Gulp Fiction

An aubade to the aging mistress of summer

FAIRFIELD — Labor Day is approaching fast — a holiday I have always been fascinated with because it is the closest thing to a socialist holiday that America has, with the exception of Arbor Day — and I will probably spend it the same way most Americans do: discharging firearms in illegal and dangerous environments, sweating like a Southern Baptist in the Gay Pride Parade, and generally amusing and annoying my friends and family with my cheap-beer-and-barbecue-sauce-marinated hybrid philosophy of Neo-fascist opinions and communist leanings with outlandish conspiracy theories from both camps.
The end of summer is upon us.
I know technically the summer ends Sept. 21 (or Sept. 22, I can never remember which one) but anyone who was ever a student or has worked for a living knows that Labor Day is the true end of summer.
The last paid holiday before Thanksgiving. The last day off from school aside from sick days.
No more wearing white. No more tubing down the Sacramento River with scantily clad Chico State kids. No more sunburns and skinny-dipping (not at the same time, of course).
Still, I find comfort in knowing that the days of 100-degree days are winding down. Football is picking up. Baseball playoffs begin in about a month. Hockey will be back with crosschecking vengeance. The college students will be back . . . as if there weren’t enough broken bottles and used condoms in the alley behind my parents’ house already.
The leaves turn brown as the skies turn gray as people’s moods turn blue as my phlegm grows green. Doggerel, I know, but fitting.
Yes, the dog-dangling days of sweltering summer will soon be gone and I can move onto more productive hobbies on the weekends like sitting by the fire on a rainy Sunday afternoon, watching football and drinking hot Irish coffees as the 49ers (and the Raiders for that matter) get spanked by 45 points at the hands of the Cowboys and Chargers, respectfully.
Might as well make the best of the last of the worst of summer with one big blowout. It seems only fitting.
Steaks and highballs would be a good start. Wiffleball . . . a nice touch. 101.9 The Wolf playing in the background constantly . . . only necessary.
One last full-day soak in the pool (sunscreen be damned) before packing away the swim trunks for another rainy winter, yet not rainy enough to pull us out of statewide drought, seems a good way to wish the summer of ’08, perhaps the last summer of my relative youth, into chlorine-stained history.

Semper fi, shawarmas and Saddam Hussein's revenge

Last night, I was talking to my friend, Chris, about food and the horrible things that can happen with food, namely, food poisoning.
We were knocking back a few frosties on the patio of a gin joint in downtown Davis, shooting the breeze, when we started talking about Middle Eastern food.
We chatted about pita and hummus, falafel, and my personal favorite, shawarma.
Chris was a Marine and was stationed in Iraq. Interestingly, he likes Middle Eastern food. I would have thought the whole experience would have soured him but it hasn’t.
I told him about a shawarma shop in Davis that I like. He told me about some other stuff.
But the thing that I found the most interesting was when he talked about the chow in the service.
He said, “You’ve never been in it until you’ve got the runs.”
Apparently, everyone in Iraq gets horrible diarrhea, or at least everyone he was stationed with.
I called it “Saddam Hussein’s revenge.”
With wonderful method acting, he told be about being on guard when “SOD, SOD, I need a replacement.” “I’ll be there in five minutes.” “Uh, Sir, I can’t wait five minutes.”
There was noting funnier to me than picturing a Marine, fully loaded, carrying an M-16, face taught and ashen, with an “I’ve-been-shot-at- before-and-the-only-thing- that-scares-me-is- in-my-colon-right-now attitude, scurrying around the Republican Palace trying to find a kamode.
Semper fi, good sir. Or as I found online, Semper ubi sub ubi ubique - Always wear underwear everywhere.
Another interesting food story he told was about when the chow hall at Camp Pendleton was taken over by a private company. The company employed mentally retarded staff who didn’t use proper safety precautions.
Chris and a few others became violently ill and he said two recruits died.
The only thing that can kill a Marine is the salisbury steak. Damn, those guys are tough.

(Author’s note: I am a civilian and had knocked back a few beers while listening to the story so any incorrect military terminology or information should be chalked up my incompetence and not Chris’).

There is nothing like a dip in the "pool"

DAVIS - Doing my best (I won’t mention his name on such a public forum) impression, I killed my cell phone last night. Apparently, urinating on your cell phone is not a good idea. Who would have thought?

I told the guy at the store that it fell in the pool. Though I never like to lie, I felt it was necessary. He was a nice guy but, regardless of his charms, I feel he deserved it.

I don’t know if I was still drunk or if he was a hell of a salesman but I bought, heaven forbid, an iPhone.

I can barely afford to buy a bucket to defecate in and yet I bought the yuppie’s accessory.

It might be my need to settle sports arguments, my penchant for wikipedia, or my need for constant access to pornography that led me to purchase such a needless device, but it most likely is living beyond my means that incites me so.

As my father says, “He’s drinking champagne on a beer budget.”

Izza warned me not to, and she was right, but there was something that told me I had to have it.

The ability, I guess, to see Jenna Jameson with her feet behind her head anytime I desire was too good a deal to pass up.

It looks like PB-and-J sandos till the next paycheck for me. It looks like the doghouse will be my house for the rest of this pay period.

Looking back, majoring in English probably wasn’t a very good idea. Maybe entertaining some delusion that I can write wasn’t the best delusion one could have.

Poverty is never nice, but poverty with a college degree has a particular sting to it. The felling of entitlement is lost in the day-to-day shoveling of manure of it all.

Education doesn’t mean a thing when you have nothing to eat. And you can’t eat an iPhone.

Last night was bad. Anytime I find myself in a bar in Sacramento is bad. And anytime I find myself in a cash-only bar in Sacramento is especially bad.

The music was good, I think. I remember very little of it all but I think it was good. I woke up with Cyndi Lauper in my head and I have no idea where that would have come from other than the bar.

The blur of it all seems eerily reminiscent of Saturdays past with more strangers, less nudity and a healthy dose of desperation.

I had a vague memory of wanting to get a tattoo. According to Izza, I was set on the idea until she stopped me, with constant reminding, that there was no way possible they were going to tattoo a man in my state.

“I’m a sailor,” I thought. “Without the sodomy, of course,” I figured. “They have to tat me up.”

Luckily, I relented. If I had woke up this morning with an anchor on my arm I would have . . .  well, joined the Navy, I guess.

Instead, I am alone, writing, with no money, a headache, and an order for an iPhone. They gave me a loaner phone, but I have no idea how to use it and I lost all my numbers. So holler at your boy. Luckily, I can’t go on one of my patented drunk-dial sprees of which I am known for. At least for now.

The lazy days of summer

Very little to write about it seems.
My father is recovering well from his hip operation, it’s Friday, and Manny Ramirez is a Dodger. God, I hate him more now more than ever, which, by all estimates, I figured was impossible.
Anyone who plays in one of the best baseball towns in America, makes $15 million a year and has two rings, and still complains should be taken into the showers and beaten with a rubber hose to the point of gratitude, capitulation and unconsciousness, in that order.
He doesn’t even deserve to be a Dodger. As much as I dislike the Dodgers, L.A. is too good of a town (I can’t believe I just said that) and the Dodgers are too good of a team (I can’t believe I just said that either) for him. Manny should have been sent to the Royals. Just to really give him something to complain about.
Let’s see how uppity he is when he’s in last place, living in Missouri.
Keeping with the baseball theme of this blog, in a somewhat related note, I took Izza to the batting cages yesterday. She fared quite well. She played tennis for 10 years so her timing and hand-and-eye coordination are strong. We just need to focus on her form.
With some practice, I see her performing quite well in a whiskey-fueled, curse word-laden, testosterone-soaked, uber-competitive Labor Day wiffle ball game in which I will probably be injured and/or through a tantrum. I wouldn’t want to break precedent.
We had discussed going out to a nice dinner tonight but what girl would want that? If I know women, which I surely do, she would rather spend her evening eating hotdogs and drinking beer over the course of some batting practice with a bunch of 11 year olds. Who wouldn’t? Then I’ll take her shopping for power tools.
As I mentioned earlier, my father is recovering well from his hip operation. He is off the walker (much to his pleasure), off the pain pills (much to my displeasure), and my mother in no longer off her rocker with worry (much to the pleasure of us all. Sorry, mom).