These past, UnBlogged Days, I've Been up To..

.. just above my elbow.. in another man's.. Oh, who am I kidding. Cheap Puns Never worked for me. They're so.. middle class, you know? Indeed. To tell the truth, I've actually been.. You know..


CHOKING THE CHICKEN!!

GUFFAW! FUCKING GUFFAW! NOW! EVERYONE!

GUFUCKINGFAW!


Sorry. Getting up at 5:37 every fucking day is getting to me. Especially when I had to battle a damn mosquito until 2:30 am hier soir.. until which time I turned on the lights, saw him in full, resplendent, 60 watt glory.. and mashed him into the palm of my guilty hands. Or perhaps it was a her.. no matter. I am nonetheless operating on three hours sleep. Making crude puns.

And loving every minute of it.

So.. what have I been up to? Well, a little hiking about the canyons near ma maison, seeing as it is San Diego in near-Summertime..















.. and soaking up the splendor offered forth by our Mother Nature.













Yes, have some more nature photography. As I hiked, I may or may not have been listening to...



.. My motherfucking top 25 most played list! Yes, I know you, dear reader, constantly emailing me, asking, "David, I have this chouette fete I simply must host.. What shall I spin for the homies?"

Fear not, young troubador. Simply click on the picture, enlarge, and do what you must. If it's hard to read.. Tough shit, eh? Eh. The number one song is, of course, "Bridge over Troubled Waters," by Elvis Presley. And don't forget to, you know, pour out a little. For the homies. The homies who ain't here.

I usually only listen to random shuffle, anyways, so the "top"choices are by no means 100% accurate.. although the King would be near the apex regardless. Not seen, but likely atop? "Sylvia's Mother," by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. Written by Shel Silverstein.



I call it "University of San Diego, as seen between two power lines." And then, wearing a black turtleneck, I piss on art and all of her tainted majesty.


And then -





Cut to Kicking it in the front yard, garden style. I water these flowers with Martha Stewart's tears. Tears of shame, of failure. I devilishly smile, relishing my victory.

And then.. I wax her like Daniel-San waxing his new Buick before he goes to wax Elisabeth Shue after learning the Wax-on Wax-off technique and tucking in a drunk little Mr. Miyagi, giver of cars, survivor of World War II related atrocities.. bemoaner of a love now gone.

As this tale suggests, such regal beauty comes at a price; a life truly lived ages thrice where others.. only twice.. even the brightest flame must diminish. I encourage my lovelies to rage, rage against the dying of the light. Like Thornton Melon. And Jean Claude Van-Damme. One could say that, well...
















Every rose has it's thorn.

Much like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song, I continue on, Delicately, and intricately pondering the mysteries of life.. the intangible je ne sais quoi.. the things that make you go hmm.. that which is, and nary is not.. that which is to come.. and those who are to come. And come often. With style, and unprecedentedly dignified hauteur; pregnant with the splendid joie de vivre so many find so unattainable.. while mine own chalice, findeth I, overrunneth.

Oh holy Fuckl.

It's 4:05 in the morning.

I am drunk and high.

I have to drive my visiting friend, to whose wedding I was a best man, to the airport in the morning. My alarm is set for 7:27 am.

Oh fuck.

The wedding was two years ago; the friendship stems at least a decade, probably fifteen years, maybe more.

I have the day off tomorrow (today). This is good.

I drank a shitload yesterday too. Today was painful; tomorrow, probably worse.

I Can Do It.

Somber Sunday Reflections of.. The Way Life Used to Be. Reflections of.. The Love Dana Delany took from Me. On China Beach.

When I lived in Boulder, CO, I knew a man named Robert.

He looked nothing like Dana Delany. Not unless you really stretched it.

Let me backtrack a little. As a young artisan, I rented space in an area known as "Naderville," the cheapest rental area in the city proper, on the outermost extremities of Boulder County. It was known as Naderville because the owner of the property, an Arabic/Persian/Greek/Something man named Nader SomethingOrOther, was worthy of such nomenclature. He didn't give a fuck what the people were doing in his Warehouse Space, as long as they paid the bills. And, in his coolest gesture, he refused to sell his downtrodden but extremely valuable piece of property to the city of Boulder, basically telling them to take their 6 million dollar offer and fuck themselves. He was going to milk every last penny out of that property, investing nothing further, and sell years from now for $20 million. God bless him. They wanted high value condos and tract housing; he wanted to maintain the only piece of commercial/industrial real estate in the county situated next to the only strip club in Boulder Country proper, The Bus Stop Lounge. Which, of course, buttressed the last stop on the Skip, the bus route running up and down Broadway, the heart of the small but wonderful city.

The Warehouses were cheap, spacious, dirty, rat infested, with no Zoning laws, or, at least, completely ignorable Laws, filled with musicians, mechanics, and primarily and of course, oddly enough, Glass Blowers. We were all making contemporary tobacco accessories, and frequently thoughout the day we would meet to compare, contrast, and utilize the very products we created. Meetings of minds, foundations for a hoped for but not often attained future excellence, replete with progress and realized potential. Indeed, potential we did have.

One such fellow glassblower was Robert. Robert was a long time tour head, as they are often described. He had been on Grateful Dead tour, Phish tour, Widespread Panic, whatever else tour, selling glass, weed, all schedules of drugs, you name it. I can only speculate his hallucinogenic intake over the years of his life. He was around thirty, about five foot eight, but with an enormous gut. Not fat anywhere else, just the gut.

Once or twice a year Robert would completely lose his shit, and he would have to go away and spend time in a mental institution. He would return, taking his lithium, pledging sobriety. For the next two weeks he would give away all the weed in his studio, all his dirty pipes, He was an extremely talented glassblower, with an unparalleled ability to wield dichroic glass in the flame, and when sober a truly funny guy.

He's not dead or nothing, but the reason behind this tale is the following story. When I moved to San Diego two and a half years ago, not two days had passed when I got a call from Robert. It was all garbled, and it was around 11:30 or so at night, and I didn't take the call, just heard the voicemail. I couldn't make out what he said. The next day I called my buddy Jefferson, a fellow glass artist, and he told me the tale.

As a LampWorker, you use Oxygen and Propane (or natural gas) and mix the flame down through your torch. Robert had been having another bad swing, and decided to gather all seven of his propane tanks and stack them in a pyramid in front of his studio. He then poured some sort of inflammatory substance around the pile, and before lighting it, decided to call the people in the complex, those of whom he liked, to warn them of the impending explosion. The third or fourth person he called took him at his word, and immediately called the police. They arrived, found an incoherent, raving man, and took him away, inevitably back to his traditional summer destination, the mental hospital.

Robert hadn't realized I had moved; he had called to save me from his own inferno, and for that I am grateful. Today, after a long weekend of glasswork and smoking, I began to see my own inner Robert, and it is an ugly, but not too distant vision, one I hope to never realize, but merely keep in the distance, as a reminder of what could be. Ah, the sacred but overabused herb.

But, as you know, Dear Reader, it's already here, reflected in the words you read - Me Minge, oh, me dear dear Mingey, Oprah never got time for her Minge. Mingey!

From Tucson to Tucamcari, Tehachapi to Tonapah.

Gumby Hollas at Bitches in Iambic Pentameter

Phase One: In Which Doris Gets her Oats


"Yo Doris - How bout I Holla at You?
Holla Holla Holla Holla Holla
Holla Holla Holla Holla Holla
Holla Holla Holla Holla Holla
How 'bout Gumby up in your vagina ?"




"Aww.. Gumby, you all up in my shit'd be like a whale swallowing a tic-tac. Hell Naw."







"My lady, when such sentiments I hear,
My mind doth bend to tales of yester-year,
And a life without me, I must declare,
would leave you like another, also fair,
Adrift on rough seas, no sails guide your boat,
like Harold Melvin without the Blue Notes,
You Ain't Never Goin Platinum. Bitch.
Enjoy the crabs, think of me when you itch."






"Aww.. Gumby, you don't really have anything so.. unsavoury, do you? I mean, like, ummm, that'd be like, really, like uncool, after our, you know, intimacy and all. "

"Chill, bitch; you know Gumby wraps his shit up.

It's that Knoxville you gotta worry 'bout,

Looks like he Donkey Punched you good, my dear.

Lucky you got out before the Sanchez."

Keith Moon, Axel, Thierry Henry, Ralph, Jack, Piggy, the Pope, Grasshopper, and Minion walk into my Sunday... and out breaks Twisted Metal 8.

Bougainvillea.

Or, as we say in English, Welcome, dear reader, to the latest installment of naturalistic photography depicting the environs of yours truly, endowing thine own retinas and corneas to a cornucopia of both flora and fauna.

Truly divine, n'est ce pas?

Once did verily lurk a pumpkin beneath the bushes a gauche..












...governed by sprawling beasties. No, not this enthralling young feline..
















But this one.





And, in a shocking yet wholly unremarkable coincidence, nay, liason of concommitance, I again regale you with a photo referencing video games: I thee tell, dear reader, the tale of the following photo. T'is a tale of devastation, loss, betrayal, greed, heresy, ignominy, destruction, and, of course, Besmirchment. It is also, however, a shining beacon of hope and dignified self-expression, a solemn reminder and embodiment of True, Wholly Religious, and ultimately, Purifying Redemption.















T'is a tale of The Grid. And to tell the tale of the Grid, you must know, or be told, the tale of Twisted Metal 2.

Clink the link for a comprehensive overview, but for a brief synopsis: You have a vehicle. Your partner has a vehicle. Your mission is to go through the cities of Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, Amazonia (fictional) New York, Antarctica (not a city) , Holland (country), and finally, Hong Kong (city-state), blowing up cars, kill or be killed. Needless to say, I have defeated this game hundreds of times - on all modes of difficulty. To understand the grid above, consider The X axis: each color represents a different character. Thumper. Axel. Grasshopper. Sweetooth. Mr. Grim. Warthog. Shadow. Mr. Slam. Spectre. Roadkill.

And the Y-Axis? The same fucking thing. The grid represents playing every combination of cars in two player mode on maximum difficulty, as played by myself and the man who was once a Golden Shower. Notice all the boxes are checked off. Damn right. Favorite character? Thumper. Favorite teammate? Axel. Minion, lord of Amazonia? My Bitch. Now and Forever.






My drink? Bud E, on the rocks, splash of Kamchatka Vodka.

















And a Michelob backer. Just a small one, though.



Lord of the Flies guy actually landed in my tree, not the cave. Who was speaking to Simon, before he ran back to camp, only to be "terminated" by "friendly fire" from Jack and the boys? We may never know.

Ah, life. It's a jungle out there.

Hark the Herald Angels Sing - Yet Another Blog Post-ing.

Gardening in San Diego is a difficult task, really. It involves watering your perennials (and/or annuals), and watching them grow.

Another, more effective gardening technique is to sit back, drink a Michelob, and watch another perform the task.














"But Dave," You query, "Outdoorsman though you be, truly and honestly tell us, your humble readership, what was it that kept you away from the blog for so long - almost eight, nine days now?"

Well, aren't we forward, dear Reader? You want my First Born too? Nice try - I pasted a spritzer of Goat's Blood 'ponst the door to prevent such an unscrupulous endeavor. M'woman done got turned into a pillar of salt, but hey, such is a life replete with biblical strife. Actually, I made that last part up - I don't own a goat. Not a traditional one, anyway.




No, attentive audience, I was busy with issues of a.. sporting nature.

You see, on Thursday night, I noticed there was a problem with the Cable Box, and thusly, no cable for the weekend, unless I wanted to Take Action and Resolve the issue, by doing something like calling the cable company, or bringing the box in for exchange. Not my style. My response was simple...












Playstation 2 until I broke the "joystick" controller (note the left circular control, pointing upward, without any intervention, totally fucked up)..














And Guiding the Pohang Steelers through Korea's famed "K-League."

Starting the season Friday night, I didn't know what to expect from my new team. With anticipation I pondered my offer. "The Board expects you to win the league," they flatly stated. Yeah, I know, you fat cat bastards, sitting behind the scenes, pulling strings, setting us all up like ducks in a row, ready to place blame and never accept the burden of responsibility. I've been around the block before; When, in FIFA 2004, I took lowly Manchester City through five seasons of drama from relegation, to promotion, to League championship and then the double of League and UEFA Cup Glory, I knew the end could come at any moment- a manager's lifeline is a taut and tenuous cord, as of a time-ravaged marrionette puppet, one rotting string from capitulation.

As always, those who placed their faith in me were richly rewarded, as the following screenshot indicates.

Pohang Steelers - 2006 League Champions. Now, as you can tell from the final standings page listed above, Pohang was a force to reckon with. Even with my limited knowledge of the Korean game, I dug deep to connect with my players, and through my coaching attempted to reach our inner commonalities; namely that, race, color, and creed aside, we are all spiritual beings, inhabiting bodies on this great spaceship earth, and that soccer is an altogether groovy beast. Gin soaked , yet of profoundly moral fiber, I loudly recited segmented passages of Dianetics, and using the techniques I learned Auditing up the Bridge, silently transmitted these strategies to their willing ears and minds.













It was not an easy task, and I'll admit there were certain games I had to play numerous times to win. One team, Ulsan Horang, required over 12 games to defeat. During these many defeats (and system resets), their striker, Choi, must have scored fifteen goals against me. My vehemence grew such that a visiting friend, on his way back home following his San Diego weekend at my humble home, sent the following text message : Fuck Choi. Drawing inspiration from such passionate supporters, the boys went out and finally "broke their duck," defeating Ulsan on a Set Piece goal, in STOPPAGE TIME, kicked across the line by a man on the ground. It was, as they say, "A moment of pure class." The picture above depicts two Ulsan players, dejected, after losing the game. To them, I can only say, Eat Shit You Ulsan Horang bitches!

Inevitably, they were also our opponent in the league cup final, a knockout tournament featuring the top four teams in the league. And what happened, you ask?














That's right, bitches. League Cup Champs. An incredible point blank strike from the Brazilian Wellington, and the cup was ours. If you read closely, you'll see the name of our esteemed coach, er, myself, one Corky Hassan, espousing the gospel of goodwill.


Team M.V.P., influential attacking midfielder Tavarez trots off the field for the last time, applauding the fans for their wonderful support.


Friday night to Tuesday afternoon - over forty games of FIFA 2006. One league championship. One league cup. Not bad for a manager named Corky, who rejected offers from more "noted" European behemoths of club Football, to follow his heart, and coach in the Korean League. Meeting players such as Moon, the corn-rowed Korean assassin; my goalie and high-scoring striker, who both had the last name "Lee," to my defender and winger both named "Kim," to Oh, Po, Wellington, Tavarez, and finally transfer deadline steal "Papa" Diop- Sweeper, holding midfielder, and scourge of opposing offenses, I thee thank.


















Now that I got that out of my system, I'm really gonna get shit done. Tell you what. Since I am 29 and all.