PHILADELPHIA, PA–
I first realized I was one of them—a freaky, crazed, over-involved sports cheerleader parent, the kind other people want to kill—when I took my daughter to play indoor Nerf soccer a few years ago. I didn’t become one of them over a season of sideline or bleacher coaching, though; I just instantly was.
BOULDER, CO-
I’ve been busy lately. It’s tax time. I know it’s early, but I don’t have much choice in the matter. My husband and I run a couple of businesses. OK, three. An LLC. A C-Corp. Another LLC.
This whole company-building thing is getting out of control. It’s insanity. He’s got this entrepreneurial bug that he can’t seem to shake. Or doesn’t want to. He keeps starting businesses. I think he may be addicted. He gets the shakes if he goes too long without something new.
My husband is kind of a computer geek. Thinks in binary. Eats bits for breakfast. He loves those computer games where you can choose your own avatar – don the chainmail, wield the axe, drink the manna. He is his own avatar.
He once walked into the forest behind our house empty-handed and came back with a katana.
LAS VEGAS, NV -
Well, folks, we’re almost a month into 2009 and things are already crazy. Things have happened. A failed president ends his reign of incompetence. A new guy lives in the White House. The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. A man in the Philippines took some video of a ghost on his phone.
And that’s just in the past three weeks. Anyhow, here’s some other natural and unnatural observations:
LAS VEGAS, NV -
Boxing is a manly sport.
It’s not the meek tea party scene of golf.
Theogenes – a Greek badass - won over 1300 fights and never lost a battle in over twenty years. He pummeled his competition. He smashed in their heads. He broke their will. He made them his bitch. He didn’t give a shit otherwise.
MIAMI BEACH, FL-
When my husband, Victor, was a kid, he and his friends frequently went to the empty lot behind the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in Bedford Stuyvesant, where they lived, to fly model airplanes. These were planes made from balsa wood, which were powered by a liquid fuel. One time, Victor’s plane landed badly and one of the wings was splintered. He tried to smooth out the wing with his knife. All boys had pocket-knifes back then, as did Victor, but that day he was carrying his pride and joy, a miniature Hari Kari knife, which had a long blade with a wooden hilt.
(more…)
LAS VEGAS - NV
Wildcard weekend is over. Eight teams went into the weekend with Super Bowl dreams and four teams came out of it still having Super Bowl dreams. The other four teams are cleaning out their lockers, packing up their stuff.
Later. Goodbye. Adios.
LAS VEGAS - NV
Well, folks, the NFL regular season is over and the playoff picture is here. It’s alive. First, let me say that it was one hell of a season. It was a party, a 17-week riot. Tons of drama and man blood.
Heads were ripped off shoulders. Rude things were said. The Hail Mary was chanted. Bones were snapped. Some teams that the experts picked to win didn’t win. Some teams that were written off as dead at the beginning of the season are not so dead.
Gridiron Resurrection. (more…)
LAS VEGAS, NV-
2009.
It’s around this time of the year that we reflect on the year that was. We look back at the months, the days - mind pushed in reverse, remembering things, conversations, people.
We do this. Every year like clockwork. Looking over our shoulder then looking straight. One foot inside the door, one foot out. It’s part of the deal.
Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows put his end-of-the-year-thoughts to song in “A Long December.” A beautiful tune loaded with nostalgia and hope. (more…)
BOULDER, CO-
In the last two weeks, two TNB writers have written about masturbation (thank you Smibst and Marni Grossman). Why not make it a threesome? Tis the season, right?
Specifically, I’d like to focus on the vibrator.
I was 29 when I visited my first actual sex toy shop. I went with a couple of girlfriends from my kung fu class to look for Valentine’s Day gifts for our men. Together, we were trouble.
First, there was V, the dark-haired Filipina-American who had spent 8 years in the army and who could arm-wrestle any man stupid enough to challenge her under the table. I have broken up fights between her and overzealous guys at dance clubs on more than one occasion. Second, there was M, the ample-chested knockout who never failed to turn a head with her screaming feminine vibe. She has also been the cause of a few scuffles at dance clubs – but perhaps for less confrontational reasons. Third, there was me, their plump friend, Bess.
So there we were, marching into Ye Old Sex Shoppe on 28th Street (otherwise known as “Fascinations”), and winking boldly at the pre-adults working the counter as if we had just stopped in to get a bag of chips and a vanilla Frappucino out of the refrigerator case.
LAS VEGAS, NV -
I’ve never paid for a hooker.
Never thought of it, really. But I’ve known a few people that have. I even worked with a waitress that once worked at a brothel. I think it was in Sparks.
“Every man should have a hooker at least once,” she told me.
Maybe she was right. Maybe a man should have a hooker at least once. What did I know? I’ve heard stories. Never heard a bad one. All delivered with a smile.
A friend stationed at Camp Pendleton. Got shellacked and skipped over to Mexico for a little nookie. Crazy dude in town from El Paso. Too drunk to make the long haul to the Bunny Ranch but hit a brothel in Pahrump.
“Got me some strange,” he said.
LAS VEGAS, NV -
The NFL season is winding down. Which is a little sad. Not entirely sad because there’s still a lot of football to be played. But still. Week 13 is a goner. All bets are settled.
The payoffs are in the distance.
For some teams.
The beginning of the season is always full of talk. All the experts on TV and radio yapping it up, telling us how the season is going to play out.
“I see the Patriots running the table,” some of them said. (more…)
SHANTOU, CHINA-
I travel by rickshaw these days, which is odd. I mean, to be comfortable with rickshaw travel is not something I ever expected. But the fresh air, the cruising under the night sky just a little buzzed after a stop at Shantou’s finest wine bar where elbows were rubbed against those of the budding bourgeois. Sometimes I think of the rickshaw as a time machine, transporting me back to a moment when the triangular straw hats and tattered short pants of the driver were no less obsolete than… rickshaws. Despite the allure, I think I’m witnessing the last days of rickshaw culture here in Shantou. Traffic is getting a little too car oriented and I can’t imagine this mode of travel making it very long in such a fast growing city. There are other bits of local culture in Shantou, however, that seem perfectly safe for the forseeable future, and one of those was exactly what I set out to explore on the back of my rickshaw last Saturday night. (more…)
BOULDER, CO-
A couple of months ago, a cyclist was speeding down a mountain road when he crashed without warning into a large, black bear.
The event happened only a few miles from my house on a road I take several times a week as I drive into Boulder. The cyclist, Tim Egan, 53, was racing down a fairly steep incline at 45 mph when the bear stepped out into the road from behind some trees. He just walked out into the sunlight. No warning. Didn’t look both ways. Thinking about something funny his girlfriend said earlier that day about trout. Neither the bear nor the cyclist had time to react.
Screech. Crash. Pavement. That quick.
Egan described the event later saying, “This bear looked at me with a look of terror on his face and sort of made a noise. I looked at him with a look of terror and we went, ‘aaaahhhhh.’”
LAS VEGAS, NV -
Over a hearty Mexican dinner, I decided to wake up early and throw in some NFL picks. I don’t normally gamble. This was probably my fourth parley card I’ve ever played. But I figured, what the hell. After all, it was the first Sunday of the NFL 2008-2009 season.
Fall. Football.
Life was pleasant and reasonable once again.
The only thing disturbing me was the Presidential run for the White House. It was a circus. It was ugly and I was in the middle of it neck-deep.
Obama.
John.
The young buck.
Gramps. (more…)
BOULDER, CO-
I just got back from a Denver event called DEMOgala, for which my little tech company that I helped found (get this) was chosen (you’ll never believe it) as one of Colorado’s top 18 (I swear I’m not making this up) most innovative companies (and no, I did not give any untoward favors) of 2008 (nope - not even first base).
Holy shit.
You may recall that about a month ago I was fretting that I need to raise money for my company and that this would necessarily involve dirty dancing with the investor equivalent to Patrick Swayze.
CLEVELAND, OH -
This is the second chapter following, well, the first chapter I posted in July: In the Beginning There Was an Unpaid Editing Job in Cleveland, a Potential Lawsuit, and a Bunch of Unprovoked Angry Geese
(Short breakdown of the above: I’m writing and editing a totally shitty magazine in Cleveland, The Hip Pocket, which is run by a team of amateurs in 2003. I was almost sued because I said my magazine was to receive a “boatload of money” from the Gravity Games to throw a party for their athletes and I had to write a Letter of Retraction to cover my ass. Our next cover story was to cover the Gravity Games story.)
I come from a family nestled deep within the bosom of the Evangelical church. My parents were academics and argued for faith with conviction and logic. Before the age of 20, I estimate that I attended church services on the order of 3,120 times. It took me well into my 20s until I finally found the strength, the courage, and perhaps caught just enough of a glimpse of the outside world to rebel. Having come out on the other side – still with belief in The Divine I think, although with vastly different definitions and expectations – I find that I am forced to confront my past on a daily basis. I write this as a sort of therapy. It’s healing. And wacky. Regardless, it’s bound to cause me some embarrassment. So here goes: Hi. My name is Erika, and I’m a recovering Evangelical. Now, let’s get started…
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Despite my parents’ best efforts, I think it’s safe to say that they failed with me. The thing is, I love rock ‘n roll. Love hip hop. Love Elvis clear on through to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Indigo Girls.
Now, maybe this isn’t a big deal to you, but to my family, this is a whole world of wrongs. I was not only NOT allowed to listen to the radio when I was a kid, but I was also subjected to the cultural alternative at least daily.
LAS VEGAS, NV -
Aeroplane
The story of Daedalus and Icarus is essentially a story of a son not listening to the advice of his father. Father says don’t do it, son does it. In this case, Daedalus, the father, tells his son (who’s outfitted with wings his father made) not to fly too close to the sun or too close to the sea. Doing either will damage the wings and send him into the sea to meet his death.
Icarus goes for the former, melts his wings (the feathers were held together by wax) and falls to the sea and dies. I first heard of this story in the 8th grade. I bought Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind album and on there was this song called “Flight of Icarus.”
Booming tune with galloping guitars, a thumping bass line, and Bruce Dickinson wailing about an old Greek tale.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA-
There’s something about a bookstore, warm-gutted, umbilical–relevant. City Lights bookstore in San Francisco is the ne plus ultra of bookstores. The unkissed, the wretched, the imbecilic and insane–all of them, at one point, have struggled to hit that first step, lunge forth, looking for a depth charge to blast out the superstructures of their lives. I have. Have you? Oh, no. I’m not saying you’re a wretch. I’m not saying you’re anything. What I’m saying is that not unlike a church, or a Wal-Mart, or the feeling you take from winking at an ugly girl, you feel a sense of calm, however misbegotten or misguided.
One day I’ll tell you about how I feel about that. But last week, with an old, wonderful friend, a friend who knows that people are not kind, but like me, feels commandoish in dispelling the predjudices and the preconceptions of the drooling smash so intent on drowning out (and down) the boy with his back up–we went in to City Lights, went on a book orgy. I can tell you what I bought later, but buying Howl, again, at City Lights, got me thinking. Got me so much I’m going to call it “thanking.” But who is this lunatic spewing out vapid introductions? Let’s get to the story, eh?
LOS ANGELES, CA -
My boyfriend and I were driving home from the movies the other night. Which movie is not the point, but for the sake of setting the mood, it was a comedy and we laughed and we laughed.
The point is he’s got satellite radio in his car and he was flipping around to find something decent for us to listen to.
We tend toward a channel called Deep Tracks (AKA excuse to play understandably forgotten Emerson, Lake, and Palmer tunes) or Top Tracks (AKA excuse to play “Won’t Get Fooled Again” again, but with the benefit of really crisp acoustics.)
One can also find some decent comedy from time to time. And a hardcore rap show hosted by Ludacris. He and his partner swear and everything. We never listen to indie rock on satellite. I don’t know why.
Sometimes Mark turns to Hank’s Place, a channel that usually plays fine and classic country tunes. This time around, we found ourselves in the midst of a ditty with lyrics about getting old, and likening the aging dilemma to having the value of a precious, antique violin.
For reason that are probably apparent, Mark kept hitting the satellite radio remote, scrolling through our many other options to see what else we might find.
