Southern California burns...

If started off like any other day.

After having a post-shift drink and blathering about nothing of consequence with my doorman Ilich, I got into my Jeep and drove towards San Elijo Hills. I thought nothing of the night and only smiled inwardly at the thought of eating my turkey sandwich from 7-11 and getting some sleep before tomorrow nights shift.



I got a phone call from my roommate right about the same time I realized there were a few Carlsbad police officers blocking San Elijo Hills Road.



Evacuation.



We were told to leave. But how do you pack up your life within minutes? I didn’t even get that chance. I was turned away before I could gather any of my belongings.



That old question about what to pack if your house was on fire came in black comedic waves as I did my best to take a mental inventory of what I had in my Jeep and what I could possibly lose if the fire chose my direction.



So I had to quickly weigh my options. I could drive to my parent’s house, wake up various friends or co-workers, or I could stay at the Howard Johnson on Leucadia. Which I promptly did at $89/night.



Rubbing my eyes and clearing my sore throat after a horrible night of sleep, I peered outside my room to a jaundiced lilting haze that gave a surreal look to the trees as they bowed in the face of the wind’s enthusiasm.



Knowing I would never make it to my parent’s house in El Cajon without sitting in gridlock for three hours, I decided to poke around Encinitas.



The wind and ash made it tough to even be outside, and no one argued with my opinion. Downtown Encinitas looked like the set of a really smoky post apocalyptic horror film, replete with a yellow sun and crying dry winds.



So I went to 1st Street and did what anyone else would do in my situation. My manager Shaun and I called all the bartenders knew to come in and commiserate with us. With most of the businesses in the area closed, our community shelter replete with booze was soon a bustling little activity of commerce for those of us watching the 24 hour pyro pornography on all news stations.



With little or no sleep, I didn’t expect to work that night. I was wrong.



I instead had to serve all the scared, angry, distraught people who were evacuated from their homes or had lost their dwelling to the angry flames that danced through our little hamlet.



I also had to serve the jubilant(like myself) patrons who’s homes had been spared the fire and were lucky to still have a place to lay their heads at night.



The dichotomy between the groups was palpable, even if the booze blurred the line between the two. For them, and me.



This is something none of us will ever forget. No matter what paths our lives follow from this day forward, we all sat at the mercy of nature just when we feel indestructible. Cell phones, computers, satellites, internet and the like have a way of keeping us connected by separating us.



It’s times like these that help to remind us that we’re all in this together. Mother Nature picks and chooses our fates…we just deal with her decisions…

Powered by ScribeFire.

God...

I fucking hate religion...

Powered by ScribeFire.

Ya know why I hate politics...

One simple reason...it poisons people's minds. Good people get pushed in the wrong directions because of fear or hate...

Powered by ScribeFire.

My Buddy Paul...

Check out my friend Paul's blog....thought provoking, definitely worth reading, and I once saw the guy threaten to pummel an entire youth hockey team in Quebec. Gotta love him....

http://thenewamericancity.blogspot.com/

Powered by ScribeFire.

Billo

Seriously, how do you go on Bill O'Reilly's show and not wanna punch him in the face? He makes me fucking sick sometimes...

Vote Ron Paul...

Everyone else seems like a fucking lunatic compared to this guy...and the worst part..he won't even make a dent in race...

Powered by ScribeFire.

Milton Bradley is a GIGANTIC ASSHOLE

I'm so fucking tired of hearing that pompous asshole bitch and moan about how the whole world is coming down around him.

Take a wild guess why that is you stupid dick.

Because you're a child with no means to control yourself. I don't wish an injury on anyone, but don't blame that shit on the umpire. He might have agitated the situation, but you're the fucking nutbag who flipped out and tried to attack an official.

I don't condone Winters, but serious Bradley...grow the fuck up for once. Accept that you have serious impulse control/Ego issues and move on you self-centered prick...

Cartoons

Boring.

That's the most succinct way for me to describe the shows and cartoons
that are on for children nowadays. I was trying to watch some stupid
thing my nephew was watching the other day, and could barely get
through ten minutes of it before I had to walk out of the room.

I think current network broadcasts are breeding a generation of

pansies with all that soft, boorish crud that kids are digesting every
day.

Where's the calamity? The gore? The wanton violence and blood lust
that I was privy to? I awoke each morning at 6am with two thoughts on
my still forming mind: Cartoons and cereal.

So with eyes wide with gleeful anticipation, and the next brutal
beating of one cartoon character by another imminent, I dove into my
Cheerios and kept the 'toons flowing.

Who says cartoons and early morning entertainment weren't educational?

I learned about physics. Like if you step off a cliff, you won't
actually fall until you realize that you're still hovering over empty
space. You usually get three running steps before you disappear in a
downward plume of smoke.

I also learned that umbrellas don't do squat when you jump off the
house. Mary Poppins is a goddamn liar.

I learned about drug use. If you can honestly tell me that Scooby and
the gang weren't smoking dope, then I'll personally buy you your own
Mystery Machine.

Plus, did you notice that Fred kept sending Velma, the closet lesbian,
with Shaggy, the shiftless hippy, and Scooby, the only dog with a
speech impediment, off on their own so that he could "search for
clues" with Daphne. Yeah, whatever Fred...nice neckerchief.

I learned about abstinence from watching the Smurfs. Since there were
about a hundred of those little blue freaks and only one was female.
Or maybe Smurfette was just a filthy smurfing whore.

I learned that when you take a young boy into your home and share with
him your love of tight spandex, manservants, and cave dwelling you're
not a pedophile...you're Batman. And he's not a scarred, abused youth
in need of therapy...he's Robin, the Boy Wonder. I think it's more
like...the Boy's Wondering what the hell he's doing with this this
creepy guy sporting the codpiece.

I learned that creativity can come from anywhere. I personally feel
that Sid and Marty Kroft must have been eating handfuls of blotter
acid before they created H.R. Pufnstuf. That show freaked me out, but
strangely enough babysitters and older relatives with bloodshot eyes
for some reason thought it was hilarious.

I learned that the dinosaurs from Land of the Lost would eat that
silly stupid stuffed Barney the Purple Dinosaur. That's if the
Sleestaks didn't get him first.

Then there's the crowning achievement of all violent cartoons: Tom and
Jerry. That frisky cat and smarmy mouse did battle for decades, never
once wavering from their pervasive onslaught of pain and torture upon
one another. I'm not really sure what the ASPCA's official feeling was
about the show, but it couldn't have been very positive.

I also learned that hitting your brother in the head with a frying pan
doesn't change the shape of his head into a frying pan. Oh, and a fire
cracker blowing up in your hand/face doesn't actually turn you black
from the explosion. It only results in second degree burns and
lifelong ligament damage. Whouda thunk it?


So when you hear people discussing my age group as the "Lost
Generation", don't readily take that erroneous pablum as
truth...because it's not. After all the violence, creepy animated
adventures and drug addled television we've seen growing up, we're not
lost...we're just hiding.

...and I have

...An Amerikan dream

But it involves black masks and gasoline

One day I'll turn these thoughts into screams

At a world turned its back down on me

Censor Me

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines censorship with the simple sentence: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.

Anyone who’s ever presented a piece of art, writing or photographic interpretation of what they’re trying to express usually describes it as something else. Bullshit.

Now, what really ticks me off is that the word I chose to describe how I feel isn't going to be used. They’ll say BS, or bull puckey, or some other childish term that doesn’t offend those with soft ears or who are pure of heart.

I used to be able to write certain words and phrases and it would get published verbatim. As long as I didn’t drop an F bomb in all its grand glory, my column would be published exactly as I’d written it.

But it seems as The Coast News has started to infiltrate the more affluent areas of San Diego, I’m getting much less room to negotiate my point of view.

My column regarding the Hotel del Coronado was supposed to have the sentence, “That place is as scary as shit.” Instead, the S word was edited to say “you-know-what.” It made me look like a moronic second grader. I was instantly irate. I felt like pushing an old lady down a flight of stairs or punting a bag of kittens.

I couldn’t believe that the same newspaper that has let me run rampant for two and a half years was starting to censor the ramblings that fell out of my head and into newsprint every week. Then the realization of advertising money and who exactly was reading the paper became clear.

What I discovered next shocked me like I’d taken a leak on an electric fence. They don’t even run my column in the Rancho Sante Fe version of The Coast News. Apparently the thought of the wealthy reading my column and regurgitating their Starbucks all over the Persian rug is just too much for them to handle. God forbid.

Censorship has gotten to the point where simple words are offending the puritanical masses so profoundly that ridiculous sums of money are levied against those that dare verbalize a word that the FCC deems too ghastly to say in public.

George Carlin made national attention in 1978 when one of his comedy routines was played at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. One thing lead to another and it was established that there were seven words that could never be spoken on air. The naughty police will wash your mouth out with soap. Nuns will punch you in the face and grandmothers will kick you square in the gonads.

As my editors have been pulling my leash even tighter lately, I thought I’d share these seven potty-mouthed words in terms that I’m allowed to express myself with.

They are poo, tinkle, fug, rhymes with bunt, a person who inhales a rooster, someone who engages in coital relations with a mother, and hooters. To me, those words are way more offensive than their predecessors.

Hitler’s a disgusting word to millions of people, yet I hear that every other day on the History Channel. Obscenity is an objective term and depends upon each person’s interpretation of what they find offensive.

Today we have a cadre of right-wing fascists who are trying to tell me what I can or cannot hear. Whether it’s FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, or members of the Morality in Media Inc., they all want to lend a heavy helping hand and push me into believing what I can or cannot listen to. They “protect” us by trying to determine the difference between indecent (which is just below how I’d describe the Bush regime) and obscene (which of course ruins all moral fiber, forces us take drugs and make babies out of wedlock).

Our government thinks of us as retarded simians. The oligarchy believes that if we’re left alone long enough to think for ourselves, we might lose all social culture and start living in trees if we happen to hear a few four letter words.

So, take a deep breath and calm down. The next time you get home from work, sit back with a cocktail, let your bitch outside, say hello to your neighbor Dick and change your pussy’s litterbox. You might try cooking up some shittake mushrooms and use your remote cuntrol, er control to waste away the rest of your night.

Quite simply, they’re just words. Air and guttural sounds emitted from our throat and larynx, changed and altered by our tongue and teeth so as to become coherent for us to understand.

We are the one’s who give them meaning and the power to offend us.

Personally, I have better things to worry about.

Shopping is fucking lame

Shopping is so fucking lame. Unless it's for sports cars, season tickets or a new huge rack for your girlfriend, shopping is the just boring.

I'm the worst culinary procrastinator when it comes to having food in my house. I'm such a lazy ass, I'll wait till I'm down to two tortillas, four crappy rice cakes, and a jar of peanut butter before I'll schlep my way toward Von's. I never know what aisles carry what items, plus I turn into a teenager with a credit card.

Yeah, so what I admit it. In the past few months, I've purchased three toy guns, army men, IncrediBalls, squirt guns, a rubber snake to terrify house guests and more than a few of those sticky slimers that roll down the wall when chucked at the closest drywall.

I am Man. Hear me purchase...stupid inane items that usually only children with a paltry allowance and funds from a summer of lawn care entrepreneurship would ever buy.

My common plan of attack usually involves grabbing a cart. Because those little basket things are useless, and I do my best when whisking down the aisles, finding what I need to keep my life near equilibrium.

At Von's, I race my cart with mercurial fluidity, grabbing the various meats and cheeses that tickle my fancy. This usually means shredded cheese for quesadillas and burritos, and a few bags of smoked turkey for post-work sammiches. Though I graduated from college years ago, I still shop and eat like I'm 19. Stop laughing please.

I'm always a sucker for the household cleaning area too. I'm susceptible to any new cleaning product or new fresh-rain scented device I can plug into a wall socket and/or bottle I can spray in my shower even thought I pay for a housekeeper to clean my place twice a month. I am clearly a moron.

I try to avoid the aisle with all the feminine products and adult diapers. That's the guy kryptonite zone. Unfortunately, at one time in our life, every guy has had to do the walk of shame and buy something for his girlfriend or wife.
Buying tampons can neuter a guy pretty quickly. So, to up the testosterone level of your purchase, you have to buy something that's really manly. Like a Mitre saw, or a mountain lion. I settle for beef jerky and a toy hammer that squeaks.

Then gliding down the frozen foods section, I'll buy the mainstay: Pizza and few frozen dinners that never look like the box when I cook it. It just always looks like the creeping crud you'd get in third grade. Four sections of brown, yellow, or green stuff that tastes like brown, yellow and green stuff.

As per usual, I write my initials on the inside of the glass doors, so that everyone knows I was there.

I buy a new shaving kit even though I have four news ones at home. I think this new razor has fourteen vibrating blades that should turn my face to mulch in no time. Sweet.

Last and not nearly the least is the booze section. Unfortunately, my Von's kinda sucks with it's selection. I'd advise going to BevMo in Encinitas. It's like a drinker's toy store. Just bring a credit card, and try not to drool.

For some reason people tend to give me dirty looks when I'm coasting down a certain aisle with a red firefighter hat on, six shooter cap guns strapped to my hips while I tear into a fresh bad of Red Vines. Why can't we have fun shopping too? Being an adult all the time is boring anyway.

So, don't judge me, I'm shopping.

Things I've learned working at a bar...

-Waiting twenty minutes to get into a dive bar is just dumb.

-Always use an open stall when urinating. It only takes one drunken customer who sprinkles your shoe to learn that little gem.

-If someone says something dumb to me when I check their ID, they're statements are going to get increasingly less intelligent with every ensuing cocktail they pour down their throat. This is known at the Shhh-You're-Drooling-On-Yourself Paradigm.

-Seeing your customers away from the bar makes you think, “Who the fuck is having sex with these people?”

-The women's bathroom stinks just as bad as the men's.

-I still feel very fortunate that I get to write a column every week. I think my Mom is bribing my editors.

-Working at a bar doesn't necessarily equate to frequent, random sex. A girlfriend does.

-Roadhouse and Cocktail are the dumbest movies ever. and yet I still watch them.

-Even if you show me your boobs, I'm not giving you a free drink. But the rest of the bar appreciates your attempt.

-Not tipping = Bad karma. And pissed off bartenders.

-Friends and enemies come and go, but homeless guys will always smoke other people's cigarettes.

-Winning a bar fight is like getting free tickets to a Kenny Chesney concert. Even if you win, you're still really lame.

-Barroom intellectuals seem to gather strength and momentum if left to their own devices. It's best to fake a poop cramp and run away.

-My attention span has dwindled to sad proportions while bartending. Watching humans and their nocturnal predilection for booze begs the question of Darwin's sobriety.

-Hooking up in a bar is usually not such a hot idea. More than likely you're just another stop on her drunken carousel.

-It's usually a good idea to stay (somewhat) anonymous when you're out boozing in Encinitas. Having your friends read about your dumb ass can be hard on a fragile ego.

-If you're going to act like an asshole, people know you're full of shit.


Apparently it's quite evident that I've only gleaned a wee bit of wisdom during my tenure as a vodka jockey. Go figure. Then again, it's not like I learned that much in college either.

At least with this situation, my drinks are free...

Finally...and who the fuck took my name?

First off, I wanna know who stole my Doorman Diaries name. Honestly.

Fess up. Tell the truth and I won't hit you in the head with a bacon press. If you're a fucklick and you swiped my name, stand up...and claim it.

Granted, it's not really mine...I think. I do remember through a Ketel One hazed fog that I copyrighted that term....right?