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On Tuesday June 26th, after sending our NJ Skateshop team on a Red Bull road trip for Focus Magazine in a 15 passenger van at 10am I rushed to get to Newark Airport to catch an 11:30 flight to Chicago for an appearance on the Mancow morning radio show. The interview went well I suppose. Mr. Cow works at a frantic pace, one that made feel as if I needed cocaine to keep up. But him and his crew were cool; they seemed to all have a connection to New Jersey which makes anyone ok in my book.
That night I had my first Skinema slide show at Quimby’s. It was the first time I’d attempted such an endeavor. I let my wife pick out a number of slides for me to tell stories about. She picked some really good ones and I told tales of Brazilian she-male hookers and getting a gun put to my head in Vegas, drunken Portuguese straight edge kids and all sorts of misadventures. It was as if myself and the crowd of folks that had gathered were seeing the images for the first time together. I think for not having anything planned it went well. Some people actually even laughed.
Afterwards a young lady with huge lungs had me sign her book and told me she wished her boyfriend was more like me. Right in front of her boyfriend. I told her, “You shouldn’t say that, sweetheart. I don’t have even one redeeming quality.”
Two other girls from Quimby’s decided to join us at the after party that my buddy Reggie Destin from Empire Distribution put together at Rodan. One was seven feet tall with five-foot legs. She leaned in and asked me, “Is it true that your dad died in Pearl harbor?” I made my sad face at her and shook my head yes and said, “And I really don’t want to talk about it tonight.”
Her friend had a stunning face. But she had dreadlocks. I asked her why. And told her, “You have a beautiful face, why ruin it with dreadlocks?”
“I like them,” she told me. “Well, one day you’re going to grow up and I want you to remember my words. And when you cut them off and rejoin society and see how pretty you are, I want you to think of me.” Her friend, the history scholar, asked what my problem was with dreadlocks. I told her, “White people shouldn’t have dreadlocks. That’s, like, the 11th Commandment.”
“No, it’s not,” she shot back, dodging my sarcasm bullet with ease.
“Oh, yes it is,” I said, “You don’t know about the 11th Commandment? They ran out of room on the front so they had to write it on the back of the tablets.” She was unsure if she should believe me or not so she got up and walked off.
As I stared at the pretty dread girl I began to think, ‘Do I know this girl? She seems o familiar to me.’ I thought it might have just been due to the alcohol. Then the drunker I get the more I badgered myself to remember who she looked like. My wife hates that game because whenever I finally figure out who it is I think the person looks like and I say it out loud, she looks at me and says something to the effect of, “I think you need new glasses. That person doesn’t look anything like (blank).” But this time was different. The young girl looked like Dave Carnie’s fiance Tania but with dreadlocks. As I was straining to figure out that obvious observation The Legs went and had at a talk with Biz 3 head honcha, Kathryn Frazier about my over the top religious views. “What’s with that guy?” She asked Kathryn. “He’s a total Jesus freak. I used to think he was cool but now that I know he’s all super religious I think he’s a kook.” Kathryn was puzzled and asked what she was talking about. “He was all telling my friend how white people shouldn’t have dreads and that it’s the 11th Commandment. I mean, no one wants to talk about that in a bar.” Kathryn laughed and tried to explain that I was joking but the girl wouldn’t relent, “He wasn’t joking. He didn’t laugh when he said it. He was dead serious.” Ah, to be young again…
I’d like to thank all my Chicago people that came through and especially everyone at Biz3 for opening their door to riff raff like me. Thank you.
 I spent all of Wednesday nursing a hang over at O’Hare Airport while waiting 12 hours for my flight to Newark.
My flight was supposed to arrive at 8pm, instead I arrived at 3 am.
They had us sitting on the runway at O’Hare for seven hours. In which time I felt like being especially mean to myself and forcing myself sit through Chevy Chase’s audio commentary to National Lampoon’s European Vacation. Without wasting too much of your time, I’ll just say Chevy Chase really has lost it and is no longer even remotely funny. If he owned a Funny Machine and there was only ONE button on it that read FUNNY and all he had to do was push the FUNNY button he would still get it all wrong. His audio comments went like this, “I still have that t-shirt. I have a lot of the shirts I wore in movies,” “Whatever happened to that guy? What was his name again?” “Oh. It was cold that day.” Sometimes I like to see just how much I can put myself through and I’m proud to say that I endured the entire 94 minutes of commentary, without even one single beer, while stuck on the runway in an airplane without air conditioning. What can I say? I’m mentally fit.
I eventually made it to the airport in Newark; it was overrun with dead bodies passed out, waiting for their morning flights. And as I looked at their peaceful faces as they slept I wondered… what kind of trouble can you get in for dipping your balls in the mouth of a sleeping complete stranger at the airport?
My Street Side Bartender wore green
Biz 3 Posse
Me & Quimby's sitting in a tree
My People
I told stories...
...and some people laughed
Dana, don't Jew know that's not funny?
Crooks & Castles?
Not Tania Carnie
These legs really thought my dad died in Pearl Harbor
Reggie Destin & his girl made me drunk
Oh yeah. Batman lives in Chicago
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