IT'S A BIRD... ITS A PLANE... NO, IT'S...

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­THE CAPED STAR OF DAVID

*LANGUAGE ALERT*

this one’s rated PG. and i dunno if the paragraph spacing is right, so deal with it. when you see "III" thats the end.

I’ve never written about this particular happening, but it is true as the grass is green.

It happened years ago when I was plastered drunk, yet dare I say it blacked out, but in fact no. I was close, but I remember doing it so I guess it was before those last stages of vodka entered my liver for the blood-alcohol version of ethnic cleansing.

And it hit on why one guy I know hated me for years until this life lesson came running back to shoot me in the face… I tend to find things out the hard way. And since this happened that guy and I still aren’t BEST friends, rather, "good-to-see-you" cordial acquaintances, but I have a better understanding of him now that it is in the forefront thanks to my own hypocritical actions…

One day I was drunk (really?) and it happened to be December 24th. My buddy Mike was having a xmas eve party with friends so my friend Doug, his then girlfriend Kelly, and I went out to celebrate xmas eve with mike and Jennifer, his wife. It was great. Their townhouse was decorated beautifully and it turns out they had a spread of food and a few more bottles of alcoholic goodness so I was ready to rock.

[An aside to digress about: One thing. Mike is, dare I say it, atmospherically challenged. Great dude, but if you’re a hair shorter than me, you get the short treatment. And he’s beyond successful. He has it made in the shade, has a beautiful wife, a sweet toddler, and a house some of us would die for. No picket fence due to their maintenance. Yet I’ve known him since we were high school age, so it’s been now around 20 years. He’s heard it all and once in a while a new short joke is tossed in the air too high so he can’t see it and sometimes it sticks, most though do not. He needs a ladder to get some of them down. Its just something we do. And since I am socially awkward, for whatever reason I do it more when we’re around other people. I dunno why. I’m weird I guess… - Can you digress your own digression? - He’s never told me to cut it out, probably because he has enough ammo on me to finish a war, yet when we do our thing other people think they can get in on it. And believe it or not it offends ME when people say short jokes about him, because they don’t know everything about the guy. They just say these things cause they see me doing it, and that’s the life lesson. And don’t get me wrong. If I said I loved the guy to death it would be an understatement. He’s been there for me through all aspects of my life and one couldn’t ask for a better friend. End of digression and on with the show…]

We were sitting around conversing and I was introduced to one of mike’s friends and her boyfriend. They seemed like cool people and due to my inebriation, or due to the fact that I was breathing and nervous to be around people (social anxiety is a problem) I threw a few jabs of one liners at mike and he countered with a few right crosses of his own. The norm, if you will.

But this girl’s boyfriend decided to get in on it.

Now, I am a seasoned veteran of jabs and insults from family to friends to enemies… giving, taking… I’ve heard or said it all. but this guy was a rookie’s rookie, in fact someone we’d never met, was drinking and eating the food and libations to be had, and in fact was insulting the party thrower… all of these a “no no” in social exchanges in our world.

So I decided to have a smoke with mike. He seemed to be overtly perturbed and in fact had a hit or two off my cig to calm down. We went out on the back deck and mike confided in me that he wanted to be done with this guy. Throw him out. He wanted to make him leave cause he felt like this guy was infringing on his party, and the fact that they never met made it worse. But he didn’t want to hurt his friendship with the girl.

But you don’t just walk in and break balls over the (guy you don’t know) party host’s broken bread.

I told mike not to worry, i didn’t know either of them so if I can insult them enough to leave it wouldn’t matter to his friendship to the girl, to the insulter, and since I was drunk there were no walls or limits to what I would say. Long and short of it, I had mike’s back, and this dragon was about to eat fire.

So I sat down. I had a sip of beer, liquor, whatever. I grabbed a clothespin and hung out my fourth sheet to the wind…. and I started in on this guy. Didn’t matter what he looked like or what he practiced, at the end of everything I said I called him “superjew”. Don’t know how or why it came out, but in my drunken thought, not racially motivated at all, (I’m no Mel Gibson), everything included “superjew”.

“hey hottie, wattya doin with this superjew?”

“hey Doug, hand superjew a beer.”

Light, but noticeable insults. And the insults went on and got a little worse…

“Merry xmas… Did the Romans kill jesus or was it superjew’s ancestors?”

About a half hour into it the rest of the partygoers were getting obviously uncomfortable… yet mike knew what I was doing in our corner of the party and understood it was getting ugly but let it happen.

“Superjew needs a ride home, maybe its time honey to do so ehh?”

And so they said “hmmm, well, maybe it IS time to go.” And they did.

The millisecond that screen door closed mike and I busted out laughing, high fived, and let the rest of the party in on the fun. It was one of those things that we can still laugh about today.

But as they left I sortof remember going outside to wave them off. And the guy looked at me and said “dude, I’m not even Jewish” and I retorted “well, when you come into a man’s house eating his food and converse with his friends, insulting him is not the way to have a good time. I’ve known him for years, you’ve known him for minutes. Now that you were on the receiving end of it you know how it feels… So remember that for the rest of your life… Superjew.”

A few months later it hit me. The life lesson boomeranged back into my face:

A friend of my cousin’s we call “B” comes around once in a while and he happens to be atmospherically challenged as well. B’s friends hit him as I would mike, and in fact, so would I. Not knowing him for 20 years, not having the friendship they had with him, etc etc… It turns out I was “superjewing” him.

I threw a jab or two in B’s direction one day on the patio, and he got out of his chair and said “listen asshole if you don’t stop it with me I’m going to kick your ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

-seriously? Dude are you serious???????

“y’all better hold me back!!!”

And they did.

He wasn’t kidding.

I started inwardly crying. I knew I hurt B to the point of no return and he couldn’t take it anymore. And that hurt me more than he’ll ever know. For him it was the last straw. For me, a life lesson that apparently I was better at teaching than understanding...

When I saw him next, I deeply apologized to him and explained to him that an incident happened not too long ago that made me realize where he was coming from. I was just some drunken jerk he knew and despised. Yet he was a friend - to me - and I thought I was having a good time with. But since we didn’t know each other too well, it wasn’t funny to him. I didn’t have the history he had with his own friends and so his friends could do or say that all they want, they’ve spent years building that friendship and they know they have each others’ backs in the long run. He allowed the apology to happen and I think eventually when he realized I knew what I did to hurt him and changed my actions and words, eventually he accepted it. He’s a great dude, and hilarious. I just wish I had the relationship he has with his friends, but I don’t. And that’s ok.

Since then when we come across each other, which is few and far between nowadays, he puts his hand out for a handshake, which I appreciate, again, more than he’ll ever know. I dare not insult him because that would tarnish the minute friendship we have now anyway. But he understands I “get it” and in fact when someone else makes fun of his height I defend him to the hilt. “You don’t know the guy man, chill out with the insults.”

I have yet to see superjew again, nor do I know if I have ever seen his then girlfriend again. But I thank him for the lesson he taught me to be a better man to people I am just acquaintances with and try to (how do you spell it?) r-e-s-p-e-c-t them a little more. To a socially inept person who only knows comedy and tries to make people laugh at their own faults, not feel bad about them… That’s a hard thing to do.

Plus with the current of sobriety running through my veins, there’s no excuse.

Damn it!

III

NAPPA CABBAGE

THIS WAS/IS CHAPTER 5 IN MY BOOK.

i dunno if i will ever finish the book or even write one at all... most lazy celebs just print out their blog or tweets and bind it and call it a book. and as much as i am no celebrity, i am lazy as hell. so its a thought in the right direction...

plus the nappa connection i had at the market Mr Lee just got bought out, so unfortunately those prices and his fun personality is gone now.

here goes...

CH 5… nappa cabbage

Few things on nappa cabbage. First if you never had nappa cabbage you aren’t in for a treat. But your live-in plants and animals better run for zee hills. Second if you have then you know what I mean… bring on the gas.

Its not all bad though. I happen to have stumbled upon it in my local market. The Asian man behind the counter tried to get me to buy kimchi for the longest time, but Mr. Lee at farmers market in Harrisburg always seems happy to see me. If you were studying him you’d know I am coming ‘cause you can see his face light up when he sees me. I like to sneak up on him and have him turn around in surprise. He knows I’m in for at least sixteen dollars a stop every time, and that’s a week’s worth of nappa cabbage and other various veggies every week or so.

He perks up with a smile “how you?”

-good you?

“mehhhhhhhhhhhh” (sounding very Jon Stewart-ish with a bit of Mr. Miyagi flair)

That’s it. That’s all I get out of him. He’s a nice older Asian man though. If you don’t get a basket then he doesn’t know you are there to seriously produce shop. I think he makes it by from every few people that may just buy a single grape. Me? I’m there to rape the stock of nappa cabbage and get a few essentials. Cukes, toms, pots, onions, and the occasional head of romaine, my staple before seeing nappa.

The guy has a son maybe or another younger version of him behind the counter too. Looks to be in his late 20s or early thirties. He always asks me what or how I prepare the cabbage… I just cut it and eat it raw. He said there’s different ways to prepare it. So that’s why he always asks me, yet if his girl (wife, sister, I dunno) is there they always say something in their eastern language and laugh. Like “Look at this imbecile eating this raw. If he only knew. Aaaahahahaha… ” Yet if he knew what I knew he’d sell it at a higher price cause at market I am getting it for over half the price at the local Wal-mart.

You wonder why you are reading this and that will come, it has nothing to do with the nappa cabbage. Well, ok, something to do with it.

What is nappa cabbage you ask? Well, I don’t really know. I tell people it’s the cross between a head of cabbage and a head of romaine lettuce. It tastes like a light cabbage and if you take it apart leaf by leaf you could use the leaves as a wrap around different meats or whatever. Ask Mr. Lee’s younger counterpart. Or they use it in the making of kimchi.

Kimchi is nappa cabbage in a bell jar with hot sauces and such possibly fermented or whatever. I don’t know how they make it. But if you like spicy hot food, kimchi is your friend. If you just did it for the taste, well, be forewarned. After trying it it took more than a few fork fulls and many hours, err, days to finish the small bell jar full. But its big to the Asian countries or so I am told. I don’t know what the word “kimchi” means. For all I know it could mean “imbecile”, cause you have to be one to try it without knowing what it is.   

After trying nappa cabbage though you may get hooked on it. So if you do try what I do. I like to have the top half in one sitting then the bottom half in another. With a healthy dosing of dressing, some sliced onions, and a jar of grocery style green olives. But be careful. Bottom of the barrel olives can end up having more than the pimento in them so if you are eating it chomp lightly. (sometimes there’s a seed in them, which proves painful to sensitive teeth).

Because you have to add a healthy dosing of dressing I have gone from the normal gazebo room dressing to the balsamic vinaigrette gazebo room, to finally the lite version of the original. {My grandma used to make this dressing that if she could bottle it she’d be the next [insert old person with awesome product here], yet if you stood next to her, used the same ingredients, used the same style of tossing the salad, etc etc, yours would taste like shit and hers would be the winner. I swear it was the blood sweat and tears she put into every meal. Her salad tops all in the best of everything. Put it this way… when, at thanksgiving, you could eat turkey, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie, throw in some angel food cake and cranberries for good measure, after you’ve unbuttoned your pants to allow more room, and then have a second helping of everything, then go pass out, I’d show up with a plate and a fork and mound up all the salad to top it off. To hell with dessert. Salad, especially hers, was my favorite.}

Thinking of that salad just makes me wipe off the keyboard now from drooling and daydreaming… where was i? oh yeah… counting your money for buying this atrocity.

Gazebo room, the reason you are reading this chapter is onefold. But I’ll give you two. Folding halves things so here goes… One. The first gazebo room is the closest thing to grams dressing yet she used something like oil vinegar and spices, but it was her own concoction. Two. Read the food label recently on your salad dressings? The one I have is for gazebo room lite. (sp) First I see amount per serving… calories, 40. not bad. I like this stuff so it shouldn’t be so bad. A few squeezes on my salad and I’m good to go. 30 of those calories are from fat though so hey, you’re eating salad. How bad could a few fat calories be? And where do they find the next 10 calories. Or is that supposed to be added together so it’s a total of 70 calories per serving??? I have no idea, but again that’s not the point. There’s 4 grams of fat, then below it it says saturated fat .5g. below that once again it says trans fat 0g. so is it 4.5 grams of fat or what else is the 3.5 g of regular not saturated or trans fat doing? Its no wonder we have no idea how to read these labels. It just shows us numbers that most of us don’t read. {Ask a smoker if he ever cared what warnings on packs said. As Mr. Hicks suggested something to the effect of “I just get the ones that say ‘may cause breast cancer and problems in the pregnancy’… I’m a man! Aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha” knowing he died of lung cancer, that bit isn’t one of my favorites.} Pack into your serving size 90 mg of sodium and you think you have a nice healthy snack right?

Look again.

Under the big words of nutrition facts guess what? The serving size is a tablespoon. Yup. That entire paragraph above couldn’t fit in a tablespoon. Ever have a tablespoon of cough medicine? Me neither. Take a swig.

A f*cking tablespoon.

How am I supposed to enjoy a half a head of nappa cabbage with a tablespoon of dressing on it??? You know what you say when you see a person measuring out a tablespoon of dressing on it? “There’s an imbecile! I bet he likes kimchi!”

Moral? Next time you are at the store, try some nappa cabbage, and 32 servings of gazebo room lite, err, one bottle. You’ll thank me later, but your family may hate me for it.  

TV SUCKS

this one's an old old one, in fact its a commentary that may not have made the rounds yet. going through my documents here at work allowed me to find some old gems. i know its old though because i commented about nascar in it, so it was back before big orange made his second cup win. nowadays i am like that prodigy BRAINMAN dude. you can say a number and i can tell you the name of the driver of that number. sad, but true and a newly appreciated fan. enjoy:

TV SUCKS.

When you come down to it there’s nothing on TV anymore. Since the dawn of on-demand, I think channels are just throwing out stuff for you to think is more interesting than some reality TV show. Are all TV shows now reality based or reality driven? Ever since Cosby and Seinfeld went off the air, producers can’t make a good sitcom to save their lives. I remember when the news was reality enough!

The Real World showed people that you could film just about anything that someone else is doing and they could make a buck off of it.

And last night a friend of mine called and said on-demand on the history channel there is a show called “The History of Bricks”. Are you kidding me? I’d rather watch the History of Air than that show. He later concluded with “ooooh, ‘The History of Paint’ is on demand!” We laughed about it but truthfully TV is pathetic.

The most exciting thing on TV now is of course sports. Football, baseball, the US open, even golf… I don’t even follow sports but if you were to ask me who was in the Chase for the Nextel Cup (nothing but advertising going around in circles, only split up by commercials themselves), or even which team had actually done well enough to make it to the World Series this year I would have a somewhat educated answer from not watching any other programming.

If you say the names Chris Ferguson, Doyle Brunson, or Annie Duke, most people may not know who you mean. And its sad that I know who they are, know what they look like, and know how many World Series of Poker bracelets they each have…

I’m no sports junkie by any means, but when NOTHING else is on, I tend to find something that is halfway interesting, or something to fall asleep to until a good show comes on. The way things are going you could call me Rip Van Winkle, although in 2030 I bet there will still be nothing else on TV, because the current programmers will still be alive.

TV SUCKS.

sometimes its the little things...

can you hear the slide trombones? that crazy music you associate with new orleans or whatever they do on bourbon street... i feel charged, energized and ready for this... literally just hunched over my laptop freezing... lemme turn off my fan...

it feels good when you genuinely help someone. its better when you have someone to tell it to.

so "helloooooooo blogosphere..."

i got a call today and instead of being a dick i decided to give this guy a "hey they really do care" experience from revenue. one guy today had a good experience with his government and i was his contact. i feel good about it so here goes...

he called and i try and say my department as fast as possible because, well, i already know this call isn't for me. they usually last for about 30 seconds while i pass this guy along to the next schmuck who should have dealt with him in the first place. and the way i answer it is as if you are sitting on the side of the road while a car is speeding towards you and what you hear is the engine from far away, then becoming right in front of you, then have the roar of the engine trail off as the car goes by...

"mmmmMMMMMM-NEERLLLllllllllllll......." ... hear it?

"mmmmmmmudda-fuls" - aka "motor fuels"... call me, go for it. you'll hear me say mudda-fuls so fast you have to say WHAT?

i hear this:

"huh? whas this? who?"

and i say it again but slower yet still with a racecar engine passing in front of me cadence...

"mmmmmmmMMMMOTOR FUEllllllllllsssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..............................."

"oh alriiit keewl... now listen here buddy i know you aint the dude i need to talk to but i need some help."
(here we go again)...
-don't we all sir? what can't i help you with? (a standard i've used for years and only one person in my lifetime of saying it has called me out on it. he wasn't the one.)
"i need to know how much a toll is on the walt whitman bridge coming from delaware and into phili..."
-um, you need penndot or...?
"nah the walt whitman bridge... i got a truck and i know the toll used to be 35 bucks but i am not sure if it went up. i am sending a driver thru there and i need to know so i can send him with the right amount of money. and all you people are interconnected so i figure if you can't help me someone there will, yet nobody knows shit it seems... what can ya do me for?"

{this sparks my interest... i like to do things for people that noone can seem to figure out... its like a mensa puzzle that seems impossible but from a tenth of a degree of different perspective, one can see the light of the end game... knowing the genius levels of people i work with, i decide right then and there if it takes all day i'd figure it out for him, especially cause noone here could do it nor has knowledge of who to call for it... can ya hear the mission impossible theme? i can't. currently for whatever reason i have the people's court running through my head. duh-nit-nit... }

-it seems you've dealt with my coworkers before... well, let's see here. you need a toll amount for a 5 axle truck to make it past the walt whitman bridge from delaware to pa... hmmmm have you tried looking it up online?
"i ain't no good with the puter literacy thing man (giggles) i just need this info..."
-well sir, google's your friend. no need to be intimidated, just ask it what you want and it'll show up there. hold tight...

so i typed in "toll from de to pa on walt whitman bridge with a 5 axle truck"

first link...

"so you ever hear of this?"
-nah, i deal with trucks that haul fuel in PA only... rolling bombs if you will.
"yeah i like to steer clear of them"
-hmmm DRPA is the site... (literally here for the blog readers:
http://www.drpa.org/commtrav/bridge_fares.html)
"crosses over the delaware river, so DRPA would be right... you see anything for walt whitman bridge?"
-37.50
"that fast huh? how do i know you aren't just sayin that?"
-because i don't really need to help you. this has nothing to do with my job, you just issued a challenge and i completed it.
"you got a number?"
-2, one with an extension....
"woah i wasn't expecting this...do they know about you where you work?"
-nope, i'm the weird quiet guy that everybody has at their job... i just don't deal with the riffraff of the workplace. i come in, do my thing, and leave. no talk no gossip, just work.
"i gotcha buddy, i oughta come there and buy you a beer."
-as much as i'd love that, you're 3 years and 11 days too late.
"i didn't say i could have one with ya buddy... been since 93 for me. keep it up, it aint for nobody else but yourself. and you seem like a good dude so that its worth it. some of these guys are straight pigslop, but you went above and beyond today and i wanna say thanks. keep on keepin on brotha..."
-you're welcome... habbagoodn' sir...
"huh?"
-'have-a-good-one' sir...

if he only knew the hell i go through with my head every day... but this one instance i had a rush of fun run through my body and it only lasts for 5-10 seconds, but it feels good. i didnt mind customer service at other places because one in 100,000 calls would be the one that kept you going, it was finding that diamond that made the rest of the rough calls worth it.

once i saved a woman 300 bucks of errant calls on her cell made by her daughter to the same number noless but she seemed busy and it was all on the same day and she was making cookies for her mother's funeral. i figured att had enough money, i'll "save" this one. and i am sure not just that she was a happy caller, but she spent that 300 many times over to att for what i did. and guess what? from asking her a little about what she was doing and telling her how much i love cookies at the time, less than a week later i got a shoebox at the house, and it was full of oatmeal cookies with a thank you note in it. my mother wasn't exactly excited, but i knew what was up... she got some weight lifted from her shoulders for that horrible day of hers, and i got an unexpected gift of thanks... i didn't ask for it, but there they were.

today i felt like it was time to pay it forward, so i did. and he was happy. and that made me happy, if even for a few seconds.

sometimes in life its the little things that make the big things seem easier to handle and in alot of ways its the little things that help you through the big ones.

III

66

utter silence.

deafening silence.

spend a minute with yourself and nothing else. what do you end up hearing?

for me i have my air purifier running, my ears ringing, and dishwasher doing a job i loved doing at wendy's, but that was 20 yrs ago. apparently i got old.

saturdays are for the nationwide races and the gervais series on science channel called an idiot abroad.

last weekend karl pilkington was on route 66 and just roadtripping the entire road. he made stops here and there as we all would. and ricky and steve have a few hijinks which makes the series what it is. but karl is an odd fellow. well, the series is called an idiot abroad after all... he has a funny way of looking at things, unlike most, yet what he has to say generally makes sense in the grand scheme of things. it makes you realize karl is no idiot.

but as he drove on route 66 he made a fun observation about the who's "pinball wizard" song. he said in his english drawl... "well, he's just standing there hitting buttons. he's deaf dumb and blind. he has no idea what he is doing... he is just standing there and hitting buttons and he's amazing yes, but still he's just standing there in the dark silence of life hitting buttons..."

its amazing where a minute of silence or a few miles on route 66 will allow your mind to wander.


but try it now. put the blog down for a minute. close your eyes. just sit there in silence and see what happens.


didja do it? where'd your mind take you? mine kinda went where it always goes. i think about dying. i think about how great life will be when its all over. to be just finished with everything you ever did and not have to worry about anything in the long run. to just say goodnight and all the weight of everything lifts off your shoulders and your heart just stops. the last lub you'll ever feel, the last dub you'll ever hear. and there's peace.


you know how you say to people "boy, the undertaker and makeup person did a great job on the body and they just looked at peace." well, in my mind when you go, that's all thats left. no work, no chores no gas prices no president bullshit, just peace.


its kinda how you feel when you take a nice hit of unseasonably good marijuana. to feel comfortably numb. i'm sure the boys in floyd were talking about other drugs, but to me marijuana is the ultimate in comfortably numbness. opiates don't do it for me and i think my mind is not good for the whole psychadelic experience, peyote, etc. but a good toke? forgettit. its in those moments, albeit few and far between, that i don't think about dying.


i can't wait for it. its now been a few blog entries about dying, maybe the next one will be more about the same old shit to keep you entertained and wanting more. i can do that too, but not hurting anyone nor yourself anymore is such a thrill to me that i can't wait to die. if they brought back a suicide machine such as dr kevorkian (really? can ya spell it worse than that?) had made crudely representing what they use in prisons across the country, i'd save as long as it took to get one and the second it arrived in the mail it'd be over for me.


in full dead silence, i'd clean my supple wrist with alcohol (can't get an infection minutes before falling asleep this way), pierce the vein with the needle and tape it down, and administer the device per instructions that kevorkian would have included in the package.


once you hit that button, whether you're deaf dumb or blind, the rush of finality would come over you and it would just slowly go through the tubes and inside your body... flowing through the veins to the heart then through to your lungs, back to the heart and up in to the brain where you'd just about pass out. and in that last second of passing out, all will be right with the world. it would have to be.


and then you're done.. at peace. and all i could hope for is a good makeup artist. although with this face, i'd request not just a closed casket, but cremation. i'd like to be cremated because that's the ultimate goodnight to your vessel you own. i don't wanna come back as myself ever again. this life is hard and i hate it. once cremated i wanna be thrown down a sewer grate. passed through the waterway system, caught in a filter, and end up in the landfill where i could be forgotten about forever.


its the ultimate tilt to such a powerful game of life that a reset wouldn't ever do.