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sartorialatlantan · 4 years ago

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Silver Lining and A Brief Backstory

Whether you’re an optimist or not, anyone, even if only in hindsight, can see the silver lining of a bad situation, circumstance or series of events. When I was 20 years old I ended a three-year relationship with my first serious girlfriend. We had met at 17 or so and it was your classic teenage love story. We were young and foolish and led by a shared faith in evangelical Christianity that I would eventually and happily abandon. We had convinced each other and ourselves that it was ordained by god that we came together and that when the time was right we would get married. To add insult to injury we told nearly everyone we knew about our plans at all of 18 years old, so naturally the sting of embarrassment came with the sting of separation. I don’t need to, nor do I care to go into details of our breakup or what brought it about, but this tiny bit of back-story is crucial to understand the silver lining that would follow. Now that I’m saying it out loud, to call what followed a silver lining doesn’t even really cut the mustard, what followed was the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to me.

It’s safe to assume that anyone reading this has been through a breakup, maybe even safe to assume a bad one or two. We all know how down in the dumps, miserable and depressed and isolated and totally alone you feel when you separate from someone you were literally saying, “I love you” to not one day ago. It’s an awful place to be, whether you’re 20 or 35 or 50 etc. it’s just plain awful. And I imagine it’s existentially worse the older you get because of the looming fear that you’ll be too old to meet someone else before the clock stops. While that may be true at 78, the irrational brain of an 18 or 20 year old will tell them the same thing. So in the wake of my adolescent breakup I drank, a lot. I took up smoking and heavy drinking and gave up on the idea of partnering with someone ever again. Some of this ridiculous thinking goes back to the Christian thing, and apologies now if you take offense so some of what I say about that faith. When you’re 20, and for the last 3-4 to years you not only thought, but believed at your bible thumping core that you were paired with someone else by gods own hand and it ends, well to put it plainly you A. start doubting that there even is a god or B. find it impossible to understand why god would start something and end it. Now in hindsight, it’s really a mixture of A and B and I also now realize that if god is real, his most famous creation to date (us) has a beginning and an ending. It’s also very easy to religiously rationalize everything to fit your made up narrative, kind of like biblically cherry picking in reverse.

I’m not going to go into my exiting the church and Christian faith altogether, that would be too far removed from the topic at hand, but I will say that when I left it, and truly let go of it mentally, it was the most calming and freeing feeling I had had at that point. All it took was squarely asking myself, practically in a mirror, “do your really believe in this, do you REALLY believe in ANY of this?” When I answered “no” I felt a combination of grief and relief; on the one hand I was letting go of what had been the norm to that point and on the other I was free from what rabbi’s refer too as “a wrestling match with god”, and that freedom felt better than any made-up wave of holy spirit baptism ever had. Bottom line, if you’re an evangelical and truly believe that you have a private, gibberish love language with god, don’t mock what the Mormons believe, it’s just as ridiculous. I knew too many Christians in those days who couldn’t see that irony. Some still can’t.

Now back to the story. There I was broken hearted and feeling like life was over at 20, it was time to grow a beard and become a wandering nomad. Maybe I’ll get a motorcycle and seek out an outlaw gang and just ride til' I die. Maybe I’ll head up the east coast and get a job on a boat out of New England. Really all of my ideas involved my look first, and occupation second. Anything involving hand tattoos and a long matted beard would’ve sufficed. But then, some time passed and I would eventually turn 21, which opened up a whole new world, the bar scene. Now, still in the throws of depression, single and not loving it, I proceeded to the bar scene with a new drinking friend named Will in the East Atlanta Village. We drank and socialized all over the village, almost every night too, to excess. We were not, living, laughing or loving as the girls touting faux happiness, post break-up say in their Facebook statuses. There was the Graveyard Tavern, a very large dive bar with something akin to a dance floor and a pool table area. Then the Glenwood that at the time had a horror/cult movie theme down to movie posters laminated under the tabletops. There was My Sisters Room and Mary’s, a lesbian bar and gay bar, separated by a side street and Grant Park Pizza. Then you came to the 5 Spot, which was a dive bar and punk music venue, then across the street from there was the Flatiron, which was the shape you’re picturing. It sat below 13 Roses Tattoo, which for that era in my opinion was the best shop in town. If you took a hard left from there you could walk up to The Earl, a dive bar with pretty damn good food and a solid standing room only music venue in back. And lastly across from there was The East Side Lounge, the perfect spot if you wanted to do cocaine while watching Predator 2 on the TV over the bar. I never did cocaine, but everyone in town knew that’s where you went to score some, or to watch Predator 2 while drinking $2 PBR on draught.

This little village was our spot for nearly a full calendar year, Will and I rarely took anyone else along, because no on else was as equally miserable as us and who needs positive company when you’re binging cheap beer pitchers and smoking a whole pack of cigarettes in one night? Now, to be clear, it was always to the two of us but we were making the attempt, occasionally, to meet women. 20 something, tattooed, smoking, drinking, most likely cocaine doing, women who were 100% not interested; we were suburb boys and you could practically smell it on us, and these were city chicks, with sleeve tattoos, hidden piercings and a palpable hate for their fathers. Maybe I’m adding that last part for effect, but you get the idea. Now that said, in that time span I did manage to meet and get to know a girl or two, I think Will did too but nothing ever really stuck.

Now I’m going to back up, but keep in mind this was all happening by night, most nights of the week, but by day I was still working at the same place I am now, didn’t love it then still not crazy about it today, but that’s a whole other topic. Some days after work, before Will and I would venture to East Atlanta I would go meet up with this piano player I had been introduced to by a former band mate who needed a guitar player capable of on-the-fly melodic riffs to accent his songs. In the band I had been in before, that was literally all I did, so we were a good fit. He would play his latest song for me a few times through headphones and then I’d start “noodling” as they say until I landed on some solid melodic hooks to overlay on what he had already recorded. We had a solid system, and he paid me in pizza and beer and we could smoke cigarettes in the studio. Just for a brief tangent, you have to smoke inside in these situations. If you and your fellow musicians are trying to accomplish something in the studio, but you’re walking outside every 20 minutes to have a dart you’ll never get anything done. So I would listen and noodle and drink and smoke and eventually eat. Once I tapped into a riff he liked we’d build on it together, shape it, shorten it, lengthen it, whatever it needed, then we’d lay it down and repeat. This was a regular thing for me a couple times a week. It went like this, get up, go to work, leave, go home grab my gear, head to the garage studio, record, smoke, eat, drink, leave, drop off the gear, grab Will, and be in the Village by 10pm or so. Then we’d stay til' last call, go home, shower, sleep, wake up, repeat. If you’re doing the math, yes I was driving most of the time, it was stupid and reckless and I’m not proud of it and it was over a decade ago lets just leave it at that and drop it. There’s no one to make amends to for anything from those days, other than a few girls that I probably drunkenly intimidated buy hitting on them too much. Anyways, this was the pattern for the better part of 20 to 21. Now, cut back to my Jesus-y girlfriend from the beginning of the story. To the best of my knowledge she was off in a new circle of friends, living and laughing and loving and meeting new people and I knew for a fact she was dating around. Through this new circle of friends she would eventually meet Kristen, and if you know me, then you know my wife’s name is Kristen, yes the very same Kristen. Kristen was 26 at the time, recently divorced from a total dipshit, we’ll leave it at that, and she too was socializing with a new circle of friends.

To help you keep up with the wild web of who begat who, at this point in time, if I hadn’t separated with my girlfriend when I did a year prior, she wouldn’t have started dating who she did and met the string of people who would eventually introduce her to Kristen, my wife today. Now, for her privacy I won’t name my high school girlfriend so for the story we’ll call her Jane. Jane and Kristen and a large circle of churchy band kids all became friends, though only briefly. Kristen being newly single was introduced to some guys via this circle and Jane specifically introduced her to guy named Steven, possibly to date, though I don’t think they ever did. That said, Kristen and Steven formed a friendship and Kristen soon after parted ways with Jane and the churchy band kids because they were all just A. a little too Jesus-y and B. more than immature to say the least. Now I was peripherally aware of a lot of this via Facebook, doing the creepy ex thing. I didn’t know Kristen, but I had seen her in some photos and she had a killer Audrey Hepburn ribcage tattoo, still does obviously.

So, Kristen and Steven are friendly and attend some of the same bars and house parties and she’s out in the world dating and doing her thing. Kristen would eventually meet Steven’s newest girlfriend, Amy. Amy and Kristen became fast friends and were practically joined at the hip. Kristen and Amy were partying, dive bar hopping, nightclub dancing best friends. Meanwhile, just to take you back to my reality at the same time, I was grumpy binge drinking with Will somewhere in the East Atlanta Village. Now, here’s where it gets fun. Amy has a brother named Chad, who at that time was in a band, Chad worked at a little café/bar with a certain piano player, yes, you guessed it, the one I was working with that year. Now through this maze of people Kristen would eventually meet the same piano player and it would be an understatment to say she was into him. One night I’m in the studio with him and we’re sort of half working, half chatting and he starts telling me about this girl he’s kind of seeing and her Audrey Hepburn tattoo. It was one of those small world funny moments, because I knew who he was talking about from my Facebook stalking, and I knew she was hot, no naturally I was envious. Some time later, he would invite me and Will and Kristen and Amy to watch a band play at the previously mentioned Earl in the East Atlanta Village, I knew it well. This is where I would meet Kristen and where our relationship would ultimately begin. I could write another 6 dozen paragraphs on our early dating relationship and how it all went and maybe I will at some point, but the point of this very long-winded essay is about the silver linings of a bad situation. Now to call this love story and how I would eventually meet my wife that I would have two beautiful and amazing daughters with a silver lining to a high school breakup would be borderline insulting. But realize, at 21, now nearly 22, I was still miserable and alone and thought I would be forever. Then along comes Kristen. Now to recap, I split with Jane, became a miserable person while Kristen was divorcing her first husband from college that she really only married to piss off her parents. Kristen would eventually meet Jane, who would introduce her to Steven, who introduced her to Amy who introduced her to the piano player, who she was infatuated with for a brief moment, who introduced her to me. We’re separated by 6 years in terms of age, come from completely different backgrounds and other than this small cluster of people, had no one in common between us. In a very long-winded, round about way, I owe my heartbreaking high school girlfriend a thank you. I had to experience a terrible breakup, the kind where you don’t ever talk again, go through a shitty, drunken, depressing year and ultimately give up on having any semblance of a happy life to meet my wife, and everything changed after that. I didn’t go to college, I had a small circle of friends and most of them avoided the city. It took this wild culmination of events and people I’ve never met to bring Kristen and I together.

You might be saying that story’s not all that compelling, things like that happen all the time, and you’re not entirely wrong, but that said, I still think there’s something special about it.

The year 2020 has shown me a lot about myself. Once quarantine started I quickly learned how unimportant clothes were. Take a moment to catch your breath. I still love tailoring and will absolutely wear dress clothes again, but when you’re staring down a pandemic, drape and tie space just become less of a concern and are quickly replaced with stocking up of frozen goods and day drinking. I’ve spent the majority of 2020 in Vans and golf polo’s, and I don’t hate it. In this time I’ve found a new passion for the game of golf, I’ve cooked new things, in the early days of lock down I got creative with my photography in ways that wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been home all day. I don’t think any of us knows when this nonsense will be over, 2020 might be entirely wrapped in Covid and it might even bleed into 2021, and by then, most of the world might’ve had it. I know that I don’t want it, and if I am to get it I hope to the god I don’t believe in that it’s mild.

When your 6 year old asks if you’re going to be alive when they’re a grown up in the middle of a pandemic it stings, because the reality is I can’t promise her I’ll be alive tomorrow, let alone 20 years from now, so I lie. And when you lie like that to a child you lie big, I tell her I’ll always be alive, that way we snuff out all worry in her little 6-year-old mind, because those wheels are constantly turning. I was burdened with the reality of death at 4 years old, seeing my 19-year-old cousin dead in a coffin after a motorcycle accident. I will shield the reality of death from my kids as long as possible. Life’s stressful enough already, no reason to start the trauma early. I blame that funeral at 4 almost entirely on my hypochondria. I’m that guy, who feels a leg pain and assumes it’s a blood clot bound for my heart. A pain or weird feeling in my side must be cancer. Naturally the rise of Covid has not been kind to this sick part of my brain. As I write I feel funny, the way you feel when you sleep too long and your limbs feel numb, I’m also hoarse from over doing it with a vaporizer recently trying to relax with a little THC. So naturally the weird feelings and throat tickle are Covid in my mind. If you don’t have anxiety, count yourself lucky.

The thing I keep trying to remind myself of is that it won’t last forever. Time literally fixes everything. It took time to get over being broken up with at 20 and even more time for the stars to align and bring Kristen and I together. It will take time for Covid to sweep the world and end and time further still for the powers that be to develop a safe vaccine. It will take time for society to feel comfortable going out mask-less again; it will take time for supermarkets to feel safe enough to take down all the plexi-glass at the checkout. It will all take time and in the end, if we’re lucky, we’ll see the silver linings that came out of it. New interests, new jobs, new relationships, etc. If I hadn’t found my passion for menswear I would not have eventually reignited my passion for photography. If the quarantine hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have done all the self-portraits I did that ultimately inspired a Hunter S. Thompson theme that lead to my newfound love and interest in golf. The new interest in golf led to new ways to spend time and bond with my in laws and my own family. It’s also the first form of physical activity I’ve done in nearly a decade; all good things.

The only thing I’ve never really been able to draw a connect-the-dots of positively around is my job. I’ve done the same thing for 13 years and I’ve never liked it. It has afforded me the opportunity to do things at times, and the schedule has always been flexible around my personally needs, but I’ve never really liked being here. As I write I’m sitting in an office that I’d rather not be in. If I were single and not a parent I would've left long ago. But the stability of this place and the paycheck keep me here. I’d much rather be taking photos for brands, submitting to publications etc. but there’s way to much financial risk in that. The time for that kind of seat-of-your-pants living is in your 20’s, when you’re a renter with no kids. If I could take photos, write, travel, golf, eat and drink for a living you‘d never hear a complaint. Kristen and I often talk about what we’d do with millions to distract ourselves from what we don’t have, and the stress of the day. She works in a very unforgiving retail environment, more unforgiving now with a pandemic on the rise again in our state. I work in print, for my father. A dying industry with a parent as my superior, what could possibly go wrong? We get along 9 days out of 10, but day 10 is always noteworthy. We bend over backwards for our customers, though I don’ think they care. We once had a 20 years long client say they were thinking about switching to another printer, just to shake things up. This after 20 years of late shifts, miracle timing and total and complete ass kissing. That day I learned, that quality service only matters to a select few, the rest just want to see the bill.

So that’s 2020 so far, new interests popping up, old interests taking a back seat, looking to the past to see the greatness that came out of dark times, hoping the future is as bright as today is, compared to the depths of despair I found myself in at 20. Still thinking there is no god but hopeful for an afterlife of some kind, wondering if there is a god why he’s letting old people who literally hang his picture in their dining rooms suffocate from a wet market virus that our leadership dubbed a hoax in the beginning…I will not go on a political tangent... By the time 2020 wraps I hope to be alive and well, I hope that everyone I know is alive and well too. I hope that Kristen finally lands herself a job in UX, she graduated from her UX academy in March and so naturally the job market has been slim pickings. Beyond that, I hope to find myself doing something other than what I do now at some point. When I dwell for too long about how many hours of my life I’ve spent folding booklets for people who are ultimately going to throw them away I feel myself reaching for the bottle. Bottom line, things aren’t great now, but I hope they get better. The funny thing about that is, according to Buddhists, it’s the act of wanting something, which causes suffering in the first place. So maybe the answer for the shit storm we’re all in today lie’s in the Buddhist teachings. I’m not about to proselytize Buddhism, but what I do know is the first truth as they call it is basically, that “suffering exists” and the second truth is that “desires and ignorance cause the suffering”. So it could be a major over simplification for our current state of affairs, but maybe if we stop wanting a better today and just accept today for what it is, we’ll all suffer a little less. Because whether we’re here for it or not, the sun will rise again and set again. The earth will turn and everything that is happening today will happen again tomorrow. Time fixes everything, and we can’t control it. So pray, meditate, work, golf or buy a motorcycle and head to the nearest New England port and join a boat crew, there’s no telling what kind of crazy we’re all going to wake up to from one day to the next, so to end on a cliché, make the most of today and try focus on the positive, maybe the stars will align and when it all shakes loose, you’ll meet your Kristen.

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emilywatchescursedshow · 3 years ago

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SPN S2 E5 - Simon Said

bong in the title card, great shit.

It's hot, I'm on edge, I'm hungry, time to eat and watch some spn instead of cleaning my dump of a room. It has been a WEEK and it's still not DONE yet hrhrhrh ok here we go

I'm skipping the recaps I don't care if they're indicative of anything I don't care how they're edited

We get a MOTW cold open!! Some phones, some guns, oh is this like that one xfilhosnuthastuhtematns (taze her again)

Oh jesus love suicide

Sam's wet

So we're establishing that Sam has a psychic connection to the demon. Also that the Roadhouse is the new, like dad's journal or something?

I ship Sam and Ash honestly

Oh right Sam got kicked off of never broke a bone last episode (his arm is in a cast) it's very generic arm cast and does not look like it would help a broken hand but w/e

He'll do it for.. a PBR

I am also horny for dean w Jo you and I are the same.

Dean knows all the lyrics to this song and is just singing it with no musical accompaniment. I guess this is how we learn he is also horny for jo?

The extras in this episode are struggling a bit. But I know shit about acting.

OH OHKAY SO. the scene they go look at the van, the song that's playing is from the "This Is Spinal Tap" soundtrack, it's not a "real" classic rock song bc Tap is a mock rock band. What a weird pull - I think the music is supposed to be diagetically coming from the car stereo. I guess it's what they could get rights to?

Sam is a demon sleeper agent

Again, why the fuck is this Stonehenge song in here. And why is it playing so obtrusively over this scene.

Didn't dean say he likes this van? Maybe he's the DND nerd.

Dean got jedi mind tricked into giving his car away that's fucking hilarious

What class of crime is pulling the fire alarm

"he full on obi-wanned me"

I guess the Black guy just *had* to die, time for guilty Sam

So Andy murdered Dr. Jennings? OH Andy is the psychic kid. Are we going to get a bunch of homicidal psychic kids. I hope Sam gets to be homicidal at some point, that would be fun. Sam could be a hot bitch killer I think.

Oh it's the bong shot. Reading philosophy like a poser.

Dean you could just go to a diner

This Dean can't help himself talking needs to be in every episode. Honestly it would be amazing if Sam became psychic enough that every time Dean was like "I'm not telling you about this" sam could just flash his little eyebrows and Dean compulsively confesses. I think that would do both of them good. I know that doesn't happen but. Missed opportunity.

Sam's not affected by the psychic thing, that's fun. Sam's abilities are pretty limp tbh.

This is starting to look exactly like the XFiles episode i was thinking of tbh, there's a psychic misderiction there too

So we have compulsion, telekenisis, and visions. I wonder if all the demon children have different powers

Classic "that's impossible" joke

Andy just wants to live in a van and honestly, same.

Oh i wanted to write earlier that I hate hearing Dean call his car baby

Dean is such a fucking nerd.

Evil twin twist. Andy is freaking out

Wait the brothers name is "Anson Weebs" uh what

Oh that's the brother huh.. that wasn't really set up. Also like, why would he kill his parent people

Why.. is she wearing only her slip??

Oh no it was just a vision.

Troubled little meow meow sam winchester

Why is she aware of the mind control?

I guess the brother wants to ruin Andy's life or something?

I could screw with more than just your head dean winchester dont fking... uh...

Oh ok so he's making her strip and then have sex with him this is a family tv show

The effects over the voice commands are a lot.

Psychic brother showdown. They both have to die so Sam is the only special demon child. I'm betting they both go over off the cliff

Oh so I guess this guy is just out of his mind wonderful. The man with the yellow eyes oh it's the demon's fault. That's kind of nice. Oh god is Dean going to snipe the evil brother?

Why did Andy have a gun?????

Yeah I get why the lady wouldn't trust him anymore

Sam not understanding the concept of self defense. "Everyone is capable of murder"

"What are you seven?" a good question. Sam's face at Dean is correct.

Fell on Black Days - I guess they got the rights for this Soundgarden song

Dean is not a team player

So the demon is just behaving randomly... great.

#supernatural #supernatural liveblog #s2e5 #spn

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jstohl81 · 4 years ago

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CFF Beat Series - Part 3 (2008)

With a firm primitive handshake, we introduced one another and immediately flocked to the pinball game, Monster Bash. John Wray, also known as Tilt is one of the Founding Fathers of the Crazy Flipper Fingers pinball gang in Portland. “So, what do you want to know?” asked John while he placed four quarters in the machine and began his game. Wray plays like a henchman casually focused on his game while ranting about pinball.

He has a dense frayed beard, thick rimmed glasses, a shaved head and an array of tattoos among his arms. As he talks, his raspy voice increases in tone while he lets out roars of laughter At 36 years old, Wray has been tilting pinball games since an early age starting out in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is outspoken and seems to find thrills in telling stories. Before I could start note taking, John was spewing stories out like a coin machine does quarters.

He explains the essence of pinball, the satisfaction that occurs and why CFF is the best. He delves into tournaments he has competed in, saying that he won so many, “One time I paid my rent off.” His eagerness shows on his face as he plunges the silver ball down the board.

There are no other games at the Vern, just six pinball machines. He lashes out in hostility about video games for a second, how they tend to replace pinball games due to their financial success and then shows his allegiance to pinball by proudly announcing how he strictly adheres to pinball only with a tone of gusto. “Fuck video games, I only play pinball!” Wray says. He has a huge bitterness toward video games, specifically the golf and hunting games featured in numerous bars around Portland.

A week ago, the CFF had their bi-weekly meeting at the Goodfoot where I would find myself amidst a sea of black tees with CFF logos, wild chants, and an all out pinball competition among members. On the tables were a variety of beer bottles, glasses and a massive mountain of quarters. John told me that members and prospects are required to bring 10 dollars worth of quarters to the meeting, adding up to an overwhelming amount of $200-plus from the entire gang. The sight was epic and seemed to be guarded by one female member, Slammer, who mocked me as I grabbed a few coins. “What do you think you‘re doing?” she asked. “They told me it was cool,” I said.

John made sure I was introduced to each member, and slowly but surely, I met an assortment of pinball zealots with cheers galore. By the end of the night, the mountain of coins had been reduced to a pathetic amount of pocket change. Every 30 minutes or so, John would abruptly erupt in a loud banter yelling, “CFF . . .” then the entire gang would join in unity and ferociously call back, “Til’ death.”

It was like being at a ball game where chants are thrown around endlessly. Members certainly hold Wray in high regard and admiration, in fact they look to him for advice on CFF issues and future undertakings. However, he doesn’t claim to be a leader of any sort. “I’m not the president or the leader of CFF, just another member,” he says with sincerity.

Members brought me into the gaming frenzy with heavy arms and comraderie. John was gazing about his gang with a grin and a glass of beer in his hand. “You’ve never seen me drunk have you?” John said with a smirk and hint of satisfaction. He looked content among his crew and gallivanted around to each member to tell stories or to lend enthusiasm.

One significant component of a CFF meeting is that their location have at least four pinball games. John told me how some bar owners would ask him what it takes for CFF to host a meeting at their spot. He simply replied, four machines will do. The Ship Ahoy did just that, and within a few weeks, they got four machines, and CFF started meeting there on a regular basis. Wray has clout in Portland. When CFF holds a meeting, they provide a lucrative business for the bar and pinball owners, while the gang unleashes a flurry of pinball passion. Any bar that doesn’t have four games, and the CFF won’t have their meeting their.

...A charismatic pinball aficionado..

Not only does he cook for the Vern, he bartends at Billy Rays over the weekend where he is the commander-in-chief amidst punks, metal heads, and locals. John is quite the avid fan of metal, thrash, and buttrock. He has the bar television tuned to the exclusive show, Metal Mania that only plays 70s and 80s metal, from Kiss and Slaughter, to Judas Priest and Dokken. Customers are smoking like a chimney, some are shooting dice, while others pound pints of PBR, all the while Wray keeps cool joking around and singing along. That it until a customer orders food.

“Motherfuckers and your fucking food,” he yells at a customer. Wray portrays a deep animosity toward having to fix food. It’s as if a pinball game goes dead during mid-play. He turns in spite and begins fixing a platter of nachos while mumbling obscenities and turning to me with a wild look of earnestness in his eyes.

While Wray prepares order after order of hotdogs and nachos, I go upstairs to play a round of pinball. Turns out, the machine Monster Mash shuts down during ball one without even allowing me to sigh. I go downstairs to alert John of the concern, and on the drop of a dime he grabs the phone at midnight, dials a pinball machine operator, and leaves a message explaining what happened on a machine. Wray seems content about the phone call and explains how him and CFF call operators all the time to report down machines. He expects it will get looked at in the next day or so.

Within a few minutes, the toaster oven begins to ringing and John hurries over to handle the hot buffet of melted cheese, jalapenos and a mound of chips with other necessary condiments. All the while his patience is growing thin due to some depressing emo band that has been blaring from the jukebox for the past hour, putting a major damper on the mood of John. It felt like the dead of winter with suicide rants on the forefront of the bar. He leans in close to me and says with a smile, “What’s the difference between an emo kid and a pizza? A pizza won’t cut itself.”

Wray is a joker, a keen story teller who can deliver jokes by the minute if necessary, or carry on fascinating stories that involve all sorts of absurd themes. He begins one dramatic story with enthusiasm that took place in his hometown, entitled “the night I was fucked.” Wray bluntly explains how he had just gotten pulled over late one evening.

“I had in my possession, a fuckin’ half-ounce of pot I had just got. I was shitface drunk. I had a 10-strip of LSD in the fuckin’ daily planner thing, in my book bag with every, every sketch book that I had with all graffiti shit. With every illegal piece I ever painted was documented in there somewhere. I had between 30 and 40 cans of spray paint in my fuckin’ van. My sketchbook had Fort Wayne Police stickers on them. I worked at a screen printing place that printed those stickers . . . I’m fucked, I’m like oh my God! I had a pipe, I had fuckin’ papers on me in my jacket, oh and I had another 10-strip in tinfoil in the pocket of my jacket, I’m fucked! Oh my god I’m fucked, I’m fucked, I’m so fucked . . . (the cop) finds the half-ounce of brick weed in my pocket, hauls over his partner . . . And then he finds the pipe. He dumps it out of the bag and is like, ‘grind that up real good’, smashes the pipe . . . He’s like, ‘you know why we pulled you over?’ no idea, ‘shots were fired in the area and you like a suspicious vehicle.’”

The tale continues even further escalating with Wray in the back of a cop car weaseling the tinfoil 10-strip from his pocket to stash it in his shoe while the cops searched his suspicious van. He was certain he was going to jail when the cops started reading Wray his rights. Turns out they had wrongly identified Wray as a faux pizza delivery robber so the K-9 unit was called out. The K-9 unit cop happened to know Wray, vouched for him as a real pizza delivery man and they let Wray go just like that.

He told another story about how his pinball craze developed at Bakers donut shop in Fort Wayne Indiana. It was here that John and his friends would buy 45 cent coffee with free refills and stock up on prized donuts while slinging quarters and pushing flippers. “They knew how to make my favorite donut,” said Wray with admiration.

Wray is more than the co-founder of CFF, he’s an avid pinball player who admires his members like they’re family and appreciates the time they spend together. He joins them in solidarity throwing chants out into the air like an umpire. “CFF . . . Til’ death!” Lined against the wall are a sea of CFF members shaking machines, sharing laughs and drinking beer. Each machine is flanked with black-clad pinball zealots bearing the CFF logo designed by Wray. He steps back up to No Fear with a grizzly bear stance while a cigarette smoke trickles up his face. This is his love, pinball, CFF and camaraderie.

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rutisup-blog · 7 years ago

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Mendocino Magic - Day 2

I wake up at some point in the morning…Is it 9 AM? It doesn’t really matter. There’s people up and at it in the camp-site, and I’m just laying naked in my cozy blue sleeping bag–feeling lazy. Jonny is up, and I can hear that people are cooking something or another–awesome. I could just lay here a little longer…

Eventually I have to get up. I slip out of my nest and put on my outer-space t-shirt and my blue Billabong trunks. Everyone is getting ready to go down to the reservoir and do some floating. I’m pondering if I should drop some acid. Nicole, Chris, and Dimitri are going to do it. I mull it over in my mind…If I can get some more people to do it I can.

Jonny wants help making the punch, so I oblige him. We don’t have a can opener to open the cans of pineapple, so he just takes a knife and stabs the cans, dragging the knife through the lid–that’s one way to do it. The pineapples are really chunky–it’s basically all pulp–so we have to spoon them into the small opening in the container.

This container is a clear 2 gallon container, pretty much twice as large as a ‘gallon of milk’. The opening isn’t much bigger either. This is a slow process–sloppy pulp is getting everywhere. I roll up a pink paper plate and shove it in the opening, using it as a make-shift funnel. I have someone ‘stuff my pink taco’ full of the pulp, and we get it all in there. It keeps getting jammed up with pulp and overflowing. I discover I need to grasp the shaft of the funnel and violently shake it up and down to force all the gunk through that pink hole–the sexual innuendo of it all is making me laugh, taking my mind off how gross this is. Then we dump in two handles of Captain Morgan’s and look at this revolting drink. It just looks gross. We still need to put coconut juice in there, but at that point someone else starts helping and I slip away and leave them to deal with that shit.

It was like how I imagine it would be working at a sausage factory. You wouldn’t want to eat it if you saw how it was made. Pretty much the same deal when we make jungle juice at our halloween parties.

I have some liquid acid left still, and I had planted to seed with some people yesterday. I ask who wants some, and get some ok maybes from Rachel and Liv. Chris(sy) is down, and Nick is a maybe. I make a breakfast sandwich out of cheese, bread, and some bacon Jonny cooked up. Fuck, is it ever nice to camp with people that love to be organized. I find the marshmellows, placing the bag of them on that burgundy colored bench I’m sitting on. The fire from last night is still kind of warm, although long extinguished. I pull out four marshmellows and put them on the bench, and then bust out the liquid acid. I put a drop on each one of the marshmellows and hand them out, but the girls want to wait. Chris(sy) and I cheers the marshmellows and chow down. They’re sweet AF.

“I’ll set a timer” says Chris(sy), already tapping away at his digital watch. The race against the clock has begun. I want to hustle to get down there. I start getting all of the shit I need together in my CamelBak, also trying to encourage the girls to take the acid. They’re wishy-washy, better let them make their own decision.

The pond beside our campsite, rich with lily pads

I slackline a bit and then 35 minutes in I am feeling a little tingly–ah here we go. The sense of urgency to get moving kicks in, and we rally the troops. We all starting walking down to the reservoir as a huge crew, someone pulling a cart of stuff. I’ve just got my tripper kit with me…My CamelBak with some beef jerky in it, a sweater, pants, sunglasses. What else does a man need? I start walking down, and then there’s this huge ass hill to get up to the reservoir–aaahhh shit.

I lend my muscles to help, and I grab onto the cooler and team carry it up with Dimitri. Fuck, it’s a total bitch to do, but we make some fun of it. We trade sides a few times. We zig zag up this damn hill with it, taking a few breaks. We finally get up that bitch, and then Nick comes in and wants to help. He subs out Dimitri, and then we set up a kind of makeshift camp by Cannonball Camp, where there are some other people camping.

It’s less than ideal, so I talk to the boys.

“I’m going on a recon mission, whose with me?” “I’m Down.” says Nick “Yeah dude. Let’s do it” Chimes in Dimitri.

So the three of us start walking around the lake. We’re doing a recon team schtick, using radio call-signs and all. Nick is Golden Eagle, I’m Red Beaver, and Dimitri is White Russian. We find site ‘Alpha’…not great. Then next we discover ‘Site W’ on account of all the woods…Super steep, but we check it out anyways. At any rate, we’re having a fucking blast. White Russian is on two tabs, I’m on one drop, and Nick is just a little buzzed off of a PBR Tall Boy. We’ve all got a frosty PBR in our hands, and we’re using it to gauge the time. We don’t want to run out during our loop. We find a desirable site near the end of our route, and then we return to base-camp to say where we are moving. The whole convoy picks up and starts to move, but I decide to put some stuff in a cargo tube and float it over–Ojibwe Express style. I kick for probably 25 minutes to transport it, Nickel and C-dog coming with me.

C-dog does the backwards octopus to propel himself, I just kick underwater, and Nickel like jumps up on her tube and kicks wildly with her legs, splashing water everywhere. We all have our own method. We’re taking our time, moving ever-slowly across the reservoir. In the time it took us to get over there, we find out that the group has been invited over to this sweet rock even further across the bay, so we have to move again. I’ve got this Simpsons jelly donut floatie that I’m trying to inflate with my lungs. Every time I feel like I’m getting a good rhythm going some flies land on my shoulder and I have to swat them off. I get frustrated and give up, just walking over to the rock area. I find Liv and Rachel hanging out on a rock just overlooking the water. Liv has a purple flower in her hair, and it looks beautiful. The girls get me a purple flower and we put it in my beard.

It really is a beautiful moment. It’s me, Liv, and Rachel, and I think Chris(sy) as well has joined up later after transporting the cooler. We wave hello to the people that invited us, and they come to talk to us. It’s this petite little Quebecois girl wearing a Batman bikini, and her fairly athletic hippie boyfriend. They live on some land adjacent to this, doing ‘agriculture’, and living in a Yurt type thing that looks like a garlic clove. I mean, clearly they’re growing weed.

Jonny looks like a king, laughing in a huge lazy-boy floatie down there in the reservoir, cup of rum punch in his hand. He’s literally got the floaty for the cooler tied to his floaty–he is the bar. There’s a flotilla of about 10 people in tubes all tied together, and Jonny is trying to get a drink out of that collapsible container full of punch. It looks as disgusting as before, and after seeing him try to handle that flexible container, I can’t help but notice that it looks like a stomach full of bile. He’s loving that stomach juice. Everyone’s having a great time down there.

We chat with the strangers about their fairy tale lives for a bit more, a bunch of working stiffs on their long weekend turnin’ up for the weekend trying to relate to these free spirits. They tell us the realities of their situation, their extremely blue eyes just mesmerizing us.

“It’s cool, but if the wind picks up, we usually stay in town. It’s no joke, if a tree falls over, you’re done” Says the dude, his crystal gemstone sitting low on his chest, suspended around his neck with a hemp string. “Ah…” We say collectively. It’s a little too surreal a moment for us–you know with all the acid, their unconventional lives and the too blue to handle eyes. “Well, we’re headed out, it was great to meet you guys”.

We watch the two free spirits leave, that little Quebecois mouse shrinking off into the distance with her yellow and black batman bikini. So long, gov’na. “Were those people even real? They were too perfect to be real” remarks someone.

Five minutes later this strange Filipino chick rolls up and passive-aggressively tells us–with emphasis on the aggressive–“This is our private campsite, and we were promised it would be our own little private area”

Ah shit. “Oh…we didn’t know. Someone invited us over here”. “OK well this is our campsite and we were promised it would be private” she’s saying. “Ok yeah, well we will move”.

I wonder if those free spirits were even real…this surly chick sure as fuck didn’t think so. It’s kind of awkward, not the shit you wanna deal with while tripping. But no worries, we got a bunch of homies in the water. I take my time and get my shit, and then we walk back over to the new old site, the shady one. I try for like 20 minutes to blow up this inflatable jelly donut, but fail. All these bugs keep landing on my shoulder once again, and then I am with Alison and Brittany who are doing girl talk and I just can’t take it anymore. The tube is only a 1/4 inflated, but I run into the water and try to fill the tube up while swimming. I look ridiculous.

I come in hot like a sea otter, swimming into the middle of the flotilla. I try to grab a glass of punch from Jonny, but he protests a bit. “I don’t have any more cups” he says. “What about this empty one you have right here?” I say, pointing at a clean glass sitting pretty in a cupholder beside the cooler

“That’s for the ice”. “Seriously?” “OK, blow up that floaty and I’ll give you a punch”.

So I try in vain for a while, it’s just hard when you’re swimming. There’s a vacant premium floaty, looking all firm and buoyant. It belong to C-dog, but he seems to have abandoned it for the moment. I hijack his floaty and use it as a base to try and blow it up my floaty. I float over to Jonny, and that pedigree chum was true to his word.

“Stomach juice me” I say. King Jonny takes that coveted chalice out of the cup holder, and throw a little ice in. “You’ve gotta pour it yourself, but here you go, handing me the stomach. “It’s too pulpy to use the valve, you’ve got to take the cap off.

So there I am balancing on a tube with a 2 gallon collapsible plastic stomach of juice between both arms, and the cup held between both of my feet like a vise. I’m doing some sort of yoga pose here trying to get a drink. It’s a precarious move, and I’m able to pour/squeeze the juice out into the cup. All of my efforts pay off, this stomach juice is delicious.

I get a few sips of that sweet nectar, but then C-dog comes back to reclaim his tube and threatens to flip me if I don’t get out.

“I know you can’t flip me, I’ve got the stomach juice hostage!” I chortle. Jonny shoots me a concerned look and says “He’s right”.

Chris is there treading water beside the tube, and I still haven’t even managed to blow up my jelly donut tube. I’m laughing uncontrollably. Chris is getting frustrated.

“Dude, don’t mess with me, I’m like a sea otter. I’m gonna flip your ass”. “Just lemme blow it up and you can have you tube back”.

I can’t stop laughing, which is kind of a blocker when you’re trying to blow up a fucking tube with your lungs. I’m not making much headway on the floaty and C-dog is getting all frustrated.

“At least hand the punch over so someone else can drink it as well”. It seems a reasonable request, I’ve been having fun at this now for about 10 minutes. So I hand the hostage stomach and my cup of juice over to someone so they can drink it, and I promptly get flipped. I deserved that.

Treading water again, and the tube isn’t getting inflated quickly at all. I eventually have Steve help me blow it up, and he does it in like three breaths. Incredible. “I give a lot of blowjobs” he says gayly and laughs. This guy is awesome.

So there I am, floating around and tied into the flotilla with my jelly donut floaty. We keep drifting into the reeds, and people need to kick. This eventually gets a little tiring, and it’s just me Steve and Chris(sy) doing the work. We start to run out of booze and get bored of this, so I untie from the flotilla, tired of pulling ten people. The girls say ok whatever, we don’t need you boys anyways. They promptly float into the reeds across the reservoir. We all laugh at them a bit. I kick back to shore and hang out a bit. The girls eventually come back, and we walk with them.

I walk with Rachel, and I take off my Birks. Nothing better than walking barefoot while tripping. I do feel some pain when I’m walking on the rocks, but my feet are kind of hobo feet at this point anyways. I try to convince Rachel to de-shoe as well, but no dice. We walk down and then we see King Jonny yelling directions at us.

“DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK” he keeps repeating, pointing his arms in a windmill motion towards the F-350 parked at the base of the path. He looks like he’s directing traffic–ok let’s be real, he is.

This is working like a well oiled machine–I’m impressed he has the wherewithal do this after all that stomach juice. I’ve ended up carrying the big yellow floatie Jonny was on. After we all deflate those shits and pack them in, we finally make it back to the camp–hooray.

I hit the slackline, and I’m fucking killing it. I jump in my hammock and just lay there, looking up into the branches. It’s beautiful. I sway back and forth a bit. I eat some jerky and the flavor is just so intense–wow. I hop out in search of some strawberries–they’re the best when you trip. I end up grabbing another beer and I’m just drinking and making that transition from trippin’ to drunk. It’s like 3:30 PM. The sun is out and it’s beautiful so I say “Hey I’m gonna go lay in the sun up on the path”. “We could grill up there” says Jonny.

I helped Jonny move the charcoal grill over and I throw my sarong down on the ground and grab some sun while Jonny gets the grill going–we’re starving. We set the beer pong table up, and slowly people start to come up and hang out. Jonny and I play Dimitri and Brittany, and it’s a decent game.

I’m making the joke about the punch looking like stomach juice, and it seems to catch on. We name the stomach ‘Joe’ and it’s now Joe’s Juice or Joe’s Stomach Juice. That shit is fucking GOOD. I can’t stop sipping it. It’s become a good luck talisman now, as I squeeze the sides of it to release a fresh tropical breeze of pineapple aroma before each shot for luck–my version of blowing on your dice.

It was a shame when you had to switch from the stomach juice to some of that Colorado piss water whenever they sunk a ball. We continue playing, and beat out Nickel and C-dog as well. It was close, but we got them. I’m kind of faded at this point, and we get off the table. Chrissy, Rachel, Nick and Olivia are set up on another blanket beside the Sarong, just laying out now. I come and join them, getting some sun.

I’m staring directly up, and there’s a beautiful set of branches just full of young maple leaves above me. Beside us is a manzanita tree. Two pretty different trees, existing together. I love maple trees, but maybe it’s because I’m Canadian. Everyone is looking at these lizards camouflaged in the tree. It’s trippy as fuck, It takes me a while to find them. You need to wait for them to move, and they do a quick move and then freeze. Wow, pretty cool. I’m laying next to Liv starting up at a canopy of maple leaves and talking about keeping a journal and life in general. I’m saying how I’m going to journal this…That it’ll be a 15 pager (way more than that right now).

Posted up like a mailbox on the trail

Rachel is wearing like all black and has this hat on, and we get her to tuck her pony tail through the back. She looks like a lunch-lady. We’ve got a hat heavy crew, and I like it. I read the back of her hat, and I have to do a double-take. It says ‘J. Galt’ and then an address.

“Hey, who’s John Galt?” “What” “Like, who’s John Galt? Why is the sky blue” I say trying to make an obvious reference.

No one really gets it.

“Is that an Atlas Shrugged reference?” Says Chris. “Yeah dude, that hat says, J. Galt. That’s definitely an Atlas Shrugged reference” I say excitedly.

No one else understands or has read the book, but I nevertheless think it’s mad cool that someone has made John Galt branded clothing. C-dog and I proceed to get into a philosophical debate about Atlas Shrugged. “It’s anti-capitalist” says C-dog “No man, it IS capitalism, it’s fighting communism” I retort.

We don’t have much more to say of it, but then 10 minutes later C-dog says “I think you might be right man, I’m thinking about it more, and I think I had it wrong. The book is capitalist”. What a strange turn of events that was, although only C-dog and I could enjoy it.

Jonny is sitting in a little ultralight camping chair beside the grill, and a lot of smoke is starting to come out of it. He’s staring intently at the grill through his sunglasses, but he hasn’t really moved much. He’s sweating profusely–really soaking up the sun. “Is his leg hair burning?” someone chimes in. His left leg is close to the grill, and some of his leg hair has definitely singed off. I cock my head to the side and see that he is actually asleep behind the sunglasses. This motherfucker passed out in the middle of the party, but no one even noticed. He’s supposed to be watching the chicken. Suddenly the smoke coming out of the grill is much more alarming than before.

“Jonny?” I say. He’s dead to the world. I start laughing “Guys check it out, I think Jonny passed out”. We all start checking it out and he’s still asleep. Someone opens up the grill to check on the chicken and it’s all getting pretty burnt. Rachel moves the grill away from him and she takes over and starts cooking. She really looks like a lunch lady now with the baseball cap on, leaning over the smoky grill.

Quickly this turns into something hilarious, everyone camping with us wants to check it out. I figure he will wake up at any moment now, but this mother fucker is still KO’ed! So we do what anyone else would do. We pose and do a group picture with him sleeping at the front! We keep it a secret, he still doesn’t know we have this absolutely hilarious ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ inspired pic with him.

We cook the chicken and eat a little bit, and then like ten minutes later we see Jonny wakes up, but he plays it cool. He just snaps into it and a few seconds later starts bobbing his head to the beat, feeling like no one even noticed his little nap. We let him keep thinking that.

“Whatup Jonny” “Just chillin” “Yeeeeahh have some more of that stomach juice” I say.

So he’s drinking a little more and looking fine, but still waking up a bit from his stupor. A few minutes later he has a bit of a start and says “Where’s the fuckin chicken?” in a panic. We’ve completely removed the grill and served the chicken at this point. Everyone starts laughing and we’re like “Ohhhh Busted!” We tell him how we found him looking like Bernie passed out infront of the burning chicken and just let him be.

Chef Jonny serving up some Zzzz’s

Jonny has another drink, and he’s right back in the saddle. Something flipped with him after that. It’s like he turned into an old British street merchant. “We’ve got the coals, let’s cook all the meat he says”. Suddenly, we’ve got 15 hot dogs on the grill, hamburgers, basically anything he could get on that little 6″ by 12″ charcoal grill.

“Wanna hot dog? This one’s perfect” he says in his Sheffield British accent, pushing a nearly burnt to a crisp dog onto someone. He’s quite the salesman. “Hotdogs? Hotdog? He says, that British accent really sending it home. This guy wasn’t going to waste any food.

There’s some more beer pong, and ultimately most of the meat Jonny cooks ends up in a big metal bowl, aptly referred to as “the bucket of meat”. I give him some grief about cooking all the meat when it’s only 5:00 PM. “You won’t be complaining tonight when you’re drunk and there’s all this meat” he says. He’s probably right.

Some of the girls float the idea of going to catch the sunset up at the reservoir. I’m feeling so lazy, but it just sounds like too good an idea to pass up. Slowly, slowly, people get their shit together–pole pole. The sun is still fairly high, but in about an hour it will probably dip behind those Mendocino mountains. We start to rally.

The whole crew gets it together, and we set off as the sun starts to get a little low. We bring two full bottles of Jamieson with us, passing those two bottles around amongst the group of 15, taking straight pulls. I’m feeling impressed, proud even. It’s not every day you get to go camping with this many people and have everyone down to drink straight Jamieson out of the bottle.

We start to walk up the windy path up the hill to the reservoir, passing that abandoned pumping station. There’s this beautiful Madrone tree on the way up there. There’s a steep AF way to run up the hill, or a windy path. It’s time for a race. Rachel and Olivia start running up the windy way, while Chris, some other boys, and I run up the steep hill alongside a big neglected pipe. We beat them by a landslide.

I look up over the hill into the campgrounds. There’s all these tires that have weed plants growing in them. “Come in overwatch” says Nick in a radio voice, causing White Russian and me to laugh. That was the call-sign for the big eagle we saw flying over the campsite from this same spot. “He’s our eye in sky” says one of my fellow Recon Team Charlies.

It’s decided that this floating dock should serve the best purpose to enjoy the sunlight. Nick and I use a chain attached to it to pull it ashore. “Un, Dos, Tres” says Nick as we time our efforts to pull that thing ashore. We do a few iterations of this and decide that this was ‘good enough’. The whole crew jumps on the dock, and the front part of it sinks in the water a bit. It’s a nice cozy vibe, and we’re all sitting around drinking Jamieson.

This is just way too cozy for Jonny. He’s just a complete hooligan right now. He has a bottle of Jamieson in one hand, and he’s at the end of the dock jumping from one foot to the other, shaking the dock in the water. The old dock is partly submerged in the water as he does this. He’s either trying to sink it or get everyone wet, no one is sure. “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” Chrissy says to Jonny whenever he tries to open his mouth. She’s had just about enough of his shit today. I’m ambivalent, and C-dog is totally loving it, egging him on an enabling his behavior.

squad

Chris(sy) has his DSLR, and sets up a timer photo to capture us all chilling on the dock. It’s the golden hour of the day, the sunlight just perfect for portrait photography. We all look great.

The sun goes down and Jonny tries to push the dock away. Everyone gets spooked and jumps off. He kind of ruined the moment there, I could have chilled on the dock for a little while now. Oh well. We all head down the hill, ending up near the common cooking area.

It’s twilight, and there’s some groups of people in the outdoor cooking area hanging out, some dogs roam around playing with each other off-leash. Some people are playing cornhole, and our group just sidles up beside it, and the people playing kind of just kill their game, trying to get us to take over. They either have had enough of the game, or enough of being near us. I think it’s the latter.

I lay on this huge hammock made of white tarp stretched between two huge wooden pieces. It’s suspended between two trees. It’s like 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. Several of us are laying in this big hammock, watching all the different dogs play with each other. Nick’s dog Ukiah is facing off with the other dogs, who are trying to intimidate her, but that dog has some steely resolve, completely unfazed by the bigger dogs. “WHAT NOW, WHAT NOW BITCH. WHAT NOW. HUH? WHAT NOW.” I could imagine Ukiah saying to the other dog. Body language speaks louder than words.

Jonny isn’t finished his chaos, He wants to rock the boat–literally. He’s going nuts on the hammock, making it swing wildly left to right. He’s all excited and saying unintelligible British things as he rocks the hammock back and forth. Some people roll off, wanting nothing to do with this. I remain on, and he gets in a bit of a war with Rachel. They’re on opposite sides of the hammock, trying to swing the other one off. Rachel falls off, but has resolve and jumps back on to try to dethrone the king. I’m still laying on the hammock chillin–I don’t mind a little movement.

The rumble begins, and Jonny ends up tumbling off, doing a big dramatic roll onto the ground. All that commotion makes the dogs go CRAZY! They’re all running around in circles, barking like mad. Our group really just rolled in here like a fucking hurricane. With all that pineapple rum, we’re a fucking tropical storm that’s for sure.

After that debacle, everyone walks back to the campsite, but I hang back for a few minutes just to do a comparison of what the campsite is like when we’re not terrorizing everyone. It was pretty calm. Yep, case closed. We’re obnoxious assholes, and I don’t mind one bit.

We get back to the campsite, and Dimitry has his ankle all propped up with some ice. It turns out on the walk back he was dancing, and rolled his ankle RealReal bad. It was swole as fuck.

The camp-fire is raging, and we all sit around drinking and shooting the shit. We’re all a little exhausted from our full day. Rumor around camp is that a live music show will go on at 11:30 PM. A pretty cocky start time, but we’ll allow it. We make smores and drink around the fire until we hear the music fire up across the pond. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it’s happening.

Most of the group moseys back over, bringing the Jamieson and a 30-rack of Coors. The music is being played in this cool raised wooden area, providing a little dancefloor and stage in the woods–hell yeah. The first act is kind of reminisecent of Crystal Castles, and not bad. Then a second fellow riffs on his electric guitar about having “fridge magnets that don’t stick, so I hold ’em up with tape”. He also had a song about “Where the white things roam” as a sort of ode to gentrification.

It’s almost 1 AM now, and they’re going to stop the music. The last guy that comes on stage is just fucking horrible, so that was our cue to leave. The whole squad does an about-face and walks outta there, feeling somewhat bad about leaving in the middle of the set, but ultimately relieved to be out of there.

The fire is still going, and poor Dimitry is still there hanging out, icing his ankle. We have some more drinks around the fire, running out of battery eventually on the speaker. Slowly, slowly–pole pole–people begin to retire. At some point it’s just C-dog and I.

The stars are so incredible tonight, as they were the night before. Chris and I go out to the grass clearing beside our camp-site, bringing out chairs to just stargaze. I’ve got some of the ‘Thai crack’ menthol inhaler, the Thai herbal version of Vicks.

We don’t last long sitting, and we’re quickly laying down and staring at the cosmos. The sky looks milky with stars, you can see the Milky Way a bit. I’m shining my laser into the sky to try to find constellations. There’s too many stars for me to even identify constellations. So beautiful

I pass out soon after that.

Mendocino Magic – Day 2 was originally published on RUT-IS-UP

#California #Mendocino

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insomniac-arrest · 8 years ago

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Stainless Stealing

@lapidot-week for day5:tired/rested

genre: college-human AU

words: 2.5k

summary: Lapis has her bedsheets nabbed from the dorm laundry room, and later someone comes waltzing in wearing them as a toga.

Fuckboi!Peridot AU lmao

Lapis wasn’t sure she liked the laundry room at the end of her hall. It was just a washer stacked on top of a dryer in a five by four space that held exactly one trashcan and a tiny counter that always seemed to have someone’s lost underwear on it.

The washer was always wetter than necessary, as in her jeans came out soaking and weighed down by a pound of water and she had to fish her socks out from the bottom of the flooded machine basin. It’s lights were brighter than God, it’s services were basically always in use, and it smelled frankly too clean in it’s tiny space.

Of course, to be fair, she wasn’t sure any college student liked their liked laundry room. It wasn’t exactly what they advertised in pamphlets, but at least she had one. Lapis had been wearing the same gray hoodie from her sister’s boyfriend for days and was about to be reduced to wearing her bathing suit for undergarments if she didn’t act soon, so it was time.

She collected all of her loose items and realized, as the cherry on the top of her dreary Friday night, she’d have to do two loads: one for clothes and one for her sheets that she spilled Nyquil all over.

Lapis sighs and jams her earbuds into her ears, putting the overflowing basket on her hip and making her way to the end of the hall. She dumps the contents into the barely breathing washing machine and ‘borrowed’ her roommate's soap as she sets the machine for an hour.

It should have been fine, like any other night with Lapis’s main wish to go to sleep and stay asleep, but she had to do a second load, she had to forget to put on a second timer, and she to live in that dorm.

Lapis managed to get through her piles of gross jeans and tattered undershirts, she rewards herself by falling asleep point blank on top of her stripped bed. She drifts off into an aimless blank sleep as an hour apparently passes, and then another hour, and Lapis woke up at midnight with a start.

She glances at her clock groggily and notes her roommate is still out. She yawns and forces her numb legs to walk down the gray hallway. She rubs her eyes as she tries to adjust to the blinding fluorescents that lined the ceiling and feels the thin carpet grate on her bare feet.

She jimmies the heavy laundry room door open and stands in the small space, reaching on tiptoes to get to the dryer and take out her linens. She has to blink a couple times when all she feels is warm metal holes, “Wait…” She feels around some more in the dryer, her mouth falls open. It was empty. “What?” She says a little louder and then she feels the entire inside of the dryer. “What?!”

She checks the little counter that held a lace teal thong at the moment, and then even the trash can. She checks the damp washing machine just in case and then runs into the hall to make sure it hadn’t been brought to the bathroom as a prank. She searches her clothes, she knocks on some doors reluctantly, but people were either out or didn’t know.

Lapis walked around in angry circles and couldn’t figure out how going to college was worth a single dime. She mutters to herself, “Stupid, stupid. Stupid communal living, stupid students, dumb, dumb, dumb.” She starts kicking her roommate's soccer ball against the wall when she snatches her ipod up and stomps back to the laundry room. She throws herself on the tile floor and sits cross-legged in front of the washer-dryer. The person would have to realize they got the wrong load and come back here eventually.

She ended up turning her volume all the way up and drifting off to the tune of Panic!At the Disco. It’s half past two in the morning when Lapis is yanked out of a stress dream of losing her fortune to a gold digging Lindsay Lohan when a bass guitar comes through the wall.

A banging erupts from the elevator and the sound of music echoes down the hall, it appeared someone had a boombox.

“We ain’t ever gettin’ older, we ain’t ever gettin’ older, so baby pull me closer in the backseat of your rover.”

Lapis’s eyes pop out of her head and she has a very strong feeling about this. An angry feeling.

She unfolds her stiff cold legs and crawls to her feet, she goes for the door and stumbles out into the narrow hallway.

A pair of guys with backward hats were standing in front of room 22b as a blonde girl seemed to be trying to figure out how to slide her key-card through the strip.

“One second boys,” She wobbles back and forth and Lapis’s examines her clothes, her nostrils flare.

“My sheets!” She points an accusatory finger out. The girl had a white pair of sheets wrapped around her waist in a toga style over a green bandeau bra. Lapis was practically shaking.

The boys turned to her, one of them quirking an eyebrow up and the other elbowing his friends curiously. They may or may not be looking at her loose sweatshirt over a frayed skirt. Lapis scowls.

She glared at the girl and one of the guys taps the blonde on the shoulder, “Eh, Peridot, for you.” She turns as if in a daze and he points at Lapis.

Lapis put her hands on her hips, “You wanna tell me why you’re wearing my sheets?” She tried to make herself as large as possible. Which was not so hard in front of the exceptionally short girl.

The girl hiccups. “Yo,” She drew a little closer to Lapis and two guys with the boombox seem ready to bolt. “What’s going on?” Lapis’s eyebrows jump up, “Those sheets.” She sniffs. “They’re mine.” Peridot looks down at her toga and puts a hand through her short hair, “No? I don’t think so.”

“Yes.” Lapis says more forcefully and tries to indicate the back of it, “It has that blue Nyquil stain on the back.” She recognized it since it was in the shape of a rabbit. “It looks like a bunny.”

Peridot, the girl, shifts in place and then drags the back of the ‘skirt’ around to stare at it, “I’ll be damned.” She chuckles and hiccups again. “I got a bunch of compliments on this thing tonight, good stuff.” Lapis’s eyes got huge and she balls up her fists, the two boys backup. “Hey, Per, we’re heading out.” They excuse themselves messily into the elevator.

Lapis bends over Peridot now, they are alone, “Who do you think you are?”

Peridot looks her up and down slowly, her cheeks a flagrant red. “Peridot? Also,” She hums and squints her eyes, “You’re uh, ‘L’ something? The theater and business major...Neat.” Lapis frowns and puts her palm flat out, “Yes, Lapis, me, neat. Now...My sheets.” Peridot scratches her head, “Huh, really yours? My bad I guess.” Lapis gives a sigh and waits, “I need to sleep tonight.” Peridot raises a half-smile, “Oh?”

Lapis’s narrows her eyes, “Yes. On my sheets. On a bed. With a 7am alarm.” Peridot shakes her head and reaches for a knot on her shoulder and tugs on it, Lapis inhales sharply, “Wai-” Too late, Lapis’s sheets dropped away neatly and revealed Peridot’s full bandeau and a pair of boxers in all their alien glory. Lapis massages the bridge of her nose.

“Well then,” Peridot seems to attempt a snap and finger guns in Lapis’s direction, she swaggers to what appeared to be her room, “Hit me up sometime. We’ll do Shakespeare or something. Lemme tell you, I have the best Hamlet voice, I just cry like a bitch for awhile and then get a boner for bad decisions.” “Ugh,” Lapis groans.

Peridot looks at her, “Is that not how it goes?”

Lapis reaches down to collect her sheets, “I’ll see you around.” Peridot shrugs in her direction and winks, “I’m sort of a tutor if you need math help or,” She hiccups and slurs her words, “Structural geometry if you know what I mean.” Lapis’s mouth fell open, she was being hit on at three in the morning while holding her stolen sheets, she just shakes her head.

Peridot tugs on her snapback and then shrugs, she closes the door behind her.

Lapis sighs and goes to make her bed and then never get out of it ever again. She brings it to her face. She nearly screams.

“Agh!” She crosses the room quickly and knocks quickly on the door, “Hey!”

It takes a moment but the door swings open, Peridot stands in the same outfit scratching her bare stomach, “I didn’t mean tutoring now.” She says irritably.

Lapis held out her white linens. “Did you dip this into an entire vat of beer? It reeks.”

Peridot chuckles absently, “Yeh. I suppose I did do a keg stand, it was pretty sweet. But I thought the pool washed it all off.” She taps her chin, “Until Am dumped the rest of her PBR on me, okay.” Lapis wrinkles her nose and hunches her shoulders, “I can’t sleep on these.” A quiet look gets in the drunk girl's eyes, “What d’you want then?” Lapis glances around, she looks over Peridot’s shoulder, she thinks about the empty study room. She looks into Peridot’s room again. “How clean is your room? We could swap for tonight.”

Peridot furrows her brow, “Seriously?”

Lapis ducks under Peridot’s arm and finds a neatly organized room- outside of an entire stack of CPH disks and some computer wires on the floor. She nods, “Alright. Okay, I am so tired I could cry. Go make a nest out of these and hell, I’ll go buy myself new sheets in the morning.” She made her plans out loud.

She wasn’t sure Peridot was listening. “Hmm, how about no. I just made my bed again and while, thanks for the toga tonight, I have like, a six-hour shift tomorrow.” Lapis glances at her, revenge was best served late at night and right away, “Too bad.” She jumps into the girl’s bed, a thick green blanket over it and at least four pillows, she burrows in. “Get lost.”

She could feel Peridot staring at her, “I am way too tired for this, moody chick.” Lapis just turned and grinned at that.

“Look at your stuff more carefully next time,” She winks, “And I hear the laundry room is free.” Lapis turned her back to her and smiled as she felt the tug of sleep, maybe she was finally getting ahead.

------------

So, in the top ten bad decisions Lapis had made in the first two weeks of school, sleeping in a stranger's bad was up right up there. She wasn’t even drunk. Just full of spite and bad ideas.

Lapis was having a nice dream about clouds and flying and maybe Kristen Stewart being there when she felt a soft kick to her shin.

Lapis wiggles in place and tucks the thick head of hair more snugly under her chin. Lapis’s brain pauses. A thick head of hair.

Her eyes fly open, there was a head under her chin, an arm settled over her waist, a leg tangled in between her legs and someone breathing lightly into her collarbone.

Lapis sits up in bed with a start and pulls her skirt down, “Ah!” The girl next to her flails her arms in the air and nearly falls off the bed.

Lapis takes a deep breath in and looks around, “Where…?” She looks down at her pile of soiled sheets, and then at the picture of Percy LaPenne on the wall. The night comes back to her in full force. “Ohmygod.” She feels a light tug on her hoodie sleeve, she turned to find Peridot, her, examining Lapis, she sits up straight. Peridot looked around and then down at herself, “Did we,” her eyes dart up, “You know.” Lapis hunches over, “No.” She grunts angrily, “You wish…” She blows air out of her nose, “Do you remember any of last night?” The girl squints and then gets a goofy grin on her face, “It was awesome.” She pushes her hair back, “I, Peridot, was pretty cool I think I remember.” She looks at Lapis closely, “Lapis, right?”

Lapis groans. “Okay. I’ll just leave now.” “Wait, wait, wait,” Peridot reached out toward her as the bed shifts, “Did we meet at the party? I remember we were in the hall together…” Lapis shakes her head and retold the story: took her sheets, literally wore them, Lapis stole her bed in retribution. “But then you hopped into the bed at some point too.” Lapis says with an unhappy frown.

Peridot chuckles, “Makes sense, okay, cool cool.” Lapis rights her shirt and delicately gets out of the bed, “No, not cool. But alright, I’ll just go buy new sheets.” Peridot’s eyebrows rose, “Oh hey, wait, I’ll buy you sheets, give me your number, I’ll do it after work.” Lapis didn’t look back at her, “I have like, two projects due on Monday and a headache that hasn’t gone away.” She hears someone stumble to the floor behind her, “Aw, come on, I’m really not a bad person. I mean, yeah, I stole your sheets and maybe got a bit of throw up on them,” “What?!” She drops the sheets.

“But I’ll totally buy you a new one.” Lapis looks back, Peridot blinks at her, “Take you out to dinner. Buy you a comb.” Lapis touches her hair self-consciously, “I’ll start with the new sheets.” She did have things to do instead of walk all the way to target that day.

A bright smile comes on Peridot’s face, “Great,” She grins, “You’ll find I definitely come through in the end.” “Do you always boast this much?” Lapis goes to head toward the door, Peridot follows her like an almost-nude puppy dog.

“Not if I get your number. I’ll be very humble then.” Lapis rolls her eyes, “This is for pickup purposes.” She scribbles down her cell number on one of Peridot’s crumpled notebooks and slips it to her. Peridot nods at it appraisingly and gives her a thumbs up.

She gives a reluctant thumbs up back.

------------------

Lapis got a pair of satin sheets back that night. And a nude of Peridot (see: her without a shirt on in a random mirror) with just the caption ‘shakespeare?’ on it.

Lapis rolls her eyes and tells her to come around tomorrow if she wants to learn about Hamlet and buy her five coffees to make up for last night.

#lapidot #steven universe #lapidot week #Lapis Lazuli #peridot #lapidot fic #steven universe fanfiction

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claraxbarton · 8 years ago

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Bribery Thursday

Okay, just a little 6x2 drabble for @crown-of-winterthorne

(Not connected to any other fic... I don’t think... but I’m going to plop it into V-verse, or Vegas centered fics, because I need an excuse to miss it more I guess...)

Okay, let me APOLOGIZE because I was going for light, LIGHT angst but this... went in a very different direction. I am SO SORRY. Ish.

----

The good thing about being one grade update away from flunking out of the engineering program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas was the proximity of the University to the Las Vegas strip (three blocks - three western blocks, which meant a bit of a fucking haul) OR, for anyone who couldn’t be bothered to walk quite that far before attempting to drown their misery and/or - definitely AND - gamble away the few dollars that remained at the end of the month after paying for rent, gas, food, too fucking expensive cat meds for a fucking cat that didn’t even LIKE YOU - if that walk was too far, you could simply cross the damn street in the OTHER direction and fall into the smoky darkness of Stakeout, drink yourself into a stupor and play the digital poker game embedded into the bar until you were broke and too drunk to do anything but whine as Kerry, the forty-five year old mother of three demon spawn kids, carried your sorry, drunk ass out to a taxi and sent you home to vomit in your own bathroom so she didn’t have to clean it up.

That, at least, was what Duo had been counting on doing after he turned in his midterm exam for ME301 - Structure and Properties of Solids (SPS) or, as Duo would forever think of a fucking class that counted the midterm as fifty fucking percent of the fucking course grade, the class that would end his mediocre career as an engineer before it even got started.

It wasn’t even that HARD of a class. Okay, it was a fucking nightmare - with daily, DAILY problem sets that had to be turned in online and lectures that assumed you had read the required reading AND the suggested reading AND the readings suggested in the suggested readings to even begin to follow along. It was tough as hell and Duo hated it just as much as the other seventy five students in his section. But... but there were some days, some MINUTES, when he completely understood what Dr. Zhao was talking about and it felt like everything made sense and it made Duo think that he wasn’t an idiot, that he wasn’t a failure, that he DID have something he was good at and -

And then the fucking midterm.

The worst part about it had been the fact that Duo KNEW all of the material. He KNEW it.

But when he sat down and stared at the fucking blue book and the pages of thin lines and the projected exam questions on the board and the pencil in his hand his mind went completely blank.

Usually, tests were fine. Usually, tests were fucking EASY. Duo had coasted through high school and all of the freshman and sophomore level courses because he was really fucking good at taking tests.

But this one. THIS midterm. It was a complete fucking disaster because Duo’s mind went blank and his eyes felt like someone had thrown sand and Tabasco sauce into them and -

And yeah. Maybe sleep would have been a good idea the night before the midterm. Maybe sleep and breakfast - or hell, dinner the night before. And maybe even sleep the night before THAT would have been useful.

But Duo hadn’t slept in three days, had barely eaten anything in that same time because, as usual, his life was a series of unfortunate fucking events that led had him at one animal emergency hospital one night with a cat seizing in his arms and diggings his fucking claws into Duo’s skin whenever Duo tried to put him down, to another night at a different fucking hospital because clearly the dudes at the first one were fucking idiots, to a third night at a third hospital and Duo holding the cat that had hated him since the moment they first met five years ago as the veterinarian had injected the barbiturate and the cat’s hateful eyes had slowly glazed over and then closed and his claws had finally retracted from Duo’s flesh.

So, cat dead and incinerated, midterm flunked and future up in flames, Duo settled onto the uncomfortably sticky stool at the bar at Stakeout and signaled Alex, the bartender who maybe Duo had fucked twice and maybe would fuck again if he was drunk and depressed enough - and he was sure as fuck depressed enough so chances were that if Duo was still conscious when Alex’s shift ended he’d being going home with him.

Without having to ask, Alex filled a pilsner with the PBR on tap and slid it in front of Duo.

“Rough day?”

Duo snorted into the beer, wincing as it splashed onto his face.

“Is there any other kind?”

Alex raised an eyebrow, but before he could start to philosophize, the doors to Stakeout opened, letting in a blinding flood of the Vegas afternoon sunlight, before closing again.

Duo turned his head at the sound of laughter and recognized the group of five that had just entered - all graduate students in the mechanical engineering program. Duo knew two of them - Noin and Zechs. Noin was the TA for all of Zhao’s classes, including the one that Duo had just failed.

And Zechs...

Duo sighed as the blond haired man looked over at met his gaze. One of his pale, perfect eyebrows arched up in question and Duo resolutely turned away.

The less he reflected on Zechs, the better.

After all, he had enough fucking mistakes to mull over.

Duo was on his third PBR and had already lost twenty dollars playing digital poker when, predictably, his dark, self-loathing slide into deeper and darker self-loathing was interrupted.

Their group must have gone upstairs, to the pool tables, because Duo hadn’t really heard or seen any of them for an hour, but suddenly Zechs was leaning against the bar beside him, hair up in that messy top knot that somehow managed to look completely disheveled and completely perfectly coiffed at the same time.

“Looks like AceJoe6969 is kicking your ass,” Zechs said in that patronizing, perceptually amused by the inferiors who constantly surrounded him tone.

“Yeah, well...” Duo angrily pressed the fold button AGAIN and then drained his beer.

He was buzzed, buzzed enough to be a little belligerent but definitely not buzzed enough to be pliable or agreeable. And it was clear that Zechs knew that, his icy blue eyes narrowed and his lips quirked as he met Duo’s gaze.

“Shouldn’t you be on your way to Tahoe by now or something?” Duo sneered.

Zechs’s right eyebrow arched upwards.

“I’m driving up in the morning. How did you know?”

“Your sister,” Duo muttered, gratefully and stupidly taking a too big sip of the beer Alex delivered to him.

“She invited you?” Zechs sounded surprised - and Duo had to laugh.

Relena, Zech’s little sister, was a junior like Duo. Unlike Duo, she was the perfect student - the top of their class to the chagrin of about two dozen guys who were within spitting distance of her GPA and weren’t used to a girl EVER being smarter than them. Or at least not acknowledged for it.

He and Relena had dated, as freshmen, when Duo was still on the ‘I might be straight. I really might be straight. I just need the right girl and I will seriously stop thinking about cock and I can go back to my foster family and not get kicked out of the church and really. Just try dating one more girl and I’ll be straight.’

Relena had not been the girl to reveal Duo’s inner, deeply hidden heterosexuality. She had, in fact, been the girl who had invited Duo home for Thanksgiving at her parents Lake Tahoe ranch/mansion/villa/big fucking house with pools, tennis courts and horses. The girl who had invited him home to meet her family because she really liked him, because Duo wasn’t intimidated by her intelligence and because Duo didn’t pressure her about sex because, well, the church kind of insisting on waiting until after marriage and even though Relena was NOT Mormon, she seemed perfectly content to confine any amorous activities to kissing and some frotting that always left Duo feeling regretful because he REALLY shouldn’t be wondering what it would feel like if Relena had a cock. She had been the girl who had introduced Duo to her older brother, finishing up his master’s degree at Michigan and home for the holiday. She had been the girl who had then walked in on her older brother giving Duo a blow job that had cemented the fact that nope, he was not one perfect girl away from being straight. Not even a little.

Duo and Relena were still friends, still close - close enough that more than a few guys had asked Duo for PERMISSION to ask out Relena, which resulted in Duo usually laughing hard enough to tear up before he pulled himself together and suggested they never ever tell her they had asked a man PERMISSION to ask out Relena. It had taken her a few months to forgive him but, as she told him one night in her dorm room over a bottle of tequila, she had always wondered if he was really straight. She had, she sighed, hoped he was bisexual at least.

After that disastrous holiday visit with the fam, Duo hadn’t seen Zechs again until the following fall semester - when the first year doctoral candidates all presented at a research symposium and Duo had literally run into Zechs, dumping punch all over both of them, and Zechs had had to give his presentation with a giant pink stain on both his khakis and his crisp blue dress shirt.

“No, she didn’t invite him,” Duo answered Zechs. “I think one family getaway was enough for her. For all of us.”

“Speak for yourself,” Zechs murmured, eyebrow still arched, cool gaze speculative.

Over the past year and a half there had been... TOO many nights when Duo had found himself at Zechs’s apartment, or in Zech’s car, or in Zech’s lab space. Too many nights and too many mornings sneaking out and just... too much and yet not enough. Somehow never enough.

Duo didn’t really have a response for Zech’s comment. He never really knew what to say around Zechs. Never said the right thing, never felt comfortable or RIGHT. He knew he was always just one stupid thing away from boring Zechs or humiliating him or -

“Noin said you turned in a blank midterm for Zhao.”

Duo turned away from Zechs, feeling his eyes burn and his throat constrict. He shrugged, but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Zechs sighed and moved towards him. Duo flinched and Zechs froze, his lips tightening.

Duo was used to that - used to Zechs’s frustration. He wondered why Zechs even bothered anymore. Relena had hated it - still did, but now that they weren’t dating, or whatever, she didn’t really try to touch him, didn’t take him by surprise with hugs from behind or fall against him or try to touch his face. These days it was mostly hugs, all from the front, with plenty of notice for Duo to pull away or at least, see what was coming.

Despite his clear irritation, Zechs completed the gesture, reaching out his hand and resting it on Duo’s shoulder lightly.

“What happened?”

He cared. He genuinely cared and he always had. Even from the beginning, from that dumb fucking night when Duo hadn’t been able to sleep and had sat out on one of the many balconies and watched the snow fall and Zechs had leaned against the railing, had listened to Duo talk about growing up in too many foster homes and never seeing snow before except for that one time it had snowed in Vegas at Christmas.

“Nothing,” Duo should go. Should finish his beer and stumble home and curl up alone in his tiny apartment and try to sleep. He should NOT lean towards Zechs. Should not practically fucking purr when Zechs’s hand shifted down his back, rubbing over his spine, up and down in the most soothing touch Duo had ever experienced. “I’m a fucking loser.”

Zechs’s hand stilled.

“No, you aren’t.”

Duo gave him a look, which Zechs returned.

“Trowa... I had to put him to sleep last night. He...”

And then Duo was crying. Like a pathetic fucking asshole, and Zechs was hugging him, was folding Duo against his body as if he could protect him from the world and Duo knew he couldn’t. Knew that Zechs would let go and it would all still be there. Knew that this would end, like everything else did. And he would be alone again.

Just like he always was.

#6x2 #bribery thursdays

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nailtravels · 6 years ago

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The gypsy girl said it herself, the cards looked good. But what did that really mean? And good for whom? There was lots going on here. Were we now putting our faith entirely in the hands of the unknown, like buffalo teeth and painted chicken’s feet? When you believe in things you don’t understand, then you suffer superstition. Methinks this does not bode well.

Mercury was supposedly in retrograde, whatever the great Gravy Crockett that meant. And this was somehow supposed to translate into everything coming up wine and roses? With hindsight being twenty-twenty, the lens of wisdom would surely suggest nades. F’sho, no. Who could know that the red haired gypsy girl’s words would herald both delicious ecstasy and unimaginable peril? Such is the way here in the proverbial pocket of things. Welcome to the Mother Land. This is the briar patch and you, little mister, have enlisted in the Army of Northern Virginia. Don’t worry. We won’t have you hiking through the brambles. This is Thomas Jackson country and The Low-Brow Summer Tour 2018 has come to a close with the nailtravels team mounting a guerrilla offensive on Lockn’ Festival. Mission accomplished, it’s Lockn’ 2018: The Lowest Brow.

Ambassadors extraordinaire, Lockn’ 2018

Lockn’ Festival, formerly known as Interlocken Music Festival, is an annual four-day music festival held at Oak Ridge Farm in Arrington, Virginia. It is a headier-than-thou, jam-band, wavy gravy, funk heavy camping/music experience in the gentle hills of southern Virginia. It gets it’s name from the rotating stage that showcases performers as the end of one act overlaps the beginning of the next. Bands like Lettuce and Umphrie’s Magee played to and with each other as the musical transition took place to the seamless delight of thousands.

Past artists include Gov’y Mule, String Cheese, moe, John Fogerty, Greensky Bluegrass, The Avett Brothers, Ween, Phish, Twiddle, My Morning Jacket, John Butler, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Little Feat, Robert Plant, Jefferson Airplane, Carlos Santana, Tom Petty, The Wood Brothers, Willie Nelson, Hot Tuna, Zac Brown, Jimmy Cliff, Col. Bruce Hampton and who cares? That’s plenty.

Main stage, LOCKN’ Sat. night: photo by Jessica Brightsen.

For once, Baitbucket felt reasonably healthy. The yellow foam had stopped seeping from the corner of his right eye and his back felt strangely quiet. The knees and ankles were holding together and, barring an unforeseen incident, he might be able to run the gauntlet. A gauntlet to be sure. infinity Downs Farm is a gigantic property littered with rvs, tents and ez-ups. Laid out over miles of hippies and clay trails, every exploratory adventure covers several square miles of travel. And that doesn’t include the multiple unexpected detours that seem to be popping up all the time. Jubba jubba.

Bobby

New friends.

Dead & Co. LOCKN’ 2018: photo by Kevin Crowley

Johnny and Bobby, LOCKN” 2018

The fam. LOCKN’ 2018

Dead & Co. with Branford Marsalis, LOCKN’ 2018: photo by Neal Hart

Sugarplum and Huckleberry get hitched at Church, LOCKN’ 2018.

Argentina, John and Sugarplum, LOCKN” 2018: photo by Liz Riddick

Scott and Joe solving the mysteries of the universe, LOCKN’ 2018.

And another thing, LOCKN’ 2018

Jaime and Argentina, LOCKN’ 2018

So pretty, LOCKN’ 2018

Lockn’ 2018 Breakdown:

Wednesday: Welcome to the Leaning Tower of the Yoga Machine. Broken beads, broken backs, cool nights and warm days are the order. For festival fun, it doesn’t get any better. It’s way too early to be having this much fun and besides, the cards wouldn’t lie. Please be sure to check your gluten at the flap. The yurt was set up in High Field RV with three recreational vehicles, three tents, three awnings, two ez-ups. It’s true, the Huckleberries and the Baitbuckets of the world can come together and let PBR and Natty Light fans play together as one single neck of color. It’s a fact, some people should not be in charge of putting up the yurt. Namaste.

Thursday: By Thursday evening, cat head mushroom chocolates had turned many of the festivarians into silly puddles of unraveled string. There were even reports of dead people. Go figure. Imagine live Lettuce into Umphrey’s into Lettuce with the funk and back into Umphrey’s. Some of the Umphrey’s show was, as usual, hard to wrap the head around. Kind of like Chinese math. In the words of Lord Buckley, “They stomped on the terra.” Joe Russo’s Almost Dead closed out the night with a set that included an Easy Wind and Row Jimmy. Thank you Sarah and Steve for the late night fellowship at the Jerry Garcia Forest. It’s better when we camp together.

Late night on the mountain, the light fog blurred the edges of the rising moon. By Sunday Funday, it would be full and the patients would surely be running the asylum.

Friday: Umphrey’s Mcgee did what they do again, and along with Jason Bonham and Derek Trucks, they shredded the Zeppelin cover, “Whole Lotta Love”. After a complete afternoon of funk it would be up to WSMFP and the Spreadnecks to deliver the big punch Friday night and, as always, they were up for the challenge. Clayopheus III the Destroyer showed up toward the end of their set and things would never be the same. Late night on the way to the Jerry Garcia Forest heralded the arrival of a new, bright green planet in our own solar system. Imagine the surprise.

JRAD Friday Midnight Setlist

Tell Me, Momma Viola Lee Blues St. Stephen The Eleven St. Stephen reprise Ophelia Atlantic City Viola Lee Blues jam China Cat Sunflower I Know You Rider Feel Like a Stranger Shakedown Street

The Friday night party ended up at the Jerry Garcia Forest for a night of Jerry bluegrass and dancing in the street. Baitbucket couldn’t yet locate the Michiganders, so he found his way back to J’s Dablature Experiment for late night cordials and low-temperature silliness. He was last seen, walking around in small circles looking for his campsite until the wee hours of the early morning. Worm hole Watusi of the first order, to be sure.

Saturday (SNUCKN’): The Lowest Brow–Stonewall’s festival experience had found the perfect rhythm. He’d ingested a virtual cornucopia of unknown chemicalia into his blood stream and his head was all right. He’d lined himself with such a bouquet of uppers and downers, just to let them fight it out, leaving him somewhere close to level. The Mafioso had come bearing enough gifts, like Shawsville strawberry moonshine and recreational bath salts, to weaken a large pack animal, and throughout the tents and shade canopies that lined the festival fields, candy was being tossed around like Mardi Gras Tuesday. It was around four in the afternoon and the day had left him careless and fancy free. He was heading in to see Pigeons Playing PIng Pong thinking about E A Sy. For a gangster, he loved that band and never missed a chance to see them. It would be cooler if he was here packing a vat of his crotch whiskey. Not a single care in the world. Walking through the security checkpoint, he broke the fourth rule of adult caution and forgot about the container of contraband in the lower pocket of his cargo shorts. Oopsie…Upon detection, Stonewall made a confused mumbling sound and turned to walk away in a reserved and patient manner. In retrospect, he might should have hauled some serious ass, but he liked to think that the days of barefootly climbing chain link fences were behind him. For some reason that can’t be explained here, the security volunteer alerted the legitimate gestapo and they lit out in pursuit of the unsuspecting perp, faster than a West Texas jackrabbit. What was happening? In one nanosecond, he was back in the clutches of the pigs and they were already predictably obstinate. Things had turned due south and this was certainly not one of those “good choices” that Sunshine had suggested, in some other place and some other time. As he strode away from the security guard he removed the small vial from his pocket and began dumping out it’s contents into the Virginia brush, until a police officer donned in a black golf shirt, rudely snatched it from his hands. He pushed into Stonewall’s face and shouted, “Why did you try and dump it out?” “I figured if I dropped the whole thing it would be conspicuous,” forgetting, yet again, that honesty is never the best policy when dealing with law dogs of any kind.` With the click of the handcuffs, he accepted the fact that this was definitely on and he had finally managed to reach the lowest brow. Having penned the term, Darth Waffle would be pleased. Things were finally getting colorful. He was tossed into a cop golf cart and taken to a cop single wide modular home where his fate lay in the hands of cops on computer monitors. Visions of Spring Reunion began flashing in his mind’s eye. Never tie a pit bull to a wheel barrow.

Seated in the well-lit room next to a gaggle of child cops, the next immediate goal was to hold it together and not appear too faded. Apparently, it can be a crime. Who can imagine how his outward appearance physically looked under a careful and prolonged examination by these trained Nazis? In a well-lit room, it seemed like a real long shot. If these Virginia puerco even suspected what drugs he’d ingested, he’d be on his way to the hospital for a good old fashioned stomach pumpin’. Hell, he couldn’t even remember what he’d taken during the first half of this day, which seemed so far away. The walkabout had lasted most of the morning, visiting the headiest folk around the site and ingesting God only knows what. Here in the mid-afternoon, his innards could only be characterized as a chemical toilet. Mission accomplished yo.

As the interrogation lingered, his mouth began to fill up with what he imagined creosote would taste like and the sweat, once again, began to foam and burble. There was still the business card of acid in his wallet and a couple ten strips already cut. Hopefully he wasn’t sweating so much as to render it useless. When the pigs looked closer, and they surely would, they’d find it and ship him off to Red Onion State Prison for the rest of his days. Finally, the silly dream of freedom would be, once and for all, put down like a rabid cur. As he spoke with the local magistrate via skype, things continued to get increasingly foggy. There were so many questions. The whole thing seemed to be going to hell as he began to turn into warm mush right in front of the magistrate. “Did you get a DUI in Colorado?” “Nope. Detained but no charges.” Complete lies. “Are you sick?, Do you have any needles in your pocket?” Stonewall replied, “Not sick and no idea what’s in my pocket.” The next few minutes blurred into each other and accurate reporting was impossible. The magistrate switched off and he asked the young cop a questions. “Can you please let me know when this process has moved upstairs, past your influence, so I’ll know when to stop worrying?” “We’re going to need to go to your campsite and go through your tent to check it for contraband,” they mused. Stonewall’s face hardened as he considered the idea of sheriffs loaded up in golf carts assaulting the camp site of his new friends. “That’s gonna have to be a no,” he finally said. “It would not be classy to pull up, in front of the campsite, with a bunch of unshaven gestapo. Besides, I don’t even know what’s in the tent.”

“Why are you saying that you don’t know what’s in the tent?” “It’s not my tent. Those thugs are from North Carolina. Who knows what kind of contraband they’re hauling around. Just leave me out of it.” For some reason, this seemed to placate the law dogs and they forgot about raiding the campsite. All good news, but they weren’t handing over the keys to the city just yet. A cop sat next to him, while they waited for the magistrate’s decision and struck up a little small talk. “Thanks for being cool about everything. We appreciate your cooperation. We had another guy come through here and shit everywhere. The walls. The chair you’re sitting in. Everything. He sprayed his filth all over the place before we got him out of here.” Stonewall considered the raw nature of man and the unfiltered savagery that might reveal itself as the cold gates of the underground begin to seal itself. The possibilities were endless. Stonewall looked over at the cop, “I have to admit, I considered it. If you knew you were going to jail, it might be a pretty funny way to go out.” The cop smiled, “Plenty of people think that. It’s not funny.”

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” Good news from the magistrate. This was just one spun hippy and these nice folks had bigger fish to fry. There would be free air to breathe for one more day. Park employees, however, were waiting with scissors in hand. “If you are found on the property you will be arrested” the supervisor grumbled. He was given one more free golf cart ride, past the cars and tents, by the front gate and all the way to the Thomas Nelson Highway. It was a dark time but it was better than jail. This whole trip was had cost a pretty penny and now he was going to spend Saturday night in a local saloon. Weak.

Heading west on highway 29, he walked against the traffic on the gravel shoulder and considered his options. He could continue this way until he found a gas station. That would supply him with enough cigarettes and beer to make it to a hotel or a bar. He still had his phone and wallet, even if the rest of his paltry possessions were still at the yoga machine. It would all be fine. He would find a hole in the wall bar and drink scotch until he felt better. Then, he would take his first shower in days and sleep in a freezing hotel room. Not too bad for a plan B.

The whole idea made him absolutely sick.

He knew the people he was leaving behind and the fun they were going to be having together. He was reminding of Thatcher at Spring Reunion and how the family suffered after Live Oak law dogs took him away in chains. The party goes on, but profoundly suffers for the lost soldier. He would also be spending somewhere in the neighborhood of two-thousand dollars before this exercise was finally concluded, and that was worthy of a most serious effort.

Maybe there was another idea.

As he walked toward the interstate, he surveyed the layout of the surrounding fields and thicket. It was dense forest patches separated by farm fields and a few houses. For about a mile, he studied the lay of the land and began to consider the possibility of sneaking back into the festival without a bracelet. It would be straight out of Vinny’s book. Or Scotteesha. Or even Thatcher. Heckfire, this was out of Thomas Jackson’s book. Just down the street from Danville and Apomattox, welcome to the Army of Norther Virginia. Wearing flip flops, he was going to hump four square miles through country forest and sneak back in like a damn hippy. Cheyenne was right. He was the wook his parents had always warned him about. He turned off the road into the treeline, ate a five strip of acid and headed south. He would stay in the shade until he was off the main road, then all he had to do was follow the music, all the way home. For the moment, things were looking up,

As he hiked through the Virginia underbrush, sunset brought out the woodland critters. Deer and owls joined him in his hunt for the back door. Day turned to night and he took his time through the brush. He figured being impatient would lead to injury or cause him to be discovered traipsing through the brambles. Flip flops seemed like a silly way to navigate the streams and fields, but at least he wasn’t barefoot. The briars and thorny vines clung to his arms and legs as he lumbered through the dense thicket. The moon was going to be a waxing gibbous, which would surely assist with navigation and each time he drifted too far south, the sing-song voice of Susan Tedeschi guiding him back through the Virginia woods. The distant rumble of such tunes as Statesboro Blues, Alabama, by Neil Young and Mahjoun with Brandford Marsalis, kept him on the right trail. Behind Tye River Elementary School, back into the brush and then to cross Diggs Mountain Road. He was guided by the Aretha Franklin cover, “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Loved You)”, “Bound For Glory” with Ivan Neville, “A Song For You” by Leon Russell. into “Little Martha” and “Whipping Post”. Thanks for the breadcrumbs, lady. After walking for a couple of hours, he came across some tents in the woods. This would be Forest Tent Camping, which happened to be directly across the street from High Field RV and his campsite. Things were beginning to look up. It was time to change the shirt and hat and sit down for a cold brew. The party would just be getting started.

He wasn’t entirely ready to give up on the music. He came to this festival to see Dead & Co. and that still needed to happen. Stonewall poked around the VIP area and behind the stage, looking for a chink in the armor, some place he could slip in. He spied an opening in the fence and started up a conversation with the nearby security guard. The guard lamented over the piece of broken wooden fence. “These hippies try to sneak in here, legs all slashed up and with no bracelet. They even broke my fence.”

Stonewall’s brain lit up with a new idea. “It’s real interesting that you should say that, because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I need you to let me get through that opening in the fence.”

He asked, “Do you have a bracelet?”

“Nope. They cut it off when they threw me out. But it would be real cool to get back in and rejoin my people before Dead & Co. kick off.”

The security guard began looking over his shoulder at the other gates and leaned in. “There’s folks working inside that fence and if they see you, they’re going to say something, so here’s what we’re gonna do. I’ll take you by the shirt like you’re in trouble. We’ll walk right by everyone and when we get out of sight, I”ll lose you.”

“That sounds perfect.”

Dead & Co.: Back into venue just in time for Oteil’s birthday. Both the rail and field were thick with the best vibe ever. Something about the good ol’ Grateful Dead. They just make everything so much fun. It was a night for adventurous lurking. The first set brought out a Ramble On Rose-Alabama Getaway-Cassidy. The second set blew up an, Oteil-led Fire On the Mountain into a celebratory China Cat Sunflower. Two hours earlier he’d been alone, hiking through the back field of Ol’ Virginny, now he was sitting on a blanket, surrounded by the most beautiful people ever. Colorful.

Highlight of the festival: Saturday night’s midnight set included Lettuce with Eric Krasno Celebrating JGB, joined by Bob Weir, John Mayer and Oteil Burbridge in a set that tore up the mountain and set the beat for the rest of the night.

Finders Keepers I Second That Emotion Stop That Train (Oteil Sings) After Midnight ( John in for the jj cale spectacular) Sugaree (let Bobby sing) Tangled Up In Blue (that makes sense) That’s What Love Will Make You Do (it’s too serious to be funny) How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You (the alpha and the omega) Cats Under the Stars (second one of the weekend) They Love Each Other (holy moly)

Lettuce called it a celebration of the Jerry Garcia Band after it was all said and done, a celebration is exactly what it felt like.

Dead & Co. Another Saturday Night, LOCKN’ 2018: photo by Karley Bear

Sunday Spunday: All hail a festival that uses it’s Sunday for a good cause. Bloody Mary brunch was served at Chris’ Opium Den near the Jerry Garcia Forest. Thank you SolarWolf and LunarWolf for the most seriously fun time ever. Thank you El Capitano for physically removing all the love governors. You’re headier than thy? The party got riled up when Cheyenne began lopping off her dreadlocks to trade for hugs. Fortunately, she was sedated before she could do too much damage. God willin’ and the Creek don’t rise. Check out the new Google map application that allows you to easily search for “tweakers near me”. Congratulations to Sugarplum and Huckleberry for getting hitched at Keller Williams and Grateful Gospel during Eyes of the World. These folks met at the same show, at the same spot three years earlier. It certainly is the dismal tides when Cook County trash can come down south and pilfer our own belles. It has been a proven formula for the ages, church is a great place to meet girls. Go Cubs.

Dead & Co.: And things were going so well for Stonewall. Left by Clayopheus, his recently acquired Staff bracelet was no more than a tattered chicken bone of a thing, held on by other bracelets and falling off every few steps. It was so frayed and torn, it looked as if he’d eaten if off of his wrist. Even the beer girl noticed when he wasn’t wearing one, and beyond the recognition, said nothing. All in all, he was back into the venue, this time enjoying the entire Tedesci-Trucks show into the night’s Dead. Then it happened… “I take a little powder, take a little salt, put it in my shotgun, I go walkin’ out…” Oh lordy, not this. The first set smattering Grateful ettoufee spun into a Mr. Charlie→Tennessee Jed→Althea that tripped every breaker on the mountain. The second set showed an Eyes of the World and Morning Dew with Branford Marsalis that left tears staining the front of tie dyes everywhere. Wolly bully. Mr. Charlie told me so.

Sugarplum and Huckleberry, Sunday at Tedesci-Trucks Band, LOCKN’ 2018.

Bob, John and Oteil join Lettuce and Eric Krasno for the JGB tribute Sat. night, LOCKN’ 2018.

Be sure to check out Roadtripmojo for more LOCKN’ gibberish and follow their social media channels on Facebook and Instagram.

Headed back to South Florida, for days the toenails would still be dyed with Virginia red clay. Charlotte storms postponed our flight and the guitar was destroyed by baggage carriers. That’s three guitars since Hulaween. This lifestyle is getting expensive.

“Does this mean I can use your ticket for Floydfest?”

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For our first Lockn’, it really had a little of everything you look for in a festival. Deer, dead people, research-grade narcotics, moonshine and spilled wine. Everyone brought their best effort and after it was all said and done, very little was left on the vine. Old friends came together with new ones and alliances were formed that would last a lifetime. We are on the lookout for Brian at Live Oak and his Mr. Clinkies. October is one of the best times for festivals at the Spirit of Suwannee Music Park in North Florida. Get ready for Suwannee Roots Revival and Hulaween coming up fast. See you under the Thunder Chicken.

LOCKN’ 2018: The Lowest Brow The gypsy girl said it herself, the cards looked good. But what did that really mean? And good for whom?

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