30 days of 25.

Part two of my 25th birthday adventure. Seeing as this opens by going back in time, the odds of a third part are outstanding.

So I woke up around 1 am or so. Being on GY time is the essence of an altered state. You are awake when everyone is asleep, you still get to enjoy the morning, (the working man’s best part of the day) and the dusk to dawn hours (the drinking, drugging, and sociopath’s favorite part of the day). Consequently, I miss the family man’s favorite part of the day. More Kelly Ripa and The Price Is Right; less American Idol and Adult Swim.

Unless you are on a coke binge, talking to your father and saying I have to get to bed, it’s 2 pm here is enough to make a housewife… searching for adjective… Desperate. Not that I know anything about being a woman.

Anyway so wake up came, and after the first couple of minutes where I was trying to figure out where I was, I went out to the outside table to join ev’ryone. We sat, took a few pictures and then some went to bed.
I joined D’A and some of the others who just weren’t ready to go to bed yet. We played pool, and in the list of the best features of this weekend, the house we rented had a pinball machine. A Terminator 2 pinball machine no less. So we drank more and played lots of pool. It was all basic shooting the shit, and just good times.

I likely missed any of the good stories of that day, including Ellie’s cell phone story, which I either can’t remember or didn’t get to hear.

I missed D’a trying to learn the Japanese word for taint, but I am not sure he remembers either.

But at the end of the night, it’s me and D’A standing over the upstairs toilet. The details are kind of hazy why the following conversation began, but here are the highlights.

Me: the toilet is broken, the seal isn’t closing as it should.

D’A: It’s not flushing. It’s broken.

Me: I agree with you that it is broken.

D’a: it’s not flushing because of this.

Me: No it’s not flushing because of this.

5 minutes later, out hands and as deep as they can be in the reservoir.

Me: Look the chain to the flush handle isn’t connecting.

D’a: It’s not working.

Me: I know.

D’a: we need to fix this by reworking this.

Me: no we need to do this.

Five minutes later, when I can hear people stirring.

D’a: What needs to happen is the water has to drain and we have to do this.

Me: you are wrong, but for the right reasons.

When does a dry conversation become comedy gold? When both of you are so shitfaced that working logic cedes to proving a point. Normally it’s an argument. This was about two of us logically trying to analyze with all of our prowess to fix a toilet that, in the end needed a new chain.

My favorite part was: I agree with you that this is broken.

Instead of arguing, we were in a drunken mood where we had both pretended to be scientists trying to solve the mystery of cold fusion.

Ultimately, drunken sensibility led us for more drinks, but sadly and hilariously took 15 minutes.

So I went downstairs to the bunk beds. Honestly. Bunk beds. Every woman knows that being on the bottom sucks and every man knows the danger and difficulty of being on top.

I had to sleep on the GD couch. No blankets. I used jackets and pillows. This was terrible at the moment, but now I sit here and think, this is as close to high school I have been a long time.

The couch is awesome.

The next day had a slow take off, as everyone was still a little hazy. Taking a long three hour trip and then going into a boozing fest doesn’t lie softly on the body. Namely on a couch or bunk bed.

The stroll out that morn was slow and for the first two hours all that happened was a viewing of Tom Hanks in Bachleor Party (I said it then, and I’ll say it now, if you ever want to see a film where Bugs Bunny is the lead, this is it) and lunch. They went on a hiking excursion, I decided to stay and take a sweet, sweet shower.

Right after the first night, the pecking order comes into sorts.

Depending on the group on the trip, people fall into one of the following categories.

Head of house: somehow builds this internal watch that chimes loud enough in their head that soon enough the dam burst and they direct the state of the trip.

Activity Leader: Shares the high perch with the HoH, but is just as likely to irritate them as they are to please them.

Examples of A and B:

HoH: It’s time for dinner everybody!
AL: All right everybody, that’s the last goal. We’ll pick up our game of ultimate later.

An hour later:

HoH: Well that was good cooking. Thanks for the vegetable medley Susan. Now if we all clean up, we can make some brown….

AL: WHO IS UP FOR SOME WATER POLO!!! Grab some of the dinner benches; we’ll use those for goals!

HoH: Wait!

AL: Bring the brownies outside. They’ll be good for halftime.

Rouge Wanderer: Passively goes from activity to activity. You never know where they will be. And you can’t seem to persuade them one way or the other. If they want to join, they will. If not, they will keep going. Kind of like a ghost, you know they are there, and they seem to be accounted for at all periods, but individuals will go hours without seeing them.

Lazy bastard: A cousin to the RW, but where he floats, this person just seems to stay in one place. They may be watching TV, and while you think this may be restricted to men, this also can happen to girls, you know, the ones who stay near the kitchen, not eating not saying much, just kind of hang-ing around, they always say “nah, I’m going to stay here,” even if that was prefaced by “there’s this guy giving out ferrari’s” or “Hey, wanna see a dead body.” Nothing gets them going.

Scared for Life Partner: Usually attached to an outsider, but this person never leaves the person they came with. They are attached at the hip. They don’t leave the person. Usually involves a Significant other or just started f’in role to the person. They are quiet, and if you ask them a question, they look to that person as if to ask if it’s all right to respond (note this is always answered with a head nod).

Drummer for their own beat: Just on another planet. Example:

You: We’re going to go on top of the roof, the Sorority next door is playing strip volleyball.

DFTOB: I’m going to dip myself in melted chocolate and sing to the elderly.

I have only once been a DFTOB.

During my Sophomore Summer of College, my friend will was doing a May-mester at Vanderbilt. (He failed African Art because he never went to class) We went down and had a legendary weekend, including a 6 hour game of three man that was protected from high by GOD HIMSELF. We were outside in a rainstorm and not a drop of water fell. Just when we would run low on booze, some one would bring us out a new case. By the end of the game, the three man hat had turned into a foil piece of armor complete with a sword and a shield.

I had my first introduction to coke. I was talking to this chick named… Leif (of all people who I would meet who have done cocaine, for their name to be similar to Leif Garret, well, I didn’t do it this time for this sole reason). She pulled me into the bathroom and did a line. Just high comedy.

This even lead to one of the better fights my friends have ever had, when Mikey and Brad found out that I saw a girl do coke, Will was nonchalant. They then asked if he had ever done it. He shrugged of the question. They lectured him about how dumb it was, and he denied anything. Suddenly, he sniffled, and they went nuts, yelling “TELL ME NOW!!! ARE YOU ON COKE. Golden.

Anyway, my DFTOB moment came when Brad and Will were playing a team of local-area models (both close to six feet) who we were calling the two-towers and team-too-tall (that one was mine). I had crashed for a bit, and when I woke up I grabbed the last steak off the grill and then starting eating it bare handed. I then walked into the house and was yelled at for interfering with the game (mainly by yelling TEAM TOO TALL IS TOO TALL TO GET IT DONE).

After being brushed away, I was inspired to sing a song that I just created, to the title of David is great.

It goes something like this:

OH, David is great
David is great.
David is great,
Dav-id, isssssss greeaaat.

Some will love,
Some will hate.
Others will agree
That DAVID IS GREAT!!!

Mind you I’m singing this with a 18 oz t-bone in my mouth.

The last one is

Booze Agenda Billy (or Billie for the birds): If I have to lay this one out for you, you need to turn 17.

Anyway, so this party broke down into only four stereotypes.

The girls became the HoH’s. (Yeah, I know that’s really funny)

D’A was activity leader (of sorts)

And most everyone else was a BAB. We were here to cut loose.

The lone exception was Greg, who fell into Rouge Wanderer. When it came time for cleanup, I got a text message from a friend about the Pacers game. It was in the final moments and I put it on. I tried to watch as much as I could, but I knew that I still had to clean up. But Greg had the RW mode in full effect. No body even approached him. Mind you this is the guy who plays poker for a living. End result, you just can’t intimidate this guy. People would come up to him waiting to ask him for something, but even before they got there, as if he sensed their vulnerability, would look at them and stare them down. Nobody even approached him. While I am sure he helped clean up, I must remind you of the rouge wander characteristics, you know they are there, but they are a ghost, always in a different place then when you left them last.

We did have Daniel’s friend who was first ballot Scared for Life Partner, but she left with him after night one, so that’s right out.

Anyway, as two-ish we went out to an ol’ rockin’ chair on the adjoining property. Actually it was just Brian, D’A and Me, and a well where we threw the emptied Coo Li, but this turned into a three hour story fest to rank with the best I have had.

So we pulled out some yarns from the spool and we got to it.

We started by going over the tales of yesterday. All this basically amounted to was us retelling the D’A stories where he took off low, and then crash landed the tale with lines like “she had AIDS” and “none of them… well none of them died, but some of them have died since.” I am not sure those don’t read as moments where you just have to be there, but I hope they don’t. I’ll be telling those til I die.

So I started telling another story which I thought was relevant to the moment, (and if you don’t think I am digressing, than you don’t know this man).

Anyway, Freshman summer of College, we all went up to my friend Andrew’s house in Leland Michigan. Just a beautiful place. This was my second time up there.

Mind you Andrew got married at 22. He immediately took on the HoH role, and became a nigh tyrant about it. A lot of the same cast of characters that were in my Chemistry class (well just Brad, Me, Josh, and Brian) were there, and lord would only expect us to defy any thought of authority.

There were three big highlights.

On the final night, everyone had gone to bed save Brian, Steve, and me. Somehow we got launched on a topic of what we would do if civilization failed. Water goes out, power goes out and everything that is keeping us civilized (including conscience of mortality) as breached and we become animals. This lasted until 6 am, with the collective agreement being it would be kill or be killed, taking over an RV, and heading to a house in a remote area with plenty of wildlife and a lake nearby for water and fish. This was ended by Andrew’s father coming down and telling us we have to go to bed. To which Steve asks: You didn’t happen to hear… anything about… what we were just saying???

After more than a few instances of us leaving the canoe on the dock instead of putting up in it’s lodging, Andrew was very angry about our collective laziness. This was becoming the site of the final battle that was brewing. The canoe had to be put in the dock, or he wasn’t going to serve us dinner. So we started playing badminton, and the shuttlecock became lodged in the pines. We knew the game was over. So we decided to go canoeing. When we returned, we came on a perfect reason to leave the canoe on the dock.

An hour later, we are all sitting on the patio, and Andrew comes up, guns ready at the side.

He asks, calmly: Why is the canoe on the dock.

Josh: To get the shuttlecock out of the tree.

Andrew: The shuttlecock is out of the tree.

Brian: Well I guess the canoe did it’s job.

Lastly, and brining us back to the point, I began telling the tale when me and Brad were driving home and we had to remember the address to his house. It was 3606. So Brad and I kept singing this over and over, starting from a barbershop rendition to the final incantation a la metal, THHHHIIIIRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYY SIIIIIIIIIXXXXXX OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SEEEEEIIIIIIIEEEEIIIIIIIXXXXXXXXX.

We got so bad at the end Andrew nearly had an aneurysm. Brad later made this worse when he found the Leland Yacht clubs handbook, and then proceeded to sing the theme song. Andrew once again threatened to take away dinner. Other’s were begging him to stop, I of course kept egging him on.

Dinner was 30 minutes late.

I bring these up because I was telling these three tales, alone with a few choice others, when D’A heard the last bit and started singing a little ditty of mine and his we came up with the day before.

(note I cannot post the actually numbers we were singing as they represent the SSN of Brian)

Me and D’A got no response from Brian, even though we thought he would say something,

DEAD SILENCE.

We kept singing his SSN, and nothing. Only then did we look at him and ask, “are you pissed?”

Long story short, he didn’t even recognize his SSN. This made an interlude of the day before a little bit better, as on the ride up, D’A and I sang his SSN for a good three minutes before falling silent out of fear, as if we had crossed a boundary. I was genuinely scared. Clearly memorizing one of your best friends SSN is tantamount to treason, but to be given the cold shoulder is terrifying. I thought that he was genuinely pissed.

Turns out he blocked out our incoherent ramblings and focused on other things. Going from feeling like a complete asshole to a guy who is singing the most important set of numbers assigned to man without the guy realizing it is the feeling of going from a 690 on the SAT’s to a 1560. It was their fault. And they didn’t even know.

To be fair, it wasn’t as good of a song as 3606.

But from that note, we’re off to part three.

(continued...)

Standing ground / Biding time.

I can’t really figure out when it was. Somewhere I went away from believing in it. I think it’s because of the timing of when it happened. It’s that the final chapter of his legend happened to intersect with a unique and more personal love of mine.

I always watched in awe, as we all did, but when it came to that series in 1998, I was tired of hearing about it. About the time the aura around him became truly legendary, the old phrase from Machiavelli came into play, the whole notion of “It’s is better to be feared than to be loved.” When talking about a leader, this was about that. There were moments in the first two triumphs that were full of joyous moments. Then came the third, and you knew that he was once in a generation.

When he stepped away for reasons that did not have bearing to what we knew of him, it was unimaginable. Was it because the will was finally gone from him? Was it because of the loss of a father? Was it because he felt those who loved him turning on him because he stood so high, so alone, and no one was close to him?

I’ll go back a bit to my personal timeline. Like many of people my age and in that time as well, it was a matter of whether you saw a glory to speed or a glory to seeing it done the old way.

It was about watching whether the cavalry and infantry was now good enough to beat the front line of the artillery. Whether there was suddenly a wondrous new way to it all, if there was a magic that could overcome the war lords, if a field general could triumph over the final battle line of a war chief, if a small town bumpkin turned big city savior could work the edges of a battlefield and defeat the center after all these years.

It was about new school vs. old school. And it was far beyond the comprehension of the average, or in my case, the youthful not understanding the depth of this.

So like so many others I attached to him. It wasn’t just the feats. It wasn’t just the sight of it all. It was the way he did it. It wasn’t that he was accomplishing things we all dreamed of. It was that he did it with such glee, in those early years, I remember the smiles and I remember the awe that sounded in every voice that covered him. There was a joy to it because we were watching something we never thought possible.

Think of it. In his most famous moment he started right and in the middle, in the moment when everything seemed like it could only go one way and we all knew what was happening, he pulled off something that would forever define his career. He took what was a known perception, something we not only thought, but believed this change was simply the only way - it was his.

In mid-flight, he went from the right to the left, and did so, so perfectly and so gracefully that it’s still hard to believe that he even did it at all. I still can’t even fathom that he didn't miss. A million tries I could have, and maybe 100 times could I get close to it. He did it once, and in that singular time with an air about him that seems like mere whimsy, did it without hesitation and to perfection. He knew that he was at someplace far above where we would ever be.

Even today it still seems like he could have failed. Watching it again, there is still the amazement because you still ponder, what if it didn’t fall like he wanted it to.

But we learned then what we know now. It transpired because he wanted it to, and because he knew he, and only he, could do it. The tongue wagging used to be a taunt, a playful gesture to say, ever so slightly, that he knew he had something more in him than you did in you. The way it hung out when he knew what he was doing, as if to tease you to stop what was coming next. It wasn’t a tip off to let you try and stop him, it was get out of the way before you get forever sunk in his wake. Even in his “final” moment, it’s not the tongue of the old we remember, it’s the triumphant hand.

From this point on, it was if he didn’t even have to say anything.

I go back once again, because this moment hadn’t happened yet, and even though so many people like me loved him, we knew it was incomplete until he finalized it for the first time. I remember watching over and over his version of growing up. He had two testaments.

The first one merely asked us to come along. To join him on the flight. It wasn’t a cocky statement, it was one of pure joy about living the dream. Doing what you wanted and having the time of your life doing it.

The second one took us a little bit closer, it showed us his playground, his growth. At the center of it was failure. It wasn’t just the closing thoughts about that the journey had yet to come to the end of the road. It was that he too failed when it came to his first chance. He didn’t make it, and it haunted him until the next year. This man, who was seemed to be born of a different species, had failed when the path seemed to be his as his birthright.

And when he left for the first time, it was among the saddest days of my childhood. I can remember being twelve and just not wanting to do anything that day. It was as painful as a death, and maybe even more so, because it wasn’t that he was no longer to be there, it was that we were pained by the fact that we knew he still could. He didn’t have to leave, and yet we weren’t given the real reason behind the reasoning, left for an eternity to ask, simply: why?

There was a joy that so many had just by seeing him. It wasn’t just about watching, it was that so many of us had grown with him through the early years when he rewrote the world, we felt part of the trip.

And in the (short) period that felt terribly long – somwehat to his absence, but mainly the lack of his presence only made us pain over his decision once again— we followed his opposite paths with a light interest, seemingly if he could prove himself somewhere else. But in the end even if he had won over more in another place, it wouldn’t have mattered.

It was equal parts about wanting him to come back; and wanting to know that we hadn’t chosen a false idol or someone whose legacy would have been. We just couldn’t see him diminish, both in our sight and in his talents, so that his memory would fade.

It may have been a mere eighteen months. But they say distance only makes the heart grow stronger.

And so it was told to us that our wait was over. In a mere two words from him, we knew. People can invoke faith, movies, books, art, or life to any comparison-and all could be applied in this comparison-- but there really is no simpler joy than knowing someone has come back. Because words can rarely match that feeling, it’s not about the genius of the action, it’s not about the pain endured or the moment of joy, and it’s more about the simple knowledge that something you adore hasn’t gone at all.

With any form of love, it’s simple: You just know.

While he returned in form, he tried for the shortest of periods to do it beneath another guise. He tried to make this time a bit different. And for a moment we went along. We wanted to care and know that everything was still due to his path.

There was that moment when he had a rare failure; he was called on the change. They said they old form would have done it. The new one wasn’t the same.

He knew he was the same as a person, but he realized too, the potency of his legacy. And as soon as he went back, it was for a moment that anyone who has ever found a lost one is waiting for. It’s a moment where they realize they were meant for this time and place. He wanted to prove himself on other levels. He wanted to show that it wasn’t just about living up to an image.

All the reasons to make the change may have been valid. We know he had his reasons. But the rules in a relationship are the same all over the world. If you leave for your own reasons, whether you go or we make you leave, when you come back you better still be the same or it’s not going to work.

Not only did he finally return to us, but 23 came back even better.

And so I go back to 98. My Pacers fell to a team that we could have beat. That 7 game series was one of the best to ever have been played in any sport, and I can only think of the 91 and 2001 World series, and the 2004 ALCS of battles of better quality. To this date I still think the Pacers were robbed. They had the game and the refs just gave the game to the Bulls. Why wouldn’t the league cheat a small market team to have the greatest player of all time have one last shot at canonization.

But I’d be lying. The refs were giving that game to the Bulls, and I still remember Craig Kilborn making this point when he was on the Daily Show.

The truth is that the Bulls had something we didn’t.

They had Michael Jordan.

I remember a Bob Costas call during the playoffs of this year. Jordan had the ball at the top of the key, and as he shot it Bob said: “Jordan wants a three.” It sank and he continued, “Jordan gets a three.” Even with his Mantle eulogy in the history books, Costas will be taken down a notch for this in history.

He tried to call the will of something that he had no right to. Costas is as good as a TV sports personality we will ever get.

But he can’t call rights to a Jordan moment. You can’t build hyperbole around a moment or person that needs no introduction. This wasn’t the Miracle on Ice with Al Michaels perfectly capturing what the moment was.

This was simply who and what Michael Jordan was about.

He was however right, because what Jordan wanted on the court, he got. He was far beyond anyone, and his will was so powerful that you couldn’t stop it, you just had to wait for it to be over.

Ask the Lakers.
Ask the Blazers
Ask the Suns
Ask the Sonics
Ask the Jazz.
Ask Ehlo.

I hated 23 in 98 because at that time I had started to grow up, I figured out who I was and who I was from. I am and always will be a Hoosier. I had all the bitterness ready because both paths had changed. I was ready to move to California, in love with the Pacers, and ready to begin my life and start my legacy. I hated him because the team that I was now growing with gave his team the hardest test of them all. We were that close and I hated him for denying me that joy. In his last triumph I hated him for what he was great at.

His will was to win. And in the end he did as much to finish.

After 98 I hated Jordan. I didn’t need him to come back. I didn’t need to see him prove anything. But it clearly wasn’t his view. He wanted one last shot.

It didn’t work.

And so it has been four years since.

And we are all human in the way we forget.

Until that second in the moment evokes what was now truly lost.

Only then do you really remember.

You see him in this link, and you know, that he knows. His wants were as same as the end goal. And you see him, smiling in the background, knowing, that this isn’t over.

Jumpman23.com : click in the middle. Go to the shoes button in the top left. Click and press watch. Or you go to the downloads.

He's still there. Waiting for us to catch up with him

Happy birthday MJ, 2-17.

(continued...)

The weekend of my 25th birthday:

An essay, a drunken amalgam of loose stories, and finding that special moment somewhere in the mix of figuring out what the hell you are doing.

Some one in our group had decided to have a weekend getaway for all of us who had recently had a birthday. Mine was the tenth, my man Brian was the 9th, and someone else had a b-day in there. Whatever. That’s the initial reason not the point.

Some weekends have that feeling, a preordained chemistry of a special moment. I think I got this feeling when we were sending the email chain about plans and some one wrote that they only had one head light and would be a suspect community car?

My response:

I can drive, and can fit 5, but my car is minus one headlight. Just like one of our other partners above. I don't want to play this Wallflowers unless I have to.

Yeah, that’s me, always trying to weave in needless references that nobody needs.

The follow up was when I got the feeling, when my friend and former roommate wrote:

I just kicked both my headlights and broke them. Now I can't drive either.

Who says irony rules and slapstick is dead?


So I got off my GY shift at 7 am and three hours later drove down to the rendezvous point (password La Resistance), and seeing as there were 3 hours until takeoff we were looking for options.

Before that, let’s get to the cast.

Me (David, Indiana Dave): bold and brash Midwestern boy with a bit of insanity and a messiah complex about film, music, and politics.

Brian: Rocket scientist and one of the quietest people you will ever meet. Also has a semblance of a chinstrap beard. Also broke his humerus arm wrestling. (I deny any culpability to that chain of events). Has a dual citizenship of Montana and Cali.

Ellie: significant other of Brian (now that he is 25, we don’t have BF’s or GF’s. Just people longer than one night stands) From Whale’s Vagina, CA (San Diego).Being as she is a blast to know, she’s sort of like Monica from friends without the annoying brother or being OCD about everything.

D’A: Short for D'Artagnan. Is a human who is both wiser than his years with his heart and decisions, but is 6-8 years back in his body and maturity at major junctures. Rarely gets wildly drunk where you have to watch him. But he is like the college freshman you knew that always kept drinking until he had his fill. Blackout drunk doesn’t happen to this man. Also still has the energy of a 16 year old the night after drinking. Even though he has amazing intellectual capacity, you still have the feeling of where the hell is this guy coming from (more on this later).

Roy: A friend of D’A’s from Palm Springs. I still don’t know how anyone grew up there who wasn’t an illegitimate child of Frank Sinatra or Bob Hope. I mean, why are people willing to live in the GD desert when the ocean is but two hours away. At least live in a good desert. (note this goes to those people in the Middle East outside of Dubai. I mean, why. Baghdad is on a river and has a wondrous history that has been liberated to all of the museums and collections of rich black market art collectors, but really, why would you live in Islamabad when you could live in Laos, Egypt, or anywhere on the poor side of the Mediterranean (the south side East of Morocco), I only add the bottom side because I know on record that the French and Italians don’t want you there. I mean all this furor over a political cartoon?!? I could call us worse and cite “The Book of Daniel” about the reaction of America’s extremist sides, but 1. only the idiots in corporations like GE would believe that 1/10 of one percent could affect a show’s sales (especially when the major markets of the Neilsen ratings are in LA, CHI, and NY which are either both Jewish, Black, or Polish, which all mean that they don’t get riled up. Let’s list: Jewish, don’t really care about any negative views of Jesus on a mass level (they don’t like war, and I’m not alluding to any notion they like to see any version of any god suffer. They don’t believe in Hell, only criticism, so that’s right out) Black people: either fall into the Jesus was my nigga or Jesus was black category (or at least anyone who was going to watch a show as bad as “Book of Daniel” certainly wouldn’t be from the Southern Baptist belief. Polish, they don’t really care, they know that it’s better to let the Catholics take the glory of the Pope along side the guilt of their child molestation. We Polish, and Polish/German take solace in the fact that we are great workers, fathers/mothers, and we know there are still many dumb jokes to be left. Let the Itie’s have their mobs on the East Coast and get all the hype, we were the Mafia in the Early 20th century and we’re cool with the Jews because we share the same hair genes.
2. That show sucked anyway, and we Americans have celebrities to make fun of and the Euros have affairs to work on.

(I know that last rant had nothing to do with any thing, but I had a goddamned blast writing it)

Anyway, Roy is a guy who is a drinking liability, which means he is a gem of a person to hang out with when boozing. He also made two of the most spectacular cards I have ever seen. I'll try and post the one he gave me. It's beyond brilliant.

So it’s time for one more digression.

About 2 years ago we went down to Man-ha-annn Beach (I have worked with too many Bostonians and Massholes to pronounce it anything else)

For some reason I was in a loose from Reality moment, and decided to talk to women with the angle that I was a soldier coming back from Iraq. I started talking to a girl by saying:

I just got back from the war, I didn’t see that much action, but I did kill three people with one bullet, just like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

This somehow morphed into a tale of my combat experience where I claimed to have killed 73 people in Iraq, including women and children.

And so we walked back to his and D’A’s apartment having the following (shouted) conversation:

Me: I killed 73 people.

Roy: SEVENTY. THREE PEOPLE.

Me: THAT’S TEN TOUCHDOWNS AND A FIELD GOAL OF DEAD IRAQIS.

Roy: WOMEN AND CHILDREN INCLUDED.

Me: EVEN THOUGH THE ARMY WON’T COUNT THEM.

Roy: SEVENTY THREE PEOPLE.

This continued all the way down Man. Beach Blvd for a good six blocks.

Mandy: Roy’s SO. She was a blast on this trip, and even though she is quiet to the male group (or maybe just me) I genuinely think she has grace, like Jackie O. It may take 20 years to get to her potential, but she has this. We could have a conversation in the future where she says that she believes that she is the third conception of Shirley McLain, but until then I am going with my initial feeling.

Daniel: Another of D’A’s roommates. To avoid any other complaints from the ACLU and National Defamation League, I won’t mention that he was Asian. He also brought a girl along with him who was from Japan or something. I wish I wasn’t coming off as blunt, because I have had some good times with the guy, and I genuinely do like him, but at the same time, he’s so quiet at times, I have no idea what he is thinking. I like to think he is coming up with a plan to hold us hostage and force us all to play soccer for our lives against an evil team of Steroid powered Nazi’s time-teleported from the 1940’s Olympic team, but I realize that’s more of my fantasy about “Victory” actually happening and me playing with Pele on the soccer field than anything else. I also have had two dreams where I am 27 and have won the Heisman and am bumbling around New York on a bender to end all benders. I’m babbling. If you want to read my past blogs, Daniel is an Omega friend, or a Turtle. He is quiet but he brings things to the table that can’t really be translated to text. That’s something special. His friend though was clearly out of sorts, as D’A asked her for the Japanese word for taint. I am sure this set Dan back a bit with her.

*humming: That’s what friends are for*

Greg: One of at least three people I know that plays poker for a living, and if he did it full time would be clearing more than anyone I know. That and he went to Princeton, perhaps the only college where I get riled up and want to ask “so you think you’re better than me , huh, college boy!”

Ashley: Another Cali chick. I know little except she has good taste in music and could likely kill a yak from 200 yards, using only her mind.

So, back to the trip.

With three hours until take off, Brian makes a trip to Wal Mart to pick up Laser guns. (Sadly they are never properly used in a full on war. There were skirmishes, but not much else).

I was at his and Ellie’s place to either waste away until takeoff or take a nap. One could say this is one in the same, but the waste away would have involved me bothering Ellie and then not making the guest bed I slept on when it was time to go home. (Two side notes, this is the greatest guest bed of all time. I could copy this for my bed and it wouldn’t be the same, because there is some magic in this configuration. I don’t know what they did here, but it’s amazing. 2. The bed is also so complicated I might as well throw a weeks worth of laundry on it, because it’s going to get remade by someone who knows what the hell they are doing with this wunder-bed. )

So I went to Wal Mart.

Two notes:

The Mc’ds at the walmart had soft pretzels. A big plus. Not quite a McRib, but since the one I had on Thanksgiving, it’s never been the same. You really can’t go home again.

The White Trash quotient at any Wal Mart is unreal. I guess I am more shocked because it’s LA, and everyone is reasonably good looking or somehow talented. With the one in Long Beach, well let’s just say that The Simple Life 4 could be shot there.

So on to the trip.

We’re in the car and stuck in traffic on the 91, and one wonders really, why the hell is there congestion on this highway. There are at least three going in the same general direction. It never ceases to boggle me. Where would 100,000 people from the Southland area be going at 3 pm? WHERE

So we turn off the radio and listen to a Dane Cook CD. (short note, in the end, I think he likes goofy wordplay too much. He tries to hard with these.)

Anyway, so it comes to this point about how every group has a Db friend they don’t like and if they are a girl, their name is Karen.

D’A sidespteps into the conversation mentioning how he knew a girl in grade school who was named Karen and no body liked her.

He mentions that everyone was mean to her and that they would never drink from the water fountain after her.

There is a bit of silence.

D’A continues: “Everyone used to say she had AIDS.”

This is when I started laughing without weekend’s end. I lived with D’A. I know his idio-whatevs. D’A will talk and talk to fill the space if nothing is going on, or suddenly he becomes bored. Like I said, the man is a genius, but in many wired like a dog or a three year old child. If nothing is happening he looks for something interesting and then attaches to it. 70% of the time his stories are actually good. That’s a good ratio. 25% of the time they have no aim, and are babbling. 5% of the time they suck. (he’s only human). But 50% of the time when he is babbling, he ends the story with something amazingly out of sync and so far out of left field that it’s perfectly comical to the point of near abstract genius.

This is when I said, “this is why you never give up on a D’A story

To put you in the moment just a bit, we are sitting there in relative silence and he launches into a story which no one in the car has any stake in. It’s about his school, and it’s just about name calling. But then he let’s silence hang out there for a moment, and then says “She had AIDS.” You can’t create that kind of awkward and unexplained in fiction.

But later, he topped that. As we are driving up the treacherous hills and D’A mentions how Daniel and his family were in a car that went over one of the barriers and tumbled down the side of the hill.

The other three of us in the car were sold on the story. Did someone die, was everyone OK, etc? D’A senses our line of questioning and before it’s asked, he says:

“Well, everyone was OK. No one died..”

And then comes a pause.

“Well no one died then… but some have passed since.”

The thought process for him was not ending with how they survived, but he was debating about whether or not their mortality was linked to the potency of the story.

Just one of the most DaDa-esque comedy moments in my life, I don’t know if I will ever forget that stumbling to mention that people have died even though it’s pointless to an awesome story.

So we get to the cabin. There were some cool moments where everyone was figuring out where they could pee without being caught and there was a short moment where Brian gave the all clear for driving over a lip that Ellie’s car clearly wasn’t going to cover. I only list these because they were minor, but on any other weekend this wouldn’t have happened. On a normal weekend, these would be the weird moments that you blacked out, but for some reason the cosmos made these moments something bigger.

The night moves on and I probably miss some good stuff because I finally fall asleep after 30 hours being awake.

When I woke up, I got to something else, which should probably continue in part two.

(continued...)