"The idea is to fill up Facebook with music, breaking the monotony of
politics and Pokemon. The people who "like" this post will be given a
letter of a musician, band or artist and you should post a video of
this, including this text on your timeline..." - My friend, Kendall, on FB, from a friend of hers and so on... This kernel inspired a new idea as I'm holy-shit-a-whole-week-late posting my letter "R," and I happen to post an "A" track instead, and find myself listening to a "B" track that inspires me...why not 100 days of music.
So for each day from today, a triple-loaded day 1, I'll post a track or artist by the letter or day or whatever I decide going forth basically* It could be a song that inspires me, makes me laugh, or one that I just pure love. THERE ARE NO RULES. ...except that I must post something everyday :) Can't imagine a better way to start each day off than listening to some music that I love and sharing it with all those I love. I hope you feel the love from a task that is indeed bigger than me ;) I encourage anyone happening to read this to join inin whatever way, even if its just listening along with me. *you can bet day 10, K in our one-letter-ahead system, will be Kendrick Lamar Day. On to...
Day 1 of Music A - Aaliyah "Try Again" If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself and try again...
B- "Bigger Than Me" - The Game Warning: This goes hard as fuck.
And lastly, For my assigned letter, "R," the British drum n bass crew of whom I caught the blissful end of their set at Coachella 2014, Rudimental - "Feel The Love."
I woke up this morning from a night of haunting dreams, feeling lost and empty, frightened by my instability and weakness.
Rather than live in fear of these emotions as I have in the past, I put my hands over my head and lay back in meditation and introspection. I got out of bed and found just the right person to talk to, and have been pouring out tears of all types ever since.
Desert Hearts taught me more than I could imagine this weekend, but the real learning starts here and now. It is easy to open yourself up to your true self when you're surrounded by such a community of love and acceptance but the true test is to translate that into the reality of modern society around us.
I brought several journals with me that I shared with the community around me to allow them to share with me, and thus to us. One of my favorite entries was spoken by a new brother, Ishmael, and beautifully transcribed by our friend Sade while we chilled in Volunteer HQ during the rain of Tuesday morning. The topic was finding true love, and the 5 things that were simultaneously necessary in order for it to work. Over and over again this summer I have struggled with one thing in my life...timing.
Through my separate conversation I realized how I have constantly felt under-prepared for EVERYTHING since a major life disruption occurred in mid-July, yet I have not once taken the step back to adjust for this, instead trying to overcompensate by hustling my fucking ass off. The hustle was real but never truly successful. I kept my head above water but was never truly afloat.
For perhaps the first time in my life I am stepping back and calling a timeout. I am postponing the show we had planned for November 28th not because I don't want to or the idea isn't great or because it isn't going to succeed, but because I am aware that the timing isn't right.
While this entry was intended to describe the qualities necessary in finding true love, I have found that moreover it describes the qualities necessary in finding true success for my newfound company. The reason for this turns out to be quite simple. While we currently appear to be another company throwing parties in LA and the surrounding area, our true purpose is to spread love and community. Through the moments we share through music, dancing, laughter, delirium...together we build a better community, one that is CONNECTED, soul to soul, peer to peer, to share our love and understanding, compassion for one another.
Together we release the shackles of a subjugated past, and break into this newfound future of enlightenment.
With summer now officially drawing to a close, I feel like its an appropriate time for me to share with you the songs that inspired me the most this summer, a summer which blasted me with inspiration left and right. The song did not have to come out this summer, which you will quickly realize. It does however have to have a link online, thereby disqualifying all of Dr. Dre's album (and thus allowing a far more diverse list)
In typical countdown fashion, here we go:
5) Let the Rhythm Just - The Polish Ambassador
I don't know if you could really call this a pump-up song, but this one was certainly one of the most important of the summer. I always like to have a song on deck for instances where I get overwhelmed a bit by life - frustrated by circumstances, relationships, whatever. Up until partway through the summer, that song was "Money Trees" by Kendrick Lamar, a track I still find it impossible to be unhappy to ("ya bish").
My brother Shmitty introduced me to The Polish Ambassador sometime in June and I took to him immediately. The lyrics just take you away from any sort of internal struggle...
You know there couldn't be an inspirational list of mine that didn't include a song from Kendrick Lamar. I liked his most recent album quite a bit but it didn't take long before I was back to listening to "Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City" when I was looking for a dose of 'drick (mind the 'r'). This one stuck out to me this summer.
"How many ways am I killing emmm, shit, right around a billionnn"
I was introduced to this song
about 3 years late, and introduced to Flume about...however late I am on
Flume by discovering him this summer.
I had the pleasure
of seeing Flume twice this summer - first at LIB, second at EDC. Both
sets were off the chain. Its super tough to compare the two as in the
first I had no expectations and was wowed by how his drops got the crowd
to shake, the second I knew some things and had the pleasure of
fulfilled expectations.
This song, in particular,
became our anthem for EDC, as soon as the homie Patrick (yes, THE
Patrick) put it on in the car on the way to Day 1. It was then played on
every single car ride to and from a minimum of once, and became my
go-to pump song for the rest of the WSOP.
From the start:
"All that I want in this life is the chance to do my thing"
To the hook:
I want the top
All my people right there at the back of the spot
I need the top
If you know, you don't know me to stop
I need the top
All my people there, back at the spot
Let up the shots
This song pure inspires me...you'd just
have to look at the number of times Patty and I went back and forth via
text simply "I want the top" -> "All my people right there at the
back of the spot."
2) Fight Song - Rachel Platten
And we almost had a list that was all hip-hop and electronic, but I can get down to some pop too ;)
Honestly, it was a bit of a toss up as to whether or not I put this one first or second. In the end I went with the song that I went most ballistic to, but if there was a song that truly struck a chord with me this summer, it was this one.
This summer was perhaps the biggest rollercoaster I've ever been on.
Poker is a pretty natural rollercoaster, but my relationships were the
subject of the most turmoil. Through a series of unfortunate
events/misunderstandings/communication problems/etc, one of my very best
friends walked out of my life, along with a few mutually close friends.
It was around this time that I first heard this song,
and it immediately became a source of strength to draw from.
Rachel Platten rips it from the heart on this one. To me, the chorus is everything:
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me
No explanation needed imo.
1) Let's Get It - The Lox
This track just fires me the fuck up. I don't know how or where I came across it, but its been a mainstay in any sort of prep time all summer long. If I have time for just one track when I'm getting the blood pumping, this is it. Nothin' else to it.
Niggas know it's lit cause we lit it.
Honorable Mentions:
Dr. Dre - Compton (Full Album)
I don't even know where to start with this album. Sike, yes I do - if you like rap and you haven't listened to it yet, I don't know what the fuck you're doing. If this album was up on Youtube or Spotify you would all already know, and it would also compile most of my top 5. This is one of my favorite albums ever, rivaling Kendrick's "Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City" in both production and lyrics. I like every single track on this album a LOT, but I scrapped together a top 6 (couldn't keep it to 5):
(Note on these play counts...the album came out about a month ago #addict)
1) Medicine Man (Play count: 31) - Dr. Dre feat. Eminem and Candice Pillay: Just wait for the heartbeat drop during Eminem's verse and lose your mind. Candice Pillay's cold lyrics say fuck all the haters so hard.
2) Darkside/Gone (Play count: 24) - Dr. Dre feat. King Mez, Marsha Ambrosius, and Kendrick Lamar: This is my favorite track of the three featuring Kendrick on here. Love the shoutout to Eazy E.
These lyrics spoke specifically to my doubters:
"People been tellin me I've grown into some kind of monster, but they don't know me though, I've been this way since 17."
"They'll find out when I'm gone."
3) Talking to My Diary (Play count: 24) - Dr. Dre's soliloquy and one of the few tracks actually feature in the film.
"Sometimes when I got a lot of shit on my mind
I'm just staring at the sky, you probably think that I'm high
I'm just, I'm just, talkin' to my diary
I'm just, I'm just, talkin' to my diary"
4) All In a Day's Work (Play count: 18) - Dr. Dre feat. Anderson .Paak and Marsha Ambrosius: In my most inspired summer ever, this one constantly gets me fired to get back to work, as you'll hear in the lyrics.
5) Animals (Play count: 19) - Dr. Dre feat. Anderson .Paak: An anthem for the race struggle taking place in modern America, highlighted by the tensions in St. Louis and Baltimore. This track is a straight up call out of white media, and a damn credible one at that.
6) One Shot One Kill (Play count: 17) - Dr. Dre feat Snoop Dogg: This one just goes hard and I love it. Couple of OGs.
Non-Dre Honorables:
Candice Pillay - Go Getta: Discovered her through "Medicine Man" on the Dre album...this one gets the juices going
Never in my life have I been so frustrated by a team I cheer for.
And I'm a St. Louis Rams fan.
The Washington Wizards, after starting the season 31-15, ranking as high as 2nd in the Eastern conference for significant periods of time, have now lost 6 straight, 11 of their last 13, and 2 straight games to the worst and 2nd-worst teams in their conferences, respectively.
Let me say that last part again. The Wizards just lost two straight games to the 13-44 Minnesota Timberwolves and the 13-45 Philadelphia 76ers. Their 26 COMBINED wins would rank 17th in the league.
The 76ers lost the first 19 games of the season and have since traded away their best player (Michael Carter-Williams), had a 5-game losing streak of their own going in, were led at PG by a player who signed as a free agent 5 days ago (Ish Smith - sick name btw), and even got 11 minutes from Javale McGee. JAVALE MCGEE (feel free to peruse YouTube for more gems). We remember him. Well, even he managed a +3 against us on Friday night. What's perhaps worst, is it looked like an evenly matched game between two equally terrible teams.
Now, we can make excuses. Bradley Beal, our second leading scorer, has missed 8 straight games. Paul Pierce, the starting small forward and veteran leader, has missed the last 2. Kris Humphries has been in-and-out with back soreness for the last few weeks. The Wizards are 1-7 since losing Beal, but then again, they had lost 5 straight before he went out.
The Wizards offense is in shambles, and sadly, it all starts with our supposed leader, John Wall. What the fuck has happened. In the first 4 games since the All-Star break, Wall attempted a grand total of 3 free throws. This is supposed to be a slasher that can get into the lane, create for himself and draw fouls. In the game against Minnesota he never attempted a single drive into the lane, NOT ONE, in spite of having a good pick set for him on 99.9% of possessions. He looked straight up timid with the ball, and was afraid to even take larger defenders off the dribble. His entire game has lacked intensity. Gone is the fiery leader that roared to the crowd after offensive and defensive plays alike. During the Wizards 2-11 stretch, he has amassed only 10 steals, down a full steal from his season average of 1.8 per/game. The last two games have seen him go 9/36 from the field (25%) against decidedly inferior opponents. Brick city.
Speaking of bricks, the Wizards "3-point shooters" sure like to put up a lot of them. Rasual Butler got off to a hot start shooting 3s this season, shooting 55% in November and 47% in December, but has since regressed to a paltry 33% in January and an awful 25% in February - right as we needed him to step up. Martell Webster, one of our more reliable 3-point shooters the last two seasons at around 40%, has struggled to get playing time since returning from injury, and has struggled even more at converting 3-pointers, making only 23% of his attempts. Perhaps he should stick to his rap career. Paul Pierce, Garrett Temple, and Otto Porter represent the most consistent 3-point shooting options right now, which is probably why we're getting outscored behind the 3-point line at a 3:1 clip of late.
The troubles don't stop there. Marcin Gortat has come out of his slump of late but both he and Nene have failed to create on their own and have both struggled off the pick-and-roll to boot. Nene has brief flurries of activity and then disappears for the rest of the game, and is somehow ineffective on the glass in spite of his size. This team really misses the spark that Kris Humphries brings off the bench, and I never thought I'd say that. In fact, "Hump," as he was so lovingly called by the Kardashian clan, has shocked me in overcoming his Kardashian-related handicap to become one of my favorite Wizards.
But more than any specific part of their team offense or defense, this team has lacked the fire that it had earlier in the season. They look lost, looking for leadership that Wall has failed to provide, along with Coach Randy Wittman.
A sad, sad team.
There are pieces of inspiration at hand. Drew Gooden always brings tenacity off the bench. Garrett Temple and Otto Porter have done an honorable job attempting to fill the shoes of Bradley Beal, bringing intensity on both ends of the court. Ramon Sessions looks re-invigorated since being freed from his restraints in Sacramento. There are guys who want to play, and they all seem to have one thing in common - they're coming off the bench.
So I think its time for a change and it starts with this: bench John Wall. Not for an extended period of time, just one game should do. Shake him up. Let him know he has to be the leader of this team, they look to him for energy and inspiration, and this current shit just ain't cutting it. It is blatantly obvious to me where Wall has been lacking on the offensive end of late, so it should be super-blatantly obvious to Randy Wittman. If he can't figure out how to coach Wall to steadily attack the lane or is somehow unaware of his current shortcomings, he needs to be fired.
I said late in the 4th quarter of the embarrassing loss to Minnesota that I would love to see a starting lineup of Sessions, Temple, Porter, Humphries, and Gortat out there on Friday night against the 76ers. Humphries is hurt, so give the start to Gooden. Wake this team up.
The Wizards were a popular pick to win the East as recently as a month ago. That fire isn't out yet, but if someone doesn't stoke it, these Wizards just might perish with winter.
About 5 years ago, in the early stages of my poker career, I began a blog with the intention of sharing some stories from my life, a majority of which came from poker. I was a professional Omaha player, commonly referred to as PLO (Pot Limit Omaha), thus engendering the blog title "Confessions of a Young PLOfessional."
These days I can no longer truly call myself an Omaha player, try to say I'm not a professional poker player (not many take this with much credence), and moreover, the "focus" of my blog has shifted rather far away from poker.
With this in mind, I have decided to change my blog title to "Life of a -Don," homage to a Logic song, and my extensive background as the head of a mob family.
Hopefully this will inspire me to actually start writing...
Please allow me to re-introduce myself (my name is Cole, my n*****)
There was a day and age where I respected hashtags.
When they first appeared, hashtags seemed the perfect literary tool. To me, they provided something like an alter-ego within a single post...an alternative voice a la Jim Gaffigan's audience voice (#hotpockets). It could provide a shift to sarcasm, a summarizing point, or in times of desperation/confusion, the actual topic I'm talking about (#hashtags). It seemed innocent enough and I enjoyed its introduction.
But now here we are in 2014...
It seems as if Instagram has installed some sort of hashtag quota that users need to fulfill in order to maintain their accounts on the site. Over 50% of your captions are JUST words? Get the fuck out of here. Your caption reads like an actual sentence instead of someone trying to spit out their last words while choking on a walnut? NOT FOR INSTAGRAM.
Do people even realize what they are writing? #Does #anyone #realize #how #much #harder #it #is #to #read #with #all #of #these #stupid #fucking ##s #in #the #way? Let alone TYPE. I fear that in the future the # is going to jump right into the middle of the keyboard lest we not have to mash "Shift + 3" every time we try to write "descriptions." There doesn't even seem to be an article clause like we have for "the" and "a" which are commonly un-capitalized in titles. Hashtag that shit! What if someone is trying to search for all the #a's just to see what people are saying about "A?!" You know some Chinese kid does that somewhere.
And "latergram"??? I had to go and look that shit up online the other day because I kept seeing it and wondering what the hell it was, and why in the world such an apparently meaningless word was being hashtagged in 125% of the pictures I was seeing on Facebook. Turns out its just to notify me that "THIS WAS NOT INDEED AN INSTANTANEOUSLY POSTED PICTURE"...kind of like most pictures of most people in all day every day life...seriously. You have no idea the amount of stress that saved me in wondering when that picture was taken. I was all like, "Wow she's posting it at 9 pm but the sun looks like mid-day...is this REALLY an Instagram or are they just full of shit? Oh it says #latergram, thank God now I can sleep."
You know what a "latergram" really is? A normal fucking picture. That people feel compelled to share instantaneous updates on their lives via social media tilts me enough...that they now feel the need to notify us when its not actually instantaneous...Maybe those old letters we used to write people that traveled through this ancient postal system I've heard a lot about should have included a note at the end, "P.S. Just so you know, this letter only reflects my life/views up until like 2 weeks ago, I apologize for the gross delay."
I feel like there's a few things that people are maybe missing that could help rectify this hashtagopalypse:
1) I can read words that aren't in blue.
2) It has been years since I enjoyed the "see if you can find all of these items hidden in this picture" game...I don't need your hashtag word bank (#maithai #sun #beach #sand #umbrellas #gfy)
3) No one cares when you took your pictures, unless they ask something like "when was this?" at which point you can notify them of a time-frame more meaningful than "not the exact second I posted it"
4) When you hashtag every single word you are detracting from whatever "meaningful" words you were actually trying to hashtag. We are now just reading a sentence full of stupid delays.
5) If you were in any way offended by any of this, you should probably take a break from social media.
I miss the days when I saw "#" and thought "the pound key or something like that in the corner of the phone."
The Wizards signed Drew Gooden to a contract for the rest of the season today, and I am fired up.
Drew Gooden you say? You're fired up about Drew Gooden?
I'm fired up about how badly Drew Gooden wanted to play for this team.
---
To finish his second consecutive 10-day contract with the Wizards, Gooden went OFF on Saturday night, putting up 21 points in a season-high 26 minutes of play. 11 of them came in the 4th quarter when Gooden decided the game was HIS to win.
The Wizards have a plethora of 3 pt shooters - Beal, Ariza, Martell Webster, Wall loves hitting 4th quarter 3s, hell even Al Harrington can jack up the 3 ball. But who went 1/2 in the 4th quarter from the 3 point line on Saturday with a the look of conviction in his eyes when he shot that ball? Drew fucking Gooden. (Note: this doesn't include the 21-footer he hit with his toe on the line that had to be reviewed for several minutes.)
The man was just launching his shots, feeling every single one.
He held his arms up to the crowd, a man on fire.
The other 3 nearly went in as well. The man just had that look in his eyes.
---
Now know that going into this game, I have always hated Drew Gooden. He was a Jayhawk, and as a lifelong Missouri basketball fan, I recognized him for the demon spawn that he was...
...or that I thought he was? He couldn't really go the way of Mario Chalmers, my one Forgiven Son of the Jayhawk cesspool. Did I see a fire burning around him that wasn't the fiery embers of the Inferno? He buried a shot.
And then another shot.
My rational brain reminded me, "he's just a washed up old center, out of the league for almost a year and a half, this can't be that real."
He grabbed a ball outside, toe on the line, and straight up drilled it.
Brain: "Say what."
He said give me that fucking ball from the 3-point line son, I don't care where it is. Late in a shot clock, he takes the ball in his hand, looks towards the basket, sees he has it. Rattles it out.
"Oh my God he wants it," I shout at the screen, I can see that fire in his eyes. All of a sudden I'm a proponent of this 6' 10" man launching bombs. "Drew Gooden, who are you?!"
I know he's getting that ball back. We all know he's getting that ball back.
He drills another shot.
Give me another 3 he says. This is my game. This is OUR game. We WILL win this game.
He gets the ball outside. I am salivating.
Drills it.
"DREW GOODEN!" I look around the room to the no-one-else-watching in amazement.
"WHAT THE FUCK DREW GOODEN WHO ARE YOU!" I lose my shit at the screen in front of me.
He extends his arms out to the crowd (to ME), a man among men, and I am sold. Prove yourself no further, Drew Gooden you are a part of this team, give this man the fucking ball.
---
In a game where the ever-steady C Marcin Gortat was held to 2 pts and a -10 rating, Drew Gooden stepped up with a +17, tacking on 9 rebounds on an incredibly efficient 8/11 from the field and 4/4 at the line. He was the out-of-the-blue backbone to the Wizards 29-15 4th quarter.
When the clock ran down on the Wizards resolute victory, John Wall stood appropriately betrothed the rock, another man among men, roaring to the sold-out crowd around him. The crowd roared back. Exhibiting a near-free-will to get into the lane to create his own shots, Wall tossed in a casual 33 points himself, rising to the equal foe.
This Wizards team is here to fight.
Sure they're coasting their way into the playoffs of a horrendous Eastern Conference, but this is a team that is finally ready to be there, a team that is ready for war.
John Wall is a true leader and has emerged as the legitimate #1 overall-type draft pick the Wizards took him with in 2010. Bradley Beal hasn't even turned 21 and drives teams fits flying around the court looking for his shot...just to briefly mention his phenomenal talent (l hope some people got to see that block from behind on Friday). Ariza, Gortat, Nene...Booker, Webster, fucking Al Harrington (who I LOOOOOVE), newly arrived Andre Miller, now even Drew Gooden...
They might not all be household names, they might sound a little bit old, but this team can play.
...
Just look at how badly Drew Gooden wants to play for them.
The song of the week is inspired by my brain's "Say What" and comes from my favorite rap album of the moment J. Cole's "Born Sinner," check it out if you don't mind a little profanity.
The concept for the following blog is something I've been wanting to do for a few months now, and is semi-inspired by SI.com's Hot Clicks (http://extramustard.si.com/category/hot-clicks/)...minus the hot women part. I'm sure you will all be satisfied by a hot song instead... The idea is to post a handful of good links I found over the course of the week during my copious amounts of free time spent wandering the internet, then hopefully not ruin them with pieces of insight/feedback here and there. These links are obviously going to be a bit oriented to my own interests (click bias), but I'll try not to do over 50% sports...On to the first week... Gonna start with a shameless attention grabber for the ADHD-inclined, 60 very interesting photos from 2013: http://all-that-is-interesting.com/60-surprising-photos-2013
A less surprising photo:
Now, I want to just say a couple of things about Richard Sherman. My intention was to write a blog about it, but with all the attention he is getting there are already a few writers that have crushed this one. What I will say is that love him or hate him, I want Richard Sherman playing on my team. I WANT my teammates thinking they're the best. Hell there have been times in college flag football games where the opposing QB targeted my WR and I thought "oh hell no what do you think you're doing throwing at me" when I knocked the pass away. It's a mentality of the game, and while his digs on Crabtree might seem a bit sharp, I really don't think I can blame him. Looks a bit different with some miced-up context: http://www.nfl.com/videos/san-francisco-49ers/0ap2000000316744/Sound-FX-Sherman-and-Crabtree-clash http://www.forbes.com/sites/tommytomlinson/2014/01/19/22-brief-thoughts-about-that-richard-sherman-interview/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/isaac-saul/what-richard-sherman-taught-us_b_4631980.html And my personal favorite, Sherman ripping Skip Bayless an absolute new one on Bayless's own show last year. For some this might bring into question his character (touch arrogant) but Skip Bayless is a douche.
I am here today, and in the future, to propose an alternate view, free of the confines of someone looking over my shoulder. Free because I do not have a real job, I do not have a boss, and I find myself wholly unaccountable to anyone else, and certainly not the U.S. government (what up Panama).
It is an easy argument to make that I am doing this, in no small part, for myself. I want weed legalized in the U.S., that's a no-brainer. I want to move to a town in Colorado somewhere between Denver and the west end of the Rocky Mountains, open up a coffee shop (the version you would find in Amsterdam), and live happily ever after. I have had a name picked out for 3 years. Sociabowl. If you steal it I have proof RIGHT HERE.
It is not an easy argument to say that I am doing this for the benefit of the U.S. government. The same guys who took my job away from me overnight on April 15, 2011 and temporarily froze 2/3 of my liquid assets for no real reason. The same guys who treat NATIONAL FINANCIAL DEADLINES just like I did most papers junior year of college: "IT'S COOL, YOU DON'T NEED TO DO IT! YOU'RE IN DENIAL! AN 'F' REALLY ISN'T THAT BAD!" That said, deep down I obviously do want my hometown government to succeed. That I feel like drug legalization would help them is a nice side-effect, and at the very least a powerful argument I hope to land with others that don't want weed legalized for the same reasons I do.
But I choose to raise the banner on this side of the war right now just because simply, I think that it is right. I think people should be allowed the choice to smoke marijuana, because who gives a fuck. I hope to write a series of blogs that explore drug use from a variety of perspectives, that not only reflect my personal experiences and beliefs regarding drugs, but also an informed analytical perspective as well (I did squeeze out an Economics major after all). We will consider this my basic hypothesis: "Weed should be nationally legalized and overall drug use has an irrationally bad reputation." By taking what I currently have a lot of - personal experience, either in taking or being around - and combining that with some research, I hope to show what support for this hypothesis there really is.
My ideas on drugs differ greatly from the national government's stance on drugs, and that is in no small part due to the fact that my views aren't based on information from the 1930s.
Here is a good way to start.
Acid? Not really at all what you thought it was
Ecstasy? On the right stuff, you are 100x more coherent than when drunk
Weed? Pretty much the best drug in the world
Mushrooms? Actually the best drug in the world
I imagine a LOT of you reading this will have a similar, adverse reaction to hearing these drug names, but why IS that? Is it really anything beyond social stigma in most cases? How much have you even heard about these drugs since DARE scared the crap out of us (myself included) from the 1st-5th grades (ages 6-10 for you foreigners). Who doesn't remember the slogan "DARE to keep kids off drugs?" Were any of those times you've heard about it since then not been in the negative spotlight of media?
I didn't smoke weed until I was 21 years old. Among stoner standards, I am one hell of a late bloomer. Why did I wait so long?
Growing up in a family of two parents that didn't drink aside from my dad's once-annual-glass-of-merlot-on-a-family-trip, I had little to no exposure to the world of alcohol, the one, true gateway drug. My dad ordered a gin and tonic once when I was 20 and I nearly shit myself. Oblivious to the simplest of "vices," drugs were easily conceived to be a terrible, terrible thing in the mind of young, impressionable Brandon, an image reinforced and molded by a fairly rigorous DARE program in elementary school. In middle school I was swearing my best friend to pacts that we would never drink (Sorry Graham, I may have broken that…). Even in high school I looked at the groups that went out and drank with quiet disdain, although that was mostly because they were primarily popular douchebags. Drug use? That was on a whole different level.
But things started to change when I was finally exposed to a more open-minded and accepting view of drinking, aka college. Admittedly many people at least dabble with drinking in high school, but outside of a couple of brief escapades with Sangria in Europe, I was an alcohol noob.
What I saw in college was something completely different. People I RESPECTED were drinking, and having a good fucking time. Not only that, nothing bad was happening. I mean, people were puking, some were making out with people they wouldn't have been two hours ago, and I found a sport that I was truly fucking terrible at for a while (beer pong) but nothing TERRIBLE was happening. I was bound to get better at beer pong eventually.
For the first time in my life I saw alcohol as something that could actually just be a good thing, and not the life-crushing monster I had somehow built it up to be. For the first year of college I drank probably around 5 times (I did still go to William and Mary so it wasn't that hard to avoid) but this was a huge change from the previous 18 years of my life. Once sophomore year started, it was all uphill from there. Drinking became a very normal - and very awesome - part of my social life.
With this barrier knocked down, the logical one to follow was marijuana.
The summer after freshman year of college one of my best friends and I went golfing one afternoon. In the car ride over he tentatively went about telling me that he had started smoking weed.
I just about slapped him in the face.
18 years old, and this was my honest reaction to a friend of mine telling me that he'd started - very, VERY recreationally* - smoking weed. I was honestly fuming at him for the rest of the car ride but during golf we were able to have a semi-open discussion about it. To say the least I hadn't exactly been converted. But he was a friend and I wasn't quite a big enough pussy at the time to drop a friend because he liked weed, just really, really close (ask my friend Sam about when he started smoking cigarettes sometime).
The one thing this did accomplish, however, was that he was the first good friend of mine that I truly RESPECTED, that smoked weed. At the very least, I had been willing to accept it, and when I listened to him talk I found myself armed with shockingly little logic to contend his arguments. All of a sudden I felt like I was just spewing out the same shit I'd heard from 3rd grade and never once questioned whether or not it was true. Drugs are bad, mmkay?
Obviously found South Park a little too late too...
A year later virtually all of my resistance to weed had been broken down. Turned out, LOTS of people I respected smoked weed. Who knew? (Again, LOTS of people). So when a conversation with my parents rolled around in which they tried to convince me to drink "responsibly" (they probably wouldn't have appreciated my DIS-interest** listed on Facebook: "drinking in moderation") I steered it in a different direction: "Why shouldn't I smoke weed?"
Momentarily ignoring my dad's request to have mom answer the question, I was laid out a number of reasons (read: theories, most notably "it could be laced with things") that I had essentially debunked over the last year at school while quietly observing. My mom's final attempts to dissuade me from using weed had, ironically, convinced me that I was comfortable trying it, when the moment arose.
A few weeks later a conversation with my Dad led to the suggestion that I try it, to which I assured him, "don't worry, I will."
It took nearly a full year for me to "deem the time right," or rather, to attempt to take my aforementioned junior year academic self-destruction to the social realms. "Fuck it, its been a weird night, let's just fucking get it over with and try it." Ironically, I could now argue that the botched attempt at "self-destruction" that fateful 4/21 (yes, the day after) turned out to be the first major step in the right direction...
*For the purposes of this blog post, "recreationally" is a word. For the purposes of the rest of my life, I will be an avid supporter of making it one.
**Dis-interests were a subset of Interests on Facebook, created by Evan Elsaesser*** and Jeff Clark****, but regrettably never officially sanctioned by Facebook.
***Dis-interested in Nick Cannon's Wildn' Out.
****Dis-interested in all drinks other than Mountain Dew
Other Infamous Disinterests
Tyra Banks' personality
Subway commercials
Small Car Fake-Me-Outs (an open parking space that turns out to be not so open at all...)
Spencer from The Hills
While idly browsing (read: scanning 1 by 1, clicking through additional pictures) Maxim's recently releasedHot 100 of 2013, I became unnerved by an apparent trend in Maxim's following: it is now principally comprised of 14-year old girls.
The evidence is condemning. A top 100 list voted on "by the people" came to the conclusion that Miley Cyrus is the hottest woman in the world. The girl that can't even decide what she looks like for more than 14 and a half minutes, perhaps stuck in the multi-personality universe of her former Disney character, Hannah Montana.
In response to being bestowed with this honor, Miley was quoted saying, "It feels amazing to be the No.1 especially because it was voted on by the fans. I have the best fans in the world!" What are Miley Cyrus's fans doing voting in a Maxim poll? They certainly shouldn't be Maxim readers.
Last I checked, Maxim readers were loosely defined as "men who want to have sex with women." I have prepared a Venn Diagram for you.
As you can see, there is virtually no overlap between the fans of Miley Cyrus and those who want to bang her (i.e. read Maxim).
Now, there was a brief disruption in this relationship back in 2010/2011 with the release of "Party in the USA" that actually permitted me to use shading:
But without another insanely catchy song to continue this trend, we have quickly reverted to the original diagram.
Other Disney Stars in the top 10*:
2) Selena Gomez**
7) Ashley Tisdale
9) Vanessa Hudgens
Then Demi Lovato sneaks it in at #26, who I was sure until just now was only famous for her singing and had never gotten hot. Turns out I might be a little wrong on this one but still.
You may argue, "But there aren't any other Disney stars in the top 100." That's because their chaotic-pack-of-teenage-girls fanbase threw everything they had at all they got. They sapped the Disney hotness pool dry.
This is like when MLB opened up All-Star voting internationally and all of a sudden Kosuke Fukudome was an All-Star. He of the CAREER line of 42 HR and 192 RBI, a decent season for Miguel Cabrera if you ignore the inflated RBI numbers and .258 career batting average. It is wrong, and should not be stood for.
*Full poll results actually showed Miley Cyrus got 2nd in the voting but Zach Efron was deemed ineligible after considerable deliberation (thus simultaneously bumping Justin Beiber from his spot at #3).
**Selena Gomez was the rightful #1 and we all know it.
The Hot 100 provided several other unusual results. Some of them led me to believe they weren't really voted on at all.
The Democratic Plant.
#54: Kamala Harris.
Who?
"The current Attorney General of California."
Oh.
What?
...
What?
Full Bio: "The current Attorney General of California cracks down on hate and financial crime like a bawss and created the Environmental Justice Unit in San Francisco. She makes following the law super sexy!"
And is popular enough to be FAN-voted into Maxim's Hot 100? Are 14 year-old girls suddenly extremely politically savvy? Did I just use 4 words in a row ending with a 'y'? Are you allowed to make entire paragraphs of questions?
I think the Democrats bought her a spot. Look for her on the 2016 ballots, you heard it hear first.
"Is it 1998?"
- Ryan Martin
#23: Heather Graham
#10: Elisha Cuthbert
#6: Jennifer Love-Hewitt
Don't get me wrong, Heather Graham is still pretty hot, but its 2013. Where is this coming from? Is she playing a mom on a new Disney show?
I think this list is best paired with the movie in which each of their careers peaked.
#23: Heather Graham - Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)
#10: Elisha Cuthbert - The Girl Next Door (2004)
#6: Jennifer Love-Hewitt - The Tuxedo (2002)
I have a really hard time saying anything bad about Jennifer Love-Hewitt, who recently stated the value of her boobs is greater than $5 million. However, she has arguably never been in a good movie. She is still absurdly hot though.
Then we have the ultimate blast from the 90's past, Danielle Fishel, #27, who you may better know as Topanga Lawrence from the long-retired "Boy Meets World." Evidently she is re-launching her career in, wait for it, "Girl Meets World," the long-awaited spin-off.
Yes folks, they have managed to pull both Topanga and Ben Savage away from their booming post-BMW careers to star in the new show, which is expected to be picked up by, you guessed it, THE DISNEY CHANNEL.
Someone Is Trying To Get Free Double-Doubles For Life.
#93: Lynsi Torres.
I clicked on Lynsi Torres because it looked like her picture was of a staff at In-N-Out, and that intrigued me, because I love In-N-Out. Double double animal style with fries and a strawberry milkshake. All. Day. Long.
It turns out she is the youngest American female billionaire as the owner/heiress of the In-N-Out franchise, and not at all hot.
I don't blame whoever did this as his motivation clearly lies in the right place, but the fans surely couldn't have expected any sort of mass executive treatment for voting her in.
Fuck The Two Broke Girls.
#83: Kat Dennings.
No. No. No. No. Noooooooooo. I fucking hate you and your goddamn face. I even hate your enormous boobs. You've brought disgrace to the acronym "DSL."
They haven't come up with a word yet that aptly describes my hatred for your horrendous atrocity of a TV show. If you could turn "even worse than Two and a Half Men" into a word that would be how I would describe it.
The New Girl Is Old News?
#95: Zooey Deschanel
Last I checked, Zooey Deschanel was everyone's favorite weirdo to fiend for this side of Aubrey Plaza.*** I'm not one of those people that go apeshit for Zooey Deschanel, but I do recognize her mass popularity and the crazy number of people that would put her #1. She's also a legitimately funny actress, which is more than I can say for most of the "comic" actresses on this list. I'm looking at you Kat Dennings. And my eyes are burning.
***The "this side of Aubrey Plaza" was only added after viewing these
poll results and seeing Aubrey Plaza at #85, which I applaud. She is
very weird, and very weirdly attractive (although not more attractive
than Zooey, although weirder).
I take issue with a couple other things on the list, but in the interest of broaching positivity, I will instead give my top 10 within the list, and my top 5 absentees.
Honorable mentions go to Rachel Bilson (74), Eva Mendes (57), Blake Lively (24), Sara Underwood (71), and Sarah Hyland (44), who wasn't included because I felt skeezy enough with one 20-year-old on the list already. The bottom two can really be replaced with any of these qutie as easily. Also a lot of others.
Top 5 absentees off the top of my head:
5) Anna Kendrick (have to include my background girl)
4) Bar Rafaeli (for Ryan)
3) Kate Mara
2) Minka Kelly (how do you put her doppleganger at #36 and not include the original?)
1) Natalie Portman
In all fairness, I do have to tip my hat to Maxim's inclusion of Manti Te'o's girlfriend at the albeit-conspicuous ranking of #69. Well played Maxim. And while the combination of arbitrariness and Disney-influence leaves me wondering if the voting panel was about as real as Te'o's girlfriend, I always appreciate the entertainment value of a good top 100 list.
Over the last week and a half I have had what I would very much consider a life-changing experience. For the first time in my adult life I acted in a play, an experience that opened me up to far more than just a creative side of me, but also to a different world within Boquete, Panama where I currently live.
At the same time as my play was taking place, our Panamanian maid, Fani, who we have come to view as much as a mother as our maid, was visiting the doctors concerned that some pain in her chest and arm may be related to some sort of cancerous growth. While I spent Wednesday performing our first show, two of my housemates were driving her down to David to do whatever they could to help her expedite the process. Fani is a single-mother of 3 children, one of which now lives in Panama City pursuing a career, the other two of which are 14 and 8, and very much in need of her financial and motherly support. She is also 39 years old but looks like she has lived the life of any 3 of us in this house combined.
On Thursday I had a group of 15 friends of mine going to the play (a group which I was supposed to be a part of up until Sunday) and Fani requested a ticket. In spite of the fact that she understood virtually no English at all she wanted to come and see me perform in my absurd Australian accent that I had been walking around the backyard for three days practicing.
After the play I got to do something I had been wanting to do for a long time but didn't know how to approach: give Fani a hug. I thanked her for coming and gave her a hug that was equally disproportionate (the other way around) to what I actually meant by those words. I wanted to tell her that I loved her. I wanted to tell her that I hoped with all of my heart that she would come out of this okay. I wanted to thank her for calling me "el nino" because I'm the youngest in our house, for always giggling and calling my Anna Kendrick background "tu inspiracion," for always having a smile on her face while she wandered around our house attending to our daily messes. I wanted to thank her for becoming a part of our family while still being very much a doting employee. I hoped that she understood in the big hug that I gave her that I wasn't just saying "gracias para venir."
On Monday, the day after I finished the five performances for our play, I was out with a few friends and received the news that tests had come back showing that whatever issues she was having weren't cancerous. I smiled for at least 10 minutes straight.
After a week of having to worry that she might die and leave her kids behind for an uncertain future, a week plagued by sleeplessness to the extent that she asked a housemate if we had any sleeping pills that are completely foreign to her (yay for my ambien being useful), her heavy burdens had been laid to rest. She had been given new life.
---------------------------------------------------
The day before I had been hanging out smoking a joint with a few cast mates and one of the older ones, a musician in his 60's, said to us something so simply profound that I immediately wrote it down, "You know what brings me happiness in life: appreciation." The remark was partially inspired by how much he was enjoying the experience of acting for the first time in his life but far moreso how after several shows we went out as a cast to hang out, a cast ranging from age 18 to 65, with a wide variety of backgrounds (aside from that we were all American but one).
Life doesn't require a drastic experience like finding out you don't actually have cancer to stop and appreciate it but for so many it often does. I have found new life out of horrible circumstances, most significantly when I emerged from my first ever bout with horrible depression about a year ago and realized life was something worth living. But I have also found new life out of incredibly amazing experiences, like acting in a play, or going to Coachella and discovering my love for sharing music as a community. It shouldn't have taken Fani potentially having cancer for me to stop to appreciate her role in my life, but to some extent it did.
I want to write about my incredible experience that I had last week in participating in my first ever play but I wanted to make sure this blog showed what I truly appreciate: the love I feel for my family and friends, the love I feel for Fani. I am so thankful that you have found new life, and I am just as thankful that you will be able to continue to share it with us, your gringo family.
This blog is rated S for un-Saintly material. You can read it Grandma and Grandpa, but you (and I) might prefer you didn't.
This has to start with a guilty admission: I follow McKayla Maroney on Twitter. Because I'm interested in gymnastics. That apparently makes it better.
In browsing Twitter today I clicked on her profile and scrolled through to see what sort of pics, I mean nonsense, she had recently posted. Included was a re-tweet of atop-25 list that pegged her as the 24th best actress of 2012. I at first questioned the list before noting that Selena Gomez was rightly placed at #1, therefore giving credence to everything else the author had to say. Plus, the site has 213,000 followers which means they flat out know their shit. I began to wonder about the absence of other esteemed actresses such as Alex Morgan and Carly Rae Jepsen, but Jared knows best.
It seems as though "actress" is also being loosely defined these days by our world-ordained actor-definer, IMDB.com. While browsing the IMDB list of "IMDb: Hottest Pics of the actresses on IMDB" (I swear this was not a normal day for me, although not altogether atypical) I decided to actually click the actress profiles of all the girls I was looking at, spurned on by my lack of knowledge of virtually everyone on the list, and the desire to be the only male in the world to do so. In doing so I stumbled across Jayden Cole, best known (according to IMDB) for her roles in the stellar films, "Bikini Frankenstein" (subtitled "She'll love you to pieces), "Life On Top" (surely no connotations), "Bikini Royale 2" (I was so worried they wouldn't make a second), and "Dark Secrets" (this ones just a blatant euphemism for the dark recesses). This led me to seek further information on her heretofore stunning acting credentials. Not only was she the star of these critically acclaimed films, she had also received an award nomination. I clicked. "Best All Girls Couples Sex Scene" for her unforgettable role in the gut-wrenching classic "Pin-Up Girls 5" which she of course shared with Victoria White. I assume its one of the Oscars they just breeze through real quickly in the middle because no-one really cares about them.
Her profile on IMDB described her, in the very first sentence, as a "buxom and shapely redhead stunner" which I quickly understood as the best way of describing her acting. I went on to learn that she had a background in horseback riding, in case I was looking to fill that niche role of the happily bouncing horseback rider. Then came the boomshot..."Jayden not only began her career in the adult entertainment by appearing in the pictorial 'Girls of the OC' in the August, 2006 issue of 'Playboy,' but also was featured on such adult websites as Danni's Hard Drive, Wicked Pictures, and Digital Playground. Cole started performing in girl/girl hardcore films at age 23 in July 2009."
...
What the what? Since when did online pornography qualify as IMDB material, or better yet, acting experience? Next thing you know I'm going to see profiles of girls from Red Tube:
Name: Monica...something
Born: At least a year before McKayla Maroney
Height: 5' 7" (when standing)
Known for: "Threesome Sex with Horny Chick", "Teen Needs Sex Treatment", "Just Hit It"
Description: Blonde, fake-breasted, and down for just about anything, Monica hails from Eastern Europe...
Come on people. We are defiling the sanctity that is the Internet Movie Database. I get that it has "internet movie" in the title, but that was supposed to be because it is LOCATED on the internet, not because it incorporates any and all internet material. If you're going to make a list of the hottest actresses on IMDB I think a prerequisite should be that they are actually goddamn actresses. Being able to keep a straight face while he unveils his enormous thundercock doesn't count (ok they usually smile, which I guess is pretty good acting, because I'd be trembling in fear). If I wanted the list of the hottest actresses on IMDB along with a bunch of slutty adult performers I would've clicked on that list instead, but I couldn't find it. The idea of a hottest actress list is to engage the reader by giving them people they may have actually heard of and thus inspire interest.
But for those of you who are interested in reading through such a grossly smut-inspired list, here it is in all its glory...I'll be re-joining you tomorrow. But be forewarned, the author's primary and pretty much only requirement seems to be incredibly large breasts. For redheads, that seems to be his absolute only requirement. Oh, and how in the world is that first chick the same Alexa Vega from Spy Kids? How old am I?
Jailbait...Failbait. A little Deadmau5 and Cypress Hill collaboration.
In late May of this year I began my annual pilgrimage to poker's Mecca, the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada. I made the cross country trip alone, per usual, disappointed in my lack of a companion but enjoying the time on the road.
I wouldn't be so disappointed on the ride home.
We rented a house a couple miles East of the strip, a group of five (Dan, Nelson, Noah, Dave, and myself) that would soon add a sixth.
A couple weeks into the summer we awoke one morning to find a tiny, emaciated little dog cowering in the corner next to our front door. When I opened the door it backed away timidly, clearly skittish at any attempts to be pet or touched. I wandered to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of water which was empty within seconds of touching the ground outside. Vegas isn't the easiest place to stay hydrated. I returned to the kitchen for another bowl, which was again rapidly Hoovered. Figuring the dog would likely be hungry, I searched for anything that could be possibly deemed appropriate as dog-food substitute and came up with a couple of slices of bread. Dropping them to the ground outside they vanished in a matter of seconds.
I had to get ready for a day of live poker so I took a quick shower and as I got ready to leave placed another bowl of water and a couple slices of bread outside the door and watched our new friend creep back out from behind the corner of the house and get back down to business.
When I returned from a little bit of poker I found that our friend was still hanging out around our front door but we were all loth to bring her inside a rental house that strictly forbade pets, especially considering we had no idea where our pal had come from. For reasons unbeknownst to me the name Sparky had popped into my head and it instantly stuck. I made the common assumption that our dog was a male, not having taken a close look at the nether-regions as we still had a hard time getting close to the dog. A week later, I held Sparky up to the camera on Skype chat and Hannah readily identified Sparky's genitalia as a vagina, and asked how in the world we hadn't figured that out yet.
We expected Sparky to casually go her way at some point or another, but each morning when we woke up we found her asleep on our doorstep, sometimes curled up in a ball in the corner, sometimes sprawling across the mat on her back, flashing the world. And each day she got more and more accustomed to our contact and we got more accustomed to having a new house guest. After a couple of days I decided to experiment and let her inside. She took to the new playground quickly and we soon realized that we had an incredible athlete on our hands. If Sparky wanted to go outside, she indicated it by jumping vertically at the door, but with a running start and a push off the door itself so that she could launch her one-and-a-half foot body about three feet in the air, landing on her feet and then bouncing back up to do it again. A visitor aptly described her as a pogo stick. Our living room suddenly became an obstacle course. She jumped up on one side of the couch, veered right, jumped down, took off around living room table and around the other side of the couch, flew around the poker table, and lept back onto the couch to do it again. All of this in about 3 seconds. She'd do about 10 laps in rapid succession until she got bored, always holding to her exact line and then barrel off to do something else.
In addition to that, she didn't defecate inside, a huge plus.
My major concerns alleviated we began to invite her inside each day as long as there was someone there to watch her, normally myself or Noah, as we were both head over heals in love. Knowing little to nothing about 24-7 dog-care I consulted Hannah for more information...like when do dogs poop and pee, arguing that Sparky was not a Chihuahua (she's very fox-like imo), and other important things. I vowed that if she had actually been a chihuahua she would've been deposited far away from the house, likely in a Taco Bell parking lot.
Not a chihuahua.
Informed that many dogs have microchips we took her to PetSmart to get her checked for one and have a general health checkup. Her first time on a leash and collar (which they kindly gave to me at PetSmart after I explained to them her story - their compassion for animals is truly touching), we had to carry her into the PetSmart as she was terrified being this out in the open away from the house. We set her down on the ground by the vet's office and she stood there visibly trembling, backing away in fear of another dog who friendly approached her. Noah sat on the ground with her and pet her while I filled out the paperwork to get her inside. When she got into the office she barked at the vet a couple of times before beginning to relax a bit. Once comfortable the checkup went down without a hitch and she was provided with a clean bill of health. Additionally, she had no microchip so she was all ours if we wanted her. While our vet took care of our laundry list of questions about how the fuck to take care of a dog, Sparky's curiosity overcame her and she walked around the counter, timidly sniffing at everything, much to our vet's amusement (sidenote: if you ever want to pickup a cute PetSmart vet, rescue a street dog (this is not to imply I did)). With a new understanding of dogcare, we took her to pick out a toy and a bed. Noah suggested we let her pick out a bed she likes. It turned out the answer was all of them as she scampered from bed to bed in obvious bliss.
After choosing a bed, a few toys, and finding some dog food, we took her home, still unsure as to what we were going to do with her but she was quickly becoming more and more ours. When she crawled into my lap as we were hanging out outside after a night out a few days later, the decision I had wanted to make all along was finally reached: I had to keep her.
Example of her lying in my lap...she so tiny.
Sparky became the house mascot of the summer and quickly adopted additional nicknames. Sparks, Sparkster, Dan's favorite Sparkles...the baseball-adapted Sparkle Anderson. Nelson generally (and lovingly) called her a slut since she had conveniently joined a house full of dudes, also occasionally calling her a racist as the only place in the house she had pooped was Nelson's bathroom floor (twice) and Nelson happened to be the only non-white person in the house (sorry Dan, I know you're half-Colombian but you look white). She did, of course, pee on my bed two nights in a row when I came in at 4 am and took her inside just to head to sleep to find my comforter soaked through. Apparently my comforter and pile of boxers on the floor reminded her of a fresh patch of grass as I caught her peeing on each a few times just to grab her and run her outside to finish. Thankfully she clenched anytime I picked her up.
I'm gonna piss in this bed when you're drunk and exhausted.
The only problem with keeping her was that I am constantly traveling. After going home for a bit after Vegas I would be heading down to Panama for a few months. I knew a friend of mine already down in Panama had brought his dog down and I contacted him to find out the details. $1000 minimum and hours upon hours of paperwork to bring a dog in. Fuck.
Noah, equally enamored with Sparky and top candidate for co-father, suggested he may be able to take her down to Costa Rica with him (our whole house is spread out around Latin America to play online throughout the rest of the year). After several inquiries he found that he too wouldn't be able to take Sparky with him. Fuck.
I shot out messages to just about any friend that I thought could possibly take her and repeatedly came up with dead ends until early in July when I threw it out offhand to my friend Mike (taken from his blog post seeing as I obv don't have an IPhone to take such pictures):
He showed interest. Sparky wasn't exactly the type of dog he had imagined himself getting, nor had he expected to get a dog for about another year, but after telling him a bit about her we decided that I would drive her across the country and he could have a little trial period. If it wasn't meant to be we could finally bring her to a shelter, but I didn't really think it would ever happen.
But spent most of the cross-country trip napping next to me.
Some may be wondering what inspired the title of this blog and for that I will give a brief snippet as to the awesome character that is Sparky.
After dropping Sparky off at Mike's for a few days while I went home, I returned there a week later to find that he too had immediately fallen in love with her. Her name was now Sadie, which I begrudgingly accepted while admitting it was a bit more feminine, but I preferred calling her the Sadist or Sparky, or my still favorite Sparkle Anderson. Some nights when Mike was at work I took Sadie for walks around the neighborhood and noticed a new behavior she hadn't been able to exhibit on the shorter walks I took her on before. She pissed on EVERYTHING. Any tree, post, sign, hell any speed bump we walked past she would charge towards, pulling at the leash. After carefully sniffing for the scent of her own urine, if deemed unsatisfactory, she would squat down to mark her territory. This was made increasingly entertaining by two things:
First off, she would have a hard time pushing 15 pounds on a scale and has a proportionately small bladder. Exhibiting a remarkably consistent lack of foresight she would always take a long piss on the first landmark and by the time we'd reach the eighth or ninth nary a drop could be squeezed from her severely depleted stock.
Secondly, when she pees, she doesn't pee in one spot. Instead, she cocks up on her front legs with her back legs out and then somehow walks forward on them all the while maintaining a stream of urine. Thus, she manages to cover a vast amount of territory with each pee.
Amused by her antics and sheer determination to cover as much ground as possible with her limited supply of piss I began to audibly narrate our walks, dubbing her Sadie the Emperor, conquering new lands wherever she went. By my estimates Sadie has conquered the most square miles per pound of any dog in the greater Philadelphia Metropolitan area.
Please note that I am aware that she is technically an Empress, but Emperor just sounds far more badass.
I have been wanting to write a blog about Sparky/Sadie for a while and as soon as I began calling her an emperor I felt a tribute was appropriate. I know very little of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's music but I happened to walk past them on my way to a different stage at Coachella and was drawn in by the unique sounds coming from their tent. I could only stay 10 minutes as I had places to go but what I did see was an unexpected pleasure. So in tribute to that 10 minute treat, I give you a song by them recommended by a friend who has actually listened to a bit of their music. Enjoy.
