Gone 'til November..

I'm plum-tuckered out.  Things have been crazy busy this week.  I suppose crazy busy isn't the appropriate adjective; I'm just flat out exhausted from traveling, haven't had a huge amount of time to relax, and don't see that time coming for about a week.  I learned that the midwest was having some of the worst weather they've seen in 50 or so years...as I sitting on my flight out of PWM Tuesday morning heading for Chicago.  SWELL!  Haha.  O'hare grounded all planes for a couple of hours but the folks in Portland were kind enough to let us off the plane while we were grounded.  Back in college I was in Minneapolis heading back to Maine and a snowstorm grounded us for six hours and they kept us on the plane for the first five of those hours.  It was fucking brutal.  I don't swear a lot on here but that's just how brutal it was.  Miserable.  The only time in my life I didn't bat an eye at paying $8 for a beer was when they let us off for a half hour so me and another guy from Bates sprinted to the bar, pounded beers, then ran back to re-board.  Airline travel is miserable.

Anyways I missed my connection for LAX but managed to get on another flight a bit later so I was still set to get to Maui no sweat.  The connecting flight, however, was delayed in Boston for the same reasons we were delayed in Portland so the plan was about 90 minutes late arriving, and concurrently, I missed another connection.  Boo hoo.  So, instead of flying to Maui I took the last flight from LAX to Honolulu, then had to book a separate flight over to Maui.  BUT I MADE IT!  Landed around 9pm, got picked up around 10pm, was in bed around 11pm, then up to move into my new digs for 9am the next morning.  Hindsight says this was poor planning on my part and hindsight is always 20/20.  

New place is swell, though (I wanted to devote an entire post to this and call it "New Place, New Plan (Redux)" but as with the first "New Place, New Plan" only a couple people get the joke so it's not a huge hit humor-wise and I'm on my way to work so if it ever comes it'll have to wait..).  The last couple nights have finally felt like I have a home, whereas my first few months here I felt like a guest in a house and the couple months after that in August and September I felt like a transient.  Having a place to live that you can call your own is nothing to sneeze at.  Remember that, kids.

Time to make the donuts.  Posts won't be coming up for the next couple of days with Halloween making a return to my life.  I'm not super stoked on my costume but I think I'll make an OK Zorro if I can locate a sword and some mustache wax.  Halloween's still weird for me.  It's been all downhill since this:

Cheers (And yes, I will be talking about this costume for the rest of my life.  Old, wrinkly women in the nursing home will be jumping my shrunken, calcium-deficient bones in fifty or sixty years at this picture.  Admit it: It was, in fact, that good..).

Tired, but wiser for the time..

It's been really nice to be back in Maine for the last couple of weeks.  I don't know if I was busy or not.  It felt kind of busy but some of it was just challenges that are presented when I wanted to venture around the Northeast without a car of my own to drive.  So some flexibility and fluidity with scheduling needed to apply.  All in all I think I managed to squeeze in a lot of high-priority events.  Things got off to a proper start with a Flatbread dinner minutes after landing at PWM and continued on a proper path from there, as Wallingford's cider donuts were waiting patiently as I arrived home.  TREMENDOUS.  Made it to Gipper's plenty, and all signs lead to having one last dinner there Monday evening prior to my Tuesday, 6:33am departure from the Portland International Jetport as I resume my island odyssey. 

All things considered it was a fantastic trip home.  I feel like this time around I had plenty more big ticket days than my trip home in July as I was more judicious in my traveling.  Yes, I spent a little under nine hours driving to and from Albany, NY, but saw a killer Black Crowes show with my sistas Jenny and KathV and still made it back to greater L/A Saturday to catch all of Skip's football game and hobnob with Bates' finest for the afternoon.  Sunday brought a hastily-planned Casco Bay lobster boat cruise with my sister where the Pabst's flowed like wine.  A good time was had by all involved.

Concluding this past week, and more or less my trip, I suppose, was the wedding of Liam and Rachel, two very close friends.  The gang was back in full force for three nights of silliness, two Yarmouth, wedding-hoopla'd evenings sandwiching a traditional Auburn evening of Gipper's, Goose, and an afterparty which saw about a dozen pallets go up in the span of an hour and multiple bets on what would soon be drawing the attention of the Auburn Fire Department: structure or forest fire?  As luck would have it nothing but my feets caught fire so everyone went home with smiles on their faces.

After snaking a post-wedding ride back to Auburn and immediately falling asleep at the after party I awoke to a crisp, fall morning and, well, no one else at the house besides the owners.  As luck would have it Ma was already out of bed so my call did not wake her and she was happy to swing by and grab me, but this pickle enticed me to begin heading home on foot.  I was still attired as nicely as my closet allowed for the previous afternoon's wedding (think college professor more than power broker..) so my sweater and corduroy blazer kept me toasty warm even as I was rocking $4 Surfah sandals on my feets (I found these to be more appropriate than either the asic's running shoes I brought home or the 8" Chippewa loggers I had been wearing most days as they're my favorite footwear and I'm going to miss them this winter as it'll be the first winter in seven years we won't see snow together.  I hope I showed them enough love over these last couple weeks..

--

K, got that little recap all out of the way.  The Black Crowes show was legit.  Very, very happy I made it back to see them.  I was tempted to squeeze in a round two viewing but when J.Mac came up with Citizen Cope tickets I decided two shows was enough.  There's certainly some temptation to cruise to San Fran for a couple of days in December to catch a show or two during their six night Fillmore stand but that's another story for another day.  The show took place at The Palace, an old, fairly seedy-looking theater whose interior was either very well-restored or has just aged remarkably well.  Going in I had hoped to hear an acoustic version of "Good Friday" and I was lucky enough to have that dream come true.  I felt kind of silly though because it was the third song of the night and I didn't recognize the harmonica opening right away so it took a little while for me to build into things.    Overall I was quite happy with the setlist and the seventeen minute "Wiser Time" in the first set was absolutely killer.  Jenny-babe hooked it up from her Pepsi-folks and we were within ten rows of the stage, which isn't bad starting pay.  Low key, heady crowd down front, too, which was a plus, with the exception of one moron who tried to hop on stage and proceeded to get crosschecked by Chris Robinson and his mic stand.  Silliness all around.  The show continued as planned, as far as I could tell.

Not a video of aforementioned stage-bum-rusher.  Just a video of good music..

The Crowes do a lot of taping of their shows so I broke down today and bought the show from their archive site.  I'm a sucker for tracking down the live shows I've been to so naturally I was going to scoop this as it was readily available.  It's put a nice smile on my face this evening as I've been collecting the items I brought home so they can be repacked sometime on Monday.  It's going to be a little more weird heading out this time around as I don't really have a definitive plan on when I'll be back to the 207 again.  I'm sure I'll be back next summer at least for Em's Run but other than that I've really got no plan.  We shall see, eh?

Is this silly?

Got gifted a Rainwater LP at the Citizen Cope show I went to on Monday.  Hadn't heard anything off of it other than "Keep Askin" and that was at Bonnaroo well back.  Anyways, a lot of the album has static in between songs like you'd normally hear listening to vinyl (hence the "lp" tag on the album, I'd suspect..).  Cracks and pops and whatnot.  Brought me back to all of my parents albums I used to listen to back in the day.  And the time I bought an ODB album on vinyl during the couple years in high school I braided my hair and wore oversized sweat suits.

Anywho...this album is also sold on vinyl.  If I were to listen to the vinyl, in between tracks would I be hearing vinyl static...while hearing vinyl static?  Is that silly to anyone but me?  I'd think this scenario would cause the world to implode upon itself...but I guess not since it hasn't happened yet and I think the album has been out for quite some time.  Ya, Amazon says March.  Something tells me at least one of those suckers has been sold and listened to by now and we're still spinning.  Maybe, as crafty as Clarence Greenwood seems to be (he ties a proficient hair knot..) the "vinyl static" has been removed from the vinyl...but, how would you know?  Right?  Because you'd still be hearing static from the vinyl on the needle.  I need to stop thinking about this; I'm sure no one cares about this but me and I don't care all that much. 

Maybe it's like in Wayne's World when they're all in the studio looking over the set of Wayne's basement and Garth says "We're looking down at Wayne's basement. Only that's not Wayne's basement. Isn't that weird"  Weird, indeed, good sir.  Once again, Wayne's World provides.

Show was solid though, low key vibe.  The stage could have been higher.  I had my boots on and I still struggled to see.  Mother fucking tall people.

Cheers.

Things are shaping up nicely..

It was an excellent idea to come back for this wedding hootenanny a week early.  I've been able to line up plenty of entertainment.

First of all I'm happy to say I've added "hootenanny" to my lexicon.  Rob Zombie's current tour with Alice Cooper is called the "Gruesome Twosome Halloween Hootenanny" tour.  While it's unfortunately I missed their performance last night at the Cumberland County Civic Center recently I've reconnected with Robert and his hellbilly ways through eBay where I was lucky to stumble upon this gem late one night:

I had it shipped home as I didn't have an address on the island at the time of the impulse buy so it was waiting for me Monday evening when I made it back to the 04210.  This could potentially be my favorite eBay purchase ever and I've got a feedback score of 57 with !00% positives so it's not my first eBay rodeo.

I went to this concert back in high school with Nick, Randy, and Luke Robinson.  Ya, a mod squad we were.  Holy smokes.  We sw him at the Central Maine Civic Center pre-city takeover and present Collisee status.  AKA back in the good ol' days.  Saw plenty of freaks last night, so much so that for the opening acts we hung out in a penalty box to protect ourselves from the hundreds (read: less than 1000 in attendance, I'm sure..) of people who wanted to get dead.  This was really about his heyday, though, as Sinister Urge had just been released and a lot of folks were still super high on Hellbilly Deluxe.  I know I thought it was a kickass album, and still do.

But yeah, it was a hell of a show.  I remember we were about the lamest kids there.  Some people rolled in in a hearse.  And fuckers dressed up like kids from Children of the Corn and handed out fliers to get people to go to their fucked up website.  God damn freak shows, I tell ya.  I was considered the "most hard" because I was wearing a Subway polo shirt that I had picked up at Sal's Boutique.  Fairly certain the rest of my party was in A+F as that was the standard getup for high school kids in Auburn in the early 2000's.  Bunch of winners we were, really.  Looking back I can't fathom how I had no problem spending thirty or forty bones on a t shirt when I was making six or seven dollars an hour.  I guess Lester Burnham said it best when he worked all summer to by an 8-track player: "It was great. All I did was party and get laid. I had my whole life ahead of me."  Indeed.

Actually, we weren't the lamest people there.  One of the opening acts played six or seven songs of angry, close-to-speed metal chock full of death, murder, and rape lyrics but in between every song the lead singer would pony up to the mic all heart felt and whine things like, "We will never forget this!!" practically tearing up like a middle school girl writing in her diary about how Jimmy Football Hero touched her hand while he was reaching for the ketchup in the lunch line.  Vagina Face.  Grow up.  Can I get Charles Barkley to throw out an "embarrassing" right here.  "That's EMBURRRRUUUSUUUNG."  Thanks, Chuck.

Anyways long story short it was kick ass.  For whatever reason in those days Rob had a pretty strong affinity for Lewiston and even played a couple of Halloween shows there over the years.  Literally, on Halloween.  Rob Zombie.  Pretty big deal.  In Lewiston.  I didn't go but man I bet it was extra kickass.

Under most conditions I'd be pretty steamed that I missed a show like Zombie and Alice Cooper (rock legend, I'd probably feel like Wayne and Garth did if I had made it down...not worthy..) but I've actually already got a stellar live music lineup dialed in for the weekend.  As soon as I finish this up (the Zombie t-shirt tangent was supposed to be a couple of sentences and a picture.  Go figure..) I'm hopping in the shower ad then heading to Albany to see the Black Crowes.  Stoked.  Love the Crowes and had been planning seeing them while I was back for awhile as a few of you know who read back in the day when I'd actually post on the semi-regular.  Should be kick ass but super rushed as I need to (NEED TO!) hot shot it back to Maine Saturday morning so I can see Skip coach.  Haven't missed a season in my 26 years on this rock so I'm not about to start now.  Go Bobcats.

Then for Monday J.Mac came through and scored tickets for Citizen Cope at Port City Music Hall in Portland.  Small-ass venue so should be a lot different than when I saw him in Tennessee at Bonnaroo a couple minutes back.  GIVE ME ACOUSTIC PABLO PICASSO, DAMMIT.

Then, you know, The Crowes will be in Burlington Tuesday and Wednesday...if inspiration strikes you never know...  We'll see how tonight goes and go from there.  Shit, Burlington's just a rental car away, right?

Wish me luck driving in this weather.  It's raining cats and dogs and blowing goats out.  F this weather; give me the nice fall weather the rest of the way through.  Cheers.

PS.  Hootenanny.  Up until last night I'm pretty sure the last time I've seen or heard hootenanny used was in Disney's animated Robin Hood from back in the day.  I think it's in the "Robin Hood and Little John walkin' through the forest" song right from the beginning.  Robin Hood was the first thing that came to my mind when I heard hootenanny on the Zombie/Cooper commercial at Gipper's so it must be true.Oo-da-lolly, what a weekend.

P.P.S. Zombie is the goddamn man:

Nice double meaning there, right?!  The "god damn" modifies "man" in current American slang-lish to mean "quite good," while at the same time Zombie, in his stage presence, at least, more or less damn's God.  Think about it for only a couple of seconds or you might just have your mind blown before your weekend even begins..

I'm clever this morning; I've got to write more I'm in the zone.  Must be home field advantage.

October is 1/3rd completed...

...and this is my first post of the month.  Also my first post from Maine in a couple of months, too.  Yep, back east coast for a of couple weeks, until the 26th.  Liam is getting hitched and I wasn't going to buy a ticket home for just a long weekend; I wanted to (somewhat..) get my money's worth.  Landed in Portland around 5pm EST on Monday and haven't looked back since.   Very, very happy to be back for some fall season.

I can already tell it's going to be a challenge working back into an EST sleep schedule.  I didn't go to bed Monday night, choosing to rather muscle up on Tuesday and just try to get back on track Tuesday night.  Instead I dozed off on the couch for about four hours early Tuesday evening and now it's nearing 2:30am and I'm again wide awake.  I wouldn't say it's something I'm especially worried about, but I can tell already it's going to be interesting negotiating sleep into my routine for the next few days.  I found last time around two weeks is just long enough to have a miserable first week back then become fairly accustomed to sleeping at normal times again for the second week so upon return to the island another miserable sleep week will be on the horizon.  So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

I knew I would definitely be coming back now for quite some time so the couple of months on-island between my East Coast trips felt very disjointed because I didn't bother to find a permanent home over this period of August - early October.  Two globe-trotting friends were kind enough to let me get back settled by sleeping on their couch.  Both were traveling home for a week each in early August so my first couple of weeks back I had a bed...then sort of milked their hospitality in exchange for monetary compensation, chores, and a gigantic free dinner Hula Grill provided for my employee of the month prize from the summertime.  I'm not going to lie though, there was a little stretch where things where things were fairly snug as both of them and their respective boyfriends were home on the regular...but that's neither here nor there now.  Once again one roommate left for my final ten days as she traveled cross-country from NY to LA with some friends.

To Anna & Steph: you girls are the best and your generosity will not go unnoticed or unrewarded.

This situation was all due to the fact J.Mac had discussed a possible return to the 808 so I felt it would be better to wait on choosing a long-ish term home until his plans were finalized, with eyes on locking down a  nice place for us post-Liam's wedding.  Quite surprisingly this worked out exactly as planned.  Upon my landing at PWM I had a message waiting that my rental application was approved for a nice three bedroom condo in a posh little spot in the Kahana district of Lahaina.  It's a nice corner unit with an ocean view and should provide a significantly upgraded home base for our shenanigans this time around.  J.Mac lined up another friend to make the trip so we'll be one happy family by early November.  Between lots of hours at the office and viewings and applications my final few days on the island were not spent in the sunshine to a great extent and thus I am pretty unimpressed with my current pasty complexion...but in the long run F you for judging me as I'll get back and be well-bronzed again by the end of October as you New England folks will be frosted and nearing snowfall.  Sorry about your luck.

But for the first time in my life I actually took a bit of initiative and didn't procrastinate and for this I am immensely proud of myself.  Too bad that spark wasn't there for my thesis..

--


I'm really joking about the tan and I don't mean to hate about the snow.  I'm going to miss it this year, I can already tell.  I feel almost as though life is too easy out there as I just deal with riding through a rainshower in 80 degree temps every now and again.  The air was crisp exiting the airport terminal and it was a tremendous pleasue to walk around the waterfront for a bit in Portland Moday evening, eat outside at Flatbread and then roll home with the windows down on Rt. 100 rather than the hustle and bustle of I-95.

And as I put my baby out to pasture when I dipped out in July I'll be taking a bit of my island lifestyle around town  as my old two wheeler will be my mode of transportation.  Let's just say it's well below the quality of my Schwinn Cruiser parked on the island.  It's a mountain bike I picked up in middle school saving pennies and Christmas checks which I rode about ten times before I left it for dead in the back of our garage.  The wheels are a hair smaller, the frame is shorter from seat to handles and I just didn't feel like I could get up on it and muscle up hills like you can on a single speed.  I want to go fast, all the time.  I don't care if it's hard.  So many gears make for too many options, so I left it in the high gear and just made it work as best I could.  At least I'll finally get a little bit of return on investment now.  I rode it today down to the bank and the post office and over to Bates and back home again.  It's by no means ideal but it will certainly get the job done in the interim, provided the lightly dry-rotted tires don't crack and pop out on a commute. 

It was nice to see a couple other people on bikes around town today.  It was also nice to ride a bike for more than five minutes without becoming plastered in sweat. 

Another example of why the 207 is the way life should be.  Cheers.

My days always seem to go better..

..when I floss my teeth.  Try it out.

--

Two plus years later, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand is still a tremendous album.  I'm listening to it right now.  "Rich Woman" came into my head tonight at work when I saw some lowlife getting dinner bought by his two good looking female companions, who also happen to be my co-workers.  This scene was predicted by a server, who said it happens quite regularly.

Jealous and/or bitter, you say?  Perhaps, yes.  Sue me.  HAH!

Cheers.

Saturday Nights; Sunday Mornings..

Today I didn't work.  At all.  Which was stellar.  Whole day off.  Went to the beach.  Read some book.  Napped.  Listened to some Blues Traveler on the iPod.  Soaked up some rays.  Solid outdoor day on the whole from just after noontime until a tad bit before five.  Plenty o'sun.  No more pasty-ness.  Freshly salted hair.  Woo.  Hoo.  Temporarily shook the rust off from my end-of-summer doldrums.  Hopefully this was the start of something new.

Before I get going too much further I just have to say I've been on a pretty big Blues Traveler kick for the past couple of weeks.  Four has been a regular player on my rides to and from the office and the couple other cd's I have have been being clicked on regularly when the laptop is booted and iTunes is open.  They played at LL Bean's outdoor summer stage a couple of years ago for free and I thought about going down but I saw a flyer with the band beforehand and everyone was skinny so I thought John Popper had either left the band or died so I didn't bother to head down.  Turns out he had gastric bypass surgery in the 2000's and lost a good deal of weight and was normal sized and still in the band.  So, F my decision.  Hindsight always seems to be 20/20, eh?  

After some dinner tonight I settled in to watch some TV and caught the 2nd half of the Arizona v. Iowa game.  I watch Iowa games quite a bit because they're head coach, Kirk Ferentz, coached the Black Bears awhile back so Skip knows him.  When he was with the Browns he got me a personalized Eric Metcalf autographed picture, which is nothing to sneeze at and because of this it goes without saying I'll be pro-Kirk for life.  It's also neat to say you have ties to the highest-paid state employee in Iowa.  So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

The Hawkeyes played pretty terribly, however, and were down three TD's after the first half but worked their way back into the game as Arizona kept shooting themselves in the foot with penalties, a muffed punt, and a pick six and in th 4th Iowa had a chance to take the lead but missed an extra point.  Special teams win games, folks.  And, clearly, lose games, as Iowa went on to lose.  Get'em next week, Kirk.

That Iowa talk really had nothing to do with anything except it's kind of random and semi-interesting to me and it ledd into the fact The Perfect Storm came on around the time the game ended and I started watching The Perfect Storm, because, well, I had nothing better to do and it took place in New England and since I'm 5,000 miles away from New England programs and movies and songs and the like which involve New England interest me more than they used to when I was in New England.  I just said New England a lot.  I should stop that; it was kind of amateur.  I head home in three weeks, though, which I think is kind of cool.  I enjoy Maine immensely in autumn.  Well, fall.  I don't generally use autumn.  Too high brow for my eclectic verbage.  I can't wait to go to Wallingford's.  Cider donuts.  Yes, sir.  There will be plenty else going on and Liam's wedding to go to, but cider donuts are pretty high up on my list of reasons why I enjoy Maine in the fall.  Wallingford's is the cat's purrr-jamas.

I've always thought The Perfect Storm was a pretty good movie.  Good in the sense I can watch it multiple times and still be amused, and be able to jump into it when it's half over without incident.  I had forgotten John C. Reilly was in it.  I just saw The River Wild on an HBO a week or two ago, and had forgotten he was in that, too.  So if you were wondering it takes only one degree to connect John C. Reilly to Kevin Bacon, as both were in The River Wild.  Write that down.  Reilly also damn near brought a tear to my eye tonight as The Perfect Storm was ending after the boat capsizes and he and another of the crew are trapped in the cabin and the water's up to their chins and he looks over at the other guy and says, "This is going to be hard on my little boy" and then the water fills the cabin.  I don't know why it's affecting me so much but even as I type this out I just have to say, "Fuck, that's just shitty all the way around."  I saw a dead cat on the side of the road I ride to work every day and that kind of got me feeling flat, too.  It looked like my first cat when I was little.  His name was Tigger.  He also died in an automobile accident.  Ironic.  But ya, I had to ride past this two days straight before it finally got removed by someone more considerate than myself:

I didn't have a shovel, sorry.

Anyways, back to the film.  Early on in the movie in a bar scene the jukebox is on and Bruce Springsteen is blasting when everyone's happy as the scene opens but when the controversy picks up and George Clooney's Skipper character tells the crew they're going out for one last go-round of the season a Tom Waits song is on in the background.  Today, before Blues Traveler, I listened to most of Closing Time while I was napping on a hotel lawn chair.  Guy's legit.  I know I've mentioned my adoration of Waits' early works so it was nice to find someone in the movie bizz who appreciated his tremendous works.  My big sis got me keen to him one way or another awhile back, so if I didn't give you credit the first time around the block then, "Thanks for introducing me to the music of Tom Waits."  The song that was playing in the bar is called "(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night."  I found this especially fitting, as this is, well, a Saturday night.  Eerie...

So, so good.  If you don't know, now you know.
-

It's now Sunday morning.  Both here, and wherever you are if you're in the US.  Moreso than here, as it is actually Sunday morning, but it doesn't really feel like Sunday morning because I haven't been to bed yet so really it still feels like Saturday night.  Since you will be reading this on , presumably after a heavy night of boozing and other PED's, let me provide you with my favorite Sunday song, as only two legends can do..

Kris Kristofferson is one hell of a songwriter.  Again, just throwing that out there; if you don't know now you know.  Cheers.

Where'd I leave off..

Aloha.  In case you forgot who I am, my name is Matt.  I moved from Maine to Hawaii some months ago.  I started this blog about two years ago.  Over those two years this is by far the longest I've gone between posts.  I've been incredibly lazy these past couple weeks.  Since I returned to Maui in August I've been leading the sad life of a working man, slaving away for damn near 40 hours of my week, working six out of seven days and all the while pretty much hating life.  My past weeks have consisted of, more or less, the following:

-Rise sometime in the morning.  If I work during the day then that's around 8.  If I work at night then around 11.

-Put on ESPN2 for an hour or so on work days, to catch the Scott Van Pelt show highlights.  These highlights are also generally the highlights of my day.  SVP and Ryen Russillo are hilarious.  Russillo is a New England guy,too, so that's always a solid.

-Go to work.  If I work at night then I waste the day away by walking to the store to grab a couple of groceries or napping/tv watching, then go to work.

-Come home from work.  Scour the internet for flights home for Liam's wedding and to see what happened in the world that particular day on ESPN, CNN, Fox News, and bbc.  And Gmail and Facebook.  And my work schedule.  Watch Family Guy and Mike and Mike in the Morning, both of which begin at midnight.

-Fall asleep.

Fucking pathetic, eh?  I live on a beautiful island with beaches and sun and plenty to do...and for the most part I go to work or waste time until I go to work.  What the shit is wrong with me?!  I am a loser.

--

Not that blogging will make me cool.  Just, why would I blog when I don't. do. anything.  It's just not interesting.  The things that have crossed my mind and made me laugh recently are Family Guy clips.  And I guess I can only post so many Family Guy clips where the bulk of the post is THE clip, with nothing more for me to say other than, "I thought it was funny."  The clips have no direct link to any aspect of my life besides me enjoying Family Guy and it's on every night at midnight so there's a pretty strong chance I'm awake to catch it.  It's just become a part of my day.  Most Family Guys have at least one clip that I find quite funny, which then makes me want to see if youtube has the clip, and if youtube has the clip then I think I should post it.  Usually, however, I don't bother.  A lot of the good ones aren't on there at all, or are only on there in foreign languages.  Most scenes just aren't as funny when you can't understand what is being said.

--

I started watching The Informant! a couple of weeks ago.  The plot was pretty lame but I found the inner monologue of Matt Damon's character hilarious.  And he had a killer mustache, which was nice.  Somewhere I read that someone had a "molestache."  AKA molest-stache.  AKA molester stache.  I thought it was pretty funny.  I hope some people consider my lip sweater to be working its way into the molestache category.

This was intended to be more about Damon's internal monologue being eerily similar to how I go through most of my days feeling like I talk to myself nonstop.  Is this normal?  Do other people constantly have ridiculous thoughts going through their heads that just drift from one starting point and slowly tangent outward and outward and outward.  Thought entropy, really.  Nonstop.  Earlier this week the song "Your Woman" popped into my head at work.  I knew it was sung by a group that had "white" in its name.  White Town.  I don't recall why I thought of this but the video is pretty neat, silent film style..

But anyways a couple of weeks ago I was leaving work after a day shift and I was walking through the shopping center/district that Hula Grill is on the edge of (bike parking is at the front of this center.  Whaler's Village.  Lot of classy stores (Louis V, Galleries, etc) mixed in with surf clothiers (Volcom, Quicksilver, Billabong, etc) mixed in with cheap ass "island items" stores that sell knick knacks and random ass shit.  Kind of funky but it's a popular tourist spot as it's got a few hotels on either side of it and, of course, Hula Grill draws a crowd..) and I had my headphones on and a little jazz session going on in my head (not jazz as in jazz music, but jazz as in "impromptu performance."  The D-backs coach at Bates would always say that when you intercept a pass or scoop a fumble that it was time for a jazz session.  I thought it was silly, but catchy.  He's the same guy who would also interrupt any time you fucked up and started to say "I thought it was.." with "You thought you farted but you shit your pants."  He's a character..) with some boardshorts and a random ass t-shirt on (I think it was my new USA tie dye.  If you haven't seen it yet I'll try to wear it more.  Picked it up from the Mystical Emporium when I was home in July.  It's swell..) headed back to my bike to ride off into the sunset when I passed some people and one of the guys said, "Hey, that's the guy from the Hula Grill."

Clearly my nappy ponytail and skeevy mustache attracts some attention, but it's nice to know that people comment about my steeze to their friends and family.  Multiple servers have told me they've overheard their guests joke that I could be Ron Jeremy's younger brother.  That one is a mixed blessing, as my goal in life is not to be a short, fat man.  But clearly my upper lip has taken on a personality all its own.  Multiple isn't ten, but three.  Three's enough to know there's plenty of silly banter sparked by the goodness I've got going on.  That's good enough for me.  I guess this is just another step in the escalator that is my look.  There have been some downs brought on by institutions of higher learning which claim to promote egalitarian perspectives within the liberal arts but are quite oppressive in regards to the hair length possessed by their young coaches.  But hey, I got a mullet out of the deal for a couple of months so I guess it was worth it.  As things stand today these hairs won't be touched by the cold steel or barbershop Fiskars for quite some time.  And we can leave it at that and go on our merry ways..

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I think I'm crazy but I'm 90% sure that by the end of the weekend I'll have registered to run a marathon in January.  I need something to kick start my training mindset so giving myself four months to gear up will provide enough time to not kill myself and overtrain but also a short enough span that I'll need to start doing something ASAP.  There's a marathon here on Sunday that finishes right close to where I work so I'll probably wander down and check it out.  They were doing a bunch of setting up today so the bike racks I usually park at got moved to a couple parking spaces in the parking garage.  I feel way to classy being able to park my bike under a roof for the next three days.

But I think it would be an alright goal.  Marathons aren't about talent, just persistence.  I feel like once I get going not wanting to embarrass myself will be enough motivation to hit the pavement most days of the week.  I have a feeling I'll probably hurt myself and not be able to work for a few days after the run, but what the hell.  I need something to do.  Motivation as an adult sucks; I need to find a way to build activity into my life.  Wish me luck.  Cheers (and it's good to be back.  Missed the few of you who have been missing my words...Maine-dogs I'll be back 207 from Oct 11-25.  Fall in Maine.  Can't wait.  No proofread tonight, either.  I'll try to look it over tomorrow...or the next day..)

Now that my mustache is established..

Maybe I should learn to speak Italian.  I need a hobby, right?  Cheers.

I think I missed a killer sunset tonight..

..and that really grinds my gears because I wasn't doing anything of consequence.  I got out of work at five and had some dinner (well, really it's lunch because I eat breakfast around 9am and then don't eat again until after I get off the floor, then have more to eat around 8 or 9pm..) and then rode home.  When I got up the hill I ride every day that overlooks the golf course I saw that it was kind of cloudy  over the water so I made a mental note to check out the sunset...then promptly forgot once I walked in the door.  A little after six thirty I looked out the balcony window and saw pinks and purples through the clouds and said, "Shit."  I grabbed my camera and hopped on my bike to ride down to the park to get a good view but the sun was already well down and the sunset was over with.  Shucks.  Sometimes you take things for granted out here.  The sunset is nice every day, especially the days I'm getting paid to watch it, but it really grinds my gears when I miss a good one.  I still haven't got a mind-blowing one on camera yet.  Maybe tomorrow..

I'm talking to my manager tomorrow about getting time off for Liam's wedding.  I think I need two weeks.  That makes sense for a wedding, right?  I'll make it happen.  Barring a catastrophe or a delay I'll be back at Gipper's on Thursday, October 14.  Write it down.  Also, I threw this out on the facebook and I don't think many people read this because I post so infrequently but I'm planning to head to Burlington to catch The Black Crowes' two night stand at Higher Ground on Tuesday, Oct. 19 & Wednesday, Oct.20.  If you want to see some killer music then let me know pretty soon; some of you may be getting a friendly inquiry from me.  I get paid Thursday of this week so after I buy my plane ticket home I'll be scooping tickets so let me know if you're in.  Sounds like they're playing two sets a night - one electric and one acoustic.  While this is their 20th anniversary it's also sounding more and more like a farewell tour as things progress so I don't plan to miss out.  An "indefinite haitus" is scheduled following the tour's conclusion in San Fran.

If you live in or around Burlington expect some contact from me, too.  I plan to neither sleep in a car nor a hotel so someone hook a brother up!

These guys are the "Most 'Rock & Roll' Rock & Roll Band of all time!"  What's not to like?  Cheers.

I don't know why I haven't posted these earlier..

Straight off the rock...Hawaii's not so subtle ad campaign against teen meth use..

Yikes.  Stuff sounds pretty serious.  Don't do meth, kids.  NOT EVEN ONCE..

I know these both say Montana Meth Project at the end, but trust me when I say these are the same commercials that come on during my Family Guy and South Park shows.  Quite a downer.  They put posters up all over the place, too.  Pleasant.  It sounds like it's working, though.  Shocking what happens when you just try to scare the shit out of kids.  This is like D.A.R.E. on steroids: instead of threatening kids with incarceration these folks just cut to the chase and show the tweakers.  Novel concept: "Hey kid: Don't be that guy, alright?"

Enough of this negativity...time for a good, ol' reliable knee slapper:

Cheers.