Monthly Archives: August 2010

Miss Carol suddenly got the idea yesterday that maybe we should go to ECSC (East Coast Surfing Championship) this weekend. It started out as, a like maybe? if we’re not doing anything else,  then maybe? we should check it out one of these years?, and slowly metastasized into us heading up to the strip.

So we did.

We parked the tractor trailer about ten blocks away, ’cause it’s hard to find parking for a tractor trailer and hoofed on out to the beach.

And we checked out the amateurs.

And then we watched the pros.

And then we split ’cause the meter was broken and we didn’t want to get a ticket. I’d like to say I’m cool enough to appreciate the surfer’s efforts or to say that it was way fun.

But I’m not and, honestly?, it wasn’t.

We had no idea what we were watching or how surfing is judged so we just kinda hung out, staring and mouth breathing.

We’re turds.

But it was pretty.

Honestly, give me a fucking break.

I mean really.

I was reading a newspaper yesterday- remember them? I don’t where I found it  or why I was reading it but get this-

Supposedly “scientists” have decided that all the oil spilled in the Gulf is being eaten by bacteria that seem to LOVE the spewing oil. And, get this- the oil is simply “disappearing” at the rate of half the TOTAL spill every three days or so. By Labor Day three months of wildly spewing oil shooting into the Gulf will all be gone.

Cool baby.

According to government funded academia, in just a coupla days, months and months of oil pollution will magically disappear. I am SO glad those oil loving little fuckers have their dinner bibs on.

It got or gets worse. Believe it or not, the article went on to say that 500 million barrels of oil “seep” into the Gulf each year anyway so it’s really no surprise that the cute little oil-loving bacteria would pony up to the salad bar and take care of the worst oil spill in the history of our planet. So hey.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’m not ranting ’cause I’m a green-licking-tree-hugger. I’m not. I drive a truck that could pull a house down and gets 10 miles a gallon. I use diesel like a 3 dollar hooker uses condoms.

I’m ranting because I think the only way we’re gonna push us into the Manhattan-style project needed to move us off of oil is to use it all up. I’m doing my part and so should you.

I’m ranting ’cause I’m being told millions and billions of gallons of crude oil are just gonna magically disappear.

I’m ranting ’cause I’m gettin’ tired of being lied to.

Holy bejeebus.

A better title for this book might have been The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest Then Stomped On It Then Set It On Fire Then Ran Over It With A Truck.

Hmmm. Longish?

Still.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Fortunately for us and our tired little attention spans, Lisbeth Salander doesn’t have the time or the patience to wait very long to wreak her retaliation and get even. And that’s what make these books so much fun to read.

In this, the third and final book of the series, waif-like heroine Lisbeth is forced to once again team up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist to haul her ashes out of the fire and punish the people who have wronged her in the past  and now want to put her away for the rest of her life.

Think elfin avenging angel. Think little babe kicking the shit out of everybody.

Vengeance is fun. And curiously satisfying.

There’s a bunch of political stuff in the book that probably only Swedish people know about or care about but it doesn’t detract from the retribution any so you just wade through it.

I don’t know how Stieg Larsson managed to hit three home runs on his first three at bats, but he did and it’s too bad he didn’t live long enough to see the ball sail over the fence.

It sucks that he isn’t around to see the success of his Lisbeth Salander series and it sucks even more that these three books are all there’ll ever be.

They’re fun. Read ’em.

Quick sidenote- if you’re reading the series get the swedish version of the The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It’s great, even with the subtitles. Our local movie critic panned it but he’s old and bald and probably didn’t even read the book.

Next up on things I’ll bore you with? Maybe a crappy review of The Time Travelers Wife?

It could happen.

I know, I know.

It’s the end of August and the rancor that I hold for tourons should have been spit out in maybe May or maybe June. But I got caught up in other things and forgot.

But that’s OK ’cause there’s plenty of rancorness left.

It’s a new rental week and another turd of tourons (and, yes, I did make that up- kinda like a gaggle of geese or a pride of lions. A turd of tourons. I like it.) has been squeezed out of the quivering cheeks of somewhere-elseville.

If you’ve never lived in a vacation community it goes somethin’ like this-

Saturday is check-in day and the flood of tourons is almost overwhelming. Soft, fleshy wantness presses up against us. Check-in to the cottages isn’t till two o’clock but a lot of tourons hit the road early hoping to dodge traffic and end up sitting in the driveways of their vacation villas waiting for them to be cleaned. It’s always fun watching whole families sitting and sweating staring at a beach house wanting their vacation to begin.

Sunday is beach day. Forget it if you’re a local. There are so many white bodies turning pink it’s disturbing. And something I can’t understand- if everybody LOVES the beach so much why do so many tourons come down and camp out under awnings all day, bitch and moan about the heat and the sand and never swim in the ocean? I don’t get it.

Miss Carol just laughs and points.

Monday.Tuesday. Wednesday. These are the settling in days, days the tourons slip into the rhythm of the beach and into their one week exercise regimen. It’s also the time when Miss Carol and me have made friends with some of them over the years. Surprisingly, some tourons are, like, regular people?

Thursday and Friday are the manic ends to vacations dreamed of and lusted after for an entire year and the tourons tend to go on frenzied alcohol fueled final flings of repressed adolescence before piling their sunburnt and bloated kids back into the car and driving home. Locals hide until they’re gone.

Saturday morning is quiet and we bask in it. We walk Cutter and Tug on the beach, we breathe the fresh salty still air and revel in our little lives.

Then, by noon, the cheeks of somewhere-elseville clench once again and a whole new turd of tourons squeezes out.

I love summer.

Okey dokey, I’m pissy.

It’s been days and weeks and months and years of hot, humid, mind-searingly crappy outside working conditions and I’m on a tear and the only thing I long for daily is the the three or four hours Miss Carol and me spend in air-conditioned comfort cocktailing and eating dinner.

So it went straight to my pissy zone when I saw this article in Coastal Living.

Why am I reading Coastal Living? Dunno. Maybe brain bubbling from the heat?

Anyway.

It was a fluffy piece about a new eco-friendly home built on Bald Head Island North Carolina and I was looking at the pretty pictures and thinking it sure would be nice to live there when it hit me.

What a shit hole piece.

Coastal Living had totally sold this house as some kinda totally green, good time feelie, big ole’ warm arms wrap around, kissy face, perfect green home.

So being pissy and being in a pissy mood I read the article.

And guess what?

Not only does this perfect child 3400 square foot home have windows that, like, OPEN to let in gentle sea breezes, maybe, possibly cutting down on A/C? It has HUGE overhangs on the decks so that the rain doesn’t somehow get into the maybe open windows, when the gentle sea breezes aren’t 100 degrees so that the twin units that cool the behemoth are turned off. If.

Not to mention the stairs have open risers letting light in so valuable electricity doesn’t have to be used. During the day.

And, of course, most of the house was constructed out of sustainable materials. Like, you know, wood?

Don’t get me wrong. I think shit’s gonna change at some point but I’m pissy and hot and tired.

And don’t tell me this happy crappy family with their someday open windows in North Carolina are on some kinda cutting edge of greeness.

They ain’t.

I’m pissy. It’s the heat.

I love these fuckers more than I like most people, but I was not looking forward to taking them with us down to the beach (a different beach) to stay with Miss Carol’s family last weekend. It had nothing to do with Miss Carol’s family and everything to do with the fact that we’d be staying in a “pet friendly” oceanfront cottage.

The last time we had Cutter and Tug in a “pet friendly” motel we’d awoken in the middle of the night to Tug peeing on us.

Here’s what happened-

A couple of years ago, Miss Carol decided we needed to take the dogs to Hatteras and go camping so I loaded up everything, stuffed Cutter and Tug into the back seat, and we headed to Hatteras. About fifteen minutes into the three hour trip our retards decided they’d had enough car travel. Both were squirming and wrestling all over the back seat, snarling and growling and barking at each other, at passing cars, and at Miss Carol and me.

I was trying to drive and scream at them to shut the fuck up and Miss Carol was trying to soothe all of us into enjoying the ride. Before we even crossed into North Carolina I’d had enough and wanted to turn around and go home.

But Miss Carol persisted (’cause she’s patient like that) and we made it all the way to Manteo (about halfway to Hatteras) before she too had had all she could take of the three of us and threw in the towel- (I always like it when Miss Carol finally gets mad- it makes my childishness feel somehow justified.)

I was looking for a place to turn around when she saw a motel along the highway with a big PETS WELCOME sign- so we decided we’d bag Hatteras and camping and just check into the PETS WELCOME motel instead. I sat in the hot car while Miss Carol checked us in, bouncing around as Cutter and Tug attacked one another, and then we went to a nearby beach.

And it was fun. The dogs got to get out of car prison and run in the surf and we got to chill out over beers and cocktails.

Later on, we went back to the motel and as soon as we got into the room the dogs immediately found a scent that needing marking. I dropped what I was carrying and started yelling at them while Miss Carol grabbed some paper towels.

That’s when we made the connection that PETS WELCOME means other dogs have BEEN HERE. AND PEED HERE.

But it was too late to leave so we got it cleaned up and I turned on the TV and cracked a beer. Miss Carol took the car keys and left, saying she was going shopping for dinner.

I think she just wanted, or maybe needed, to get away from Cutter, Tug, and me.

During the two hours she was gone the dogs found a couple of other places that needed marking and decided that being cooped up in a motel room wasn’t much better than car prison and started attacking one another AGAIN, so I walked them for a couple of miles hoping to wear them down. It didn’t.

Finally Miss Carol came back with a pizza and the dogs seemed to settle down so after dinner we laid down on the bed to watch TV and promptly fell asleep.

A couple of hours later I awoke with a start, realized that the lights and TV were still on, and that Tug was standing over us, staring intently at me, and PEEING on us.

I can’t even fathom what might have going through his little doggy brain to make him do such a thing, but honestly?, it made me laugh- he was just so seriously bent on making a point to me about something or other. Trust me, the look on his face was effing FUNNY.

But I pushed him off, we got cleaned up, slept on the floor for a couple of hours, and left for home before dawn, sneaking out of the PETS WELCOME motel and the mess we had made.

So, yeah, I was a LITTLE concerned about spending the weekend in a “pet friendly” cottage with Miss Carol’s family, but I needn’t have worried. They were fine. Maybe the cleaners clean better or maybe Tug and Cutter are better behaved or something, but they were fine.

Which is good ’cause I’m not sure anyone in Miss Carol’s family would find getting peed on very funny.

Turds.

“My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole. I get excessively drunk at inappropriate times, disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead”

Yup, that about sums it up. This was the second book I read on The Trip and it is heterosexually hilarious. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell chronicles in lurid and sordid detail the depravity, debauchery, and all-out drunkenness that is Tucker Max’s life.

And it is one fun ride.

This raunchy romp of a book is a collection of his partying adventures told in loosely chronological order in an almost blog-post fashion. Or maybe it was his blog once and he figured out how to get it published. Whichever it is it’s frickin’ hysterical.

If you’re a regular guy this is probably the funniest book you’ll ever read. And even most chicks, if they’re honest and don’t hide behind the ooh-that’s-so-gross-I’d-never-do-that-crap, will find the book laugh out loud comical.

But if you’re one of those namby-pamby metrosexuals with manicures and pedicures and carefully groomed six o’clock shadows, or if you’re one of those silly girly-girls that think sex is something to be endured only after marriage and blowjobs only happen in porno movies you’ll never watch, you probably want to give this book a pass ’cause it’s gonna get your panties in a bunch.

Everyone else? Into the pool!

I can’t wait for Miss Carol to read it.

Each summer, The Admiral (yup he’s a real Admiral) and his wife take Miss Carol and me out to dinner. We mow their lawn and watch over their place in the off season and they pull our trash cans in and, for whatever reason, they feel obligated to feed us.

They shouldn’t, and don’t have to, but it’s become a tradition- kinda like Christmas without all the lights and presents and stuff.

And last night was the night. Which is cool and all, but.

They chose one of the local restaurants that throws it’s doors WIDE open and screams COME ON IN ALL Y’ALL AND REALLY? BRING EVERYBODY WITH YOU ‘CAUSE WE WANT ALL THE TOURONS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

Miss Carol and me avoid these places like the plague during the season, opting for the less traveled places, the locals-only joints that stay low key.

But there we were.

And as wave after wave of tourons surged in around us, washing up against us with their loud voices and tiny touronites screaming for food or sleep or maybe slaughter? – I sat and wondered WTF? How did I end up here? How’d this happen?

But then I remembered that Mr and Mrs Admiral were and are very nice people and neighbors and it’s not like we coulda lied and said we’re busy. And honestly? After a coupla beers and a magnum of wine things were lookin’ up.

The screeching of little touronistas and the northern accents were blending and smoothing out and I found myself actually enjoying dried out snapper fillets, french fries, and our dinnermates yelling at us to be heard over the cacophony, spewing food and spittle.

Life’s good, right?

I’m cowering. I’m holding up my hands, fending off hatred of the obvious. Don’t throw shit at me.

But hey.

Fat chicks should not be wearing bikinis. Sorry.

I know this is horribly politically incorrect but it needs to be said.

I’m not talkin’ about chubby chicks or even chunky babes- I’m talkin’ about girls whose weight is north of 160. You can call yourself a BIG GIRL, but you’re not. You’re fat. Which is fine. You like sedentary and doughnuts more than we do. So sit at home and eat and eat some more. It’s OK. It’s cool. Just don’t, please don’t, put on a bikini and come down to the beach.

And hey, if the urge to waddle down to the shore becomes overwhelmingly irresistible, do heterosexuality a BIG favor and just cover up, you know, like maybe a burqa or maybe a pup tent?

Thanks

Oh, and by the way?  The tattoos? Nix ’em. They don’t make you look edgy or cool and, trust me, a bleary tramp stamp  ain’t taking off any of the pounds.

Just sayin’.

Sorry, but this is crazy-  a something named Justin Bieber, at the ripe old age of 16, has signed a deal with Paramount Pictures to make a movie about himself.

Let that one sink in for just a sec.

SIXTEEN? AS IN LESS THAN TWENTY? AS IN CAN’T DRINK AND DRIVE?

I mean honestly, WTF? How much life history can there possibly be in a little sixteen year old wingnut?

Then, to further cloud sensibilities not only does this Justin thing have a movie coming out about his short little life, HarperCollins is releasing his MEMOIRS in the fall. Memoirs of what? Wearing little sailor suits and burping up on himself?

Give me an effing break. But I was intrigued and curious so I checked him and his music out, not wanting to be Mr. Cynical Dickhead Old Turd, and ya know what?

It was more awful than I’d feared.

Quite possibly the worst shit I’ve ever listened to- and that’s coming from someone who had Pink’s Mizzunderstood running through his head for a week. It was just terrible-picture an overindulged 16 year old chirping in a little girly voice and pouting like he’s 13 and you about got it. I scrolled through a half dozen teasers of his latest 2.0 offering before clawing my ears off and killing the dogs.

Crap.

And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I read recently that there’s this new decline in civilization spurred on by our lawyerly friends -surfing litigation-two words I never thought I’d see in the same sentence. Even a  poorly constructed sentence.

According to the article, aging “surfers” are starting to sue one another over stuff like hogging and flailing ineffectually at waves or being nailed by the errant unleashed surfboard. You could almost hear the coolness being sucked out of surfers by the middle-aged “surfer” blimps wanting their fair share of everything. Pretty soon and I’m guessin’ surfers are gonna be signing disclaimers and waivers before paddlin’ out.

But, hey? Who amongst us doesn’t like seeing spring suits in XXXXL?

Fuckers.

So it made me think, and I sat and I gazed out the window and I wondered why the self-important little kids and the XXXXL self-important little lawyers can’t just leave the rest of us alone.