Eight cents can make all the difference in the world.
One Monday morning on my recent trip back to San Antonio, I finally found the kolache I'd been looking for--two of them in fact, at a donut shop on Commerce Street downtown.
Having craved these for the couple of years I'd been absent from Texas, I sat down at at table near the window with my one sausage and one ham and cheese and a cup of coffee, completely pleased and satisfied. I had loaded up my coffee the way I liked it, lots of cream, lots of sugar and had the local paper in hand, ready to take a moment and savor the day. Total cost probably no more than $3.75 for a very filling meal and an Express-News.
I kept eyeing the crullers and the chocolate-covered cake donuts, two of my many weaknesses, but finally decided against ordering anything more, as I felt my gut press against the new belt I'd picked up at Dillard's the other day. A nice belt it was, and one I wasn't ready to outgrow just yet, even I'd gone for the "cheap one," a Kenneth Cole Reaction on sale for under $25, instead of the $85 Hugo Boss one at Nordstrom. Yeah, I could afford the Hugo Boss, in theory, but wasn't it just vulgar to spend that much money on a leather belt? I'd thought so, but I had really wanted it . . . .
The young woman at the counter, a petite Latina, struck up a conversation with me. She was very friendly and perky with a silly giggle of a laugh. She was perkier than might have been recommended for me at 10 am on a Monday, and I hadn't decided yet if I was going to be perturbed by her conversation. I'm not much of a morning person, you see, and I'd already gotten up three days in a row at 6 am to be at 8 o'clock meetings, one a breakfast to hear about new products for my business, another to discuss plans for returning to Frankfurt in 2006. Normally, I don't get to work until 9 or (if I'm being honest) 9:30.
The young woman, however, had opened the donut shop at 6 am that morning, meaning that she'd had to rise sometime earlier "to catch a ride with her brother," as she didn't have her own car. The shop was going to close at noon, and then later that afternoon she'd go to another location on Austin Highway to work into the evening.
I thought about the enormous Nissan Xterra I'd rented for this trip, in order to take friends I'd made in Frankfurt out to dinner. We'd gone the night before to Silo, a superb but admittedly expensive choice for a restaurant, not the kind of place I normally could afford or felt comfortable in when I'd live here. I would use the car to tool around town the rest of my stay. Total cost: about $400 for a week's worth of driving, not including gas. I'm thinking about buying a car this year, maybe even a new one, not just new to me, and I wondered if I could drive a large SUV safely and comfortably.
The young woman apparently had risen before 4 or 5 even, 3:30 am, I believe she said, as she was taking care of her sister's child while her sister worked the night shift. Her sister came around 3:30 to pick up her daughter. Neither of them, the aunt or the child, had gotten much sleep, she said, because they'd stayed up watching old children's videos the aunt had bought for her son years ago in a close-out bin at Wal-Mart.
"My niece, she loved them," she said. "I wonder if I can find some new ones like that to show her."
I thought about wanting to get a new DVD player this year, a multi-region one, so I could finally order DVDs from Europe and Australia and not worry about the compatibility.
At that moment, an older woman came into the shop. She spoke with an Irish brogue, which always seems unusual for San Antonio but is not completely unheard of. As it's a very Catholic city, you find a lot of nuns and priests from Ireland in the churches, colleges, hospitals, and charitable organizations in town. The woman was dressed in plain, dark colors, but in street clothes, as best as I could tell.
The woman ordered a glazed donut, then asked for a cup of coffee.
"How much is it?" the older woman asked.
"$1.07 ," replied the young woman.
"But it says $0.99 on the sign!" the older woman said, ruffled.
"There's 8 cents' tax," said the young woman.
A pause.
"I'll just have the donut, then."
The young woman served up the donut.
After another pause, though, ever so quietly, so much so that I almost didn't notice it, lost in thought about the sightseeing, visiting, and shopping I wanted to do this week, the younger woman poured the older woman a cup a coffee and gave it to her.
"I would just have to throw the pot out," she explained.
"Thank you, dear," the older woman said.
When the older woman left the shop a little while later, she placed on the counter a few coins for the younger woman. "For your trouble."
I had forgotten how poor a city San Antonio can be. I felt whiter than I'd felt in a while, since moving back East, walking downtown in an Italian blazer, dress slacks, a tie I'd purchased in Germany, and my favorite pair of Steve Madden shoes. Everywhere around me, people waited for public transportation, hung out on park benches, and trudged along the sidewalks schlepping overstuffed bags from discount stores--or made do with one glazed donut and no coffee.
I make more money now than I used to when I lived in San Antonio, but not a huge amount more. My expenses are different, and I've been able to pay off my car, my school loans, and reduce my credit card debt, so it's allowed me to have some breathing room and enjoy life a bit more. Thus the trip to England to see friends in May and the trip to Germany in October, a business trip, but a fun journey nonetheless. I can't even fathom at this point in my life not ordering a cup of coffee because of an eight-cent difference in cost. I blow much larger sums on half caf, half decaf, grande, skim lattes with a shot of vanilla at Starbuck's every couple of days.
It's times like these when I realize not merely how fortunate I am, but how fatuous my life can be. It's not like I haven't earned the right to my comforts and pleasures. I put in 50 hours a week, manage staff, pray that my 10-year old Subaru makes it the 60-mile round-trip to work everyday, and try to find time to have a life in the midst of all my obligations.
But still . . . .
Hugo Boss belts. Nissan Xterras. Dinners at Silo.
Just a few pennies more for a cup of coffee.
Welcome to life in the richest country in the world.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
My bad travel karma
I think I have bad travel karma.
A week or so ago, I traveled by plane to Texas from my home in Central Pennsylvania. Thinking I'd save a little money for my employer, I caught the plane from Baltimore rather than Harrisburg or Philadelphia. Ah, silly, silly man.
Apparently sometime in early 2005, I did not pay proper tribute to the Travel Gods--filled out the crossword incorrectly in pen, asked for a whole can of soda from a harried flight attendant, registered online for a low-fat, low-sodium meal, something out of the ordinary--and now, as a result, in 2006 I must suffer indignities and agonies of the mass transportation variety.
Due to various mishaps (a flat tire on the plane, missed connections, no crew at Houston), it took 13 hours to get to my final destination in Texas. On the way home, still further problems--long layovers, stacking over Baltimore, and then fire trucks following behind our plane as we landed, never a comforting sign. The return trip took only 12 hours. So there's progress, I guess--as long as you don't think about the fact that I could have driven nearly halfway to Texas in the same amount of time, while at least enjoying several stops for barbecue, bathroom breaks, and maybe even a pecan praline log from Stuckey's along the way.
By driving, I also could have avoided the sensory annoyance of watching in silence Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo play the role of "cute couple" in Just Like Heaven. I passed on the $5 headphones but would have gladly spent $10 to $20 on some food. I didn't really need headphones, anyway, as it was pretty much a paint-by-numbers date movie. Boy-meets-ghost-girl, boy-loses-ghost-girl, ghost-girl-eats-boy-alive-and-both-end-up-in-Hell. Something along those lines.
I did learn one thing from the movie, however, and it's this: If Julia Roberts is the anti-Christ--and I'm fully convinced she is--then Reese Witherspoon is her younger, perkier, craftier minion. And if Mark Ruffalo replaces Ben Stiller as the lead in Honey, I Soiled My Male Nurse's Uniform in Front of Your Focking Parents II, I will be none too surprised. But I digress . . . .
Other than the delays, missed connections, and potential disasters, there are a couple of other things that bother me about flying these days. For one, I'm never sure if I'm going to get anything to eat, no matter what time of day I fly. A case in point--flying to Houston from Baltimore during the dinner hour--no food other than two bags of mini pretzels and a can of tomato juice. I'm glad to support a Pennsylvania company like Snyder's of Hanover and a New Jersey company like Campbell's, but this seems like a chintzy way to do so, nonetheless.
Flying from Houston to Baltimore after 1 pm--a light lunch including a small sandwich, some carrot sticks, a cookie, and multiple beverages. Travel time both directions? About the same, at least three hours.
Is there any rhyme or reason to this feeding schedule? In the Aeroflot Airline Customer Service and Passenger Torture Manual, last revised, say, in 1975, does it state that passengers should be fed only rarely and inconsistently in order to always keep them ever hopeful but ever despondent over the lack of nutrition on board? Sort of a Vladimir Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading approach to care and feeding so that your keeper becomes your best and only friend and protector, but your keeper still denies your humanity at every twist and turn? Just guessing.
The other thing that baffles me relates to the entertainment offered. Same amount of time in the air but no movie from Baltimore to Houston, unlike the Houston to Baltimore leg and the aforementioned Just Like You're in Hell and a partial episode of that well-known LCD (as in lowest common denominator) TV sitcom, The King of Queens. (Kevin James does get some extra points for looking cute in a UPS uniform, though.) Again, let's refer to the customer service/torture manual, please. Maybe it's the size or type of plane, but still, how much effort and "stowage" does it take for some boxed lunches and a DVD player?
It wasn't this one trip though that set me off into curmudgeon hyperspace, however. A trip post-Christmas from Kansas City to home fired up my bad attitude phasers. There were multiple delays leaving Kansas City to Chicago. Five+ hours later, I arrive at O'Hare with almost all the service centers closed and learn that my flight to Harrisburg has been canceled--or has it? It's not listed on the departures board; in fact, there isn't anything listed on the departures board for H'burg until 6 freakin' thirty am the next day. Hmmm.
So already aiming for Gold Elite Bitch Status on Continental's One Pass program, I think what the hell? Let's start asking around, maybe if I whine enough--a time-honored American consumer tradition--I can get a discounted hotel room or a coupon for 10% off at Cinna-Bon. But, bizarrely, I discover that my flight home is still taking off in about 40 minutes' time. Nowhere is this listed on the departures board, even at the gate I'm told to appear at 20 minutes ahead of time.
After asking about thirteen times whether this flight is indeed going to Harrisburg, that's Harrisburg, P-E-N-N-S-Y-L-V-A-N-I-A, I decide to take my chances and board. And lo and behold, I'm home in a couple of hours.
Without any luggage, mind you, but home nonetheless.
My bad travel karma has not just been relegated to planes, though. There is the now famous (among colleagues and friends who will still listen to me) six-hour train ride on Amtrak I endured last November, traveling from Philly to H'burg, a trip that usually takes less than two hours. But they ran out of coal to stoke the steam engine, I guess, so we were stuck on a siding outside of Lancaster for four or more hours, until another train could perform an inter-track mission of mercy. We all scrambled across the tracks with our luggage and laptops, leaving behind a family with a wheelchair traveler who was promised assistance when the next train came along. I suspect they are still on the siding waiting for someone to remember to retrieve them. That or have found a nice little life for themselves among the Amish of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Of course, there was no food on the train, nor any entertainment other than the Amtrak magazine (called, I think, Come on Ride the Train! or maybe Chugga-Chugga-Motion or perhaps Nobody Does It Better than Deutsche Bahn). Shudder. If I hadn't bought some extra books and noshes at 30th Street Station before I departed, it could have been a trip of disastrous Donner Party infamy.
Where and how did it all go so incredibly wrong? I suspect I was too lucky in 2005, able to travel to both England and Germany with nary a mishap, missed connection, or misanthropic glare from transportation crew, whether air-, underground-, or surface-based. I got my low-fat, low-sodium meal; I had an interesting traveling companion on the way over, a nice woman from Heidelberg who knew how to carry on a fun conversation, even at 3 in the morning; I had a personal, in-flight DVD and CD set-up on the way home, getting to watch both Crash and The March of the Penguins and listen to the new Duran Duran album, among others. It was just too good, perhaps.
A week or so ago, I traveled by plane to Texas from my home in Central Pennsylvania. Thinking I'd save a little money for my employer, I caught the plane from Baltimore rather than Harrisburg or Philadelphia. Ah, silly, silly man.
Apparently sometime in early 2005, I did not pay proper tribute to the Travel Gods--filled out the crossword incorrectly in pen, asked for a whole can of soda from a harried flight attendant, registered online for a low-fat, low-sodium meal, something out of the ordinary--and now, as a result, in 2006 I must suffer indignities and agonies of the mass transportation variety.
Due to various mishaps (a flat tire on the plane, missed connections, no crew at Houston), it took 13 hours to get to my final destination in Texas. On the way home, still further problems--long layovers, stacking over Baltimore, and then fire trucks following behind our plane as we landed, never a comforting sign. The return trip took only 12 hours. So there's progress, I guess--as long as you don't think about the fact that I could have driven nearly halfway to Texas in the same amount of time, while at least enjoying several stops for barbecue, bathroom breaks, and maybe even a pecan praline log from Stuckey's along the way.
By driving, I also could have avoided the sensory annoyance of watching in silence Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo play the role of "cute couple" in Just Like Heaven. I passed on the $5 headphones but would have gladly spent $10 to $20 on some food. I didn't really need headphones, anyway, as it was pretty much a paint-by-numbers date movie. Boy-meets-ghost-girl, boy-loses-ghost-girl, ghost-girl-eats-boy-alive-and-both-end-up-in-Hell. Something along those lines.
I did learn one thing from the movie, however, and it's this: If Julia Roberts is the anti-Christ--and I'm fully convinced she is--then Reese Witherspoon is her younger, perkier, craftier minion. And if Mark Ruffalo replaces Ben Stiller as the lead in Honey, I Soiled My Male Nurse's Uniform in Front of Your Focking Parents II, I will be none too surprised. But I digress . . . .
Other than the delays, missed connections, and potential disasters, there are a couple of other things that bother me about flying these days. For one, I'm never sure if I'm going to get anything to eat, no matter what time of day I fly. A case in point--flying to Houston from Baltimore during the dinner hour--no food other than two bags of mini pretzels and a can of tomato juice. I'm glad to support a Pennsylvania company like Snyder's of Hanover and a New Jersey company like Campbell's, but this seems like a chintzy way to do so, nonetheless.
Flying from Houston to Baltimore after 1 pm--a light lunch including a small sandwich, some carrot sticks, a cookie, and multiple beverages. Travel time both directions? About the same, at least three hours.
Is there any rhyme or reason to this feeding schedule? In the Aeroflot Airline Customer Service and Passenger Torture Manual, last revised, say, in 1975, does it state that passengers should be fed only rarely and inconsistently in order to always keep them ever hopeful but ever despondent over the lack of nutrition on board? Sort of a Vladimir Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading approach to care and feeding so that your keeper becomes your best and only friend and protector, but your keeper still denies your humanity at every twist and turn? Just guessing.
The other thing that baffles me relates to the entertainment offered. Same amount of time in the air but no movie from Baltimore to Houston, unlike the Houston to Baltimore leg and the aforementioned Just Like You're in Hell and a partial episode of that well-known LCD (as in lowest common denominator) TV sitcom, The King of Queens. (Kevin James does get some extra points for looking cute in a UPS uniform, though.) Again, let's refer to the customer service/torture manual, please. Maybe it's the size or type of plane, but still, how much effort and "stowage" does it take for some boxed lunches and a DVD player?
It wasn't this one trip though that set me off into curmudgeon hyperspace, however. A trip post-Christmas from Kansas City to home fired up my bad attitude phasers. There were multiple delays leaving Kansas City to Chicago. Five+ hours later, I arrive at O'Hare with almost all the service centers closed and learn that my flight to Harrisburg has been canceled--or has it? It's not listed on the departures board; in fact, there isn't anything listed on the departures board for H'burg until 6 freakin' thirty am the next day. Hmmm.
So already aiming for Gold Elite Bitch Status on Continental's One Pass program, I think what the hell? Let's start asking around, maybe if I whine enough--a time-honored American consumer tradition--I can get a discounted hotel room or a coupon for 10% off at Cinna-Bon. But, bizarrely, I discover that my flight home is still taking off in about 40 minutes' time. Nowhere is this listed on the departures board, even at the gate I'm told to appear at 20 minutes ahead of time.
After asking about thirteen times whether this flight is indeed going to Harrisburg, that's Harrisburg, P-E-N-N-S-Y-L-V-A-N-I-A, I decide to take my chances and board. And lo and behold, I'm home in a couple of hours.
Without any luggage, mind you, but home nonetheless.
My bad travel karma has not just been relegated to planes, though. There is the now famous (among colleagues and friends who will still listen to me) six-hour train ride on Amtrak I endured last November, traveling from Philly to H'burg, a trip that usually takes less than two hours. But they ran out of coal to stoke the steam engine, I guess, so we were stuck on a siding outside of Lancaster for four or more hours, until another train could perform an inter-track mission of mercy. We all scrambled across the tracks with our luggage and laptops, leaving behind a family with a wheelchair traveler who was promised assistance when the next train came along. I suspect they are still on the siding waiting for someone to remember to retrieve them. That or have found a nice little life for themselves among the Amish of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Of course, there was no food on the train, nor any entertainment other than the Amtrak magazine (called, I think, Come on Ride the Train! or maybe Chugga-Chugga-Motion or perhaps Nobody Does It Better than Deutsche Bahn). Shudder. If I hadn't bought some extra books and noshes at 30th Street Station before I departed, it could have been a trip of disastrous Donner Party infamy.
Where and how did it all go so incredibly wrong? I suspect I was too lucky in 2005, able to travel to both England and Germany with nary a mishap, missed connection, or misanthropic glare from transportation crew, whether air-, underground-, or surface-based. I got my low-fat, low-sodium meal; I had an interesting traveling companion on the way over, a nice woman from Heidelberg who knew how to carry on a fun conversation, even at 3 in the morning; I had a personal, in-flight DVD and CD set-up on the way home, getting to watch both Crash and The March of the Penguins and listen to the new Duran Duran album, among others. It was just too good, perhaps.
Still, there were "issues" even in the brief golden age of travel in 2005. Nearly everytime I went to the airport in 2005, I seemed to underestimate my travel time from home to gate. Thus, I arrived at the terminal with the taste of bile in my throat and a jittery manner, just having sprinted the several miles from the outer long-term parking lot to check-in in record time. This, I should warn you, is not a "look" that security personnel want to see coming toward them--a nervous, sweaty, jumpy, disheveled passenger with a shaved head and goatee. You might as well wear a t-shirt that says "I *HEART* PLASTIQUE" and talk loudly about how you learned to fly planes at a South Florida aviation school, but never quite got the hang of landing them.
I also had a close call the morning I tried to go to the Frankfurt airport, bizarrely deciding to take the slow train to the airport rather than the express "because I'll get to see more of Frankfurt this way." Yeah. Brilliant. I might have seen even more of Frankfurt if I just missed the flight altogether, which I nearly did.
There is also this European Union policy--and it's a good one, even if it did get in my way that morning--requiring the thorough searching of all bags, so thorough and hands-on that I felt as though I needed a cigarette afterwards (although one could just inhale the air in Germany for the clean, smooth taste of unfiltered Marlboros, if one wished). Call me old-fashioned, but I easily embarrass when a young woman in a hajib starts to go through my dirty underwear and untouched (grumble, grumble) condom stash.
Let's just call me a Western imperialist pig, a buttboy of the Great Satan, and tell me to have a nice flight, shall we? To her credit, the young woman was totally professional. I, however, heard my voice rise into a queen shriek as I saw her hand head toward a box of unopened Trojans. "Those are personal items! Nothing to see there!" Why didn't I just tell her I had the entire annual poppy production of Afghanistan in my checked baggage, as well as a Kalashnikov and a rocket-launcher in my carry-on?
So what's it all about, Sabena? Travel less in 2006--or, better still, never leave the house again? Take earlier flights instead of afternoon or evening ones when heading to or from the oversold Mid-Atlantic region? Fly exclusively to Europe and only ride on Continental and UK trains and undergrounds? Toss aside my Green Party membership card and only drive in the U.S., preferably in a big, honkin', gas-guzzlin' vehicle that gets 7 mpg highway and is named after a slang term for a blow job?
Frankly, I'm not sure what it's all about. I just know that in 2006 I'm not asking for a Hindu or a kosher meal or a whole can of Diet Coke, will use only pencils for the airline magazine crosswords, and will be damn happy with any Reese Witherspoon, Ben Stiller, or (egad) Julia Roberts vehicle I'm fortunate enough to see on board. I'll be eternally grateful if Amtrak just shows up--anytime, any place, and I can tide myself over with enough crumbs from the seat cushions until we get to our destination. "No, honest, I'm not hungry. I ate like a week ago."
Heck, I will even gladly pay $5--no $10! $5 per ear!--for the privilege of using some otherwise useless airline headphones.
Are you appeased now, oh Travel Gods?
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Skatedoggers II: Electric Boogaloo
While visiting with Snappymack in San Antonio recently, we went ice-skating--yes, ice-skating in one of the country's hottest (as in stinkin', blazin', misery-loves-crotch-rot hot, not hot as in cool) cities, no less, because, well, we're just kookoo for irony. Dontcha think?
We've had this ongoing joke, Snappymack, another friend, Kangaroo, and I, for a couple of years now--that while skating, we're on the set of the nonexistent and ever so low-budget feature film, Skatedoggers II: Electric Boogaloo.
Mostly our fantasy consists of identifying potential cast members for the production--both Corey Haim and Corey Feldman have signed on at this point, and we're in talks with Shannon Tweed, naturally. In addition, we have busied ourselves selecting appropriate songs for the soundtrack, identifying first the "theme from Skatedoggers II" (a rockin', guitar pop frenzy of a tune a la Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone"), followed by the "love theme from Skatedoggers II" (imagine something in the heroin-damaged vein of "When I See You Smile" by Bad English).
The Skatedoggers riff came about for two reasons--for one, the skating guards--aka, the Rinkmasters, the Scott Hamilton Talibantastics, the Icecapades version of the Flying Winged Monkeys at the Wicked Witch of the West's Outer Oz fixer-upper, whatever they're called--were often more aggressive skaters than most of the paying customers that the enlisted members of the Jeff Gillooly 12-Step Support Network were charged with monitoring for malfeasance. They'd clip the neophytes' skates, cut ruts into the ice showing off in front of their friends, and interweave among the others more than hot-headed, road-ragers on Loop 410 during a 5 o'clock rain storm.
In other words, they'd act like teen male assholes, exercising their America-love-it-or-leave-it right to do so. In still other words, they were the essence of Skatedogging. The Skatedog archetype, if you prefer.
Which, in turn, reminded us of every '80s/'90s "dude" comedy ever endured or avoided--Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever (starring one Corey!), License to Drive (starring two Coreys!), Up the Creek (starring the granddaddy of all "dude" comedy, Tim Matheson), and, naturally, Hot Dog: The Movie (starring David Naughton, said granddaddy's brother).
The second reason for our Skatedoggers II riff relates to the loud and tedious I Love the '80s (But Only if It's a Hairband) soundtrack that blared from the sound system nearly everytime we were at the rink. You know the music--Night Ranger! Whitesnake! Poison! All straight (?) out of the spooktacular trifecta that is Monster Ballads, Monsters of Rock, and Monster Madness from MusicSpace.com, the K-Tel Records for the New Millennium. "Cause every bad boy has his soft side," states the voiceover at the end of the commercial, currently in heavy rotation across the late night TV airwaves in the U.S.
And we wonder why fundamentalists in the Islamic World hate us so.
These boys of bad hair and worse makeup of the variety that would send a female impersonator into a spitting cobra of a fit have gotten in touch with their feminine side--and it apparently didn't take multiple beers to bring this about. Eighties rockers as part of a long line of upstart metrosexuals--who knew? And here you thought it all came down to "Rouge Britannia" acts like David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, and Duran Duran. But, in reality, scratch the surface of American manhood, and you'll find a platinum-haired, raccoon-eyed, he-diva waiting to break out. Just ask David Lee Roth. Better still, just ask members of the U.S. Congress, which in my perception consists of a bigger bunch of drama queens than ever imagined by the producers of Wigstock.
So this is what tortures and entertains us while attempting to skate around the rink and not fall on our patoots. Caterwauling hairbands and over testosteroned teen males on ice. What would Brian Boitano do? Why, I've no doubt he'd go see Skatedoggers II: Electric Boogaloo. Coming soon to a drive-in near you.
We've had this ongoing joke, Snappymack, another friend, Kangaroo, and I, for a couple of years now--that while skating, we're on the set of the nonexistent and ever so low-budget feature film, Skatedoggers II: Electric Boogaloo.
Mostly our fantasy consists of identifying potential cast members for the production--both Corey Haim and Corey Feldman have signed on at this point, and we're in talks with Shannon Tweed, naturally. In addition, we have busied ourselves selecting appropriate songs for the soundtrack, identifying first the "theme from Skatedoggers II" (a rockin', guitar pop frenzy of a tune a la Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone"), followed by the "love theme from Skatedoggers II" (imagine something in the heroin-damaged vein of "When I See You Smile" by Bad English).
The Skatedoggers riff came about for two reasons--for one, the skating guards--aka, the Rinkmasters, the Scott Hamilton Talibantastics, the Icecapades version of the Flying Winged Monkeys at the Wicked Witch of the West's Outer Oz fixer-upper, whatever they're called--were often more aggressive skaters than most of the paying customers that the enlisted members of the Jeff Gillooly 12-Step Support Network were charged with monitoring for malfeasance. They'd clip the neophytes' skates, cut ruts into the ice showing off in front of their friends, and interweave among the others more than hot-headed, road-ragers on Loop 410 during a 5 o'clock rain storm.
In other words, they'd act like teen male assholes, exercising their America-love-it-or-leave-it right to do so. In still other words, they were the essence of Skatedogging. The Skatedog archetype, if you prefer.
Which, in turn, reminded us of every '80s/'90s "dude" comedy ever endured or avoided--Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever (starring one Corey!), License to Drive (starring two Coreys!), Up the Creek (starring the granddaddy of all "dude" comedy, Tim Matheson), and, naturally, Hot Dog: The Movie (starring David Naughton, said granddaddy's brother).
The second reason for our Skatedoggers II riff relates to the loud and tedious I Love the '80s (But Only if It's a Hairband) soundtrack that blared from the sound system nearly everytime we were at the rink. You know the music--Night Ranger! Whitesnake! Poison! All straight (?) out of the spooktacular trifecta that is Monster Ballads, Monsters of Rock, and Monster Madness from MusicSpace.com, the K-Tel Records for the New Millennium. "Cause every bad boy has his soft side," states the voiceover at the end of the commercial, currently in heavy rotation across the late night TV airwaves in the U.S.
And we wonder why fundamentalists in the Islamic World hate us so.
These boys of bad hair and worse makeup of the variety that would send a female impersonator into a spitting cobra of a fit have gotten in touch with their feminine side--and it apparently didn't take multiple beers to bring this about. Eighties rockers as part of a long line of upstart metrosexuals--who knew? And here you thought it all came down to "Rouge Britannia" acts like David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, and Duran Duran. But, in reality, scratch the surface of American manhood, and you'll find a platinum-haired, raccoon-eyed, he-diva waiting to break out. Just ask David Lee Roth. Better still, just ask members of the U.S. Congress, which in my perception consists of a bigger bunch of drama queens than ever imagined by the producers of Wigstock.
So this is what tortures and entertains us while attempting to skate around the rink and not fall on our patoots. Caterwauling hairbands and over testosteroned teen males on ice. What would Brian Boitano do? Why, I've no doubt he'd go see Skatedoggers II: Electric Boogaloo. Coming soon to a drive-in near you.
Saturday, January 28, 2006
My pleasure, my shame, my pretzel dog
Is all food basically erotic--or is it just me?
Changing planes in Houston the other day, on my way home from a trip to San Antonio where I got to see my good friend Snappymack (anotherfrigginblog) again, I searched for a kolache to munch on while enduring another three-hour layover at Bush Intercontinental. (And if that doesn't have Larry Flynt spray-painted all over it, I don't know what does.)
(Editor's note: What the heck's a kolache? In South Texas, it's kind of like a pig in a blanket, sausage or ham and cheese encased in a baked bread roll. In North Texas--more specifically, in the town of West, Texas, south of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (north? west? south?), and other parts of the Lone Star State--you will find variations on the theme of kolache, including ones filled with poppyseed paste, prunes, and cream cheese. Now let's send a big ol' "yum"-out to our Czech and Slovak brothers and sisters for that addition to the American table.)
But no kolache, not even at my favorite $10-for-a-cup-of-coffee counter at the crossroads of Terminals C and E. Thus I "made do" with the aforementioned pretzel dog.
The nice lady at the counter handed me this wrinkled sausage, coil-wrapped in pastry, its beefy head poking out from the hood of the crust, and I suddenly felt intense shame for eating this member in public. My face flushed as red as the rude dog's knob, and I felt the hectare's worth of surface area known as my forehead grow veined and erupt with sweat.
It's like I was suddenly caught watching Steele Ranger in public--or watching the South Park episode that features a clip of Steele Ranger in public.
Or was found at age 13 at the "adult magazine reading room" of my local Rip-and-Run with a copy of Playgirl nestled inside the copy of Playboy I was trying to fool everyone--and no one--with.
Or was discovered at the Record Bar at South Park Mall, circa 1976, lingering a little too longingly at the Gino Vannelli section. (Oh, Gino, I humiliated myself more than once over your Storm at Sunup cover, but you never called . . . . )
So who is the queer marketing genius behind pretzel dogs, and would he be available, say, any Saturday night from here to eternity? I mean, honestly, it was food as porn, so shameful and so pleasurable at the same time. You can't help but fall in love (or whatever) with a food professional who knows how to deliver the double entendre goods in a big, uncircumsized meat-and-carb-laden package.
Clearly, though, food as porn is not a new concept. I mean, there was Nine 1/2 Weeks, wasn't there? I didn't see it--I'm often disgusted by some of the sexual perversions avowed heterosexuals get up to--and probably never will, but I vaguely remember hearing about a scene in which, I dunno, Mickey Rourke cleans out Kim Basinger's refrigerator and uses the contents in a sexual way. "What would you like me to do with this year-old string cheese and past-its-sell-by-date jar of capers, my dear?"
Ick. Hold the mayo. If anyone did that with my refrigerator contents, they'd end up dead from salmonella poisoning in a matter of nanoseconds.
And then there's A Dirty Shame (the name says it all, doesn't it?), the John Waters film, which is something of a celluloid catalog of sexual deviations, with Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville as the head librarians. If you watch the DVD's extras, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about a certain type of sexual expression involving food--and lots of it--in very gooey form.
Double ick. Too late to hold the mayo, Madge. You're soaking in it.
Call me a prude--or do I mean prune?--but I can't bear to share that information with you in this blog. Plus said blog is probably being monitored as I write, so why torment and tantalize the folks at Homeland Security more than I have to? They're busy enough listening in on phone calls and reading mail. Besides they have their own kinks to work out, I'm sure.
Anyway, I'll give you a topic for the next couple of weeks: Think about ways in which we as human beings refer to sex and food jointly. Here is a good example: porking.
Enough said.
Changing planes in Houston the other day, on my way home from a trip to San Antonio where I got to see my good friend Snappymack (anotherfrigginblog) again, I searched for a kolache to munch on while enduring another three-hour layover at Bush Intercontinental. (And if that doesn't have Larry Flynt spray-painted all over it, I don't know what does.)
(Editor's note: What the heck's a kolache? In South Texas, it's kind of like a pig in a blanket, sausage or ham and cheese encased in a baked bread roll. In North Texas--more specifically, in the town of West, Texas, south of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (north? west? south?), and other parts of the Lone Star State--you will find variations on the theme of kolache, including ones filled with poppyseed paste, prunes, and cream cheese. Now let's send a big ol' "yum"-out to our Czech and Slovak brothers and sisters for that addition to the American table.)
But no kolache, not even at my favorite $10-for-a-cup-of-coffee counter at the crossroads of Terminals C and E. Thus I "made do" with the aforementioned pretzel dog.
The nice lady at the counter handed me this wrinkled sausage, coil-wrapped in pastry, its beefy head poking out from the hood of the crust, and I suddenly felt intense shame for eating this member in public. My face flushed as red as the rude dog's knob, and I felt the hectare's worth of surface area known as my forehead grow veined and erupt with sweat.
It's like I was suddenly caught watching Steele Ranger in public--or watching the South Park episode that features a clip of Steele Ranger in public.
Or was found at age 13 at the "adult magazine reading room" of my local Rip-and-Run with a copy of Playgirl nestled inside the copy of Playboy I was trying to fool everyone--and no one--with.
Or was discovered at the Record Bar at South Park Mall, circa 1976, lingering a little too longingly at the Gino Vannelli section. (Oh, Gino, I humiliated myself more than once over your Storm at Sunup cover, but you never called . . . . )
So who is the queer marketing genius behind pretzel dogs, and would he be available, say, any Saturday night from here to eternity? I mean, honestly, it was food as porn, so shameful and so pleasurable at the same time. You can't help but fall in love (or whatever) with a food professional who knows how to deliver the double entendre goods in a big, uncircumsized meat-and-carb-laden package.
Clearly, though, food as porn is not a new concept. I mean, there was Nine 1/2 Weeks, wasn't there? I didn't see it--I'm often disgusted by some of the sexual perversions avowed heterosexuals get up to--and probably never will, but I vaguely remember hearing about a scene in which, I dunno, Mickey Rourke cleans out Kim Basinger's refrigerator and uses the contents in a sexual way. "What would you like me to do with this year-old string cheese and past-its-sell-by-date jar of capers, my dear?"
Ick. Hold the mayo. If anyone did that with my refrigerator contents, they'd end up dead from salmonella poisoning in a matter of nanoseconds.
And then there's A Dirty Shame (the name says it all, doesn't it?), the John Waters film, which is something of a celluloid catalog of sexual deviations, with Tracey Ullman and Johnny Knoxville as the head librarians. If you watch the DVD's extras, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about a certain type of sexual expression involving food--and lots of it--in very gooey form.
Double ick. Too late to hold the mayo, Madge. You're soaking in it.
Call me a prude--or do I mean prune?--but I can't bear to share that information with you in this blog. Plus said blog is probably being monitored as I write, so why torment and tantalize the folks at Homeland Security more than I have to? They're busy enough listening in on phone calls and reading mail. Besides they have their own kinks to work out, I'm sure.
Anyway, I'll give you a topic for the next couple of weeks: Think about ways in which we as human beings refer to sex and food jointly. Here is a good example: porking.
Enough said.
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