and spent my whole life in service to Jesus. You know Jesus, right, man?

David: Yeah, I do. We go to church (anxiously gripping the handle of the vacuum. Upset at Goliath’s naked-ness)

Goliath: When were you born, man?

David: Um, 1990.

Goliath: Yeah, I quit the drugs and drinking when you were one year old. 1991. And now not a minute goes by where I don’t serve Jesus. I got out of L.A. at the right time, and Jesus told me to come here. It’s awesome, man. You can’t afford L.A., either. It’s like $400/month for an apartment

Uli: (in his mind) – What are you serving Jesus? Lunch? And since when did an apartment in L.A. cost $400? Are we talking in Watts? Are you just lying?

David: That…….that’s great. I, um, need to get back to work.

Goliath: You need to have a good Bible study at least three times a week. Are you doing this? How many time a week do you have organized Bible study?

David: Uh, we meet, like once or..

Goliath: No, man, you need to meet at least three times a week. You need to be a spiritual warrior, man. I’m telling you, I can tell, you’re a fighter for Christ, just like me. Three times a week, that’s what it takes.

David: Ok. Sure, whatever, man

Uli: (in his mind) C’mon, David, just tell this fat, obnoxious ass that you don’t take Biblical orders from a naked obese lunatic. Do it, David.

Goliath: You don’t study three times a week, in a group, dude, you’ll end up like I was, out in L.A. with the wrong people, doing dumb things. You don’t want to do that. Jesus wants more for you.

David: Yeah, I know, so can I just, uh get to where you are and….. (pointing to the vacuum)

Goliath: Sure, sure, sure. I just want to look out for my brother, man (as he scoots away, tugging up his tighty-whitey style underwear). I just am always happy to talk to people who get it, man. I mean, really get it. Jesus is the only way, and too many people don’t love him enough to announce it, ya know?

Uli: (in his mind) Like, announcing it in the nude in a men’s locker room, you ridiculous jagaloon? Let the man do his work. I can see his uncomfortable shame from here.

David: Well, it’s been really nice talking but I gotta get back to work (leaves the vacuum where it sits and heads out of the locker room)

Goliath: Okay, brother, just know Jesus is there for you. So am I! Don’t go to L.A.! God bless!

We see David just outside the locker room, worrying the corner off of a towel as he contemplates his next move. Should he risk retrieving his abandoned vacuum cleaner? How long does Goliath intend to stay in a state of undress? Should he just quit his job?

Cut back into the locker room where we find Uli beating Goliath to death with a shower slipper, demanding to know where he can find an apartment in the Los Angeles area for $400 a month.

Fade To Black.

Every year, around this time of year, pundits ’round the world remind us to be thankful of the simple things in our lives. That’s great. It soothes the guilt of conspicuous consumption and makes us feel a little holier-than-ourselves for at least a week or two. So I’m thinking of writing something that has no connection whatsoever to such profound emotion; I thought I’d fire off a list of five things I’m asking Santa for this Christmas, and they’re in no particular order.

1. The Ability to Choke Pat Sajak From Long Distances. I find him condescending and arrogant, and for some reason I’d love to be able to make the sign and ol’ Pat would start clutching his throat, no matter where he was in the world. That sort of power would make me very, very happy, and I’m not sure why.
2. A Fully Funded Gulfstream V Aircraft. That’s right….I said fully funded. It’s no miracle in and of itself to be able to wiggle through the financing process of jet ownership; it’s the maintenance, operating costs and other assorted minutiae that would make owning such a fine bird a bummer. It does me no good to have one parked in my shop if I can’t afford to fly up Minnesota for gelled fish eyeballs at a moment’s notice.
3. An Hour With Those In Life Who’ve Wronged Me, Ever. If my mortal enemies, nemesis’s (nemesii?), and sworn foe cannot be reasoned with in an hour, it will probably never happen. So, in the spirit of the season, I’d like to spend an hour with each of them to try and see through our differences. That, or inflict great bodily harm. This should take approximately three years, by my calculations.
4. The Motorcycle. We’ve talked about this in several posts. The Wife won’t ever let me get one, but I doubt she could deny you, Santa. So get on it fat man, let’s make this happen. Speaking of which………
5. My Metabolism, Circa 1991. Today, I ate chili and am, literally, chewing on Tums as I write this post. I gained three pounds from the Tums alone. I long for the days when I could order every single thing from a Taco Bell without irony. Essentially, this must be how Alec Baldwin feels. I was watching him in “The Hunt For Red October” and then later that week on “30 Rock”, and instead of laughing at his comedic presence, I was empathizing with what is no doubt his crippling sense of self-loathing. No wonder he screamed at his daughter. He probably couldn’t fit into his pants that morning. Right there with you, Alec.

This is the time of year when, as it gets cold and icy, residents of this fair city begin to utilize emergency services on a more frequent basis. Old people slip and fall. Methamphetamine cooks move their labs indoors to get out of the elements, then proceed to catch the house on fire during their forays into illegal chemistry. If you are one of the folks that decides to dial 911 for an emergency, I thought I might offer you a primer. The following is a list you may want to consult before you make that call.

DONT’S

• If you are going to take the time to report a house fire from your cell phone as you’re driving down the road, don’t be be the drive-by caller who then disappears. Show some intestinal fortitude. When we show up at 2 am ready to work only to find out you’ve called in an extravagant Christmas light display as a fire, I want to put a face to it. And then I want to laugh at/choke you, just a little.
• When you have not had a bowel movement in three days, please don’t wait until 3:15 am until calling 911. I’m sure it was hurting in the middle of the day, and really? There’s not a whole lot the fire department can do for your situation. Know when to go. Like, after the first two days.
• In the same vein, don’t chance a trip to the toilet if you’re over 600 lbs. and no one else is in the house. Chances are you’ll get stuck, and while we’re happy to serve, I hate to think of you all alone there, wedged between a wall and the stool for hours until discovered by your landlady.
• Please don’t get all indignant if I’ve been to your house several times for the smell of smoke and ask you if you’ve been cooking again. I’m not insulting your cooking skills, I’m insulting your ignorance. Know the difference.
• Don’t ask for a light for your smoke after you’ve called us for “shortness of breath” while hooked up to oxygen. The answer will always and forever be no.
• If you threaten your Old Lady with burning her house down, don’t act all surprised when you’re arrested for the actual act. Consequences, my friend.
• When we’re arriving at a working house fire, don’t wave your arms in the street like a raving lunatic, shouting and acting as though you’re having a seizure. I got it. I’m going to the house that has flames coming out of it. That’s where I’m going.
• Don’t use your charcoal-fired grill as a means of heating your home. Bonfires on the living room floor rarely work out, either.
• If you or a relative calls us because you’re jacked up on meth, or drunk, or both…..don’t get all huffy when I ask if you’re speeding. Save that one for the cops. It’s not like you called just to spend time with me, so let’s just dispense with the niceties. Stop bullshitting everyone in the room – there really aren’t bugs crawling all over your eyeballs, you’re just high.

Do’s

• Do keep the battery in your smoke detector. It sounds pretty bad when you tell us, as smoke and flames are rolling out of your house, that you took the battery out because “it kept beeping and shit when I’m watching my COPS”.
• You do need to know that if I find your kid covered in fleas when we respond to your house, I’ll be calling the Division of Family Services immediately upon my return to the station. This will be after I’ve asked you about the flea bites and your response is “I dunno. Must be the chicken poxes or somethin’ “
• If you decide to give birth in a liquor store, you do need to understand that this will become a piece of fire station lore and gossip. And you do need to know we’ll be describing it in vivid detail.
• As well, if we find you tied up in some sort of kinky bondage play gone wrong, we’ll respect your privacy and never murmur a word of the details outside of the firehouse. But that sort of story?  You do know that it becomes currency like gold around the station dining table, right?
• Do put on clothes, if at all possible. And no, belly-baring tank tops were most likely not designed with you in mind.
• If you own a vicious, baby-killing pit bull, please do tell us about it before we go into whatever section of your “house” you keep it chained up in. I don’t care how sweet you think the dog is; it hates us and the feeling is mutual.
• Do carefully consider your weapons of choice when you embark on a mission of revenge. Two baseball bats? Okay, that’s reasonable. Two weedeaters? That’s just funny, and apparently hurts like hell.
• When we enter your domicile, do give consideration to the fact that I’m not a total idiot. When you say “sorry, I was just fixin’ to clean up” and I see years of cat shit and trash accumulated on the floor, you’re merely insulting my keen sense of observation. Besides, you called us for emergency response. We expect to see you at your worst, so just let it be. But clean the cat box, will ya?
• When you call 911 and we arrive to find your house engulfed in flames and there is one of the No New Taxes signs planted in your yard (*note – that sales tax was to fund your fire dept.*), know that we do, indeed, appreciate the irony. I hope you do too, you turdblossom.

I returned from the trip to California with a fresh lease on inspiration. Spending time with creative people has an infectious quality, and I felt a surge of wicked energy surging through my body as I arrived home. I later realized that that surge was just my crappy knee acting up after sitting on an airplane for several hours, but that’s neither here nor there. When observing The Author’s enclosed work-building I like to call the Kiosk of Chaos, when I saw him interact with writers and watched the exchange of ideas being bandied about, it made the whole concept of writing seem less solitary than it feels at times. As someone who thrives in social settings, I find it maddening that in order to come up with halfway funny essays, I essentially need to be alone. I’ll roll out to the shop, start about three different carpentry or welding projects and bounce some ideas off the cats, but mostly they just stare back and look as though the only thing keeping them from murdering me is a lack of opposable thumbs. They really are no help at all.

I come back into the office and think some more about what you and I might find humorous. I’ll waste time on Facebook. I’ll make the bed and another pot of coffee. All of these are solitary pursuits, despite the tank filled with disgusting mutant fish that sits next to my desk. So, in a nutshell, yeah, it was great to be able to go out of town and watch these folks in motion. I came home all spun up to write, and then, as I crossed the threshold into my office it hit me.

I could totally qualify for the show “Hoarders”.

This show, on A&E, examines the lives of compulsive hoarders and their disgusting environs, usually filled with all manners of detritus and pet waste. There are no pets in our house at the current time (save for the nuclear-blast-survivor-looking fish) and there is no human waste of which to speak in the office, so I’ve got that going for me. What on earth I need all those cardboard boxes for is a mystery (kindling for the shop stove). A knee brace (in case it hurts), old telephone books (good for target practice), a childs’ guitar (for when the mood strikes them as I’m playing), back issues of Classic Trains and Esquire (weird tastes, yes) and a half-full flask from a recent wedding all catch my eye as I enter. The Wife won’t even come in without good cause, and I don’t blame her. Maybe this is a subconscious way of keeping out intruders; they’ll be so baffled by the chaos, they’ll choose to loot other places in my home. Plus, they probably have all the cardboard boxes they could possibly use.

My sense of shame is usually defeated by laziness, though; I wait until I begin to step over things to get in here before I declare it a disaster scene, thereby qualifying for federal aid. I have yet to hear from the government as to their helping me in the cleaning up the disaster scene, and thus the cycle continues and next thing you know there’s an empty cough drop bag taking up residence on the floor, not three feet from a trash bin. When the disaster scene relief team (in the form of the National Guard) fails, again, to make an appearance, I briefly consider lighter fluid and a match as a means of office renewal. I could get over the loss of the mutant fish, but I don’t know if I could ever replace the apparently priceless hose clamp that’s decided to live on my desk for the past three months. It’s become a part of the family.

SORT of looks like Aunt Viper

The last couple of days spent on this trip went by in a seeming blur, no doubt influenced by a desire to return to the barn and seasoned with liberal amounts of imbibing. My visits with The Author and RoJo’s family were complimented by an unexpected visit to Aunt Viper. Aunt Viper is The Lyin’ Dutchman’s sister, and, much to her chagrin, she was given the moniker by none other than her own brother, my father. I believe the sentence went something like this: “I tell you what, Ool, that woman is a goddamn viper.” This is the way the crazy wing of the family relates to one another.

Aunt Viper and I haven’t spoken in nearly nine months, ever since The Lyin’ Dutchman’s latest flight into lunacy involved blaming my brothers and I for the implosion of his marriage. When told of such accusations, Aunt Viper had a classic response: “THIS IS WHAT WE DO! We hurt the ones we love when we hurt!” In my book, that’s called ridiculous and I told her as much. There was much yelling involved, and Aunt Viper ended the argument in her typical fashion; she told me to have no further contact with her ever again, seeing as how she now considered me dead to her. This was followed by a ritual slamming down of the phone from her end. Totally standard operating procedure.

I dropped in on her at her office and her first words when she saw me were “Well, well, well……look who’s back.” This was followed by several clucks and a small hug;  then, as she patted me these words of endearment came spilling from her mouth… “Christ, Ool, you’re getting fat.” Sigh. She then led me by the ear as I’d refused to got get some lunch “on her tab” across the street and marched me into a deli where she promptly demanded that a tri-tip sandwich be made. She is of the school that if someone doesn’t understand her thick-as-mud accent, then she should just shout her demands; her favorite target of such tirades is anyone of Mexican decent. No one raises her hackles so completely like the Latinos – she just can’t hate them enough. As I ate half of a sandwich, I asked her if she and her office-mates ate the same thing when they came here. She told me, no, they do not, because it’s too fattening. “Perfect for you, though, Ool. Tell me, are you curling your hair now? What the hell are you doing with your hair?” I informed her that no, this fat boy was indeed, NOT, curling his hair. She dismissed this as an outright lie and intimated that maybe her suspicions about my sexuality were more accurate than I’d care to admit. Despite my having a lovely wife, kids and a propensity for the opposite sex, Aunt Viper thinks most men are nothing more than closeted homosexuals. My opinion is that this is a line of defense she employs when people get too nosy about her spinster status. I tell her as much and she informs me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, as usual. Family.

I arrived this morning at o’dark thirty at LAX to head home (Thanks to RoJo and Amy for their hospitality!) and was greeted by the most hostile ticket agent in the L.A. Basin. When I came up to her counter and said “Good morning, how are ya?”, she just stared at me and slowly picked up the p.a. loudspeaker, angrily announcing “Ladies and gentlemen, when you come up to the ticket counter, you must have your I.D. ready, this will make the process go much more smoothly.” Turns out my I.D. was in my other hand, but I was too busy trying to be all friendly for her liking. I then slapped the plastic card on her counter and made some remark about how some folks just aren’t morning people. She responded by seating me at the back of the plane near a toilet. Score one for the asshole airline employee.

I then met the same customer service etiquette when dealing with the T.S.A. of L.A. They don’t want to be told “Hello!” They want I.D. and they want nothing more. In an ironic twist, there was someone sitting in my seat, and when we compared boarding passes, we were both assigned seat 31D. This counter agent was nothing, if not relentless. I then noticed the guy occupying my seat had, as his name on the pass, my exact name. It then occurred to me that perhaps my sadistic counter agent fell a little in love with me, and was surly as a response to her magnetic attraction to me. She couldn’t get me off her mind, so she kept typing Ulrich Gulje on her computer and assigning groups of people to sit on my lap. I could see that our relationship was going to be tumultuous from the start. In other words, a typical Los Angeles love affair, where mutual hatred was the primary attraction. Score one for the hopeless romantic.

As the plane descended from its cruising altitude and we dipped below the cloud line, I recognized the December hinterlands of the Ozarks coming into view. If California is, in the words of my Rogersville neighbor “the land of fruits and nuts”, then Missouri is the section of the freezer that is in desperate need of a defrosting. People are iced over, there’s no snow to speak of, and there’s a pretty good chance there’s freezer burn on our asses.

The family unit was waiting at the curb, both Heathens eager to tell on one another and pretend they missed me. The Wife seemed glad to see me, and in that moment, I knew that I’d have to end my dangerous relationship with the ticket agent. I don’t think she’d fit in too well here in the freezer section.

Two firsts for me on this trip home:

1.) I rode a scooter all around town. I felt supremely emasculated on the thing, but I’m not so ashamed that I’d deny how fun it was. Even in the rain.

2.) I took said scooter up into hills of Santa Barbara and went to my childhood home site, the home having been a victim of the Jesusita Fire earlier this spring. (Picture on the right was taken near our old place)

I was interested in seeing what the effect was of seeing my own home site as nothing more than an empty lot. Having been in the fire service for more than a decade, I wondered even if it could jack me up, or would it just be another former home? I did a couple loops around the old hood, tracing old trails to and from our house. When the scooter finally wheezed it up the last hill to the house, it was a curious and new emotion. I wasn’t distraught or “left with a hole in my soul” or any such silliness. It had been almost twenty years since I’d last set foot on the property, since the subsequent owners of the place liked their privacy enforced by a gate. And like a slide show, different scenarios from my childhood played out over the old foundation. It seemed so much smaller, the entire property, not to mention the footprint of the actual house. In my memory the place was huge, a fortress on a hill, a fortress with lots of wood floors and encapsulated in Lincoln Towncar-sized windows. Now the size of the driveway was no more remarkable than the size of the mailbox: spectacularly average. The Christmas tree we planted in the early 80′s was one of a few left on the property, and while I smiled at the memory, I felt no urge to throw my arms around it and weep like a distraught lunatic.

Most of the property was wandered with filling in memories that I’d stored away, which is a better alternative than to be morose over the ghost of a house. Something then caught my eye as I was mentally recreating my former bathroom’s location. I stood up from where I’d been squatting (what the hell? I don’t remember the imaginary toilet facing east. Weird) and saw the faint red outlines of string lines for setting up the stud-walls where mom’s old closet was. Since I knew my stepdad had built the additions to the home, I knew they had to be the actual lines set up by the man who’d raised me. And despite the passage of all the time, the hideous outdoor landscaping undertaken by subsequent owners and eventual firestorm destruction, there was the hallmark of a master craftsman that had endured it all. I still have a good relationship with my step father and can talk to him whenever the mood strikes, but nothing on the lot spoke to me like the hidden traces of a carpenters’ marks, precise and perfect in his signature work ethic. It was a familiar face and made me smile.

I hope the next people who choose to build on the site have it done by such a carpenter. It made for a solid childhood home, even if not exactly fire proof.

And then there was Los Angeles. Traditionally, I hate Los Angeles. I was raised to notice that the City of Angels has a bit of an issue when it comes to smog, crowds, traffic and a certain preponderance of assholes. L.A. is home to gang violence and pretentious boobs. Nothing good, save The Dodgers and Gwen Stefani, can come of such a hell hole of a town and in all the years of my youth, L.A. was to be avoided like the plague.

Fast forward twenty years and I’m riding in a Honda Element to Century City so that my friend, The Author, can make his latest pitch to the bigwigs; he and a partner have a concept for a television series. He’s got an appointment with the chain of command and I’ve been invited as a means of distraction on the drive from Santa Barbara. I’m more than happy to oblige. We cruise the 101 Southbound as he reveals the gist of his series, me trying to piece together all myriad factors, feeling rather the idiot.

When we get to the location where The Author is to meet his partner, they convene and promptly abandon me in a mall food court. Back in Springfield, Mo., I would find this to be a rather enjoyable experience – a couple of Buffalo wings later and I would spend the balance of time passing judgment on shoppers. But here, the options from the food court all came on actual china, with real silverware (not plastic, not sporks) and people treated the whole scene as though it were an official meal. I’m used to listening to kids screaming about their corn dogs’ deficiencies, not watching people dressed in nice clothes sipping on overpriced ramen noodles.  There is a gaggle of moms at a cluster of tables near me, and I pass the time listening to them declare the discovery of websites as though they were engaged in recreational atom splitting ~ “YES!! Diapers.com……I JUST found it the other day, and dahlings, I don’t know HOW I made without them to this point”. I choked on a noodle.

Before I got the opportunity to eavesdrop on the real housewives of Hollywood, though, I was struck by an overwhelming sentiment. I am a nasty, fat pud of an individual. While I may feel in relatively decent shape in good ol’ Missouri, within three minutes you feel like a Biggest Loser contestant in Los Angeles. And, truly, it sucks. The only way to combat said feelings of massive crappiness is to drink copious amounts of cocktails; if there’s a better booster of self-image, I’ve yet to discover it.

Maybe one hundred hours pass (or, more likely, two), and I’m out of my mind with people watching. What is The Author doing? How is his pitch going? Why did he insist on me waiting in a food court? I’m starting to put the pieces together when he shows up outside a book store and demands that we “drive around” until we get to a friends house. This statement has all the loose parameters of a poorly executed drive-by shooting. We end up at a friends’ house, a very nice guy who is in “the business”, and I am instantly enthralled. How does one get into “the business”? Is there a rite of passage akin to getting jumped into a gang? Yes, well, it turns out there is, and it involves the sale of your soul and dignity. I immediately want to sign up for this treatment.

The night rolls on and finds us in a bar called “The Red Rock” on the Sunset Strip, where we are joined by more people who work in the entertainment industry. I come to several brilliant conclusions, but unfortunately shots are being purchased in my name, with the caveat “here’s to the rube from the nether regions of The Ozarks”. I confidently accept these accolades and partake to the point that I’m rendered incapable of detail revelation. Suffice it to say that I sweepingly make several declarations that are met with rounds of drunken acknowledgment, followed up by their stories of illicit drug use and women of ill repute. I’m in awe.

Hours later, there are no illegal mind altering substances being snorted off of prostitutes’ thighs, and I loudly demand a refund. I am now a resident of the “Show-Me-State” and I demand proof. This leads to more accusations of moral turpitude, culminating in a manly declaration of love while overpriced drinks are being sloshed about the table. Hours later, I think on the conversation I engaged in, making sure that the behavior doesn’t mandate an apology letter – despite reprehensible behavior, one must not neglect the niceties.

A day later I find myself on I-5, heading to Bakersfield to pay a visit to my grandparents, mindful of the bi-polar actions of raging in Los Angeles one day and practicing your best manners in the central valley the next. I wish I could tell my grandparents of the crazy behavior in L.A., but most likely they would take that information and use it to catagorize me as the grandson “with issues”. I cannot have that. I maintain my best behavior, and as I’m sitting there peacefully devouring a patty melt from a roadside greasy spoon, I look over at my sweet and aging grandparents and feel a fulfilling sense of belonging. Apparently, they don’t seem to mind the company of a rube from the Ozarks.