Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Meet The New Boss - Taller and Drunker

Every now and then stories regarding tall people (who I like to call "The New Ruling Class") and their genetic superiority fly under the collective public's radar without notice. Well short stack, you better start making note. For while these stories don't come out every day, they're coming out with more regularity. Viewed singularly, they're merely amusing anecdotes. Viewed as a whole, they become undeniable Proof of Genetic Superiority. Hence, I'll be posting this evidence when it surfaces.

Exhibit A:

http://www.slate.com/id/2148759/?GT1=8592

As an added bonus to today's Proof of Genetic Superiority, for those bean stalks wondering why their height alone isn't resulting in instant riches and fame, it's probably because you've got some short genes in there somewhere. Maybe your great great great great uncle was a hobbit, or perhaps your Dad is a soccer player. Regardless, try adding mass quantities of alcohol to your daily diet:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060914/hl_afp/afplifestylehealthalcohol

"In elementary school, in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a
single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic? Do tall
people burn slower?"
--Warren Hutcherson

(Probably, Warren, probably.)


The Angry Dragon and The Fine Line Between Comedy and A Call for Therapy

The images started to form in my mind before I could even attempt to block them out. It was too late to turn my mind around, and so I dove headfirst into the imagery that had been created from a description of “The Angry Dragon,” a lewd sex act from the same ridiculous, fantastic realm as the “Dirty Sanchez.” That realm? The realm of sexual encounters joked about a multitude of times more than actually practiced. Do you know anyone who’s ever performed one? Do you know anyone capable, who you truly believe has the gall, guts and glory hound attitude to even try?

The Angry Dragon.

I titled my head back, smiled, and quietly chuckled a genuine moment. Not at the joke as much as at the fact that someone had the imagination and lack of childhood therapy to construct its basis. Had I spent any more time wondering about the joke’s origin, I might have been slightly distrubed by it as well as my delight in its delivery. Alas, that wafer-thin line between joyous absurdity and the dark circumstances that drive it wasn’t crossed.

(The Angry Dragon? Hahahahaha…)

Friday, September 01, 2006

THE LOVE TRACTOR



My First and Only Car, My Immortal Steel Chunk of Enlightenment

Remember that goldfish you had in college? No matter how much you neglected it, no matter how infrequently you changed the water, no matter how many Thanksgiving/Winter/Spring breaks you left it unattended and unfed…it would never die. Not that you wanted it to, God no. You were completely amazed by the little guy’s resilience and immortal powers. “Dude, I think my fish is a Highlander.”

No, you were never disappointed after coming home from, say, summer break to see him cutting through the Swamp Thing Housing Project his tank had become. Quite the opposite – you were SO impressed with and convinced of his higher power, you started seeing just how far you could push it. It became a little game you two played. And he always, ALWAYS won, much to your dorm’s amusement and worship. (Note – his death, in fact, has never been fully explained. Forensic experts claim it was at the hands of my irritable Russian roommate. But that’s for another post.)

That’s the Love Tractor. A maroon, four wheel drivin’ resilient steel Buddha that like Keith Richards I’m convinced can never be destroyed.

They called her the Jeep Cherokee. I called her the Love Tractor. She came to me as a family hand-me-down – a “please, take it” kind of transaction from an older brother who couldn’t wait to get rid of her and move on to something less “kickable.” I couldn’t have been giddier.

She hasn’t left my side since, and neither has the giddiness. Every house I’ve ever lived in, be it for a month or three years, since age 19 has had the Love Tractor’s oil forever mark its driveway, lawn, and inevitably its “less visible” sidewalk two blocks away. (The embarrassed roommates and neighbors who never appreciated her powers will eventually be revealed as heartless cyborgs). Her stories are the stuff of legend among family and friends, and when they speak of her it’s with shaking heads and a stifled laugh - of disbelief I’m sure. She’s transcended her existence of “car” and has all but earned a spot at the family dinner table. If she had any, I’m convinced my Mom would do The Love Tractor’s laundry.

The Love Tractor has stories. The late night “missions” and “front lawn fourwheelin’” in college which always led to her constant mysterious disappearances. We’d wake up in the morning and she’d be gone. We’d always find her a few hours later in other parts of town, either in front of bars or party houses. How she got there is anyone’s guess. (The Love Tractor keeps secrets.)

The now-countless 13-hour races across the desert from northern California to my folks' place in Phoenix. (11-hour, actually, but don’t tell my parents.)

The 2 a.m. multiple-360-degree spinout in the middle of Utah during the first odyssey across the Rocky Mountains, and the World’s Biggest, Whitest, Longest Blizzard on the way back.

The incident we shall refer to as “The Ditch” in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

A drunk driver has rammed her. A drunk driver has driven her.

Despite the name, I never did “score” in her backseat. But she did magically drive me home in a wondrous daze shortly after my first time.

She’s been towed. Because of flat-tired necessity and at the hands of outstanding, um, indiscretions. (The Love Tractor cannot be bothered with the paperwork of mortals.)

The two-year span referred to as “The Horn Lottery,” during which time slight inclines in the road or idling for more than a minute inexplicably caused the horn to blow loud, intermittent staccato blasts into the ears of all nearby pedestrians, or “lottery winners.”

The day she received a cosmetic upgrade. New paint job? Hell no. Weightlifting trophy drilled into her hood as a new hood ornament? Hell yes.

Then one day, about the same time she began to develop a loose rattle, a deep ill-sounding chug and other noises not of this world and I began to wonder every time I put the key in the ignition, “is today the day?”, we were told that she would be lucky to make it six more months in the condition she was in. Devastated, I spent the next few weeks whispering the news to friends and morbidly thinking behind closed doors about life without her.

“Fix her,” they suggested.

“Ha! How do you fix your personal Jesus?” I retorted. “Certainly not with regular oil changes and a new set of rotors! Just let us have our last days in peace!”

That was three years ago. And I no longer trust the Judas-like behavior or foolish “standard care” advice of these “mechanics.”

Since then, the noises have persisted, if not grown louder, and the stories have continued to pile up. It’s almost like the mechanic motivated her to blow more valves and minds, his diagnosis a locker room post. It’s almost as if he challenged how deep my faith would go. He practically dared us to stop using oil, tune-ups and tire rotations all together. Well, The Love Tractor never backs down from a challenge.

My faith has never been more engine block-solid.

How else can you explain her recent miracle survival through a roadside operation to disengage and remove her drive train, drain her battery, tow her half way across the country, and then put her all back together in the rain, all with no manual or diagram? (See forthcoming Tales From the Road – No Sleep ‘Til Denver post).

And much like the old dorm and the fish, my friends are in constant awe at her ability to continue truckin’ despite what may SEEM like my best attempts to slowly and deliberately put her down. But they don’t “get” the understanding the Love Tractor and I have. The Game we play. It’s not like I’m trying to kill her. I’m just here as a helpless opponent, a Washington Generals to her Harlem Globetrotters, throwing whatever futile blows I can at her as she brushes them off like her original paint job. Like those who watched their generation’s great sports figure in his prime (Ruth, MJ, Gretsky, Woods), I too am grateful for just having the chance to see it.

But The Love Tractor and I don’t kid ourselves. We can see the writing on the odometer. The paint is resigning to the rust. They always say that use of your turn signals is one of the first things to go. Try to throw a Beatles tape into her tape deck and you’ll learn that “Paul is dead.” Power steering – you don’t know how unnecessary it is until you’ve lost it.

It’s the vicious truth of life, and one day no matter how much faith I have or how much gas I pump into my tank…indeed I will pass away, like all humans, and she’ll have to find herself someone new to save.

But until then…late-night mission, nuclear fallout, my first kid’s prom limo, bank robbery getaway, fish-killer man hunt, stunt car or a search for life’s answers – there’s no one else I’ll turn to for help.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Zen and the Art of Making Peace with Your Inner Good Surfer


If ‘it’ has to be explained, you don’t have ‘it’ – Anonymous



“How long have you been surfing?”

“For years now.”

“You must be a good surfer, then.”

I am not a Good Surfer. San Francisco’s Ocean Beach and Santa Cruz’s Pleasure Point are home, I have surfed Baja, Tahiti, Hawaii and Europe, taken surf trips to surreal places worthy of features and spreads in magazines, and even lost women in part because of the sport’s influence. At first glance, I certainly am a surfer. I catch waves, have as much fun as anybody and respect the beauty of it. But I am not a Good Surfer. And now that I’ve relocated about as far from a surfable wave as you can get in America, my legacy back home will remain that of not a Good Surfer.

Every surfer, from the guy paddling into an ankle-high easy ride to the Water God getting towed into Jaws at 30 miles an hour, has at least a few commonalities: ambition, motivation, and the ability to stand on top of a moving board. But Good Surfers? They have more. They have patience. They have effortless balance, faith, understanding, a little luck and most importantly, they have The Glide.

I didn't know what the difference was or what I was doing "wrong." I was persistent in my surfing. I remained dedicated to the effort and amazed by its control over my psyche. I was constantly observing, analyzing my own actions in comparison, and very often ended up wondering where the disconnect was that led to my constantly “unsuccessful” undertakings. Things this difficult and frustrating normally get tossed to the “tried it and it never took” wayside within a few tries. But I remained vigil in my intense attack on attaining the surf pinnacle – The Glide.

I never attained it, never knew why, and given my new geographic location, resigned myself to the nagging reality that I never would.

___________________________________

Unexpectedly, I returned home to the ocean for a week. Of course, a return to the line up excited me, but there was something different about my sense of this opportunity to surf. Because my return felt like a gift, a bonus, there was no intended approach, no self-applied pressure to improve. There was only a subtle and new urge to ignore the short boards I had spent so much time trying to master, dust off “Shorty,” the ironically named 8’3” funboard I caught my first wave on, paddle out to the 3rd peak of the Point, and have a few easy rides on my old buddy.

And as I sat inside at a break that is no longer “mine” on an otherwise unimpressive summer day, knowing that the countless sessions I toiled to become a Good Surfer were behind me due to my current landlocked residence, that my goal was not going to be met, I let it all go. The years of slamming down the faces of whiplash K-mart closeout specials, shivering in the shark-infested unknown of dark dawn patrols at empty, eerie breaks, flailing like a dishrag in the dryer trying to master boards made for people smaller than me, the naturally-evolved group pressure to become as good as my surfing cohorts. My grip on trying to master the ocean loose, my surf lobotomy in full effect, I lost it all, and got EVERYTHING. I finally began receiving the liquid frequency the ocean’s been broadcasting to me for years. Relaxed and dumb, I casually pointed my large non-shredding float machine down the line, and let the astounding physics take control.

Like a hawk suspended in a thermal uprising, with the weightless balance of a floating hangglider, the wave lifted me to my own surf joy, I was completely alone, and only after I had turned my back on the ocean and returned with an empty mind, did I begin the process of harnessing The Glide.

I’ve been raked across a reef in Raitaia, slammed into the sand and held by an Ocean Beach A-frame monster, stranded outside of a Rockaway wall with no reasonable way back in, yelled at and threatened by locals in Santa Cruz, and yet all it took was an unremarkable, waist high sunny summer day slow roller for me to begin my endless ride as a Good Surfer.

Maybe you’re a surfer. Maybe you have no idea what the real difference is between yourself and a Good Surfer. If that’s the case, I can only tell you not to care, because I certainly can’t explain it to you.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Manifest Destiny Rebound: Pointless Endeavors-Denver Established


A year short of 30, I decided to drop most everything in my beloved West Coast Wonderland to chase a girl half way across the country.

Family, a tribe of friends, a movie set city and quick access to every single one of my self-indulgent outdoor and indoor vices couldn’t, against every logical synapse firing in my head, hold me back from going after her and landing here in Denver, CO.

Because of love. Because I have no idea what’s going to happen: adventure defined in simplest terms. And a life ruled by aversion to adventure doesn’t allow for the reward inherent in the risk. Because in life there is no exchange policy, and at least once you’ve got to relax, slack the shoulders, and yell ‘Ah, fuck it’ in the direction of a major purchase and watch your own private chaos theory unfold.

Yes, it’s one of the most Pointless Endeavors to date.

And you, Kiddies, are all privy to the leap. Thanks to the miracle of Al Gore’s modern technology, the uniting folks at blogger.com, and my boundless flair for the creative license, I’ll be reporting the Pointless Endeavors of Colorado in this space. If I’m lucky, it’ll document an extension of the many ridiculous (-ly f*ckin cool) stunts, pickles, thoughts and acts of ‘endearing’ alienation in which we found ourselves pantless or hurt back in California. Maybe it’ll be pictures, videos or stories of new ski gear and how it was broken, Bora Bora, jumping out of airplanes, travel do’s (bring your passport) and don’ts (if it’s been expired for 20 years), the art of wearing a fake mustache, suffering through a triathlon for the first time, the zen of large auto parts landing on your head, getting yelled at by local surfers, Vegas baby, black furry apres-ski boots, a guy named Dirty who’s a veterinarian in Manhattan, cooking show therapy, the value of a good stuntman, the joy of having so many best friends that you have to hold a two day, ten person contest to see who will be your best man, the best excuses for ditching work, the miracle of tequila, sand, foam, WHATEVER. I promise it’ll be pointless and I also promise at the very least you’ll find perspective. Because if anything else, you’ll be glad it wasn’t you who was lifted off a river, via rescue helicopter, for essentially no reason at all.

The West Coast was home – I know how much ass it kicks and I’m sure I’ll be back. But for now, I’ll ride this Manifest Destiny Rebound and stake the Rockies as my new frontier, preaching Pointless Endeavor gospel to fellow skiers, climbers, bar patrons and embracers of the silly.

Cheers.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Pointless Endeavors Defined


Pointless Endeavor:

An earnest and conscientious effort towards a goal devoid of meaning; to work with set purpose to achieve absolutely nothing.

A regressive yet highly entertaining approach to life unconsciously developed by a debilitatingly tight-knit tribe of friends in Northern California. Normally used in reference to reasons for skiing, getting naked, rock climbing, air guitaring, surfing or drunkenly “tagging” others in their crotch region. Also used in reference to their dating potential, seemingly irrational decision-making, and mission to rid the world of self-importance and pretense through public displays of stupidity and humiliation.

Usually results in injury; ALWAYS results in fun.

For more on the Pointless Endeavors, check out the (fittingly) unregularly-updated blog, pointlessendeavors.blogspot.com.