Paco's Wasting Your Time: Musings of the Mediocre

Failure: A Classic Tale of Romance

2007-04-10T08:11:00.000-04:00

At a very young age, I determined that I wanted to become a seducer of women. Eight year old Paco, chubby and sporting awkwardly thick glasses, was convinced that some day, he’d be the dapper, suave sophisticate who dated fancy women in opera gloves who used words like “delightful.” I planned it all out while the other, less charming, kids were out playing kickball, socializing and engaging in other such non-debonair things.

Those plans—which were often scribbled in colored pencil (you know, for emphasis… charming adults emphasized things, after all)—had me looking like Cary Grant wearing only the highest fashion in my swanky big-city apartment overlooking whatever was most fashionable to overlook. I’d send for my car to collect one of my many elegant lady companions; when she arrived, I’d make them wait at the door until I saw it fit to smoothly answer. The door would open just quickly enough to indicate that I wasn’t all so eager and I’d deliver an insincere “Sorry, I kept you waiting” with a smirk that said “whatever it is I was just doing was desperately fascinating; you’re lucky I answered when I did.” She’d undoubtedly forgive me using the word “darling” as I took her coat.

After a few minutes of terribly witty small talk, I’d escort her to my dining room and say with feigned humility “I must warn you; I’m not much of a cook.”

And she’d say, deliberately and without employing contractions, “Come now, darling. I am sure it will be wonderful.” Then I’d wow her with seven (or so) courses more tempting than an apple in Eden.

I know what you’re thinking. And, yes, I did have my act together as an eight year old. Only, I ran into a minor problem at this point in the plan because there wasn’t a colored pencil for what, exactly, adults did after the charming man makes the elegant woman dinner. The movies I’d seen did, however, suggest that it ended in a bed with cigarettes.

Whatever it was, I wanted it!

I’ve matured some since. I am no longer chubby, but held on to the glasses. I have the swanky downtown loft, although it doesn’t overlook anything. I religiously read male fashion magazines so that, if I can’t afford to keep up, at least I know what keeping up looks like. I even started smoking… because even the most beautiful line of prose looks clumsy without a period.

The key, I thought, was in that dinner. So over the years, I’d taught myself to cook through whatever means were available. It started, of course, with eggs, macaroni and the other things children should be capable of doing and eventually progressed to trickier meat dishes, all the while focused predominantly on presentation. Surely a basic understanding of preparation and flavor would develop over time, but a sexy looking meal was important to master immediately.

I came to discover that living on my own presented a number of challenges. I’d only ever cooked in the kitchens of families who had collected utensils over decades and knew which spices did what. Buying pots, pans, spatulas and the like became prohibitively intimidating because I didn’t want to get the kid set. I was an adult now and I didn’t want opera-glove-clad ladies scoffing at my Batman themed kitchen ensemble. Plus, I felt obligated to obtain all of the necessary accoutrements at once; I didn’t want to be stuck mid-recipe only to discover that not only did I not own a paring knife, but I had no clue what a paring knife did. What if something needed to be whisked? I’d look like an amateur using a salad fork.

Six-hundred dollars later, I was a bona fide chef. Nothing was safe from a mean braising or julienning. No detail was overlooked; I even acquired an apron. Girls would know I meant business if I looked as though my cooking was so serious that I hadn’t the time to worry over errant specks of pan sauce.

Or something. The point was I looked cool.

Everything was falling into place. I only needed a little more practice with some of the sexier dishes before I unleashed my charm and mysteriousness onto unsuspecting women. Sure, it would be expensive cooking sexy dishes just for myself; sure, I could make a lobster bisque and could do the flippy thing with the pan to show off my chefly prowess… but casseroles? What the hell goes in a casserole? Practical things that average Americans eat virtually every day eluded me. Moreover, I’d focused so much on the presentation and what can only be called flare-skills that almost everything I made was over or undercooked and fell far from conventional standards of tasty.

No worries; when all else fails, I thought, I’ll learn how to cook the same way I learned virtually everything else… television and the internet will make me suave. Hours upon hours were invested in the Food Network and associated online recipes. It didn’t take long before I realized a number of things. While Emeril Lagasse is very likely good at what he does, he has dozens of people in his employ who work exclusively to ensure that everything looks easy. Yes, Rachel Ray, it does take YOU 30 minutes, but what about those of us with bottom-of-the-line electric ranges and haven’t the slightest idea how to “infuse” something?

Huh, Rachel Ray, huh?

Another thing TV chefs don’t tell you is the ingredients they use are only available to TV chefs and wizards. I’ve actually convinced myself—Ralph’s and Albertson’s have confirmed—some of the herbs and particularly obscure cheeses were invented to ensure that your final product is never as awesome as Food Network’s. Gruyere? Zatar? Fiddlehead Fern? It never occurred to me that grilled cheese sandwiches could become more mature and complex than me.

I just want to impress girls, Bobby Flay, not place a curse on my neighbor's house.

Somehow, ingredients I think are imaginary aren’t nearly as troublesome as ingredients that actually exist in my local supermarket. Now I was forced to make decisions that were sure to make or abysmally break my chances at being that devilishly charming host. Once in the super market, it wasn’t just a salad anymore; the roughage riddle would determine the course of the evening. If I were to make the rookie move of choosing arugula instead of watercress (the colorful signs above certainly aren’t any help), then I’d be dead in the water before she even got to the main course.

Why, oh why, did cows have to be so damned large and plentiful? I’m just looking for a package that says “steak,” but there seems to be 3,500 parts to a cow. Chickens, they’re easy! Chickens are the only animal alive to have only three body parts: breasts, wings and thighs. If only she hadn’t specifically said she loved steak, I’d happily go with chicken. You can’t mess up chicken. When God created Adam, he said (boomingly, I’m sure), “Now, before I get around to the girl… I give you chicken. I’ve designed the chicken so that even you, young Adam, can’t mess it up.” Then came Eve, then came buckets.

My panic must have been noticeable; the butcher asked if he could help me.

“Is there like a beef… breast?” I asked after a couple of breaths.

He laid down whatever carcass he had in his hands and came up to the massive, refrigerated trough of beef. “Well,” he didn’t make eye contact so much, it was more like he looked into my soul, “I guess you could go with a flank or skirt.” The little he had managed to calm me with his ruse of genuine help fled my body. I cursed my parents for not teaching me the words in English that translated to flank or skirt. In fact, the only thing they’d taught me that would have even slightly helped only translated to “meat.”

And it would have seemed damn silly if I’d asked the butcher if he had any meat.

Sigh. “Fuck it. I’ll take the chicken.”

The young lady that was to come over fell slightly short of the Audrey Hepburn archetype I’d established with colored pencil. She was pretty by any standard and carried herself well publicly; despite not owning opera gloves, the girl was charming. I’d invited her to dinner at my place, adding a smooth, albeit thoughtless, “I hope you like steak.”

I started preparing the second I got home from work, hours before she was expected. All the vegetables were organized into neat, artful little stacks, dinnerware was inspected for lint or other impurities and I studied the online recipes as if they were scripture and Jesus was coming. Candles were carefully Fung Shui’d with the table settings. Music was even coordinated to both adequately accompany the courses and to grow increasingly suggestive; I even bought the most obscure jazz CD I could find and researched the musician so, had she asked, I could say, “Really? You never heard of him? I’ve loved his music for years!”

Although it had been years since I’d seen my childhood blueprint, I was confident I was representing it well.

Cigarettes were placed in my bedside drawer.

My lady-friend was to arrive at eight o’clock, so I determined that starting only slightly early would serve the dual purpose of disguising the hours of preparation and allowing her to see me in all of my cooking awesomeness. The first knob turned at 7:50. Water started boiling for the jasmine rice and a medley of vegetables hit the sauté pan. I left the fresh rosemary ready so she could see me in a skillful, yet effortless chopping fury.

At 8:20, the jasmine rice was sticking to the pot and the vegetables were limp. I needed those vegetables crisp and virile; surely a girl wouldn’t be inspired by a guy with limp vegetables. Calling her would only give away my desperation, I thought, I’ll just start over. She arrived just in time to miss me disposing of the dress rehearsal. After a devilishly cool kiss-hello, I took her jacket and said, “I was so very concerned I wouldn’t make it in time; I got stuck at happy hour with some friends and lost track of time. Your timing is exceptional.”

We made small talk over rosemary chopping. I invented a happy hour story while jasmine rice boiled. The reserves hit the sauté pan as she explained being held up at work. “I apologize we’re settling for simple,” I said as vegetables flew through the air in an immaculately executed chef-flip, “I’m not much of a cook.” I seasoned the chicken breasts with rosemary and lemon juice and they sizzled loudly on the pan. Steak would have made me look too eager; pan-seared chicken, on the other hand, may as well have been a bed sprinkled with rose petals.

“No one’s ever made me dinner before,” she said. “Everything smells just… delightful.” I was in. Years and years of planning would finally pay off. Sean Connery in his prime couldn’t have been smoother than I was at that very moment. The chicken browned beautifully and I served it with an aesthetic mastery that Rembrandt would have envied. We ate and she raved. Apparently, it didn’t matter that the rice tasted like salt and the large pieces of eggplant were cold in the middle.

Or maybe it did, because she claimed to be full after finishing the chicken.

In any event, the coup de grace would be the dessert. No one alive can mess up Bananas Foster; bananas, brown sugar, butter and rum over the priciest vanilla ice cream Trader Joe’s offered. Nina Simone came on as the first ingredients hit the pan. Bravo, Paco. Bravo.

The beauty of making Bananas Foster is that it takes maybe five minutes and you get a flash from the combusting rum. However, one of the many downsides to having an electric range is that the flash seems overly contrived when you have to pull out a lighter. Notwithstanding, I made it a point to ensure she was looking at me and I was looking away from the pan when pyrotechnics went off. I saw the reflection of the huge flame in her eyes.

After desert, we sat in what I would have called my parlor (if it hadn’t been attached to my dining room and my kitchen and virtually everything else in my tiny loft) and talked of clever things. We drank wine procured from behind the fancy bar I’d purchased with the intent of seeming sophisticated and chatted and chatted.

Two hours had passed since she arrived and we hadn’t been smoking my bedside cigarettes yet. Something was wrong. “Well,” the wine had influenced my confidence, “it’s been a fine evening.” I was Cary Grant. I was Peter Lankford. I WAS Frank Sinatra.

Only I wasn’t and she interpreted that as “Well,” sadly, “and a good evening to you.”

“Yeah, I guess I better get going. I have to be at work early.”

I could see the eight year old Paco burning his colored pencil plans with the Bananas Foster flame while saying, “Nevermind, I’ll just grow up to be a huge loser.”

How could I beg her to stay? Sinatra never begged anyone to do anything. So, “Thanks. Goodnight,” it was.

She probably hadn’t gotten to her car before I’d taken off my shirt and smoked that cigarette in my bed… by myself.

She was charming enough to skirt around the subject a few days later when she called.

Dear Rachel Ray,

You should have made clearer the importance of placing pan-seared chicken in the oven for ten minutes before serving. Your lack of emphasis prevented me from achieving childhood dreams of being suave and effectively gave my date and me food poisoning.

Thanks for nothing,
Paco

That’s all.

They’re Not So Bad After All

2007-01-21T03:14:00.000-05:00

It isn’t enough for me to say that I like gays. I like sleeping on couches; I like writing inappropriate comments on the memo line of personal checks; I like drinking the remains of my cereal milk directly and noisily from the bowl rather than tortuously spooning it out. I’m not quite sure if my fondness for gays is liquor on the same shelf as watching pets and children run into sliding glass doors (unless, of course, if it is simultaneously).

No, I love gays.

Typical Disclaimer from a Heterosexual Man:
I don’t love gays, you know, like that.

Specifically, homosexual men. No offense is meant towards lesbians; lesbians are okay, I suppose, but I don’t love them in the same way because their capacity for outrageousness is somewhat limited. As broad a generalization as it may be, lesbians seem to be either the lusty sorority sisters (who visit my dreams on occasion) or the beefy UPS driver or arm-wrestling champion (who, oddly, also visit my dreams on occasion). I don’t think I’m alone on this one; aside from the random porn enthusiast and other lesbians, no one really cheers for the lesbian floats in the parade. They just don’t have the pizzazz.

The gays, however, everybody cheers for the gays. Simply put, their floats are funnier.

Random Interjection from a Fictional (perhaps gay) Reader:
Gay and Lesbian pride parades are not for you to point and laugh. Moreover, your reduction of a celebration of gay culture to simply “funny” is both insulting and close-minded.

Editorial Response:
Scantily clad, grown men dancing (sometimes with headdresses) to Donna Summer (sometimes on stilts) and large, hairy men wearing assorted leather garments and spiked dog collars are funny.

The fact that gays are the only minorities that actively represents every stereotype in their own parades is not only funny, but damn commendable. Imagine if the floats in the Asian pride parade were efficient, but driven poorly and all looked exactly alike. There were no floats in the Black pride parade, only lots of singing and demonstrations of athletic prowess (all of which, in any event, were heavily bejeweled). All the floats, marching bands and cars in the Latino pride parade had to jump a fence in the middle of the parade route. I ask you, how am I not supposed to giggle a little when “Miss Gay Pride 2006” was a bare-chested man with chiseled abs? I didn’t crown him.

I guess I should specify even further to the outrageous gays. I love the Carson Kressleys of the world that snappishly tell us we look—or in many cases do not look—fabulous and often refer to themselves by the gender-specific nouns usually reserved for, uh, “real” girls. They seem only to feel in terms of love or hate, as in “I love that handbag” or “I hate those shoes,” having lost the capacity for moderate or lukewarm terms. Yes, the lispy gays. I love the gays that other gays seem to hate (or mostly dislike, if they’re not hypocrites).

Regular, less outrageous gay men fall in line with lesbians as far as I’m concerned. I’m more or less indifferent toward them in the same way I’m indifferent to other motorists on the highway; I acknowledge they’re there, but really don’t care where they’re going. The few gay friends I have are mostly in this category, despite my regular encouragement for them to jazz it up a bit.

While I wouldn’t say that I grew up entirely homophobic—nor would I say I’m comprehensively comfortable now—I didn’t develop an appreciation for those some call “queens” until some friends invited me to karaoke at a gay bar near my hometown. Despite having grown up in Southern California and being generally open-minded, I’d never had much interaction with gays or lesbians. Never one to turn down karaoke, I thought this would give me an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: I could determine if I was as open-minded as I thought I was around gay people and I could finally test if my version of Aha’s “Take on Me” was as good in public as it had always been in my head.

Once inside the mostly empty bar, I went through the (now ridiculous) process of looking at the people I passed saying, to myself, That guy likes other guys and I’m perfectly okay with that. With each of these reassurances and the comfort of vodka, I eventually focused more on enjoying myself and less on convincing myself that I was progressive and mature enough to mingle with homosexuals without saying “Ew, gross.”

The master of ceremonies for the evening was a gentleman whose description will require your patience. He was a middle-aged, white guy wearing an egregiously tacky Aloha shirt (ala Don Johnson), white shorts exposing much of his leg and loafers sans socks. It struck me as odd that, with such an ensemble, a snappy gay guy would opt to sport an ascot. As we passed him on our way to the patio, his ascot revealed itself to be a luxuriously full tuft of chest hair (I was wrong to question his accessorizing ability; needless to say, I was full of chagrin).

“We want to welcome you tonight,” announced South Park’s Big Gay Al incarnate, “to the hottest karaoke this side of the Rio Grande. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, look at all these beautiful boys parading in front of me! It’s like I died and went to West Hollywood.”

It was then that I regretted a series of decisions. Firstly, I’d worn a vintage camelhair blazer, predominantly to avoid criticism from judgey gays. Secondly, I’d ordered an Apple-tini, which—although intensely delicious—I would never order in public for fear of girls thinking I was gay (but, when in Rome…). Finally, I was the last beautiful boy in the parade. Any cheetah will tell you: always attack the last zebra in the group.

“Well, well, what have we here? You there. In the jacket. You. Are. Fabulous!”

I froze as if I’d been accused of stealing something. I felt trapped; my “friends” continued walking and left me there to fend for myself, awkward and afraid.

“Uhhh, thanks.” Please let me keep walking, Mr. Gay Man, I promise I’ll keep quietly to myself, my face must have screamed. He reached over and killed the music. Some part of me expected a lot of growling and a small, gay head to come out of his mouth and kill me… you know, fabulously.

“You’re straight, aren’t you?”

For the very first time in my life—and the only time since—I apologized for being heterosexual.

“Well,” he sighed disappointedly,”you’re no fun! Fabulous, but no fun at all.”

Somehow, I’d regained control of my legs and they led me to my group at the back patio. The patio was for smokers and had only a few tables and benches. There was a bouncer in the corner checking the ID’s of the gays coming in from the parking lot behind the bar. I squeezed in between a couple girls in our group on a bench and hid behind a curtain of cigarette smoke. A few minutes would pass before I was finally comfortable and talking to gays and straights alike.

I somehow got into a conversation with a guy in his mid-twenties about literature. I was an English major and he was in an American literature master’s program. He wasn’t effeminate, wasn’t dressed particularly well and didn’t have highlights in his hair or any of the other stereotypically gay features. Still, I assumed he was gay and was perfectly okay with it because we were talking about straight things, like books.

I understand that sounds horrible and ignorant, but I mean as opposed to discussing window treatments, red carpet fashion and Gucci handbags.

He didn’t compliment me on anything, ask about my personal life or make any physical contact. We were just two guys talking shop. He did most of the talking and often made excited gesticulations while describing plots, characters and authors. The beer ran out for both of us, so he offered to make the first bar run. You know, I thought, these gays seem like nice people. Of course, to be fair, that thought runs through my head most times strangers buy me drinks.

“So… pretty good conversation, huh?” asked the gay guy in my group that I’d met that night (and, it turned out, the reason we were at gay karaoke).

“Yeah. Interesting enough guy, I suppose. Knows a lot about books.”

“Good, good. Glad your meeting people. I just wanted to make sure you knew he was totally hitting on you.”

“No, he wasn’t. We were just talking about…”

“Where is he now?”

“Well, we just ran out of beer and he… he… uh…”

More disappointing than realizing he was right was realizing that he was hitting on me the same way I usually hit on girls. Even more disappointing was how generally pathetic I must have seemed to the girls I’d spoken to in bars about my favorite writers or European cathedrals or Impressionist painters. This explained much.

When my suitor returned with beers, I took a heavy gulp while I thinking of how best to break away. I opted to do what I’d seen so many girls do before: “Well, man, it was good talking to you. Take it easy,” (the only difference being that I felt obligated to pay for my drink). I tossed a five spot on the table before I fell back into the spot between the two girls.

A few drinks later, I finally found the courage for a rematch with the M.C. As I took up my song request, he was introducing the bar staff. “Tonight we have Jonathan checking your ID’s out front. God only knows, if Michael Jackson’s taught us anything, it’s not to mix our liquor with our little boys. Thank you, Jonathan. Michelle, our bartender… where are you, sweetie? Oh, there she is. She’s making all of your fabulous drinks. Remember to treat her nicely. And last, but certainly not least, we have Danny… guarding our backdoor,” he laughed a laugh that sounded more like humming (something like a hmm, hmm, hmmm) and, in his best deep voice, added, “as it were.”

I chuckled awkwardly as I placed my request on the speaker next to him. “Well, well, my little straight friend has a sense of humor. There’s hope for him yet. Let’s see what he wants to sing,” he picked up my card, “I’ll fly you to the moon all right, sweetie. Hmm, hmm, hmmm. Well, loosen up those vocal chords; we’ll have you up in just two shakes.”

Some of my friends were up before me, so we all crowded in front of the stage and I continued to get drunk. Within a few minutes, not only was I drunk, but completely at peace with my surroundings. I wasn’t scared of Big Gay M.C. anymore; in fact, he’d grown to remind me of some of my aunts.

“Up next we have Paco… Oooooooh, that sounds exotic. Come on up, Paco. I like saying that. Paco. Just rolls right off my tongue. Pah-Coh. Well, Paco here has promised to fly us to the moon. Sing for the gay people, baby.”

I sang Sinatra’s “Fly me to the Moon” (horribly, as per usual) directly to the M.C. and both he, and the crowd, seemed to enjoy it. Ever the showman, I did a little dance during the refrain which received applause from the crowd and squeals from the M.C. As I handed the microphone back, the M.C. put his arm around my shoulder.

‘My, my, haven’t we blossomed, Pah-Coh? Now you can run and tell all your little straight friends that the homosexuals aren’t so bad after all. Let’s give another round of applause for Paco. Paco, Paco, Paco. Hmm, hmm, hmmm. I love it!”

We left the bar soon after and I felt satisfied knowing that (on a small scale) the gay community and I had come to accept each other. Sure, perhaps we didn’t and still don’t agree on a number of things. Principal of which, of course, is that—no matter what they say—I will never agree that it is acceptable for men to get manicures and pedicures. It’s just not right.

I have since developed a greater appreciation of the contributions of the gay community. Moreover, I have come to love the hilarity of the outrageously gay man. Without him, heterosexual men across the country would have no one to help tell their girlfriends they were getting a little chubby. For this, and many other reasons, I’ve taken the advice of my big, gay M.C.

Seriously, fellas, they aren’t so bad.

That’s all.

A Round of Clap

2006-10-11T22:00:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER:

There's nothing funny about sexually transmitted diseases.

Well…

Maybe it's just me—rather, I hope for your sake that it's just me—but, I think STD's should have more intimidating names. For example, if a herpe carried the same grievous import as, say, a rabie, perhaps I wouldn't giggle so at the idea that wrestlers get herpes on their faces from infected mats.

(I'll refer you to the disclaimer.)

It's unfortunate that Hepatitis sounds like a tool used to complete one's math homework. Until I was old enough to realize I'd been stupid my whole life, I thought someone with Human Papillomavirus was just scared of butterflies. And, wrong as I know that I am, Syphilis sounds (and I don't know why) like a cocktail. I know, I know… but don't you think that a "Syphilis Drop" would be kinda tart with a sugary aftertaste? In any event, too many of those in a night and you'll be feeling pretty sore(s) in the morning.

Chlamydia and Gonorrhea are the only diseases that have the right idea. I imagine Chlamydia and Gonorrhea ravaging villages along the countryside until, at long last, George Puffbottom rides in and valiantly slays them. He's later rewarded with canonization and the great personal satisfaction of knowing that history would forget his last name. I've also had a recurring dream in which Chlamydia and Gonorrhea battle Godzilla over Tokyo.

Usually, Godzilla wins.

The CDC should give some serious thought to renaming some of the more common venereal diseases and launch an ad campaign as if they were brand new diseases. I would certainly reconsider the "amiable," young, "lady" I met at Takes All Kinds night if I had a danger of picking up a case of the broken-glassitis. And who, I ask, wouldn't be embarrassed to tell their parents they'd contracted robbed-at-knife-pointhea? Absolutely nobody (no matter how tough a guy you think you are) wants to find out after a wild night in Tijuana that you have to be treated for sit-next-to-the-arab-guy-on-the-airplaneginosis.

Like I said… nothing funny about STD's.

In fact, I find them so very not funny that I'm actually mortified by the idea of them. I've often weighed the option of whether I'd prefer to look through a catalogue of pictures of people with various STD's or attempt to pet an angry dog.

Irrational. I know.

When I was in college, I had an all too brief experience with a friendly girl whose reputation preceded her.

And what a reputation it was!

A couple days later, neuroses took the better of me and I started having what could only be described as a "funny feeling."

"No, no!" I thought, "This is impossible. I'd invested in the best condoms money could buy. I did research. Surely, the only preventative measure I could have taken—short of becoming an OB-GYN and only engaging in acts my mother would scorn while in my OB-GYN office amidst my OB-GYN tools—was wrap the wee-wee in saran wrap AND aluminum foil prior to slipping on aforementioned best-condom-money-could-buy."

The week went on… and I felt sleazier. Finally, I took the long, shameful walk down to my school's clinic. The problem, I feel, that most clinics have is that they ask you a lot of embarrassing questions in front of other patients. Questions like: name, contact number and symptoms.

Were it up to me, they'd call your number, usher you through dark hallways into a room, give you one of those surgical masks and proceed with the examination. They didn't, of course, so I did my best to explain to the girl checking me in, as quietly and ambiguously as I could, what I assessed to be the problem. By the third time she said, "Sir, I can't hear you," I was convinced the whole waiting room had diagnosed me. These were no longer college students with their colds, iPods and backpacks. Oh no, they became doctors with their degrees, stethoscopes and beepers. Worse still, these were judgmental doctors with their degrees, stethoscopes and beepers.

The young clerk, noting my discomfort, called over a senior, portly, matronly nurse. Now, rather than having to tell the cute girl at the coffee shop or that sat next to me in physics, I'd have to tell my Aunt Martha that I had an itchies in the hmmmmm…. Hmmmmmmmm.

You know… a mild discomfort in the old hhhheeeehhhh… cough… heheheeeeeehhh.

"Okay, nurse, I'm concerned about the feeling I now have, that I've never had before down in the…

…you know, the…

…my…

…Hoo-bah…" (Not that I was a pre-med or anything)

I discovered Jesus the moment she understood without asking me anymore questions. She told the clerk that she'd go ahead and handle my case, then asked me to take a seat. No eye contact (or thoughts of eye contact) was made with the kids with runny noses and achy joints. They didn't know problems like I did. Their stupid ailments could be solved with orange juice and ice packs. Mine were treated with healthy doses of shame.

The doctor came out and registered through the files. There may have been five or six kids in the waiting room with me and, at this point, I was the last in line.

"Who's Ramirez?"

Fuck.

To this day, I haven't figured out what makes an adult think that hiding behind a magazine makes you invisible. The nurse sold me out and the doctor was immediately breathing angrily above me.

"Are you Mr. Ramirez?" Questions. Always with the questions. I coughed out an affirmative response and slid my eyes just above the Teen People I was "reading." What came next was the stuff that frivolous blogs are made of. He grilled me on why I'd shown up without an appointment on a Friday night shortly before closing. While I weighed my options, I noticed that the doctor resembled a bear in a white coat. I later found out he'd played football in college and, in the meantime, his hands made the clipboard look like an index card.

"Well… I… ummm…" This is the standard response when what you really mean is "Listen _______ (Doctor, Officer, Dad, Your Honor, etc), we both know the answer is because I'm an idiot." More often then not, authority figures will accept the response and go directly into their pedantic diatribe about how irresponsible I am. And I kinda appreciate that. Dr. Bearhands didn't.

"Well… I… ummm… Mr. Ramirez, that simply won't do. Please explain to me what made you think," he looked at my file, "a mild irritation like yours would simply go away? Don't you think that's a little irresponsible?" He was really an amazing doctor; at that very moment when I knew everyone in the room (medical professional or otherwise) was looking at me, my mild irritation was totally gone. I'd been cured without having to take off my pants!

I stumbled around words that sounded nothing like, "because I didn't think anyone would be here on a Friday night to hear me say that I thought I had the clap." He did that doctor sigh—the one when they know you're not going to listen to them—and instructed me to come back first thing the next morning. I set the magazine down on the chair closest to the front door.

Having gotten very little sleep (I won't get into details, but let's just say, Godzilla didn't win that particular night), I rolled in the next morning to a very cheerful staff. Everybody seemed to know me and seemed very happy to see me… except the new girl that checked me in. She seemed not to have heard of the proverbial prostate exam Bearhands had administered the night before.

"Your name, sir?"

Hell.

"Do you have an appointment, Mr. Ramirez?"

"Uhhh… Yeah. I think I do. The doctor from last night told me to come in as soon as you opened."

"Good, good. You are marked down for 7 o'clock. Good. What seems to be the problem?"

You're kidding. Why would it be that the only time in my entire life I had to visit a doctor for an embarrassing medical condition, the only people asking what my problem was were cute girls? Why can't I get those same odds on airplanes with row buddies?

Happily, the pudgy nurse from the night before jumped in to instruct the girl to write "groin pain." Of course! Why I didn't think of that myself, I'm not sure. I could have gotten a groin pain from playing football or a construction accident. As long as it wasn't someone that knew me, it'd be totally believable that I was playing a sport or whatever. That happens, right? People believe that wrestlers get herpes from infected mats, after all.

I sat in the room and the doctor came in somehow larger than he was the night before. He was unnervingly pleasant and asked me how my week went, if I had caught the ball game the previous night, why I thought I had a venereal disease… I considered lying, but then gave brief thought to why it is people lie to doctors as if they cared (except dentist, they really get poopy when you actually admit that you don't floss. They can probably tell, but I think they'd rather be lied to).

"See, doctor, I'm not sure I actually have anything. I think I just feel guilty and the guilt knows exactly where to manifest."

Kinda like the Catholic Church…. Hey-oh!

He listened kindly as I explained to him, in my medical opinion, why I couldn't possibly have anything. He only took a couple notes before he said, "All right, I'm going to need you to take off your pants."

Doctor, if I hadn't heard that before, I wouldn't need to be in your office… my smirk seemed to say. The procedure was a simple one; he'd have to take a urethral sample with a small cotton swab. All this sounds fine until you figure out what "urethral sample" means. I pulled my pants down, he kneeled in front on me, I laced my fingers behind my head (because it seemed natural and I'm not clear on precisely what you're supposed to do with your hands when a doctor is kneeling in front of you with your pants off… pockets are certainly out of the question). He administered the sample with his huge, cold hands while I yelped, trembled violently and, yes, cried a little. When he finished, I collapsed onto the examination table and made a deal with God never to have sex again in my life as long as I never had to feel that particular pain.

"I've seen a lot of boys take this test before and I go pheasant hunting every year, Mr. Ramirez, but if I may say so, I've never heard that sound before." I actually thought, at that very moment, that I would forever be incapable of finding anything funny. Yeah, it was that kind of pain. Or I thought it was until he handed me a plastic cup and asked for a urine sample. Now it was that kind of pain.

Taking the test in and of itself convinced me that I had something awful. Something they'd have to name. Something people would have to have drives, walks and ribbons for. People would have my name on their t-shirts and rather than "Go" (like I've always dreamed of) it would say "Defeat." I'd die and my parents would be in parades.

Seven days later, I arrived at the clinic broken and pitiful. This time the check-in clerk was a guy covered in tattoos, which under any other circumstances would have been nowhere near as comforting as he was right then. "What can I help you with, bro?"

"I'm here for some test results."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of test results?"

"…from tests I took last week." They'd never learn. I'd taken the pains to write my full name, date of birth and Social Security Number on a scrap of paper in the event that I was asked in front of people again… or… you know, hit by a bus.

"So what was it, like a clap test or something?" By this point, I was convinced that everyone in the waiting room could smell syphilis-laced crabs on me already. Go ahead, bro; say it louder.

"Looks like you're clean, man."

I KNEW IT!! God, I hope you won't hold me to empty promises I made in a moment of weakness.

Click, click, tap, tap, tap. "Oh… wait…" My world crashed down around me; you remember when Bambi made it out of the forest and looked back expecting his mom, but she'd been shot? Anyway, that was me.

"Wait? What wait? Don't wait me, man. I already waited a week to hear you say I'm clean. Don't take that back, man. My parents don't even want to be in these parades!"

"What? Nah, bro, you're still clean, but like I wasn't supposed to tell you… so like act real happy and shit when the doctor tells you." I did and acted amused at Bearhands' jokes about being more careful and my penis is not a toy (I wish I was kidding).

It would be another couple years before I took another clap test. This time I did it out of a sense of responsibility, rather than obligation. I'm an adult, I said to myself, I should go annually as a responsible, sexually active American. And this weird thing under my tongue is starting to freak me out.

Learning from previous mistakes, I made an appointment over the phone and gladly gave all my particulars to the faceless receptionist. I showed up, gave them my name and got promptly ushered off to my own, more secluded part of the medical center. No more mass waiting rooms for me. No, sir; you asthmatics and ear-aching commoners could keep it! I was being walked, no, escorted to the one room in the building that had only two kinds of patients: pregnant women and guys who thought they had herpes.

Yup! Just me, a bunch of pregnant ladies and a gloriously large pile of magazines. A woman called my name, walked me into an office and asked me a series of questions (none of which involved my thoughts on being walked everywhere). It's okay, it's okay. I'm a mature, professional adult. Surely, I could describe to another professional (particularly one who has probably seen 40 guys like me this week) why I wanted another test.

"No problem." Which I understood as "I'll go get a doctor who has more personal experience with wee-wees."

When she returned with the Cotton Swab of Doom, she asked if I'd feel comfortable with a female proctoring my test (so to speak). Sure, that sounds professional, but what she really meant was "Are you going to be a Sally about this or are you going to take your poke like a big, brave boy?"

I'm a mature adult now.
I'm a mature adult now.
I'm a mature adult now.

"No, I suppose that won't be a problem."

Things I didn't know BEFORE my second test:
1) Having experienced serious pain doesn't toughen you for the next round.

2) To this day, I'll never be able to aptly represent with our alphabet nor replicate the noise I made the second time.

3)I think the same applies to rectal exams, but you always assume other people in the hospital know. I mean, getting your reflexes tested at the knee doesn't make you want to take a shower.

4)The most awkward possible cigarette break you could ever take is with the woman who, minutes earlier, watched you "need a minute" before you could put your pants back on.

5)You don't actually need an STD test for an allergic reaction to curry.

DISCLAIMER:

The term "sexually active" (with respect to the author) is to be interpreted loosely. More conventional interpretations are equally as inaccurate as statements like "the author only masturbates sparingly" and "reality show stars are actually celebrities."

Busted

2005-09-25T21:16:00.000-04:00

I wouldn’t say I have a gambling “problem” so much as a gambling “solution”.

SIDEBAR: Semantics Make Character Flaws Perfectly Acceptable
Let’s look at this objectively: interventions and 12-step programs are time consuming and embarrassing. Reclassification, on the other hand, makes it such that (I’ll go ahead and use myself as an example… you know, so as not to have to call others out) (by “others”, of course, I mean the rest of you) I can continue upsetting my parents, priest, employers, girlfriends, extended family, close friends and mere acquaintances all while making aforementioned individuals feel guilty for judging (or, more appropriately, misjudging) me. All that being said, I’ve compiled a list of harsh accusations and their corresponding, totally defensible, entirely more accurate reclassifications.
Alcoholism – Expanding horizons
Laziness – Exploring options
Being inconsiderate – Promoting self-reliance
Rudeness – Sharing objective thoughts
Financial irresponsibility – Macroeconomic investments
Debauchery – Research for stories like this one
Consistent lateness – Experimenting with “metric time”
Mediocrity – Team player
Smoking – Keepin’ it real

So I’ve squandered a… couple… few thousand dollars gambling; realistically, it’s more of a short term investment with inconsistent (read “unlikely”) dividends. No. Better yet: let’s approach it like a really, really expensive hobby. I mean, those who enjoy treasure hunting or midget collecting dish out oodles of money too, right? Right?

Aside from the occasional bets on football games (having no real idea if the Dolphins were actually better than the Vikings, Steelers or Golden State Warriors), I’d never really been terribly interested in any kind of betting. In fact, I wasn’t a particularly big fan of that flavor of gambling. I simply couldn’t justify the thought of surrendering perfectly good martini money in a show of support for people who didn’t know that my ability to expand horizons, keep it real and research stories depended on their “hustle” and “heart”. Moreover, it’s fair to assume that these same athletes (with their millions of dollars and stripper girlfriends) would feel absolutely no obligation to pay me reparations for not having their head in the game. Stupid, greedy athletes!

Similarly, poker and other such card games never really took hold either. The pots were never large enough to warrant my focus on learning the game. After a series of what I can only guess were bad hands, I started to assume that everyone else got equally bad hands and I’d have to win by concentrating on appearing to know precisely what I was doing. I’d start looking for ticks in the other players: “Jimmy just touched his nose again; he has nothing. Oooh, Mike blinked twice; I KNOW he has nothing. Dude! Sneezing is a sign of weakness; John definitely has nothing… All in!” No movement went unnoticed, no noise unregistered. For a little while, I thought I could hear pulses increasing and brow-sweat forming (yeah… I was that good… I thought). Needless to say, if ever my indicators were correct, it was by freak coincidence exclusively. My poker face, on the other hand, was exceptional. I was so thoroughly confused by each combination of cards that my face maintained an expression of concerned constipation. At the end of night, when I’d been wiped clean of my five or ten dollars, I only really regretted not having such astute powers of reading people ALL the time. Watch out, ladies.

The adventure really began on my first visit to Vegas. More accurately, my first visit in which I could actually gamble and drink instead of following my parents around Circus, Circus with pockets full of quarters and designs on winning the wicked cool Batman sunglasses on the second shelf of the prize corner. Notwithstanding the fact that my horizons were so far expanded that I could scarcely walk, I was timid about losing money. Each five dollar bill that went into the nickel slots was cursed and threatened with hopes of intimidating it into recovering for the faults of its slacker brethren. I played intently and watched the old ladies around me play two machines at a time. I’d see them win what I considered jackpots of ten dollars and get excited for them when they landed bonus rounds. They’d stoically smoke their cigarettes and explain to me their finely developed theories on slot selection. These were the casino warriors… some of these women were at the same machine for so long that I started using them as landmarks while navigating the slot labyrinth.

I moved on to the tables only after I came to the conclusion that I’d never be a Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin type Vegas swinger hanging out with the Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin aged women of the nickel slot pits. The first Blackjack table I went to was in Imperial Palace. I sat down knowing only that I had to get closer to 21 than the surly, older gentleman in the cheesy red vest holding lots of other peoples’ money. I also knew that getting an ace and a king was supposed to be a sign from the gambling gods that I was, indeed, blessed.

I traded him a beautiful $20 bill for four meager red chips. One of my lonely chips went into the circle and he began to deal his cards. The first card flew at me face down; the second—face up—was a king. Okay, so far things seemed to be going well. I leaned back in my chair, smoothly lit a cigarette and took a sip from my martini. I couldn’t have been cooler.

“Well?”
“Well, what?” I answered from behind my glass.
“Are you gonna check your card?”
“Oh. Umm… I didn’t know I was allowed to touch them now.” I checked my card (it was a very disappointing three) and pulled another drag of smoke. Couldn’t have been cooler.
“WELL?”
“Yes?” It’s a proven fact that all swingers answer questions with questions.
“Do you want to hit or don’t you?”
“Oh,” I checked my card again to make sure it was still a three… smoothly, “Yes; hit me.”
“Sir,” I’ve noticed when older people call me “sir” it’s normally out of restraint, rather than respect, “you’re going to have to make the hand signal.”
“Which one might that be?” Deep down, I was hoping he meant the hand signal Hispanic Catholics do in church, when passing churches or when their soccer team is up for a penalty kick. That’s the hand signal I wanted to do.
“You have to scratch the table if you want another card or wave your hand over your cards if you want to stay.” He sighed, I scratched and he tossed me a nine.
“Yes!” Hand wave, martini sip, cigarette drag. The steps to success.

I’d been so focused on looking like a (five dollar) winner that I hadn’t noticed that he’d given himself a jack. He exposed a two, hit a four, then a five and said “21”. I showed him my cards and was disappointedly satisfied with our tie. The dealer rolled his eyes, took my chip and cards, and upon noticing the horror and confusion in my face (he must have played a lot of poker) explained, “You had 22; you busted.”

Those five little words clued me in to a couple of things: 1) somewhere in the world, there was a third-grader laughing at me and 2) if I were alive in the 60’s, Frank and Dean would never have invited me to hang out with them.

Within the next couple of minutes, I essentially handed him my remaining $15 before retreating to the white haired, smoky haze of the nickel slot machines.

The rest of the weekend went okay; I won a bunch of money on the slots, back at Blackjack and playing Casino War. Needless to say, I lost every last penny of it on my last night in town in a drunken, greedy 45 minutes. I left Las Vegas having spent only the $200 I allotted myself and with the knowledge that I’d have to find some other way to be cool.

It would be another six or seven months before I braved another casino visit. Southern California has proliferated what is known as “Indian Gaming”.

SIDEBAR: Common Misunderstandings Concerning the Term “Indian Gaming”
--Bows and arrows are involved
--You’ll actually get to see Indians
--You can bring your own rifle
--You can rent one when you get to the reservation
--It’s okay to call them Indians
--Taxidermists willing to stuff and mount your Indian game are affordable and easy to find
--Jokes about hunting Native Americans on their own land are funny
--Jokes about hunting Native Americans anywhere are funny
--I’m proud of this SIDEBAR

Indian casinos feel a lot less intimidating than Vegas casinos. The lights are fewer and not as bright, a good majority of the patrons are retirees waiting for bingo to start and the dealers do all that complicated arithmetic for you because all the cards are dealt face up. Even better, the dealers are perfectly willing to teach you the statistically prudent moves to make. If the dealer shows a nine and you have 16, it’s probably better to hit. If the dealer shows a six and you have a pair of fours, you should split. Always double-down on 11 and always split eights. While they have no real vested interest in the house winning or losing, the one piece of advice they’ll never give you is: “You’re already down the equivalent of your rent, utilities, car payment and insurance bill… maybe you should rack this one up in the ‘God hates you’ column and call it a night.” Nope; those thieving bastards will just go ahead and let you lose every last dime you have.

At first, I tried to shame myself into not losing too much by going with my roommate or friends, keeping them around me and leaving when the thought of them thinking I had a problem prevented me from visiting the ATM. When I finally got over that, it became easier to withdraw only a couple hundred more with the hopes of merely recovering the money I’d lost. A couple weeks went by and I managed my losses and winnings such that I was essentially breaking even. What was abundantly wasted, however, was hours and hours as I found myself leaving the casino at daybreak… noon… Thursday.

After hours of sitting at one table, I’d grow to like the other gamblers (a camaraderie built on shared adversity) and watch as they lost everything. The dealers—both faultless and incapable of doing anything—would act sorry as the cards dwindled their stacks of chips and their faces grew less enthusiastic. Along with the dealer, I’d say “better luck” as they walked away dejectedly, beaten and pathetic.

But, those people had gambling problems. They had self-control issues. I was quickly becoming a pro; not only did I pick up what the statistically better bet was, I would keep track of how many losses and wins I’d had. I knew when to increase my bet to improve the chances of recovering my money. I knew when to leave a sour table and I knew when inexperienced gamblers were screwing my chances of winning.

However, I loved getting screwed by some inexperienced gamblers. Nothing made me happier than when a cute girl who had no idea what she was doing would sit at my table, exclaim that she didn’t know what to do and look to me for answers. Never in my life has a phallic symbol (such as a stack of chips) meant so very much. I’d win them some money with my statistical knowledge and they’d hang around after they’d won their huge, $30 pot; marveling and gasping as I started to make $100, $200 and $500 bets… until my large stack eventually went flaccid (by the way, any hardcore gambler would read this and scoff at my meager losses).

Soon enough, a couple hundred each withdraw became a few hundred. A few hundred became… well, that 25 minute drive home is the loneliest imaginable when you have nothing to think about but all the points at which you could have left up 3,000, up 500, even, down 100, down 500; anything down but 1,800. I’d console myself by driving recklessly and cursing the reservation on my way out. Anything and everything became responsible for my losses: if that stupid Acura in front of me would have gone a little faster, this never would have happened; if all those old people would have played bingo some other day, I wouldn’t have had to wait to win my millions; Jesus, if my roommate had just taken out the trash, that wouldn’t have given me such a bad Blackjack vibe. It was all fair game.

I began to have suspicions about my gambling hobby when the dealers would greet me by name and remember how much I’d won or lost the last time they saw me. Other minor indicators included becoming familiar with the dealers’ shifts such that I would know who I’d find on what day at what time (I even knew when certain bingo players would be there). I started to feel like a crack addict; if only I could get one more hit, I could go home. If I could just win my money back, I’d never ever gamble again. Sometimes, I’d actually manage to win my money back, but I’d say to myself “Jesus, I’m on a roll. I may as well walk out of here with all of these casino’s money. That can happen, right? Right? Anybody?”

For a few brief moments at my lowest point, I even considered cheating; happily, I gave up when I realized that my most reliable plan involved finding a master thief, an explosives expert, a hacker and seven other lovable criminals.

And then all my savings were gone. I still managed to pay my bills (mostly) on time and eat occasionally. My best meals were actually at the casino; after 13 hours of straight Blackjack, having only consumed cigarettes and Diet Cokes (this particular casino didn’t serve alcohol), the pit managers would comp my meals at the casino restaurant. This sounds really generous of them, but it was really just their evil ploy to keep me there. And it worked… really well, sometimes.

I finally decided never to go back to that casino when, in a fit of desperation, I broke down and visited my old friend: the nickel slot. The first one I sat down at was called “The American Dream” and within fifteen minutes $20 turned into $1800. Suddenly, I had old ladies marveling at me. The tables had turned; now, all the Martha’s, Betty’s and Doris’s would congratulate me from behind their Winstons. I politely thanked them and gently accepted their high-fives… and two hours later walked out of the casino with nothing.

I wouldn’t say I have a gambling problem… but, I’m willing to bet I’ll never get those Batman sunglasses now.

That’s all.

Lame Excuses and Tastiest Burger in Town

2005-07-04T20:02:00.000-04:00

Okay… so I’ve been a little irresponsible with my writing habits lately. For those of you that care (assuming, of course, that there are any) I’m sorry. Between finishing up school and moving to San Diego, I found myself absolutely swimming in time. I also found it extraordinarily difficult to do anything when I could just as easily do nothing. For the record, I did become rather expert at doing nothing. After a few weeks of not writing, the flow of ideas started slowing and every time I attempted to write anything, the product was reminiscent of Britney Spears’ acting career. You know, when it looks like a movie, it sounds like a movie, but sweet Jesus in heaven is it awful to sit through.

So, here’s my wild stab at writing again… I try my best not to just share stories about the silly jazz I get myself into. Instead, I do what I can to fit some of my experiences and observations into the grander perspective of—what I call—“Average Guy-osophy”. Sadly, I can find very little moral in this story besides: Everybody does stupid shit when they get drunk. Sorry.

A couple months ago, I was conned into being a groomsman in my cousin’s wedding. Repeated and emphatic philosophical (and thereby moral) objections fell on deaf Nicaraguan ears as I was told that, even though I find marriage, uh, stupid, I would be going to the wedding. “Fine!” I rebutted, arms folded, head wagging, all in the most mature of fashions.

Before the smirk could even develop on my face, my mom added, “And if you even THINK about contorting your face for pictures or passing gas during the ceremony, I will kill you with my own hands.”

It was a reasonable enough point she brought up. If nothing else, it proved my parents hadn’t totally gotten over what the modern news media would probably call “Uncle Tito’s Funeralgate”. To be fair, there’s no way I could have known that adamantly blaming flatulence on a corpse would be considered “inappropriate”.

After further disappointment about having to pay for my own tuxedo, I was a groomsman, and quite the dapper one at that. The wedding went fine; I behaved myself. The couple observations I made about the huge, beautiful church I kept to myself. But, I’ll share them with you, my trusted friends.

1) At the back of the church there was a small glass door on the wall that looked like it should have housed a fire extinguisher. Upon further inspection, I found a rusting faucet with a wooden sign above it that read “Holy Water”. I wondered whether or not the Department of Water and Power had Holy Water mains running throughout the city and if perhaps the faucet itself had sinned (what with it rusting and all). It also occurred to me that Vatican scientists should invent a Holy Fire Extinguisher to serve the dual purposes of putting out church fires (although, theoretically there should never be any) and for more effective abortion clinic protests.
2) The men’s room in the church was in need of renovation; however, it would more than serve its purpose. As I was making use of the facilities, it occurred to me that I’ve always been a little uncomfortable and awkward about making poopy at friends’ and relatives’ houses… shouldn’t I then feel doubly, or even triply awkward at making poopy in the house of almighty God? While I’m on it (the subject, not the potty), rectories are like the more enlightened cousin of the restroom. It’s a small box in which you’re supposed to sit uncomfortably close to the guy in the next stall. When you leave, you feel relieved of a burden. I don’t know about you, but I’ve commonly heard the expression “Oh God!” when passing by toilets and rectories alike, although the intonations are different. Near the rectories, people say “Oh God!” as if cuddling up in the soft skinned hands of Mother Comfort. Near the men’s room “Oh God!” sounds more like a guy whose bum is exploding. Anyway, as I was using God’s toilet, I wished desperately that I had a marker and even more desperately that I could write in Aramaic so that, henceforth, generations of Catholic men could read “Remember to wash your hands –Jesus” in between prayers.

After the wedding, I met up with a friend of mine that was making a stop in LA on his drive cross-country. I decided to make an appearance at the reception for an hour or so, just long enough to get just minor frowns from my family. Yup, I was only gonna stay a little while, be sociable and leave with my friend to have real fun in Hollywood or something. It wasn’t until I was helping load the left over beer into my cousin’s truck that I realized we were the last people to leave.

It was 12:30 and—despite being unreasonably intoxicated—the night was far, far from over.

On our drive to the highway (as a public service announcement: my friend was the designated driver. That was really the only responsible thing I did all night) we saw a charming establishment called “Girls! Girls! Girls!” Without actually speaking to each other, we found ourselves parking right in front and walking directly to two seats at the stage. I conveniently had a sizeable stack of one dollar bills in my pockets and casually set them on the table in front of me. There were hardly any “patrons” in this “bar” so it was fairly easy to converse with the “dancers”.

SIDERBAR: I used to be such a nice boy…
While I don’t frequent strip clubs, I’ve been to one or two in my day. I’ve always been fairly cordial to the girls and keep both my cash and my hands thrust firmly in my pockets. My friend later reported to me some of the things I said:
—With stack of ones in hand, “Hey doll, what’s the etiquette on this?”
“You have to put it on the stage.”
“Oh yeah?” I let a dollar bill float off my hand onto the stage… it was really more like fling.
“Just one dollar?”
“Uhhh… yeah. For now.”
—“Hey, baby, what’s your name?”
“Luscious.”
“Yeah? How do you spell that?”
—“Hey, do something special for me and my friend”
(she does)
“That’s right! Earn your money!”

The only other person sitting at the stage was right next to my friend. She looked like a really dark, 35 year old Macy Gray with straight, black hair.

Yeah, I’m making the same facial expression.

This woman was getting raw with the “dancers”. My comments were kindergarten compared to some of the things she was saying and doing. For example, I didn’t know that you could slap a stripper hard on her bum and say “Yeeeeaaaaaah, bitch! Shake that shit” without suffering the indignant stares of other patrons whose genteel sensibilities had been offended. I continually elbowed my friend to encourage him to talk to her, but gave up after a few minutes and had him switch seats with me.

It’s important to point out that I was drunk silly at this particular juncture. While I take responsibility for my actions, my body was on some kind of debaucherous auto-pilot. More accurately, my body was like heat-seeking missile, except instead of heat, it was seeking naughties. I leaned over to her and softly say in her ear, “So… come here often?” (This guy = professional).
Without looking at me, “Ooooh yeah. C’mon, girl. Hit dat! Hit dat!”
“What’s your name?”
Still not looking at me, “Tanya,” (pronounced “Taaawn-yuh”).

A fight broke out behind us, but we only glanced over for a second before our attention was focused back on the girl dancing… deservedly. Tanya and I made small talk about the skill and attributes of Heavenly, the girl on stage, before the bar started to close down and we made our way outside. Tanya mentioned needing to get a taxi home and I said my friend had a car. The back seat being filled with my buddy’s personal effects, the three of us had to sit in the front seat. She was partly sitting on me and had her head resting on Chris. We had a delightful conversation in which she told us about being bisexual and having the “da bes pussy in alla LA! You cain’t find no better nowhere!” I wondered if that had become a new event at the county fair. What color ribbon do you get for having the best in… ummm… THAT category. Pink would be my guess, heh heh heh, bang bang.

It wasn’t long before Tanya told us about her nipple’s being pierced. More so than telling us, she exposed her right booby to prove that, in fact, she had at least one of them pierced. I instinctually (an instinct that I got from the ferret side of my family) grabbed the shiny ring and gave it a jiggle, exclaiming, “Hey, bro, get a load of this!”

“That there… that there sure is a nipple ring, miss.” I don’t blame him… what the hell was he supposed to say?

“Ooooohhh, you lookin’ like you want some pussy tonight.” It wasn’t until then that I noticed my hand had been “gently” “caressing” her bum the entire car ride.

“Yeah, I’ll take what I can get.”

“Well, I’ll fuck ya. But, I gotsta get a new transmission. You wanna give me $190 to fix my transmission.” I’ll remind you that not twelve hours before I was in a church.

I expressed some reluctance for giving her money for sex and she kindly reminded me of her coveted blue, uh, pink ribbon (only in somewhat vulgar terms). As we were driving, we passed a Jack in the Box and she asked (or demanded) that we swing into the drive-through. “Yeah, I’ll have a Ciabatta (it’s pronounced “Che-bot-ah”, but she said “Chia-bat-ah”) burger… oooh wit bacon. And large fries. And a lemonade.” At some point, it was also made abundantly clear that she wasn’t paying for it… oh, I remember, it was when she turned to me and said “he said it’s gon be 5.75.”

When we got to the window, she yelped, put her finger in her mouth and said “Oooooohhh, I got da sweet touf. I got da sweet touf. Can I get a cheesecake? Hey! Hey! Put a cheesecake on dat order. Is dat okay? If I get a cheesecake?”

“Ummmmm…” What am I doing with my life?

We got to her apartment complex in a neighborhood that would never be seen in an issue of Home and Garden Magazine. She hopped out and walked towards her gate. I told my friend to stick around for a couple minutes because there was potential for something hilarious to happen. Yup… gonorrhea is a riot!

I followed her to her apartment only to find two “urban” black guys standing right inside the door. “Clyde! What in heavens are you doing here still, compatriot?” (only those weren’t necessarily the words she used). They excused themselves into a back room and left me with someone who I came to find out is her 32 year old nephew/roommate wearing an oversized Detroit Pistons jersey. “This is going to be trouble,” I thought to myself, “After all, it’s two in the morning, I have no way of contacting my friend, he wouldn’t know how to find me and I’m a Lakers fan.”

I have a very bad habit of picking up accents when there isn’t a neutral accent around. Cousin Tim (Tee-im) and I had a conversation in which I found myself saying “Dog”, “Crunk”, “Up in this bitch” and “Dat’s the hotness” more often than ever before in my life. He explains to me that Clyde is his uncle, Tanya his “untee” and that there had been some dispute over whether Clyde should have to pay for the couple nights he spent at their apartment. I’m glad he cleared that up, because all I gathered from the yelling behind the closed door was: “When you gonna give me my money?!”

Cousin Tim and I have a pleasant conversation in his living room furnished only with a large TV and the classifieds open in the middle of the floor. He explained to me that it’s perfectly okay for his “un-tee” to bring back dudes, because “she a grown-ass woman” and he’s not going to tell her what to do. He also told me that he wants to go back to school to study engineering. I reply, “Yeah, dog, engi-nehr-in’. I mean, whateva, bruh-vah… you gotta make dat pay-pa!” Uh-huh, I’m still in the tuxedo.

Tanya came out at that point and, in front of her relatives, grabbed me by the lapel, kissed me on the “mouf” and asked gingerly, “So you gonna give me dat money?”

“Haha… no.”

“Well, you want my numbah or somethin’?”

“Nope.” I walked quickly towards the door with Tanya a few steps behind me. I noticed the Jack in the Box bags and immediately grabbed them.

“Boy, whatchu doin’?” she reached for the bags, but I managed to snatch them away, “Dat’s my food!”

“Nah, baby, this here’s MY food. I paid for it.” I bolted out of the door and damn near fell down the stairs. I never looked back, but I’d give both of my pinky toes to hear the conversation in that apartment after I left. I found my friend driving by as I was sprinting towards the street. He had already resigned himself to my brutal murder and was just about to drive himself back to my house to explain to my parents how I died in Los Angeles.

I could hardly tell him what happened because I was too busy loudly devouring my victory Chia-bat-ah burger with bacon...it won my pink ribbon that night.

I used to be such a nice boy.

That’s all.

Still pathetic

2005-05-25T20:08:00.000-04:00

So, I've noticed that I haven't posted anything new (or of my own for that matter) in quite a while. Yeah... ummm... sorry. The month of June should leave you innundated with all kinds of frivolous thoughts and musings. In the meantime, I've been working on wrapping up college and circulating some essays to various publications.

If YOU have something to contribute to Paco's Wasting Your Time, please use the link WASTE PACO'S TIME to send it along to me. Also, if you haven't already recommended this site to your friends and neighbors... you're a bad person.

I love you.

That's all.

GUEST MUSE: Brian Beutler

2005-04-30T23:28:00.000-04:00

Heaven is a Fully Flushing Toilet
by Brian Beutler

I clogged my toilet the other day.

Under almost any “normal” circumstances I wouldn’t so boldly state something so foul and embarrassing. Fortunately—for you readers, anyhow—a few bits of good old fashioned luck made this sad occurrence exceptional. (Let me apologize now if this is crossing the usually negligible line of good taste… I just figure enough of Paco’s essays are devoted to the topic of all things “poopy” that, realistically, nothing I could add would be considered tasteless by comparison.)

At first I was swelling with a strange feeling of pride at having created, for the first time in my life, something so ponderous and robust that neither the eroding power of water nor the disruptive force of a jostling, counter-clockwise swirl could tear apart. I felt exactly how I assume the Wright brothers felt like when, after hundreds of attempts, they built a contraption that didn’t succumb to the forces of gravity and wind… and it actually flew! This called for a celebration! Yup, a celebration straight down to the local pharmacy to buy a plunger.

Which leads me to the second reason this event is worthy of telling, and then perhaps retelling. The truth is, I inadvertently told a Salvadoran clerk all this before any of you, and so I overcame much of my shame long ago. You see, though this event could have just as well occurred at any old time of day to any old chap, the gods of malice and odors decided instead to let (mis)fortune fall at exactly three minutes ‘til midnight to a lonely guy who didn’t own the silly contraption required to fix the problem—and whose only crime was an over-indulgence in happy-hour favorites like tacos and spicy wings. So, after my brief celebration (which involved dancing in front of my mirror alternately raising and lowering my twirling index fingers), I sprinted down to my friendly neighborhood CVS to rescue my apartment from the... uh… putrid (some might say “poopy”) smell. Yep… there goes my last ounce of dignity. Actually I have several more ounces to go through. Here’s a few of them.

When I arrived, standing in front of the door, which had been locked for all of four minutes (it was now 12:04), was a demure young woman who, in broken English, told me to come back in the morning. I managed to bite my tongue (which is something of an inaccurate cliché… perhaps lesser known clichés from the American Compendium of Clichés would do… “Hold my nose” might work. Maybe even “Submit to my subconscious affinity for the smell of my own poo”) about the whole, well, affair and sleep through the nausea. But I secretly cursed her existence and her ‘by the book or they’ll deport me’ attitude and put her on the enemy list. Yes, right under PETA, the Natural Law Party and Carlos Santana.

At eight the next morning, the jig was up. At the counter working the register was my new nemesis, as sweet as ever.

Buying a plunger from a woman who knows how desperately you needed it a full eight hours ago is oddly confessionary. Her inner monologue SCREAMED out “You clogged your toilet didn’t you? Yes, you clogged your toilet a full eight hours ago and have been living with the repercussions ever since. You didn’t even try to mask the urgency by buy buying a pack of gum and a diet coke along with your declogger. You loser. Haha to your pathetic smelly existence. That will be $10.”

After a healthy soak, my favorite progeny was all too eager to come undone. I won’t get into the details of that, but will advise any future plunger-users not to press too hard. The plunger will invert. You may have to put your hands on it then. Sweet Zombie Jesus the INDIGNITY!!!!!!! I’ll put it this way: Circus freaks don’t know shame quite like I do.

Well, that was my first problem of the past week with things that go “Flush.” The next one is – thank lower-case god – much less incriminating. Here’s what happened:

The old building I work in is scheduled for a total renovation at the end of the year. In preparation, the managers have decided that unnecessary repairs will not be made. Since the building is being gutted anyhow, why bother?

So, first on their list of things not to fix were the urinals in the men’s bathroom on my floor. This begs the question: How do you discover that your urinals don’t work. Answer: Well, sir, first you pee in them, and then, instead of hearing the familiar sound of pee being whisked away beneath the Dixie® rubber and the urinal cake, you watch in futility as pressing the flusher does absolutely nothing.

Unfortunately for us male tenants of floor five, management decided to put plastic bags over the urinals (and by the by, aren’t urinals weird looking?) without draining the stagnant peepee. Hours, days, weeks went by and I became all too nostalgic for the smell of fresh urinal cake. In fact, any other type of inferior urinal pastry would have been an improvement. During the minute or so I spent in that bathroom each weekday, I would yearn for the scent of urinal éclair or urinal croissant or urinal soufflé – urinal anything – to replace the profound thickness of old peepee-lugie-chewing-gum-pube mélange that by then had outstripped even the day’s most impressive flatulence.

Somebody finally complained and, as punishment for his petulance (whoever he was… bastard), the building has removed the urinals from floor five altogether. This makes for a sad conundrum when the ollllllll’ bladder must be emptied. I could, I suppose, use the toilets, but that tactic is taken by most of the other men on the floor so often that to follow suit requires stepping into puddles of yellow nasties.

The other option is to use a men’s room on another floor… and take the stairs... My feelings on this particular solution can be summed up with three words, exaggerated for your reading convenience: Soooo muuuch effooorrtt... And the morning’s coffee isn’t waiting around for me to agonize. So, I’ve decided upon a wholly unoriginal pattern. Yellow nasties first, stairs the next time. That’s right, switching it up. Keeping it fresh. Zzzzzow!

Nothing of this sort, I don’t suppose, ever happens to ladies. I’ve learned that the way society treats men and their bathroom habits is about the same as the way it treats men and their penmanship. Kindergarten teachers enable our sloppy handwriting by doing nothing if our letters are formed neatly (except perhaps wonder if we’ll turn out to be gay). Yet they congratulate girls’ efforts by rewarding their bubbly cursive with candy and smiley faces on their “A” papers.

Yeah, fuck you Ms. Nelly… bitch!

Likewise, women’s bathrooms sparkle as if anointed by the Queen, and are adorned with skylights, bright tile and two-ply; far nicer than the concrete outhouses offered to us men. And how do girls respond to this gift, this never having to deal with repugnance and disease? They twirl tampons around like lassoes and whip them onto the walls. They do this in teams and hold races to see whose will slide down fastest. And then they make condescending remarks about the failed state of the men’s room as if we had a choice in the matter. Oh the contradictions.

I’ve gotten off track… this was supposed to be about me and my problems, right? My tragedies occurred only days apart making me wonder if the porcelain gods (to whom I’ve been told we pray when we puke) are out to get me. Two events do, after all, make an undeniable trend, or so math and science agree. Therefore, I’d like to take a moment to speak with Jorge, the Zeus of Toilets and Urinals and (since we’re talking about porcelain here) Mom’s China:

“Jorge, I thought we’d bonded. Remember the night of unending booze when I knelt before your most tortured minister in the skankiest bar in all of Berkeley? Remember how, despite the cracks in its rim and the unflushed toilet paper and the love puddles and the rest of the awfulness, I promised never to treat one of your children with such disrespect? Remember how, after disposing of a few beers and some dinner in your gracious bowels, I cleaned up after myself?

“Why would you do this to me? Why Jorge, why?! I can accept only so much abuse, so keep this in mind, sir. If one more toilet tragedy should befall me this month, we’re through, you and I. If I’m on a date and you fail me, letting her (and the entire restaurant) know I had an ‘episode’; if my tiny bathroom floor is covered in soiled water and the floods extend to my cheap nylon carpeting; if I, in my stumbling drunkenness, slip and hit my head on the edge of any of your subjects… be warned. I will be ruthless. I will enter no bathroom without a cartoonishly large hammer or some other device to destroy the front-lines in your white, chair shaped army. I will put inconspicuous electrical tape over the auto-flush lasers that make life easier for your beloved receptacles. I will purposefully misaim. And I will upper-deck as many toilets as I can! (For a definition of ‘upper-deck’ please email Paco.) This I promise you: I will have my revenge!”

That’s all!

Brian Beutler is a regular editor of Paco's Wasting your Time, an intern at the Washington Monthly and the author of his own journalistic blog: Up and Coming. On a more personal note, Brian prefers his beverages from straws and has remarkably effeminate wrists.

Capitalist Cupid

2005-04-22T10:00:00.000-04:00

From all accounts, society is encouraging chivalry out the door (as well you know, society lives in a duplex. Once chivalry is gone, society and his friends, hedonism, selfishness and parsimoniousness, all play XBox together and talk about how much of a jerk chivalry is). Standards of chivalry might be slipping because they could potentially undermine standards of equality; after the women’s movement of the 60’s and 70’s—when, among other things, women vied for the right to earn comparable salaries for comparable work—some women viewed opening doors and paying for meals as condescending and, ultimately, oppressive (studies later conclusively proved that acts of chivalry, rather than being active attempts to undercut salaries and rights, were actually meager tactics to get, you know, laid). Concepts of “going Dutch” emerged at a monumental crossroads in history. Not only were women beginning to earn more but, as luck would have it, anthropologist/adventurer Howard Carter discovered Holland in 1981. Not only did it become more acceptable for a guy to buy his own cheeseburger and movie ticket, many girls now insisted on covering their own checks.

But, like a dying Catholic grandmother, chivalry can’t go peacefully without leaving you feeling at least a little guilty. As much as I embrace the idea of paying just for myself, it’s still a little awkward to have a waiter place the check on the table equidistant between a girl and me (especially when I make an explicit point to cross my arms and avoid eye-contact with both her and the check). It then becomes a showdown of wills; the gunfighters of the OK Corral never knew tension like I do. My knee will begin bouncing furiously as I struggle to find something (not money or meal related) to discuss. “So… I hear it’s supposed to rain this weekend. How ‘bout that, huh?” In all her cunning and deviousness, she’ll casually point out that it is, in fact, Saturday night and that she had heard it was going to be really nice out. Agg! Foiled! The black, vinyl folder with the check in it sits “unnoticed” next to ignored condiments.

Finally, one of us will come up with something to talk about (probably her, because I’ll still be reeling from her parry and riposte) and the waiter will come around, pick up the folder dealy and ask if we need any change. We’ll both apologize for not having looked at the check yet and then the pressure’s REALLY on. Eyes dart from the check to the face across the table… the waiter’s, well, waiting… throats will be cleared, forks fumbled with… having exhausted my one conversational silver bullet (stupid weather!), I’ll dejectedly reach for the infernal check. Not until my fingers reach the corner of it will she reach halfway to the check in a pathetic display of attempting to pay. She’ll invariably say something like “What do I owe?” or “No, no, let me cover it” in such a way that it sounds like “Ha! Sucker!” I’ll force a smile and say “I wouldn’t think of it” or “Trust me, it’s my pleasure.” She’ll ask if I’m sure as I flip through the seven dollars and overdrawn credit cards I have in my wallet and I’ll assure her that I’m perfectly sure. Just once, I’d love to win that battle. Even if she lets me win because she knows I’m pathetic (and poor). Even if she had a full meal and I only had a Dirty Martini (so it’d only be fair if she covered her tab). Just once, I’d love to win.

Anxious (read "pathetic") men are torn between conflicting ideologies: “fair is fair and even is even” and “Darwinism is trying to eliminate the cheapo-gene from the pool”. We’re struggling to reconcile the virtues of equality with the intrinsic desire to satisfy animal needs (with the full knowledge that naked girls beat abstract nouns damn near every time). Truth is, an entire element of commerce is founded on the premise that residual chivalry will, by force of guilt, make men buy things for women. Capitalism—which normally agrees with me—tells men they need to pay for Y under Z circumstances; capitalism also tells women that if men don’t get Y at Z, they’re to be given no X.

Random Angry Interjection by a Fictional Reader:
“Wait, wait, wait! Paco, I can’t believe you would suggest that women are so materialistic they’d submit to having sex with someone that bought them things.”
Editorial Response:
I can’t believe you would suggest that tactic has ever actually worked for me.

I find a prime example of capitalism’s treason every Friday and Saturday night in the bars and restaurants of most big cities. Chances are good that if you’ve spent a lot of time in the bar districts and restaurant rows of large cities, you’ve seen the guy with the basket of roses walking around. It will generally be an older, kind-looking man (although I’ve seen a couple of girls and ladies from time to time), they don’t have to be foreigners, but they seem to be most times. Anyway, Eddie Extortion will walk into the restaurant, let’s say, and scan the room for tables with one guy sitting with one girl, because he knows they’re potential gold mines. He’ll flash his roses disinterestedly as he breezes past a group of women, he’ll completely ignore a group of men, he’ll make a half-hearted effort with an older married couple, but he’ll never take his eye off the twentysomethings in the corner.

The guy at the table—unless he’s swimming in money—will see Eddie Extortion walk in with his basket of love and make every conceivable effort to plead with Eddie not to offer him roses. He’ll scratch his temple and look out the window. He’ll shift his chair slightly so as to avoid any kind of eye contact. He’ll abruptly shift the conversation into a loud and emphatic diatribe on his hatred of foreigners. All the while squirming (to his mind, imperceptibly) as the rose guy closes in unfazed. Eddie will finally reach the table, with a bundle of roses in hand and look at the guy as he waves the roses directly in front of the girl's face and will (without fail, no matter what part of the country you’re in) utter the same four fatal words: “Roses for the lady?” He doesn’t say “Would you like roses?” because the answer is clearly “No, I don’t want roses, thanks!” He doesn’t ask the girl if she wants roses. He lets her get a whiff of their aromatic villainy and essentially tells the guy with those four words “Look, buddy, we both know you’re gonna look like a bastard if you don’t comply with my demands.”

SIDEBAR: Before There Were Roses...
--Used Volvo for the lady?
--Wood-chipper for the lady?
--Celibacy for the lady?
--North American badger for the lady?
--Geoger Clooney for the lady?

The girl, who has all the while pretended not to see Eddie Extortion until he got to the table, will make one of three moves. A few girls will answer politely for the guy and then feed the guy some line about being inconvenienced by having to carry them around all night. Another few will look expectantly at the guy and all but say “Golly, do I ever love having flowers bought for me.” A large majority of girls, however, will say to the guy (note: not to Eddie the rose peddler), “It’s okay, you really don’t have to.” Then they’ll stare a hole into the guy’s face. “No, no, really. I don’t want any.” The hole starts to itch and she’ll start cocking her head to one side; kinda like twisting a knife in someone’s gut to ensure they bleed to death. The guy’s cornered. Should he risk believing her and rely on his charm to pull him through the night straight into her candlelit room? The girl and the rose guy have never met nor will they ever see each other again, but for that instant, they’re allied against the guy. At this point, she’s started smelling individual roses and caressing the petals. “It’s okay,” she’ll say.

Remember that whole thing about animal urges versus abstract nouns? Sweat has formed on his brow at this point and he’ll look over one last time in vain for any signs of sincerity. Then he’ll buckle under the pressure and try to play off his hesitation as an evaluation of the quality of the roses. “Give her the best rose you have,” he’ll say… defeated. If Eddie and the girl could, they’d slap hands.

“They come by the half-dozen, sir.” Eddie owns the guy at this point; he could say they come by the truckload and Darwin wouldn’t excuse him from his obligation.

“Well then, let’s have the nicest half dozen.” Notice the guy hasn’t asked how much the roses cost. He can’t. Inconceivable. Were he to ask, the slightest grimace when he’s told $45 would expose to the girl exactly how much he thinks she’s worth (or, to be accurate, exactly what she’s NOT worth). Eddie will fumble through the roses, make some ridiculous comment about one particular set of roses being the best of the evening and only tell the guy how much they cost after the six dreadful, hateful, detestable roses are in the girl’s hands. The guy hands over the money, hates the rose guy, the girl and, most of all, himself. The girl and Eddie thank each other and Eddie goes on to start the cycle again with another helpless victim.

But, no, friends, it doesn’t end there. It’s been said before (by many a smarter, more miserly man), Valentine’s Day was conceived specifically with the same idea in mind. See’s, Hallmark and 1800flowers.com came up with Valentine’s Day in 1959 to bolster profits after two consecutive quarters of poor sales. Similarly, Zales invented engagements (and later marriage) as a means to sell all the shiny rocks they’d found. To all this, there’s really only one thing I can say…

Cupid sold us out.

That’s all.

This Story isn’t Worth a Dime over Two Dollars

2005-04-18T10:00:00.000-04:00

Any school yard chum can tell you that other countries just don’t have the same standards for material value that Americans have. I have it on good authority that in every other country the world over (save perhaps England with all their dignity and whatnot), one could theoretically haggle down the price of just about anything. For example, a buddy of mine—fresh from a trip to Argentina—paid 20 Argentine Pesos (6.92 in real money) for Happiness. Imagine that, paying just under seven dollars for an abstract noun that would cost millions in the US… all because he haggled it down from 40,000 Argentine Pesos. Call us resolute. Call us greedy. Call us better. Whatever you call us (I generally just go with “better”), you can bet your bottom dollar (whatever the hell that means! If you’re more comfortable with betting your top or middle dollar, you’re welcome to. This, of course, presupposes that you, much like me, only have three) that Americans love knowing that we’re the best negotiators in the world.

Incidentally, foreigners the world over love knowing that Americans really believe they’re the best negotiators in the world. They, then, make it a point to dress meagerly and look as ignorant and pathetic as possible (in some cases). Prices are gouged to orders of magnitude what their actual retail value might be and silly tourists feel like nouveau conquistadors because they skimmed ten dollars from the ticket price. Everybody wins! I’m willing to bet that the vendors of Acapulco are only too eager to “negotiate” with an American tourist who took two years of Spanish in high school and is convinced, thereby, that he (more often than not, it’ll be a he) will impress native trinket vendors with his guile… in their native tongue. Golly, wait ‘til Sammy Suave gets back to the states and tells all his buddies about how he bargained himself a steal (in Spanish) on a porcelain salt shaker in the shape of a Mexican in a sombrero sleeping! Ay Dios mío, wait ‘til Pedro Peddlerez tells all his amigos about all the silly Americanos that paid $12 each for a little statues fashioned from old Chihuahua poo!

SIDEBAR: Souvenir Savvy
It seems that tourists have a tendency to buy the most ridiculously useless mementos they can find. Rarely will you buy anything that, in retrospect, you had any intention of keeping, ever could have imagined that you actually wanted or really believed the person you bought it for was going to like it. Vendors have caught on to this (probably via the Internet… where all real truth is born) and have become masters of selling tacky crap you don’t need. What’s worse than tourist actually buying these monuments of frivolity is the fact that tourist themselves probably generate the ideas for production. Do you really think a Mexican guy in an outlying province of Cancun came up with a drawing of two frogs wearing ponchos engaged in various acts of carnal appreciation with the words “Órale Cancún!” spelled across the top in order to represent Yucatan culture? What about a Spaniard who conceived a bottle opener shaped like a penis because that’s how they used to open bottles in the old country? Have Persian rugs really always had images of AK-47’s and tanks on them? Oh, you mean, that’s what Aladdin flew on? No. A number of tourists had gone in there and perused their selection of kitschy bottle openers before they reluctantly asked the store attendant if they had one more in the shape of, you know, a wee-wee. Preferably an American wee-wee.

Then, you get the professionals. Professional hagglers are tourists that are originally from whatever country they’re touring. They’re not necessarily visiting home as much as they’re showing their (now) American kids what the motherland is all about. This kind of haggling is not for the weak of character or expectant mothers; it can get brutal. My Nicaraguan father is among the best hagglers I’ve ever had the pleasure (and disgrace) of seeing in action. I can’t think of the last time he paid the original price when we’ve been in any Latin-American country (okay, so maybe we’re not Mexican… but the Mexicans don’t know that, so it’s close enough to being from that particular motherland). His haggling philosophy stems from essentially two things:
1) He understands that he very likely doesn’t want—and most certainly doesn’t need— whatever the hell he’ll end up buying.
2) They wouldn’t sell it to him if they weren’t making a profit, so there’s no point in feeling bad when the limping orphan walks (or sorta hops, I suppose) away with only 10 cents instead of the 25 she was asking for a packet of gum.

He’s ruthless. He’s unforgiving. And, it’s kinda cool to watch. First of all, my father has a mug that yells “I couldn’t possibly be less interested in whatever the hell you’re saying or selling” (I’ve tried to replicate it on my own haggling adventures, but I think my mug yells “I’m constipated and also perfectly ready to pay what you ask”). He’ll walk slowly past a street vendor (as an example) and wait for them to try to get his attention. “Señor, you want a nice gold bracelet?” they’d say.

My dad will stop, closely (but disinterestedly) inspect the bracelets and quickly assert that they aren’t real gold. He’ll take two or three steps before they call out to him that they are, in fact, real gold and that because he’s a paisano, they’ll give him a special price.

“Oh yeah?” he’ll say in Spanish… so it sounds more like “Ah-ha!?! Let’s see here, compadre, what you consider special.” The vendor will tell him a price and before the man finishes, he’ll interrupt him with “No, no, no… that’s the special you tell the gringos. They’ll buy your fake gold for any price. What’s the special price for real paisanos?”

The vendor, without fail, will reaffirm how special his price is and say that he actually charges gringos twice that much. My dad will look at the vendor, look down the street to where other vendors are presumably standing (waiting for him not to buy from the first vendor) and he’ll offer half of what he thinks the bracelet is actually worth. The vendor, stunned by such a ludicrously low offer, will talk about the quality of the bracelet and knock the price down from, say, $65 to $55.

“Nah. 15,” my dad will say.
“15!?! No, no, no… how about $50?”
“50! Only if you had a gun to my head! I’ll tell you what… $16”
“16!?! You’re out of your mind; this is real gold. People pay a lot more that 16 for these bracelets. I can’t believe I’m even saying this, how about $45?”
“Well, good luck finding someone who wants to pay $45, because I’m definitely not, amigo,” and then he’ll take another few steps away.
“Fine, fine, señor. You’re breaking my bank here, but you can have it for… $35”
“20… not a dime more”
“25! And I can’t go any lower”

My dad will pause, stroke his beard for a second, look back down the street towards the other eager vendors and say “14.”

“$14! You just said 20! You started at 15! No, there’s no way!”
“Yeah, and that’s what I wanted to pay then… you missed it. Look, compadre, I’m going to spend $14 on a crappy bracelet right now and I don’t care who I buy it from. If you don’t sell it to me, that guy will. If he doesn’t, the guy next to him will and you and your neighbor can complain about me being cheap while the other guy eats tacos and drinks beer. I don’t even want the damn bracelet.”
“Okay, señor, $20” the vendor will say exhaustedly.

My dad will grudgingly pull out a $20 bill, pay the man and look disappointed as he pockets the bracelet. He’ll then run to us and excitedly tell about working it down from $65. He’ll haggle just about anything and is usually fairly successfully. The skill he has that most people who engage in 30 minute haggling sessions can’t bring themselves to do is being capable of just walking away. Lots of people feel obligated to buy something since they spent so long banging out the price. No guilt for Old Man Ramirez… No, sir! If they didn’t want their time wasted, they shouldn’t have tried to overcharge.

Then there’s my cousin Beatrice; even my dad gets embarrassed when she gets into thrifty mode. Bea seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of not only what things are worth, but how much every other vendor in the world charges for them. This is the depth of her depravity. She won’t allow herself to buy something in a foreign country unless she’s firmly convinced that the seller is making just pennies. I don’t think it’s a matter of thrift and savings for her, because (again) no one ever really needs the crap you buy in other countries, it’s knowing that the vendor is kicking himself for letting it go at such a low price and having legitimately wasted so much time.

Bea’s been known to go to respectable restaurants in Mexico, order her meal, eat it and then haggle the price when the check is presented. Wow, we’d all think, this is absurd. Then we’re floored when it works. “Fuck ‘em,” she’d say, “every one of them is trying to rip you off.” We’re further impressed when she leaves a pitiful tip, “What? Do they think we’re a bunch of tourists?”

My dad would be the only one to regain hold of enough cognizance to say, “Bea, we ARE tourists. You’ve never even been here before!”

Never seems to bother her.

I, however, don’t seem to have the Ramirez family fervor for bargaining.

“Señor, you want to buy t-shirts with drawings of boobies that look like fruit?”
“Do I ever!” (in Spanish, of course)
“Three for $25.”
At this point, I like to cross my arms, look down the street towards other hopeful vendors, make the constipated face and say, “Can you break a hundred?”
“No, señor, sorry. I haven’t sold a shirt in two years.”
“Wow. That’s sad. I guess I better buy 12 then.”
“Are you interested in a coffee mug that looks like a booby?”
“Am I!”

That’s all.

Yelling: How to Win an Argument

2005-04-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

Persuasion is a tricky thing; it’s an artful balance of reason, conviction, charm and confidence. Not only do you need to find the appropriate levels of each for every new situation, but they must be effectively executed with precise timing. Whether it is a heated philosophical or political debate amongst intellectual equals, a misunderstanding or disagreement with a significant (or maybe not-so-significant, but she pays the rent) other or conflicts of interest with larger, drunker men (by which, of course, I mean your interest is not to leave the bar bloody and ashamed), every potential argument brings about its own special set of circumstances. Notwithstanding, certain time-tried principles of persuasion will help you keep your moral righteousness and air of pomposity in impeccable tact. With any luck, such principals can give the average person a fighting chance at avoiding impending conflict by saying the right thing, in the right manner, at the right time.

Students of forensics (the ones who blindly make references to Nietzsche, categorical imperatives and hierarchies of needs, as opposed to the ones that wear rubber gloves and touch yucky things) have worked tirelessly since the very first disagreement in 399 B.C.—when Socrates first shook his head violently while uttering the words “nuh-uh”—to perfect the art of formal debate. The best debaters in every age have managed to scrupulously choreograph the most effective gesticulations by watching professional wrestlers intimidate their opponents. As an example, Chester MacBadger, the winner of the 1989 National Debate Championships, employed what’s now known as the “Hogan Offensive” to defeat Jaspy Miller in the final round. After Jaspy asserted a weak evocation of The Federalist Papers, Chester rebutted by arguing that The Beatles had actually conceived the American system of representative democracy in 1963. He then proceeded to run from one side of the stage to the other, stopping only to rip off his shirt, circle his hand in the air and dramatically bringing it to his ear, eliciting support for his argument from the crowd and the adjudicators. Jaspy, unable to recover from such devastating gesticulations, relapsed into a debilitating stutter he’d worked months to suppress and lost the round four votes to one.

Forensics students agreed that it would take more to master the art of argument. They turned, naturally, to the use of analogies. One of the most well known series of presidential debates occurred throughout 1860 between two exceptional debaters and orators: Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham H. Lincoln. The two had met on the political/philosophical battlefield in 1858, just before Douglas squarely handed Lincoln his own ass for the office of US Senator from Illinois. Lincoln, distraught by his defeat to a man he was clearly taller than, dedicated the next two years to studying the tactics and strategies of phenomenal debaters. He emerged from his training with a firm mastery of analogy drawing. In the final televised debate before the election, Douglas was making an airtight case against abolition by arguing that every other great civilization in history had employed slavery as the backbone of its national superiority. Lincoln, slightly distressed by the merits of Douglas’ position, but satiated by his mid-afternoon snack, accused Douglas of “comparing apples to oranges”. The American populous concurred; Douglas had, in fact, been making that very comparison. Lincoln won in a landslide and went on to become famous for making plenty of other contributions to the American compendium of clichés.

Forensics students met again and agreed that it would take more, still, to master the art of argument. This time (we’re talking maybe around 1996), they turned to Ivy League types for inspiration on how best to show others how very wrong and intellectually inferior they are. Dr. Alan Thunder, a rhetorician at A University That Isn’t Georgetown, postulated that when defending a weak argument, an effective strategy is to point out how much more intelligent and better read you are than your opponent by quoting “books” (as they’re called) you’re certain your opponent hasn’t read. “For example,” writes Thunder, “when contending that crunchy peanut butter is far and away better tasting than creamy peanut butter, studies of Ivy League students has shown that it is advantageous to quote Kierkegaard as having postulated—and it is important to use the word postulated—‘When we objectively investigate the truth, we reflect objectively about the truth as an object to which we are related. We do not reflect upon the relationship, but upon the fact that it is the truth--the truth to which we are related. When this to which we are related merely is the truth, the true, then the subject is in the truth. When we subjectively investigate the truth, we reflect subjectively upon the relationship of the individual; only when the how of this relationship is in truth, is the individual in truth, even if he is thus related to the untrue.’” Dr. Thunder adds that you’re guaranteed to further trump your opponent by adding, “But, surely you would know that if you’ve read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.” That’ll teach those imbeciles to question the value of crunchy peanut butter!

These increasingly masterful debaters met one final time to pensively stroke their collective chin on the subject of successfully winning every argument. “We’ve covered, what seems to be, all of our proverbial bases. We’ve mastered body-language and reason, not to mention shamelessly flexing our philosophical-lexicon muscle… what could we possibly be missing?” they seemed to say. They sat and pondered furiously. “If only there were someone that could guide us…” they added (inwardly).

Well, friends and comrades, I have the answer. When the “Razor Ramon Approach” fails… when your opponent counted their chickens after they’d hatched… when you’ve discovered that no one’s impressed by the musings of Bertrand Russell… talk louder! It’s that simple. Don’t just yell; yell profanities. The louder you manage to raise your voice, the more likely you are to get away with saying completely irrational, abundantly ignorant things. Yelling, without question, is the perfect defense for an otherwise indefensible position. Timing, however, is key; the sooner you start yelling, the better it is for your position. Don’t waste precious rebuttal moments on niceties. Go straight for the jugular. For example:
“Hey Paco.”
“Hey, buddy, how’s it going?”
“Great. Real great. Listen, I haven’t said anything for the last few months, but you’re… you know… not exactly on time with your rent this month. Or last month, really. I really hate to hassle you, man, but do you think you could get that to me in the next week or tw—“
“WHY CAN’T I TAKE A GODDAMN BREATH WITHOUT YOU CONSTANTLY NAGGING ME ABOUT THE RENT? YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME, DON’T YOU? I’M SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR… YOU KNOW WHAT? GET OUT BEFORE I DO SOMETHING TO GET ME SENT BACK TO JAIL!!!!”

Should you defend the merits of reason, cooperation and wit, I defy you to attempt an argument on any subject, in any language against Al Pacino, the master of yelling. Do you think you’d tell Tony Montana that he short changed you 85 cents? How about telling John Milton (his character in The Devil’s Advocate) that he should be more considerate? Would you really ever tell Don Michael Corleone to calm down and be reasonable?

Yelling: beating reason and morality since 1972

Part II… Violence: How to Win an Argument Against Someone Who's Read “Yelling: How to Win an Argument”

THAT’S ALL!!!

Pacotopia: Just like Civilization, Only Absurd on Purpose

2005-04-11T10:00:00.000-04:00

I’ve always laughed a little at games like SimCity and The Sims because the basic idea behind these games always seems to be: you’re going to do on the computer what you would very likely be doing during the course of your day, only you feel empowered because the consequences aren’t real and you can creatively name banks and fast-food restaurants “Institutional Robbery” and “Poop Stand” (respectively). Well, perhaps you didn’t; you better believe I did. Although I generally find videogames tedious and a waste of perfectly good napping time, I grasped why these kinds of demigod role-playing games are appealing. It’s probably the closest most anyone is ever going to get to having unadulterated control over everything that happens on a much larger scale than real people can actually comprehend (I get wrapped up on how the computer makes the tiny computer people remember to drive to work and protest things. I also can’t play these games without getting intensely sad when I eventually give up and start over because my SimTown sucked. Surely, SimCitizens can sense they’ve been abandoned… poor, little SimSuzy and SimSammy. I can just see their tiny SimFaces SimPouting. I need a drink).

Barring, say, the ability to cause great fires, hurricanes and evil flying saucer/spider monster attacks, what if you could manage to rebuild civilization from scratch? You take the same human organisms with the same inherent traits and try your hand at the same goal of propagating this civilization of yours. It’s easy to say “Legalize drugs and lower the drinking age, baby… yeah! That’s what I’d do with Ted-town!” (if your name should happen to be—just as an example—Ted) or even “I’d make it just like France”, but history’s taught us these plans are destined to fail (or at least grow terribly tiresome).

So, exactly where does one start when founding civilization? Okay, name: check.. Overbearing, self-indulgent societal architect: check. Well, I have the critical facets of a society down, now on to the details (Incidentally, Aldous Huxley, Thomas More and George Orwell all went through this exact same thought process. Any history book will tell you that even Karl Marx, when he first sat down to pen out his manifesto, allegedly said, "Okay, let's start a revolution... a rev-vo-lu-tion! Let's call it... hmmm... Karlsvilles? Nah. Let’s see… Karlopotamia? Nah. Name, name, the revolution needs a name. Think, Marx, think! Marxism. Great! I'm on a roll!")

Pacotopia, unlike every other Utopian society ever conceived, is not an island, isolated compound or moon colony. It’s a mid-sized municipality of 85,000 Pacotopians within an hour’s drive of a major, sprawling metropolis. Its city limits are marked with signs that say “Welcome to Pacotopia! Population: One more than we wanted now that you’re here”. I would work exhaustively with city planners to ensure that zoning, construction and public spaces fit together in such a way that, from above, Pacotopia looks like a Magic Eye photo. At first glance, it’s a city like any other, but if you try to cross your eyes, the image of a puppy peeing on a tree pops out at you (needless to say, the puppy would be smirking).

Aesthetically, the neighborhoods and business districts seem as though their owners had built them without any knowledge that anyone else was ever going to build around them. Colors are painfully bright and nauseatingly uncoordinated. The architecture in Pacotopia is marveled at for its biting commentary or playful irony. Financial institutions are generally deeply underground—beneath untended fields—and are marked by rather ominous black, iron gates guarding stairs with the phrase “LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH’INTRATE” (Canto III, Line 9) spelled out as you descend each step. Fashion malls and beauty parlors are inside ugly, industrial factories with giant smokestacks pouring thick, black smoke into the air. Charities and homeless shelters are in monstrously gaudy, baroque buildings and the office of the city planners is desperately disorganized.

There isn’t a police force in Pacotopia; instead, there are very, very large men who wear reflective yellow vests and call themselves “Helpies”. Helpies are never off-duty, they live their lives as they normally would only they always wear the yellow vest and have the authority and responsibility to beat evil-doers senseless. They carry neither guns nor billy-clubs, they’re just really scary looking and probably have impressive scars and tattoos. There has only ever been one reported complaint concerning a Helpie loose-cannon who abused his power by parking in front of fire hydrants, intimidating Pacotopians into letting him cut in lines and took bribes (consisting principally of éclairs) from Marty, the crooked bakery chef. He was promptly investigated by his peers, found guilty, publicly beat lifeless and asked to leave town. His wife stayed; she married Marty and gained forty pounds.

Pacotopia doesn’t have a fire department either. The collateral duties firefighters have conventionally handled (getting cats out of trees, emergency medical services and posing from hunky calendars) are the responsibility of all Pacotopians and, when in severe circumstances, Helpies. Happily, in 1985 (when its supreme leader was a bouncing toddler of two), Pacotopian scientists (the only useful ones the world over) invented a system so that nothing ever burns (even toast) unless it is supposed to. They also invented what went on to become a worldwide retail juggernaut: the happy weather coat. A coat that gives its wearer the sensation that it’s sunny, 78 degrees with a gentle breeze carrying aromatic sea-spray no matter what the conditions might be outside. The happy weather coat went on to sell millions upon millions of units and became all the rage in Prague during the winter.

The happy weather coat gave way to the happy weather canopy, happy weather lawn furniture, the compact happy weather sports visor and—the ever popular—happy weather lip gloss. Pacotopian economists determined that outsourcing production to Bolivia (where nice weather and aromatic sea-spray were originally invented in 1967) would improve profit margins. Unfortunately, quality control went down and the Japanese innovated on happy weather merchandise to create the Variable-weather-for-pleasurable-moments-at-any-weather-condition-you-might-desire line of products. Happy weather merchandise was criticized, but Pacotopians didn’t care; in fact, they chortled together all the way to the Institutional Robbery.

City Hall in Pacotopia is a well sized building made entirely of durable, transparent plastic. All the walls, cubicles and office furniture are completely transparent and the front door never locks. After former Mayor Embezzlucious J. McGillicutty, a short, balding squat of a man with a handlebar mustache, was implicated in a series of misappropriation scandals (for which he was pulverized by Helpies who disliked both Mayor McGillicutty and handlebar mustaches), the citizens of Pacotopia decided it would be best to have City Hall completely exposed to public scrutiny. The next mayor was fundamentally in favor of the idea as it allowed him to display his endearingly white teeth and painstakingly perfected mayoral wave to Pacotopians as they passed his office. Everything ran smoothly the first day of (new) City Hall until shortly after lunch when staffers found the practical joke the architect and engineers had played on them: the restrooms in the only completely transparent building in town faced the busiest intersection on Main Street. Two disquieting weeks later, an outhouse was installed fifty yards behind the building; when the door locked, instead of “occupied”, a red sign above the handle declares “DO NOT DISTURB: Important Matters of State”.

There are few laws on the books, but society runs on the principle that no one person (or group of one persons) can impose their will onto others such that they wouldn’t be able to pursue their own amusement. Helpies mediate conflicts of interest and apply appropriate physical pressure after a Pacotopian has made it clear he or she doesn’t want to play nice. Pick a purse: get a beating. Steal candy from a baby: get a beating. Cheat at poker: get a beating. If two strapping, young bucks decide that their problems are so very irreconcilable that it has to come to fisticuffs: they’ll call for a Helpie and he’ll watch them beat the hell out of each other. Should one decide to ride their motorcycle without a helmet, no one will bother them. Should one decide they don’t want to wear a seatbelt, no one will bother them. There’re no speed limits in Pacotopia, but if one were to lose control and smash through a storefront, Helpies would quickly be on the scene to help them out of their car… and proceed to beat them.

Pacotopia is not particularly well known for its healthcare system. There are clinics throughout the city for cuts, burns and broken bones, emergency rooms for more traumatic accidents and only a handful of specialists (for things like births and rectal exams… because even Pacotopians can’t escape that particular shame... rectal exams, that is). Pacotopians, on average, maintain fairly healthy diets and lead moderately active lives, but are not immune to plagues and cancers. While they very much value life, there is a deeply engrained cultural acceptance that people can and will die when their time comes. The citizens of Pacotopia don’t want to live forever; instead they strive to accomplish what they will in the time given to them. Those Pacotopians that choose to smoke, drink or engage in what would be considered life-shortening activities do so with the understanding that they’re responsible for their choices and embrace the consequences as their own doing. They die when they’re supposed to and funerals are modeled after Dean Martin’s celebrity roasts.

Churches in Pacotopia modeled themselves after Blockbuster video-rental stores. Pacotopians go in at their convenience when they feel they want spirituality, religion or enlightenment. Some go two or three times a week, some only once a month, some daily and some never. Church-goers go in, select whatever they’re in the mood for (maybe some action-packed Christianity… immensely funny Judaism… a dense Buddhist thriller… maybe a Mormon horror) and proceed to the checkout line where a cheerful pastor tells them they’ve made an excellent choice and that it’s due back next Tuesday. While there are no late fees, rarely are things not returned on time. Church officials claim there used to be a huge problem until they posted a big sign on the exit that reads “There are no late fees, but there sure is a hell!”

Pacotopians revel in their individuality, but share many cultural interests. There’s no one preferred kind of music, but something always seems to be playing. Theaters are highly acclaimed worldwide for their impressive productions, exceptional actors and beautiful stages, but shows are generally under-attended. Almost every kind of cuisine is available at a variety of fine restaurants, but even the most exotic of restaurants offers Lucky Charms, burritos and Buffalo chicken (insert noun) on their menu. Pacotopian chefs experimented with the development of something called Paco Charms (which were just like Lucky Charms, only the marshmallows were flavored and shaped like chicken wings and burritos), but—surprisingly—the idea never caught on. Bars and pubs are remarkably affordable for having such generous servings and each one has air filters working feverishly to allow smokers and non-smokers to coexist. The vineyards of Pacotopia are small, but respectable and the Martini Orchards (They did it again! Those amazingly useful scientists actually went and invented the Martini Tree) are renowned.

The singles scene in Pacotopia has perplexed sociologists and social psychologists alike for decades. Single men and women go to the bars (or Martini Orchards) and, upon entering, wave their hands furiously in the air signifying their interest in finding other singles. When an attractive woman waves, a waving man approaches her and introduces himself. She greets him, says it is a pleasure to meet him and continues waving her hands furiously. He tries desperately to say something charming or clever, perhaps asks if she’d seen the most recent play at the theater (which all parties involved knows neither of them had) in an effort to coax her arms down. She’ll wave more furiously, at which point he’ll begin waving again and find another waving woman. The cool guys in the room have a patented wave that makes them appear as if they’re really not all that interested. They lean against walls and lazily raise their hands in the air with each finger trying to look more disinterested than its digit neighbors, occasionally jolting it so as not to be confused with someone just wanting to clear their tab. Surely, when too many non-cool guys attempt the cool wave, the cool guys will change it thereby dating the non-cool guys and making them not cool all over again. A vicious cycle.

Should a studly waving guy find a pretty waving girl and they go on to find love together (perhaps behind a Krispy Kreme… where love was invented) they’ll probably get married and probably have kids. Weddings are an interesting experience in Pacotopia because they’re also essentially roasts—similar to funerals, only much meaner. Everyone goes to the Blockbuster video rental and, for the first half of the ceremony, the groom’s family tries to convince the bride why the groom is such an awful choice and vice versa. The second half of the ceremony involves the bride’s family trying to convince her that the groom is worthless and vice versa. It always starts fairly civil—“Bobby wet the bed until he was 20”—and moves on to just outright malicious—“Susan is a filthy whore and you know it and she knows it and that filthy whore of a mother of hers knows it too!” Finally, after everyone is shocked and the bride’s father is terribly embarrassed by what he’d just said, the priest asks if they want to carry on with their marriage with the knowledge that they only have one shot at it, and once that shot’s spent you’re only allowed to marry lepers. The couple will either agree to carry on or decide to call it off (either of which is a happy event); if they agree, they recite their vows and the priest ends by saying “I now declare you husband and wife… always remember how much you thought you loved each other at this very moment.” They do and the divorce rate is low in Pacotopia.

The population growth is at a slow, but steady rate. Rarely will couples have more than two or three children, but when they do, it’s traditional to name that child in the order it was conceived. While it isn’t terribly unusual to meet someone simply named Four in Pacotopia, there have only ever been four Sevens and only one Thirtyone (born to Pacotopia’s most famous fertile dyslexics). Children are, from a very young age, encouraged to be funny, but are generally governed by very strict rules. Spankings by unfamiliar adults is common in markets and parks with only two accounts ever of Helpies stepping in to savagely beat an adult that overdid it. Children are bombarded with school work from the time they can reasonably speak, walk, eat and pee-pee/poo-poo on their own.

At the age of 15, young boys are ceremoniously forced through rings of fire, pits of burning coals and cages of ferocious, ravenous animals in order to prove their readiness to take on manhood. At the age of 9, girls (since they mature so much faster than do boys) are given credit cards and undergo exhaustive training on the subtle arts of frivolity and irrationality (because even in perfect societies, girls are still girls). When they emerge from their tests, young people are given considerably more liberty and independence, but are also expected to work the most ignoble, tedious and (sometimes) repulsive of jobs so that real adults can go on waving arms at one another and not be concerned by who has to clean gutters and collect animal poo from public places.

The principle feature of Pacotopians is their intense affinity for sarcasm and humor. Rarely does anyone ever get offended and even rarer does one intend to offend. Instead, jibes and cracks are as banal as asking “How are you?” at the beginning of a conversation when everyone knows that the only answer they really want to hear is “Fine” or perhaps “Great”. Anything else would throw us off and force us to actually pay attention to what the other person is saying and feign interest. By saying “I’m very sorry to hear that” (e.g. “I’m very sorry to hear your parents died at the mouth of a volcano as a sacrifice to appease the gods of wrath”), most people really mean “I’m so very sorry you told me that… and, consequently, me having to hear you say it… golly! Why couldn’t you have just said ‘fine’ like everyone else?” Pacotopians eagerly invest their focus in commenting on another’s shoes, hair, blunder or personality quirk as a means to express joy in seeing them. They believe it’s far more genuine than “How are you (please say ‘fine’, please say ‘fine’)?”

Perhaps everyone in Pacotopia isn’t totally happy all of the time, but most of them are most of the time. Chronically miserably people are encouraged to travel more and constantly angry, belligerent people are beat by Helpies. Pacotopians take pride in being very different from those in the surrounding communities and are okay with the fact that they’re well hated. A man can find a quarter on the street (change is randomly sprinkled on sidewalks by Helpies, at the expense of (new) City Hall, for just such an occurrence) and that man will feel compelled to tell the first person he sees about how lucky he must be. That person will feel obligated to tell them that he’s right and, perhaps, he can use it to call someone that cares “…just a thought”, the stranger would say. The sun sets on Pacotopia and content Pacotopians stop to watch it descend, appreciating how much better they off they are than anyone else. Life was absurd today—much like it was yesterday—and I couldn’t ask for more… they seem to say.

Good night clear building where city affairs are discussed…
Good night yellow vested Helpies…
Good night happy waving singles, good luck to you…
Good night boy in the pit of burning coals…
Good night smirking, peeing puppy…

Hellooooooooo Martini Orchards….

That’s all.

Lame Attempt to Change the World (wide web)

2005-04-07T10:05:00.000-04:00

If the internet were a guy, here’s the letter I’d send:

Dear Mr. Internet

I certainly hate to disturb you, sir, as I’m certain you have your many hands full, what with kids downloading music and pedophiles streaming videos of kids downloading music, but you and I have some issues to discuss. Until recently, I’ve been completely satisfied with the services you’ve provided to me; I very much enjoy seeing funny pictures of monkeys doing zany things, being informed of when my favorite bands are playing and especially having an opportunity to acquire some of Bill Gates’ wealth by simply emailing my friends and relatives.

Notwithstanding, perhaps you’ve gotten the wrong idea. You see, sir, I’m not particularly interested in collecting any more winnings. I feel as if others are more deserving of reclaiming whatever money may be owed to me by the government (maybe the government should keep it, they do work very hard, after all). While your offers for financial independence are certainly appreciated, I’m not quite sure I want any more credit cards, regardless of how spectacular their APR’s may be. For the record, I don’t even own a house; I ask you, how am I supposed to refinance it? One would think that given your extensive web of information (worldwide, I’ve heard… bravo) you would have known that.

On to more personal matters... While I’m not necessarily on the best of terms with my ex-girlfriends, I think it’s unfair that you should give greater consideration to their emails concerning the size of my… well, you know. Moreover, I think it is mighty thoughtless of them to enlist your services in subtly bringing to my attention that perhaps my sexual performance is less than par (far less, judging by the number of hints you’ve sent me). I think there are far more tactful ways to address matters of stamina, endurance and potency than to send letters to total strangers. Especially if those total strangers have connections with most homes and business from here to Calcutta. Yes, perhaps I’m not the studliest of gentlemen, but, really, how will deeply-discounted and questionably legal steroids help my cause?

Regardless of what rumors my have floated around my high school, I have no need for any product from any company that has the word “jock” in their name (international or otherwise). And another thing, I take offense, sir, to the recommendation that I can increase the size of my breasts! For your information (which, again, you’re purportedly FULL of), I’m perfectly satisfied with their size and contour. Simply put: my breasts are absolutely none of your business. I ask that you discontinue recommending natural supplements for them!

I’m concerned about my ex-girlfriends’ and high school “buddies’” insistence if I receive not only subtle hints, but what seems to be thousands of emails a week concerning these very issues. I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Internet; I would have hoped that you, of all people, would know better than to believe everything you read.

Look, I’m neither an angry nor an unreasonable man. You’ve been doing okay in the last few years. God knows I dedicate hours on end to popping your online bubble-wrap. Ingenious, if I might say so. And I do appreciate the hard work you do. I’m not upset at all of the emails you send me so very consistently. For example, of the 900 bulk messages I received today, I must say that I AM interested in the 200 or so messages concerning lonely housewives in my neighborhood. Very interested. I have been rather enthralled with the online activities of whoever Tina and Kristy might be and I appreciate that they personally invited me to see them… well, you know. How thoughtful of them. I do have one question though… what, exactly, is a “Lolita”? I can only presume they must be fabled mountain girls—much like Heidi—because, according to you, they seem always to be doing something with farm animals.

In closing, while I only receive an email from a real human being perhaps three or four times a month, I’m a little uncomfortable with the attention you seem to dedicate to me and (presumably) only me. You could spread the love a little more; perhaps diversifying is all you need to make a name for yourself. As a suggestion, Brian Beutler is most definitely interested in the singles in his neighborhood (and if he isn’t, he should be). He’s also much more likely to order something from a company called “Randy” and, from what I understand, he’s well acquainted with most every naughty web page you have. Surely you knew that, though. I’m certainly not one to propagate rumors, but if anyone needs those emails regarding size… well, I think my point’s been made.

Thank you for all you do, Mr. Internet. If I may offer some encouraging words of advice: keep at it! I really think you may be on to something. I’ll ensure to tell both of my friends to check you out. Oh and please extend my warm regards to Mrs. Internet.

Always,

Paco Ramirez

P.s. More Tina and Kristy please!

That’s all.

Inebriation: The Slacker’s Guide to Enlightenment

2005-04-03T14:27:00.000-04:00

Wine is good in Europe, man. Yeah, it’s good. But, beer is important in this country… and it’s an important thing that it’s important. That’s how it should be. You see, because (pause for pensive frown) because Americans just understand better.

Oh yeah? In what sense?

Themactically (sic). You see, I’m American and I’m at 10,000 feet and I understand better. You’re American too, I guess, and you’re at 10,000 feet and you understand too. But, the Germans over in Deutschland are at sea-level; they don’t understand, man. You see? …you and me probably understand better than most. We’re that city on the hill, man. A real, real, real… tall hill. You know what I like about rain, man? It’s so… vertical. Yeah, man, the verticality. Awesome. It’s a shame people just can’t understand, dude.

Indeed it is, my friend. Indeed, it is a shame. Truth be told, I was only one martini deep during this particular conversation; needless to say, I was at sea-level. My friend, however (a very bright, very well read kid) was well on his way to a bender of Herculean proportions. He’d killed off a pint of Jack Daniels in an effort to better comprehend Jim Morrison. It’s been said before—plenty of times, I’m sure—but I’ll go ahead and reaffirm: drunk kids are funny.

Never mind stumbling. Never mind exhibitionism. Never mind feats of acrobatics one is firmly convinced they’ve always been able to do, but have simply never been so inspired to attempt. Drunken philosophy is, far and away, the most entertaining aspect of pseudo-intellectual intoxication. Get a little knowledge and a load of booze in a kid and you may as well put up signs that read “Genius at work”. It baffles me how alcohol can make an otherwise brilliant mind fully capable of conceiving the notion: The summer is like bread. It’s… ummm… great… and tastes… ummm… great. And when it’s hot outside, you get toast. Which is still kinda like bread.

Does the same sober mind conceptualize these absurdities and consciously subdue them? Presuming that alcohol works to free us of our inhibitions, the implication is that perhaps we really do (or really did) believe what will inevitably become our drunken ramblings. There are certainly numerous examples of extraordinarily gifted authors, artists, musicians and philosophers that discovered their own best work the morning after a night of heavy substance abu…. er… appreciation (in Hemingway’s case, perhaps months later). There are other examples of brilliant drunks that are painfully boring teetotalers; their art never recovers from their sobriety. Kerouac’s On The Road would have been a travel guide without booze. Nirvana would have been called “Optometrist’s Waiting Room” without the drugs. Not only would Mick Jagger have got his fill of satisfaction, but he would have probably been mildly contented all the time.

If we’ve learned anything from the Romans, it’s likely that In Vino there’s always Veritas. The Romans decided conclusively for the rest of humanity that we can only really tell what we believe to be the truth when we’re drunk (for those with dissenting opinions: I defy you to cite even one instance in which the Romans were wrong about anything at all). Does this mean, then, that I really believe that jam would totally beat peanut butter in a fight? Even crunchy peanut butter? It must. Absurd as it may be, I must also believe that when trees fall in the forest and there’s no one around to hear, not only do they make a noise, but other trees and assorted foliage applaud. At one point I determined that the question is not how the miniature ships in bottles were built; the real question is why the hell did those tiny men in the bottle think that somehow they’d be able to sail themselves out. Surely they must have been drunk when that particular idea came up. Finally, I must feel very strongly that that Kierkegaard character is (yes, present tense) a wanker.

Golly, what a sad state of affairs.

SIDEBAR: Latin Phrases That Didn’t Catch On
In Vino Audentia: You’re much more likely to provoke fights with ridiculously bigger guys in wine.
In Vino Paupertas: You’re guaranteed to go home broke in wine
In Vino Adamo Hominis Profundus: Every dude you’re drinking with is your soul-mate in wine.
In Vino Claudeo: There’s a possibility of impotence in wine
In Vino Citatio Caligo: You’ll be sorry you had your cell phone on you in wine.
In Vino Hippopotamus: You’re buddies tried to warn you that she didn’t look like Angelina Jolie, but you just wouldn’t listen, would you…. in wine

As well you know, before the Romans with their Latin were the ancient Greeks with their ancient Greek (the Greeks were to the Romans what the older brother that went to an Ivy League—which dad would always use as a way to guilt younger siblings into performing well—was to the younger brother that dropped out of high school and went on to become a multi-platinum rock star). The ancient Greeks had Dionysus, the god of wine, who is credited with inventing debauchery, intoxication and peace. What a guy! Anyway, scholars are resolute on the theory that Dionysus benevolently gave humans an added bonus with inebriation… enlightenment. The other gods became very poopy that Dionysus (who looked remarkably like Dean Martin) gave humans a brief window into what it feels like to be a god.

If ever you’ve questioned why both ancient Greek and Roman civilizations failed, the answer is simple: deity conventions looked something like Thanksgiving at Irish households. Everyone yelled over the controversial issue of whether or not the pumpkin pie had the image of Jesus in it.

The fact is that not only do you really believe the silly gibberish you utter when you’re drunk, they’re (perhaps regrettably) probably the most enlightening things a slacker like you is ever going to come up with. Too bad everyone else thinks you’re an idiot.

That’s all.

GO... ummm... Team!

2005-03-31T15:00:00.001-05:00

The New York Yankees have won 26 and competed in 39 World Series. Hmmm… interesting. So far, Shaquille O’Neal (who has the dimensions roughly those of a small Blue Marlin) is ranked number one in the NBA for Field-Goal percentage (59.7%), Field-Goals per 48 minutes of play (averaging 12.59) and blocks (with 166). Imagine that. Randy Moss set an NFL record for most receiving yards in a player's first six seasons with 8,375 yards. In 2004, FC Porto beat AS Monaco 3-0 for the European Cup in soccer.

Yaaaawwwwnnn… sigh… Zz.. huh? No, man, I’m awake. Zz… zzzzz…. Ahhh, yeah, Penelope. Oh, Penelope! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Let’s face it: there is a societal expectation that the average dude be either good at a sport, well versed in sports or fanatically follow one team. Such that if a lone 12-25 year old guy were to want to break into a group of similar 12-25 year old guys, his best bet is probably to display an encyclopedic knowledge of stats and figures or demonstrate exceptional skill at the no-look pass. Of course there are exceptions; some guys have designs on Princess Leia, some are interested in philosophy and literature and some still (ahem) are so self-interested that it doesn’t really matter what other people’s interests are. Ahem. Cough… cough.

Sorry. There’s something in my throat.

Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen, in his book ‘The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain”, postulates that while women are empathizers, men are systemizers. Essentially, our brains are hard-wired to set up systems and organize things. As a result, males intrinsically feel compelled to be competitive for the sake of establishing where they stand compared to other males; it would be unthinkable to allow things to go undefined. This explains why a) guys naturally form hierarchies and b) we exhibit dominance through our mastery of rules and the manipulation of the laws of physics to slam that other jerk that thought he could slip through the defense without us seeing his slow, monkey ass (i.e. athletics). Yeah! Where you goin’, baby? Huh? Where you goin’? That’s right: NOWHERE!

But I digress…

The point is, under Baron-Cohen’s theory, guys—by their very constitution—are supposed to excel at sports, or at the very least, be desirous of being good. That desire can, if genetics deny otherwise, take the form of living vicariously through those that are actually good. Additionally, because men are predisposed to establish systems in an attempt to organize the world around them, males should also be interested, to varying degrees, in sports statistics and speculations. After all, stats seem to be the pinnacle of masculinity: it gives men the opportunity to combine both competitiveness and figures breaking that competition down into neat boxes, percentages and pie charts. Why else would guys watch a ballgame, watch SportsCenter for highlights of that game and others, AND check the paper the next day for the exact same box scores?

SIDEBAR: Paco’s on to Something
Just seconds ago, my roommate shot an empty coke bottle from across the room into the trash can 12 feet away. He easily could have gotten up from his chair and walked it into the trash can OR we could conveniently place our trash cans closer to our desks. Instead, he made the shot, celebrated with a fist-pump (the universal gesture for “God, I rock!!”) and exclaimed “Yessss! Two for two!” Presumably, he’d made one earlier in the night. Show of athleticism: check. Celebration to establish dominance: check. Immediate mathematical analysis thereof: check… Need I say more?

Old Baron-Cohen maintains that while systemizing is the common thread amongst men, levels of intensity vary. Some men, naturally, are going to be more heavily invested in sports and some (ahem… damned throat!) are going to lack interest and, sadly, talent. Those men that are less interested in this form of systemizing, according to B-C, are more likely prone to be empathizers and, therefore, women. This is a heated point of contention I have with his argument; I was following all the way until this point.

Random Angry Interjection by a Fictional Reader:
“That’s absurd! There are plenty of engineers, scientist, web-designers, stamp-collectors, Magic: The Gathering enthusiasts, etc. that are exceptional systemizers and just God-awful at sports.”
Editorial Response:
(Pensively stroking chin) Hmmm… I suppose you’re right. Lord knows when I’m at a party or bar and happen upon a conversation with other dudes, I immediately reach for my Magic deck or slide rule and throw down. Get out.

Not only am I simply terrible at sports (or anything requiring any kind of hand-eye coordination, for that matter), but I couldn’t care less how many homeruns and RBI’s Barry Bonds had last season. I can be competitive, sure, but only to the point where I know I’ll likely lose. At which point I throw my hands in the air, roll my eyes and say “_________ is for suckers. What a stupid sport! Who invented this anyway?” If conversations I’m in turn to sports, my eyes generally glaze over and I wait patiently for the first lull in the conversation to comment on the weather or rounds that need to be consumed.

I certainly admire those guys that are exceptional athletes and fall prey to the same silly social assumptions everyone else does. “Hey, d’you see Matt make that touchdown/goal/homerun/free-throw last night?” “Yeah. Golly, what an awesome guy! I’m gonna buy him a drink for being such a good person the next time I see him.” While it bodes very much against my favor, I understand why the star football player is always so popular. They can be liars, jerks, criminals or have terrible penmanship, but WOW, what an awesome 80 yard punt return he made. It all makes sense (lousy Simon Baron-Cohen).

My bouts with sucking at sports started very early in life. I had always been the really chubby kid who, after getting picked last for kickball what must have been hundreds of times, finally gave up. All the athletic skills one obtains in their formative years on playgrounds and with neighborhood kids, I skipped out on. Now, no matter how much I want to make that shot or catch the football, there isn’t a single person on the court or field who doesn’t know that I’m not only going to miss it, but very likely trip over my own feet at the worst possible moment along the way.

My parents recognized that boys are supposed to play sports when they’re young if they’re to be well adjusted. When I was in second grade, they signed me up for little league baseball as a way for me to learn basic athleticism and good sportsmanship. I hated the idea from its conception. I got picked up by the worst team in the league: The Rialto Expos. Other boys got to be on teams named after respectable clubs like the Rialto Dodgers or the Rialto Yankees. Not only were the Expos about the worst team in major league baseball, but they weren’t even American. Our colors were powder blue and red… in looking back at my team picture (in which I’m scowling like only seven year olds and old priests can) I resembled an Easter Peep with cleats and glasses.

They put me in right field in hopes that I wouldn’t cause too much damage to the rest of the Expos that were actually eager to play. I spent the better part of practices trying to reason with the coach and manager as to why I, specifically, didn’t need to run the laps with everyone else. Games were (to use the most precise cliché possible) bitter-sweet. I’d stand in the field cursing my parents for ever having made me play while the coach cursed at me for not facing the diamond when someone was at bat.
“Ramirez, goddamnit, keep your eye on the game!”
“Ramirez, your glove is not a goddamn hat!”
“Ramirez, that’s the eighth goddamn time you’ve tied your shoe this inning!”
“Ramirez, your parents just said they hate you. You’re an embarrassment and they’re going to take the catcher home and give him all your things.”
I lived for the end of the game when the baseball moms would have snacks and punch set out. I’d stuff my chubby face with Cheetos and brownies and pretend to commiserate with the other boys over how much we should have won because the other team sucked.

At the end of every game, while I was busy with my Capri-Sun, the coach would announce who the MVP of that game was. My ears would still anxiously perk up as if I had contributed anything to that game but provoke ulcers for coaches and parents of real players. It would be years later when I realized that every boy had to get MVP for at least one game. Incidentally, the kid who played catcher got MVP twice before I ever got it the first time… at the very last game of the season. “Ramirez, you actually hit the ball this time and you kept your glove on for most of the game. We’re all proud of you, son.”

I still hate baseball. Sure, I like going to the stadium and taking in a game (of any sport, really), because I can amuse myself with stadium things during the game. Invariably, I’ll have buddies who will know what they’re doing, so I’ll take my cues from them and yell at the players or the officials when appropriate. I’ll get my fill of beers, nachos and peanuts, do the wave and probably even buy a hat; I’d call that a good night. If I had watched the exact same game at home, I’d have either fallen asleep or gone on to meticulously organize the magazines on the coffee table.

Being from right around Los Angeles, I take part in the same kind of fair-weather fandom that every other Angelino does: I root for the Lakers after they’ve won. I can enjoy watching basketball on TV because I can step away from it for a few minutes and will actually get a response when I ask “What happened?” When the Lakers play the Kings, I will generally jeer and vociferously advise Mike Bibby as to how he should recover from a missed three-pointer, as I am wont to do. I can even go on and on about how much I hate Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, but were I to see either Mike Bibby or Tony Parker in a bar… you better believe I’m going to ask for them to autograph whatever article of clothing seems most appropriate at the time. I’ll then go straight to tell my buddies about the time I called Mike Bibby a bitch and run to Ebay with an authentic, autographed Red Stripe beer visor.

I can’t fathom how people start fights and riots over sports. British soccer hooligans are notorious for getting rowdy after their favorite club loses… or wins… or is even made reference to in passing. Not only are these characters not part of the team, but no one on the team probably even cares that their honor is being defended by someone a police report will later describe as “shirtless, stumbling and reeking of cheap beer.” I’ve seen sober people in the states get incensed when someone says their favorite ball club is the Yankees. Perhaps a car won’t get overturned, but it’s an uncomfortable situation no less (what with the flurry stats and threatening profanities).

It’s absurd. I can’t understand how other men can possibly invest themselves to such degrees. I know guys that will sit down with a cooler full of beer and watch football from dawn ‘til dusk on Saturdays. I can’t think of anything that can hold my attention longer than an average movie, much less watching different people do much of the same thing over and over again. Hmmm… that may also explain my impatience with girlfriends.

You know it’s gotten bad when even alcohol is against me on this one. There are tons of things that don’t peak my interests, but at least I can take solace in the fact that major alcohol companies are with me. Skyy doesn’t sponsor chess tournaments. There are no Corona Promise Keeper conventions. Happily, I’ve never heard of the Chivas Regal International Genetic Biology Roundtable. But roughly one in three bars is called a sports bar, major sporting events have booze affiliates and most domestic beers have contests for tickets to the final four, World Series and the Super Bowl. Salt to the wound: Buffalo chicken wings are the official food of the American sports spectator. Screw you Simon Baron-Cohen!

That’s all.

Growing up Hispy

2005-03-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

I’d probably fit in at any coffee shop or cocktail bar in any big city in America. I’m apt to wear oxfords and polo shirts, I’ve owned a few pairs of loafers and if Dockers has made a pair of khaki pants, I’ve probably owned them. My drink of choice is a stiff vodka martini or perhaps a good scotch. I frequently read magazines like Esquire and GQ to get hip with what the cool kids do. My CD case is riddled with Sinatra, opera or jazz compilations and Dave Matthews (and perhaps one or two violent rap CD’s). Yup! In all, I’d say I’m a fairly standard American pseudo-intellectual. Oh, and I’m Hispanic. No, no… don’t worry; keep your wallet. All that means is that I’m perennially tanned.

Or does it?

My parents came from the tiny, little (troublesome) country of Nicaragua. You may have heard of it… that whole Iran-Contra thing? The one that wasn’t “Iran”… yeah, that was Nicaragua. They coined the term Sandinistas, were considered for the Panama Canal (it would have been embarrassing to have the Panama Canal go through Nicaragua anyway) and invented bananas. In 1912, there was some dispute between Juan Banan and Miguel Annana over who ACTUALLY invented bananas which ultimately resulted in the Banana Wars. It’s plural because in 1915, and again in 1927, Juan conceded to Miguel but went on to tell all his friends that Miguel was a punk and he didn’t care what peace accords were signed, he, Juan, was actually the mastermind behind bananas. The wars raged until 1933, when the US Marines finally settled the dispute; THEY had actually invented bananas in 1904, only they were called “jihadist-fingers”.

My father arrived in Los Angeles in the mid-seventies. He was a 16 year old stranger in a strange land determined to use his new found independence to wear white t-shirts, grow facial hair, smoke out and jive with his merry band of miscreants at the local discotheque (none of which had been exported to Nicaragua quite yet… his hobbies that is, not so much the other miscreants). My mother was sent over in the late-seventies to live with, who she describes as the Nicaraguan lieutenants of Satan himself (theologians have determined conclusively that Satan is actually Canadian). She was kept under lock and key to assure that she would get a proper education and wouldn’t hang around the likes of thin-mustached bums… so my parents married in 1982 and a mysterious eight months later, there I was—another Latino.

I was born under the glow of the Hollywood sign in a hospital on Sunset Blvd across the street from the Church of Scientology and the L. Ron Hubbard Center for Dianetics. Let the adventure begin. For the first five years of my life, we lived in a neighborhood near USC with the rest of my eccentric (read “crazy”) family. While my dad had taught himself fluent English and my mom spoke with an adorably strong accent, the decision was made to speak to me exclusively in Spanish until I got to grade school. I, however, would show them; my first word was “Pepsi”.

My father started making a decent salary and we moved from Los Angeles to a suburb thereof. I got around to learning English from my time around white kids at a day-care/pre-school called Children’s World. Once I learned English, there was no going back to talking “Nicaraguan”; I’d finally been exposed to what I thought was “American Culture” by being around white kids who I thought were definitively American. In my early grade school years, I was surrounded almost exclusively by white kids and I didn’t understand why I had to be any different. Ahhhh, the formative years of cultural identity crises. My parents recount stories of six and seven year old me’s throwing tantrums when reminded that I was, in fact, Latino. As evidence, they’d point to the undeniable fact that my skin was browner than my buddies. Upon further inspection, they were right. I cried.

We moved to another suburb, even further from Los Angeles after my sister was born and my parents decided that a growing family needed a bigger house. This was a dramatic demographic shift; there were still the white kids with which I could “identify”, but now there were lots of Hispanic kids with which I was “identified”. There were two or three white families on my street, the rest were either directly from Mexico or Mexican, but so very well assimilated that you could scarcely tell. I got along well with the kids, but being the nerdy, chubby kid that actually liked books made me different.

When I was seven, my parents took me to Nicaragua to see La Madre-landia. As I recall, there was poverty everywhere, everything was dirty and dogs and chickens ran around like street-gangs (think The Outsiders). There was only one place in Managua that made hamburgers (what I then considered THE perfect food) and they tasted of office supplies. My Nicaraguan cousins didn’t like me because I had an air of superiority about me. Simply put, I was American and they were, well, different.

SIDEBAR:
I’m sure other cultures do this, but Hispanic genealogy mandates that anyone in your family that cannot be immediately identified as your father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather or grandmother is, by default, your cousin. Older cousins or the cousins of your parents are called aunts or uncles. Your parents closest friends from La Madre-landia and people who are in any of your baby pictures are also your aunts and uncles and their kids are your cousins.

At seven years old, I regarded Nicaragua as the country where pride dejectedly went to die. Fortunately, shame welcomed it with open arms. To be realistic—as a seven year old—I very likely said something like “Nicaragua IS a poo-head”. My Spanish fluency continued to deteriorate and I was eager to see the day when I didn’t understand it anymore. Speaking Spanish in front of my friends was painfully embarrassing and God forbid anyone see me coming out of the Catholic Church where all the Mexicans prayed to their Jesus (hey-seuss).

Back in California, I excelled at school and was transferred to a magnet program at another school. Yup, where all the cool kids were; the kids who read three grade levels ahead and saw the Science Fair as an opportunity to shine. By the sixth grade, I hated speaking Spanish because that affirmed that I was “one of them”. Conversations in my household were (and probably still are) like listening to badly translated Language-on-Cassette lessons. I would address my mom in English; she’d respond in Spanish. My dad would chime in with something addressed to both of us in Spanish and scold me in English when I rolled my eyes. I would be exceedingly mean to my little sister in English and send her crying to rat me out in Spanish.

SIDEBAR: Fun with Direct Translations
Ever hear a foreigner use English phrases that didn’t quite hit the desired note? Here’s what happens when equivalent clichés get literally translated. Absurdity!

Easy come, easy go = Those monies of his sexton, singing yourselves came and singing yourselves they go.
You’ve made your bed now lie in it = Who evil bed cause to look, in she himself it lies
Forewarned is forearmed = Man cautioned voucher because of two
What’s done is done = To him accomplished, breast
There’s no honor among thieves = Thought him robber what everyone was from your condition
Birds of a feather flock together = Every who with your every what

My parents had very distinct philosophies for punishment. My dad ordered me to pick the belt from his drawer that he would swat me (what seemed) enthusiastically across my young bum. This is the equivalent of Indiana Jones’ predicament at the end of The Last Crusade; picking the right goblet was crucial. The big one would hurt, but wouldn’t last long. The small one would get me a quick, angry whipping for my insolence… and then I’d be sent for the big one. The shame of walking to and from his drawer with the second belt in my hand hurt more than the spankings ever did. My mom, on the other hand would neither offer me options nor give me the courtesy of a second to brace myself. I’d break, say, climb, steal or lie about something and she’d reach behind her back without looking, grab whatever her hand landed on and hit me with it. We’d be on the beach and she’d still manage to find a spatula that, presumably, some other Hispanic mother had strategically placed for just such an instance. I realized this was common amongst Hispanic mothers when I saw my neighbors get in trouble and instantly have a sandal, discarded baseball mitts or Lhasa Apsos flung at them. Hispanic Mothers: Masters of Weapons of Opportunity.

Speaking of punishments Latino parents impose on their children to keep them in line, growing up Hispanic invariably meant growing up Roman Catholic. I’ve developed a theory that Hispanics are Roman Catholics because we need excuses to celebrate things and grill meat. It’s not enough to say “Hey, Jose, let’s have some barbeque today for lunch. We’ll each call our respective 90 cousins and ask them to bring their own tortillas.” Oh, no! It HAS to be someone’s birthday, patron saint’s day, anniversary, marriage, baptism, communion or confirmation. When we ran out of religious pretexts, we’d move on to celebrating individual battles “we” may have won against some colonial power well over a century ago. Barring those… ummm… awww, hell. “Órale, vamos a asar carne para Martin Luther King Jr.!”

Every good Hispanic Roman Catholic has overstocked their homes with obscenely graphic ceramic representations of Jesus hanging limply on the cross. Houses with discriminating tastes would hang paintings of Christ doing something, you know, godly. We also had lots of candles with pictures of Jesus, Mary and the saints doing… ummm… awesome things. The idea was that were the apocalypse to roll around within the next few years and God required proof of faith, Hispanics would be able to point to all kinds of Lord Paraphernalia. “Yes, sir, God! We have every candle in the collection. I bet if you go to the Ehs-smithes (how Smith is pronounced with an accent) you’ll see they were too concerned with being tasteful to care about getting into heaven.”

This seems to be my mother’s principal concern regarding who I marry. While I have no set preference, the trend has shown that the girls I’ve brought home to meet my folks are generally white. This seems to suggest for my mom that there is a greater possibility that they’re not Roman Catholic and thereby assuring that Mrs. Paco Ramirez will invariably stop her from celebrating baptisms, first communions and birthdays by grilling meat.
“Mom, white people like grilling meat too.”
“Oh, sure they do, mijo (mee-ho, a phrase meaning “my son”), but you can’t trust white people to bring their own tortillas.”

She’s probably on to something. The sad reality is, simply, since I left Fontana, I haven’t met many Hispanic girls. I’m certainly a fan; racial genetics have left Hispanic girls with the lion’s share of “hottie” genes. I’ve found though (and this may be a direct result of living in DC for the past four years) that during college age, girls are most polarized along The Latina Spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are what I call The Unwed Mothers and on the other are The Family Trophies. The Unwed Mother is a girl whose ambition is inversely proportional to her fertility. The less they expect out of life, the more they seem to have babies. UM’s will finish high school, but rarely get past community college because that’s valuable time that could be spent finding a husband that makes $12 an hour. The Family Trophies come from decent, hard-working families that heavily emphasized the importance of “doing well in school and becoming independent because, mija, we work so very hard for you and your sisters and we want what’s best for you and you can’t rely on one of these good-for-nothings to support you. No, mija, you have to go to college and focus of school. Ensure that whatever you do, you do not have the slightest bit of sex with these cheesy, wannabe writer types. Especially not if he’s Nicaraguan. They’re going nowhere… and they carry knives.”

Doubtless, there are plenty of girls floating in the middle, I just haven’t met many. So, by circumstance, it seems, I’ve dated principally white girls. Which works out fine because meeting their parents gives me an opportunity to dress well and say charming things… inevitably, the parents who are uncomfortable will try to compliment me by calling me “exotic” or “cultured”. I thank them politely and cheerfully tell them that after dinner, I planned on robbing their daughters at knife point, because—as well you know—Nicaraguans carry knives.

Being Nicaraguan specifically is special all its own. Nicaragua isn’t Mexico nor is it in South America. There are big Nicaraguan communities in Los Angeles and Miami (when I say “big” I mean someone’s opened a restaurant for “our” people… that’s when you know you’ve made it. Next we’ll have our own Little Tokyo or Chinatown and call it “Nicaragua” because the “little” is implied), but very few Americans know anything about it. Growing up in Southern California, (where chances are good that if someone is Hispanic, they’re probably also Mexican) we blended in pretty well with the Mexican culture. We were immersed in it and there was no point in fighting it. As a result, my accent and idiosyncrasies in Spanish are completely indistinguishable. I switch back and forth between Mexican and Nicaraguan colloquialisms with a ridiculous speaking rhythm influenced by years of trying to forget and peppered with red-blooded, American pomposity.

So, I’ve accepted being Mexican in Southern California. No point in fighting, I suppose. When people interchange Hispanic and Mexican, there’s really nothing for me to get offended about. I can’t exactly pull out a globe and an easel with some dry-erase markers for their cultural edification in every instance (pending a grant from the US Endowment for Nicaraguan Geographical Identification). I used to point it out, but I quit when I would frequently be asked what part of Mexico Nicaragua was in. “Southern,” I’d say, “Very Southern. In fact, you’re almost well out of Mexico by the time you get to Nicaragua…. Yeah… Hey, so what part of the moon is your family from?” Now, I know that when I’m in California, Arizona, Nevada or Texas, I’m Mexican. In New York, I’m Puerto Rican. In Florida, I’m Cuban. And anywhere in the South, I’m colored just like the rest of them.

At 21, I’ve come a long way from thinking Nicaragua is a poo-head. I’m fascinated by its turbulent history and its resilient populous. I have no patronage towards Nicaragua though, nor do I feel I have to. I know I’m Hispanic and perfectly happy with that, but I don’t know how to BE Hispanic. That only really comes into question when I’m told that I’m the whitest Mexican anybody knows. I’m not offended… but what does that mean, exactly?

I look Hispanic, don’t I? My last name ends in “ez”, I speak Spanish and we grill meat (and yes, eat beans). Check, check and check. What am I missing? Do literacy and articulation go as check marks in the white or brown side? How about education and ambition? No, I don’t have hydraulics on my car or tattoos of the Virgin Mary. Am I disqualified? I do very much like mariachis, Latin-American cuisine, Negra Modelo beer and Ricky Martin. Ummm… ooops, I guess I don’t use the word “Latino” enough even though it sounds more, you know, descriptive. I don’t attend rallies and I’ve never once felt discriminated (but you better believe I check the Hispanic/Latino box in applications for those extra points). I’m even registered as a Republican…

GASP! No, mijo, you can’t be Republican! What would Cesar Chavez say? What would Jennifer Lopez say? What would the Rev. Al Sharpton say? Mijo, think of what you’re doing to Al Sharpton.

Well, so I’m too brown for the whities and too white for the brownies. The question is: should it matter? Do I really need that cultural identification to be self-actualized? If I answer no, does that make me white? Regardless as to whether or not I’m comfortable with it, that cultural identity is still a void. I know it’s there, it’s never stopped me from doing anything nor encouraged me to do anything… but I feel it. Is it better not to?

A few months ago, while talking to a friend of mine who’s in the same culturally disaffected boat I am (only while mine’s named the USS Nicaragua, hers is the USS China), she explained to me that although I may not be white and I may not exactly be Latino, I was the best at being Hispy of anyone she knew. So, here’s to being the best Hispy Christina knows.

That’s all.

Hooked on Pontiffs

2005-03-23T13:57:00.000-05:00

While Pope John Paul II’s recent health problems are no laughing matter, they will presumably bring about a fascinating and momentous series of events. While my father, for example, has gone through four different Supreme Pontiffs and witnessed—although not personally—three coronations, I, in my 21 years, have seen no such coronation. In fact, anyone under… say… 35 has no real recollection of what a papal coronation looks like. For another “in fact” type statement, anyone under 50 probably has no recollection of the last REAL coronation; back when popes were popes and insisted on the six hour ceremony involving that gaudy triple tiara deal. Golly, how I would have liked to see Pope Paul VI’s coronation! There’s a man’s pope for you.

Both John Pauls decided to go the more humble route and have a “papal inauguration” instead. Which is fine, I suppose, but you can’t spell “pomp and circumstance” without “pope” or “parties”. As much as I as wish J-P 2.0 a healthy recovery, such that he can go for the record as the longest reigning pope, I’m also very eager to see the next pope (hopefully one with an exceptionally creative name) reinstate the actual papal coronation. More on that later.

SIDEBAR: Interesting Papal Trivia
—J-P 2.0 is the third longest reigning pope in history, weighing in at almost 27 years. He attributes his longevity to a healthy, disciplined regimen consisting of prayer, celibacy and Flaming Hot Cheetos.
—Number two is Pope Pius IX with 31 years, although that is contestable because he was forced into hiding by thugs and people dressed as thugs. Pius IX fled in disguise from the Vatican in 1848 and didn’t return until 1850 with the help of Napoleon III. Reports are that, during a basketball game between the Quirinal Junior College Cougars and the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, Pius IX paid 40 lira for the UCSC mascot costume and high-tailed it to Gaeta.
—The number one reigning pope… you guessed it: Saint (now) Peter, himself. Depending on which historians you believe (lousy, lying historians), Peter was either in office for 34 or 37 years. What’s the dispute? Well, he wasn’t called “The Pope” until after his third year in office. Before that, he was called “The Biggest Party-Pooper In All The World” (what with all his rules and so forth). Plus, Peter was known for making a big deal amongst the other apostles that Jesus loved him best.

In researching this specific, silly article, I came to one surprising conclusion: the papacy over the last century alone is absolutely fascinating. The 20th century saw nine of the most active of the 264 that have sat as Supreme Pontiff; granted, the 20th century just happened to be the one where everything in human history, you know, happened, but you have to give it to the popes for their contribution. Unlike presidents, kings and dictators, popes have an extensive and powerful domain over virtually nothing tangible at all—only they exercise that control all over the world. While other world leaders manage armies and economies, the popes give audience to musicians, actors and, most recently, break dancers. Which reminds me of the old show business line: “How do you get to Vatican City? Practice, practice, practice. Oh, and be Catholic.” Anyhow, presidents and kings can only govern you for a certain number of years (no longer than the term of your life); popes (on the very, very powerful other hand) can have considerable sway with the destination of your eternal soul. I defy Kofi Anan to tell the Cote d’Ivoire to get in line by threatening to cast them straight to the furthest reaches of hell. To be fair, J-P 2.0 hasn’t cast anyone to any reach of hell since 1993 when Dan Quayle left office.

In addition to fancy cars, fashionable hats and the undeniable word of God to back them up, popes enjoy a myriad of proverbial papal party tricks to keep just over a billion Catholics under their collective thumb. There is, of course, the encyclical which is essentially like our president’s weekly radio address only… well… no, okay, it’s more like the equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. With encyclicals, popes are basically advising all the bishops of the world (the Catholic ones, that is) about the latest gossip from God Himself. While encyclicals are addressed specifically to bishops, you’ll eventually hear all about what you’re no longer allowed to do. Popes can also evoke Papal Infallibility whenever they feel especially right. Papal Infallibility mandates the impossibility of a pope being wrong in matters of doctrine; I would call it something akin to being, say, President of the US, only without the nuclear weapons. In 1950, Pope Pius XII was the last to declare Papal Infallibility concerning the assumption of the Virgin Mary. Popes also have access to magic beans.

SIDEBAR: Ways Paco would abuse Papal Infallibility
Don’t get me wrong, the assumption of the Virgin Mary is an important and (apparently) indisputable event, but has anyone ever really REALLY questioned whether or not the mother of Christ got into heaven? At least, to such a degree that the pope would have to chime in with the strongest of statements like “Listen, pal, you wanna know why I’m right? Do ya? I’m right because God said I can never be wrong! Huh? You like that?” I seriously doubt it.
I would evoke Papal Infallibility to:
--Avoid speeding tickets
--Win Jeopardy (incidentally, Ken Jennings had the Mormon version of Papal Infallibility… which is why he lost after a while)
--Foul Shaq
--Claim I called “shotgun” first, every single time
--Call Judge Judy out

Popes in the past century have done a number of impressive things, some for the betterment and some to the detriment of the Catholic Church. Pius XI (pope from 1922-1939) made treaties with Mussolini for the Vatican City, treaties with Hitler for German Catholics and was a staunch supporter or Spain’s Francisco Franco. Chin stroker… Pius XII (1939-1958) was quoted as saying: “What world war? Whoa, whoa, whoa… you said Hitler is killing the who?” He also threatened to excommunicate any Catholic that supported any Communist regime proving conclusively that God is, in fact, on our team. John XXII (1958-1963) met with John F. Kennedy; Jack sought counsel concerning the whole Marilyn Monroe affair and the pope assured him that no one would ever find out about it. Incidentally, there was a craze on the internet a few years ago alleging that John XXII was, without question, the second gunman. Paul VI (1963-1978) was a widely popular pope who made the girls swoon. He was responsible for Vatican 2 (possibly modeled after the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi) which revolutionized the Catholic Church. Vatican 2 was not well received by conservative sects of Catholicism who maintained that the Church’s official motto should still be “The Catholic Church: Unrevolutionizible since 1875”. Paul VI gave way to J-P 1.0 whose contribution of a whopping 34 days as pope only makes J-P 2.0’s tenure even more impressive. I could make a reference to William Henry Harrison, but I’m fairly certain we all could have seen it coming.

John Paul II is a phenom. He’s far and away the most well traveled pope in history after having visited world leaders and Catholics alike in almost every country… and on the moon. On May 13, 1981, Mehmet Ali Agca shot the pope in Saint Peter’s Square. Luckily, the pope survived and later went to visit his assailant in prison; until now, no one has known what the men discussed. Musings of the Mediocre, however, recently came across a secret transcript of their conversation:

JP: So… you’re the man that shot me, eh? You fucking fucker!
MAA: Ummm… yeah. Listen, sorry about that, pope.
JP: Uh-huh. Sorry? You’re sorry?
(Rumbling noises followed by silence and a loud clapping sound)
JP: You idiot! Don’t you know what Papal Infallibility means? Your heathen bullets can’t kill me!

This incident necessitated the invention of what is conventionally known as the Popemobile, allowing for maximum viewing of his holiness. J-P 2.0 has been adamant of late concerning what he calls a growing “culture of death” (capital punishment, euthanasia, abortion, etc) as well as the “new ideology of evil” (same-sex marriage, or even same-sex eye-contact). His biggest accomplishment was in managing to assert his Papal Infallibility while revoking that of 359 years of other popes by pardoning Galileo in 1992. Apparently it is possible for one pope to be “More Infallible” than another. "Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions." He continued to say, "... Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this regard [the relation of scientific and Biblical truths] than the theologians who opposed him."

No, I know. I’m stroking my chin too.

Unfortunately, J-P 2.0’s health has deteriorated considerably and while the Vatican maintains that everything’s fine, there are meetings being held behind closed doors concerning who the next pope should be. Needless to say, I have a handful of recommendations of my own.

Paco’s Top Five Recommendations for the Next Pope:
5. Dennis Miller – He’d fill the role nicely because he’s critical, opinionated and refuses to believe that nobody cares about what he has to say. Plus it’s about time the clergy grew facial hair.
4. Bill Clinton – He’s skilled in diplomacy and would certainly bring a hip, liberal edge to the stuffy rooms of the Vatican. Vows of chastity and prudence? Details, details! Perhaps there will be philosophical Vatican-themed discussions on the definition of “the Almighty ‘is’”
3. Carrot Top – Gosh, that’d be funny, wouldn’t it? They’d probably need to vamp up security on that Popemobile, though. John Paul has endured three assassination attempts; Carrot Top would likely have three a day.
2. Prince – Much like popes past, Prince only goes by his first (?) name. Like the popes, he has an affinity for extravagant outfits and he’d redefine the meaning of “giving audience”. Pope Prince also has a certain absurd, hilarious ring to it.
1. Brian Beutler – His casually conservative/conveniently liberal views will bring the Vatican the indecision and ambivalence it’s never had, but always needed. Pope Brian’s enthusiasm, however, will likely be checked by his complete surprise that a Jewish kid from Southern California could ascend to the highest Catholic office. Problems arise, though, in light of statements such as “One would have to question the legitimacy of heaven or any other conception of an after-life given that the pope is making such a desperate effort not to die.”

Congress of Cardinals, my pick for pope is Brian Beutler.

That’s all.

Paco’s American Dream

2005-03-17T19:24:00.000-05:00

What if our concept of success is flawed? When to the sessions of sweet, silent thought, I’ve certainly stroked my chin about this while looking absently at antique globes (I do my best thinking in pawn shops). I suppose there’s nothing wrong with going to school, becoming a lawyer/doctor/businessman/government official and raising a picturesque, nuclear family. You’d probably have to start with one of the stylish mini-vans or station wagons before you move onto the really cool SUV. When your kids got old enough, you could give them a dog and allow them to name it one of those overused dog names that you know will be lame, but it is their dog. You can take family vacations to any Disney-noun and make friends with the parents of your kids’ friends. Cool. You’re a success.

Perhaps I’m a young buck—full of piss, vinegar and chicken wings—but that bores the life out of me. Don’t get me wrong, my dad’s certainly sailing the USS Jason Seaver and that’s worked out fantastically for me, but can there really be guys out there in their twenties that see that and say “Yeah! The lame life: that sounds swell”?

Random Angry Interjection by a Fictional Reader:
“Of course there are! What’s not to respect about that? The real question is: who wants to ‘grow up’ to be the sad, loveless dude at the bar? Who wants to die lonely having not left even the slightest scratch on the world to prove that you ever existed?”
Editorial Response:
Me.

I grew up in one of the many suburbs of Los Angeles (which, it seems, expand from downtown to western Pennsylvania) that have no discernable uniqueness. Fontana was a fine town; I liked it plenty. However, it’s a cultural black-hole. Nothing goes on and nobody seems to mind. I went to high school with kids who shared some teachers with their parents. There’s nothing wrong with that—welcome to Main Street, USA—it’s just boring. I recently got a phone call from a girl I knew in high school who told me about all the kids I’ve totally lost touch with from our graduating class. I was stunned to hear about all the kids that were, married or unmarried, working on propagating civilization through the (assuredly accidental) cultivation of progeny.

Why couldn’t I just have said “having babies”? Pretty absurd to use all those inefficient, purposefully polysyllabic words, huh? I agree. Equally absurd… No, considerably (profoundly even) more absurd is the idea of having any kids by the age of twenty-two. Thirty’s pushing it in my...errr... blog. I’m so very sad for these kids who have, in my unqualified opinion, ruined their lives. At twenty-one, I scarcely have the maturity not to giggle hysterically when someone says the word “poo” (for more information on poo, which was invented in 1989, please visit www.poop.com); I can’t fathom what it would be like to have the responsibility of not only caring for children, but ensuring that I don’t mess them up.

If these now-parents end up working decent jobs, give their kids that stupid dog and go to baseball or soccer team parties, I ask, are they successful by conventional American standards? Did they make something of themselves, by definition? To put it in trite terms: are they living the American dream?

Abrupt shift. On a train from Slovenia to Budapest, I met another American named Seven (7). Awesome guy: 29 year old, Harvard Law School grad working for a respectable firm in Manhattan making a very admirable salary. By all measures, a successful person and an upstanding citizen. One day, he decided he made more money than he really needed, thereby saving up what, in financial terms, is called “oodles” and that he hated his job. So, he sold most of his stuff, got rid of the rest, packed a small backpack and was determined to travel until he ran out of money. He was on my train because, after three months of travel, he found himself in a Ljubljana train station and asked the clerk what train left next.

Seven set the standard and is, unequivocally, my role-model. Over beers on the train and later a multitude of refreshing beverages throughout Budapest, Seven and I spent a lot of time talking about the American dream and how we would never be successful according to it (for five hours, we were those guys). Seven shared with me the following story:

A couple years ago, I was traveling through Rio De Janeiro with the girl I was seeing at the time. Staying at our hotel were a group of old guys that would get together every afternoon to play cards, drink whiskey and smoke cigars. One of them stood out a little bit. He was fat, balding and wore tacky shorts, socks with sandals and a grey t-shirt that read in big, black letters “FBI" and in smaller letters "Female Body Inspector”. He was like 55 years old and had made a bunch of money in real estate or something, so he spent months down in Rio doing the same thing everyday. Get this: at his beck and call was this gorgeous 18, maybe 19 year old Brazilian girl. I couldn’t tell if she was a prostitute or just a girl that lived off his money, but she was smokin’. I can only guess that he went straight from hangin’ with the boys to fucking the hell out of her. He was as happy and contented as can be, man. And I ask you, is that so bad?

Boys from “respectable” families in cities and suburbs across the country have been trained all their lives to answer “Yes, that is bad. He’s going to die of syphilis and rightly so”. I took careful stock of my talents and abilities, likes and dislikes, and any life’s goals I had just before that question was posed to me. It’s hard to be honest to yourself when you’ve been told throughout your formative years that you’re swimming in potential and can do just about anything you want… except of course, that which would really, really make you happy. We’ll judge you for those things.

The subject was changed for us as girls in dangerously short skirts walked by (as if the gods of debauchery were saying “You’re on to something boys”), but by the time we got back on topic, I was resolute.

No, it’s really not that bad at all. In fact, that’s perfect. This is Paco’s American Dream.

I’m resolved to shed the bonds of conventional success and set my own standard. And here we go…

The sad reality is that my father, the businessman, was right all along: in order to be a happy American, you need money. There are those that don’t and I couldn’t be prouder of them. The people that just get by, but are perfectly satisfied with their lot. They’re not successful, by convention, but I admire their freedom so much that I don’t mind paying for, and they’re so very appreciative of, their burger and beer. I, however, understand that I would rather be guy that buys rather than the free-spirit that accepts. Plus, biology has presented me with the saddest of sad facts, namely: martinis don’t grow on trees. Until Science makes itself useful and invents a Martini Tree, I need a job. I’d love to write professionally, but that’s a hard gig to get. Happily, there are a myriad of things I would sell my soul for, so I’m not so much concerned. Silly details anyhow; I’m confident it’ll work itself out (in that I’m-young-and-still-convinced-I’ll-live-forever kind of way).

I don’t feel I need to get married nor do I feel I need to have a serious girlfriend to be an accomplished man. Truth is, I’m far to self-absorbed to be good at either of those roles, so I’d rather not. Moreover, I’m on very good terms with my self-absorption. I’d even say we’re dating. Same extends to children; I think they’re hilarious and highly entertaining, but, as it stands, those people that have six, seven, thirty-four children have robbed me of my necessity to procreate. I blame them.

Travel is essential. The whole world over. Forget five-star hotels and restaurants where waiters wear clean shirts. I want to get invited by locals to bars that are hidden away and meet interesting women all along the way, with the understanding that I’m leaving within days. I want to sail across oceans, bike across continents and climb over mountains. I’d love to hunt exotic animals and eat them. Get drunk and have deep conversations about the nature of existence with strangers. I don’t want to own much of anything besides some clothes, a toothbrush and photos I’ve taken. I want to read everything and I want to speak ten languages fluently. Most of all, I don’t want an address; I don’t want to stop moving.

When I go back to Fontana, California, I want the guys with kids to say “Dude, you’re a crazy sonuvabitch, but I’d give anything to live your life for one day.” And I’ll smile with the satisfaction that they can’t, because they have kids. They’re living the American dream.

I want to be that old guy at the bar with the other old guys. I want to make enough money so that I can retire early, drink scotch and vodka martinis and invest all of my time in laughing. If I’ve been very successful and retired very early, I’d be only too happy to string some pretty college girl along with my wealth simply to satisfy any carnal urges I may have. I’d love to think that I’d still dress fashionably (perhaps not the FBI shirt… I’m not THAT free), but if a robe is most comfortable for my walk to the newsstand, well… so be it. I don’t care if I’m fat, balding and reek of the most pleasant combination of coffee, brown liquor and cigars. I will have made a living out of being self-interested. And I’ll die twenty years before my friends, but I will have lived so very much more than they ever would have. And I’ll leave every last penny to that stupid college girl, because it was only money and that wasn’t what made me happy. Having the freedom to do what I wanted made me happy. I’ll be buried in a humble graveyard with a miniscule headstone and it will read only:

PACO RAMIREZ

The rest of you wasted your time.

See ya around.

Welcome to Paco’s American dream. FBI shirt guy: God bless you.

That’s all.

Pow! Zoom! Right to the MOON!

2005-03-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

You’ve seen Fight Club, I’m sure. You saw average guys, who work fruitless jobs engage in senseless acts of rage—sans anger—for the gratification of feeling like… well, like men. They beat each other stupid for what must be the combative equivalent of the “orgasm grunt”.

Tyler Durden wasn’t Rocky Balboa. He wasn’t Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Jean-Claude Van Dam (Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee, Steven Segal, Steve McQueen, Vin Diesel, the list goes on and on. Point is: he was none of them) in any of their mindlessly awesome roles in frivolous films. He wasn’t trained in boxing, Ju-jitsu or even Capoeira .

Although lots of guys would love to have Brad Pitt’s physique in Fight Club—presumably also in Troy—no one would really argue that he is a big dude. Certainly not one of those Muscle Beach doggies that goes into a gym with the intention of working out bi’s, tri’s and childhood issues. He looked like what the average guy is probably supposed to look like: definition, but not bulk and thin, but not skinny. I have no documentary evidence, but that seems like what the world looked like before the proliferation of KFC, tasty, tasty MSGs and other such three lettered acronyms. Chicks still swoon, but IFBB guys would have a chuckle at his expense using adjectives like “puny” and “girly” followed by ironic nouns such as “man” or “boy” (how’re those withered testes servin’ you, boys? Yeah, I bet you’re real tough now. Fuckin’ IFBB guys!)

Tyler Durden was no hero. He wasn’t trying to save the world, a girl or hostages from an evil mastermind, deranged psycho or natural disaster. He was an average guy engaged in frustrated, hyper-average violence for its own sake. And the appeal to other average guys was almost universal.

“Hey, I have a shitty job.”
“Hey, my boredom drives me to drink.”

…they seemed to say. Truth is, many average guys were, and are, troubled and disenfranchised for, ostensibly, no reason at all. Fight Club prescribed that instead of taking the increasingly conventional route (which I personally feel is the fruit of seeds planted by the Feminist movement) of seeking therapy and talking out their problems, they took what would probably now be called the “Caveman approach” and beat their problems out of each other.

This idea took flight. If you’re anywhere in your twenties, you probably know guys who, immediately after watching this movie, went straight to their backyards, garages and basements to beat the hell out of each other. It would be foolish to assume that these friendly inflictions of bodily harm didn’t exist prior—backyard amateur wrestling leagues plagued youth culture through the mid ‘90’s—but Fight Club seemed to inspire young men to act on their frustration with rage rather than identify their problems and work them out with months of expensive therapy. You have a problem too? Good. You punch me and I’ll punch you and we’ll both feel better.

We’re not talking thugs and slack-jaws. We’re talking smart, young guys, full of “potential” (whatever that is) living average, comfortable lives. I shied away from actual violence for fear of getting hurt or, worse, in trouble, but I always wished I had. Boys have fought amongst each other since they were invented in 1831, but somehow this was different. No one was “dissed”, no fight was provoked by anger, no honor lost which needed to be regained. No, this is different. These guys fought their friends. They would bleed and make bleed, bruise and make bruise, but they were still friends. Fault for any broken bone or dislodged tooth was assigned to chance, not your buddy. After it was all said and done, you slapped hands, hugged and placed the cold beer your assailant/victim/buddy handed you over your swelling eye. And things felt right.

I call my abstinence from this activity ‘fear’ now, but I used to call the phenomenon stupid. I didn’t want to get hurt much more than I didn’t want to hurt anyone of my friends, but, oh, what it would have been like to playfully strike someone just a little bit more than playfully. I discovered my own desire for stoic violence in college when I’d find myself sizing up every guy at the mall that looked to be a fair match. I cut in lines in front of them, blatantly stared at their girlfriends and rolled my eyes when they protested. I was begging for a direct blow to the face, for someone to beat my frustration out of me. I wanted to test my reaction, my character and show myself how big my balls really were (in any event, much larger than those IFBB guys).

Nope. Nothin’. I found that the guy who goes to the mall with his girlfriend is generally about as non-confrontational as they come.

SIDEBAR:
There’s an interesting, yet so very ill-conceived notion among guys that if an attractive girl has a boyfriend, our ability to… ahem… “take him” will immediately—as though we were lions, gorillas or manatees—woo her to kiss us with tongues over her boyfriend’s pitiful, decimated body. Kinda laughable. I defy anyone to cite an example of this actually working since the whole Paris/Menelaus thing occurred in 1965. Anyone? Anyone? Hmm…

I took boxing as a PE class and later joined the boxing club at school in an effort to focus that violent energy into something… ummm… athletic. But, there was something missing. It seemed to have the right idea: fighting at random with no anger. Problem was, boxing has a point. You want to show good form and be better than the other guy. Plus, there’s all kinds of padding and a referee. So it was sport, not therapy. That’s different. If anything, boxing was the proverbial dry-hump of my quest for unmitigated violence.

Very recently (three and a half years after starting this foolishness), I got into the first fight of my life. Walking out of a bar in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood in DC, a fat, drunk Puerto Rican guy was staring at and talking loudly to his friend about a girl in my group. That’s normally not a provocative act; we were crossing the street and I knew it to be stupid, so I wasn’t particularly incensed. My face must not have said as much because when I inadvertently made eye contact he said:

“Y tu, puto… mierda?”

Editorial translation from Spanish to the most direct English possible:
“And you, (masculine form of) whore… shit?”

I walked back towards him and asked him why, precisely, it was necessary to have said anything at all. Yeah, I’m a rookie. At this point, while I take responsibility for my actions, it’s hard to say that I had any control over what my body did, because it all seems so instinctual. He outstretched his arms and inflated his chest. I outstretched my arms and inflated my chest. Our inflated chests (mine was more bulging and rippled with muscles… or at least that’s what my memory of the event suggests) touched and he said… well, what you say just before most fights start: “Well, what’re you gonna do?”

Ummmm…..

The only thing that occurred to me, having grown up the literary, pseudo-intellectual type was to respond with a rhetorical question: “What can’t I do to you?”

Newby… table for one, please. It’s important to note that the flare for the dramatic that my question evoked was completely lost on my chubby, Puerto Rican friend.

He did what, I guess, you’re supposed to do next and shoved me (proving his lack of appreciation for what I thought was a well-worded response). I shoved him. He drew his fist back and let it fly towards my head.

SIDEBAR:
In numerous discussions concerning the theoretical street fight I would get in prior to this moment, I’d always postulated that the other guy would swing wide, I’d duck under his mighty blow and deliver something devastating right to his ribs.

His fist landed just to the left of the center of my forehead. I then found my own fist right under his left eye. Who knew? I was a scrapper. He stumbled back just long enough for my friend and his friend to get between us. At this point, his nose was bleeding something glorious and I wanted to run right the hell out of there while I was still victorious (and non-detained by the authority figure). Random blows were exchanged, but that was the climax of my first fight.

I take that back. The climax came when in the graspy-pushy-shovey match that followed, Lindsey (the girl who’s honor I was defending… apparently) landed a loud, fleshy punch right to the fat guy’s face. Everyone stopped for just a moment to absorb what just happened. The fat guy’s friend actually seemed somewhat impressed. I was yelling platitudes at the friend who was effectively stopping me from throwing any more punches: “Let me go, man, you don’t know me!” As if somehow I expected him to realize that, in fact, we had never met and then immediately release me.

And that was that. My first fight. We weren’t even completely across the street before I was absolutely free of any rage and felt awesome. The soreness on my face—which was nothing compared to the swollen, bloody face of the other guy—was sadistically gratifying. And the thought that someone had “dissed” me and I “lef’ dat fool messed up” was oddly liberating.

I’m a normal guy. I’m not angry, I wasn’t drunk and I’m grateful to Chubs for the opportunity to answer questions about my balls and release some of that frivolous, inexplicable frustration. Thanks, Chubs. Is this wrong? Am I a thuggish brute? Did I violate any social contract?

No. Fresh from this experience, I truly feel it’s healthy for normal dudes to occasionally indulge their aggressive urges. If reasonable, consenting guys maintain some sense of restraint (with respect to how much damage they can do without necessitating the word “permanent”) they should be able to beat the hell out of each other. I accomplished in a minute and a half what probably would have taken nine months and many hundreds of dollars of therapy. I don’t need to get in touch with my feminine side, I’ll settle for another dude’s face. Hmmm… perhaps a little sociopathic. Yeah. I’m okay with that.

That’s all.

Nope. Still Not Chris Ehrline.

2005-03-15T18:52:00.000-05:00

For about six weeks now, members of the Ehrline family of San Bernardino, California have called repeatedly in hopes of speaking to Chris. It started late January when an elderly gentleman called to ask if he could speak to this Chris character. I said that this was neither Chris, nor did I think that the number they have had ever been Chris’. “You see, sir,” I explained patiently and politely when he seemed disappointed that I wasn’t him, “I’ve had this number for about two years and the area code was only recently changed to 951, so there’s no possible way that this could ever have been Chris’ number.” He apologized and thanked me for my courteousness. There was suddenly a kick in my step. I could have easily been curt and hung up, but instead I performed a public service for that seemingly old, old man. Surely when he died and St. Peter asked him who among the (still) living deserved a break, he’d say “I don’t know his name, but I can most certainly give you his cell phone number.”

The phone rang again, and again the same elderly man asked for Chris. “No, sir, this still isn’t Chris. Perhaps you wrote the wrong number or are mistaking a seven for a four.” Again, he apologized, thanked me and that seemed to be the end of it. Well, that end lasted perhaps another two minutes. He called again, but this time asked for Chris Ehrline, as if somehow I’d been confused about which Chris SPECIFICALLY he’d been looking for. “Nope, this isn’t Chris Ehrline’s number either.”

Another two minutes passed—I continued about my business, whatever that may have been—when I got another call from the same number. This time it was what sounded like a middle-aged woman asking for Chris. “No, ma’am, I explained to the gentleman before that this has always been the number for Paco Ramirez.”

“Hmm… that’s odd. This is the number he gave us. Are you certain Chris isn’t there?”

Stroke your chin along with me on this one.

“Ma’am, not only am I certain that Chris isn’t here, but I don’t think I’ve ever even met a Chris in all of my life. Nope; never once.” She apologized, thanked me for my time and hung up only after saying to the old man “He still says it isn’t Chris’ phone.”

I stopped answering the phone after that. I suspect they were recruiting other family members and neighbors to reason with me into turning the phone over to Chris. Why hadn’t I stopped answering before? (That was you asking) Well, that’s my business and I thank you for not probing. Truth is I had absolutely nothing to do and I had secretly hoped that Chris would call me to ask if he had any messages. Also, it made me seem really important and indispensable to receive that many phone calls while waiting for a train.

I had forgotten the whole thing when perhaps two weeks later, I received another series of inquiries for Chris Ehrline. “Sir, can you send Chris a letter, perhaps, asking him to call you? Unless he lives nearby…” That clearly wasn’t an option. This time, I probably only received three calls instead of the four dozen I’d gotten in the first barrage.

Just four days ago, I received another call from the Ehrline family. It threw me totally off guard; I had completely forgotten that these were the same culprits from before. “Oh, still not his number, huh? Listen, do you happen to know Chris Ehrline?”

No. But, I loathe him. If it helps at all, I’m very familiar with my hatred for Chris… would you like to talk to that?

SIDEBAR:
INSANITY (as defined by THE DICTIONARY): noun, the inability to understand the nature or consequences of one’s acts or events, matters or proceedings in which one is involved.

So, I’ve come to a couple conclusions. First, Chris must have grown to hate his silly, crazy family calling to such a degree that to this day he insists that my phone number goes directly to his phone. Chris, I’m with you, buddy. Secondly, these people are somehow convinced that through their patience, I will—at some point—grow into the Chris they know and torment. Either that, or they’re going to catch Paco/Chris off guard in a call from a distant, yet well liked, cousin and I will reveal that I, in fact, have always been Chris Ehrline and I’ve thoroughly gotten their collective goat.

Why wait? Should the Ehrline family ever call again, I’m going to do what I can to convince them that I’m Chris. “What do you mean you don’t recognize my voice, grandpa? Have you been taking your medicine?” “Yeah, sorry about that, mom, I’ve been so busy lately that I’ve been forced to pretend I’m someone named Paco even in my voicemail. I have a lot more free time now; tell me about everything.” “Yes, this is Chris Ehrline’s phone… or, to be specific, it was. I found it in his clothes after I strangled and devoured him. No, no, there’s no need to worry, he was delicious! You raised a fine boy, Mrs. Ehrline. A fine boy!”

That’s all.

Dumb with Driving

2005-03-14T12:15:00.000-05:00

My father is an amazing motorist; I’m frequently dumbfounded by his ability to maneuver in and out of traffic with an encyclopedic knowledge of the traffic patterns for all of North America. The man’s surely convinced me that he’s never been lost once in his life nor has he ever peeked at the pages of a Thomas guide. Those are for suckers… and guys named Thomas.

I own two. Why? Because I possess the highly emasculating quality of consistently finding myself lost and of being a bad driver—which are not necessarily unrelated. Not only am I a bad driver, but generally clueless with respect to the dynamics of a motor vehicle’s innards. Guys aren’t supposed to get lost. Guys aren’t supposed to “unintentionally merge” into the center divider while searching for a radio station. Guys aren’t supposed to ask shady car dealers if the jalopy ’78 Mercedes they’re considering purchasing is equipped with brakes on all four wheels. You guessed it: I suck.

As far as I can tell, there are three kinds of guys behind the wheel. I call them dads, dudes and dumb-asses.

Dads are those guys that seem to be (it only really matters that they impress the image onto others) masters of their domain behind the wheel; they would sacrifice their genitals to the gods of disproportionate pain before dejectedly asking directions from the variably comprehensible likes of a gas station cashier. Aforementioned Gods of disproportionate pain forbid that also aforementioned cashier happen to be a woman. Dads can diagnose any mechanical, electrical or character flaw in a car through careful observation of noises or smells and tinker under the hood happily on the weekends--all while frowning at those who would use the word “tinker” in context.

Dudes encompass the largest percentage of male drivers along with the biggest spectrum of driving prowess and mechanical savvy. Basically, we’re looking at the average guy. Everything from the guy who rarely ever gets lost to the guy that will never admit to being lost and eventually finds his way. Dudes can change there own oil, but dudes can also put obnoxious spoilers on an Acura Integra to utilize the aerodynamic advantage in case they should ever have to re-enter the atmosphere after their mission to Mars. Finally, they operate a manual shift in hours of heavy traffic without stalling once or they can be that jerk that drives along the shoulder and flips you off when you don’t let him merge back in.

Then we have the dumb-asses. Dumb-asses inadvertently encourage cities and whole states to consider legislation banning the use of hand held cell phones while driving. Dumb-asses are the guys that complain to gas station attendants after that devious green diesel nozzle forced itself into the gas tank that explicitly warns “Unleaded Fuel Only”. Dumb-asses ask themselves “What’s the worst that can happen?” when the oil lamp blinks furiously. Finally, dumb-asses are frequently told “Maybe I better drive” or “I can parallel park it for you”… by girls. You may have also have heard the guy I call a dumb-ass referred to as a WBW (Woman Behind the Wheel). To be fair, all girls are terrible drivers too. I only say that to be fair.

Random Angry Interjection by a Fictional Reader:
“You’re a jerk, Paco. I’m a girl and I’m an exceptional driver!”

Editorial Response:
Hmmm… perhaps. For a girl.

This pains me to admit… I am a dumb-ass driver. I’m easily distracted, I ask for directions from girls (and turn at the third light where there’s a Weinerschnitzel’s, but if I see a Transcendental Episcopal church I’ve gone too far) and I’ve managed to ruin some cars. I failed my first driver’s license test at the tender age of 18 when I almost killed the DMV lady and myself by turning into oncoming traffic. We were both pretty well shaken, but I still had the nerve to utter “but, why?” when she told me judgingly that I’d failed. I’ve rear ended a lady on an interstate—going what may have been three mph—because I was trying frantically to call a radio station to win a pair of concert tickets. Then there was Bob. Bob was the gentleman who nearly had the misfortune of having a coroner’s report that read under cause of death “’97 Toyota Corolla”. He appeared in my headlights abruptly while riding his bike to work down a very dark street when I swerved to the left and clipped his elbow with my side mirror. He was criminally senile, so I told him my name was Bob as well, gave him a ride to work and bought him off with a pack of cigarettes. God bless America.

I bought my first car on Route One right outside of Philadelphia. For those of you that have the good sense never ever to go into the state of Pennsylvania, Route One is a long road with dozens and dozens of dealerships. Some are legitimate, some are less than legitimate. In a word: notorious. I bought a 1978 Mercedes 300 D with 308,000 miles for $1,200. Super cool car; if it worked properly, I would never consider buying another ever. In an effort to not “get taken” I kept my arms crossed, grimaced and stroked my chin critically as I dealt with the greasy 19 year old salesman. He opened the hood, I took a gander at the engine, stroked my chin some more and said conclusively “hmm, sure is a lot of stuff in there… well, it looks like everything’s where it needs to be.” I kicked the tires to check for… ummm… whatever it is that the act of kicking the tire signifies; as I saw it, it was the equivalent of inspecting a horse’s teeth. I would have known that I was being taken if, after my “kick the tires” test, one had, say, fallen off. I then asked him if the brakes were good, to which he responded “sure” and I followed up with “so, are the brakes on the front wheels or the back?”

Pause. Smile. “Not a car guy, are ya?” As he explained it, the hole that was in the sidewall of one of the tires only needed some air (okay, so my kicking test isn’t fool-proof), the car wouldn’t go in reverse until the transmission had been warmed up and, to my good fortune, the car was equipped with a CD player. The kind where you didn’t just take off the face, but slid the entire radio out of the slot. Great! I had prepared for that by bringing all of my CD’s; try to guess how surprised I was when I discovered on the ride back that it would only play 10 contiguous seconds of song before it jumped backwards or forwards at its own discretion. This CD player was ideal for techno music, but not so much for anything worth listening to. I was happy to know that the car had a full-sized spare in the trunk. I later found that the "spare tire"—the one that said Mercedes on it, so it HAD to be legitimate—was actually a tire from another crappy Mercedes and didn’t actually fit on my car when I needed it (hours later).

My parents visited me in DC in October and on my drive to the airport to pick them up, the rear transmission mount decided to cut its losses and jump ship. So, I happily drove my parents about, knowing that if I traveled above 35 mph, the car would shutter violently. They, needless to say, were appalled. They promised to bankroll another “safe” car as long as I promised never to drive the Yoonkar (what we came to call the Mercedes because that’s how my Nicaraguan mother pronounces “junker”). By November, we’d worked out a great deal with a dealer in Annapolis for a 2001 Jetta. Okay, so a silver Jetta isn’t necessarily the manliest car ever—neither James Bond nor Frank Sinatra would ever be caught dead in one—but it was free. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to learn standard shift, so there was really no complaining from me (at least not exoterically).

By the middle of February, I was a stick shift champ. On one especially cold evening, I was driving back from a dinner with friends when I missed the street I wanted to be on. “No worries,” thought I, “the street I’m currently on runs parallel to the one I want, I’ll merely make a left at my convenience.” When I got to my convenience, I made my left behind a slow moving SUV. Going 35 mph down a small residential road at around 10:30, how was I supposed to see the pot hole (the other guy in the car and I later went on to rename that particular pot hole a number of clever things: pot pool, pot abyss, pot hole-to-hell and, my favorite, pot pourri)? I came to learn that since Volkswagons have aluminum oil pans, they present no challenge to evil, evil, oil-thirsty pot holes. I ripped open the oil pan and continued driving (not really knowing that all my beautiful oil had leaked out immediately) for what was probably less than a mile before the car decided it hated me.

Cars can’t run without oil? Who knew? I came to find out how dumb-ass of me that was when speaking to tow-truck driver and mechanic alike. They’d ask things like “What happened?” I’d tell them. “And you kept driving? Didn’t you see the oil lamp?” Of course I saw the oil lamp! But, who knew that a blinking oil lamp meant “stop driving”? Well, not me anyway.

“Umm, no. No, there was no oil lamp. I don’t even think this car has an oil lamp. It is German, after all.” (How would you answer knowing that you were CLEARLY WRONG and that admitting how wrong you are/were would mean the immediate surrender of the remaining shreds of masculinity?) So, what looks like $5,000 later, I’m without vehicle for a while. In reality, this is probably better for humanity at large. You got lucky, you bastard jay-walkers!

That’s all.

The Art of the Siesta

2005-03-13T18:51:00.000-05:00

I’m a napper. I very much enjoy my midday nap. My mid-afternoon nap. My mid-evening nap as well as my occasional mid-class nap. Essentially, if there’s an opportunity to nap, I eagerly and vigorously seize it. It isn’t so much sleeping that makes me love life as much as it is napping. Sleeping (normally consisting of 4-5 REM cycles for normal adults) is what you do at night to recharge your body from the rigors of your active, industrious day; napping is what you do when you have many more productive things you could be doing but have chosen not to because you’re probably lazy and lack drive and motivation in life. Yup, I’m a napper.

In my travels through Spain this summer, I discovered that those folks really have cracked the code and mastered the art of napping. So much so that walking any given Spanish street from about 1:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon feels like being at a Phil Collins concert (you see the occasional old person but, otherwise, no one to be found). Everyone else has retreated to the comfort of their homes to have lunch—perhaps—and a glorious, glorious siesta. Shops are closed, places of business abandoned leaving only cafes and tapas bars as the lone fingerprints of commerce.

It was a little unnerving at first; it’s odd to see a whole city shut down as though it were 3:00 AM. No one walks the streets, few cars are seen moving, everything stops. After a while, I stopped noticing the barren communities because I too was actively engaged in the siesta. What a beautiful time! Around 2 o’clock, I’d eat a hearty lunch and I’d go STRAIGHT to sleep. No time wasted at all (if that’s an acceptable phrase to utilize with respect to midday napping) from the lunch table to my bed.

It’s certainly practical. The midday heat coupled with a big meal is very persuasive. Furthermore, there’s just nothing to do. The longer I was in Spain, the more I wondered precisely what it was I did back at home from 2-4(ish). Not that my evenings in Spain—or anywhere that matter—have ever been especially productive, but I quickly realized that I was more inclined to do something other than watch television from 5 o’clock on if I took advantage of the siesta. I was also a hell of a lot more fun at night (during my heavy, lavish drinking binges… to be discussed later, I’m sure) knowing full well that I was both rested and would be fully capable of taking on a five hour day the following morning.

I’ve been told by many an intelligent (lazy) person, when discussing napping, that scientific evidence (go ahead and reread that… It says “scientific”, giving me both intellectual AND moral authority) has proven (PROVEN) that the human body goes through a lull in energy between one and four in the afternoon—roughly six to seven hours after waking from a night’s sleep. Furthermore, said discussions also revealed that a nap during this lull increases afternoon and evening productivity 39% and improves the chances of a generally good disposition 62% (ummm… more or less). Which suggests, to me anyway, that when the Spanish invented the siesta in 1985, they’d been reading up on physiology journals. Genius!

Americans, on the other hand, don’t take siestas. In fact, shortly after the invention and proliferation of the Spanish siesta (which expanded to every Central and South American country, probably because they all spoke Spanish… this may also explain why there is no translation for the word "siesta") Americans invented the word “lazy”. As a direct result of our generally condemnatory response to something so marvelous as midday naps, Americans suffer some of the worst stress related conditions the world over (probably). Our cultural views—which, it’s important to note, are usually inherently correct by virtue of being American—with respect to siestas are misguided. Let’s examine a short list of cultures that have historically judged napping and activities deemed “unproductive” harshly:

--In 1500, what is now known as the Middle East was referred to affectionately as “The Land Where Things Grow A Plenty”. They developed a disdain for siestas, and God took away all their water. They realized the error of their ways when the beloved Sheik Abdul “Gary” Al-Fuqheah took a nap on an especially warm afternoon. BAM! Like the glorious fountains of Rome, they discovered oil. It would be foolish to believe these were coincidences.
--1783, Atlantis falls into the ocean. I contend this had something to do with criticism of siestas for two reasons: a) the sleepy cultures of the Pacific have never been fabled to sink into the ocean and b) there’s absolutely no way whatsoever to disprove me.
--On August 10th, 1912 and again on April 27th, 1938, ze Germans foolishly passed legislation mandating a cultural frown towards midday sleeping. They later went on to lose not just one, but two world wars (sentences like these are the columnist’s answer to a nudge of their elbow to your ribs, as if to say “there aren’t words enough to describe how very right I am”… and here we are).

There is, however, hope in sight; I am taking personal pains to ensure that America isn’t subject to catastrophe. Here and now, I pledge to have as many “Save America Siesta Vigils” as I can bear. Do your part: send donations to the Paco Saves America Fund. Your donations and my naps are what will keep America afloat. Thank you, Patriots.

Yawn.

That’s all.

Science is Boring

2005-03-10T18:55:00.000-05:00

Do you remember your childhood? I do. Do you remember waking up extra early on school days to treat yourself to morning cartoon shorts of either the Disney or Warner Bros. varieties (WB cartoons, it seems, were for the low-brow, cooler kids at school. Disney was for the girls and sheltered momma’s boys whose parents thought that Bugs Bunny and his crowd of miscreants were drawn by the hand of the devil)? I do. Or, at least, I remember having to wake up early specifically to watch the WB shorts and pretend as if I’d been wholesomely enjoying lame-ass Disney cartoons to avoid the belt. Anyway, do you remember that in the half hour before WB cartoons came on was a show called Mister Wizard, in which Don Herbert (the overachiever’s Mister Rogers) would do a number of boring experiments and demonstrations that you too could do at home? Do you remember the awful child actors who would pretend to be interested as Don cracked the code on science fair volcanoes in what seemed like his home laboratory? I do.

I also remember being bored to tears. I remember waking up just a little too early and cursing existence at the fact that I had to choose between infomercials, local morning news and Mister Wizard until I could be legitimately entertained by the antics of cartoons with real cartoon names like Daffy, Porky and Yosemite Sam. I fondly remember my intense distaste of Mister Wizard (you arrogant bastard, you weren’t Doctor Wizard so you insisted on having your stupid title spelled out. No, sir, you couldn’t have been “Mr. Wizard” could you?)

I learned at the tender age of eight what I’ve grown to accept as the ultimate truth in academia: science is the opiate of the educated. In simple terms “Science = Sleepy”. To be fair to science (although you don’t deserve it, you stupid subject), I’m far more inclined to the humanities, but I have taken more than my fair share of science and engineering (which is like science, only with ADHD) classes. Now, there will be those among you that protest:

“But, Paco, science and engineering have made technology possible.”
“But, Paco, science and engineering are the manifestation of a whole lobe of brain power.”
“But, Paco, aren’t you interested in the way the world around you is put together and works?”

Ummm… no. Couldn’t be less interested actually. Sure, I’m using a computer, on the internet to type out a frivolous article about my indifference towards science, but I’m quite sure I could do without. Go ahead, ask me how I think the Internet operates. (Do it)

Simple: magic gnomes.

And no, I’m not a hypocrite for using technology to decry science, because I’m on fairly good terms with said gnomes. While I’m not explicitly saying that the study of science is useless, I’m kinda implying it.
I have nothing on which to base this off of, but I’ll go ahead and say that most people approach science classes like I used to approach Mister Wizard; it’s what you have to do before you can get to something interesting. In fact, to illustrate how useful science has been over the span of human history, I’ve compiled a compressive chronology of scientific accomplishments.

1,000,000,000,000,000 B.C. God invented the world and declared onto Adam and Eve “Thou shalt not eat from the tree of science. It will ruin your appetite for things other people (who I’ll invent later) find interesting.”

Sometime shortly thereafter… “Damnation! Didn’t I just SPECIFICALLY tell you? Fine, you like science… okay, I’ll give you some science.” God turned his back to them quickly and invented cancer, “huh, you like that? Use your science on that!”

1929 A.D. Philo T. Farnsworth uses science to invent television.

1946 A.D. Dr. Percy Spencer (what a stupid, scientist name) patents the first microwave oven. The first models were nearly six feet tall and weighed over 750 lbs.

1964 A.D. Food scientist at Ruiz Foods invent the first microwaveable burrito.

July 29, 1969 A.D. The most impressive feat of science ever before, or ever since. We discovered conclusively that it wasn’t, in fact, made of cheese, we left a flag (like you do) and we left with no real interest of returning again. Moon colonies, you say? Nah… not for us. Let the Ruskies get up there and make a Communist moon colony if they want to. We’re too busy thinking up the Internet.

May 10, 1974 A.D. Al Gore invents the internet. Sorry. No, I’m really sorry for that one. Even I’m embarrassed by that one.

1990 A.D. I discovered that we can send a man to the moon, but we can’t get my burrito to cook evenly.

1992 A.D. God caught on to humans having TV, so he invented MTV’s The Real World, planting the seed for the explosion of reality TV which would eventually ruin all television programming. God’s wrath, man… God’s wrath. Reality TV is the 1990’s equivalent of Noah’s flood. And where was science for that?

2001-2005 A.D. I’ve effectively slept through every single science and engineering course I’ve had. Proving conclusively: Science is BORING!

That's all.

Blogs: The Internet's Intellectual Flea Market... OF DOOM

2005-03-10T16:43:00.000-05:00

Fine! Internet, you win. I broke down and registered myself as a “blogger”.

SIDERBAR: A couple thoughts on the word “blogger”
1) Blog, blogging, blogger and the less publicized bloggophilia were recently added to THE DICTIONARY as Webster’s way of saying “We’re cool. We’re hip. We’re with it. You can see just how cool we are for only $14.99” These really had no business becoming words and I pugnaciously stand by my contention that in the next edition (their 24,000th at last count), Merriam AND Webster should agree to remove these words. They should also remove “funner”, but I’ll dedicate an entire diatribe to that.
2) I don’t like the phraseology of “Registered Blogger” because that makes me feel as if I was convicted of aforementioned bloggophilia. I’m concerned that neighbors and compatriots will sign petitions and give me dirty looks while saying things like “There goes that Paco guy I saw on the Internet. He makes absurd, unfounded claims about nothing of any relevance under the premise of keeping mainstream media in check… umm, somehow… mostly theoretically” and “I heard he likes little boys” (only one of which is true, mind you).

Moving on. I can’t say that I’m particularly sold on the idea of blogging. I suppose “respectable” bloggers are both growing in popularity and credibility as the pseudo-anonymous whistle-blowers of “real” columnists, journalists and relevant, newsworthy individuals. Others utilize blogging as an online diary, exposing their souls (sort of) to the world (wide web); proving conclusively that teenage girls secretly REALLY want you to read their non-internet diary (check the bureau… left drawer. No, behind that. The key is in the right drawer. Forget it, just rip open the lock. No! I thought I just explained that she only pretends to mind). And, then you have what I’d call SAD SICS’s (Smart Angry Dude Skilled In Computer Stuff), those guys that write lengthy, often vulgar accounts of things they hate. These are amusing in that “hell in a hand basket” kinda way.

Their aim seems to be to demonstrate their individuality, intelligence and wit by being angry and absurd just like the thousands of other SAD SICS. They grow a fan base, consider themselves celebrities and answer hate-mail as part of their sssshhhhtick. God bless ‘em, I say. It’s mindless, crude humor, but it makes me laugh from time to time. I’m (presumably) a far cry from a SAD SIC; I’d call myself more of a PACO (Poorly Attempting Clever Observation… these are the jokes, people. Forget it! If you wanted real funny, you should have gone to Dave Barry or The Onion, judger!).

Musings of the Mediocre is simply an exercise in writing. I scarcely expect my friends to read this (who know I’m not funny), much less a wider audience, so I’m pretty much free not to fit into a specific genre. I’d like to keep a healthy mix between my fiction writing and commentary. I’d especially like to focus my commentary on how dumb Brian Beutler and his seemingly genuine attempt at “real” bloggophilia are. You’re dumb Brian, and I’m on a one man life’s mission to drag your name shamelessly through the mud. Find Brian and give him a piece of your mind. "Oooohh, my name is Brian Beutler and I'm a real writer... I write real things and use proper spelling and abide by every rule of grammar ever. I'm smarter than you because I use words such as 'ostensibly' rather than 'like' because I'm...ummm... smarter."

We at Musings of the Mediocre have but three words for you, Mr. Beutler: I hate you.

That's all.