Utah hicks, Joe Biemel bobblehead night and accidental prostitutio

It's all over now. After a hair under 3000 miles of driving, countless slabs of beef jerky, countless bedbugs from unsanitary hotels and an interesting night in Vegas I'm comfortably sitting in my living room in Burbank, California. The last thing I want to do is write about the tediousness of counting down the miles until you reach that oh-so-eventful California/Nevada border. So, I'm gonna make fun of stuff instead.

I'll begin with a compliment because it's good to endear yourself to an audience before you call them a bunch of retarded schoolchildren: it's just good sense. I must say that the drive from Denver to Vegas was phenomenal. I got up crazy early so I hit the Rockies right as the sun was coming up (pictures forthcoming) and it was really quite something. Once I left the Rockies I drove through the high deserts of Utah which were surprisingly interesting as well. You'd go up, you'd go down and sometimes you could stop and take pictures of rocks. It really needs to be seen to be believed. It's difficult to appreciate natural beauty when you live in shitass Allston/Brighton for a year. The closest thing to natural beauty on Comm Ave was the man-made lake by BC which wasn't even a little bit natural. Kudos to Colorado and Utah for redeeming the otherwise dogshit mid-western part of this country. Nevada gets love for Vegas and essentially creating the ultimate escapist paradise which, oddly enough, somehow includes a nightly performance of the comedic stylings of Carrot Top. I shit you not. He's got his own billboard.

The fun part for me started waaaay before I even got to Vegas. It began in a little town called Thompson Springs, Utah. It's important to remember that calling Thompson Springs a town is disingenuous because it's little more than a Shell station and the broads that work there. The two who I encountered had little use for books, combs or dentistry but they seemed like good folks. They told me about the typhoons that came through last night.







Wait for it.......






It's coming.........






Typhoons. In Utah.

Fuck.

Please tell me these two are felons and therefore are not allowed to vote.

So, yeah, tyhpoons apparently have been a problem in Utah because whenever it's windy and rainy at night that means a typhoon is happening. Because as everybody knows all a typhoon really is is wind and rain at night. Right? well, not really. If you were to simply look up typhoon you would find that it is impossible, by definition, for a typhoon to happen in Utah. Or Nevada. Or Kansas. Or really any other fucking state in the Continental United States because tyhpoons occur in the NORTHWEST PACIFIC OCEAN. Whatever, they had good beef jerky.

My evening in Vegas got started off right when a 50-year-old French woman started explaining to me in a completely, unfixably, beat-to-shit broken English that she had never been to Vegas and she loved America because Yellowstone National Park was pretty and New York City was "wide". It was nice to hear a foreigner appreciate my home country but some things they don't teach you in those "Learn Engrish!" CD sets and these things are non-verbal cues. When I turn around and start humming/whistling "Midnight Train to Georgia" that means I'm pretty much done talking for the time being. Needless to say, once I got out of line I couldn't wait to start gambling.

My anxiousness to get to the blackjack table turned out well for the Tropicana/New York New York/The Luxor/MGM Grand because I lost a lot of money very, very quickly. After I got up from the table and realized if I didn't slow down I'd have to pay for my drinks that night I decided I'd go on the installment "win back the money you just stupidly lost" plan. I worked in 30 dollar increments. If I was up 30 dollars (3 hands) I'd leave the table, walk around and finish my Jamison on the rocks. Then I'd return to a different table and do the same thing. It was a perfect plan that had absolutely no chance of failing.

But then I got hammered.

I'd actually almost won all my money back and I decided to "raise the stakes" (see: "lose it all quickly"). That was the end of my gambling and I was in a sour mood. My sour mood was made much better after chatting up a few broads and the rest of the evening is not something I really feel like putting up on the internets for all to see. Let's just say I was forced to make some difficult decisions and as we all know the reasoning process breaks down after your 9th whiskey. I'll only share this one part because it was the peak of my decision making prowess and it was only 1 in the morning.

I'm walking into the Tropicana and this broad I've never seen before stares me in the eye and says "Hey." Now, I was drunk and a little flummoxed so I gave a look that indicated that I had no fucking idea who she was or why she was talking to me. I know my look conveyed this because she soon made both of those things rather clear.

Broad: What are you doin' tonight?
Me: It's my only night here. So probably a few board games. Shoots n Ladders, maybe.
(long long long pause)
Me: Uh...what are you doin?
Broad: Goin' home with you I hope.
Me: Oh.....oh, sorry that's not really my thing.
Broad: Having sex?
Me: No, paying for it.
Broad: (not pleased and getting defensive) Well....everybody pays for it.

And she stormed off. When a hooker storms off away from you in a fit of righteous indignation then you've really got to question exactly what sort of life you are leading. It sucked too because her and almost every other hooker I saw were pretty damn good lookin'. The problem I'd have had, besides the whole ethical question of paying for sex, would be the guilt. I'd try to reform her or something. It'd be Pretty Woman but with acting.

I woke up the next morning feeling like 215 ponds of shit. I grabbed coffee, Carl's Jr, my final tank of gas and get the crap out of the awesome/horrifying experience that is Las Vegas.

My first night in LA was a real larf. I ate french dip and some place that began with the letters 'Ph' and that's about all I can remember. I found out that tailgating in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium is strictly prohibited. That prohibition did not stop myself and Stacy from pounding an Old R before entering the game. That's when we got our Joe Biemel bobble heads. The guy's an average middle reliever. Apparnently, he was voted by the fans because they simply could not go another year without a bobblehead bearing the head of everybody's favorite relief pitcher. In our collective rage and hatred for all things Dodger, Stacy and I ripped the head off of her Biemel bobblehead and showed it to everyone to let them know that being from Philadelphia pretty much means you are an angry bitter person. After they Phils blew the lead and eventually lost in the 9th, I ripped his body in half and turned it into a prison shank for protection. We'd kind of been talking a whole fuckton of shit the whole game so the peanut gallery was really letting us hear it when the Dodgers won. I stand by every single one of my witty barbs.

I live 5 minutes from a driving range thats on the side of a mountain. It never closes because it's never cold. So far I'm doin' just fine.

Holla

Softball, the Midwest and the sheer pointlessness of the state of Ohio

My first night of my trip was not posted as planned because I ended up playing softball and getting pretty drunk instead. (We lost 7-5. I put up a solid 0 for 4 and thanks to my filing cabinet-esk range at 1st base we lost by two instead of one.) So, ya know, oops. The drive was pretty much what I expected: it was miserably boring. In fact, I'd have to say a nice case of mono would be more desirable than driving through Oh-put a .45 to my temple and let sweet, sweet death have me so I'll never see a stalk of corn again-io. However, I did learn a few things along the way.

Thanks to a friend of mine I cannot drive a car like a person anymore. My friend, whose name rhymes with Doe Haymouse, has changed the way I look at other drivers. I used to be the guy that would just put his hands in the air when somebody did something stupid. I would throw the hands up and make a face that said "Dude. Brah. What the hell, broski?"

Now, I feel personally offended by the manner in which other people operate their cars and feel it's my duty -- nay, my divine privilege -- to let them know they suck. I found myself driving through Pennsylvania having conversations with other drivers. They couldn't hear me. They were in their cars. I was in my car. Even if I shouted out the window the wind would keep them from hearing what I had to say. Yet, none of those indisputable facts kept me from jawing at strangers who probably are better human beings than I am. The following were exact things I loudly mused to myself in the car:

"It's the passing lane.......for passing.....you fucking dolt!"
"No, no! Go ahead! Onward Christian soldiers! Onward at 60 miles-an-hour in the fucking passing lane!" (The guy had a Jesus fish)
"Wow....I mean....wow....Jeeeesus."
"No, good. That's good. I'm glad you're not rushing. This is just the lane for you."
"Oh for chrissakes, Phyllis. It's the doddamn gas pedal."

And so forth. By the time I started to get to the boring part of the country (it starts somewhere between Harrisburg, PA and Wheeling, West Virginia) I simply had nothing left to say and I reverted back to my old self. Plus the speed limit in these bumfuck-burgs is 70 instead of 65 so you at least get to speed through the nothing so you can quickly get to even more nothing. I really don't understand why the Indians had so much beef with giving up this land. It sucks.

Probably the only reason Ohio is still around is because they get it right when it comes to softball. This complex we played at had four fields. They were nice enough and had lights but that wasn't the great part. In the middle of these four fields was a bar. Not like, a shack that sold PBR tall boys for 5 dollars a piece, but an actual bar. It was fantastic. Guys were drinking beers while warming up and while on the bench then trying to relive the glory on the field two minutes later. This bar in the middle of the fields was a legendary idea. This fantastic idea took a step past simply encouraging drinking and driving and flat out demanded it. Is there anything more American than that? Let's build these fields. Good idea. Better yet, let's put a bar in there. Fantastic idea. Let's put it in Ohio. Terrible idea. But let's make sure they are near absolutely nothing so everybody has to drive at least 20 minutes to get there. All-American, rock-roll, knuckle push-up, bench-press idea.

Today I experienced yet another 650 miles of absolutely nothing with the exception of crossing the Missouri River (twice) which was neat and driving past that arch in St. Louis. The arch was the kind of thing that you think would be cool to see but as soon as you look at it for about 20 seconds you just kinda nod and go "Alright. Well, that was an exciting 20 seconds. Come on, kids. Let's drive back to Ottawa." You see it, take a picture maybe and that's it. I hope to God people don't spend more than 2o seconds really taking in the arch. It's like going to Philadelphia and thinking you'll spend an entire day looking at the Liberty Bell. It's not a miracle of science, it's a bell that hasn't done the one thing it was build to do (ring) for hundreds of years. So, actually, it's not even a really nice bell. It's not even a working bell. Some poor kid is gonna ask their mom who dragged them 500 miles to see this thing the most logical question in the world "Mommy, can I ring the bell?" And the mom is going to say "Now, Dottie, we don't speak in public unless a man addresses us, remember? Now, go sit in the car and practice your knitting, your homemaking and bottling up emotion until brother and father are done learning math, science and shop - the man subjects."

I'm sorry, I passed out at the end of that and forgot what I was talking about. Anyways, the arch - meh. Missouri River - meh. Kansas City BBQ - the bee's knees. I had a bbq sandwich of some kind at the place down the street from my hotel and it was all sorts of delicious. I don't have much to compare it to but it was a million times better than Soulfire which is not easy for me to admit. The only other thing that happened was Eagles 2nd round pick DeSean Jackson caught a few passes last night in the loss to the Steelers and had this to say about his first taste of NFL action:

"It felt good. It's football, it's what I play."

In the words of the short-lived cartoon series Street Sharks: Jawsome!

The reason I think he said it felt good was because he originally thought the Eagles had drafted him for their Siamese kickball league. Siamese kickball, or course, crosses kickball, lawn darts and the ancient Mayan Ballgame - played to the death of course. There are six bases and each base is made of the souls of children. The ball is not a ball as much as it is a roll of masking tape wish a plastic bag stuffed in the middle to make it look round. Games last three weeks and each Wednesday there is a 5 hour break for a kabuki play and a light lunch. Only two people have ever survived and entire game of Siamese kickball Dick Cheney and Lou Diamond Phillips. That's why DeSean was worried. He's not a Siamese kickballer. He's a football player. He plays football. THAT"S WHAT FOOTBALL PLAYERS DO!!